Lost Man's River(203)

Smallwood squinted at his cousin. “Your own family got four men on there, and they got sons and grandsons, and you’re one of ’em. You fool enough to tell me that don’t mean nothin?”

“If I thought for one minute he was after Houses, or after Henry—even if I thought he was after Speck—you think I would of rode down here in his car with him?”

Bill locked the door behind them and descended ahead of them. “It sure is pathetic to see you so mixed up in this,” he told his cousin from the bottom step. “You’ve growed so goddamn open-minded since you went over to Miami, I’m startin to think that all your brains fell out.” He walked away.

“Bill?” Andy one-stepped down the stair, using the rail. He looked more vulnerable than before, and he flinched when Lucius took his arm to steady him. “Well, Colonel,” he said, “I’m the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest member of the posse, and you got me all alone right where your daddy died. Might be a pretty good chance to bump me off.” He tried to smile. “I reckon you can’t blame these folks for being leery.” The blind man turned toward him. “See, it ain’t that you might be gunnin for Speck Daniels that’s got people upset. It’s the idea of it—the idea of any man, even Speck, bein shot down by a Watson for takin part in what was done for the common good.”

“Not everyone agreed.”

“That so? A lot of your dad’s friends was standin where we are standin right this minute, and nobody disagreed enough to try to stop it. And none of ’em hollered out a warning, neither, when he come near shore.”

“He would have come in anyway. That’s the way he was.”

“Bill House always said the same.” The blind man shrugged.

“Just now, you said, ‘what was done for the common good.’ I keep hearing things that sound as if the whole business was planned. Sheriff Tippins spoke with all those men, and that’s what he believed. Malice aforethought,” Lucius paused. “First-degree murder.”

“All I know is, the House men never planned nothin aforetime.”

The sun was hot. Lucius finally said, “I meant to ask where my father came ashore.”

The blind man turned without a word, using his cane to poke his way toward the west side of the store, as if guided by the splash of wavelets off the bay. “The old boat ways are still here under the mud, cause I can feel ’em, but the dock was tore out by the hurricane. The stumps of the old pilings might be out there yet.”

In the shallows, the outlines of the silted rails emerged from beneath the marl, in the glimmerings and glints beneath the surface. Andy’s shoe had located a rusted section that lay under dead turtle grass along the water’s edge. “Colonel? You see my toe? Go west about fifteen feet”—he pointed his cane tip. “That’s where your daddy run his boat up on the shore. That’s where he jumped out. That’s where he died.” Out of respect, the blind man stood there quietly a moment. “My dad drove a stake into that spot when we come home to bury Grandma Ida.”

“You going to tell me your dad’s version of what took place here that afternoon?”

“Version?” Andy raised his pale eyebrows high on his pink brow. “You talked all these years to all these people and still you ain’t heard the story you want to hear?” He turned and started back toward the road.

Lucius explained that all he could expect was a general agreement on what had happened. So far, accounts differed on whether or not there had been a dispute, and whether E. J. Watson had been shot down in his boat or on the shore. Was it self-defense or according to a plan? Did Henry fire? And who fired first?

“You ain’t never goin to arrive at no agreement, not if you nag folks for a hundred years. The only man who could walk you through it is the man whose lifeblood soaked into this ground, and even your daddy might not know just how it happened.” He sighed. “Let him go, Colonel. For your own sake.”

“Can’t you tell me just what your father told you? About Henry, for example?”

Andy shook his head. “You keep coming back to Henry Short. I tell you what I know. You ask again.” He resumed walking. “I told you, yes, Henry come here with Houses. I told you, yes, he had his rifle with him. That don’t mean he raised that gun and aimed it at your father.”

“Your dad told you that Henry Short did not fire at Ed Watson?”

Andy flushed. “Ain’t you kind of calling me a liar, Colonel?” He pointed a thick finger toward the place where Watson died. “My dad was lookin down Ed Watson’s gun barrels! He was raisin his own gun, pullin the trigger! There weren’t no time to keep his eye on Henry!” He tried to calm himself. “Henry was standin right here in the shallers, like I told you. Bill House was standing right beside him. He said your dad was killed by the first bullet. That is all he knew and that is all I know!” He stumped ahead.