They sat down in the thin shade of a casuarina. Leaning back against the leafy bark, facing the water, the blind man breathed deeply for a long, long time. “I sure do like that south wind in my face, don’t you? I can smell that Lost Man’s country all the way from here!”
Whidden Harden came down the road from the motel and joined them at the tree. “Mister Colonel?” He kicked at the dust, clearing his throat. “I seen Crockett. He told me the story.” Andy groped and put his hand on Lucius’s arm, tugged him down beside him. Whidden settled on one heel on the other side.
“The other night, them boys got word from Dyer to go and grab some crazy old feller who would likely be hanging around outside the Naples church hall. Said this man was a fugitive from justice, ‘armed and dangerous.’ As soon as the old man hollered through the window, they knew that must be him. They went and grabbed him, grabbed his satchel, slapped a gunnysack over his head so’s he wouldn’t know where he was headed, then hustled him into the truck and hauled him over east to Gator Hook. Said he kicked and bit—he give ’em a real scrap—but bein old and drunk, he didn’t change nothin.
“Maybe halfway there, the old feller sobered up enough to recognize their voices. So he pipes up in his sack, yells ‘Don’t you know me, Boys?’ They open the sack and sure enough, the armed and dangerous fugitive from justice is Old Man Chicken! He was shaved and washed, which they sure wasn’t used to, so they never recognized him in the dark. So they all have a good laugh over that, give him a little shine to make him feel better, and pretty soon he’s as drunk as before and hollerin how he wants to talk to the man in charge! ‘Where’s that damn Speck at? I got to talk to him!’ But when he learns that Speck is on the Bend, he yells, ‘Hell, no! I ain’t goin!’ Said he’d prayed to God to strike him dead before he ever set foot on that place again!
“At Gator Hook, where they go through his stuff, what do they find but a revolver and some extra rounds and the list with all the names crossed out, all but the one.” Whidden studied the casuarina needle that he twirled between his fingers. “They brought your brother here next day. But them boys weren’t in Everglade an hour when Mud went blabbin the whole story to his girlfriend. The news that the Gasparilla Gunman was in town was all around the Bay before the day was out, and naturally someone called the Lee County law.”
Andy nodded. “I heard the same story. Moved him out before the cops come, from what they was telling me here at the motel. I didn’t say nothin about it because there ain’t one thing you can do about it, Colonel, without riskin his life. If the law gets in too close, that old man might fall overboard or something. You best let them boys cool off a little. You don’t want to push that kind, not when they’re jumpy.”
Whidden told him that finding that stuff in the possession of a Watson gave that gang a lot more excuse than such men needed. Asked if he meant “excuse to kill,” Whidden nodded, though he doubted they would go that far without clearing it with Speck, who was at the Bend. Probably they were headed down that way already. “From what they was sayin, I figured out that they got some kind of business on the Bend that they have to finish before the Parks people show up for Dyer’s meeting. You go to crowding boys like that when they don’t want no witnesses around, they might just shoot somebody. So we better give ’em another day, then run on down there first thing in the mornin, see if we can talk some sense into their heads. Speck won’t take a human life without he has to, that’s the difference between a mean old moonshiner and these loco war vets who was trained to kill.” When Lucius gazed at him, inquiring, Whidden looked unhappy. “Crockett and them took a lot of human lives. They won’t mind doin it again. We all signed up together, got to serve together. I done my duty, too, right alongside ’em. But I never got the taste for it, not the way they did.”
When Whidden fell quiet, Andy asked if he might go with them to Chatham River. He confessed to an unexpected yearning to visit that old Watson place just one last time. “You never know, a blind man might come in handy,” he said wryly. “With me along, they might shoot over your head, at least the first time. I was born on Chokoloskee, and Mud Braman is kin, and Speck and me always got on pretty good, don’t ask me why. Flaw in my character, I reckon.”
Lucius and Whidden glanced at each other, and both shrugged—why not? They told Andy they were much obliged.
“I reckon my family owes something to Watsons,” Andy mused as they walked back up the road. “The House men done what they thought was right, and I ain’t backing off it, but they helped kill your daddy all the same.”