Lost Man's River(205)
ANDY HOUSE
Bill House swore Henry never fired at Ed Watson. Said he only fired past his head tryin to distract him.
Whether Dad’s own bullet struck home, Dad never knew. All he knew was, a red hole jumped out on Watson’s forehead. He was done for. That double-barrel was already comin down.
One thing Dad never forgot, and Granddad neither: Ed Watson’s hand reached and broke that gun as he was fallin! That takes a man that’s been around guns all his life. But later some said that a man killed quick as that wouldn’t never have no reflex time to break his gun. They said he must of been breakin it already, must been gettin set to hand over his gun when he was gunned down.
That’s what Uncle Ted told his boy Ned, according to Ned Smallwood, but I don’t know how they knew so much, do you? Uncle Ted was over in his house, and Ned, he wasn’t nowhere near to being borned yet.
Exceptin Ned, no man can say whose bullet killed Ed Watson. Only Ned knows for a fact that Watson never pulled his triggers, never even raised his gun to fire! Well, maybe Watson pulled his triggers, maybe he didn’t. Anybody check for firing-pin marks on the caps of them dead shells? All we know for sure, them shells was damp, and they come apart. He broke that gun and them long barrels tipped down and that buckshot rolled right out onto the ground.
When he gets cranked up, Ned enjoys tellin how his own House cousins shot Ed Watson in the back. Now it could be that all that gunfire spun Watson right around. Might even kept him upright for a moment, cause the way some tell it, he was staggerin and spinnin, he was pitching towards ’em! They said he circled thirteen times before he fell! Thirteen times! Now I don’t know who was in that crowd who could count up to thirteen, let alone keep his head in all that noise and do the counting. But I do know this, that a man who spins all the way around, spins thirteen times through a hail of fire, might get a bullet in his back if he ain’t careful!
Course Cousin Ned, he likes to say that his daddy knew Ed Watson better than anybody on the southwest coast, so naturally would know the most about the case. Says his daddy weren’t no liar, neither, not like some. Comes to my house maybe once every two years, gives me that message, turns purple in the face, and drives off snap-cracklin like a bucket of blue crabs. He’ll be back next year a-cussin and a-hissin just so’s he can tell me it again. I never figured out why Ned comes so far to see me just to do that. That feller will pick a fight with anybody in the family who might care to have one.
Before he died a couple of years back, my dad remarked how some folks were still busy twisting up the truth, never mind all the long years in between. “Don’t pay no attention to young Ned,” he told me. “Ask the opinion of them men was in that line, dry-mouthed and miskita-bit and all set to soil their pants from staring down the gun barrels of E. J. Watson. Us House boys was scared from start to finish, same as all the rest, and we never denied it.”
It’s true most of ’em lost their heads, kept right on shooting after Watson was down and stretched flat on his face. Done that to ease their nerves, I reckon, out of pure relief, but it made my dad ashamed he had took part in it.
Funny thing how a man’s reputation changes once he’s dead, according to the need—not his own need, I don’t mean, but just so folks can feel a little better. My dad thought on this a lot, and I did, too. Because a few years after Watson’s death, when this community was pretty well recovered, folks’ notions about Mr. Watson begun changin. Them Pentecostal missionaries, Church of God, they come in here and baptized the community, purified the sinners, told ’em they was born again and marchin alongside of Jesus on the road to Glory. All them dark and fearful days seemed like some hellish fever that had broke with that man’s death. Next thing you know, your dad was gettin credit for turnin the Lord’s attention to our sinful ways and bringing in salvation, you would almost thought he died to save us all.
Most settled for makin him some kind of a local hero. Ol’ E. J. was pretty wild, all right, he probably killed a few, but so did Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok! —that’s the way some of them men commenced to talking. They wasn’t ashamed of E. J. Watson, nosir, they was proud about him! Used to brag on their friend Ed to every stranger who come down the coast! And some of ’em are proud about him yet today. But when writers came in to get more dirt on “Bloody Watson,” “Emperor Watson”—his neighbors never used them names, only the writers—them ones who claimed to be so proud about him was the first to repeat all the worst stories, cook up a lot of stuff that never happened. Some would tell any damfool thing to make it seem like themself or their daddy was the only man Ed Watson would confide in, the only one who knew what really happened. Do that to get their picture in the paper pointin out the spot where Watson died: Muh daddy was Ed Watson’s drinkin buddy, and he always did say Good Ol’ Ed was the nicest feller you would ever want to meet. Give ye the shirt off his back with the one hand, slit your damn throat with the other—that was Ed! Oh yes, that sayin was famous around here. I bet you heard that one a few times—two thousand, maybe? And they’d cackle and squawk at that old sayin like it had just popped out like a fresh egg!