Lost Man's River(221)

“Well?” he demanded stupidly. “Is it true?”

The man’s headshake was scarcely more than a twitch, as if he were bone tired of telling a truth which had never been believed—tired of lying, tired of running, tired of an unfulfilled existence. He seemed to indicate that the white man could do anything he liked, and Henry Short would go along with it out of indifference. “Your daddy always treated me real good,” Henry said politely, not to ingratiate himself but to ease the ridiculous situation in which Lucius had put them.

Lucius saw that he and Henry Short could have been friends. He had an impulse to offer his hand, but under the sharp eye of Bill House he could not bring himself to do that, knowing how weak and sentimental it would appear. Instead he told him, “You have nothing to fear from me,” and Henry nodded. “All right, Mist’ Lucius,” he said simply. They did not say good-bye. Lucius turned and walked toward the dock.

“Well, that was quick!” Bill House called out as he went by the porch. Lucius raised his hand, taking time to smile at the husky blond boy who stood close as a calf at House’s elbow. The boy had to subdue a friendly grin. This chip off the old block had his gun with him, too—the oldest boy, named for Bill’s cousin Andrew Wiggins.

“How’s your list coming, Colonel?” Bill House called after him. “I sure hope you got my name on there!” When Lucius kept on going, he yelled angrily, “You hear me, Watson? Next time, don’t try slippin up on us so quiet!”



Lucius Watson’s visit to the Bend fired up old rumors in regard to Henry Short and did nothing to resolve the ambiguities. He had been too circumspect, failing to demand that Short refute the story in so many words—not that his denial would signify a thing. But in that case, why had he gone there in the first place?

Lucius recognized that the Bay families, despite their wariness of “Watson’s boy,” had done their best to welcome him when he came back—that it was his own ambiguous behavior which had scared and angered them. Even the Hardens had warned him from the start that in asking his questions, he was making a serious mistake. The Harden clan was already shunned at Chokoloskee Bay, and Lucius Watson’s presence made their danger worse, since it was believed that in any showdown, Lucius Watson would throw in with the Hardens, and would bring his gun. Except for Earl Harden, they had not complained, for they were tough and independent, but feeling guilty about worsening their danger, and trying to ease the tension on the Lost Man’s coast, Lucius would leave from time to time, live on his boat and fish out of Flamingo or fish-guide out of Marco or perhaps go on a long bender at Key West. Yet he never strayed from the Harden family very long. For thirty years, until the Park came in, the wilderness at Lost Man’s River was his home.



Two years later, the House family had gone north to the Trail to grow tomatoes and the Thompsons had replaced them on the Bend. “Probably heard there wasn’t much hard work involved in caretaking,” Andy said, “or maybe Thompson believed those tales about Watson’s buried gold. Henry Short must of heard them stories, too, because he stayed behind here after we left, kept right on diggin.

“Bein friends of E. J. Watson, Thompsons resented Henry Short. They believed he had raised his gun against a white man. Told him to start his digging over here back of the cistern, and when he was done, Gert made that place her kitchen garden, which she had planned to put in all along. Had him dig a pit for a new outhouse that bein a nigra he was not allowed to use.”

Lucius visited Henry Short again after the arrival of the Thompsons. “He’s hidin on ye,” Thompson told him when Lucius showed up at the Bend—his way of hinting without saying so that Yes, indeed, Henry Short had been involved. Thompson shooed his girls inside without offering help, and Lucius hunted Short down by himself.

It was the first real autumn day, a norther, when mosquitoes seemed listless even at dawn and dusk. He found the man mending net around the corner of the boat shed, perched on a sawhorse in the October sun, out of the wind. The ancient Winchester was leaned against the shed, well out of reach, though Short had heard his motor on the river and could have kept that gun at hand if he had chosen to.

Henry Short laid down his net needle and touched his hat. He rose slowly, ceremoniously, standing not stiffly but dead straight, and as before, he appeared resigned to anything his black man’s life still had in store for him, including its relinquishment here and now at the hands of Watson. Had Lucius put a revolver to his temple, he might have flinched but would have remained still, less out of fortitude than fatalism and perhaps relief that his trials were coming to an end.