Lost Man's River(237)

“Dollar Bill might been the only Brown who ever did our family a kind deed, and the only one was welcome at our musical parties after them murders. But one day Dollar got drunk and run his mouth off, trying to patch the feud. He was lettin on how it weren’t nothin but a tragical misunderstandin, and how Hardens should quit holdin a grudge against his young Carr cousins. Pa run him right off Lost Man’s Beach, told him he weren’t welcome anymore.”

“Why should the Hardens begrudge the Carrs a couple of ol’ murders?” His wife glared at Whidden, who lay back on the sand again, looking resigned. “Damn it, Whidden,” Sally said then, “Mister Colonel better hear our side of that old story!”

“Honey, he already knows our side.” Whidden pointed across the river mouth toward Lost Man’s Beach. “He was livin right down the beach over there when it happened.” He folded his arms across his knees, his expression enigmatic in the firelight.

It was true that Lucius knew the tragic story. He did not know how the Hardens perceived it decades later, and when Sally looked at him, he urged her to go ahead. Anxious to pull herself together, to set her emotions aside, she folded her hands upon her lap and for almost a minute sat in silence, in her instinct that the recounting of human death deserved formality.

“Roark Harden was eighteen years of age and his cousin—Earl’s boy Wilson—was just one year older. One day Wilson came over from Wood Key to pick up Roark in his skiff. They sailed out to the Gulf sky to pick up wind, then took a bearing southward. Sadie Harden was worried by bad dreams, and she watched from shore until they disappeared.

“The family knew that the two boys planned to spend their first night at Shark River Point. Nobody owned that country down around Shark River, that was Indian country. The boys hoped to make a grubstake trapping coons back of Cape Sable, then go hunting crocodiles out of Belize.”

“They was going across to Belize in a sailing skiff?”

“Mr. House? They were going to Key West, catch a coast trader!” She took a long deep breath.

“Now this was the worst time of the Fish Wars, too many bullets too close to people’s heads, and Roark decided to leave Lost Man’s River before he killed somebody or somebody killed him. Roark and Wilson were real hotheads, they wanted to get away for a while until they simmered down, but they weren’t out hunting trouble, they were avoiding it.

“Those boys were never seen again except by those who killed them! But Roark’s daddy knew who trapped around Shark River and which ones had it in for Hardens. He had no proof but he was sure it was the sons of Walker Carr, who was living at the Watson Place on Chatham Bend.”

Once again, the Bend had been involved in a dark and violent episode in Island history. Lucius wondered if this thought had occurred to Andy House, who lay beside him, staring sightless at the canopy of ocean stars high overhead as if to receive some vision of existence. When the blind man shifted with a weary sigh, Sally stopped talking and awaited him.

“If they was headed for Belize, Mis Sally, and they never come back home, how did their families learn that they was missin? How did Hardens know them boys never got no farther than Shark River? You ever talk to your own family about this?”

“I never talk to my ‘own family’ at all!”

Andy sighed again and lay back on the sand as if expiring, and Sally waited pointedly before resuming.

“The Harden men had hunted for their sons for two long years, even visited a Georgia prison on a rumor. With each failed search, they became more convinced about what actually happened, and Lee Harden was so upset that he swore when he was drinking that he was going after those damned Carrs and no more talk about it. By that time there were plenty of rumors, and Walker Carr had removed his family from the Watson Place, and his sons steered clear of Harden territory, never went south of the fish house at Turkey Key.

“Sadie Harden never doubted that her missing boy was right there in Shark River, killed by Carrs. One time she shot at Cap Daniels’s boat because it looked like a Carr boat.”

Whidden laughed, “Poor Cap went back to Fakahatchee and painted that darn boat of his a different color!”

“For years those Carrs denied the rumors, just barefaced denied them. I believe it was the youngest brother, Alden, who spat up the truth. He was camped there at Shark River with his brothers Owen and Turner, and he’d seen what happened. Couldn’t live with it, I guess, he was having nightmares. He did not know that the Johnson boy he was drinking with at Tavernier was a Harden cousin.

“Alden Carr told the Johnson boy that some coon hides had been taken from their camp. They thought the Harden boys must have them, so they went over there to take them back. Owen Carr was leader, and he crept up and shone a carbide lantern, and when Wilson heaved up on one elbow, he shot him in cold blood where he lay there on the ground under his mosquito bar. Later he claimed the Harden boys were threatening to fire, and another time he kind of hinted that his little brother Alden got buck fever and fired that first shot. But Alden claimed he never fired, he was screeching at his brothers not to shoot.