Lost Man's River(240)
So everybody on the Bay was set for trouble, but the years went by and not a thing was done about it. Maybe Lee and Earl was startin to get old, or maybe too much time had passed before they learned for sure what really happened, or maybe they never did agree on what to do. They was good brothers as boys, is what my dad told me, but later in life them two men could not agree on the best place in the woods to take a piss.
Crossing her ankles, Sally Brown sank down on the sand. Hands in hip pockets, Whidden stood behind her. In the Gulf wind, they had come up quietly, and Andy House, not knowing how long they had been in earshot, looked chagrined.
“What was done to those Harden boys,” Sally said brusquely, “was what those people wanted to see done. The whole community was behind it, as you say. And those murders were excused by calling the Hardens mixed breed or mulatta. Well, if Hardens are mixed, then the Bay people are, too, because most of those families are blood kin to the Hardens whether they admit it or not. Sandy Albritton is not ashamed of it, but the rest will try to let on to this day that they are no kin to Hardens whatsoever. Probably think that after fifty years of telling that old lie, it might be true.”
Andy House said carefully, “Them young Carrs were not the least bit proud about what happened.”
“Back then? I’m not so sure.”
“You weren’t born back then.”
Cutting off their wrangling, Whidden sounded tired. “Owen Carr was hot after my sister Edie. He never came around, not once, after Roark disappeared, that was one reason our family suspected him. But we knew that if we done anything about it, we would give ’em their excuse to stage a raid down here and lynch them mixed-breed sonsabitches once and for all. My mama heard that lynch talk. Folks made sure she heard it. In the store.”
“And even if Hardens got the case to a grand jury,” Andy said thoughtfully, “they knew that the Carr boy would testify how he never confessed to no such thing. And they knew a jury would accept that coonskin story whether they believed it or they didn’t because no self-respectin jury was going to sit still for no supposed-to-be mulattas takin white folks into court, not in Collier County nor in Lee nor Monroe neither.”
Slowly he turned toward the Hardens. “I sure do hate to be the one to say that, Whidden, but ain’t that about right?”
Whidden and Sally stared into the fire and did not answer, and Lucius did not know what to say to make things better. Andy’s conclusion was also self-condemnation, a gagging down of bitter medicine, but unable to see anyone’s expression, hearing no comment, the blind man, too, seemed cast down, filled with despair. Even in firelight, Andy looked ashamed of his own need to hammer out his “truth.” Yet his calm and measured voice would not relent. “And even after it come out who done it,” he resumed, “I never heard no Harden claim they was deprived of legal justice. Why?”
Sally burst out, “I know what you think, Mr. House, because people like you all think the same! You think it’s because the Hardens knew that as ‘supposed-to-be-mulattas,’ they were not going to get justice, no matter what!” Sally Brown was very close to tears. “On the other hand, they couldn’t claim race prejudice, because claiming prejudice would seem to be admitting that there might be something for people to be prejudiced about—that about right?” She mimicked him sarcastically, voice quavering.
Yet a moment later she spoke to him without rancor. Picking up cool sand, watching it pour away between her fingers, she blurted finally, “Oh, I guess what you’ve been saying is ‘true’ enough, Mr. House. A half-truth, anyway.”
Whidden hauled the bow of the Cracker Belle onto the sand. Followed by Lucius, he clambered aboard and ducked down into the cabin, where he fished a bottle from beneath the coils of anchor warp in the forward cuddy and brought it back on deck. Each took a snort and gasped as the liquor eased him.
“Like Andy says, they was wild and they was angry, they sank boats and broke up traps, they was reckless with their mouths and with their guns. And knowin how people talked about our family, that made ’em angrier than ever. Them boys swore over and over they would never be run off their home territory without a fight. Roark and Wilson was the most ornery amongst the Hardens—or bravest, depending how you look at it.” Whidden paused, observing Lucius. “So you might say—and people did say—that they had it comin.”
“Do you believe they had it coming?”
“I guess I do. If you believe them Carrs about them coonskins.” Whidden shrugged. “Carrs are my wife’s kinfolks. I sure do hate to call ’em liars as well as murderers.” He smiled with Lucius but his eyes were serious. “Sally wonders how them Carrs could shoot another boy while he was beggin for his life—she can’t get over that! Well, don’t let on I said this, Mister Colonel—and I’m not just sayin it, I have done some thinkin on it—but I never wondered about that, not for one minute. Back in them Fish Wars, in the Depression, with poor people so hungry on this coast, and all the ugly bitter feelins that there was? In them Carrs’ place, so scared and angry, I might of done no different than what they done.”