Lost Man's River(263)

The truth was, their defiance had reminded him of what those young people knew, and reminded him, too, that feeling wronged, they might take their story to the Sheriff at Key West, who had always welcomed evidence against Ed Watson.

On New Year’s Eve—the last night of the old century—Papa broke out a new jug of Tant’s moonshine, but we didn’t celebrate. He sat down heavily at the table and studied Tucker’s note over and over as he drank. Aunt Josie came in with Pearl, in hope of a little cheer, but she took one look at his grim face and went right out again and sat in the gloomy kitchen in the twilight. She knew better than to speak to him, and she signaled me to keep my mouth shut, too.

Aunt Josie fixed some supper but he hardly ate. He drank and brooded until nearly midnight. Finally he rose and went outside and looked at the full moon and came back in and got his gun and said, “Let’s go.” Praying he would pass out and sleep it off, I said I was tired and that one night made no difference, we should wait till daylight. But Aunt Josie in the doorway put a finger to her lips, fearful of the consequences if I protested.





We took the sailing skiff. There was no wind. In the light of the moon, I rowed him upriver on the incoming tide and on past Possum Key to the eastern bays. In all that long journey, he never twitched, never uttered a sound, but sat there jutted up out of the stern like an old stump, silhouetted on the moonlit water. That black hat shaded his face from the moon, his eyes were hidden.

Some time after midnight, we went ashore on Onion Key and slept a little. I was exhausted when he woke me in the dark, and I asked why we had to leave there before daybreak. His hard low grunt of warning meant I was not to speak again.

It was cold before daybreak, with a cold mist on the water. I rowed hard to get warm. Descending Lost Man’s River, there was breeze, and I raised the sail. That old skiff slipped swiftly down the current in the early mists and on across the empty grayness of First Lost Man’s Bay, with the dark bulk of him, still mute, hunched in the stern.

At first light, we slid the skiff into the mangroves and waded around to the sand point on the south end of the Key. Already afraid, I dared not ask why we were sneaking up on Bet and Wally when our mission was to run them off the claim. I guess I knew he had not come there to discuss things. In that first dawn of the new year, my teeth were chattering with cold and fear.

We slipped along through the low wood. Soon we could see between the trees the stretch of shore where Tucker’s little sloop was moored off the Gulf beach. His driftwood shack with palm-thatch roof was back up on the shell ridge, in thin shade. Like most Islanders, the Tuckers rose at the first light, and Wally was already outside, perched on a driftwood log mending his galluses. He must have been expecting trouble, because he had leaned his rifle against the log beside him.

Papa gave me a kind of a funny wince, like he had no choice about what he had to do. Then he moved forward out of the sea grape with his old double-barrel down along his leg, crossing the sand in stiff short steps like a bristled-up male dog. He made no sound that I could hear, yet Tucker, being extra wary, must have picked up that tiny pinching of the sand. His gallus strap and sail needle and twine fell from his hand as he whirled, already reaching for his gun. At that instant he stopped that hand and moved the other one out to the side before slowly raising both.

Wally swallowed, as if sickened by the twin muzzle holes of that raised shotgun. Seeing no mercy in my father’s face, he did not ask for any. He held my eye for a long moment, as if there were something I could do. He spoke to me while he watched Papa, saying, “Please, Rob. Take care of poor Bet.” Perhaps he forgave me, knowing I was there against my will. Then he looked his executioner squarely in the eye, as if resigned to his fate. Papa knew better. Cursing, he swung the shotgun up in a quick snap as Tucker spun sideways toward his gun, and the scene exploded in red haze as Wally, blown clean over that log, fell twisted to the sand. A voice screamed, “Oh Christ Jesus no!” It was not Bet as I first thought but me.

Bet ran outside, holding a pot, and she screamed, too, at the sight of her beloved, kicking and shuddering on the new morning sand. Surely they had expected something, for she kept her head and did not run toward her young husband. She dropped her pot and lit out for the woods, very fast for a woman so close to term. I see her still, her white shift sailing over that pale sand like a departing spirit.

Your father—our father—murdered Tucker in cold blood. I never knew till he had done it that this was his intention even before we departed Chatham Bend. And perhaps he hadn’t really known it either, for his face looked unimaginably sad and weary, as if the last of his life anger had drained out of him. He seemed bewildered, like someone arrived in a dark realm of no return. In that moment—for all took place while the ghostly form of that young girl was still crossing the beach ridge into the trees—what struck me as most strange was his quiet demeanor, his unnatural and horrifying calm.