Lost Man's River(286)

Henry Short would lie in torment in that silent ward for another seven days. On the eighth night, his Redeemer set him free.

On the way south, Andy House said, “You get the truth from Henry?” And when Lucius nodded, he said sharply, “Well? Feel any better?”





ANDY HOUSE


Hearing his boat, them island men had formed a line along the shore. Ed Watson seen that crowd waitin in the dusk before he come into gun range, but he never learned how to back up, that’s what my dad said. He had his shotgun out where they could see it, and knowing them men the way he did, he probably figured he could bully ’em, same way he always done.

Some say he never left his boat. Well, the House boys was right up in the front, and they said Watson took ’em by surprise, runnin his boat hard aground and jumpin ashore in the same moment as she struck. Had his feet set and his shotgun up across his chest. When they asked him what he done with Cox, he pulled Cox’s hat out of his coat, pointed at the blood splatter in the stern, claimed he had shot him in the boat but the body fell overboard and was lost in the river.

Well, there was mutterin over that, so a man who was drunk leaned in over the gunwales and put a finger to that blood and sniffed it. Said, “That sure smells like fresh fish blood to me.” And Watson scowled. “You calling me a liar?” And there come a moan of fear out of that crowd. “No, Ed, we ain’t calling you a liar,” says my granddad, “but we will have to go to Chatham, hunt up that dead body for ourselves. Meantime, you best hand over that gun.”

Well, that done it. Watson lost his temper. He hollered out, “You boys want this gun so bad, you are goin to get it!” And them were the last words that he ever spoke.

Course he might been bluffing—didn’t make no difference. When he swung that shotgun up, he was a dead man. Them men was scared and their trigger fingers twitchin, and they didn’t need no excuse at all to gun him down.

My dad weren’t ten foot away, longside my granddad, and Henry Short was next to Dad. Henry stood half-leg deep in water, carryin his old 30-30 Winchester. You couldn’t say he was in the crowd exactly, cause bein a nigra, he did not belong. But not countin him—that was your daddy’s worst mistake, probably his last one. He let Henry distract him, that is what my dad said. He seen that nigra and he seen his gun, and he couldn’t believe his eyes. Bill House thought he heard him growl something at Henry, and maybe Henry mumbled something back. Next thing he knew, Watson’s gun muzzles come up like a boar’s snout, they was lookin down them twin holes straight into hell. And right about then come that whipcrack shot that Granddad recognized as his old Winnie.

No two guns shoots just alike, not to a man who has hunted years and years with just the one of ’em. You don’t mistake it. But knowin what might come down on Henry, Granddad never let on what he heard till he lay on his deathbed seven years later. He summoned his three older boys that was with him that day at the landin, made ’em take a swear that what he aimed to tell ’em wouldn’t never go outside that room. Even then, he did not say that Henry Short fired his rifle at a white man. He only said he’d heard the crack of his old Winnie if he weren’t mistaken—said that last part twice. That was Granddad’s way of sayin, “Henry shot but don’t you boys say nothing, about it, not to nobody.”

Dad was standin there longside of Henry. He seen his gun go up, and them other men did, too. I myself have never heard no different, not from any man who was in that line. Henry and another man fired together, and that other feller was my dad, and their two shots was so darn close that most folks never heard but just the one. There was four or five shots in the next second but they wasn’t needed.

Bill House was an expert shot, but he knew Henry was better and shot faster. Henry fired. And Henry Short was not a man well-knowed to miss.



Because his wife was away at church, Andy tarried on his doorstep, reluctant to enter the small empty house on Panther Crescent. They sat a little while out in the sun. The blind man mourned, unable to put Henry Short out of his mind. “While you was speaking with his brothers, Henry told me he was through with life even if life was not quite through with him. He had never knew God struck me blind, that’s how many years has passed since a House found time to go visit that poor feller! After all them years he lived with us, I knew no words to say to him when he was dying!

“When it comes to Henry Short, you know, you’re looking at a sinner. I should of hunted him up years ago, if only just to let him know he weren’t forgotten by our family just because he broke off with my dad—let him know we always wondered how he might be getting on, after all the years out of his life that good man give us. But I never done that, no I didn’t, it was too much trouble!