Lost Man's River(32)

“Wild story? Hell, no—”

“And you say you arranged for him to sell his father’s schooner? And you helped him flee Key West on a steamer with what was rightfully his father’s money?” He fired his questions at increasing speed, at the same time maintaining the dangerous, neutral tone of the inquisitor. “Is that your story, Mr. Collins?”

Lucius said, “Now hold on, Major!”

“Is that or is that not your story? Yes or no?”

“Are you calling me a liar, Mister?”

“No. Not yet.” Watson Dyer inspected his notes. “So your story is that you aided and abetted in Robert B. Watson’s theft and unlawful resale of his father’s schooner. And after the only witness to the alleged killing—Robert Watson, right?—was out of the way, you covered your tracks by spreading that tale about the murder of these so-called Tuckers. Is that correct?”

Arbie jumped up again, fuming in disgust, as if reasonable converse with this person was not possible.

“Why all this lawyerly coercion?” Lucius demanded. “What reason do you have to doubt his story?”

“None.” Dyer squashed out his cigar. “I have no reason to accept it, either.”

“Go fuck yourself!” Arbie yelled, as the whole restaurant turned to watch him go.

Dyer nodded. “I hope our fellow diners will forgive that. Come on, Professor. If we can get him to admit there was no Tucker murder, not by Watson, then it becomes arguable at least that E. J. Watson never killed a soul! Then we can claim that there were no known witnesses to even one of the other killings attributed to Watson, all the way back to Belle Starr. I mean, it’s possible he never murdered anybody, isn’t that true?”

“It’s conceivable, I guess.”

“It’s conceivable, you guess. Well, that is how I intend to argue, in case the Park Service maintains that E. J. Watson’s land claim should be forfeit or invalid because he was a known criminal in that region. And I hope that no Watson nor any Watson relative”—he peered at the door through which Arbie had gone—“would contest this. Should that occur,” he warned after a pause, cementing his points as neatly and firmly as bricks, “then the Watson house which was to stand as a monument to your father’s reputation will receive no further protection from the courts, and will be burned down.”

The Major spread his napkin as his food arrived. “The renewal of the injunction against burning runs out next week,” he warned, over a raised forkful of his golden chicken. He spoke no more until he had finished eating, after which he locked his briefcase and got up. He had to be “on the road a lot,” he said, “taking care of business,” but in two days he’d be headed home. “Where the heart is,” Lucius said helpfully, trying to imagine a Mrs. Dyer and the kiddies.

“Most Americans have faith in that,” Watson Dyer warned him. But as it turned out, he had no wife or children. “I don’t lead that kind of a life,” he said. When Lucius requested his home number, the Major said that his home number was of little use, since his work took him up and down the state. He scribbled the number of his message service.



Arriving next morning at the Lake City Library a half hour before it opened, they peered into the empty rooms through the bare windows. Lucius was startled by their skewed reflection—that bad old man in red baseball cap and olive Army coat too heavy for this warming day, and beside him, returning Lucius’s gaze, that odd and unimaginable person—that tall figure with the leathered neck and big hard hands of one who had worked all his life with rope and iron, now garbed incongruously in the dark green corduroy and tartan scarf of a country gentleman or old-fashioned academic. A blue woolen tie sadly twisted to one side threatened to escape his v-necked sweater, and his gray hair, already on the loose, danced in a late winter gust that spun the flannel baseball cap from the old man’s head and sent it bounding off across the lawn. “Sonofabitch!” the ancient said, sidling after it quick and stalky as a crab.

Lucius turned away from the man in the reflection and led the way inside, where they sat down at a shiny maple table. While the librarian fetched the basic documents that Lucius had noted on a slip, his colleague perched erect on the edge of the next chair in sign to all as well as sundry that he, too, was on hand to inspect the data. Arbie was fairly frowning in impatience, rearing around at the delay like an old inchworm.

To expedite matters, Arbie took pains to drop the name of his eminent companion. “Professor L. Watson Collins, P.H.D.!” he said.