Come time to step up and arrest Ed Watson, there weren’t no volunteers, nobody was as riled up as they thought, So Joe Burdett—that’s Herkie’s daddy—he said, “I’ll go get him.” My brother Brooks was there, he heard him say it. Nobody asked Joe to volunteer, he just upped and done it. Small fella, y’know, very soft-spoken and shy, seemed to hide behind that bushy beard that come all the way down to his belt buckle, like a bib. He never joined in all the yelling, but when he said he would go get Watson, well, they knew he meant it. So Deputy Nance called for another volunteer, and Brooks was so impressed by Joe Burdett’s courage that he piped up and said he would go, too.
Them two went up the hill to Watson’s fence, went to the gate, and Joe called, “Edgar, ye’d best come on out here!” When Watson came out, they had their guns on him. Burdett pulled out the warrant, saying, “Edgar J. Watson, you are hereby under arrest, by order of the Columbia County Sheriff.”
Ed Watson took that very calm, never protested, but Edna busted right out crying, and her babies, too. Edna sings out, “Uncle Joe, Mr. Watson ain’t done nothing wrong! He been home here right along!” But Joe Burdett only shook his head, so Watson said kind of ironical, “Well, then, Joe, I will change to my Sunday clothes, cause I don’t want to give our community a bad name by going up to town in these soiled overalls.” That’s how Brooks Kinard described what Mr. Watson said and the way he said it.
Burdett was too smart for that one. He says, “Nosir, Edgar, you ain’t goin back into that house.” Says, “Edna can bring your clothes out to ye, but you can’t go in.” So Edna brings out some clean clothes—she is still crying—and Watson says, “I’ll just step into the corncrib there to change, I’ll be with you fellers in a minute.” Well, Burdett was too smart for that one, too. He told Brooks, “You search that corncrib over yonder, make sure there’s no weapon hid in there.” And sure enough, there was an old six-gun, loaded and ready under a loose slat on the crib floor.
So Ed Watson changed his clothes out in the yard on a cold March day, had to go right down to his long johns. And when he was near stripped like a plucked rooster, he grinned and give a wave to the armed crowd waiting on him down by the road. Joe told him he could have ten minutes to instruct Edna what he wanted done about his farm, and Edgar said Nosir, that would not be necessary. If you boys aim to arrest an innocent man, he said, let’s get it over with. However, he would sure appreciate it if he could just step inside the door so he would not have to kiss his wife good-bye in front of all these men. Burdett shook his head. Let Ed Watson get a foothold, see, there wouldn’t a-been no Joe Burdett nor no Brooks Kinard, neither, because Watson knew how to shoot, he didn’t miss.
Edgar give his wife a hug, told her to calm herself, he would be home soon. He walked down to the fence to where the men was waiting, and they lashed his wrists. Never turned to wave to that poor girl, never looked back, but strode off down the road, until they had to hurry to keep up. It was like he was leadin ’em, and all them fellers spoke about this after. Edgar Watson had some inner strength, like his innocence and faith in God would see him through. If he was afraid, he never showed it. And that terrible calm was what got poor Brooks to worrying that Mr. Watson might be innocent after all, he got to praying by his bed at night for his own salvation. But Luther Kinard told him, “Brooks, a guiltier man than Edgar Watson ain’t never yet drawed breath, not in this section, so don’t you go to pestering the Almighty, cause He got enough on His hands without that.”
Next thing, Les Cox got arrested for Sam Tolen, but a grand jury hearing in Lake City never come up with enough evidence to try him, so they set him free. As for Watson, he paid for fancy lawyers, got his trial moved to here and there, and by the end of the year he was acquitted.
My brothers, they was in that posse that went up to Lake City to lynch Watson, so I heard a lot about it as a boy. The posse men was the ones most angered up, but now they was the ones that was most frightened. They had wanted to make sure Watson was dead, once and for all, and when he ducked the noose, and his partner did, too, they figured that men as ornery as Cox and Watson would be honor bound to get revenge. Both them men were on the loose, and they knew just who was in that mob that had wanted to see ’em lynched, and folks around these parts was very frightened.
This was early in 1909, and I recollect that long dark winter very well. Everyone in the whole countryside was on the lookout, cause those killers could show up any evening and drill the man of the house right through his window. So when the Betheas passed the news that E. J. Watson had took Edna and went back south to the Ten Thousand Islands, folks around here was overjoyed. But Leslie Cox had come back home because somebody had seen him on a January evening, walking down the road just before dusk.