Lost Man's River(51)
On March 24, 1908, Judge Ives’s first case was The State of Florida v. Leslie Cox, who pled guilty to carrying a pistol without a county license, and was sentenced to twenty dollars and costs, or fifty dollars, or sixty days at hard labor at the county jail. Since this case had been heard on the day following Mike Tolen’s murder, Lucius supposed that Cox was already a suspect in that killing, and that this sentence was the court’s device for keeping him in custody until formal charges could be brought in the Tolen killings.
On April 10, Judge Ives’s court considered the findings of a coroner’s hearing in late March on the killing of D. M. Tolen, for which E. J. Watson, J. Porter, and Frank Reese had been duly charged. The plot was thickening, for Watson’s nephews had also been arrested: It is ordered that Julian Collins and Willie Collins each give bond in the sum of one thousand dollars … conditioned to appear and answer at the next term of our Circuit Court the charge of accessories-after-the-fact in the murder of D. M. Tolen.
On April 25, Leslie Cox was formally indicted for the murder of S. Tolen, based on an affidavit furnished on April 10 by Julian Collins. In the same court on the same day, E. J. Watson et al. were indicted for D. M. Tolen’s murder on the basis of the coroner’s inquest. Together with other witnesses, the Collins boys had been summoned to appear before the grand jury.
Sally had also come upon the “Estate of D. M. Tolen”:
6 fat hogs (900 lbs. @ 12¢ gross) 108.00
1 sow and five pigs 18.00
175 bu. corn 175.00
1000 bundles fodder 15.00
14.27 lbs. cotton 206.95
4 sacks guano 16.00
1000 seed corn 15.00
50 bu. potatos 25.00
1 barrel syrup (33 gal. @ 75¢ per gal.) 24.75
20 qts. bottle syrup 4.50
23 head of cattle @ $18.00 per head 414.00
1 saddle 9.00
1 buggy and harness 70.00
1 horse wagon 30.00
plow gear 4.50
farming implements 27.90
1 pr. balance 1.25
1 pot 1.00
2 tubs 1.00
1400 lbs. pork 210.00
1 Mule 55.00
1 Shotgun 10.00
New Bethel
With Sally’s help, Lucius persuaded Arbie to go to Fort White after all, but even as they set out next morning, the old man became jealous once again, squashing in beside Sally in the front rather than permit himself to be relegated to the rear. Poor Sally had been forced to straddle the old-time gearshift with its trembling knob, her left leg brushing the right leg of the driver. Her jeans were so faded, worn so thin, and her flesh so warm and firm, that Lucius fairly shimmered in the glow. “Holy, holy, ho-o-ly!” Sally sang, quite unaccountably, “All the saints ador-ore Thee!” As her leg kept time, bouncing against his, he felt the lilt of his first erection in a month of Sundays.
New Bethel Church, by a main highway, was sorely buffeted by diesel winds and the wail of tires. “New Bethel was built out of heart pine in 1854, so she’s solid as ever,” an elder in the churchyard assured them, shielding his eyes to admire his church in the morning light. This old man turned out to be the sexton, there to console any random pilgrim dismayed to see such a House of God beset by so much noisome progress.
While Arbie and the sexton swapped Lake City lore, Lucius and Sally hunted the granite rows for the name Watson. Eventually his eye was led by a flit of sparrows to a tilted headstone set apart by a lone juniper. The stone’s lettering had been eroded by black lichens, wind, and rain, and he knelt upon the grass to piece it out.
ANN M. WATSON
WIFE OF E. A. WATSON
AND DAUGHTER OF
W. C. AND SARAH COLLINS
BORN APRIL 16, 1862
DIED AT HER HOME IN
COLUMBIA CO. FLORIDA
SEPTEMBER 13, 1879
Here were fine hard bits of information of the sort so scarce in his father’s history, including the precise identity and dates of Papa’s first wife, as well as what could only be the fatal birthdate of Rob Watson on that unlucky thirteenth of September. He waved excitedly to Arbie, who came and slouched around the grave, hands in his pockets. “Can’t hardly read it,” he complained, seeming more interested in the dark evergreen behind. “Might have planted that ol’ cedar the same year he planted her,” he added roughly, turning abruptly and heading for the gate.
“Arb? This is Rob’s mother, Arb!” Lucius called after him, exasperated by the apathy of the old man, whose interest in their quest seemed to diminish by the day. “I know who it is!” he shouted back.
That headstone inscription was the earliest record of his father’s name which Lucius had yet come across—a gravestone record in a time of family grief, therefore unlikely to be imprecise. And the initial A in E. A. Watson verified those court documents pertaining to the Belle Starr hearing at Fort Smith that until this moment he had thought to be in error. It suggested that A had been the original initial, and that the subsequent change to J had been intended to obscure his identity after his escape from the Arkansas state prison.