Lost Man's River Read online

  Acclaim for Peter Matthiessen’s

  LOST MAN’S RIVER

  A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1997

  “When you write about Peter Matthiessen, ‘great’ is a word you are sorry to have overused.… He has a genius for turning the story of where he has been into something intelligent and permanent and grand.”

  —San Francisco Examiner

  “Riveting … Matthiessen has lost none of his skill for describing action.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Matthiessen is two-thirds of the way toward realizing a monumental portrait of a ruinous time and a nearly ruined place.”

  —Outside

  “Wild and tragic.… Deeply textured.… We are forced to understand that this is not Mister Watson’s story anymore. It is not even Mister Matthiessen’s. It is ours.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “Elegant storytelling … deeply textured.… A family saga full of regret and shattered lives.”

  —The Miami Herald

  “As with Killing Mister Watson … Matthiessen’s loving descriptions of wildlife, human swamp dwellers and the interwoven land and water of the coastal islands … is first rate.”

  —Time

  “[Matthiessen is] one of our few genuine masters.”

  —Thomas McGuane

  “An original and powerful artist … who has produced as impressive a body of work as that of any writer of our time.”

  —William Styron

  “A large, vivid, ambitious novel … a powerful meditation on the sources of American violence. Matthiessen has produced one of the best novels of recent years.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  Acclaim for

  KILLING MISTER WATSON

  “What a marvel of invention this novel is … a virtuoso performance. Killing Mister Watson is Peter Matthiessen at his best.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “This novel stands with the best that our nation has produced as literature.… As a philosophical study of the quality of human—and all—nature, it is first rate. As a political allegory, it is stunning.”

  —Los Angeles Times Book Review

  “Intricately structured, richly documented, utterly convincing … certain to linger in the memory like an experience we have lived through.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Matthiessen’s moral anguish is inescapable, and he can write like an avenging angel.”

  —Time

  “An important and deeply satisfying book, and one that may justifiably be compared to the very finest of American novels.”

  —St. Petersburg Times

  “A stunning, imaginative feat.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Brilliant … Killing Mister Watson is spellbinding.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “Powerful and unforgettable.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “A work of freewheeling imagination … creating engaging, vivid and convincing voices.”

  —The Boston Globe

  Peter Matthiessen

  LOST MAN’S RIVER

  Peter Matthiessen was born in New York City in 1927 and had already begun his writing career by the time he graduated from Yale University in 1950. The following year, he was a founder of The Paris Review. Besides At Play in the Fields of the Lord, which was nominated for the National Book Award, he has published six other works of fiction, including Far Tortuga and Killing Mister Watson. Mr. Matthiessen’s parallel career as a naturalist and explorer has resulted in numerous widely acclaimed books of nonfiction, among them The Tree Where Man Was Born, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and The Snow Leopard, which won it.

  Also by Peter Matthiessen

  Fiction

  Race Rock

  Partisans

  Raditzer

  At Play in the Fields of the Lord

  Far Tortuga

  On the River Styx and Other Stories

  Killing Mister Watson

  Nonfiction

  Wildlife in America

  The Cloud Forest

  Under the Mountain Wall

  Sal Si Puedes

  The Wind Birds

  Blue Meridian

  The Tree Where Man Was Born

  The Snow Leopard

  Sand Rivers

  In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

  Indian Country

  Nine-Headed Dragon River

  Men’s Lives

  African Silences

  East of Lo Monthang

  FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, OCTOBER 1998

  Copyright © 1997 by Peter Matthiessen

  Maps copyright © 1997 by Anita Karl and Jim Kemp

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, in 1997.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Random House edition as follows:

  Matthiessen, Peter.

  Lost Man’s River / Peter Matthiessen.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-81965-9

  I. Title.

  PS3563.A8584L67 1997

  813′.54—dc21 97-10124

  Author photograph © Nancy Crampton

  www.randomhouse.com

  v3.1

  Author’s Note

  and Acknowledgments

  A man still known in his community as E. J. Watson has been reimagined from the few hard “facts”—census and marriage records, dates on gravestones, and the like. All the rest of the popular record is a mix of rumor, gossip, tale, and legend that has evolved over eight decades into myth.

  This book reflects my own instincts and intuitions about Watson. It is fiction, and the great majority of the episodes and accounts are my own creation. The book is in no way “historical,” since almost nothing here is history. On the other hand, there is nothing that could not have happened—nothing inconsistent, that is, with the very little that is actually on record. It is my hope and strong belief that this reimagined life contains much more of the truth of Mr. Watson than the lurid and popularly accepted “facts” of the Watson legend.

  —from the Author’s Note for Killing Mister Watson (1990)

  Lost Man’s River is the second volume of a trilogy and, like the first, is entirely a work of fiction. Certain historical names are used for the sake of continuity with the first volume (including the name of the narrator/protagonist Lucius Watson and his family members), and certain situations and anecdotes have been inspired in part by real-life incidents, but no character is based on or intended to depict an actual person, and all episodes and dialogues between the characters are products of the author’s imagination.

  Once again, I am grateful for the kind assistance of the pioneer families of southwest Florida, who cheerfully supplied much local information, both historical and anecdotal. None of these friends and informants are responsible for the author’s use of that material, or for his fictional renditions of the life and times of these families and others.

  —Peter Matthiessen

  For dear Maria with much love and gratitude

  for her generous forbearance and great good sense

  throughout the long course of this work

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Map

  Prol
ogue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  E. J. WATSON

  His paternal grandparents:

  Artemas Watson (1800–1841) and Mary Lucretia (Daniel) Watson (1807–?)

  His parents:

  Elijah Daniel Watson (“Ring-Eye Lige”)

  b. Clouds Creek, S.C., 1834

  d. Columbia, S.C., 1895

  Ellen Catherine (Addison) Watson

  b. Edgefield Court House, S.C., 1832

  d. Fort White, Fla., 1910

  Edgar Artemas* Watson

  b. Clouds Creek, S.C., November 7, 1855

  d. Chokoloskee, Fla., October 24, 1910

  1st Wife (1878): Ann Mary “Charlie” (Collins) Watson, 1862–1879

  Robert Briggs “Rob” Watson, b. Fort White, Fla., 1879–

  2nd Wife (1884): Jane S. “Mandy” (Dyal) Watson, ca. 1864–1901

  Carrie Watson Langford, b. Fort White, Fla., 1885–

  Edward Elijah “Eddie” Watson, b. Fort White, Fla., 1887–

  Lucius Hampton Watson, b. Oklahoma Territory, 1889–

  3rd Wife (1904): Edna “Kate” (Bethea) Watson, 1889–

  Ruth Ellen Watson/Burdett,† b. Fort White, Fla., 1905–

  Addison Watson/Burdett,† b. Fort White, Fla., 1907–

  Amy Watson/Burdett,† b. Key West, Fla., 1910–

  Common-law Wife: Henrietta “Netta” Daniels, b. ca. 1875–?

  Minnie Daniels, b. ca. 1895–?

  Common-law Wife: Mary Josephine “Josie” Jenkins, b. ca. 1879–?

  Pearl Watson, b. ca. 1900–

  Infant male, name unknown, born May 1910. Perished in hurricane,

  October 1910.

  EJW’s sister: Mary Lucretia “Minnie” Watson, b. Clouds Creek, S.C., 1857

  Married William “Billy” Collins of Fort White, Fla., ca. 1880

  Billy Collins died in 1907, Minnie in 1912 (both at Fort White).

  The Collins children:

  Julian Edgar, 1880–1938

  William Henry “Willie,” b. ca. 1890–

  Maria Antoinett “May,” b. ca. 1892–

  Julian and Willie’s “descendants”:

  Ellen Collins†

  Hettie (Hawkins) Collins†

  April Collins†

  ALSO: EJW’s Great-Aunt Tabitha (Wyches) Watson, 3rd wife and widow of Artemas Watson’s brother Michael; instrumental in marriage of Elijah D. Watson and Ellen Addison. Born 1813, S.C. Died at Fort White in 1905.

  Her daughter Laura, childhood friend of Ellen Addison.

  Married William Myers ca. 1867 (Myers died at Fort White in 1869).

  Married Samuel Tolen ca. 1890. Died at Fort White in 1894.

  * Apparently he changed his second initial to J in later life, dating roughly from his return from Oklahoma, ca. 1893.

  † Not real name.

  DEPOSITION OF BILL W. HOUSE

  October 27, 1910

  My name is William Warlick House, residing at Chokoloskee Island, in Lee County, Florida.

  On October 16, this was a Sunday, some fishermen came to Chokoloskee and told how a Negro had showed up at the clam shacks on Pavilion Key and reported three murders at the Watson Place and advised the men that Mr. E. J. Watson ordered his foreman to commit these killings. This foreman was a stranger in our country name of Leslie Cox. When Watson’s friends and kinfolk in the crowd got hard with him, the Negro changed his story, saying Cox done it on his own, but the men concluded Watson was behind it.

  Ed Watson was at Chokoloskee when the story came in there about the murders, so Watson said he would fetch the Sheriff from Fort Myers. He swore that Cox had done him wrong, and not only him but them three people he had murdered. This was the eve of the Great Hurricane of October 17. He left in storm before the men got set to stop him, and we thought for sure we’d seen the last of him.

  Three days after the storm, Watson showed up again at Chokoloskee. The men advised he better stay right there until the Sheriff came, and Watson advised he didn’t need no Sheriff, said he knew his business and aimed to take care of it his own way. He bought some shotgun shells in the Smallwood store, where my sister Mrs. Mamie H. Smallwood advised him how them shells was still wet from the hurricane, and Watson advised, “Never you mind, ma’am, them shells will kill a rattlesnake just fine.” He aimed to go home to Chatham River “and straighten Cox out before he got away”—them were his very words. To show he meant business, he promised to return with Cox’s head.

  Watson was red-eyed in his appearance, very wild, and nobody didn’t care to interfere with him. So Watson headed south down Chokoloskee Bay. We stood on the landing at Smallwood’s store and watched him go, we reckoned he’d keep right on going for Key West, we figured we’d seen the last of him for sure. But four days after that, October 24—last Monday evening—he came back. We heard his motor a long way off to south’ard, and a crowd of men went down to the landing to arrest him. E. J. Watson seen them armed men waiting but he come on anyway, he was that kind.

  The hurricane had tore the dock away, weren’t nothing left of her but pilings, so he run his launch aground west of the boat way and jumped ashore real quick and bold almost before that launch came to a stop. He had got himself set before one word was spoken, holding his shotgun down along his leg.

  Watson waited until all of us calmed down somewhat and got our breath. Then he told the men he had killed Cox as promised but the body had fell off his dock into the river and was lost. He showed us Cox’s hat, showed us the bullet hole from his revolver. He put his middle finger through the hole and spun the hat on it and laughed. He was laughing at us so nobody laughed with him.

  My dad, Mr. D. D. House, was not the ringleader, never mind what some has said, but because no other man stepped forward, it was D. D. House who done the talking. I and my next two brothers, Dan Junior and Lloyd House, was in the crowd. I don’t rightly recollect no other names. Mr. D. D. House reminded Watson that a head was promised and a hat weren’t good enough. He said the men would have to go down there, look for the body. And he notified Watson that until Cox was found, or the Sheriff showed up, it might be best to hand over his weapons. An argument sprung up over that, then Watson swung his shotgun up to shoot D. D. House and would have done it only them wet shells misfired. The men opened up on him all in a roar, the bullets spun him all the way around, and some of ’em claim they seen the buckshot roll right out them double barrels as he fell.

  Watson’s neighbors that had straggled in from the Lost Man’s River country after the hurricane, them men stayed out of it, they stayed back up there by the store and watched. There wasn’t a one of them raised a hand to stop it. Them fellers from Lost Man’s never raised no sand about their friend Ed Watson till after he was dead, which was kind of late to start a argument.

  Some has been trying to point fingers, claiming us Chokoloskee men was laying for Watson, fixing to shoot him down no matter what. Or some has give hints that so-and-so panicked and fired the first shot, and that this man was the only one responsible. I don’t rightly know who fired first, and they don’t neither. I will only say that Mr. Watson was not lynched nor murdered. We took his life in self-defense, and the whole bunch was in on it from start to finish.

  Ain’t none of us was proud about what happened. We was shocked to see our neighbor laying there, face down in his mortal blood, with his young wife and little children not fifty yards away in the Smallwood store.

  Nobody having much to say, we went on home. Next morning we took the body out to Rabbit Key and buried it. By the time we got back to Chokoloskee, Sheriff Tippins had showed up lookin for Watson and was waiting on us there at Smallwood’s landing. We was took in custody and brought north here to Fort Myers to give testimony.

  T
ranscribed and attested: X William W. House [his mark]

  Witness: (signed) E. E. Watson, Dep. Ct. Clerk

  Lee County Courthouse, Fort Myers, Florida

  October 27, 1910

  The Bill House deposition had arrived in the mail unaccompanied by note or return address (the postmark was Ochopee, Florida) in response to Lucius Watson’s ad in the Fort Myers News-Press and also in the Lake City Advertiser in Columbia County, where his Collins cousins were still living.

  Historian seeks reliable information for a biography of the late sugarcane planter E. J. Watson, 1855–1910

  What had startled Lucius most about the deposition was his brother Eddie’s signature as the deputy court clerk who had witnessed and transcribed Bill House’s testimony. He had forgotten that. But as a researcher concerned with the substance of the document—he was preparing a biography of his late father—he had found no significant new information beyond what could be inferred between its lines. On the other hand (as he noted in his journal, doing his best to maintain an objective tone), the document was critical as the one firsthand account of E. J. Watson’s death that had come to light:

  The Bill House testimony makes clear that the Chokoloskee men killed E. J. Watson despite the testimony of the unidentified “Negro” that the brutal slayings two weeks previously at Chatham Bend had been committed not by Watson but by his foreman, Leslie Cox, a convicted murderer and fugitive from justice who had turned up a few months earlier at the Watson Place.

  According to this deposition, his neighbors shot E. J. Watson down in self-defense. Though this claim has been made for more than a half century by the participants, others in the community assert to the present day that at least some of those involved had planned the killing, justifying the lynching with the claim that otherwise Watson might evade justice, “as he had so often in the past.” Combinations of these theories have also been suggested—for example, that the crowd was at the breaking point of fear and exhaustion in the wake of the murders at Chatham Bend, then the Great Hurricane, and that even if Watson had not meant to harm them, he had made a desperate bluff with shotgun or revolver which was met by the nervous crowd with a barrage.