Netta’s mother had made Catholics out of her children and Netta’s sister had married Tino Santini, a Corsican from a Catholic family who saw no sin in rum-running but had no tolerance for common-law marriage, never mind bastards. That Santini gossip about Minnie’s parentage got started after my scrape with Tino’s brother at a produce auction in Key West. I was drunk, they tell me, and Adolphus, too. I meant to leave him a thin scar as a reminder to be more civil to Ed Watson, but unfortunately my knife blade nicked his jugular, splattered Corsican blood across baskets of asparagus, making me look like a bloodthirsty villain. Scurrilous remarks about my past were what had started it. (“Mr. Santini cast asparagus on a man’s honor,” said Tant Jenkins.) Dolphus wound up in the hospital with a sore throat while I was obliged to fork over what was left of my Arcadia earnings to settle the matter out of court.
Having pocketed my nine hundred dollars, Santini wrote to Governor Mitchell complaining that his assailant had never been brought before the bar of justice. I learned this from my drinking companion the U.S. Attorney at Key West, who kept me well-informed in legal matters. (When Dolphus learned that I knew about his letter, he lost his zeal for justice, sold his Chokoloskee house, and sailed away to the east coast at the Miami River.)
Sheriff Knight wanted to hold me in the Key West jail while he looked into Santini’s story that E. J. Watson was a desperado, wanted by the law somewhere out West. With his bald eye and sour nature, Knight had been after me ever since he coughed up the reward in the Will Raymond case. This time he sent away on his new telegraph to find out what he could but I left Key West before word came. The governor’s office sent a query to Sheriff Knight who sent a deputy to bring me in for questioning. Because this deputy, Clarence Till, planned to run for sheriff in the next election, he struck Knight as just the man to travel a hundred miles by sea to a wild river to arrest a dangerous fugitive single-handed. I got the drop on Clarence, took his guns away, and put him straight to work out in the cane. Had more guts than brains but a real nice young feller all the same. After two hard weeks I told him, “Clarence, let that be your lesson.” I put him back into his boat and waved good-bye. Deputy Till thought the world of me and waved back with a big grin. Disgusted with the sheriff, who had made no effort to send after him, he returned to Key West singing my praises as the only man of progress in that wilderness. In later years, Clarence did his best to look the other way when I cut up rough while seek-ing recreation in his city.
According to a comical card sent by Sam Tolen, the Santini episode had made headline news in the Lake City paper, the culprit Watson being locally well known as a dangerous drunk and an alleged accomplice in the killing of John Hayes. My Mandy, who had arrived in Fort White with the children, made no mention of those lies in her affectionate letter, which simply inquired if my family might come join me. After all her poverty and suffering-and five long years in the Indian nations with no word from her wandering husband-this excellent woman held no bitterness. She had always known the dark side of my nature and deplored it-she would not pretend-but for some reason she still had faith in me and I was grateful.
As for the children, I missed my pretty Carrie and young Eddie and was somewhat curious to see how baby Lucius had turned out. “He favors me a little, more’s the pity,” Mandy had written. I chuckled, imagining her shy smile as she wrote that, but a moment later, that innocent sweet memory was ousted by a vision of the warm pink muffin of her rump, which stirred my dog loins all the way from Columbia County.
Netta smelled trouble. I told her straight she would have to make room for my lawfully wedded wife and legal children. “Make room?” Her tone annoyed me. Come to think of it, I said, she’d better clear out down to the last hairpin and take her little Min right along with her. “Clear out, you said? My little Min?” She stood right up to me. “Mis-ter Desperado Watson! Huh!” First time I ever saw this woman truly angry. She called me a liar for persuading her that common law was binding and for never mentioning my “awful lawful wife,” as Tant would call her. Her phony husband having turned out to be some kind of dirty Mormon, she was only too happy to depart forever, never to return, and many other words to that effect.
I was sad for I loved Netta in her way, but my past had overtaken us and that was that. I left the Bend that afternoon so as not to have to listen to her any further. Stopping briefly at Caxambas, I notified Captain Jim Daniels that his sister needed fetching at the Bend. From there I went on to Fort Myers to talk business with Dr. T. E. Langford and a Mr. Cole who wished to invest in Island Pride, my cane syrup operation.
Since the Santini story had arrived ahead of me, I was astonished that two such upright citizens would entrust me with their dollars. Seems they were much less interested in Santini’s throat than impressed by what Capt. Bill Collier had told them about how fast that feller Watson got his cane plantation up and running, said Ed had enough brains and ambition to develop the Ten Thousand Islands single-handed. Only thing, Bill warned ’em, that man has a hot temper and never lets too much stand in his way. Jim Cole just grinned. For a good businessman, Cole observed, there were few better recommendations than a nose for opportunity and the nerve to see it through.
Jim Cole was a big man in cattle and shipping who became one of the first county commissioners. He had married into the Summerlin family which owned the cattle yards at Punta Rassa and was engaged in various enterprises with the Hendrys, who owned half the town. Because he had political ambitions, Cole was noisily civic-minded, claimed he aimed to drag Fort Myers into the Twentieth Century whether folks liked it or not. A few years later, he paved over the white seashell streets for his new auto, the first such contraption folks had ever seen. I associate concrete with Jim Cole-he loved that stuff.
To ensure their support, Cole put people in his debt. I took his money to build up my syrup business but instead of feeling grateful, I resented it. I reckon he knew that-I never tried to hide it-but as a politician, he could not tolerate unfriendliness and never understood why I disliked having my back slapped by such a big loud jokey feller when most men got along with him just fine.
Jim Cole was out to win Ed Watson to his side or know the reason why. Hearing that the Key West sheriff was still nagging me about Santini, Cole sent Knight a wire saying, “Friend Watson rode in out of the Wild West, he’s one of that freewheeling breed that made this country great.” Knight wired back, “Freebooting, you mean? Don’t tell a lawman not to do his job.” Cole thought this exchange was pretty funny. He looked rattled when I didn’t smile.
All the same, it was Jim Cole who lined up the local business interests to capitalize my operation and advance me credit, and Dr. T. E. Langford went along. In financial matters, the Langford family did what Cole told them. Before anything could occur to change their mind, I placed an order with Bill Collier for a cargo of Dade County pine, then hired two carpenters to come to Chatham Bend and help me build a good big house, a better dock, a boat shed and attached dormitory for harvest workers, with down payment in advance and the balance billed to the account of the Watson Syrup Company, Chatham River, c/o Chokoloskee, Florida, U.S.A.