Isaac Yeomans liked to take a risk, see how far he could stretch his luck. One day at Everglade, Mister Watson was tyin up his boat when Isaac sings out, “Any truth to that there readin book about a feller name of Watson and the Outlaw Queen?” And Isaac’s friends grinned kind of nervous, makin it worse.
Mister Watson finished off his hitch before turning around to look us over. “That same book says this Watson feller died breaking out of prison,” he said then. “Nobody asking nosy questions better count on that.”
Isaac give a scared wild yip, threw his hands up high as if the man had pulled a gun; the rest of us done our best to laugh, pretend it was all a joke. Watson grinned a little, but Isaac, bein drunk, couldn’t let it go. “Ed? What I mean to say, how come such a friendly feller as yourself is always gettin into so much trouble?”
Storters’ bluetick hound was laying on the dock. That was the lovinest dog I ever come across: just so you touched her, she would pick the place most underfoot so she might get stepped on. Darned if that bitch don’t jump up and run off sideways, tail tucked under like she just been caught with the church supper. By the time Watson’s eyes come back to him, Isaac’s tail was pretty well tucked under, too. Told us later he knew how a treed panther must feel, snarling and spitting at the hounds, and the hunter taking his sweet time, walking in across the clearing, set to shoot him.
You never knew how anything was going to strike Ed Watson: another day, he might have played it as a joke. But this day them blue eyes of his went gray and dead. He cocked his head to see behind Isaac’s question, then hunted down the eyes of every man in case anyone else might have something smart he’d like to add. You could of heard a spider sip a breath. Then he turned back to Isaac, wouldn’t let him go. He never blinked. Isaac done his best to stay right with him, make no sudden moves, but his grin looked stuck onto his teeth. “I don’t go hunting trouble, boy,” Ed Watson whispered finally, “but when trouble comes to me, why, I take care of it.” And he looked up and down the dock, making sure that no man there had missed that message.
What I think today, the man was mocking our idea of desperado speech, but fun or no fun, the way he said “take care of it” was scary. In later years, my sister Mamie liked to recollect how E. J. Watson said them words to her but it was Isaac.
Life weren’t the same down in the Islands after all them stories started up. On our coast it was a long long way to the nearest neighbor, too far to hear a rifle shot, let alone a cry for help. Men knew this but would not admit it, lest they scared their families. I do believe most of ’em liked Ed Watson-you couldn’t help but like such a lively feller! Some called him E. J. same as Ted Smallwood and was proud to let on what good friends they was with the Man Who Killed Belle Starr, but in their hearts, they was afraid. And though most of our women couldn’t never forgive him for murderin a woman, others flat refused to believe he done that: his mannerly ways was fatal to women all the time we knew him.
Ed Watson was humorous, told a good story, and most folks claimed they was always glad to see him. But after his wife and kids moved to Fort Myers, his riffraff crew made a mess of Chatham Bend. He went back to hard drinking and got heavy, kind of mean, and didn’t waste no time at all hunting up trouble.