That last summer of living in the Islands, the hunting was so poor that me and my cousin Harvey Daniels and my sort-of cousin Crockett tried setting set gill nets on them sea trout flats northwest of Mormon Key. One early morning before light-we was still anchored, half asleep-we was woke by the motor of a boat coming out from Chatham River. Not many motorboats back then so every man knew any boat from a long ways off. Sure enough, Watson’s black Warrior come sliding into view. The coast was empty, then there she was, clear of the last mangrove clumps, popped up like she come downriver underwater. Thirty-foot long and nine-foot beam, with a trunk cabin forward, canvas curtains aft, and that black hull.
Next thing we knew, she swung off course headed straight in our direction. Never hailed us, only circled us where we lay anchored, with nobody out on deck, no sign of life. Round and round she went, two-three-four times, slow and steady as a shark. All our guns was loaded, set to shoot, that’s how spooked we was, though we was fellers who liked Ed most of the time, him being so friendly with our Daniels family. If he wanted us off them fishing grounds, all he had to do was wave us off and we’d go someplace else.
Not knowing what he was fixing to do next, we could only whisper and sit tight and wait for him to recognize us, leave us alone. I’d worked for him right up until that Tucker business and was still friendly with Lucius. Harvey’s dad was his old friend Jim Daniels, Aunt Netta’s brother and captain of the clam dredge, and Harvey was the engineer on Bill Collier’s Falcon, which carried the clams north to the factory. On his day off, Harvey worked on other boats as a mechanic: just recently he’d done motor repair for Mister Watson and was owed eighty-five dollars, which could buy you a rebuilt motor back in them days. Two-three Sundays at Pavilion, Harvey had worked on Mister Watson’s boat right alongside him. What I always recall, when you seen Ed Watson from behind, them ginger whiskers under that black hat would be sticking out from both sides of his head.
Mister Watson was generally a fair man to do business with, but this day was along toward the end when he was broke from his troubles in north Florida and behind on all his debts and slow from booze. His black boat circled us four times, then come ahead from dead abeam like she aimed to cut our little boat in two. Crockett and me jumped up, waving our guns, but Harvey had more sense, being the oldest; said he had no wish to trade shots with E. J. Watson, especially when we couldn’t even see him. Told us to lay them guns down quick, making sure Watson seen us do it, and then get set to dive over the side and swim underwater far as we could, come up for a quick breath and down again, cause we might not make it to the shore if we was full of lead. But at the last second-we was yelling at each other to get set-the black boat sheared off and headed north. Was that all he wanted? Scaring us, I mean?
Speck-that’s what Watson called Crockett, I can’t rightly recall why-Speck were now close to sixteen and pretty reckless, so being bad spooked was hard for him to handle. He promised Harvey, “If he don’t pay you what he owes real quick, we’ll slip upriver on a night tide, set in the reeds across from his damn house, and first time he steps outside, I’ll pick him off for you.” He meant that, too. Never killed nobody far as I heard but you knew this boy could do that if he had to. It was something you seen in certain fellers: Crockett Daniels was that kind. And he was a boy who could pick up his rifle and nail the small head of a floatin terrapin spang to the water.
Harvey was the other kind, thoughtful and steady-sooner lose his pay than see a man shot dead on his account. Also, he knew that bein so hotheaded, Crockett might not have such a cunning plan as what he thought. Harvey said, “Maybe you ain’t doing this to settle up my debt. Maybe you’re doing this just to prove that you ain’t scared of him.”
Speck got somewhat hot, of course, but he don’t really deny it. “One of these damn days,” he swore, “I’ll take and fix that sonofabitch to where he don’t scare nobody no more!”