Hurricane of October 1909 tore away half of Key West, blew the cigar trade all the way north to Tampa Bay. Who could have known that a storm much worse would strike in 1910? Maybe the Great Comet in our night sky in April-May was our first warning.
Ed Watson’s house at Chatham Bend was strong constructed, and she sat up on a Injun mound as high above the water as any place south of Chokoloskee, probably as safe a place as you could find on this low coast. So you have to ask why, a few days before the hurricane, Watson run his family back to Chokoloskee unless he knew what might happen at the Bend and wanted his people safe out of harm’s way. Watson told Smallwood he had brung his wife and kids because his crazy foreman was out to kill somebody. And all this time he called him “Smith,” as if hiding his identity, which seemed suspicious at the time and does today. Edna confided in my sister and Alice McKinney that she could not abide Chatham Bend with “John Smith” there. Never let on what she knew but only said that wherever that man went, trouble would follow.
Somewhere around October 10, Watson come here visiting his family, bringing one of his outlaws along with him. Folks was leery of this feller Dutchy Melville but allowed as how he was always full of fun. That October day at Chokoloskee, Dutchy got foul-mouthed, sneered at Watson to his face in front of everybody. Called him Ed. Said, “Ed? How about let’s you and me just settle this fucking goddamn thing right here and now?”
Watson told him calmly that no man could draw as fast out of his pocket as a feller drawing from a holster. “You want me dead as bad as that,” he said, “you better shoot me in the back.” And Dutchy said, “Back-shooting, Ed? I always heard that was your damned specialty.” Mister Watson cocked his head, eyes just a-shivering. Told Dutchy, “You ain’t careful enough for a feller who talks to me as smart as that.” Then he turned his back on him, kind of contemptuous.
There come a gasp but Watson knew his man. Dutchy was no backshooter and never would be. “What this young feller needs is another drink,” Ed Watson said. They drank together, took the jug along for the trip home to Chatham Bend. That was the last we ever seen of Dutchy Melville.