That Sunday night in our Smallwood store, our menfolk got real busy spreading blame. No sooner was E. J. Watson gone than some started arguing how he should have been arrested; others said it must have been Cox who made that nigger put the blame on E. J. Watson. Well, now, I said, no nigger with the brains to get away to Pavilion Key would be fool enough to accuse a white man and implicate himself while he was at it.
Ted returned in time to hear me say that, and his frown told me he didn’t care for strong opinions from his woman in men’s company. But after all, I had only spoke the truth, I told him later; to risk his life that way, that nigger had to have a reason. “Nigra,” Ted complained.
Anyways, it was too late. Watson was long gone, headed for Everglade, where he sweet-talked Bembery Storter into running him as far as Marco Island even though the hurricane was on its way. (Had to pay Bembery pretty dear, I shouldn’t wonder; those Storters never give you much for nothing.)
First time the wind gusts quaked our house came after dark on Monday evening. Santinis had built this house above the drift line of the ’73 hurricane, plenty high enough for the ’96 storm and also 1909. But it weren’t nearly high enough for the Great Hurricane of 1910, which came roaring in with wind and seas all jumbled up together. Chokoloskee Bay is three miles inland from the Gulf, but big waves broke through the outer islands to come pound our shore, and our island shrank smaller and smaller as the water swirled around us. When we finally lost sight of the mainland, it seemed like our little tuft of land had been uprooted and was drifting out to sea, and that was when we fled uphill to the schoolhouse, which was ten foot above sea level. Edna Watson and her kids were staying with the Aldermans: Wilson Alderman lugged little Addison while Edna toted Baby Amy and led Ruth Ellen by the hand.
The storm flood rose till four that morning, left a line on the wall ten inches above the schoolhouse floor. According to C. G. McKinney, who passed for somewhat educated, nine tenths of Chokoloskee Island and ten tenths of Everglade went underwater. Finally the men knocked our schoolhouse down, made rafts out of the walls; their hammers were all that could be heard over the wind.
Coming from an inland county, Edna Watson had never imagined such a fearful storm. She had promised her kids safety in the schoolhouse only to see that last shelter destroyed. The men dragged their rafts to the top of the highest mound we call Injun Hill, and all nine families were up there in that weather without cover, every last soul huddled together, teeth chattering, turning blue, and staring out blind into the storm, scared to death those rafts might break apart. The kids were crying and Edna was close to hysterics but she kept her head. Finally the Good Lord heard our prayers and the roar eased a little. The seas weren’t climbing anymore but slowly falling, leaving behind dark dripping silence, mud and ruin.
No real dawn. We trooped downhill in the half-dark to see what we had left. Goods from our store that weren’t washed into the Bay were carried back into the scrub; I lost my whole new set of china. I broke down then, just shook my head and cried, but in a little while I got the nervous giggles. My mama shrilled, “How can you giggle, girl, with everything you possess lost in the mud?” Oh, Grandma Ida was real disappointed in the Lord. And I said, “Well, Mama, I am very thankful we are all still here and still alive, so this ol’ mud don’t look so bad to me.”
Only person hurt was Charlie Boggess, who dislocated his ankle jumping off a boat onto our dock when it weren’t there no more. My Ted took him up under the arms, leaned back, and let him holler when C. G. pulled his heel straight, let the ankle bone snap back into her socket. Ted carried him on his back across the island, told him to stay put at home and not cause any more trouble. But being a feller who hated to miss out, Charlie T. was right back at our landing when E. J. Watson showed up again a few days later.