Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen Read Free Book Online Page B

How did the man know we was there? How come he went armed in his own field? And why was he so quick to draw his weapon?
    I found out quick. That old French fool behind me had stood up with his shootin iron and now he’s ricketing around, trying to draw a bead on Watson. I yell
Sit down!
and I row that boat right out from under him. He falls back hard, nearly goes overboard. Sheltered by the bank, I row all-out to get down around the Bend, scared Mister Watson might run up to the water’s edge and pick us off. Please, sir, I holler, don’t go pointing guns at Mister Watson, not with young Bill settin in the boat!
    Offshore, I flagged down the
Bertie Lee,
Captain R. B. Storter, who would carry the Frenchman to Key West: the old man told me to work my keep at Hardens till he got back. Trouble was, I weren’t real easy in their company. That family never got along good with us Bay people, bein too white to fit with Injuns nor nigras but nowhere near fair-skinned enough to suit most whites. Old Man Richard called hisself Choctaw, had Injun features, sure enough, but one look at his boy Webster told you that Choctaw weren’t the whole story by a long shot.
    Times we worked for the old Frenchman, Henry Short and me used to visit with the Hardens, and Henry held a high opinion of that family, but I don’t believe he thought that they was white or he wouldn’t have never felt so much at home. While I was living there, Henry would come visiting, to be sure I was getting along—probably believed that, knowing Henry—but the one he really come to visit was young Liza.
    Liza Harden weren’t a woman yet and she weren’t entirely white, but she was as pretty put together as any critter I ever saw, made me ache to look at her. I would have give up my left ear to see her stepping slow into the river without clothes on, see all that golden honey in the sun. It thickened my blood to think about that, even, and Henry was in the same fix I was, though he’d never dare say it. One look at each other and we’d look away, embarrassed, that’s how jittery and fired up that young girl made us from an early age.
    Henry’s mama was white, his daddy mixed, what some call redbone. High cheekbones, narrow features, looked more white than Injun and more Injun than nigra. One time Old Man Richard was carrying on about his own Injun ancestry, told Henry he looked like he might be Choctaw, too. Henry got more agitated up than I ever seen him, cause being a born stickler for the truth, he would choke telling a lie. Finally he whispered, “I ain’t no Choctaw, Mr. Richard. Chock-full o’ nigger is more like it.” Old Man Richard laughed and laughed. “Well,” he said, “best not let on about that to my Mary, son, cause she got you figured for a white boy with a drop of Indin, same as us.”
    Course Old Man Richard knew as well as I did that Henry might of said chock-full o’ nigger just to show Bill House that eating at the Hardens’ table hadn’t give him no wrong ideas about his place. Or maybe the whole bunch was leading on this white boy, come to think about it. First time in my life I ever felt like the outsider—ever try that? I didn’t care for it.
    In Chokoloskee, when I told the men what Henry Short said to Richard Harden, they laughed somewhat louder than I wanted, and right away they got it twisted all around: “Nigger Henry told that old mulatter,
Hell, no, you ain’t Choctaw, Mister Richard! What you are is chock-full o’ nigger, same as me!
” “No, no,” I told ’em, “that ain’t what he said!” Trouble was, I got tired of explainin, just grinned and went along with it, which is why they are laughin yet today about chock-full o’ nigger.
    Anyways, when Henry said them words, Earl jumps up so fast he spills his plate. “Well,
we
ain’t niggers in
this
family, boy, at least
I
ain’t,