Old Watson's Place, Deep Water: A Parable

Old Watson's Place, Deep Water




A Parable




Stanhope and DeVilliers had been tasked with the removal. "Put some barbecue in it," the Foreman had told them. "The navvies will be here at five sharp to knock down the place." Stanhope had saluted with two fingers. The weather had been fine and Stanhope would as lief; Burrage and them were stuck on road duty and he had seen it. He and DeVilliers had things easy compared to those poor bastards. The chiggers and no-see-ums were dreadful and Burrage's face had looked like the ass of one of the doxies they'd run the week before. That had been DeVilliers' education, the sort that he had promised when they first met over beer and tank whisky at the grocery on the corner. DeVilliers had gone bust in one of the gold camps and they shared road duty for a time. Burrage had said "He is dumb as a fucking rock but he works hard and he respects his elders in every way."




In Stanhope's view he extended the respect, perhaps, to those undeserving; the doxy old Rose had paired with the boy stole a twist of tobacco along with her fee. DeVilliers had drunkenly challenged him to a duel when he recommended a right-thinking plan of redress. He could only shrug and talk gentle to the young imbecile; what else could you do with a horse that was spooked? DeVilliers, too, was powerful, and though Stanhope knew he would finally have the best of a scrap, his fee might have been considerable, in a cracked jaw or missing teeth, perhaps even a loosened eye.




The cabin belonged to some old timer, said to be a pioneer and even written up in the dailies. Lodge had read him one of the items. That was Lodge, harking back. Mostly Stanhope just did not have time. There was barely time to sample all the doxies and drink all the tub whiskey and gin and work on top of it, let alone hark back to some skeleton that fucked an indian once. Those old timers knew how to clear a forest, he would give them that. No small thing with a hatchet and maybe a double-bitted axe. A forest like this one, marching up and down the gullies with the mud like slick black shit in the wintertime, the chiggers and the poison oak. There was reasons he was a townsman.




The cabin, too, was still snug after all these wet winters. The air was sweet and did not smell of mildew like some he had seen. "Lookee here, DeVilliers, gut on the widows. Ain't that something?" DeVilliers looked at the yellow squares. "He didn't need to see himself all the time like we do," the young man said. Stanhope grunted. "You could stand to see yourself oncet in a while," he said drily. "Today, fr' instance. You look a fright." DeVilliers smiled. "It was that damn' tub gin you gave me," he said. They hoisted an old chiffonier. "I keep tellin' ya, DeVilliers," Stanhope grunted, "It ain't the liquor. You just haven't cased your stomach yet. You get a good casing you can eat and drink anything. Look at me." They shuffled over the threshold. "I try not to," DeVilliers said into the side panel. "Talk about frights."




They tipped it into the wagon, not too gently. "You just jealous 'cause I'm such a handsome devil," Stanhope said. DeVilliers shrugged. "If you say so, Stanhope." Stanhope squinted at him. "You ain't no catch. Lookee here." the older man took DeVillier's arm. "Lookit my nose. That is a Roman nose. That is the nose all them East Coast sculptors chase after for their commissions." DeVilliers peered at it. "That is a broken nose, Stanhope. Didn' that doxy bust it with a chair at the grocery?" Stanhope made a noise in his throat and swept his hand down in a gesture of final, irretrievable disgust. "You just a fillistine, that's what you are. You just--" DeVilliers pointed at the ground. "Look there, Stanhope," he said. "It must have fallen from the chiffonier."




Stanhope picked it up. "Oh yeah, you're right. That's who he was, Watson." DeVilliers stood near. "Watson you said?" Stanhope handed him the picture. "Yeah, Watson. The old timer Lodge told me about. I just remembered that was his name." DeVilliers gazed at the picture. The man was standing in front of his cabin with a small, dark woman with a round, gentle face but fierce eyes. "That musta been his wife," Stanhope said. "Indian woman." DeVilliers sat on a stump, his forearms on his knees and both hands on the photo. For a moment Stanhope thought he might weep. "Say, DeVilliers, what's wrong?" DeVilliers would only look at the photo. Then he spoke, after a long silence.




"I knew him," he said. "The old man fought under Little Phil at Chickamauga. He liked to ride into town and see the wharf, the barques with their deliveries for the grocery. I always thought it so strange he liked the noise and carts and shit in the gutters, an old-timer like him. The first time I saw him I was afraid of him. But he made friends with me-- I was just a boy-- used to buy me penny candy and once he showed me how to tie a fly. Damn, but I haven't thought of him in years. He was a fine old man." Then DeVilliers let the picture fall. He strode to the porch and slapped his hand against a log post. "You mean this is all that left of him? And the navvies are tearing it down?" Stanhope picked up the photo. "Well look here, DeVilliers--"




DeVilliers turned to him. His face was twisted. "Well fuck, Stanhope, he'll be gone, he'll be all gone!" Stanhope could only stare at him. DeVilliers never used such language around him. DeVilliers rushed to the edge of the clearing and kicked a tree. Good God, he got some bad gin, Stanhope thought, he's got the brain fever and any minute he'll keel over dead. "And the- some East Coast prig'll be eating oysters on his old place!" DeVilliers kicked the tree again. Now he was shouting. Stanhope was glad they were alone. "Some- East Coast fuckass!" Then Stanhope was mortified to see the boy start crying. He crossed the yard. "Come on now, son," he said. "It's gonna happen to us all sometime. Look, I'll keep his photo safe." The man put his hand on the other's shoulder. "He'll not be forgotten." Stanhope looked at him sideways. "You all right, DeVilliers? You don't have the clap or some plague, do ya?" DeVilliers sighed and looked into the forest marching up the hills and over the hogbacks and on and on. "I love this place," he said. To Stanhope it was what a lunatic would say. He watched DeVilliers closely the rest of the day.




They cleared the place in record time.




That night Stanhope had a dream: He was in a canoe, laying down, and DeVilliers was weeping and packing old clothes, twists of tobacco and pictures of all the doxies he'd fucked in around him. He was twisting from side to side against the truck and cursing, asking DeVilliers just what the hell he thought he was doing, but DeVilliers would only weep and keep packing. Pretty soon there was so much truck he couldn't move. Then DeVilliers pushed him out into the river and he watched the forest and the barques and the stores glide by. On a point stood old Watson and his wife. The wife just stared at him but Watson gave him a salute. Then he saw a train and there were fireworks over the river. Then he passed under a bridge, a massive thing with feet of stone and arms of steel, bigger than any thing-- any building, any ship, any thing-- that he'd seen in his life. Over the bridge drove buggies without horses, buggies pulled by phantoms, and the drivers sat inside of them where the passenger would sit with their hands on a thing like a boat's wheel but it had no spokes. Then he saw ships made of iron, so big they were like floating forts, and the men like ants, and then the ocean and the sun like a drop of amber. "This all there is?" he said. There was no answer.




The next day was Saturday. He met Burrage at the grocery and they got started early. "They found the squaw I heard tell," Burrage told him, when talk turned to Watson's old place. "They was a headstone and everything," he said contemptuously. "You feature that?" Stanhope gave him a hard look. "You just watch your mouth, Burrage," he said.




Burrage snorted but said no more about it.