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| Saint Sebastian River Bridge [Click image to call up all published instalments] |
Monday,
June 7, 1915
Always an early riser, John woke in the inner cell Monday morning just after dawn and heard the Sheriff and his day crew shuffling in, passing a quiet word here and there with the boys on the night shift heading home.
Officer Harry Lee showed up after about fifteen minutes with John’s breakfast and some interesting news. John ate bacon and eggs from the diner over at 12th and Avenue G, the same place the unmarried officers and deputies ate breakfast. Word was Sheriff Hardie had bought breakfast for everybody, both the lawmen and the inmates, every morning since the shootout. Man did seem to have a way of calming folks down.
John hadn’t liked him parading Bob’s body around like that, but he figured he’d have done the same, in the Sheriff’s boots. The fact it had probably saved his life might, John admitted to himself, have entered into his calculations on that subject. Lee said he’d asked Hardie if it wouldn’t be a good idea to have an officer sitting outside John’s cell, and the Sheriff, as Harry expected, had put him on the job.
“Figured I’d let you know what come in the mail this mornin’.”
“The mail? For me?” |
Harry was grinning, shaking his head. “Not exactly…”
Turned out that Kid Lowe, of all God’s half-literate children, had written a letter to Sheriff Dan Hardie, a letter that somehow skated a line between threatening and cajoling, concerning John. Officer Lee started to read it to him, and although John knew he didn’t mean anything by it, it irritated him that the man would think he was unlettered.
“I can read,” he said sullenly, and put out his hand.
Harry looked hurt but handed the letter over, and John was contrite.
“I’m sorry, Harry, you’ve been good to me. I just feel like hell about my brother, and them other folks too, if you can believe it.”
Somehow, Harry Lee thought, I do believe it. Some men were like a ’gator, or a rattler. They didn’t really mean you no harm, but they’d still kill you if you got in their way. It was just their nature. That did not change the fact, he considered, that you still killed that ’gator or snake if you could. That was in our nature, too.
John shook out the half-page of what looked like a schoolkid’s practice paper and read.
Dear Sir,“Well I’ll be God damned…”
We were in your city at the time one of our gang, young Bob Ashley, was brutally shot to death by your officers and now your town can expect to feel the result of it any hour. And if John Ashley is not fairly dealt with and given a fair trial and turned loose simply for the life of a God-damn Seminole Indian we expect to shoot up the hole God-damn town regardless of what the results might be. We expect to make our appearance at an early date.
Signed, Kid Lowe
Harry looked pained. “Please, son,” and John put up a hand and nodded. He knew Harry didn’t cotton to taking the Lord’s name in vain, and, tell the truth and shame the Devil, he didn’t really, either.
“Sorry, Harry, I swear. It’s just, this is crazy. They wouldn’t do this! Frank, Ed, Pa, hell the last thing they’d want is another shootout.”
Harry Lee put his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands and leaning in close. “You got to think about somethin’. You cain’t say you didn’t know, this time.”
John’s head snapped back in alarm. “It was you what just told me! How the…” but Lee grabbed him by the arm, scowling, and he shut it.
Lee checked that no one was listening |
John sat back, frowning, thinking. His eyes went wide. “So, they must not think they got a very good case against me for Desoto Tiger, do they? Otherwise, why try for another’n?”
It was Harry’s turn to sit back, thinking, this boy wasn’t slow, that was for damn sure. But Harry wanted his moment, and was almost smug, so John let him talk.
“For, as this Lowe fella puts it, a ‘God-damned Seminole Indian’?”
John was a bit surprised an ol’ Bible-thumper like Harry would use that term, but Lee was shaking his head.
“No, son, they sure as shootin’ do not. Except for the killin’s, no white jury would have ever convicted you on it, in my way a’ thinkin’. I truly don’t think they would even now. Of course, you’d have to get your trial moved, over to Naples or maybe Jacksonville. No way you’d get a fair trial here, and any sane judge oughta know it. You’d best just hope you’re right, and your folks think twice about doin’ this.”
Apparently Harry Lee cared less for niggers and Indians than he did for white bank robbers.
John wasn’t surprised, it was a pretty common attitude in south Florida. He himself had never seen the sense in hatin’ somebody he didn’t know. He’d never been robbed, beaten, shot at or swindled by a black man or an Indian, but the number of white men who had done such, or tried, he couldn’t recall. Some of ’em were dead as a result of their transactions with John Ashley. Those, he remembered.
John remembered something he’d meant to ask Harry if he got the chance. “Say, wasn’t there some kind of explosion that day, the day Bob…?”
Harry nodded, “Yeah, a gas storage tank over to the County Barn blew up, right about then. Nobody knows how. Somebody went around shooting out windows, too. What about it?”
“Anybody hurt?” |
Lee took off his wide-brimmed hat and set it in his lap. “No, just a bunch of poor county workers can’t work until they set up a new gas farm.”
John considered for a while. He set down the now-empty breakfast tray on the floor, and Harry slid it out under the door with a foot. “This has to be just that dumbass Chicago fuck, this Kid Lowe. If his brains was dynamite, he couldn’t blow his damn nose. Maybe Shorty Lynn too, but nobody in the family, Pa wouldn’t let ’em. Not Laura ner Clarence , ner Roy Mathews neither. Fer damn sure not Al Miller, or my nephew. Has to be just Lowe.”
Harry cocked his head. “Nephew?”
 |
| “Handsome” Hanford Mobley circa 1924 |
John could see plainly that Harry Lee had a touch of hero worship in his soul; when he’d said “the business,” Harry had almost preened, as if he was now an “insider.”
He’d seen it plenty before, had literally driven through towns whose bank they had just robbed, showing off the cash, and had crowds cheer them like a fourth of July parade. Although he never tried to take advantage of it, it sort of came with the territory, and provided an impressive range of benefits. Like cigarettes in jail.
Harry took out a pack of Fatimas, shook one out for John, and they lit up. After smoking companionably for a few minutes, John asked, “So what are they gonna do?”
Lee blew smoke from the corner of his mouth and said, “A’ course, they’re gonna step up patrols, put extra men out, and keep lookouts on all the roads into town. There ain’t that many, if you c’n believe it.”
John threw his head back and brayed like a mule, pounding his thigh.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Lee asked.
John choked it off, took a grinning pull on his fag, blew it slowly out. He looked up at Officer Lee sideways. Guess I’m gonna look at ever’body sideways from now on, with just one fuckin’ eye, John thought wryly.
“There’s a hell of a lot more than you think, my friend,” and at this he reached out and patted Harry on the knee.
Sitting back smugly, John asked, “How d’ya think we’ve got in and out so much without gettin’ caught? There’s at least fifty ways to drive, high and dry, right the fuck out of Miami and di-rectly into the Everglades. And I know every, ah, damn one of’em.”
He shook his head, still smiling. “I bet Handsome knows even more.”
| Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens |
Roger, where do you find those photos? And how do you even know where to look?
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