The Whiskey Rebel

I never heard the shot that killed my horse, but I heard the next one. It must have been only an instant after the one that brought me down, but I was already upon the ground, stu

I thought how foolish they had been to shoot at me first, but it did not seem to matter. Not yet. And then I remembered that they had a marksman among their number, one of Daniel Morgan’s men, and they’d shot our horses, not us. It could not have been an accident. We’d killed five of their men the day before, and they still took pains to keep us alive. But then again, it occurred to me they could not know. No one could have traveled faster than we had. If news was coming, it was not yet there.

Lavien was upon the ground some fifteen feet ahead of me, his horse atop his lower body. Blood-I presumed the animal’s-pooled around him. He did not move. Lavien lay in the muck of the King’s Highway, perhaps dead, perhaps dying. I was determined I would go to him, and was attempting to clear my head when I heard the voice.

“Can you stand?” asked the voice.

I knew not if he’d been standing there, ten feet behind me, all along, or if he’d approached while I lay in my daze. I could not see him easily in the glare of the sun, but I could determine that he was a large man, riding like an ancient warrior upon his beast. It was the Irishman.

“I asked if you can stand.”

“Lavien’s hurt,” I said. I pushed myself to my feet and found that yes, I could stand. I was dizzy and my head ached, and I wished to Christ I had someone or something to lean against, but I would not tell him that. I wiped at my bloody nose with my sleeve. It bled but was not broken.

“He’s hurt,” I said again.

“We’ll see to him,” the Irishman answered. Dalton.

There must have been other men, men who used the glare of the sun and my own disorientation against me, for a hood came down over my head, and I felt rough hands grab me and begin to tie my wrists together behind my back. Hands moved me so a tree was to my back, and I was made to sit. The blood still ran from my nose, and it trickled over my lips.

From a distance I heard voices. They said, “His leg is broke,” and “We’ll need a litter,” and “To the house.” I heard Dalton’s Irish accent, and I heard another man who sounded like a Scot. I thought, It’s still early. If we get to Philadelphia by ten or eleven o’clock, we might yet salvage all, but I did not know how that could happen. I was dazed and bound and hooded. Lavien, it seemed, had broken his leg, and what was I without Lavien? I was a mind without a body, an arm without a fist.

Time passed, I knew not how quickly or slowly, but I felt its agonizing, excruciating pace. I feared not for myself. These people wanted us alive-or at least had no will to kill us. What was life to me, though? We had done what we had done because Lavien believed, believed to his soul, that the survival of the country depended upon our arriving in Philadelphia in time for Hamilton to quiet the markets. He’d set aside his humanity, murdered a helpless man, because he believed if he did not get to Philadelphia in time, Duer’s ruin would be the spark to ignite the destruction of a new fragile nation. I could not simply allow myself to be held, to live passively while the forces of destruction won out.

At last I felt hands lifting me to my feet. They were soft hands, and I smelled the flowery scent of female flesh. “Come, Captain Saunders,” said Mrs. Maycott. “Let’s come this way.”

“Lavien,” I croaked. I was thirsty but would not ask for drink.

“He’s hurt,” she said. “His horse fell on his leg. It’s broken, but Dalton says it’s a clean break. He knows a bit of surgery from the war, and from the West too. He’s already set the bone, which he says will heal well enough in time. They’ve borne him back to the house.”

“What house?” I walked slowly, as she guided me, daring to trust her leadership.

“It’s not half a mile east, by the river. It’s lovely, actually.”

“What do you want with us?”

“As our men in New York seem not to have detained you, we must do it ourselves. We only want to keep you as our guests,” she said. “Until, perhaps, this evening, when all will be too late for Hamilton. Then you may go.”

I said nothing, which she seemed not to like. She said, “There were two groups sent to stop you. Five men in all. How did you get past Mr. Whippo and the rest?”

I shook my head. “Never saw them. Must have outrun them without knowing it.”

I heard skepticism in her voice but did not pursue it. “You might have outrun Whippo’s men, but what of Mortimer? He and his partner should have intercepted you in New Jersey.”

I shook my head. “Never saw them.”

She sighed. “I suppose all will out. For now, let us get you to the house.”

I did not answer. There was nothing I could say.

We walked and walked and then the dirt, made treacherous by rocks and malevolent tree roots, gave way to packed gravel. Our feet crunched along this for a few minutes, and then Joan led me up a set of steps, and I heard the sound of a door opening. Now I went up one flight of stairs and then another. I sniffed the air, trying to learn something of my surroundings, but I could smell nothing but the wetness of the sack and my own blood.

I heard another door open, and then I was pressed down in a chair. The door closed, and a lock turned. My hood came off.

I was in a small room, empty of furniture except for the chair upon which I sat. Marks on the floor and walls suggested that the room had previously contained more furnishings and wall hangings, but these were now gone. I could not help but wonder if they’d been removed for my sake, for fear I should turn a chair or a portrait into a deadly weapon.

Before me stood Joan Maycott, looking pretty in a gown of pale pink with a white bodice. She smiled, and perhaps it was the sunlight that streamed through the windows, but I saw the lines about her eyes. For the first time she looked like a woman past her youth.

“Oh, look at you.” She gently wiped at my face with her handkerchief. The fabric felt hard and rough and hot.

“So, this is it,” I said. “This is what you were after all along. You wanted to ruin Duer, and you made me help you.”

“Duer is evil,” she said, as she wiped blood from my upper lip. She had a gentle touch. “He deserves ruin.”

“And the bank?”

“The bank in an instrument of oppression,” she said. “Its shares will collapse in the coming panic, and they shall never recover. Hamilton gave birth to his whiskey tax to fund the bank without giving a single thought to the damage it would do-that it does yet.”

“And what of the country itself?” I asked. “Have you thought of that?”

“I’ve thought of little else,” she said. “I’m a patriot, Captain Saunders, just like you. This country began in a flash of brilliance, but look what has happened. The suffering of human chattel ignored by our government, a small cadre of rich men dictating our national policies. In the West, men die-they die, sir-as a consequence of this greed. This is not why my husband fought in the Revolution. I suspect it’s not what you fought for either. Now I fight to change it.”

“And what if something worse comes from the chaos?”

“Then the world will have to wait for just governance,” she said. “Better anarchy than an unjust nation that masquerades as a beacon of righteousness. That would be worse than outright tyra

“Well,” I said. “That is certainly interesting, and you clearly have the better of me. I wonder if you would consider untying me, and if I could impose upon you for some food and drink. If I am to be your prisoner, I should like at least to be a comfortable one.”