The Whiskey Rebel

A utumn turned to winter, and we spent our second cold season in the West. It was hard, for our fireplace and stove could sometimes do little to stave off the brutal western chill, but it proved easier than our first winter, for now the whiskey bought us food and blankets enough to increase our ease. Sometimes Andrew would join Mr. Dalton and Mr. Richmond in a search for desperate winter deer or in a far more ambitious bear hunt. This was a dangerous business-waking a beast from its winter sleep-but at least it yielded us fresh meat. During these excursions, Mr. Skye would often invite me to pass the time at his own home.

Visiting Skye’s house was always a delight, for he had the finest cabin in the settlement. It rose two stories, and having no one to spend upon but himself, he had troubled to furnish it, if not elegantly, then at least comfortably. Through a set of circumstances that were never entirely clear to me, he had purchased the lease for this land from a man who’d been desirous of leaving the area quickly, having incurred the anger of both Colonel Tindall and a band of Shawnee braves. Mr. Skye had come west with more ready cash in his pocket than most men, and he had been one of the few settlers in the region capable of buying the lease for any amount of real specie. Now, each season, he hired four or five workers-usually slaves lent out by their owners-to help him grow wheat and rye and Indian corn for whiskey and vegetables for his own use. He had, in addition, several cows and chickens and half a dozen pigs, and he worked hard each winter to keep them all alive.

While the others hunted-a sport for which Mr. Skye said he’d had no enthusiasm, even as a young man-I would sit with the white-haired gentleman, the only person with whom I could discuss my novel in any detail. I would not let him read any of it-not yet-but I would tell him of the story and its actors, and he would offer useful suggestions. He also presented me with roasted meats and fruit preserves and even eggs, all served with samplings from his precious store of wine. I will not pretend it was not good to taste such things again.

I am not foolish, and I also ca

One afternoon, perhaps a bit too warm with his excellent wine, I turned to Mr. Skye, who sat next to me, explaining to me his understanding of the evils schemed by Hamilton and Duer back east. His argument was a convoluted business, not Skye at his best, and while I wished to comprehend his meaning, my thoughts were too jumbled, my disposition too relaxed, to take in his words. Instead, and rather rudely, I said, “Do I remind you of someone, Mr. Skye?”

I had my answer at once, for he turned red and looked away, rubbing his leathery hands at the fire until he could regain himself. “Why do you ask it?”

I had been too free. I drank deep of my goblet of wine, to hide my discomfort, and took some pleasure in the feeling of numbness that spread through me. I finished what I had, and Mr. Skye refilled, and I could not say I was sorry. “It is only that you look at me with a certain recognition. You have from our first meeting.”

“Perhaps I recognize in you a kindred soul,” he offered.

“I have no doubt you do, but I think I recall to you someone from your past.”

“You are perceptive, which I’m sure you know.” He smiled at me, a sad sort of smile, and though I had always seen him as an old man, in an instant I had a glimpse of him youthful and beardless, charming if not precisely handsome. “When I was a young man at St. Andrew’s I had a co

I blame the wine, for I said what anyone would think but few would speak. “They say it was scandal that sent you west once more to our settlement.”

His face revealed nothing. “I am, perhaps, prone to scandal. It is a poor trait, I know.”

“I rather think it depends on the scandal,” I told him.

He blushed, which I own I found rather charming.

“You and I are friends,” I said to him, “and so I hope I may ask you something, as a man. I fear I ca

“Of course, Mrs. Maycott.”

“It concerns the attraction men feel for women, something I must understand for my novel.”

He took a sip of wine. “You have raised a subject about which I know a great deal.”

“I know about courtship and love. I understand these things. Your feelings for your lady in Fife, for example. What I ca

He sipped more wine. “I wonder if perhaps this is a conversation best not had.”

“We have come so far. We must finish. Do you not think so?” I do not know that I thought so. I knew the impropriety of the subject, but that was what I loved about it. Why should I not speak of what I like with a trusted friend? I knew I could depend upon his goodness, and I saw no reason why I should not take some small thrill in something as harmless as it was illicit. Even so, I knew there was a more selfish reason I pursued this subject. The people I wrote of in my novel held no propriety as sacred, and though their transgressions were far greater than anything I contemplated there in Mr. Skye’s home, I believed I needed to know some small measure of it. I wanted to know the thrill of doing what the world must condemn.

Mr. Skye nodded at me, and I took that as agreement, so I pushed forward. “Do all men desire women they neither know nor like? I understand attraction, being drawn to a face or a shape, but for women, I believe we must always engage in fancy with such an attraction. If we see a man we like, we imagine that he must be good and kind and brave or whatever thing it is we most treasure in a man. It seems to me men like Tindall and Hendry don’t trouble themselves with such fancies. They merely desire and wish to take. Are all men thus?”

Mr. Skye cleared his throat. “A man will always be drawn to a pretty woman, there can be no stopping that, but each man alone chooses how to shape that interest in accordance with his heart. If you will forgive a crude analogy, every hunter must have his dog, but when the dog is not hunting, some men will allow it to lie by the fire and feed it scraps from the table. Others will curse it and beat it if it so much as wanders where its master does not want it. Can you conclude from these two examples how men, taken as a whole, treat dogs? No, for though the desire to hunt with a dog may be near universal, the method of keeping the animal is different from one individual to another.”

“Do you mean that some men long for affection whereas other men yearn for conquest, and these are unrelated desires?”

“I think all men desire conquest of some sort, but the ideal differs from man to man. One might wish his affection returned. He has thus conquered the indifference a woman might feel toward him. Another prefers conquest in its basest form. In this, I think, women are different, which is only right. Men will yearn for any willing heart, so women must be the gatekeepers of desire in order to prevent a general anarchy.”