The Whiskey Rebel

“’Tis the whiskey we have been making,” answered Andrew.

Hendry drank back the mug. He looked inside it. “Tastes like the same pig shit to me. Looks a little different, but it don’t taste like nothing new. Maybe all you done was piss in some of the old sort. Is that it, Maycott? You been pissing in the whiskey? That’s what it tastes like, piss drink. Pisskey maybe you’ll call it. Be more honest that way.”

Mr. Skye let out a guffaw. “Spoken like a man too familiar with drinking piss. Is it your own or Tindall’s that you suck down so often?”

Something hot and dangerous began to form on Hendry’s wreck of a face.

I think Andrew must have understood that we found ourselves in a powder keg, and he wished to douse all fires. “Thank you for your critique,” he said. “I shall certainly keep it in mind as we make the next batch, which perhaps you will care to sample.”

“I would,” he said. “I would like to, thank you so very much, but I don’t think I’ll be able to on account that there ain’t going to be a next batch.”

“You’re done with it,” said Phineas.

“Think ye so?” Dalton took a step forward, and he was a fearsome sight as he did.

“It come from Colonel Tindall,” said Hendry. He picked at a scab on his flaking chin. “He don’t like it. He’s heard that Maycott here ain’t clearing the land none. It won’t serve, so you,” he said, jabbing a finger in Mr. Dalton’s direction, “you’ll make your pissy whiskey the way you used to. I don’t want to see nothing like what you done with Maycott again. I want to hear people complaining they can’t get it no more.”

“We will do as we please,” said Andrew. “You’ve had your say, and we’ve tolerated far more than we ought for the sake of keeping peace, but I won’t keep it forever. Get gone. I’ll hear no more of you.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. See, Colonel Tindall is your landlord, and he wants you clearing land. If you don’t, there’ll be trouble.”

“Tindall’s got his own distillery,” said Mr. Skye. “and he doesn’t much care for us eating into his business. That’s all there is to it.”

“You think so, is it?” Hendry asked, as though he knew something we did not.

“I shall tell you what I think,” I said, stepping forward, “should you care to hear a woman’s opinion. I did visit Mr. Brackenridge, as you say, for I wondered if a man who cheated once might not wish to try to cheat again. I wanted my contract examined very closely, to make certain we did nothing the law did not allow. There is nothing in it that grants Tindall the right to tell us what we must or must not do with our land or with our time.”

“Shut your mouth!” Phineas barked at me.

Dalton lifted his weapon, though he did not yet aim it. “That boy’s lost his mind, Hendry. Get him out of here before something untoward happens.”

I put a hand to my mouth. I did not want bloodshed, and I certainly did not want it in my home. And yet, I did not fear. I believed Mr. Dalton had the control not to lose sight of himself.

Hendry did not flinch. He put a hand on Phineas’s shoulder and spoke gently. “Let’s keep our heads, boy.”

He spoke as though everything were easy, and that made it possible for Phineas to believe it. It seemed that even vile Hendry had things to teach me.

He looked at Andrew and gri

“I think it’s time for you to run.” Mr. Dalton raised his gun.

Hendry shook his head, as though saddened by the depravity of those whom he tried to help. “I guess you’re go

The two left and closed the door behind them. The men began at once to speak to one another in excited tones, but I paid no attention. Of course I was interested, but I was distracted by the scene out the window. Directly before our cabin, Hendry was taking a leather strap to Phineas. He’d made the boy lift up his hunting shirt, and he whipped at the exposed buttocks. Phineas faced the window, but his eyes were tightly clenched. Then, at once, he opened them, and saw me watching. I ought to have turned away, but I did not. Phineas met my gaze, bold and unflinching, and, despite Hendry’s lashings, his manhood began to stiffen, and his eyes bored into me with pure malice. I should have looked away, spared him his humiliation and myself the raw nakedness of his fury, but I kept looking all the same. I found it terrifying and terrible, and yet it was the darkest, truest thing I had ever seen.

Ethan Saunders

As we walked to City Tavern, I explained to Leonidas what had happened with Miss Fiddler-that Pearson kept a simpleton as a whore, that the Irishman had been searching for Pearson there and had left him a note, and that the note had been picked up by Lavien, who seemed not only to know what I knew but to be well ahead of me. I should not have been surprised, given that he had been looking into this matter for weeks, but I was nevertheless disheartened by losing what I had imagined to be an advantage. On the other hand, if Lavien knew all I knew, perhaps he knew of this alleged threat against the bank, which meant I would no longer be burdened with keeping the secret.

We walked the distance back to the heart of the city and to Walnut Street, where we stepped under the enormous awning of the three-story City Tavern, the principal location in the city for business. No city in the United States had a genuine stock exchange, and perhaps taking its cue from the British model-where there was, indeed, a proper stock exchange, but all real business was transacted in nearby taverns and i

The City Tavern was but the most principal of trading taverns, where the most powerful and reputable speculators plied their trade, but one building was not enough these days to house the mania that had infected the city of late. At virtually any tavern within two or three blocks of the Treasury buildings, men might be found buying and selling securities, stocks, loans, and bank issues. The success of Hamilton ’s bank had created a frenzy for bank stocks of all sorts, and the trade in Bank of New York and Bank of Pe

I asked Leonidas to wait outside and stepped through the front door. In doing so, I thought I had stepped into the middle of a brawl, for in the front room some two dozen men were upon their feet, shouting most vociferously and waving papers at one another. Each man appeared to have with him a clerk, who sat by his side, frantically scribbling down the devil knew what upon pieces of parchment or in ledger books. Their pens moved with such rapidity that ink sprayed in the air like a black rain.