The Whiskey Rebel

“Expanding the boundaries of our inquiry,” he said. “Keep your eye upon that building.” He pointed to a house three doors in from the corner, on the other side of the street.

“What shall I see?”

“Something interesting, I hope. I was afraid you might miss it, but this is the house belonging to the rough man, Reynolds. He lives there with a woman-his wife, according to the neighbors. I’ve not looked upon her, but everyone says the same thing-that she is the most extraordinarily beautiful woman they have ever seen.”

“Do go on.”

“I followed Reynolds here. He left after an hour, and I continued to follow him, but though he did not see me, he seemed to sense there was someone watching him, and I was forced to let him go. He returned later, and now he has another visitor, which is what I wanted you to see.”

“Who is it?”

“There are some things,” said Leonidas, “that a man must see for himself.”

We waited in the darkness. I wished I had taken the time for another drink before leaving, for it would have been pleasing to pass the time in a kind of numbness, though I suppose I achieved something like that anyway, watching the orange glow of Leonidas’s pipe flare and fade.

At last I saw silhouettes pass before the curtains of the front room. Then the door opened, and two men appeared against the dim interior light. Reynolds seemed to be almost a different person, for he bowed before the second man, whom he evidently considered his superior. I could not at first identify him, though he seemed familiar in his shape and stature.

The stranger came out of the house, walking with his shoulders stooped, his gait quick but not sprightly, like a man rushing to get indoors during a storm. He cast his gaze back and forth, as though wishing to make certain no one would see him, and then stepped out into the street. He kept his head down and walked with sharp lashing strides like the jerky thrusts of oars into water. Only briefly did he pass into a splash of lamplight, but in that instant I saw his face, hard and set in anger, or possibly despair. It was Hamilton.

I let out my breath in a long steady stream and waited for him to pass. Then I spoke in a whisper. “ Hamilton tells me he is on the outs with Duer, so why would he personally visit the home of Duer’s lackey?”

“It is about money,” Leonidas said. “ Hamilton handed Reynolds a heavy purse.”

Hamilton giving this man money? I had no idea what it meant, but for the first time since I’d taken on the search for Pearson, I began to feel unequal to the task before me.

I t is only natural to feel anxiety when circumstances are larger than a man’s ability to manage them. I learned this during the war, just as I learned that the only cure for such feelings is action. A man might not always be able to do all he must, but he can do something. There was no action for me to take, not right now, but at least there was always movement, and so, dismissing Leonidas, I walked through the streets of Philadelphia, keeping to the better neighborhoods, avoiding the taverns where I knew I might find drink to help me forget. I did not want to forget, I wanted to understand.

I had stumbled onto a dangerous situation, one I had no business involving myself in except that it concerned Cynthia Pearson, and that meant I had no choice. So what was it that I knew? I knew that Hamilton feared a plot against his brainchild, the Bank of the United States, an institution designed to invigorate the American economy, and which had set off a frenzy of reckless trading. The man in charge of inquiring into that threat, Kyler Lavien, was the same man who inquired into the disappearance of Cynthia’s husband. It would be foolish to imagine that these two things were unco

All these things were bound together, but that did not mean they originated from the same point. Another thing I had learned during the war was that unrelated threads become entangled because important men can be important in more than one sphere at a time. Hamilton ’s secretive dealings with Duer’s man might have nothing to do with the threat against the bank or Cynthia’s husband’s disappearance. On the other hand, just because these things might begin as unrelated didn’t mean they stayed that way, and it would be best to assume co

So I told myself as I returned to my boardinghouse. I walked with my head down, murmuring to myself like a drunkard, though I was perfectly sober. I felt it useful to speak aloud everything that troubled me, to give each difficulty some dimension in speech that I might comprehend it better. I hardly looked where I walked, for all that interested me was inside my mind. I was on the stairs to Mrs. Deisher’s house, lost in thought and strategies, when the fist struck me in the stomach.

My attacker must have been crouched, hiding in the shadows of the stoop, for I had already begun to climb to the door when I saw movement in the darkness, a shifting of dark clothes, a glimmer of reflected light upon a button, a pair of eyes, teeth behind lips pulled back in a grin or perhaps a grimace.

I had no time to react, only to see it coming, this human form uncoil, and when the blow struck, it struck hard. I felt my feet actually lift from the stairs and I fell backward, landing hard upon my arse. I fought not to fall over entirely, but the force of the blow drove my head down. My skull struck with a jarring force-an angry thud that sent pain halfway down my back-but I hit not brick but dirt, the little circle of earth surrounding a tree. The pain ran down in a spiked wave, followed by a sprinkling of silver lights, but I knew at once I had not taken a deadly blow. Even in that moment I felt a foolish relief that the damage was all to a place that would be invisible to others. It would not do to have further wounds upon my face.

Now all at once I saw what I should have seen before. The lamp outside Mrs. Deisher’s house was out. The lamps by the neighbors’ houses were out. Were I not so out of practice I would have sensed the ambush, but I could not undo what had been done. I could only move forward.

The dark figure-a big man, stocky, probably muscular, wearing a wide-brimmed hat; I could see no more-stood over me on the stairs, perhaps savoring his moment of advantage. He reached into his belt for something and held it up. In the dim light of cloud-covered moon and dim stars and distant lamplight I could see the faint twinkle of polished steel. It was a blade, and rather a long one. From where I lay, even with the wind blowing between us, I could smell him: the rank sourness of unwashed clothes, old sweat, and the peculiar acrid scent of wet, moldy tobacco.

I knew several things now. This man, whoever he was, had not come to kill me. Had his first blow to my stomach been made with that knife, I would now be dead or dying. The blade was to frighten me or to hurt me without killing me. Even so, I knew if I was not careful I might yet end up dead.

My head ached, and I felt a dull, painful heaviness in my gut, but I ignored it. The man loomed closer, only three or four steps away. I was on my back, propped up on my hands. He would think me helpless and at his mercy, but it wasn’t quite so.

Any encounter such as this one is like a game of chess. He had his moves to make and I had mine. We could go only certain ways. Each move creates a new series of possible countermoves. Most important, perhaps, victory goes not to the player who is stronger or more ready to attack but to the player who can see and anticipate the farthest into the future, who can map out the multiplying strands of possibility. This is what I told myself.