The Whiskey Rebel

He stared at my transcript for a long time and then at me. “What does it all mean? There is some plot here, but I ca

“Neither can I,” I said. “As near as I can tell, there is a scheme to hurt Pearson, and consequently the bank. Somehow Duer is involved, but it is hard for me to determine if he is a primary actor or some sort of unwilling victim.”

“Yes, yes, yes. But that is nothing. The bank and Pearson and the rest be damned, Ethan. This is about you, somehow. Whoever these people are, they mock you, call you names, and plan to make Mrs. Pearson a whore.”

“Are you saying you think I ought to go to Lavien with this?”

“By no means,” said Leonidas. “This is yours, Ethan. This is your burden to bear, and you must see it through as you see fit. If there is a conflict between your needs and the Treasury’s needs, you may be sure Lavien will not give a fig for yours-or about Mrs. Pearson’s, for that matter. I say that with respect for him, for I do think him honorable, but his honor, his sense of duty, must put his service to Hamilton above service to you-or to Mrs. Pearson. You know it. Whatever is to be done, you must do it alone.”

“Entirely alone?”

“It is not as though I have a choice, but you know you may depend upon me.”

“And if you did have a choice?” I asked. “If I were to free you right now, would you continue to stand by me in this until the end?”

“You won’t,” he said.

“But if I did.” I don’t know why I chose to press the point at that moment, but his concern for me placed me upon the precipice of informing him that he was free already.

“I don’t know,” he answered earnestly. He met my eye and did not waver.

I appreciated his candor. How could I not? Yet he put me in a difficult position, for he was the only man I could trust entirely, and I could not do without him. So long as this crisis continued, I would have to keep the truth from him. He could not yet know he was a free man.

Leonidas sensed I was lost in thought and leaned forward to distract me. “What shall you do about the note? Do you plan to watch the tree?”

I shook my head. “It’s not practical. Someone would have to watch it at all times, and there are only two of us.”

“Then you’ll put it back before they discover you’ve taken it?”

“No,” I said. “I want them to know I’ve found it.” I took a fresh piece of paper and wrote out a short note to replace the one I took. My note said only, I am coming to find you. “Let them ponder that,” I said.

“What if they come to find you first?”

“Then they shall save me a great deal of trouble.”

I did not know if Hamilton would see me again. Once was charity, twice a nuisance; a third time might prove an outrage. I had no illusions about my reception, but then he could have no illusions about me. If I wanted to see him, I would see him. Perhaps I would wait for him on the street or visit him in his home. He knew me. He knew if I wished to speak with him, I would make it happen. For that reason, he admitted me right away.

He sat at his desk, which was covered with four or five high piles of neatly stacked papers. He had a quill in one hand and a near-empty inkpot by his side.

“I am very busy, Captain Saunders,” he said.

“So am I. It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

He set down the pen. “What can this be about? Mr. Pearson has returned, so I know you don’t visit me upon that score.”

“You know I do, and that Mr. Pearson’s return is not an answer but another question.”

“I seem to recall asking you not to involve yourself in this matter.”

“I recall that too, but you and I both know you did not mean it. You would much rather I ran an inquiry parallel to that of Lavien. You will yield far better results if you have two men competing for the same ends. I will not say you engineered this competition, but you ca

He looked at me directly. “No.”

“Of course you do. There is too much in the balance. Perhaps it is time for you to tell me why you wished Lavien to find Pearson in the first place. Why is he of interest to you?”

“It is a private matter.”

So he said, but I began to think it must be a public matter. There was no personal co

Hamilton blinked and looked away. “I suppose he may have.”

“How much?”

“The bank was, in its conception, my idea, and I take an interest in its operation, but I do not run the bank, and I do not take an interest in its day-to-day operations. I doubt that even Mr. Willing, the bank president, could tell you about individual loans without resorting to files. You ca

“No, I don’t expect you to know any possible borrower. I do, however, expect you know about this one. How much?”

He sighed. “He has borrowed fifty thousand dollars.”

“Good God, you give that much to a single individual?”

“It was for investment and development. You have seen how the city thrives under bank money. Pearson is a respected dealer in real estate, and he presented us with a specific plan for developing land to the west of the city.”

“But he hasn’t done it, has he? You received word that not only was Pearson not buying and developing land, he was losing the properties he already had. You don’t keep an eye on the day-to-day minutiae of investment, nor does the bank president, I’ll wager. No one was going out to Helltown to see if Pearson was developing it. He was a respected man of business, and it was safe to assume he was doing what he said. But then you receive word that his properties are being foreclosed, and you learn that no one knows where he is. Suddenly fifty thousand in bank funds may have vanished. Can the bank withstand such a loss?”

“Of course it can. It is a serious loss but there are systems built into the bank’s charter to enable it to weather defaulted loans.”

“Easily?”

“It is never easy.”

“It is never easy,” I said, “because what you fear most is Jefferson and his faction getting word of this. That is the issue, isn’t it? Your bank has just launched and endured a rocky first half year with wildly fluctuating share prices. Now, it will be said, it is granting loans to the personal friends of the bank president, loans that will not-ca

Hamilton nodded. “That is, indeed, what they will say. That is part of it.”

“There is more?”

“You will keep this quiet?”

“Of course.”

“There is also the method of the bank’s funding, the whiskey excise. Jefferson ’s faction will waste no time in saying that we tax the poor men of the frontier to pay for the irresponsible spending of the rich. That is what they will say.”

“And the truth?”

“The truth is that the Bank of the United States is a large bank that makes large loans, so of course it is of direct benefit to the rich. There are smaller land banks that benefit small landholders, and that is what they should do, but projects that benefit the rich also benefit others. Had Pearson done with the money what he was supposed to do, he would have built properties, which would have employed men and caused goods to change hands. Those buildings would have provided housing, space for shops and services, for the growth of the economy. That benefits all, rich and poor.”