The Whiskey Rebel

“You tease me,” I said.

He looked me in the eye so I could see his earnestness. “I do no such thing, I promise you. You, on your farm, in isolation, have understood more about the Revolution and the new country than half our politicians and generals. We ca

“English novels are almost always about property,” I said. “Estates miraculously inherited or diabolically stolen. There are marriages, of course, but these marriages, regardless of protestations of affection, are ever about land and estates, holdings and rents, not about love, not really. I don’t want to write a novel about property. Here, in America, property is abundant so it is held cheap. It is not what it is in England: precious and scarce and hard to retain.”

Andrew stroked his chin and then nodded, as though listening to a voice only he could hear. “The American novel, if it is to be honest, must be about money, not property. Money alone-base, unremarkable, corrupting money.”

The moment he spoke, I knew he was quite right. I would write a novel about money. The notion contained such power over me that it was as though we were already married, and I took his arm and pulled him toward me. His brilliant suggestion, I knew, would be important, but I could not yet know that it would change everything.

Ethan Saunders

Cynthia Pearson had come to my home to ask for help. So many questions, so much confusion, and yet this fact stood out. This fact and one other-that it had been Cynthia I’d seen hurrying away from my house that morning. I was not a deluded fool dwelling pathetically on his past. The past, it seemed, was coming back for me.

I drained my whiskey and turned to Lavien. “Why were you following her?” I did not like the thought of someone so ready to slice off a man’s thumb slinking around in the dark after Cynthia Pearson.

His expression was calm and easy. “I have been looking for her husband, Jacob Pearson, but with no success.”

I remembered Jacob Pearson well. During the British occupation, I’d been in Philadelphia for nearly three months, attempting to infiltrate an enemy spy ring. Richard Fleet-my friend, my teacher, my fellow spy, the man who had recruited me into the business-had asked me to look after his daughter, then living in the city. He had not asked me to fall in love with her, granted, but these things often come unexpected.

During those months I’d met her future husband, Jacob Pearson, a successful dealer in properties, who managed to remain in the city, avoid the taint of royalism, and grow even more wealthy after the end of the war by snatching up properties from British sympathizers who were forced to flee. Pearson was perhaps five years older than I, not unattractive in person, and while he and I had never been friends, I had never had any reason to dislike the man. Not until circumstances forced me to flee Philadelphia, to leave Cynthia for her own happiness, and Pearson so successfully took my place.

“Why are you looking for him?” I asked Lavien.

“So I might speak to him,” he answered, holding my gaze a moment longer than he needed to, as if daring me to treat his answer as anything other than illuminating.

“Speak to him about what, Mr. Lavien?”

“Speak to him about things that do not concern you, Captain Saunders.”

“Once you start slinking about in the shadows, following people who come to visit me, it becomes my business, does it not?”

“No.”

I cleared my throat. “Well, you’ve quite thoroughly demonstrated your inscrutability, and now I know that if there is to be give-and-take between us, you wish to maintain always the upper hand, but you are going to tell me more of what you know, so let us not pretend otherwise. You came to find me, sir, and if you came to find me, it is because you want something from me, and since you shall not get it without telling me more, we might as well move forward to that part of the conversation.”

A faint smile crossed his lips. “For a beaten drunkard, you know your craft.”

I liked him for saying so. “Now, you work for Hamilton, and you want Pearson, and Cynthia Pearson herself is looking for me. Tell me what I need to know.”

“I can’t and won’t tell you why I want him. I have taken an oath of silence to reveal what I learn to none but Secretary Hamilton or the President, and I’ll not break that oath. I can tell you that the man is missing, and has been for several days. I believe that is why his wife wishes to speak with you. She knew you from the war, I believe.”

“Her father and I worked together. He was my friend.”

“I see,” he said, evidently seeing a great deal. He was no fool, this Lavien.

“You’ve already spoken to Mrs. Pearson, I imagine.”

“Of course,” Lavien answered. “She was kind enough to grant me an interview, but she claimed total ignorance of her husband’s whereabouts.”

“Did you believe her?” asked Leonidas. He and I had been together a long time. He knew what to ask.

Lavien nodded. “I did. Mrs. Pearson did not at all strike me as a woman dissembling, only as a woman uneasy. A woman whose husband is missing may very well display concern, but she struck me as agitated. I believe there were things upon her mind she did not speak of, but I doubt if she lied about knowing where to find Mr. Pearson.”

“So you followed her to my home tonight. Then what happened?”

“After she was admitted, she emerged a few minutes later in the company of Leonidas. She proceeded to return to her carriage, so I inquired of Leonidas the nature of her business.”

“And you told him?” I asked Leonidas.

“He serves the government,” he answered. “I saw no reason to withhold what was said, especially since he already knew many of the particulars. Mr. Lavien asked if he might accompany me to find you.”

“It was my hope,” said Lavien, “that, in your company, Mrs. Pearson might be more forthcoming and say things she had withheld from me.”

I took a moment to consider everything he said and to make myself comfortable with these surprises. Then I asked an obvious question. “Why does Cynthia believe herself and her children in danger?”

“That I ca

I pushed myself to my feet. Pain exploded within my head, and I had to grasp the side of the table to keep from falling over, but I steadied myself, and the worst of it soon passed. “Time to find out,” I said to Leonidas.

“May I join you?” asked Lavien.

“And what if I should say no?”

Lavien’s mouth twitched. “Better not to explore that possibility.”

I looked at him, prepared to let him know that his company was provisional, and if I did not like what he did or said, I should banish him at once. I said nothing, however, because I’d witnessed him in a flash of lightning, in the blink of an eye, overcome and disable three men. If he wished to join me against my will, I had no notion of how I might stop him.

B y the time we left, the rain had mostly abated and we walked through the muddy ruins of Helltown. The walk did me good, set my blood to flowing, worked the pain out of my system. I’ve never been particularly good at fighting, it being a rough sort of work best left to rough men, and I’d learned long ago how to handle a beating with equanimity. Also, I had more important things to consider. Cynthia was in some sort of trouble, and she came to me. I’d only been in Philadelphia for four months, following my flight from Baltimore and a misunderstanding involving a cousin or niece or some such. Cynthia somehow knew I now lived here, and in her time of trouble she’d turned to me. No pain could compete with my curiosity, my buoyant and irrational enthusiasm at the thought of having, once more, some contact with her. I was not so ready to disregard reason as to believe that somehow, against hope and propriety, we might be together. I only wanted to see her, to hear her, to have her near.