The Whiskey Rebels

by David Liss

  What skills were they? I wished to know. Why, I was told, my ability to lie and smoke out a liar. My ability to slip across enemy lines and then back across our own, all without detection. My ability to ingratiate myself with women, with strangers, with men who thought, only a moment before, they found me most detestable. In short, I was a man like Fleet himself, and General Washington wanted me. He wished to make me, the son of a Westchester landowner, into a spy.

  I was young and brash and proud of my honor and was not eager to adopt a way of life scorned by gentlemen as disreputable, but Fleet was persuasive. He convinced me that I could not be but who I was, so I might as well be that in the service of my country. Yes, he said, spies have long been despised by gentlemen, but was this war not proof that the world was changing, and who could not say that in its aftermath spies would not be embraced as heroes? The first step, he said, was for us to see ourselves as such.

  It was all as he had said. We became heroes, up until the time we were disgraced, up until the time Hamilton had broadcast that disgrace. That man had ruined my life and essentially killed Fleet. And now here was Fleet’s daughter, afraid and desperate. I felt the note that had been slipped to me and swore an oath to myself too primal, too raw, to find form in words.

  I walked north to Walnut Street and turned west, moving through increasingly thick crowds of people: men of business, men of trade, women about their household duties and less savory business as well. Carts moved this way and that, hardly knowing how to get past one another and the pedestrians and the animals that crowded the street. In such chaos, I might perhaps have risked taking out my letter and reading it, but I did not do so. I dared not look back to demonstrate that I searched for someone upon my trail, but I felt him there.

  Once I reached Fifth Street, I turned north and walked quickly up the stairs and through the front door of the Library Company building, directly across from the Statehouse. It was a new building, envisioned by an amateur architect who had won a design contest, and it was a glorious thing to behold. The massive redbrick structure boasted two stories, columns, and, above the front door, a statue of the late Benjamin Franklin, the library’s founder, in classical garb.

  Inside, all was marble and winding staircase and books. Books upon books upon books lined the walls, for the Library Company, though a private organization, had become the official library of the Congress and so considered it its business to acquire virtually everything. Once through the doors I was struck by its stately appearance. In the lobby a half dozen or so men, all of whom were finely dressed, turned to look at my unpleasant intrusion upon their cerebral seclusion.

  I had not long, and I hoped it was not a lengthy message or I should run out of time. I turned to the gentlemen staring and said, “Yes, I know I am too unseemly to be here. I do not wish to stay. Give me but one minute.”

  So saying, I took from my pocket the note and broke the still-soft wax seal. Inside, in a hasty hand, I found the following:

  Captain Saunders,

  I am sorry to have sent you away last night, but I had no choice. My house and my person are watched, which is why I could not see you. It has not long been so, and I can only wish you had responded to one of my earlier notes, but there is no helping that now. The die is cast. You must not come again or attempt to contact me. I do not know who they are or what they are or what they want, but they are very dangerous. My husband is missing and I believe in danger, and that danger may extend to me and my children. I wish I could tell you more, but I know nothing other than that it has something to do with Hamilton and his bank. I beg of you to help me. Find my husband and discover the danger to which he has exposed himself and his family.

  I have no right to ask this of you, but I know of no one else, and if I did, I would still want you, for I know of no one better. For the sake of the memory of my father, please help me.

  Yours &c,

  Cynthia Pearson

  Nothing could have been more shocking. Jacob Pearson missing, and Mrs. Pearson herself in danger, her house watched? A connection to Hamilton and the Bank of the United States. Most troubling of all, however, was the fact that she had sent me notes previously. I had not received any, which meant someone had intercepted them. I could not contact her again, that much was clear, for I would not expose her to more danger, not for the world, and yet I must help her. I knew not how to do it, but I must.

  I crossed Fifth until I reached the grounds behind the Pennsylvania Statehouse, across Walnut Street from the jail and, perhaps more ominous for me, the debtor’s prison. The Statehouse offered handsome gardens, full of trees, even if they were devoid of life in the heart of winter. With no better thing to do, I brushed snow off one of the benches and sat alone in the growing gloom, the cold jabbing its sharp needles into the armor of my tattered clothes and the dimming warmth of drink. The park was near empty, but not entirely. Here there was a small group of boys playing with a lopsided leather ball that made an unappealing wet noise whenever it struck the ground. There an old man watched his trio of dogs folic. Closer to the Statehouse, only yards away from the courtyard where this nation declared its liberty, a young man attempted to obtain the liberty of a young lady’s petticoats. Behind me, on Walnut Street, a steady stream of pedestrians and carriages passed. I was tired, and despite the cold, I thought I might fall asleep.

  “Captain Saunders. A moment, if you please, sir.”

  I opened my eyes and saw before me a tall man with long reddish mustaches and a wide-brimmed hat that sat high enough upon his crown to reveal his apparent baldness. He spoke with the thick brogue of an Irishman, and was—I guessed from the lines upon his face—perhaps fifty years of age, but a rugged fifty. He had the look of a man used to hard labor, physically imposing but not menacing.

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  “We have not yet met,” answered the Irishman. “But I’ve a feeling we’re to become excellent friends. May I sit?” He gestured toward the bench.

  I nodded and moved to give him more room, but I was on my guard and already thinking through my options.

  He removed the rest of the snow, sat next to me, and reached into his beaver coat. “I am told that you are a man who enjoys whiskey.” From the coat came a corked bottle, which he handed to me. “It is the best produced upon the Monongahela.”

  I pulled out the cork and sampled the contents. It was, indeed, quite good. It had a depth of flavors I had not known before in the drink, a kind of sweetness I found surprising and pleasing. It hit my empty gut hard, though, and a warm feeling built there to near hotness. I bent over hard, holding out the bottle so as not to spill it.

  “Too strong for you, lad?” the Irishman asked.

  I shook my head, once I’d sat upright again. “’Tis a mite powerful, but that’s not it. The stomach is a bit queer these days.”

  “Powerful or no, I can see by your face that you enjoy it.”

  “It’s good stuff, quite unlike any I’ve had before.” I took another drink, bending over only slightly this time. “Now, tell me who you are and what you know of me.”

  “I am an admirer,” he said. “I have heard of your acts during the war.”

  My guard was up. “Those who have heard of me are generally not admirers.”

  “I, for one, do not believe the charges leveled against you. I know the taint of falseness when I hear it, and I know a patriot when I see one. You see, I fought in the war myself, sir, serving under Colonel Daniel Morgan.”

  I was now interested. “You were at Saratoga?”

  He grinned. “I was, lad. In the thick of it, with Morgan’s riflemen. Have no doubt of it.”

  “I congratulate you, then. And I think, as one soldier to another, you perhaps can tell me what you wish of me.”

  “I know you have come upon hard times. I believe I can help you.”

  “And how can you do that?”

  “You require money.”

  I looked at the Irishman. He had a ready grin and the sor
t of face that most men would find easy to trust, but I was on my guard. “You want to give me money? For what?”

  “You are concerned about Mr. Pearson, though I know he is no friend of yours. Mrs. Pearson may be another matter, and perhaps for her sake you would search for her husband. I want you to understand that he is in no danger. None of them are. We only wish for you to no longer trouble yourself with Mr. Pearson’s whereabouts. If you do that, you shall find many of your own difficulties will be gone. They will vanish like smoke. Mr. Pearson is in no danger, but it is vital that you not pursue him.”

  “You convinced Mrs. Pearson that I ought not to pursue him,” I said.

  “She understands what is at stake.”

  “And what is at stake?”

  “The future of republican virtue,” he said. “Nothing less, sir, nothing less. Do you want to stand with the virtues of the Revolution, or do you submit to Hamiltonian greed?”

  “I am no Hamiltonian,” I said, not failing to note the significance of his name appearing in this conversation.

  “I thought as much,” he answered. “I can tell you little, but there will have to be trust between us, as we are both brothers of the Revolution and patriots.”

  “Mrs. Pearson is concerned for her husband, and perhaps even for her own safety. You would need to convince me that her family is in no danger.”

  “I promise you, he is unharmed. They are in no danger from us.”

  “And yet you watch her, threaten her.”

  “Never,” he said. “We would do no such thing.”

  “And you have seen fit to have me cast from my own home.”

  He shook his head. “I have heard of that but, again, it is not our doing. You have enemies unconnected to us, Captain Saunders; you would be better served cultivating friends. Think on it. Why should we harm Mr. Pearson? We do not seek to harm you, only to aid you in your current embarrassment. Were we villains, were we interested in doing violence to those who oppose us, we could simply kill you.”

  “I’m hard to kill,” I said.

  He laughed. “No one is any harder to kill than anyone else, and that’s the truth.”

  I knew otherwise but saw no point in saying so, not when I might offer a demonstration. I took a deep drink of the whiskey and then doubled over once more, coughing and gagging. From the corner of my eye, I could see the Irishman looking away politely, pretending to watch a pair of antic squirrels rather than listening to the prolonged sounds of my retching.

  At last I sat up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and took another drink of whiskey. This time, I remained upright.

  “You see?” I said to him. “Hard to kill.”

  He took from his pockets a piece of paper sealed with wax. “You need only trouble yourself with these matters no longer. Fifty dollars in notes to do nothing. A good bargain.”

  I held out my hand, and he gave me the paper, which felt warm in my ungloved hand. “Suppose I take the notes and continue to look for Pearson?”

  “You do not want to do that, Captain.”

  “Oh?”

  “We are not people to cross.”

  I put the notes into my coat pocket. Why should I not? I was not a person to cross either.

  “I do not fear you, Irishman, and I believe you have erred significantly. The lady is frightened, for her husband and for her children, and I believe she is frightened of you. I shall find out who you are and what you’ve done with Pearson, and put an end to whatever you plan.”

  The Irishman folded his hands together, and a ghost of a smirk appeared under his orange whiskers. He was very confident, that one. “You’ll do all that, will you? Have another drink, lad. Vomit once more upon the ground. That’s what you’re good for now, and not much else. You won’t help your lady friend by pretending to be what you were before you became a ruin of a man. Now, if you’ve no mind to behave sensibly, agree to my terms or return to me my notes.”

  “And what shall happen if I don’t choose to?”

  He grinned again, showing me a mouth full of even brown teeth. “Look across the street, upon the roof of the prison, near the cupola. There is a sharpshooter, another of Daniel Morgan’s men, so you know what that means. You’re in his sights, and if I give the signal, or if he thinks me in trouble, you’ll be heading home tonight without your head. If you had a home to go to, I should say.”

  I looked over my shoulder and saw, upon the prison roof, the unmistakable flash of sunlight against metal. I estimated the distance at near 150 yards. If the rifleman was good enough to have served with Daniel Morgan, I doubted not he could make the shot.

  Only the day before, I had surrendered; I had regarded death as a thing of no consequence. Now I wished to live, and I was fully alive. These men, whoever they were, with their schemes and bribes and intrigues and efforts to buy my loyalty—and, most insidiously, their willingness to underestimate me—had awakened a slumbering dragon, who would now unfurl to show his might.

  I turned away from the prison building. “You think me an idiot, Irishman. Whoever you are, whatever you do, you crave secrecy. That is why you do not wish me to seek out Pearson. Go ahead. Signal your man that he must kill me over fifty dollars. You see I do not move.”

  His face darkened. “You’ve made a mistake. There are more of us than you suspect, and we are in places you would not credit. We are determined, and we cannot be defeated.”

  “Then you will have to know triumph with fifty fewer dollars.” I rose from the bench and strode away. Alas, for form’s sake I could not watch what happened next, though I heard it clear enough. The Irishman pushed to his feet and attempted to pursue me, but he took only half a step before something suddenly jarred him, shortened his step. A moment of disorientation, in which he could not account for all that happened, and then his falling upon his face. I heard the satisfying thump of aging Irishman upon snowy earth.

  It had been but a little thing to pretend to vomit while encircling my piece of twine around his ankles. It would not keep him entangled for long, but it would be enough.

  I now looked back to see him force himself up and back to the bench that he might examine my little trick. His hat had fallen off, and I saw he was indeed hairless, his skull like a tanned and leathery egg. He dusted the snow off said hat and replaced it. It did not afford him the dignity he had hoped.

  “I believe you’re the one who has made the mistake, Irishman,” I said. “I fear neither pain nor death. The only thing in the world I feared this morning was that I should not be able to find thirty dollars anywhere in this world.” I took out from my coat the gathering of notes and held it up. I waved it at him. I mocked him with it. “Now I have twenty dollars to spare. So get gone under cover of your sharpshooter, I care not. I’ll find Pearson and then I’ll find you.”

  I actually did not get to the end of that sentence, for at some point around I’ll find Pearson a third party crashed into my back, knocking me to the ground so that I struck my head. Once I was down, the Irishman cut himself free while his friend pulled the banknotes from my hand, and the two men ran off, leaving me down in the snow, cold and despondent, happy only that he had left me his very good bottle of whiskey.

  Joan Maycott

  Spring 1789

  We were told that we must limit our belongings to necessities. The roads, they said, were not serviceable for wagons or carts, and all we needed would be provided for us once we arrived at Libertytown. We sold nearly everything, taking a few clothes, Andrew’s tools, and some favored items, including some books—though not so many as I would have liked.

  We convened in Philadelphia, where we were to be guided by Mr. Reynolds and two others, who sat astride old horses, tattered and slow, with rheumy eyes and puffy red sores that jutted out through their hair like rocks at low tide. There were mules to bear our packs, and we traveled at their sluggish pace on dirt paths sometimes wide and clear, sometimes little more than a hint of an opening in the forest, sometimes so soft and marshy the
animals had to be aided to keep from stumbling. In the worst places, logs had been set down to make the road passable. On the steep paths through the Alleghenies, the beasts were often in danger of falling over entirely.

  There were twenty of us, excluding our guides. Reynolds wore somewhat rougher clothes than those in which we had first seen him. These were undyed homespun, and a wide-brimmed straw hat that he kept pulled down low. In our parlor, Reynolds had seemed a kind of rusticated country gentleman, the sort of rude clay that the American experiment had molded into republican respectability. Now he was revealed as something far less amiable. He showed no friendly familiarity toward us and acted as though he did not recall our previous meeting. Andrew’s efforts to converse with him were met with rude barks, and at times I found him staring at me with cold predatory intensity. The scar across his eye, which I had taken as proof of his revolutionary duty, now appeared to me more the mark of Cain.

  Of the other two, Hendry was of some forty years, slender of form, high-pitched of voice, with a long nose, narrow eyes, thin lips, and a face that appeared designed for spectacles, though he did not wear them. In attire, Reynolds cut the form of a hardened country farmer, but Hendry seemed a parody of a stage-play country rustic. Yet I was to learn that this was the true garb of the border man: a raccoon hat and buckskin leggings and an upper garment called a hunting shirt, a fringed tunic made of doeskin that came down to his thighs. On some men, these clothes would look manly, even heroic. On Hendry, with his foxlike face, they looked absurd.