by David Liss
She studied my face with a mixture of horror and understanding. “Is that point now?”
“Tonight it is,” I told her.
She sighed and brushed off her skirts, as though my words rained down dust of disobedience and she wished not to be tainted. “What you mean to do?”
“I’m not certain, but I must do something, mustn’t I? Everything begins with someone who either does something or does nothing, and I won’t be the person who does nothing.”
She shook her head. “You ain’t gonna kill him, are you?”
The depth of her concern surprised me. “Would it trouble you?”
She rose to her feet and walked to the barn door. Then she walked back. “It simple for you. Tindall’s a devil, that true. You want to kill him because he deserve to die. That true too. But you kill him, most likely the slaves get sold off.”
I understood the fear of change, but here I thought it madness. “Ruth, are things so good here that you fear to find yourself elsewhere?”
“Things here are bad,” she said, “but they always worse somewhere else.”
I nodded. “I have no intention of committing murder.” It was not entirely true. I could not say precisely what I intended to do to Tindall. Murder was certainly one possibility.
“All right. What you need?”
“I need everyone out of the house tonight. I want it free of servants and slaves.”
“All right. I get that done for you.”
I waited in the dairy barn the rest of the day. Ruth, who had been mocked with the name Lactilla for decades, brought me an afternoon dinner and an evening supper. Thereafter I fell asleep for some hours, but when I awoke it was the full of night, and there were no lights in the main house of Empire Hill.
I’d made arrangements with Ruth, and the front door was left unlocked. It was no great matter to make my way across the grounds, enter the house, and proceed to Tindall’s bedroom, the location of which Ruth had also explained to me. I told her I only wished to frighten him and rob him, make him feel as helpless as I had been made to feel, but I had not told her the truth. I pitied her, for she feared being sold if Tindall died, but Tindall was not a young man, and he must die sometime.
It was not that I wished him dead so much as I wished to kill him. Or, more precisely, I wished to see that I could kill him. I had killed Hendry, but that had been in the heat of violence, and it had been the instantaneous decision of a moment. For what would happen in the months and years ahead, I wished to know that I could kill, and that if I were called upon to do so I would be ready. I hoped all could be effected without more bloodshed, but I knew that if I pursued my plan, the time might well come when I would have to make that decision, and I believed it would be easier if I had made it already. I could think of no better subject for the experiment than a man who deserved to die—and deserved death at my hand.
I climbed the stairs, delicately pressing my moccasins to the wood so it did not squeak. At the top of the stairs I turned right and went to the second door, as I’d been instructed. Inside it was light, but I heard no noise, not breathing or the turning of pages or rustling of sheets. I pushed open the door a little farther to gain a better view.
The room was roughly furnished, as though the delicacy of Tindall’s receiving rooms was but posturing and here was the true man. A large oaken wardrobe, an inelegant side table, a plain bed, a bearskin rug upon the floor. Across the ceilings, rafters were exposed, built at an arc, almost as though we were in the hold of a ship. The walls were adorned with a few paintings of hunters upon landscapes. At the far wall, a dying fire burned in the fireplace.
From the rafters, near the center of the room, hung the body of Colonel Tindall, motionless, not even swinging, upon a monstrous thickness of rope. His dead face was near black, his tongue protruded, his eyes were strangely both bulging and closed tight. He was dead and had been dead for a few hours at least.
I stared, feeling astonishment, disappointment, and relief all at once. How had it happened that the very night I was to confront him, possibly kill him, he had taken his own life? I did not believe he was the sort of man to be so racked by conscience that he must choose oblivion over guilt. Yet here was the evidence before me.
I had been robbed of the chance to test my mettle, but I had nothing to gain by standing and staring, so I decided to search the house for anything of value I might take.
I took two steps into the room when I heard the boyish voice.
“I followed you.” It was Phineas. He sat in a high-backed chair that faced the fire and so had been invisible to me at the door. Now he rose and turned to face me, rifle in his hand. He did not raise it, but it was only a matter of time until he did. I had a pair of primed pistols in the pockets of my skirts, but I thought it too soon to reach for them.
“Why?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.
“I seen you coming through the woods, and I knew you was coming here, and I guessed why. When I saw you hiding out with the niggers, I knowed it for sure. So I come here first and I hit Tindall in the head with the back of my gun, and then strung him up like the pig he is.”
“Why?” I asked again.
“So you wouldn’t,” he said. “You come to kill him. I knowed it, and I didn’t think you should.” He laughed.
I had the strangest feeling of not being there, as though I watched these events unfolding from some distant place. Relief and disgust and terror swirled through me. “What is so funny?”
“I remember you when you first joined up with the party heading west. You was just a green gal from the East. Now look at you, killer of men, housebreaker, thief, who knows what else? I told you the truth, missus. The West changes you, I said, and by God it changed you good. But I ain’t gonna let it change you that much.”
He wasn’t going to kill me. I began to feel it, and my muscles loosened. I took a deep breath. “What do you mean?”
“You killed Hendry ’cause you had no choice, so now you think you can kill when you choose. You think it’s not so different. I did too, once. I’d killed some Indians when I was with a scouting party ’cause they ambushed us, and it felt good. I thought of my family when I fired my rifle right into those redskins’ chests. I didn’t mind at all. Then, a year later, I was coming through the woods at night and I come across a single Indian who’d made camp, asleep by his dying fire. I figure, I killed one Indian, why not another? I didn’t know if there was more nearby, so I didn’t use my gun. Instead I snuck up on him real quiet and tomahawked him right in the face. I done his mouth first, so he couldn’t scream none, and then his whole face until he was dead, and then I took his scalp. I was covered with blood at the end, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that when I was done, I knew killing ’cause you could was a different thing from killing ’cause you was made to.”
“You didn’t like it,” I said.
“Nah, I loved it. I love to kill Indians. Killing Tindall was pretty good too. But I don’t love myself no more, missus. That’s the thing.”
“Why would you do this to save me? I thought you hated me.”
“I hate me, missus, not you. I just get it confused sometimes.”
I looked at Tindall, and I could now see the back of his head. The hair was matted with blood. “They’ll figure out he didn’t hang himself of his own choosing.”
“Don’t matter,” he said. “I already wrote up a note, which I aim to bring to that lawyer, Brackenridge, in town. Then I’ll go.”
“But they’ll hunt you.”
“They’ll hunt me, but they won’t find me. I’ll be an outlaw, which I reckon I’d like.” He gestured with the rifle to the side table near the door. “There’s some notes there, a pretty good amount. Three or four thousand dollars. I don’t know what to do with paper, so you can have it. I’ll take the coins, probably six or seven dollars’ worth; they’ll think I took it all. But you best get gone.”
“Thank you, Phineas.”
He shrugged. �
�I’m sorry I said those things to you, missus. I never had no choice in it. I had to say them, you understand, but I’m sorry all the same.”
“I understand,” I said, though I did not. Perhaps I did not want to.
“None of it meant nothing, and that’s the truth. Now, you get gone. Then it’ll be my turn. I need to get to Pittsburgh, deliver my message, and then get to killing Indians.” He waved his gun at me. “You best go. I cain’t always help what I do.”
I gathered up the notes he’d assembled and hurried down the stairs, considering how best to frame these events to Dalton and Skye. I had not been quite the woman of action I’d wanted to be, but I did not see why they had to know that.
Ethan Saunders
The next morning I awoke to the emotional toll of knowing I must, that night, dine with the woman I had always loved and do so alongside her husband, a man whose improprieties had embroiled not only his own family but perhaps the nation itself.
By the time I awoke, a servant of the Pearson house had already delivered a note to the effect that I was expected at seven of the clock. I had come, in my mind, to see this evening as an opportunity to answer many outstanding questions, so there was little for me to do that afternoon. I may have fallen, therefore, into some old habits, and I spent much of the day in a few comfortable taverns, and yet I did not arrive to the Pearson house more than half an hour late. It had warmed a little and snow had begun to melt, so I should not be ashamed to own I slipped on my journey and was damp when I arrived, but as most of the damage was upon my greatcoat, I presumed my hosts would not know of it.
This house—or mansion, I might style it—was on Fourth Street, just north of Spruce on a fashionable block. The exterior was of typical Philadelphia redbrick, remarkable only for its well-appointed bushes, shrubs, and trees, the true beauty of the gardens not being visible in the winter or after dark. Inside, however, I was treated to the finest of floor coverings in imitation of exquisite white tile, a handsome silver-blue wallpaper—cunningly textured to evoke the impression of the water of a nearly still lake—and numerous portraits, many of the illustrious house of Pearson. A lower servant of some sort, a kitchen boy perhaps, offered to clean my shoes, for, unknown to me, I had traversed through horse leavings. After my grooming was so tended and I was dusted off like a freshly sculpted block of stone, I was at last permitted to ascend the stairs to the inner sanctum of excellent company.
I was shown into a large sitting room where Mr. and Mrs. Pearson sat next to one another on a settee. The gentleman of the house held himself stiffly and formally and waved his oversized hand about as he held forth on some matter of trade. His thinning white hair was wild and unkempt, and though his tone was voluble, his eyes appeared dim and hollow. Next to him, his wife wore a dress of sea green, with a flattering cut. She looked at me as I entered, turned away, then looked up once more and rose.
“Why do you rise?” asked her good husband. “I am speaking and you rise, as though no words come out of my mouth.”
“Our guest has arrived,” she answered, her voice flat.
“Our guest? Oh, Saunders. Hide the state secrets—ha-ha. He has kept us long enough, hasn’t he?” Pearson at last rose to greet me and I shook one of his big hands. His grip was loose and absent, as though he could not remember why he took my hand or what he was meant to do with it.
Also rising was the widow Maycott, who had been sitting in a high-backed chair. She wore a much plainer dress than Mrs. Pearson, ivory in color, high-necked and remarkably charming. Upon another settee was a couple of some fifty years apiece, handsomely if uninterestingly appointed. The man was a bit on the short side, and plagued with that curious sort of fat which accumulates only in the belly, the rest of his body remaining gaunt, so that he appeared great with child. His gray-haired lady, attired in a modest black gown, had pleasing features and must have been acceptably comely some thirty years earlier; probably not so, ten years later.
“Captain Saunders, I am happy to see you once more,” said Mrs. Pearson, her face the very mask of control. I suppose she had a great deal of practice.
“See him at last, you mean,” said Pearson. “It is a dreadful thing to make a man wait for his own supper.”
I bowed. “I do apologize, sir. I was detained upon government business.” I told this lie not only to excuse myself but to excite a general curiosity.
“You must tell us of it,” said Mrs. Maycott.
“What government business could you be about?” asked Pearson. “The kind with beer and rum by the smell of it. In any case, I would think the government is by now done with you.”
Mrs. Pearson, blushing charmingly, made some sort of conversation-changing spouse-scolding noise in the back of her throat. “Mrs. Maycott tells me you already know each other and was the one who invited you here tonight, so I need not introduce you.”
“I have indeed already had that pleasure,” I said, bowing to the lady.
Did I detect a flash of jealousy upon Cynthia’s pretty face? She turned to the older couple. “May I present Mr. Anders Vanderveer and Mrs. Vanderveer, Mr. Pearson’s sister.”
After making the necessary introductory remarks to the good man and wife, in whom I had no interest, I took a chair matching Mrs. Maycott’s, separated from hers only by a small table of dark wood and oriental design. A servant arrived to present me with a glass of wine, and I accepted most gratefully. And there I sat, Mrs. Maycott smiling upon me, her red lips turned up with delightful impishness, and Mrs. Pearson, looking away.
“You work for our government, then?” asked Mr. Vanderveer, in a deep and booming voice. “Do you know the President?”
“I knew him during the war,” I said. “Currently I am engaged in a project for Hamilton at Treasury, however, and have no contact with General Washington. I am led to believe, Mr. Pearson, that you have had some contact of late with Hamilton, or perhaps his men?”
“Not at all,” he said. “Why should I?”
“I’m sure I cannot speculate. I hoped you would enlighten me.”
Mrs. Vanderveer was still, in her mind, upon the topic of Washington, and had no interest in my sparring with her brother. “Do you not long to see him again?” she asked, her voice full of the worship only Washington could inspire among those who had never met him—and probably half who had.
I bowed from my seat. “Those of us who serve are not permitted to choose the terms upon which we serve.”
“How they fuss,” said Mr. Pearson. “I dine with Washington two times a month, and I may ask him to pass the salt as well as any man. He is like me, no better and, I pray, no worse.”
“How is it that you are on such good terms with the President?” asked Mrs. Maycott. Her lips were upturned and her eyes sparkled.
“How should I not know the President?” Pearson returned.
“I do not know exactly how to respond,” she said. “I only meant that, from my understanding, his inner circle is composed of government men, men he served with, and gentlemen from Virginia. It is my understanding you are none of those.”
“I am from this city, madam,” said Mr. Pearson in a loud voice. “A man need not be from Virginia to associate in the best company, and I might say that of Washington as well as he might say it of me. As for serving in the government, it is meaningless. Anyone may do so, as I am certain this fellow will inform you.” He gestured toward me. “I dine with Washington because we are both men of consequence, so we must dine together or with inferiors.”
Pearson spun his head so quickly I thought it might fly off entirely and pointed one of the stubby fingers on his oversized hand toward his brother-in-law, jabbing back and forth like the blade of an assassin. “What is it you say?”
“I said nothing, Jack,” the gentleman answered, his voice a study of calm and reason.
“I heard you. You said Bingham, you rascal.”
“I said no such thing,” answered Vanderveer.
“May not a man say Bingham now and again?�
�� I inquired.
Pearson was too far gone in some sort of fit to even hear me. “You suggest I dine with Washington because of my wife’s friendship with Mrs. Bingham.”
“Really, Jack,” said the man’s sister. “It hardly matters to us. We think it very grand that you know such people as the Binghams. We would never belittle such a connection.”
Mr. Pearson now turned to Mrs. Maycott and attempted something like a smile. Perhaps at some earlier time in his life, before he allowed a pretty wife and fine house to convince him he was the emperor of the universe, he might have charmed a woman or two with that smile. If the day had been foggy or the candles dim, anything was possible. Now he appeared grotesque, a mask of human skin atop something diabolical and unsavory. Yet he clearly believed himself to be the embodiment of charm and sought to shore up his position by bringing to his side the only unattached woman in the room, always the jewel of greatest value in any gathering.
“Do you hear, Mrs. Maycott?” he said, his voice now a calm, unctuous vibrato. “‘Such people as the Binghams,’ says my sister, as though she, the wife of a lawyer of but indifferent reputation, can sit in judgment of the first families of the nation.”
“I think,” answered the good lady, “that in this republic, there is no one family that may be elevated above another, as all are equal before the law.”
From another, less charming, set of lips I supposed this comment might have launched an entirely new course of outraged oratory, but not so now. He merely smiled his death’s-head smile. “A good joke, Mrs. Maycott. A very good joke.”
“I should like to hear more of Captain Saunders’s connection with Colonel Hamilton,” said the widow, in a neutral tone.
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Vanderveer, a drowning woman wrapping her arms about a piece of conversational flotsam. “Such exciting times there, I should think, with the bank and such.”
Mr. Pearson would not be soothed. “Yes, yes, you must always flatter,” he said to his sister. “You flatter me, you flatter my guests. What shall it get you?”