The Whiskey Rebels

by David Liss

  “It is interesting you should say that,” I answered, “for when I spoke of that very topic to Miss Emily Fiddler—I mean the aunt, of course, not the niece, for there is no talking to that one, as I need not tell you. In any event, do you know what your good friend Miss Fiddler mentioned to me about the refined circles in which you yourself—”

  I made it no further, for Pearson grabbed his son’s tousled hair and yanked hard and mercilessly. The boy let out a horrible cry of pain, and silent tears, to match his mother’s, poured down his face. His face then turned dark and angry, a juvenile reflection of his father’s, but there was more there too. A silent resolve to endure his suffering in silence.

  “You will leave my house!” Pearson did not cry or shout or bellow. He screamed. It was the voice of lunacy, of a man who has no sense of proportion or propriety, and it terrified me, for I had no alternative but to abandon these innocents to his insanity.

  Then came another voice.

  “I am so sorry. I did not mean to intrude.”

  We all stood, suspended in time for a moment, as though this mad tableau were something deeply private and personal that had been exposed. The voice had come from the doorway, but it was no servant’s voice. I turned to look at the figure, pretty and perfectly composed, her red lips pursed in the most wicked of smiles, as though she knew exactly what she saw, exactly what she did. No argument, no violence, no reason could have diffused Pearson’s rage. But shame was another matter. She understood the power of shame and wielded it like the whip in Pearson’s hand. It was the widow Joan Maycott.

  “I am so sorry to trouble you,” said Mrs. Maycott, now acting as though she had ventured into nothing more troubling than a casual acting out of a scene from a Jacobean revenge play. “I spent rather more time with the cook than I had intended, and upon hearing voices I thought I would take my leave once more.”

  Pearson muttered something that might have been “Yes, yes, very good,” or something to that effect. Then he let go of his son’s hair.

  “Well, then, I go. Captain Saunders, I have a coach outside, if you require transport. It is considerably colder than it was earlier.”

  I looked over at Cynthia, who offered me the slightest of nods. She knew her husband better than ever I could, and I would have to trust her as to whether my absence or presence would offer her greater security. For the moment, she seemed to believe herself best served by my departure.

  I stepped forward, passed Pearson and his poor, terrified child, and stood by Mrs. Maycott. Then I turned around once more. “One of these uncooperative servants you mentioned will give me my coat and hat, I trust.”

  “At the door,” Pearson hissed, a voice like air escaping a bladder.

  I hardly cared about my coat and hat—but I had turned to take one last measure of Mrs. Pearson. Her husband was facing me and could not see her face, could not see her red lips as she silently mouthed her parting words: Help me.

  Once outside, I saw that it had, indeed, grown brutally cold during my time in the Pearson house. I was used to the cold, and it was not such a long walk to my rooms, but I could hardly refuse the offer from Mrs. Maycott. I thanked her once more and helped her into the coach, and we began to ride through the empty night streets, populated only by the watch and drunks and whores and, mysteriously, a man driving a small group of goats, possibly not his own. I was not entirely certain what to say, but Mrs. Maycott saved me from awkwardness.

  “I do not envy you,” she said, “being caught in the storm of Mr. Pearson’s fury. I have heard more than once from Mrs. Pearson of his temper, but I never before witnessed it.”

  “Nor I. I wish I never had, for I know not what I can do.”

  “I have no doubt you will do what you must.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You cannot leave that lady and her children at the hands of that beast.”

  “There is nothing I can do for her. I can offer her no refuge, and she would not take it were I capable. Imagine the damage to her reputation. No one will care what Pearson has done, only that his wife has left him.”

  To this she said nothing, as though I were too foolish to engage seriously.

  I thought it a good idea to raise another subject. “You mentioned the other night that you know Duer. Do you understand the nature of his business connections to Pearson?”

  “No, but I do not know him well. It is, however, possible that it may have something to do with the Million Bank. That is one of Duer’s new ventures, and it takes up much of his time at present.”

  “The Million Bank. Do you mean Pearson is going to invest in it?”

  “Very likely,” said Mrs. Maycott.

  “So he will take the money he borrowed from the Bank of the United States to help launch a rival bank?”

  “It is possible,” she said. “Why do you care? You said before that you work for Hamilton, but I know that’s not true. You were merely attempting to rouse Mr. Pearson. And yet I cannot help but wonder if you are a supporter of Hamilton and his bank.”

  “You sound so astonished. Would it trouble you if I were?”

  “We live in astonishing times,” she said, and her tone suggested she was not answering my question at all, but one she wished I had asked. “We have witnessed the most remarkable revolution the world has ever known, and the establishment of a republican government that has the chance to be the glory of mankind. How can I not be troubled by something that threatens to undermine our national good?”

  “You will forgive me if I suspect your interest runs deeper than mere admiration for the cause of the nation.”

  “Then you are mistaken. I care about nothing so deeply as the nation. It is for that reason I am suspicious of Hamilton, who, I believe, does not love republican government. I believe he favors a British system, one of monarchy and corruption.”

  “I have heard such things before, and while I do not doubt that Hamilton is overly fond of the British system, I have seen no evidence that this fondness represents a threat to ours.”

  “This government was formed as a means of confederating the several states,” she said, “but Hamilton uses his influence to strengthen the federal seat at every turn. States must now bow before their masters in Philadelphia.”

  Here was a much different conversation than that which I would have chosen. I could not yet guess what Mrs. Maycott was, nor how to measure her interest in these things. I believed she knew something, but I did not see the value of rehashing the debate from several years past on the validity of the new Constitution “Yes, this is the old anti-Federalist argument, and I know well its merits, but only time can tell which side is correct, and I am disinclined to rail against the federal government until it has tried the experiment. The anti-Federalists like to rage against the danger of centralized power, but I’ve seen no evidence of any harm coming from it.”

  “What say you then to Hamilton’s whiskey excise, which has unduly oppressed poor farmers, forcing them into debt and ruin that he might fund his speculative projects?”

  The whiskey excise again. “I wish you would speak plainly. What is this to you?”

  “I am a patriot. That is all you need to know. I love my country, and I know you do. I do not think Hamilton does. I only ask that you be open to that possibility.”

  I though of Mr. Reynolds as she said this, and Hamilton’s secretive dealings with him. Hamilton was not all he seemed, that much was certain, but I did not believe him to be the enemy of the nation that the Jeffersonians—and apparently Mrs. Maycott—painted him. “I am open to all possibilities,” I said at last.

  “That is why I trust you. Oh, here we are at your house.”

  How convenient—particularly as I had not told her where I lived.

  I opened the door on my side of the coach. “I thank you for the ride, but I must say something. I can’t guess the nature of your involvement in these matters, and I do not expect you to tell me. I can only say that if you know anything of import, I ho
pe you will let me know.”

  She smiled at me, the glowing glory of her lips illuminated by the streetlight. “You must not suspect me of all people, Captain Saunders. I believe that as of this moment I am the best friend you have.”

  Joan Maycott

  Spring 1791

  The following afternoon, Mr. Dalton and Jericho Richmond gathered in the sitting room of Mr. Skye’s house. Our host had prepared a meal of pigeon and dumplings, and though I ate but little I took more than my share of whiskey. Even so, I could not feel its effect. Only a few days before, I had been a grieving widow, a victim who had lost everything. I had, since then, done so much. Why could I not achieve things seemingly impossible? I had done so already.

  I was tired, having had so little sleep, and my hand was cramped from writing past the dawn. After leaving the main house I’d gone to find Ruth, who would never again be called Lactilla. She, at my request, gathered together the other slaves. With quill and ink and Tindall’s heavy paper, I’d written out individual false traveling papers, identifying them by names and description as free Negroes. To each I’d given fifty dollars. It was no small portion of the wealth I’d taken from Tindall, but I could hardly have sent them off into the world penniless. I’d taken away their master and, unwilling to bear the burden of sending them off into a horrifying unknown, I had instead taken on the burden of helping to make for each a better life. At least a freer one.

  Now, though I had not slept the previous night, I was fully awake with the friends who had helped to shape my life here in the West. The three men could talk about but one thing. Word had spread throughout the settlement, probably throughout the four counties, that Colonel Holt Tindall had hanged himself. No one had yet heard of Phineas’s confession, and perhaps no one had troubled themselves to observe the blow upon Tindall’s skull. I believed there would be discoveries yet to come, but not yet, and I hoped I might use them to advantage.

  “It’s hard to believe,” Skye said, “that a man like that would suddenly take upon himself a conscience.” He was bent forward in his chair, holding his glass of whiskey between the palms of both hands, and he struck me as a man hunkered down upon the fringes of a battlefield. Great and cataclysmic things were coming, and some part of him knew it.

  “I don’t believe him a man apt to take his own life,” Dalton said. “There must have been something else—a painful illness, perhaps, that would kill him in the end. This might’ve been his way of beating the thing. It would be more like the old bastard.”

  “Something will come out,” said Jericho. “You may depend upon it.” And now he looked at me, hard and cold. He knew something, or suspected it, which I did not like. I wished the information to be mine alone to control.

  It was time to speak. “Tindall did not hang himself,” I said. “He was executed for what he did to Andrew. I could not depend upon the law, and so I depended upon myself.”

  All three men stared at me.

  “Come now,” said Dalton. “You don’t expect me to believe a woman was capable of forcing Tindall to put a noose around his neck, let alone hoisting him up over the rafters? I’ll wager you don’t know how to tie a noose.”

  I did not know how to tie a noose, but as for the other, I did not know why it was so unthinkable. Phineas was not so much larger than I, and he had done it all. If I were a man, the question would not have been raised. Yet I saw no reason to pursue this now. There might be much to be gained if I could make them see how others liked to aid me. “The boy, Phineas, helped me.”

  “Phineas?” Skye said. “I thought he hated you.”

  “Phineas is confused. Not yet a man, no longer a child, he’s been through more than anyone should be asked to endure. But, in the end, he knew who his true enemy was.”

  “Why is that?” asked Jericho. “Because you told him? You said, Let’s kill Tindall, and he did it? Or did you have to cast your witch’s spell first?” Dalton began to say something to silence him, but Jericho held out a hand in defiance. “And now what? We wait for him to be caught, so he can link you to the murder, and then us?”

  Perhaps I ought to have hated being so challenged, but I did not. I liked it. All three of them would have their doubts; better they should be voiced, and better if the questions were asked harshly by Jericho so the others would feel inclined to aid me. Perhaps neither would challenge him. Dalton might prefer to keep an open mind, and Skye might not wish to confront Jericho directly, but it was of no matter. They would counter his arguments in their own minds. They would silently resist him, resent his harshness to a grieving lady, and that, it seemed to me, would make them all the more agreeable.

  “Phineas has gone off to the wilderness to kill Indians,” I explained, “but first he left a letter with Mr. Brackenridge confessing to the crime and making himself the sole actor in it. He seems enamored of the idea of being an outlaw.”

  “This is fantastical,” Jericho said. “I am sorry, Mrs. Maycott. I know you’ve suffered, but you’ve also sold my home out from under me, and I must speak the truth. How do we even know you were there?”

  I set forth on the table what remained of the banknotes Phineas had given me.

  Skye picked them up and looked through them. “It looks like she was there,” he said.

  “Colonel Tindall thought he was above the law,” I said. “Now he is not.”

  “And what about you?” Jericho asked. “Are you above the law?”

  “I am in the right, which is much the same thing. Mr. Richmond, you act as though I somehow put you in this situation. I am not the one who passed an excise law or enforced it here with blood and murder. I have been made a sacrifice to the greed of men back east—men like Alexander Hamilton and William Duer, who have turned their backs on the Revolution in order to fill their purses.”

  “Listen to you,” he said. “You are putting yourself in the middle of affairs that are not your concern.”

  I slapped my hand hard against the table, rattling the dishes. “I believe, sir, I have been thrust into the middle of these affairs, and that makes them my concern. Did not William Duer himself lie to my husband to convince him to trade his war debt for land—land he knew to be useless and debt he knew to be valuable, and yet he told us just the opposite? Someone might object that we ought to have known better, that we should not have been so easily cozened, but he claimed proximity to Hamilton himself. He claimed to speak nearly on behalf of the government.”

  “No one doubts his villainy,” Richmond said.

  I would not let him continue. “We come here, to this wasteland, and find that Duer’s man Tindall rules over us with a tyrannical fist. And then Hamilton’s whiskey tax, enforced by Tindall, drives us all to ruin. It is a network of greed and evil and oppression—all we stood against in the war. All the evil we have suffered can be set before those three: Tindall, Duer, and Hamilton most of all. He is the master whom the others serve. It is he who would turn our republic into an oligarchy. Duer and Tindall are but the hands. Hamilton is the mind, and so I hate him above all others.”

  “It’s a pretty speech,” Skye said, “and what you say is nothing but truth, but I don’t believe you say these things only for truth’s sake. You obviously have something on your mind. Best you let us hear it now.”

  I steeled myself, for what I was about to propose was certainly madness, yet I believed it could be done. “Mr. Brackenridge believes he can make a sale within the next month. Perhaps even sooner. But thanks to Tindall’s generosity, we need not wait before deciding what to do.”

  “We will find somewhere else to set up,” said Mr. Dalton. “Buy a new still and begin production once more.”

  Mr. Skye spooned a portion of the stew into his mouth and then wiped his lips with a napkin. “I don’t see how. No matter where we go, we will still face the excise. Even if we flee the four counties for Kentucky or Virginia, we will face the whiskey tax and there will be established distillers to resent our intrusion into their business.”

 
; “This money from Tindall is to be split among us. I cannot tell you what to do with your portion,” I said. “I can only tell you that for my part I will use this and what I get for my ground-rent lease to right these wrongs.”

  “You mean revenge, don’t you? Revenge against whom?” asked Mr. Skye. “Do you mean to serve Hamilton and Duer as you did Tindall?”

  Here was my moment to be careful in how I spoke—careful but commanding. I would need to convince them to follow me, but I would also need to convince them of my boldness, to show them I was determined and capable but not mad.

  “It is precisely what I mean.” I spoke with cool determination, the end result of careful deliberation. “It is they who conspired against us and continue to conspire against us. What is more, they conspire against the nation by trying to unmake the principles of the Revolution.”

  Mr. Dalton looked upon Mr. Skye with astonishment. Only Jericho Richmond acted as though what I proposed was of no moment. He set down his bowl, poured himself a whiskey, and watched his companions closely.

  “You’ve lost your mind, lass,” said Mr. Skye, the harshness of the words belied by his gentle tone. “No one here blames your wanting it, mind, but you can’t take revenge against Alexander Hamilton. How will you do it?”

  “I know precisely how,” I said. “It was the subject of my novel. I wrote of how a man sought revenge against speculators, and I believe the principles I worked upon in my novel can apply in actuality.”

  “But it is pointless,” said Mr. Dalton. “Even if it were possible to hurt these men in any significant way, what should we gain by doing it?”

  “Let me explain to you,” I said. “Listen carefully, for you will need to convince at least some of your whiskey boys to sign on. And why should they not? We are all hurt by this tax. If we can take just three or four more men with us, we shall be able to avenge ourselves and maybe even preserve the ideals of the Revolution. We can save our country from its own government.”