by David Liss
I let go of his hand, for I did not love his touch. “It has, in fact, been many years.”
“Many years,” he repeated, not knowing what else to say. He looked at Leonidas and then brightened, no doubt with the hope of easing the tension. “Please introduce me to your colleague.” He said it with no inflection, but I knew his motive was only mischief. He did not approve of the mistreatment of Negroes and opposed all slavery.
“This is my man, Leonidas.”
Hamilton now shook his hand and applied his charm, justly legendary.
“I trust you will sit,” he said, with a gesture to a cluster of chairs before his desk. “I am astonishingly busy. You cannot imagine the demands upon my time, but I can take a few minutes for an old comrade. I should like to say I hope you are well, but I presume, if you will excuse me for observing what is obvious, that you are in some distress. If you have come for assistance, we shall see how we can help you.”
I credited his presumption, making polite observations on my appearance and suggesting that he was available to assist me. Did he forget that it was he who had ruined my life, expelled me from the army, and made certain the world heard the tales of my supposed treachery? Was it of so little import to him that it slipped his mind? Had he done harm to so many over the years that he no longer even recalled the particular instances of his perfidy? Or did he merely enjoy playing the munificent despot?
Leonidas and I sat in two chairs before his desk. Hamilton returned to his own seat. He took a detour to a sideboard and I thought he meant to offer us drink, but then he glanced at me and changed his mind. Instead, he sat and placed upon his face a look of important expectation.
I waited a moment, the better to make him slightly uncomfortable, to feel slightly less in control. “I have had a difficult few days,” I said at last, “as my appearance will testify, and I believe it has some small relation to an inquiry you are running out of your department. You look into the affairs of Mr. Jacob Pearson?”
He hesitated a moment and then nodded. “It is not commonly known, nor would I have it so, but as you seem already familiar with some general facts, I will admit it but ask for your silence.”
Ironic, I thought, coming from him. “You need not concern yourself with that. But, as it happens, my path has crossed with your kinsman Mr. Lavien.”
“He is not my kinsman,” said Hamilton, with some force. It was hard enough for him to have the world know he was born a West Indian bastard, but if the world were to think him a Jew he would die from shame. “He is, however, a remarkable man.”
“I should like to assist him in his case. In short, I should like the government to employ me to use the skills I honed during the war to serve you in this and other matters.”
Hamilton kept his face remarkably devoid of expression. “I see.”
“Captain Saunders is already materially involved,” said Leonidas. “He has suffered physical attack and the loss of his home. He is personally caught up in the matter, and he is also possessed of certain skills, relatively rare as I understand it.”
“And you are certainly a strong advocate, Leonidas,” said Hamilton, who apparently delighted in having someone to speak to who was not me. “But it cannot be.”
“Why can it not be?” I asked.
“I am not ignorant of the past,” said Hamilton. “You had a connection to Mrs. Pearson once, did you not?”
“She is Fleet’s daughter,” I said. You recollect Fleet, whom you hounded to death. I did not say it, though. I am not so foolish as that.
“I am well aware of that, which alone would make it a difficult matter. But it was commonly said that you and she were once engaged to marry.”
“It was never so formal as that, though who can say how things might have gone had you not cashiered us out of the army and then ruined my reputation? Of course, had you not done so, Fleet might yet be alive.”
“Captain,” he said gently, “you do your case poor service with these accusations.”
“Is there anything I could say that would do my case good service?”
“No, my mind is quite made up on this matter.”
“Then I feel quite at my liberty to call you the rascal you are,” I said.
Leonidas put a hand upon my arm. He turned to Hamilton. “Captain Saunders does not intend to be so harsh, but his need is great.”
“Oh, I think he intends it. I have become a convenient object of hatred and blame for him over the years-don’t think I haven’t heard that you say so, doing no small injury to my own reputation, I might add-but I must clarify a point or two. You know well, Captain, that dismissing you from the army was the only way to save your life. You were under my command when the charges were leveled against you and Captain Fleet. Had I not agreed to a discharge, you would have been court-martialed and likely executed.”
“I ought not to have let you talk me into destroying my own reputation.”
“The evidence against you was strong,” he said. “It might have been a British sham. They may have had enough of your tricks and decided to let us deal with you by allowing us to find false evidence. But remember the mood of the army in those days, the exhaustion and setbacks we’d suffered. Men were still raw from Arnold ’s betrayal, and at that crucial hour another pair of officers in league with the British would not have been treated well.”
It was perhaps unfair to blame him for Fleet’s death-by all accounts Fleet had initiated a fight and come out the loser-but I blamed him anyhow. And, of course, there was more. “What of my reputation? You promised me then that no one would hear of it, yet by the time I returned to Philadelphia it was common knowledge.”
“I know,” said Hamilton softly, “but I was not the one who made it so. I swore to keep it a secret, but in an army nothing can be a secret for long. I spent the better part of a week trying to find out who had spoken out of turn-I need not tell you how serious a thing that is before a major battle-but I could learn nothing. If you like, Captain, I can parade before you a dozen officers who will recall, ten years later, the fear I put into them over this matter.”
“Then you are not the one who ruined Captain Saunders’s reputation?” Leonidas asked.
“Of course not,” he said. “Why would I? You have wasted your time hating the wrong man. My God, Saunders, why did you not simply ask me? You were always a man who could sniff out a lie. You would have known if I had tried to deceive you.”
I could sniff out a lie, he was right in that. It was why I sat in astonishment, for I believed him now. His voice was so free, so easy, so empty of guile, I could not help but believe him. For the past ten years I’d cursed the name of Hamilton, considered him a villain and an enemy, and now it seems he was not. I felt sick and foolish and drunk. And, much as I had the night before with Mrs. Lavien, I felt ashamed.
I remained silent, trying to think of everything and blot out all memory and to do both these things at once. While I considered this revelation, too astonished and angry to speak, Leonidas made polite conversation. I looked over at Hamilton, hardly knowing what to make of the long patrician face before me. For ten years I had hated this man as the author of my ruin, and when the country, at least the Jeffersonian part of it, began to hate him as well, to make him the central agent of corruption in our government, I could not help but feel that, at last, the universe had aligned itself with my perceptions of it. Now, it seemed, I hardly knew anything of the man.
When I turned my attention to his conversation with my slave, it seemed they were talking of my troubles with my landlady.
“And this happened the same night Mrs. Pearson contacted him?” Hamilton was saying. “That does sound suspicious. Captain, I cannot pay your way in the world, but I can send a representative to speak to your landlady and ask her, on behalf of the government, to give you three months to set your affairs in order. Will that be sufficient?”
“It is kind,” I admitted grudgingly, though I attempted not to sound sullen. One never likes to see a man
he is used to hating prove himself magnanimous. “I am grateful, but I must ask you again to put me to work, to make use of my skills.”
“Your skills are formidable, and I could use a man like you,” he said, “but I cannot have you inquiring into something involving these people to whom you are so nearly connected. Not only will I not engage your services, I must ask you to have nothing to do with the matter. Stay out of Lavien’s way.”
“You cannot expect me to ignore Mrs. Pearson’s distress,” I said.
“You will stay away from her,” he answered, his voice becoming harsh.
“I understand there is a gathering in a few days at the Bingham house,” I said airily. “I’m sure the lady will be in attendance, for she and Mrs. Bingham are good friends. Perhaps I shall tend to her there.”
“Damn it, Saunders, you will stay away from Mrs. Pearson in this inquiry. This is not a game. There are spies everywhere, and there is more at risk here than you can imagine.”
“Spies? What, the British? The Spanish? Who?”
He let out a long breath. “The Jeffersonians.”
I barked out a laugh. “You are afraid of a member of your own administration?”
“Laugh if you like, but Jefferson’s ambition knows no bounds, and he would do anything-destroy me, the American economy, even Washington’s reputation-if it meant advancing his own ends. Have you never looked at his vile newspaper, the National Gazette, written by that scoundrel Philip Freneau? It is full of the most hateful lies. Have you so forgotten the past that you think no ill of maligning Washington?”
“Of course I have no patience for insults against Washington,” I said. “I revere him as a patriot ought. But that is beside the point. As near as I can tell, you wish me not to help Fleet’s daughter because you fear Jefferson. Perhaps I should speak with him.”
“Stay away from him,” said Hamilton. His voice was now nearly a hiss. “Stay away from Jefferson, from Mrs. Pearson, and from this inquiry. I will not allow your curiosity to risk everything I’ve attempted to accomplish.”
Everything he had attempted to accomplish? There was clearly much more happening here than he would admit, and I knew I could not convince him to tell me. Instead, I tried to show myself reasonable. “Then put me to use on another matter,” I said. If he did so, he would pay me, which would be of great benefit, and then I could inquire into whatever I liked.
He shook his head. My willingness to change the subject appeared to ease him considerably; the redness in his face lessened and his posture became less rigid. “Captain, I wish I could do so, but look at you. It is not ten in the morning, and you are already besotted with drink. You are terribly disordered. Give me a few hours to clear up the business with your landlady, and then go home, rest, and consider your future. In a few months, come see me. If you are in better order, we can talk about a position at that time.”
“I am hardly the only man in Philadelphia to take a drink in the morning,” I said.
He leaned forward. “I am not a fool, Captain. I know the difference between a drinker and a drunkard.”
I thought to rise and announce my indignation, but I did not feel it. I could be besotted with drink and still best Lavien or anyone else he thought to employ over me. I had no doubt that events would soon prove it.
Joan Maycott
Spring 1789
Our meeting with Colonel Tindall left me feeling as though the earth itself had been taken apart and set back together, though not precisely the way it had been before. We came out of his house, stunned and stiff, as though from a funeral. The sky was shockingly blue, the way it so often seems in its brightness to stand in counterpoint to our own inner turmoil, but over Pittsburgh a cloud of smoke and coal fire hung like a vision of perdition. To add to this effect, we found Reynolds waiting by a pair of mules, which had our possessions already loaded. He looked us over, perhaps attempting to evaluate how we had chosen with Tindall. Then he laughed.
“Hendry and Phineas’ll be here soon. They’ll take you out to your plot. I can’t go with you.” He looked out to the expanse of wilderness. “I ain’t made to feel welcome.”
Andrew said nothing, allowing the silence to cast its own withering retort.
“I got to get back east to my wife,” said Reynolds, as though we were all old friends. “She’s pretty, like yours. It don’t suit for a man to be too long away from his wife.”
Andrew remained silent.
“Look here, Maycott. Let me give you some advice. I know we ain’t got along on the way out here, but I had to keep order, and that’s what I done. Don’t mean I got anything against you. And the way things are with Tindall, don’t think I don’t know. I say, so what if he wants your wife? What does it signify? He’s an old man, probably can’t do much anyhow. Why not give him what he asks? You get something for it, and it don’t really cost you anything.”
“Would you prostitute your wife?” Andrew asked.
He shrugged. “Depends on what was in it for me. If I was in your shoes, it’s what I’d do. I ain’t been put up to this by Tindall. I’m just telling you what I think.”
He put out his hand for shaking, and when Andrew did not take it he shrugged and walked across the grounds, disappearing into the stables.
We waited there an hour until Hendry and Phineas appeared on horseback. They provided ragged horses for us to ride, and soon we were upon a dirt track through the wilderness, well beaten and pocked with hoof marks and old manure.
We rode through barren landscape for more than half a day. The land was thick with oak and sugar maple and chestnut and birch trees, surrounded by brambles and boulders and rotten logs as large and ornate as monuments. Animals too; we saw deer scatter and bears off in the distance, and the occasional wolf loped along our path, mouth open in lazy defiance. There were other wild things too. Along the barely discernible path, from time to time, we passed clusters of cabins and dirty, ragged people who stopped their toil to watch us. One-eyed men looked up from their fieldwork or tree felling or tanning. The women stared like feral things, their faces sun-blasted and soulless, their bodies twisted and bent, far more terrible in appearance than the most wretched creature I’d seen in Pittsburgh. I understood without being told that, though life in the West might be hard for men, it was doubly so for women. Once the hunting and farming and clearing were done, a man might settle down with his whiskey and his twist of tobacco, but a woman would still be cooking and mending and spinning. I feared in my heart that I should become one of those broken, horrid things. I did not tremble to lose what men called beauty, but I feared the loss of my spirit and humor and love of living, the things I believed made my soul human and vibrant.
Finally, and seemingly without cause, Hendry called for us to stop. We were upon a spot of the forest no different, as far as I could tell, from any other. While he picked at a scab on his face, Hendry gazed about, taking stock of tree and rock and sky.
“Looky there,” he said, pointing to a large boulder up ahead, maybe a quarter of a mile. “That’s the north border of your land,” he said. “Them thick trees we passed back there, the ones with white paint on ’em, that’s the southern border. Lotta rattlesnakes near there, if you care to mind ’em. Don’t matter to me. The rest of it runs from here to the creek on the east and west to the other creek. Unload the mules, and good luck to ye.”
“What?” I cried out. I wanted to be as stoic, as sturdy, as Andrew, but I could not help it. “You’re going to leave us in the wilderness with no roof over our heads?”
“Shelter ain’t my worry,” he said. “My worry is getting the animals back. This is your land, what you bargained for, so here it is. Do with it what you want. You don’t like living on it, go find a room in town. It’s nothing to do with me, though I’d advise you to be on your guard for painters. Too many of them about this spring.”
“What is a painter?” asked Andrew.
Hendry looked at Phineas and they both laughed.
“They don’
t know about painters,” Phineas said, with an unmistakable tone of cruelty. “Guess they’ll find out.”
Hendry’s nose had begun to run as a consequence of his mirthful snorting. He wiped it with his forearm. “You talk smart, but you’ll get a good schooling, won’t you, maybe in its jaws? A painter is like a cat, if you know what one of them is, but about ten times bigger, and it likes to eat fresh and tender eastern folk.”
I’d had quite enough of Mr. Hendry. “I believe you mean a panther. If you wish to mock people for their ignorance, you ought at least to say what you mean.”
“Call the critter any name you like. It’ll tear the bubbies right off you all the same.”
“Enough. You are going, so get gone,” Andrew said. He put a hand on my shoulder.
“That’s a good thankee for one what’s brung you home.” Hendry snorted.
Phineas eyed me unkindly. “Don’t signify. They’ll be dead ’fore end of winter.”
“You can’t leave us here.” How I hated the tears that welled up in my eyes, but I could endure it no longer. “Are we to sleep on the ground like animals?”
Andrew shook his head. “I know how to make a shelter and endure far worse than this. We’ll make do, never you mind.”
“I cain’t say what you brung in your packs,” Hendry said, “but from the looks of you I reckon you come with nothing and expect the spirits of the woods to raise you up a wigwam. Well, good luck, I say, for yer on yer own now.”
“I don’t doubt they’ll do fine,” said a voice from behind us, “but if you please, my good turd, they won’t do it alone.”