David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

“If the land has value and the notes do not, why do you propose such a trade?” I asked.

He raised his teacup to Andrew in salute. I noticed the cuffs of his sleeves were unnaturally white. “This is a clever woman you have here, clever and observant. There are some small-minded men who regard a clever woman as a curse, but I am not one of them. I admire a clever woman prodigiously, and I congratulate you upon her.”

“And yet you have not answered her question,” said Andrew.

“My own wife, Lady Kitty, is also such a woman, and cousins, you know, with the wife of Colonel Hamilton.”

“You clearly have an excellent domestic arrangement,” I offered.

“Yes, thank you. Most excellent. Now, you see, Mr. Maycott, western land is fertile, but cheap because it is so plentiful; there is far more land than there are people to settle upon it. The land is cheap for me to buy, but for those who wish to live, to farm, to have a life of plenty away from the city, it is of real value, for the land will grow nearly anything and livestock will thrive. Winters there are mild; summers are long and pleasant, without being oppressive and unwholesome as they can be here.”

He handed Andrew a pamphlet entitled “An Account of the Lands of Western Pennsylvania,” which, we discovered when we later read it, described an agrarian paradise. Rows of corn and vegetables that grew almost without husbandry. Because the land was so easily worked, families there had more free time than they did upon other farmlands, and balls, with fanciful homemade gowns and suits, had become something of a passion. It was a place of rural refinement, unlike any other in the world, for only in this new country, where good land remained unclaimed, could there be such independence and success. The dream of the American republic might have been born in the East, but it was reaching full flower in the West.

“I shoulder the risk in this investment,” Duer said. “Should the new government decide to assume the war debt, then I will profit. If it chooses not to-well, the land was got cheaply, and the loss will not do me great harm. In any exchange of this sort, each side makes a wager that he will be better off than he was before, but a speculator must also look at the consequences of losing. In my case, I will be poorer for the loss, but I must lose sometimes, and I do not chance what I cannot bear to part with. In your case, if you hazard and lose-which is to say, you do not like your new circumstances-you have parted with paper notes, perhaps worth some cash someday, perhaps not. On the other hand, you will still have your lands, your wealth in food and crops, and your independence.”

Andrew wore a serious expression, but I knew it belied his enthusiasm. He would be imagining the farms of our youth, a table on which a suckling pig steamed, surrounded by bowls of cabbage and carrots and potatoes and warm bread, all arising from the work of his own hands. Maybe the land would not be worth much to sell, but that was now. What of our children? Andrew believed the city air unhealthy. We would have children in the country, and they would inherit the land, which, as the nation moved west, would increase in value.

I was not, however, so eager. “I am concerned about Indians,” I said. “I have read more than one account of Westerners set upon by them. Men killed, children killed or abducted, women forced to become Indian brides.”

“It is a clever woman,” Duer said to Andrew, “who thinks of such things. And she is well informed, I see. I congratulate you, sir, upon her excellence.”

“Perhaps you should congratulate the lady directly,” Andrew suggested.

Duer smiled very politely-at Andrew. “Yes, the savages were a menace during the war, but that was owing to the influence of the British. Now the Indians have been run off-all but those who’ve embraced our savior. Just as their pagan brethren can be savage beyond imagination, the ones who accept religion become like saints. They live upon the most Christian principles, never raising their hands in violence. All say they make better neighbors than the white men. Not that white men have excessive faults, but the novelty of Christianity inspires the Indians to take its teaching to heart and to keep its doctrines foremost in their minds.”

“Perhaps we could go look at the lands,” I said. “Then we will let you know.”

“Your excellent wife proposes an excellent idea,” Duer said. “Many prefer to do so. I know of a group traveling out that way in two weeks. It should take them no more than a month and a half to make the journey, though it may take you some time more to return, for you will need an eastward-heading party. In the lands we speak of, the Indians have been quite quelled, but in the wilderness between it is still safe only to travel in large groups.”

Andrew shook his head. “I cannot afford to keep my house and yet not work my shop. I do not see how we can travel out there to inspect our property.”

“If we cannot see the land, we cannot buy it,” I said. “I am sure you understand that.”

“Absolutely. If you cannot see the land, then of course you cannot buy it.” Mr. Duer began to collect his things and spout pleasantries about how if we needed anything of him, we should not hesitate to call. Then he stopped himself in mid-sentence. “A thought occurs to me. It is the very germ of an idea. Hold.” He held out one hand in a gesture directing us to halt while he collected this notion from the ether. “Would it have some effect if you could speak to someone who has seen the lands-who has lived upon them?”

“I cannot say for certain,” Andrew said. “It should very much depend upon the person.”

“It should depend upon the person, I agree. And it would help to speak to such a man. As it happens, I know of a landowner who is in town this very week,” he said. “Perhaps I could persuade him to take a few moments to answer your questions.”

We agreed it would be a worthwhile conversation to have, and two days later he was back in our parlor, this time accompanied by a rough-looking fellow called James Reynolds. He was perhaps no older than my Andrew, but his face was cracked and wind-beaten and sun-blasted. Across his right eye a scar stretched from his forehead down almost to his mouth, half an inch wide, a deep gulf of violence that had mysteriously left his twitching eye intact. He wore homespun clothes of a rugged material, but they were nicely tailored and by no means out of fashion. Indeed, he carried himself with the rigid posture of a proud gentleman planter, though his manner was a bit more coarse. His teeth were sepia from a tobacco habit, and he was inclined to wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

He sipped at his tea, holding the whole cup with a strange caution, as though he might forget himself and crush it like an empty eggshell “So, Mr. Duer here wants me to tell you about Libertytown.” His voice was thick, as if his throat were coated in gravel.

“Libertytown,” Andrew repeated.

Reynolds smiled. “Most of us served in some way or another, during the war.”

“Are you satisfied with your life there?” Andrew asked.

“You have to understand, I wasn’t born to money. My mother was a seamstress, and my father died young. In Libertytown, I work my own land, and I take orders from no one. I grow more than I need, trade some of the surplus to the other farmers, and the rest we cart back east. I’ve got a little bit put away now. I didn’t have that much debt to exchange, not so much as you, so I’ll never be rich off my land. But I’ll tell you this: I won’t never be poor neither.”

“In your opinion it is every bit the paradise that Mr. Duer describes?”

He ran a hand through his hair, which fell freely to his shoulders, was unevenly cut, and was very black but flecked with gray, or perhaps ash. “I wonder,” he said to Mr. Duer, “if you could give us a few scant minutes alone.”