David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

Before me stood Joan Maycott, looking pretty in a gown of pale pink with a white bodice. She smiled, and perhaps it was the sunlight that streamed through the windows, but I saw the lines about her eyes. For the first time she looked like a woman past her youth.

“Oh, look at you.” She gently wiped at my face with her handkerchief. The fabric felt hard and rough and hot.

“So, this is it,” I said. “This is what you were after all along. You wanted to ruin Duer, and you made me help you.”

“Duer is evil,” she said, as she wiped blood from my upper lip. She had a gentle touch. “He deserves ruin.”

“And the bank?”

“The bank in an instrument of oppression,” she said. “Its shares will collapse in the coming panic, and they shall never recover. Hamilton gave birth to his whiskey tax to fund the bank without giving a single thought to the damage it would do-that it does yet.”

“And what of the country itself?” I asked. “Have you thought of that?”

“I’ve thought of little else,” she said. “I’m a patriot, Captain Saunders, just like you. This country began in a flash of brilliance, but look what has happened. The suffering of human chattel ignored by our government, a small cadre of rich men dictating our national policies. In the West, men die-they die, sir-as a consequence of this greed. This is not why my husband fought in the Revolution. I suspect it’s not what you fought for either. Now I fight to change it.”

“And what if something worse comes from the chaos?”

“Then the world will have to wait for just governance,” she said. “Better anarchy than an unjust nation that masquerades as a beacon of righteousness. That would be worse than outright tyranny.”

“Well,” I said. “That is certainly interesting, and you clearly have the better of me. I wonder if you would consider untying me, and if I could impose upon you for some food and drink. If I am to be your prisoner, I should like at least to be a comfortable one.”

“I would ask for your word that you make no mischief, but I somehow don’t think you would consider yourself bound by it. What do you think?”

I thought at first that this question was addressed to me, but then I realized she spoke past me, to someone I had not yet noticed.

“Captain Saunders is a man of honor, but it is his own unique sort. He would not consider himself bound by his word if, by breaking it, he believed he might do a greater good.” The man came and stood near Joan Maycott, where I could see him. It was Leonidas.

Icould not be surprised to see him there, not after he had attempted to trick me with a case of sherry into a drunken expedition to the western frontier. Even so, it left me uneasy.

He turned to Mrs. Maycott. “I beg you give us a few minutes.”

She nodded and took herself from the room. Once she was gone, Leonidas removed a knife and cut free the ropes binding my hands. The freedom of movement felt wonderful, and I rubbed at my wrists.

“Now it’s your turn to free me,” I said.

“You had me wait longer than I would have wished. It is time for me to return the favor.” He suppressed a smile and, mad though it was, I could not help but feel that it was good to see him, even under these circumstances, for now I understood that though he had betrayed me he had not abandoned our friendship.

“My God, Leonidas, why would you join with them?”

“Money,” he said. “I did it for money and the promise of freedom.”

“But you were free!” I shouted.

“Yes, but I did not know it. Ethan, do you not hear your own words? What good is my freedom if I and the world know nothing of it? I have a wife, I will have a family, and we must have liberty. Mrs. Maycott offered me enough money to live free, and she promised no harm would come to you.”

I said nothing, for I could neither forgive nor condemn.

“You need not worry,” he said. “I’ve visited with Mr. Lavien, and he is well. His leg broke clean and should heal, and without fever. Neither of you will be harmed. What Mrs. Maycott says is true.”

“There’s still time,” I said. “You could let me go.”

He shook his head. “No, Ethan. I won’t. Beyond the money, I believe in the cause. It is better to burn down the edifice than let it rest on a rotten foundation.”

I sighed. “Can I get something to drink at least?”

“Don’t expect a glass bottle.” He left the room, and came back in a few minutes with a wineskin and a small pewter cup. “I would not trust Lavien with even this little, but I don’t believe you can do much damage with these.”

“I never thought to drink wine from pewter,” I said.

“It’s whiskey,” he said. “Drink as much as you like. The drunker you are, the more comfortable we shall be.”

Iresented Leonidas’s implication, but I nevertheless poured a drink. Before even a few minutes had passed, however, I heard a rattle at the door to my room, which arrested me from my efforts to excuse my inaction. The door swung open. I expected to see Leonidas or Mrs. Maycott or perhaps even Dalton. It was Lavien.

He stood upon one leg, the other was out before him, held straight by a splint and wrapped in a thick sheath of bandages. He used a long rifle as a crutch. His face was drawn and pale beneath the darkness of his beard, but his eyes were bright with pain and, I thought, with the delight of his disregard for it.

“Are you prepared to leave?” he asked me. He pulled back his lips in something like a sneer-or, perhaps, a wince.

It took me a moment to find words. “I must say, I’m touched that you troubled yourself to rescue me.”

He managed a sort of shrug. “I don’t think I can get down the stairs by myself.” His voice was easy, as though he discussed something of import, but I felt his gaze on me, urgent and desperate, and something else, something greater and hotter and more intense. This, I understood, was Lavien’s place and Lavien’s time. He was a cannonball, fired toward Philadelphia, and no wall, no flesh, no fire would stop him.

I pushed myself to my feet and stepped out into the hall, and the mirth and wonder drained away. There, upon the floor, lying at the sick angles of the lifeless, was a man, pale and bloodied, his eyes wide as the face of oblivion. I’d not seen him before, but he was a rugged-looking fellow, probably handsome while he’d been alive. Now his throat had been opened, and for the first time I noticed the knife tucked into Lavien’s belt.

“Christ. Who’s that?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

Lavien did not spare a glance, but then why should he? I could only be speaking of one man. “A marksman. They called him Jericho. He’s probably the one who shot our horses. Now he’s dead. Let’s go.”

“How are we going to get out of here? How are we going to get past the whiskey men?”

His eyes grew harder, darker. His lips turned ruddy with anticipation. “We will kill anyone who opposes us.”

“Hold,” I hissed, suddenly feeling as though I held conversation not with a man but with a raging storm. “I am not going to kill Joan Maycott. And Leonidas is with them.”

He nodded. “I’ve seen him. I am fond of Leonidas, but I’ll kill him if he opposes me.”

“My God, Lavien, is it worth it? All this killing? To save Hamilton’s bank?”

“How many times must I tell you it is not about the bank?” he breathed. “It’s about averting chaos, riot, and bloodshed and another war of brother against brother. This country is a house of cards, and it will not take much to bring it down. Now let’s go.”

He moved down the hall, hopping on one foot and using the butt of the rifle to balance himself, and yet he moved more quietly than I did. We came to the first set of stairs. I scouted down and saw no one on the second-floor landing and reported back to Lavien.