David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

“Indeed, I was right,” I said, “for in being here, you do make the room so much more-”

“How very broken you are,” she said. Her voice was soft, confused, and even a little sad.

“I beg your pardon?” I felt the prickling of something ill-not danger but yet unpleasant.

“You heard me, Mr. Saunders.” Her voice had an icy edge I did not like at all. “You must be broken in your soul. My husband and I invite you to our home, taking you in when you are in need of shelter, and in response to this kindness you choose to offer me insult. I wish to know what portion of your heart, of your soul, is so damaged that you would do such a thing.”

“I must point out that it is Captain Saunders.”

“The time when I might be impressed by your rank has passed us,” she said, “and I do not reject it for any accusation of treason. I reject it for how you act here, tonight. You think your honor, your chance to be an honorable man, is in the past, and so you befoul the present.”

“And the future!” I added brightly.

“I understand that your wit keeps you sane, sir, but you must set it aside now and again, or you shall ever remain a wretch.”

I suddenly felt very sober. And ambushed, I might add. It was cruel to lead me into a position of vulnerability, only to take advantage of my open nature. That was what I told myself. “If there has been some misunderstanding between us-” I began.

“There is no misunderstanding. Do not try to pretend that either of us can believe it. Have you no decency?”

I was prepared to answer sharply, but I suddenly saw things with a starkness I would have preferred to avoid. “No,” I told her. “At times, I haven’t.”

She must have heard something in my voice, for even in the frail wash of candlelight I saw the pity in her eyes, and pity was a thing I could not endure. “You are a very sad man, are you not, Captain Saunders?”

“Do not speak to me so. If you like, you may cast me out, but do not speak to me so.”

“I shan’t cast you out,” she said. “It is what you wish, I believe. You wish it far more than you wish me to yield to you. Who was she, Captain Saunders, that so hurt you? Was it long ago or recent? Long ago, I think.”

“Don’t act as though you know my heart.”

“How could I not, when you wear it on your sleeve?”

“I am sorry to have offended you,” I said. I looked about the room to collect my things, though I had no things to collect. “I shall go.”

“You will stay the night, and in the morning you will go see Hamilton.”

“Your husband speaks to you of his business?”

She laughed. “Should he not? You who love women so well do not think to speak to them of your work?”

I stared at this woman. Lavien, with his beard and slender shoulders and unimpressive stature, had wed a mighty creature.

“I would be grateful,” I said, “if you would not mention this incident to your husband.”

“It was he who advised me on how best to conduct myself when you approached me.” In the dim light her gaze was dark and magnetic. “You have fallen very low, have you not? Perhaps there is nothing to do but rise. Tomorrow is something entirely new, entirely unwritten, and full of possibility. Won’t you use it?”

She turned away, and the power of her gaze snapped, like the thinnest of glass rods. She opened the door and descended the stairs. I closed the door and sat upon my bed, my head in my hands. Who were these people? What manner of being were these Laviens, and with what had I become involved?

Spring 1789

In the morning, our hosts gave us a breakfast of whiskey and corn cakes served on mismatched pewter plates, a luxury we would not fully appreciate until we were, as we would be soon, without any plates at all. While we ate our meager portions, Reynolds arrived to inform us that prior to visiting our land we were to speak with Duer’s local agent, Colonel Holt Tindall. Though much abused by Duer and his people, we thought it best to present ourselves to advantage, so Andrew wore clothes he had not touched for the journey, looking dignified in plain artisan’s breeches, a white shirt, and a handsome woolen coat. I wore a simple dress, far more wrinkled than I would have liked, but it was clean at least.

Though he had eyed me with open lasciviousness through our journey, when I was dirty and tired and blunted by exhaustion, Reynolds hardly looked at me now. There was something quite different in the odious man’s manner. Even as he spoke of this Colonel Tindall, something like respect, or perhaps wariness, spread over his features.

Duer’s man in Pittsburgh or no, I expected another makeshift shack, but Holt Tindall was of an entirely different order of being. Reynolds pointed out to us Tindall’s handsome two-story structure on Water Street, recently whitewashed and looking within this primitive city much like a diamond in a barrel of coal. This, however, was not where we were to meet him. Instead, Reynolds led us once more across the river and some miles out of town to Colonel Tindall’s country estate, a vast southern-style plantation called Empire Hall. Here was a large wood-frame house, very like the one in town only larger and more stately for being surrounded not by shacks and mud but by fields of crops and barns of livestock, all of which were tended to by a dozen or more Negro slaves.

Indeed, I saw no one but Negroes. Reynolds seemed to read my thoughts, for he said, “He ain’t got a wife; he lives only with the niggers. But he takes to company.”

If the outer countenance of the mansion was surprising, the interior made us gasp. I don’t know when it happened, when we decided that we had passed from one world to another, but I now recognized that I expected never to see again such signs of civilization. From the inside of the house, one would hardly know that this was not some elegant New York mansion. The walls were lined with fine paintings and tapestries, the floors with excellent coverings that produced the most faithful imitation of tile. While Pittsburgh smelled like a necessary pot, this home gave off the fragrance of baking bread and cut flowers.

A pretty young Negro girl, light in color, met us at the door. She would not look directly at us, and so I did not notice at once the severe bruise upon her eye. Perhaps she wished to hide this from us, or perhaps she feared Reynolds, who studied her with naked desire while fingering his scar. With a torpid gait, as though unwilling herself to approach, the girl took us to a massive sitting room. This chamber boasted not only a fine rug-for here only guests without mud on their feet would be admitted-but, beyond all the handsome chairs and two sofas, a large pianoforte was propped against the far wall, where it was bathed in the light of the morning sun. It was now nine, for the tall case clock rang cheerily, echoed by chimes throughout the house and the church bell from the distant town.

At the far end of the room, before the fireplace, sitting upon an isolated high-backed armchair-looking much from its form and placement like a throne-was a stout and rugged man in his sixties. His white hair was long and tangled in the back, though he balded considerably, and he had wild gray eyes and a rough stubble upon his cheek-features that clashed with his tailored breeches, ruffled shirt, and embroidered waistcoat. All of these things contributed to give him the look of a deranged surveyor who has spent too much time alone in the wilderness. If his countenance had not given that impression, I suspect it would have been provided by the fowling piece he clutched in one hand, its butt resting against the floor, like a brutal frontier scepter. Above him hung a string of hairy things attached to bits of leather. It took me a moment to recognize them as Indian scalps.