David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

“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.

Iremained 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.

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.