David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

He came down from his horse, reached into a saddlebag, and returned to me my pages. “It could not wait a month or two,” he said. “What you do is remarkable! New and important. I beg you to finish and finish quickly. The world needs novels such as this.”

Perhaps a week after my meeting with Mr. Brackenridge, while I served an afternoon meal to Andrew, Mr. Dalton, and Mr. Skye, our dog began to bark wildly. This was followed by a violent knock at the door, and all three men took hold of their guns at once. It was the way men behaved in the West, though I thought it silly. A raiding party of savages would not knock before entering. Andrew nevertheless motioned me to the back of the cabin and stepped forward toward the door, which he opened slightly. Then he opened it the rest of the way.

Standing there, in the thin light of the late afternoon, the sun blindingly behind him, were Tindall’s men, Hendry and Phineas. Hendry grinned at Andrew and scratched at his scabby face while he dug at the dirt with his boot. In that light, his face looked not red, but blazing scarlet. “You done good for yourself.” He licked his lips as he studied the inside of the cabin.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hendry, Phineas,” said Andrew.

Hendry pushed his way inside, and Phineas followed close behind. I’d not seen him in more than a year, and he’d grown since then, broader about the chest and shoulders, more stubble upon his face. Phineas had made the transition from being a brutal boy to a brutal man.

Andrew stood aside, ever mindful of the push and pull of violence. Men such as Hendry were wont to set traps, daring others to step into them. Andrew would not be so prompted. I presumed I could count on the same restraint from Mr. Skye, but I did not know about Mr. Dalton. Both men eyed the intruders and clutched their muskets but did not raise them.

“No one’s invited you in,” Mr. Skye said. “Mind your manners here.”

These were not men made to mind their manners, and they did not like that they should be asked to do so. Phineas spat on the floor, that his contempt might be better visible.

Hendry watched Skye’s face darken, and he responded with a grin. “I guess we can’t all be schoolteachers like you. We can’t all know about our p’s and q’s, but then, some of us are still men and don’t hide behind the skirts of an Irisher, so there it is. You have something to say to me, stand up, set down your piece, and say it like a man.”

“One moment,” I said. “This is my husband’s house, not your camp. You, Mr. Hendry, must be the one to restrain yourself.”

“Shut up!” It came from Phineas, and we all stared, even Hendry. He eyed me with such hatred, I feared he might leap upon me like a savage and slit my throat. More than that, I feared Andrew might confront him, and such a confrontation would lead to disaster. Perhaps not today, for these men were outnumbered and outgunned, but soon enough.

“Phineas, what have I done that you would speak to me so?” I spoke quickly, my words rushing together, but I needed to get them out before Andrew could speak. I would make this a woman chastising a boy so that it would not become a conflict between men.

“Muzzle your woman, Maycott,” Hendry said. “She’s brung you enough troubles already, hain’t she? Talking to lawyers and such. That’s right. You thought no one saw you going to speak to that troublemaker Brackenridge?”

I felt a jolt of fear run through me. Had I done this? Had I brought this trouble upon us?

“I only wished to discuss with him the writing of novels,” I said, pleading my case to Dalton and Skye, not Hendry.

“You may speak with whom you like,” said Andrew. “It is no concern of Tindall or his bootlicks. You’ve been tolerated long enough, and now you are warned. Leave my cabin.”

“The colonel don’t like to see a man so used by a woman,” said Hendry, who would not do Andrew the honor of hearing his words. “I come from the colonel and I speak for the colonel and I hear for the colonel, and the colonel don’t like to hear women speaking out of turn. Makes him angry, is what it does. I don’t much care for it, neither. I beat my own wife, and I don’t see no reason not to beat yours.”

Dalton rose to his feet. “You must be mad to speak so. You’ll not leave here with your tongue in your mouth.”

“I’m from Colonel Tindall, and if I don’t return, and return whole, the lot of you will be fitted for a noose.”

“Yes, you come from Tindall,” Andrew said. “We all understand you believe it protects you. You speak foully to my wife to show your power, and I do not kill you for your words to show you that they are meaningless. Now say your master’s bidding and spare us more bluster.”

Mr. Dalton scowled at what he perceived as conciliation on Andrew’s part, but Mr. Skye smirked with approval. Andrew had granted Hendry permission to state his business but humiliated him at the same time. It was perhaps as good an arrangement as could be hoped for.

Phineas appeared lost in a different exchange, one that took place in an overlapping, ghostly realm. He spat on the floor again and looked up at me, his eyes dark and frightening.

Perhaps sensing things could yet go badly, Hendry sucked in a breath and pushed forward. “I’ll say my bit then, as ye beg me.” He stepped over to the table and examined the bottle and the mugs. He picked up one of the pewter vessels and sniffed at it. “Is this it, then?” he asked, looking directly at Andrew. “Is this the new whiskey that’s got folks talking?”

“’Tis the whiskey we have been making,” answered Andrew.

Hendry drank back the mug. He looked inside it. “Tastes like the same pig shit to me. Looks a little different, but it don’t taste like nothing new. Maybe all you done was piss in some of the old sort. Is that it, Maycott? You been pissing in the whiskey? That’s what it tastes like, piss drink. Pisskey maybe you’ll call it. Be more honest that way.”

Mr. Skye let out a guffaw. “Spoken like a man too familiar with drinking piss. Is it your own or Tindall’s that you suck down so often?”

Something hot and dangerous began to form on Hendry’s wreck of a face.

I think Andrew must have understood that we found ourselves in a powder keg, and he wished to douse all fires. “Thank you for your critique,” he said. “I shall certainly keep it in mind as we make the next batch, which perhaps you will care to sample.”

“I would,” he said. “I would like to, thank you so very much, but I don’t think I’ll be able to on account that there ain’t going to be a next batch.”

“You’re done with it,” said Phineas.

“Think ye so?” Dalton took a step forward, and he was a fearsome sight as he did.

“It come from Colonel Tindall,” said Hendry. He picked at a scab on his flaking chin. “He don’t like it. He’s heard that Maycott here ain’t clearing the land none. It won’t serve, so you,” he said, jabbing a finger in Mr. Dalton’s direction, “you’ll make your pissy whiskey the way you used to. I don’t want to see nothing like what you done with Maycott again. I want to hear people complaining they can’t get it no more.”

“We will do as we please,” said Andrew. “You’ve had your say, and we’ve tolerated far more than we ought for the sake of keeping peace, but I won’t keep it forever. Get gone. I’ll hear no more of you.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. See, Colonel Tindall is your landlord, and he wants you clearing land. If you don’t, there’ll be trouble.”

“Tindall’s got his own distillery,” said Mr. Skye. “and he doesn’t much care for us eating into his business. That’s all there is to it.”