David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

“Yes,” I said.

He shook his head. “Leonidas, will you help me?”

“Do not,” I said.

Leonidas, however, ignored me. He stood behind Turner, held him tight, and drew a thin stream of blood.

“Last chance,” Lavien said.

“You are madmen,” said Turner. “I’ll tell you. Don’t cut off my ear.”

Lavien backed up. “Leonidas, keep his arms where they are. If I think he’s holding back, I’ll ask you to dislocate his shoulders.”

“It might require a few attempts,” said Leonidas.

“Do your best. Now, Mr. Turner, tell us your secret.”

He remained quiet for fifteen seconds. Thirty. Lavien shook his head. “You are wasting my time.” He stepped forward, knife out.

“We killed him,” Turner said. Were I to imagine such a scene, I would have thought Turner would shout these words, but he spoke them softly, as though he added a vaguely relevant bit of information to an ongoing conversation.

I stared at him. He did not make me ask him to elaborate.

“Fleet. He came back to Philadelphia looking for me, looking to clear his name. He was going to taverns, asking questions, getting close. The particulars don’t matter to you, I suppose. You need only know that Pearson knew that Fleet was looking for him-for us-and he asked me to help. He didn’t say what for, and I don’t know that I would have done it had I understood. I approached Fleet. He was in a tavern, drunk and angry, and I asked him to step outside with me, for I knew a man who could answer some of his questions. We stepped into the dark, and Pearson struck him on the back of his head with a hammer. Then he stabbed him. Fleet was not killed in a drunken brawl. He was murdered by Jack Pearson.”

Later I would be unable to say what I meant to do. Nor did I know why I was allowed to do it alone. I left Clark ’s in a blur of movement, and it seemed to me I did not walk but was transported by some unknown magic to Fourth and Spruce, outside Pearson’s house. Neither Lavien nor Leonidas had come with me. I never asked either of them, but I believe they concluded it was something I needed to confront on my own, in my own way, without words of caution or prudence.

Later I would chastise myself, not because of what happened but because of what might have happened. I am no Lavien, no master of martial prowess, but I did not fear Pearson. Perhaps I ought to have. He had killed in cold blood. I never had. I ought to have taken time-a day or two, perhaps-to consider what I wanted and then determine how to accomplish it. That would have been the correct approach, but I had no patience for it. Had I taken more time to consider-even five minutes-I would have reached one single inescapable conclusion. I could not allow Cynthia to live with him another day. No, not another hour. The time for caution was done.

As I approached, the house looked quiet, still. It was late afternoon-too early to see lights in the windows-so I do not know what would have given the house a lively look, but something seemed to me absent or missing. I took an instant to consider, came to no conclusion, and went forward.

I did not trouble myself to knock or ring. I tried the front door, found it open, and entered. I had made it only five feet into the hallway when I was approached by the surprised footman. In my mind I saw myself grabbing him, throwing him down, striking him, but I restrained myself. He was called Nate. I remembered that. I also remembered that he, like the rest of the servants, was loyal to Cynthia.

“Captain Saunders-” he began, but said no more. I had not cut him off with words, but he saw my face. I felt the rage burning on my skin. I cannot imagine what I must have looked like.

“Where is he?” I felt as though my teeth bit the words from the air.

“I am sorry,” he said, his voice unsteady. “That is to say, he is abroad, if it is Mr. Pearson you mean. He is not here at present. I am sure if you return some other-”

“Damn you, where is he?” I took another step forward. He took a step back.

The poor fellow actually cringed. He worked for Pearson, lived with him day after day, and yet he cringed before me. I did not like it; I did not feel powerful or dominating. I felt like an avatar of rage, something not myself, and I did not care. I believe I might actually have hurt the poor fellow had things not suddenly changed.

“He’s not here, Ethan.” It was Cynthia who spoke. She was at the end of the hall, standing in the gloom, the space where the darkness of the hallway did not yet meet the light of the parlor. Were it half an hour later, the sconces would be lit, but now all was twilight, and she was little more than a silhouette, partially turned away from me. “He is gone. Again.”

I balled my fists and unclenched them and stepped forward, but Nate stood in my way, which I thought courageous under the circumstances. On any other day, at any other time, I would not have wagered an egg for my chances against a strapping footman such as he, but not that moment, and he knew it. He feared me and he stepped in my way.

“Please keep your distance, sir. You are not yourself.”

It was true enough. I looked past the tall fellow to Cynthia. “Where has he gone?”

“I don’t know. He did not say, only that he was going, and he did not plan to soon return. What has happened, Ethan?”

I could not answer. I knew not how. “To New York again?”

“I did not know it was where he went before.”

I thought to say that was what Mrs. Maycott told me, but I thought better of it. “I must find him. I cannot tell you why. Not yet. But I must find him.”

She took a step forward. “I don’t know where he’s gone, but he seemed-he suggested he would be away again for a length of time. He did not expect to be home soon. He had his valet pack several suits, and he left hours before dawn.”

The New York express coach, no doubt. I would have to go to New York. There could be no more delaying it. I would find Pearson and then-then I knew not what. Kill him? It was not my way. Bring him to trial? With what, a single British spy as witness-one who had only told us what he had under threat of torture and mutilation?

“Cynthia,” I began. I moved toward her, but she stepped back.

“No, Ethan. You must stay away.”

Can she imagine that would have deterred me? Did she imagine she sounded as though there were some issue of propriety? I did not believe it. I pushed past the footman and came to her. She retreated but did not run away, and so she stepped into the light of the parlor, and I saw what she meant to hide. She had been holding the left side of her face toward me, and only now did I see the right, mottled with red and purple and blues. He had struck her in the eye. Her husband had hit her in the eye as though she were a drunk in a tavern.

I cannot say I was filled with rage anew, for I had no more room for anger. If anything, my fury became purer, sharper, more easily directed and controlled. I would find him and I would stop him. I knew not how, but I would do it.

“Cynthia, you must leave him,” I said, my voice calm and quiet and nothing but reason. I was mad with rage, but I would not let her see it. “Why did he hurt you?”

“Because he was angry,” she said. “He has been angry since the night you dined with us. He had good cause to be angry, I suppose. But then, so do I. I know I must leave him, Ethan, but how can I? He is a devil, but you have seen what happens to a woman who lives upon the street, without money to her name. You have seen what happens to her children. Is living with one madman not better than subjecting my children to the scorn and abuse of a thousand strangers?”

I stepped closer now. The secret of her bruise was exposed, and there could be no reason to insist upon my distance. I took her hand, though I knew, and I believe she knew, I would attempt no further liberty. Even so, the warmth of her touch astonished me, as though I really understood for the first time since seeing her again that she was a living, breathing woman, not merely an animated memory. She was Cynthia, whose hair I might feel tumble into my hand, whose face I might caress, whose lips I might kiss. Not that I believed I would, but the sheer physical truth of her staggered me.