The Whiskey Rebel

Joan Maycott

Winter and Spring 1791

They let the whiskey age in the barrels all winter and then much of the next spring. In summer, while Andrew tinkered with the stills, experimenting with new ways to bring yet more flavor to his drink, Mr. Dalton and Mr. Skye traveled the county, letting men sample their new whiskey. Mr. Dalton’s whiskey boys went even farther to spread the news of this new distillation. They rode from settlement to church to trading post, uncorking their bottles for eager settlers to taste. When autumn came and the rye and corn were harvested, mules and horses laden with grain began to make their way to Mr. Dalton’s operation.

Stills were expensive things. Most men could not afford one, not even a small one, and so the custom was for farmers to bring their grain to a third party who would distill it in exchange for a portion of the proceeds. Virtually everyone who tasted the new whiskey understood that they must have this drink and no other or their grain was wasted. It would trade for more or, for those who wished to make the venture east, sell for more. In turn, Dalton, Skye, and Andrew amassed increasing stores of grain to turn to whiskey, which they could sell or use for trade. Whiskey was the coin of the realm. Like a creature from a child’s tale, they had learned to manufacture precious metals from baser materials.

Dalton and Skye soon found their stills used beyond capacity. More machines had to be purchased. Men said they would wait as long as it took, if only they could have their grain distilled to be so full of flavor. It was not only that the new whiskey was desirable but that the old was now depreciated. Why turn your straw into silver when you could turn it into gold?

For my part, I was busy too. Once I decided that I would place a fictional version of William Duer at the center of my novel, I filled up page after page. The story centered around the evil speculator William Maker and his scheme to defraud war veterans of their pay, and in it I mocked the greed of the wealthy, celebrated the ardor of the patriotic, and bemoaned the conditions of the frontier. Yet the frontier of my novel was peopled not only with ruffians and miscreants but noble souls, patriots swindled by a government tending only to the cares of the wealthy. These fictional men found a way to strike back and set the country to rights. I felt certain, utterly certain, I was doing what I had longed to do, inventing the American novel, writing a new kind of tale, whose concerns and ambitions mirrored the American landscape.

A utumn turned to winter, and we spent our second cold season in the West. It was hard, for our fireplace and stove could sometimes do little to stave off the brutal western chill, but it proved easier than our first winter, for now the whiskey bought us food and blankets enough to increase our ease. Sometimes Andrew would join Mr. Dalton and Mr. Richmond in a search for desperate winter deer or in a far more ambitious bear hunt. This was a dangerous business-waking a beast from its winter sleep-but at least it yielded us fresh meat. During these excursions, Mr. Skye would often invite me to pass the time at his own home.

Visiting Skye’s house was always a delight, for he had the finest cabin in the settlement. It rose two stories, and having no one to spend upon but himself, he had troubled to furnish it, if not elegantly, then at least comfortably. Through a set of circumstances that were never entirely clear to me, he had purchased the lease for this land from a man who’d been desirous of leaving the area quickly, having incurred the anger of both Colonel Tindall and a band of Shawnee braves. Mr. Skye had come west with more ready cash in his pocket than most men, and he had been one of the few settlers in the region capable of buying the lease for any amount of real specie. Now, each season, he hired four or five workers-usually slaves lent out by their owners-to help him grow wheat and rye and Indian corn for whiskey and vegetables for his own use. He had, in addition, several cows and chickens and half a dozen pigs, and he worked hard each winter to keep them all alive.

While the others hunted-a sport for which Mr. Skye said he’d had no enthusiasm, even as a young man-I would sit with the white-haired gentleman, the only person with whom I could discuss my novel in any detail. I would not let him read any of it-not yet-but I would tell him of the story and its actors, and he would offer useful suggestions. He also presented me with roasted meats and fruit preserves and even eggs, all served with samplings from his precious store of wine. I will not pretend it was not good to taste such things again.

I am not foolish, and I also cannot pretend, particularly when we took wine, that I did not feel Mr. Skye’s eyes upon me in a way not entirely appropriate. But I saw no harm in it. I knew to my soul he would never act upon whatever impulses he might feel, and I enjoyed his hospitality and his conversation. It would have been wrong to deny one another the pleasure of our meetings because he harbored feelings about which he would remain forever mute.

One afternoon, perhaps a bit too warm with his excellent wine, I turned to Mr. Skye, who sat next to me, explaining to me his understanding of the evils schemed by Hamilton and Duer back east. His argument was a convoluted business, not Skye at his best, and while I wished to comprehend his meaning, my thoughts were too jumbled, my disposition too relaxed, to take in his words. Instead, and rather rudely, I said, “Do I remind you of someone, Mr. Skye?”

I had my answer at once, for he turned red and looked away, rubbing his leathery hands at the fire until he could regain himself. “Why do you ask it?”

I had been too free. I drank deep of my goblet of wine, to hide my discomfort, and took some pleasure in the feeling of numbness that spread through me. I finished what I had, and Mr. Skye refilled, and I could not say I was sorry. “It is only that you look at me with a certain recognition. You have from our first meeting.”

“Perhaps I recognize in you a kindred soul,” he offered.

“I have no doubt you do, but I think I recall to you someone from your past.”

“You are perceptive, which I’m sure you know.” He smiled at me, a sad sort of smile, and though I had always seen him as an old man, in an instant I had a glimpse of him youthful and beardless, charming if not precisely handsome. “When I was a young man at St. Andrew’s I had a connection to a young lady in Fife. Her father was a wealthy laird, extremely well placed in society, and my father-well, he was not. It was not a usual thing for someone in my family to attend university. I was very much in love, Mrs. Maycott, but the situation ended in scandal. There was a duel, you see, and the young lady’s brother died. It was for that reason that I fled my native land and came to this country.”

I blame the wine, for I said what anyone would think but few would speak. “They say it was scandal that sent you west once more to our settlement.”

His face revealed nothing. “I am, perhaps, prone to scandal. It is a poor trait, I know.”

“I rather think it depends on the scandal,” I told him.

He blushed, which I own I found rather charming.

“You and I are friends,” I said to him, “and so I hope I may ask you something, as a man. I fear I cannot ask my husband, for it might be too uncomfortable for him to be honest.”

“Of course, Mrs. Maycott.”

“It concerns the attraction men feel for women, something I must understand for my novel.”

He took a sip of wine. “You have raised a subject about which I know a great deal.”

“I know about courtship and love. I understand these things. Your feelings for your lady in Fife, for example. What I cannot comprehend is the attraction felt by men like Tindall or Hendry. They look at a woman with desire, yet they do not love her or like her or even regard her, as near as I can discern, as a person. If it is mere physical release they want, would not one woman do as well as another?”

He sipped more wine. “I wonder if perhaps this is a conversation best not had.”

“We have come so far. We must finish. Do you not think so?” I do not know that I thought so. I knew the impropriety of the subject, but that was what I loved about it. Why should I not speak of what I like with a trusted friend? I knew I could depend upon his goodness, and I saw no reason why I should not take some small thrill in something as harmless as it was illicit. Even so, I knew there was a more selfish reason I pursued this subject. The people I wrote of in my novel held no propriety as sacred, and though their transgressions were far greater than anything I contemplated there in Mr. Skye’s home, I believed I needed to know some small measure of it. I wanted to know the thrill of doing what the world must condemn.

Mr. Skye nodded at me, and I took that as agreement, so I pushed forward. “Do all men desire women they neither know nor like? I understand attraction, being drawn to a face or a shape, but for women, I believe we must always engage in fancy with such an attraction. If we see a man we like, we imagine that he must be good and kind and brave or whatever thing it is we most treasure in a man. It seems to me men like Tindall and Hendry don’t trouble themselves with such fancies. They merely desire and wish to take. Are all men thus?”

Mr. Skye cleared his throat. “A man will always be drawn to a pretty woman, there can be no stopping that, but each man alone chooses how to shape that interest in accordance with his heart. If you will forgive a crude analogy, every hunter must have his dog, but when the dog is not hunting, some men will allow it to lie by the fire and feed it scraps from the table. Others will curse it and beat it if it so much as wanders where its master does not want it. Can you conclude from these two examples how men, taken as a whole, treat dogs? No, for though the desire to hunt with a dog may be near universal, the method of keeping the animal is different from one individual to another.”

“Do you mean that some men long for affection whereas other men yearn for conquest, and these are unrelated desires?”

“I think all men desire conquest of some sort, but the ideal differs from man to man. One might wish his affection returned. He has thus conquered the indifference a woman might feel toward him. Another prefers conquest in its basest form. In this, I think, women are different, which is only right. Men will yearn for any willing heart, so women must be the gatekeepers of desire in order to prevent a general anarchy.”

By now, I had pushed the subject as far as I dared, and as far as I wished to. I had made him uneasy, and I had made myself uneasy, but we had both persevered, and, if I was not mistaken, we had both enjoyed the challenge. And perhaps not coincidentally, he opened for me another bottle of wine and sent me home with half a dozen eggs.

W inter at last relented, and in the spring of 1791 it seemed that, despite the despair we had known only a year before, life was a delight. Our cabin had become a home, with wooden floors and warm carpets, the walls papered with birch bark, covered with prints Andrew had himself framed. We had such material things as any Westerner might desire, and if we wanted something-food, tools, linens-we need only trade whiskey to get it. We had gone from being outsiders to occupying a pivotal place in the community, and there was hardly a man west of the Ohio Forks who did not know Andrew’s name. My pile of completed manuscript pages grew, and I believed that in a year’s time I should have the book that had been my life’s ambition.

Once the snows had melted and the paths were cleared, Andrew planned a trip to Pittsburgh. We had not been since the fall, but such visits were not particularly pleasant. The cooler weather offered a lessening in the scent of rot and decay, but the city grew even more filthy with soot and coal dust, and though we might ride into town well appointed, we should ride out looking like chimney sweeps. The city was populated by the worst of western rabble-rough trappers and traders, drunken Indians, lazy soldiers for whom a gun and a uniform gave them leave to confuse liberty and license. Even more, I loathed the wealthy of the town. They walked about in outdated eastern finery, pretending the streets were paved, the buildings made of stone, and that they were in Philadelphia, or even London, rather than the last outpost of civilization. All was dirt and muck and filth, coal dust that descended like black snow, rooting pigs, fluttering chickens, defecating cows. It seemed to me less an attempt at a city than a preview, for so many of its inhabitants, of Hell.

Andrew, nevertheless, needed supplies to experiment with new whiskey recipes, so I went with him. As we often had different tasks in town, we made a habit of tending to our separate business, and so we parted, planning to meet again outside a grocer’s. Andrew went in search of what his whiskey trade demanded of him. I went in search of a lawyer.

The man I wanted was Hugh Henry Brackenridge, a prominent figure in town, famous or infamous, depending upon who described him and upon his most recent case. I was interested to meet him for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that Skye had told me that he wrote a novel of his own, but there was more to it. I was fascinated by what I’d heard of him-principally his willingness to accept the causes of the penniless, from murderous Indians to squatters upon Tindall’s lands.

Brackenridge kept his office in a street not far from the crumbling remains of Fort Pitt. Outside his doorway, two shirtless men wrestled with a kind of drunken desperation that bordered on the amorous. They hardly noticed me as I slunk past to knock upon the lawyer’s door.

I was shown immediately into his office, furnished in the rustic western style, and found him to be a strange-looking fellow in his forties, graying and pointy, in respectable if somewhat rumpled clothing. He was perhaps the most birdlike man I’d ever seen.

“Mrs. Maycott!” he cried, as though we had long known each other. “My dear, dear Mrs. Maycott, how is it I may serve you? Here, have some biscuits.” He shoved a plate before me, then took one and popped it into his mouth. “You must tell me how I might be of use.” The food was not entirely chewed when he spoke, and bits flew out, but it seemed to me more charming-in the way of an exotic animal-than boorish.

He was not only birdlike in his appearance but in his manner. He spoke in a high voice, and was in his manner as nervous and twitchy as the creatures he resembled, flitting from here to there, jumping up at a moment’s notice, hardly able to speak of one topic before hopping to another.

“I am always eager to meet those who settle the lands hereabout. I don’t often meet the wives, you know. The husbands? Oh, yes, often the husbands. But the wives? No, not so often.”

For all his queerness, he did not make me uneasy. The world is full of unusual people, and though some may scorn them, I had ever believed that a bit of kindness would earn an enduring loyalty. “How is it you know me?” I asked.

“You gave your name when you called,” he said. “And your husband is quite famous for his whiskey. I have sampled it, and it is indeed something special. But please, sit, sit, sit.”

I did so and thanked him for the compliment he offered my husband. Then, wishing to move things forward, I explained to him my business, for true business I had-that of examining our lease, for I had concerns about our responsibilities and obligations. “There are not so many legal men in town,” I said, “and it is well reported that you alone will stand against Tindall.”

“He and I are not friends,” he said, “but neither are we enemies. I take upon myself causes that have merit, that is all. And it need not be the merit of the particular person at the center of the case. That is what people do not understand. I’ve been much criticized for taking the part of that Delaware Indian Mamachtaga-got himself drunk and killed a white man and that was all there was to it. With every ounce of will, I defended him, though it earned me many enemies among those who could not understand why I would stand with a murderous Indian over a white man.” He grinned at me and then, perhaps needing something in the way of punctuation, bit into another biscuit.

“But why did you defend him? Why anger your neighbors to defend a man you knew to be guilty of so terrible a crime?”

For an instant his features-the darting eyes, the flaring nostrils, the quavering lips-all settled. He was like a monument cast in stone as he met my gaze. “I did it because someone must, because even the guilty must be defended, or the system of law has no meaning. I did it, Mrs. Maycott, because I am a patriot, and if a man loves his country he must uphold the principles of that country even if doing so may make him uncomfortable in his own heart and odious to his neighbors. A patriot does not make the principles of his country conform to his own ideas.”

“You are a clever man, Mr. Brackenridge.”

“Too clever for my own good, if you must know the truth of it.” Perhaps dismayed by his own gravity, he offered me a curious smile and then ran a hand through his hair. “Now, let us look at your contract with Colonel Tindall. And never fear, I shall not tell him you came to see me. He would not like it, though I presume you know that.”

He took the document and sat at his desk, a glass of wine in one hand, his glasses slowly sliding down his nose like the slow melt of mountain snow in the encroaching spring. He traced each line with his finger and mumbled, like a clerk in a stage comedy, and I believe he did so consciously. Mr. Brackenridge was not only a quirky man, I decided, but a man who enjoyed his own quirkiness. He would nod, sip his wine, find his place, nod again, mumble, shake his head, point, wave his hand in a circle, and find his place again. In the end he looked up and discussed the parameters with me. It was much as I had expected, and the explanation was clear. When he was finished I felt my color reddening, and I turned away from him.

“There is another matter I would like to discuss,” I told him. “I hope it is not too personal.”

“Come, Mrs. Maycott, we are friends now, are we not? Not such great friends, I suppose. I would not, for example, lend you any great sum of money. Not that I expect you to ask. A small sum, perhaps. Yes, a small sum is not out of the question. A few dollars? Will that do?”

I laughed. “Sir, I have not asked you for money, and I do not intend to. You have done me a service, and it is I who owe you.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

“It is something else. You see, I have heard that you are writing a novel.”

His face brightened, like that of a child upon the mention of sweets. “Most people consider the endeavor very silly, but then, this is Pittsburgh and hardly a center of letters. Yet, I do write a novel. Are you a lover of novels, Mrs. Maycott?”

“I am.” I looked away. “I am also, I hope, a writer of novels.”

“Oh, my dear, how exciting,” he said. He did not hesitate but took from his desk a large manuscript and began reading to me from his book, Modern Chivalry. It concerned the adventures of Farrago, a kind of American Don Quixote, with his faithful and hapless servant Teague. It was very, very funny, and I laughed several times, both at his quips and at his wonderful enlivened performance, for he spoke in the voices of his characters and even, as best he could with papers in his hand, acted out scenes as he read. It was also, I was relieved to see, nothing at all like what I was about. I wished to write something new. Mr. Brackenridge wished to write something old. My mind was put at ease.

“Perhaps you would care to share some of your book with me.”

I would not have asked him to look at it, but he offered, and I had come prepared with a fair copy of the first few chapters, some sixty pages written in my best hand. This was no whim, for paper was expensive, and it cost me much to spare these pages, and yet I knew I must have someone’s opinion, and someone who had no interest in pleasing me.

“I have not the time to wait while you read it, so I shall leave this with you, sir, trusting that you will show these pages to no one. But as you are a man of letters, I would value your impressions. Should I continue with my work or abandon it? I beg you will promise to tell me your true opinion and not stand upon politeness. When I come to town again in a month or two, I shall call upon you to hear your verdict, and you may return the pages.”

He agreed to my terms, and so I left. It was out of my hands, and I should have thought about it no more, except the next day, back in my own cabin, I heard the sound of approaching hooves as I prepared the evening meal. I went outside to see who came, and there, riding toward me, was the owlish Mr. Brackenridge.

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.”

P erhaps 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.”

“You think so, is it?” Hendry asked, as though he knew something we did not.

“I shall tell you what I think,” I said, stepping forward, “should you care to hear a woman’s opinion. I did visit Mr. Brackenridge, as you say, for I wondered if a man who cheated once might not wish to try to cheat again. I wanted my contract examined very closely, to make certain we did nothing the law did not allow. There is nothing in it that grants Tindall the right to tell us what we must or must not do with our land or with our time.”

“Shut your mouth!” Phineas barked at me.

Dalton lifted his weapon, though he did not yet aim it. “That boy’s lost his mind, Hendry. Get him out of here before something untoward happens.”

I put a hand to my mouth. I did not want bloodshed, and I certainly did not want it in my home. And yet, I did not fear. I believed Mr. Dalton had the control not to lose sight of himself.

Hendry did not flinch. He put a hand on Phineas’s shoulder and spoke gently. “Let’s keep our heads, boy.”

He spoke as though everything were easy, and that made it possible for Phineas to believe it. It seemed that even vile Hendry had things to teach me.

He looked at Andrew and grinned. “You can see my point now, I think. All this business with women and lawyers, it won’t come to any good. It ain’t wise to go against the colonel.”

“I think it’s time for you to run.” Mr. Dalton raised his gun.

Hendry shook his head, as though saddened by the depravity of those whom he tried to help. “I guess you’re gonna make it hard ’pon yourselves, hain’t you? I can’t say I’m surprised. Told Colonel Tindall it would be that way. Harder on you for all that, but it was never going to be otherwise. Let’s take our leave, Phineas.”

The two left and closed the door behind them. The men began at once to speak to one another in excited tones, but I paid no attention. Of course I was interested, but I was distracted by the scene out the window. Directly before our cabin, Hendry was taking a leather strap to Phineas. He’d made the boy lift up his hunting shirt, and he whipped at the exposed buttocks. Phineas faced the window, but his eyes were tightly clenched. Then, at once, he opened them, and saw me watching. I ought to have turned away, but I did not. Phineas met my gaze, bold and unflinching, and, despite Hendry’s lashings, his manhood began to stiffen, and his eyes bored into me with pure malice. I should have looked away, spared him his humiliation and myself the raw nakedness of his fury, but I kept looking all the same. I found it terrifying and terrible, and yet it was the darkest, truest thing I had ever seen.