The Whiskey Rebel

Joan Maycott

Spring 1791

We had wanted to believe that Tindall had sent his men to our cabin as an empty threat, and at first it did appear that way. The fame of their whiskey, and Andrew’s skill as a whiskey maker, continued to spread throughout the four counties, and, as our profits increased, we congratulated ourselves on our success. Andrew and his friends had bested Tindall, who, far from attempting to duplicate the new method of making whiskey, continued to produce cheap spirits from his stills. Perhaps he believed that quantity must win out over quality, but it showed no sign of doing so.

I continued to work on my novel, which I wrote and revised and perfected, as Andrew did with the whiskey, until it was closer to what I wished for. I was not done, not near done, but I began to sense that it might someday be finished-that completion was no longer an elusive goal but an inevitability.

With winter over, there was more cause for happiness. I was not yet ready to say anything to Andrew, but I had missed my monthly courses now two times, and though I felt on occasion sick, and the scent of foods I had once loved now sent me to retching, I knew this time would be different. We were healthy and strong and rugged, and this baby would live and thrive.

If our lives in the West were far happier than once we would have dared to hope, events back east turned ominous. With the melting of the snows we had received our first dispatch of news, and we learned that Hamilton and Duer had only increased their power. Having enriched themselves with the Assumption Bill-a slap in the face to every patriot who had traded his debt for western Pennsylvania land-the money men in the government had convinced the Congress to charter a national bank. This project, all in the West agreed, was but a scheme to tax the poor, so that monies could be provided for the rich. The bank was upon everyone’s lips. It was the harbinger of doom, the sign that the American project had failed. In breaking away from England, we had become but an imitation, a model of its injustices. Hamilton, in our estimate, was the architect of American corruption, and Duer his principal agent. What had been done to us as individuals would be visited upon an entire nation. We of the West, it now seemed to me, who had long been America ’s unwanted stepchildren, might be forced at some future time to pick up arms against Philadelphia, much as we had done against England.

For now such a cataclysm seemed a distant prospect, perhaps a battle to be fought by our children or grandchildren, but tyranny crept upon us sooner than I could have imagined. Perhaps a week after learning of Hamilton and Duer’s attempt to sow corruption, Andrew and I were interrupted in our cabin. It was after dark, and we had only just sat down for supper when the door to our cabin opened. My first thought was that it must be Mr. Dalton and Mr. Skye, though they were not in the habit of entering without knocking. It was neither of them.

Three Indian braves faced us with the blank and unreadable expression so typical of their race-faces hard and stony, as though they had never known emotion and, at the same time, as though that lack of feeling was the very apex of some human experience. In recent weeks the air had remained rather cold, so they wore deerskin breeches and jerkins. Their hair was long and unrestrained, their faces unmarked by war paint, and they had the slovenly look of redskins too long living among white men, too accustomed to strong drink and unsavory habits. They set their guns by the side of the door and then sat down at the table without a word.

I had heard of such things happening before. The guns by the door were a sign that they meant no harm, but I remained uneasy. We dared not attempt to force them away or make them feel unwelcome, but I cannot fully describe the great fear I felt upon seeing them. It seemed to me the confined space of our cabin could not contain the mounting energy of their silent anger, violence, and, yes, carnal urges.

Andrew cleared his throat. “Well, friends, it seems you’ll be joining us for our meal, then. I’m afraid the offerings are meager, as we did not know to expect company.”

If they understood him, or had even heard him, they made no sign of it. They stared into nothingness and waited to be served, blank eyes straight ahead, soulless and soulful all at once, the centuries of hatred for our race written into their very skin. Serve them I did, giving each a plate of venison stew, a salad of field greens, and a piece of corn bread. Their eyes did not move as I set the food before them. It seemed I could have tossed stones on their plates, sending their food splattering, and they would not have responded.

I dipped my spoon in my stew, but only because I feared not doing so would upset the braves, make them believe that there was something untoward in the meal. My cooking since coming to the West was none the most sophisticated, but now it tasted like sand in my mouth, and it took every effort to swallow. I hoped the braves would be satisfied, however, eat their fill-and go. One dipped his fingers into the stew and put them in his mouth. He made a sour face, the first semblance of human expression I’d witnessed, and spat toward the fire. Another brave bit into the corn bread and let the food tumble from his mouth the way a baby does when first learning to eat. The third, unwilling even to sample what his friends found so distasteful, lifted his dish and allowed its contents to slide to the floor.

I expected Andrew to offer some kind of rebuke. In my mind I could see him gently scolding the braves, explaining that if they were to visit a white man’s house they must behave in accordance with the white man’s customs.

He merely sat with his hands in his lap. He blinked but otherwise remained motionless.

I stared at him. Andrew was no coward, but even so he was only one man, and here were three braves. What could he do? What could I expect him to do? I did not know, but oh, how I wanted him to do something!

The braves rose now, all three standing across the table from us. One took from his belt a knife. “We take your wife, we let you live,” he said.

“You are not taking my wife anywhere.” Andrew remained in his seat, looking like a clerk before a supplicant. He blinked again and again, as though trying to get something out of his eye, but he did not lift a hand to rub it.

“Not take away,” the brave corrected. “Take. You watch, we take.”

A second brave clarified his meaning, taking the index finger of his left hand and moving in and out of the circle of finger and thumb on his right. The gesture was so foolish, so much like that of a puerile apprentice, that I repressed the mad desire to laugh.

“We take your wife and you both live,” said the brave with the knife. “You fight us, you both die. This the deal.”

“I see,” said my husband, still the calm of a man who considered whether or not to buy a mule. “It is a rather unusual deal, is it not?”

“It the deal,” the Indian insisted.

“Does this deal come from Colonel Tindall?”

The braves exchanged looks, and then the one with the knife nodded. “From Tindall.”

“Very well,” said my husband.

There was then the loud report-louder for being so unexpected-of a pistol shot from nearby, followed almost immediately by a thud upon the table and then by another pistol shot. The air at once was singed with the bitter scent of powder, and our little cabin was full of stinging smoke. I looked around in terror, not knowing whence the shots had come, but the brave with the knife sank to his knees, his stomach darkening with blood. He clutched the knife so tightly, the skin of his hand turned white, but as he did so, he fell forward onto his face.

The second shot had struck another brave in the knee. He collapsed upon the floor and clutched his wound with his hand, but he made not a noise. The third brave bolted for the door-to get his gun, I presumed. Andrew let go of the pistols, and I now realized why he had been sitting with his hands under the table. I remembered Dalton ’s warning, and I could only think that Andrew had taken it to heart but had said nothing lest he upset me. He sprang to his feet, and I could see that his hands were stained with powder. His pants had been blackened by the shot, and it looked as though the fabric had caught fire and been put out. Andrew, however, remained utterly calm-focused and determined, but not hurried. Taking the hunting rifle mounted upon the wall above the fireplace, he turned, aimed, and fired.

Once more the scent of powder burst into the cabin, and smoke choked the air. Only after the ball struck the brave’s back did we see that the man had not been running for his gun, he had been running for the door. He had been trying to escape. I looked at Andrew to see how this would affect him, the knowledge that he had shot an unarmed man in the back while he fled. I did not see the man I knew there. Musket in hand, eyes hard, he looked as remorseless as had the braves.

Andrew reloaded the gun, grinding down the ball with a kind of mad calmness, and then handed it to me. “Keep it trained on him. Shoot him if he makes any move toward you.” He then fetched a piece of hemp rope and began to bind the brave’s arms behind his back.

“What are we going to do with him?”

“Tie him up while we fetch help. We need to speak to Dalton and the others.”

“You know they will kill him,” I said. I was not protesting or suggesting a course of action. I merely made a statement of fact.

“Probably. And then we go deal with Tindall.”

I should prefer to believe that it was the Indians who were the savages, while the white men bore the standard for civilization. It was not true. When we reached Dalton and told him our tale, he immediately sent word to others in the community. It was not long before a group of two score men, women, and children arrived at our cabin. They took possession of the brave. The bleeding had abated somewhat, but his leg remained atop a bloody patch of floor I would later have to cover with ashes and sawdust. I was, at least, spared witnessing what came next. The Indian was taken out to the woods to be beaten, tortured, and, in the end, scalped. His body was left to rot.

The Indians, however, were not the main source of consternation. Indians had ever been a problem, ever would be. Though I dreaded their violence, I felt sympathy for people who wanted only to protect their ancient rights and lands. These dead braves, however, had struck a bad bargain with a man who could not be their friend. They had agreed to do a terrible thing, for what I did not know. Maybe they thought it would gain them freedom or privacy or peace, but violence could never yield such things.

T he next day the bulk of the community met in the large cabin that served as the church and sat upon rough-hewn log benches that wobbled upon an earth floor. There were sixty or more packed inside, men, women, and children, faces dark with filth and anger. The air smelled of bear-fat candle and smoke and spat tobacco juice, and the faces around us were hard and set and angry. In truth, I thought they would be angry with us, as though we had visited this upon ourselves and, in doing so, visited it upon them. It wasn’t the case. We had not been living in the settlement two years, and yet these people took this assault upon us as an outrage. Some wanted to take up arms and attack Tindall’s house at Empire Hill, to set the whole city on fire. Some wanted to send envoys to treat with him that we might find some sort of peace.

There had been much shouting, but it was Mr. Dalton who brought the meeting to order. He rose, and his mere presence, great and wide and bald-headed, quieted the agitated gathering.

“This attack upon the Maycotts is an attack on all of us, make no mistake,” he said. “And ’tis a mighty low thing to get redskins to do what you won’t do yourself.”

The crowd, which hated Indians above almost every other thing, heartily agreed.

“But while we each have reason to take it to heart,” said Dalton, “I have more than most, and so does Skye, here, for this is about our whiskey. You all know Tindall has his own stills, and he sees he stands to lose money if we keep on with what we’re doing. For his loss is your profit. You have more to trade than anyone else in these parts. You all get richer. Tindall don’t like that.”

“That’s right,” shouted Mortimer Lyle, who worked a plot of land down by the creek. He was short but squat and muscular and was missing his left eye. “That’s it, all right. And that’s why we’ve got to go burn him out. Burn him out, is what I say.”

This got a general cheer of approbation, and though Dalton tried to quiet the crowd, he could do no good. Then Andrew stood and waved the men down, and slowly they calmed. My gentle Andrew soothed this group of border rioters. It was something to behold. Of course, he was known by now as a reasonable man, generous with his carpentry tools and eager to lend a hand to aid a neighbor. That he was the creator of the best whiskey in the four counties only added to his reputation. Yet that was nothing compared to what had just happened. He was new, a soft man from the East, but he had dispatched three murderous braves on his own, and that meant the floor was his if he wished it.

“I have fought in one war,” he said to the group, once it had been quieted, “and I have no wish to fight in another, even less so if it is unnecessary. Yes, we might kill Tindall and burn down his home, but what should that get us? The men back east won’t send soldiers to fight the Indians that terrorize us, but I can promise you they will send soldiers to fight rebels who visit violence upon the wealthy. You men read the newspapers. They say Hamilton wants to consolidate the power of the Federalist government-not to mention his own power within that government-and an insurrection in the West would give him what he most wants: an excuse to exercise his power. We could never win. It would be a victory for our enemies if we even showed up to fight.”

This produced a murmur of agreement.

“Then what do you suggest?” asked Walter Gall, the miller.

“I suggest,” said Andrew, looking rakishly handsome as he grinned his devious grin, “I suggest that we go have a talk with him.”

“A talk?” Gall answered with indignation. There was general uproar. Andrew, it seemed, was soft after all. He would respond to violence with palaver.

Yet he calmed them once more. I looked upon him with admiration, and I saw Mr. Dalton and Mr. Richmond did so also. They knew his worth, and it made me proud.

“He thinks to provoke us into a fight. It’s what he’s counting on. I think he needs to see that we are resolute. Steady and firm, but not quick to violence. He’ll not back us into giving him what he wants.”

It was a simple argument, but it was met with general approbation. They would talk to Tindall and they would let it be known they would not be so used. So it was they began to put together a delegation of men to go into town and confront the man who had yet again attempted to ruin all our lives.