The Whiskey Rebel

Ethan Saunders

The rain had mercifully abated, and so the three of us strolled away from the Pearson house with at least some comfort. I did not know what to make of this strange experience. How had Mrs. Pearson learned I was in Philadelphia? Why had she chosen to contact me and then sent me away once more? Did she truly think that, upon seeing my injuries, they were somehow linked to her husband’s disappearance?

Yes, all these questions raced through my mind. Old habits, the ones Fleet had taught me, die hard. Silently I made lists and checked fact against fact, weighed theory against knowledge, proposed notions and dismissed them almost as quickly. Yet while I did this, one thought dominated: Cynthia Pearson called for me. She was in trouble, and I was the one to whom she turned. This filled me with hope and joy, yet at the same time I found myself wracked with bouts of unspeakable melancholy.

I would have to wait until I was secure in my own rooms, bottle of whiskey in hand, before indulging my sadness. While the stranger walked with me, there was work to be done.

“How long has Mr. Pearson been missing?” I asked Lavien.

“Perhaps a week,” he said, his voice neutral, even distant. It was the voice of a man who wished to reveal nothing except, perhaps, his wish to reveal nothing.

“Why would she change her mind about wanting help?” Leonidas wondered.

“I don’t know,” said Lavien, “but I cannot believe her when she says she has dismissed her concerns as silly. Perhaps, Captain Saunders, I can call upon you tomorrow and you can tell me more of your impressions. Knowing Mrs. Pearson far better than I, you may have some useful insights, but I believe we are all too tired to be very productive tonight.”

“Of course,” I said, not at all certain I would share anything with him. I believed I liked him, but I did not precisely trust him. He knew, or suspected, far more than he was willing to share with me, and I found it irksome that he expected my notions to be given gratis while his were tucked safely away.

“I shall make my own way home,” he said. “It is but a short walk to Third and Cherry.”

I thanked him again for the service he had rendered me earlier, and so saying we parted ways. Leonidas and I, meanwhile, turned toward the river and my own lodgings at Spruce and Second. “What is your impression of him?” I asked Leonidas.

His face assumed a series of lines-eyes squinted, lips pressed-as it did when he grew thoughtful. “I don’t know. He is certainly competent. When we came upon your trouble in the alley, he immediately-or I should say instantly-began to set forth a strategy, telling me what I must do and how I must do it. And I had no difficulty doing precisely what he said, such was the confidence and authority in his voice. But that matter with Dorland’s thumb. He is cold in a way that is almost unnatural.”

“A kind of stoic efficiency,” I said. “Like a surgeon.”

“Exactly,” Leonidas said. “He knows his business, I’ve no doubt, but I don’t think he is telling us everything. It’s strange. I would think he’d want your assistance in finding Mr. Pearson.”

“Why should I wish him found?” I asked. “I’d rather he went to the devil.”

“It would be very pleasant if Mrs. Pearson were to become a wealthy widow in search of an old love, but I would not depend upon it.”

“You are ever a delight,” I said to Leonidas. We now found ourselves outside my boardinghouse, so it was time for my man to take his leave. My rooms were cramped, and Leonidas did not choose to lodge with me. Had I larger and more spacious rooms, he still would not have chosen to lodge with me. Like many Philadelphia slaves, he had his own home, which he rented with his own money. I had in the past, for reasons not entirely clear to me, arrived at his door late at night, knocking loudly, calling out, once crying like a child. Leonidas had responded quite soundly by changing his address and neglecting to inform me of where he now resided. Indeed, all local taverners, merchants, peddlers, and landlords knew not to inform me should I come asking.

This sense of independence was my own doing. I won Leonidas in a long and vicious card game not five or six months after my ignominious departure from the army. I was living in Boston at the time, and his owner was as compassionate and caring as a slave owner might be. Prior to his purchase, and therefore through no fault of his owner’s, Leonidas had been separated from his parents when he was little more than an infant and had no recollection of them. His Boston owner had seen to his education, and when he came into my hands he was eleven, clever and already large for his age.

I thought it best to continue his education, and, until he concluded his studies at sixteen, I always found the means to pay for his tuition at a Negro school, even if I could pay for little else. The young Leonidas had been inclined to dark moods, and I could not blame him. Even then he expressed with hot eloquence his hatred of slavery, so I agreed to free him in ten years’ time, when he turned twenty-one. That milestone had come and gone the previous summer, and though Leonidas had been so good as to remind me of my promise, I was reluctant to let him go. I had been prepared to do so when events conspired against me and I had to make a hasty retreat from Baltimore. Then I had to establish myself in a new city, and I hated the idea that I must be made to do it alone.

Once we reached my boardinghouse, I sent Leonidas home and knocked upon the door. My landlady had never seen fit to trust me with the key, yet she was always majestically resentful when I awoke her upon returning. There is no reconciling with some people, and I was, admittedly, disinclined to reconcile myself to this one. She did not care for me much, though I did not know if it was because of my general habits, or because I did not pay rent, or that during my late-night returns to her house I would sometimes behave unquietly. Once, while too full of drink, I had reached out and pinched her nipple.

It was now nearly midnight, so I was surprised that my knock was answered so rapidly. My landlady, Mrs. Deisher-a stout German thing-was in the habit of answering my late knocks with a taciturn scowl, clad only in her dressing gown. Tonight she was fully dressed, and though she opened the door she did not stand aside to let me in. Indeed, she blocked me, holding a candle, her hand trembling slightly.

“We must speak, Mr. Saunders,” she said, in her heavy accent.

“Captain Saunders,” I told her. “Must I always remind you? Do you not value patriotic service, or do you perhaps mourn for some Hessian officer?”

“I am sorry to say to you this, but here there is a difficulty with your rent.”

My rent. There was always a difficulty with my rent, perhaps because I was so very undisciplined about paying it. “Then we shall discuss it in the morning, but I must now sleep.”

She grunted. She winced. She shook her head. “You owe me for three months, and I must have payment.”

What nonsense over a mere ten dollars. I have ever been good with words, good with the gentle art of persuasion, but I rarely could summon the will to speak to this creature with a smooth tongue. Instead, I took a step forward and gave her my most charming smile. “Mrs. Deisher, we have ever been friends, have we not?” Never wait for an answer to such a question. “We have ever been on excellent terms. I have always been your admirer. You know that, do you not, Mrs. Deisher?”

“Have you the money?” she asked.

“A mere ten dollars? Of course I have the money. I shall have it for you tomorrow. Next week at the latest.”

“But not only for this month, sir. You owe for the past months. You must pay thirty dollars to clear the account.”

My mind had only been half engaged in this conversation, for it was a dance we had danced before, and we knew each other’s moves as well as old lovers. Instead, I had been turning over thoughts of Mrs. Pearson and, to a lesser extent, Lavien, while I absently charmed my way into my unpaid rooms. The demand for thirty dollars arrested my attention, however.

“Thirty dollars!” I said. “Mrs. Deisher, is this the time to speak of such things, in the cold darkness when, as you can see from my face, I have suffered great injury tonight?”

She shifted her squat weight and squared her squat shoulders. “I must have money now. There is a young man with wife, a baby, who can take your room in the morning. You will pay me, or you will go. If you don’t do either, I will summon the watch.”

“Are you trying to ruin me?” I demanded. My irritation caused me to forget, if only for a moment, the value of good manners. “Can this not wait until morning? Can you not look at me and see I have had the very devil of a damnable night?”

Her face settled into hard woflishness. “Do not use such language. I don’t love it. Tell me only, have you money now?” She asked the question through trembling lips.

“It is clear that there is more to this than meets the eye. What is this about? Has someone paid you to cast me out? It was Dorland, wasn’t it?”

“Have you the money now?” she repeated, but with less self-righteousness.

I had hit upon something and thought to test my theory, so I said, “Yes, I do. I shall pay you, and then I shall go to sleep.”

“Too late!” she shrieked. “It is too late! You have used me ill, and I do not want you no more. You must pay me and go.”

This was Dorland; it had to be. And yet I did not quite believe it. It was not that he was above such mean tricks, just that I did not think he had the wit to conceive of them. “If you are going to cast me out, you can hardly expect me to pay you,” I observed. “You’ll not get a penny.”

“Then you get out. You do it or I’ll call the watch.”

By itself, the watch was nothing to me, but I feared public knowledge of my eviction. Should word spread that I had lost my rooms, my creditors would descend upon me like starved lions on a wounded lamb. I could not disappear into the airless bog of debtor’s prison just when Cynthia Pearson had reappeared in my life.

It was not the first time I’d been cast out of a lodging, nor the first in the middle of the night. I had done what I could and would not humiliate myself by prolonging the argument. “Very well. I shall collect some things, and I shall quit your miserable house. Be so kind as to pack what I do not take now, and keep your fingers off what does not belong to you.”

“I keep your things as surety, and if you try to get them I’ll call the watch. The watch.” She’d seen it in my eyes, sensed my fear with her low animal cunning, and now she held forth the word like a talisman. “I call the watch and they take you away. Forever!”

Forever seemed a bit extreme, even for a flight of fancy, but I did not dash her dreams. I was too angry, and she must have seen that too in my eyes, for she took a frightened step backward. In response, I offered her a very stiff bow and set out once more into the rain.

I t is a sad thing for a man to realize that once he has lost his home, he has nowhere to go. My life in Philadelphia, brief of tenure, was such that I knew many men, but had no friends I dared approach this late at night to request shelter. I could not go to any of the ladies who were generally kind to me, even the unmarried ones, for if I were to appear in my current sodden, beaten, and hatless state, I believe the spell I had once cast might dissipate. As for Leonidas, I would, this one time, violate his desire for privacy and throw myself on his mercy, if only I knew where he lived.

As if in accompaniment to my bad humor, the rain had begun once more. With the cold numbing my fingers, my boots nearly soaked though with melted snow and mud, I trudged back to Helltown and the Lion and Bell. I asked Owen to let me have a room and to put it upon my account, which was now, ironically, in excellent order. If not precisely warm, Owen was at least agreeable, recognizing that, in what I had believed to be my dying moments, I had deceived my way into doing him a good turn. Surely this act of kindness undid my early misrepresentations.

He would not allow me a private room but sent me to a mattress of sack and straw on a floor in a room full of drunk, farting, belching men who smelled as though they had never seen the inside of a washtub. I was one of these creatures, and I fell asleep regretting that Dorland had not killed me after all.

M orning came, as it insists upon doing, and my head ached from drink and violence. My ribs were purple and inflamed. My ankle was swollen as well. I hadn’t noticed it the night before, but I must have given it at least a minor twist during my adventures with Dorland.

I had no time to nurse my wounds, however, for I had money to earn. And how does a man such as myself fill his purse in a pinch? Unfortunately, the secret involves a clean and handsome appearance. Even were my face not in its current contused state, I would still need to bathe and gain access to better clothes, now held hostage by my ogre of a landlady. Were I in possession, however, I should proceed with the confidence of one pleasing to the female eye. I am told it is so. I am tall and manly in stature, and I know how to direct a tailor to shape clothes to advantage. My hair remains thick and dark brown in color, and I continue to wear it in the rugged queue style of the Revolution.

Once I am properly appointed, it is off to a public place, perhaps a park or a walk or skating pond, where I find a group of promising women, preferably a gathering in which all or most wear wedding bands. It is far easier, and less vexing to my sense of propriety, to convince a married woman to compromise morals in which she no longer believes than an unmarried woman to abandon a purity to which she yet aspires. So I fall in with a set of ladies, conducting myself as though I already know them, so that each will presume that she has met me and ought to recollect me or-far worse-that she alone has been omitted from the frolics where the others first had the pleasure of my company.

Once at ease with these ladies-perhaps walking arm in arm with two of them for a time to introduce them to comforts of physical proximity-talking with them, flattering them, bringing them to unseemly convulsions of laughter, I begin to drop hints of my past. I make allusions to my time as a spy (though I never use the word, because of its ungentlemanly connotations), serving General Washington, risking life and freedom behind enemy lines. There is always at least one lady who expresses a wish to hear more. And though I plead reluctance to dwell on those dark days, I can, in the end, be convinced to speak-but, pray, not in public. No, it is a hard thing to talk of here, in the daylight, in so beautiful a place. Perhaps a quiet chocolate house, just the two of us? No? Your home? Yes, that is much better; we may speak there without a spectacle being made of my pain.

From here it is a simple thing. A story or two of danger, of friends lost, of torment in enemy camps. A bit of a choke in my voice. A sympathetic caress of the hand.

That is what I would do were all means open to me. The thirty dollars I needed to retrieve my goods were nothing and would be mine by the end of the afternoon, should I put my mind to it. Without my good clothes, and with a bruised face, and smelling like a dead dog in an outhouse, I had no such options.

I sat in Owen’s tavern, enjoying a breakfast of stale bread dipped in whiskey, followed by a refreshing draught from the mug. I could not mistake Owen’s gaze, nor the distance granted to me by the other morning patrons. In a state of agitation, I took a piece of thick twine I’d discovered in my pocket and rolled it over my bunched fingers, unrolled it, and proceeded again while Owen stared at me.

“What is it?” I demanded. “Is it my twine? Do not think to take from me my twine.”

“I don’t want your twine.”

“A man ought not to be without his twine,” I told him.

“Forget the twine. You look like bloody death,” he said to me.

“I but need to clean up a bit. And to do that, I will need-oh, what is it? Ah, yes, a bit of cash. What say you, Owen, to lending me thirty dollars?”

“Get out,” he said.

I decided it was time to move on. I took leave of the good barkeep, retrieving from the insensible head of one of his inebriated customers a hat of indifferent quality. Even after a quick reshaping and delousing it sat poorly upon me, yet a man cannot endure to be hatless.

Dorland would be out with his business. This being Tuesday, his wife would be hosting her weekly luncheon, a salon with ladies of her acquaintance. I had never observed the ritual myself, but she had spoken of it while we lay together, and I would pretend to find it interesting.

On the way, I grew thirsty from the day’s cold, and I wished to make certain my credit had not been harmed by rumors of eviction, so I stopped to quench my thirst and test my luck. Three whiskeys, a mug of ale, and a less than fortuitous game of dice (my wager on credit) later, I concluded that my reputation was in good health and so resumed my mission.

At Dorland’s house, I pulled the bell, and the servant who answered regarded me with considerable disdain. Now, I am not an unreasonable man. I knew I appeared poorly, but I firmly believe that servants ought to regard every gentleman as though he were perfectly appointed. I suppose I could be a vagabond, but I could also be a wealthy gentleman just come from a carriage mishap. It was not for him to judge.

“I should like very much to see Mrs. Dorland,” I said. “I am Captain Ethan Saunders, though I do not have a card upon me. No matter, the lady knows me.”

The fellow, quite old, with a face cracked like dried tar, stared at me. “Sir?”

“What do you mean, sir? What have I said that requires clarification? There is no call for sir. Have you no manners, no respect?”

“Sir? I am sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I cannot understand you, sir. Your words are running together somewhat.” He licked his lips thoughtfully, as though working hard to determine how best to render his thoughts into speech. “From drink, perhaps?”

I had no time to bother with servants who cannot comprehend spoken English, so I pushed my way past him. He was old and frail, and it required no great effort, though I could not have guessed how easily he would be knocked to the floor. Many times before I had been in the house, so I made my way to the sitting room, where I believed I should find the lady. And there she was. She and seven or eight friends sat about in handsome little chairs displaying themselves to one another, dressed in a stunning array of blues and yellows and pinks, looking like a sampling of exotic birds, like French royalty. They sipped coffee, nibbled upon dainties, and discussed I know not what. I know not because they ceased discussing when I made my entrance, a bit too abruptly, I admit. I lost my footing as I pushed open the door, tripping upon the rug, stumbling forward, catching myself on the sideboard, and, finally, bouncing a bit, righting myself only by grabbing hold of a portrait upon the wall. This came off, having been hung improperly. It fell to the floor, where I believe the frame may have cracked. I, however, remained aright.

The ladies stared at me, their coffee cups suspended in an eerie tableau of fashionable life. Finally, Mrs. Dorland spoke. “Captain Saunders! Lord, why are you here?”

Note she did not ask what had happened. Here I was, looking as though I’d clawed my way out of my own grave, and yet she did not come running, hug me, caress my injuries, ask me how she might be of service. Could she get me anything? Could she put me to bed? Could she call a surgeon? No. She wanted to know why I would interrupt her gathering.

“Susan, my dear, I have been laid low by unfortunate circumstances.” I gesticulated like a stage performer and knocked over a vase, though I have excellent reflexes, and so caught it and returned it to its place. “I am afraid, Susan, I am in a bit of a difficult situation. I should be most grateful, Susan, if you might offer me some assistance.”

She gazed upon me with disgust. I wish it were not so, but there is no other word.

“Why do you look at me so, Susan? Have we not been friends? Has not our friendship brought me this state? Will you not help me for what has been between us?”

Then she spoke four of the most withering words I have ever heard. “My name is Sarah.”

I clapped a hand to my forehead. “Of course. Sarah. It is what I meant. Sarah, things have grown a bit difficult for me. A few dollars would help me smooth over my troubles. You have always been a generous woman. I have need of your generosity now.”

I looked at her, my eyes wide and moist, masculine but also childlike in their raw, naked need, but it was all for naught. She only turned away in horror. It began to occur to me that visiting the lady while she had guests was not a sound idea. It may, in fact, have been a poor one. I had hoped to charm her and her friends. I had hoped to have many women offering up coin and sympathy, but I now saw that I had only embarrassed Mrs. Dorland, and she wanted nothing more than that I should leave her be. And not only that lady. The others looked away as well. One held her head down with her hand raised, so that I could see nothing of her face, only her mass of copper-colored hair.

It was a distinctive color, and I began to think at once that I knew it. I took a step closer and stooped a bit to get a look upon the shaded face. “Why, it’s Louisa Chase!” I cried. “Lovely Mrs. Chase. I know I can rely upon you for a few dollars. It shall not be missed by so magnanimous a creature as yourself.”

Louisa Chase did not raise her eyes. She and I had enjoyed some lovely afternoons together some months before. I had no notion that she and Mrs. Dorland were friends. I had the notion now, and I saw that things had turned out very, very badly.

“I beg you, leave,” said Mrs. Dorland.

“I want only fifty dollars,” I said. “That is all. A mere fifty. It shall not be lost to you. Come, good woman, a pittance for a patriot, a soldier of the Revolution, a man upon whose back the republic was built.”

Her eyes had reddened considerably as I spoke, and now tears were flowing freely down her cheeks. “Get out,” she said, “I hate you!”

Knowing when I am unwelcome, I took my exit no better than when I had arrived but surely no worse, and I chose to count that a kind of triumph.

S ince the previous night I’d given a great deal of thought to what had happened with Mrs. Pearson. She had summoned me, taking the trouble to travel to my rooms-which meant she must have made an effort to discover where I lived. I had been in Philadelphia only a few months and had never been upon the social scene. I did not believe we had acquaintance in common, unless some ladies I had known were friends of hers. Even so, I never took such companions to my own rooms.

Nevertheless, she had found me, and when I obeyed the summons, she sent me away. She had lied, and done so quite badly. She had wanted me to come, but, once there, she had an even more pressing reason for sending me away.

Now, as I walked along Spruce Street, I contemplated the possible reasons for her behavior. The first was that circumstances had changed. Either she had obtained intelligence of her husband or had reason to believe he and her family were safe. The second was that her disposition had changed. She had either concluded or been convinced that, whatever her concerns, they did not justify renewing an association with a man she once intended to marry but whose companionship was not now appropriate. The third, and the one that had me moving in the direction of her home, was that she had been forced somehow, against her will, to tell me that she wished me to leave: a threat against her husband, herself, or perhaps even her children.

It was that possibility, that and my desire to look upon her face in daylight, and perhaps even a desperate knowledge that I had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, which brought me once more to the Pearson house. In the light of day it seemed even more luxurious and stately, though the leafless branches and empty gardens gave it a forlorn appearance, dignified but terribly lonely.

I knocked upon the door and was addressed almost at once by the same footman with whom I had dealt the previous night. He appeared neater and better rested, but I supposed I did not look better for the time that had passed. My injuries developed into bruises, and while I might be certain that the light of day would only elevate Mrs. Pearson’s loveliness, I knew it served to make my own appearance even more dreadful-beaten, rumpled, and tattered. Given that my clothes bore the odors of my recent adventures, I must have seemed no better than a vagabond, a pitiful unfortunate, and though this footman and I had locked horns not a day earlier, he at first had no notion of who I was.

“Beggars are dealt with at the servants’ entrance,” he intoned.

“And I’m sure they are grateful,” I answered. “I, however, am Captain Ethan Saunders and would like to speak with Mrs. Pearson.”

He studied me again, attempting to contain the disgust so visible upon his face. Yet the typical sneering so common among footmen when confronted with those beneath their masters’ station was not evident. Indeed, he took a step forward and spoke in a low if sympathetic voice. “Sir, I believe the lady herself asked you to go and not return.”

“She did, but I doubt she meant it. Please tell her I am here.”

“She will not see you.”

“But you’ll tell her?”

He nodded but did not invite me in. Instead he closed the door, and I remained upon the front porch, cold in my insufficient coat. Light snow fell upon me, and I watched as gentlemen and ladies traveled along Spruce, glancing up at my vigil with dismay.

In a moment, the man returned, his expression neutral. “Mrs. Pearson will not see you.”

I could not argue this point with him. If I was refused, nothing I could say would alter his mind, and unless I was prepared to force my way inside, which I was not, that would be the end of it. “You seem like an honest man,” I said. “Is there something you would tell me?”

He opened his mouth as if to speak but then shook his head. “No. You must go.”

“Very well, but if you-”

This little speech was interrupted, for he reached out and pushed against my coat. “I said go!” he cried, rather more loudly than necessary. “Leave, and return no more!”

I turned away, slouching in a performance of shame, feeling the stares of passersby upon me. On the surface, I should have been dispirited by these events, which might now appear as one more disappointment and humiliation in a string of such since the previous night. That was on the surface. Look beneath and you may find several things that surprise you, such as a footman with more cleverness and dexterity than that for which perhaps you gave him credit. You may also find a piece of paper, cleverly secreted inside the coat of Captain Ethan Saunders, a piece of paper from the lovely and once-beloved Cynthia Pearson.

Though I may have been eager to tear open this piece of paper, I knew better than to do so. If the footman had taken the trouble to disguise the delivery of the note, it suggested he believed the house was under scrutiny. The streets were populous enough that there might have been someone following me at that very moment. I knew I had to read the note at once, but I had to find a way to do so without betraying its existence.

I crossed the street and turned to look at the house. On the second floor, a curtain was parted, and there stood the lovely Mrs. Pearson, her children by her side, looking out at me. Our eyes met, and she did not look away. We looked upon one another for half a minute, perhaps longer, and in that time I saw her as the woman I had loved, fully and entirely, and I saw in her too her father’s face, proud and wise. Then the curtain closed, eclipsing an expression unspeakably sad.

She had her father’s bearing and dignity and earnestness, and it was for his sake as well as hers that I would do what I must. He had been the most resourceful and clever man I’d ever known; I cannot say what would have become of me if it hadn’t been for Fleet. For good or ill, he’d made me what I was. I’d grown up in Westchester, New York, the son of a successful tavern keeper who died five years before the Declaration. My mother’s second husband was of a staunchly Royalist bent, and politics proved a useful means of separating me forever from my inheritance. I had graduated from the College of New Jersey at Princeton, and once the war began, my education was sufficient reason to grant me the rank of lieutenant when I enlisted in the cause. Yale and Harvard men generally became captains.

I made a poor officer, however, and often incurred the anger of my superiors for disorderly behavior-and once for slipping behind the lines to occupied New York to learn if a favorite whore had survived the famous fire that nearly destroyed the city. It was suggested to me by the captain of my regiment that it might be in everyone’s best interest if I simply ran away from the service, but I had enlisted, and no amount of regimental displeasure would make me break my word.

Then, one afternoon when we were encamped on Harlem Heights, Captain Richard Fleet came to see me. Tall and slender, white-haired, serious, yet with an unmistakable look of mischief in his eyes, he was unlike anyone I had ever known. He was one of those men whom others instantly like, and as determined as I was not to fall under his spell, it took no more than a quarter of an hour before I thought of him as a trusted friend. We sat in a tent while he poured us wine and said he had heard I found some difficulty in settling into the life of a soldier, but General Washington needed men with skills such as I possessed.

What skills were they? I wished to know. Why, I was told, my ability to lie and smoke out a liar. My ability to slip across enemy lines and then back across our own, all without detection. My ability to ingratiate myself with women, with strangers, with men who thought, only a moment before, they found me most detestable. In short, I was a man like Fleet himself, and General Washington wanted me. He wished to make me, the son of a Westchester landowner, into a spy.

I was young and brash and proud of my honor and was not eager to adopt a way of life scorned by gentlemen as disreputable, but Fleet was persuasive. He convinced me that I could not be but who I was, so I might as well be that in the service of my country. Yes, he said, spies have long been despised by gentlemen, but was this war not proof that the world was changing, and who could not say that in its aftermath spies would not be embraced as heroes? The first step, he said, was for us to see ourselves as such.

It was all as he had said. We became heroes, up until the time we were disgraced, up until the time Hamilton had broadcast that disgrace. That man had ruined my life and essentially killed Fleet. And now here was Fleet’s daughter, afraid and desperate. I felt the note that had been slipped to me and swore an oath to myself too primal, too raw, to find form in words.

I walked north to Walnut Street and turned west, moving through increasingly thick crowds of people: men of business, men of trade, women about their household duties and less savory business as well. Carts moved this way and that, hardly knowing how to get past one another and the pedestrians and the animals that crowded the street. In such chaos, I might perhaps have risked taking out my letter and reading it, but I did not do so. I dared not look back to demonstrate that I searched for someone upon my trail, but I felt him there.

Once I reached Fifth Street, I turned north and walked quickly up the stairs and through the front door of the Library Company building, directly across from the Statehouse. It was a new building, envisioned by an amateur architect who had won a design contest, and it was a glorious thing to behold. The massive redbrick structure boasted two stories, columns, and, above the front door, a statue of the late Benjamin Franklin, the library’s founder, in classical garb.

Inside, all was marble and winding staircase and books. Books upon books upon books lined the walls, for the Library Company, though a private organization, had become the official library of the Congress and so considered it its business to acquire virtually everything. Once through the doors I was struck by its stately appearance. In the lobby a half dozen or so men, all of whom were finely dressed, turned to look at my unpleasant intrusion upon their cerebral seclusion.

I had not long, and I hoped it was not a lengthy message or I should run out of time. I turned to the gentlemen staring and said, “Yes, I know I am too unseemly to be here. I do not wish to stay. Give me but one minute.”

So saying, I took from my pocket the note and broke the still-soft wax seal. Inside, in a hasty hand, I found the following:

Captain Saunders,

I am sorry to have sent you away last night, but I had no choice. My house and my person are watched, which is why I could not see you. It has not long been so, and I can only wish you had responded to one of my earlier notes, but there is no helping that now. The die is cast. You must not come again or attempt to contact me. I do not know who they are or what they are or what they want, but they are very dangerous. My husband is missing and I believe in danger, and that danger may extend to me and my children. I wish I could tell you more, but I know nothing other than that it has something to do with Hamilton and his bank. I beg of you to help me. Find my husband and discover the danger to which he has exposed himself and his family.

I have no right to ask this of you, but I know of no one else, and if I did, I would still want you, for I know of no one better. For the sake of the memory of my father, please help me.

Yours &c,

Cynthia Pearson

Nothing could have been more shocking. Jacob Pearson missing, and Mrs. Pearson herself in danger, her house watched? A connection to Hamilton and the Bank of the United States. Most troubling of all, however, was the fact that she had sent me notes previously. I had not received any, which meant someone had intercepted them. I could not contact her again, that much was clear, for I would not expose her to more danger, not for the world, and yet I must help her. I knew not how to do it, but I must.

I crossed Fifth until I reached the grounds behind the Pennsylvania Statehouse, across Walnut Street from the jail and, perhaps more ominous for me, the debtor’s prison. The Statehouse offered handsome gardens, full of trees, even if they were devoid of life in the heart of winter. With no better thing to do, I brushed snow off one of the benches and sat alone in the growing gloom, the cold jabbing its sharp needles into the armor of my tattered clothes and the dimming warmth of drink. The park was near empty, but not entirely. Here there was a small group of boys playing with a lopsided leather ball that made an unappealing wet noise whenever it struck the ground. There an old man watched his trio of dogs folic. Closer to the Statehouse, only yards away from the courtyard where this nation declared its liberty, a young man attempted to obtain the liberty of a young lady’s petticoats. Behind me, on Walnut Street, a steady stream of pedestrians and carriages passed. I was tired, and despite the cold, I thought I might fall asleep.

“Captain Saunders. A moment, if you please, sir.”

I opened my eyes and saw before me a tall man with long reddish mustaches and a wide-brimmed hat that sat high enough upon his crown to reveal his apparent baldness. He spoke with the thick brogue of an Irishman, and was-I guessed from the lines upon his face-perhaps fifty years of age, but a rugged fifty. He had the look of a man used to hard labor, physically imposing but not menacing.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“We have not yet met,” answered the Irishman. “But I’ve a feeling we’re to become excellent friends. May I sit?” He gestured toward the bench.

I nodded and moved to give him more room, but I was on my guard and already thinking through my options.

He removed the rest of the snow, sat next to me, and reached into his beaver coat. “I am told that you are a man who enjoys whiskey.” From the coat came a corked bottle, which he handed to me. “It is the best produced upon the Monongahela.”

I pulled out the cork and sampled the contents. It was, indeed, quite good. It had a depth of flavors I had not known before in the drink, a kind of sweetness I found surprising and pleasing. It hit my empty gut hard, though, and a warm feeling built there to near hotness. I bent over hard, holding out the bottle so as not to spill it.

“Too strong for you, lad?” the Irishman asked.

I shook my head, once I’d sat upright again. “’Tis a mite powerful, but that’s not it. The stomach is a bit queer these days.”

“Powerful or no, I can see by your face that you enjoy it.”

“It’s good stuff, quite unlike any I’ve had before.” I took another drink, bending over only slightly this time. “Now, tell me who you are and what you know of me.”

“I am an admirer,” he said. “I have heard of your acts during the war.”

My guard was up. “Those who have heard of me are generally not admirers.”

“I, for one, do not believe the charges leveled against you. I know the taint of falseness when I hear it, and I know a patriot when I see one. You see, I fought in the war myself, sir, serving under Colonel Daniel Morgan.”

I was now interested. “You were at Saratoga?”

He grinned. “I was, lad. In the thick of it, with Morgan’s riflemen. Have no doubt of it.”

“I congratulate you, then. And I think, as one soldier to another, you perhaps can tell me what you wish of me.”

“I know you have come upon hard times. I believe I can help you.”

“And how can you do that?”

“You require money.”

I looked at the Irishman. He had a ready grin and the sort of face that most men would find easy to trust, but I was on my guard. “You want to give me money? For what?”

“You are concerned about Mr. Pearson, though I know he is no friend of yours. Mrs. Pearson may be another matter, and perhaps for her sake you would search for her husband. I want you to understand that he is in no danger. None of them are. We only wish for you to no longer trouble yourself with Mr. Pearson’s whereabouts. If you do that, you shall find many of your own difficulties will be gone. They will vanish like smoke. Mr. Pearson is in no danger, but it is vital that you not pursue him.”

“You convinced Mrs. Pearson that I ought not to pursue him,” I said.

“She understands what is at stake.”

“And what is at stake?”

“The future of republican virtue,” he said. “Nothing less, sir, nothing less. Do you want to stand with the virtues of the Revolution, or do you submit to Hamiltonian greed?”

“I am no Hamiltonian,” I said, not failing to note the significance of his name appearing in this conversation.

“I thought as much,” he answered. “I can tell you little, but there will have to be trust between us, as we are both brothers of the Revolution and patriots.”

“Mrs. Pearson is concerned for her husband, and perhaps even for her own safety. You would need to convince me that her family is in no danger.”

“I promise you, he is unharmed. They are in no danger from us.”

“And yet you watch her, threaten her.”

“Never,” he said. “We would do no such thing.”

“And you have seen fit to have me cast from my own home.”

He shook his head. “I have heard of that but, again, it is not our doing. You have enemies unconnected to us, Captain Saunders; you would be better served cultivating friends. Think on it. Why should we harm Mr. Pearson? We do not seek to harm you, only to aid you in your current embarrassment. Were we villains, were we interested in doing violence to those who oppose us, we could simply kill you.”

“I’m hard to kill,” I said.

He laughed. “No one is any harder to kill than anyone else, and that’s the truth.”

I knew otherwise but saw no point in saying so, not when I might offer a demonstration. I took a deep drink of the whiskey and then doubled over once more, coughing and gagging. From the corner of my eye, I could see the Irishman looking away politely, pretending to watch a pair of antic squirrels rather than listening to the prolonged sounds of my retching.

At last I sat up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and took another drink of whiskey. This time, I remained upright.

“You see?” I said to him. “Hard to kill.”

He took from his pockets a piece of paper sealed with wax. “You need only trouble yourself with these matters no longer. Fifty dollars in notes to do nothing. A good bargain.”

I held out my hand, and he gave me the paper, which felt warm in my ungloved hand. “Suppose I take the notes and continue to look for Pearson?”

“You do not want to do that, Captain.”

“Oh?”

“We are not people to cross.”

I put the notes into my coat pocket. Why should I not? I was not a person to cross either.

“I do not fear you, Irishman, and I believe you have erred significantly. The lady is frightened, for her husband and for her children, and I believe she is frightened of you. I shall find out who you are and what you’ve done with Pearson, and put an end to whatever you plan.”

The Irishman folded his hands together, and a ghost of a smirk appeared under his orange whiskers. He was very confident, that one. “You’ll do all that, will you? Have another drink, lad. Vomit once more upon the ground. That’s what you’re good for now, and not much else. You won’t help your lady friend by pretending to be what you were before you became a ruin of a man. Now, if you’ve no mind to behave sensibly, agree to my terms or return to me my notes.”

“And what shall happen if I don’t choose to?”

He grinned again, showing me a mouth full of even brown teeth. “Look across the street, upon the roof of the prison, near the cupola. There is a sharpshooter, another of Daniel Morgan’s men, so you know what that means. You’re in his sights, and if I give the signal, or if he thinks me in trouble, you’ll be heading home tonight without your head. If you had a home to go to, I should say.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw, upon the prison roof, the unmistakable flash of sunlight against metal. I estimated the distance at near 150 yards. If the rifleman was good enough to have served with Daniel Morgan, I doubted not he could make the shot.

Only the day before, I had surrendered; I had regarded death as a thing of no consequence. Now I wished to live, and I was fully alive. These men, whoever they were, with their schemes and bribes and intrigues and efforts to buy my loyalty-and, most insidiously, their willingness to underestimate me-had awakened a slumbering dragon, who would now unfurl to show his might.

I turned away from the prison building. “You think me an idiot, Irishman. Whoever you are, whatever you do, you crave secrecy. That is why you do not wish me to seek out Pearson. Go ahead. Signal your man that he must kill me over fifty dollars. You see I do not move.”

His face darkened. “You’ve made a mistake. There are more of us than you suspect, and we are in places you would not credit. We are determined, and we cannot be defeated.”

“Then you will have to know triumph with fifty fewer dollars.” I rose from the bench and strode away. Alas, for form’s sake I could not watch what happened next, though I heard it clear enough. The Irishman pushed to his feet and attempted to pursue me, but he took only half a step before something suddenly jarred him, shortened his step. A moment of disorientation, in which he could not account for all that happened, and then his falling upon his face. I heard the satisfying thump of aging Irishman upon snowy earth.

It had been but a little thing to pretend to vomit while encircling my piece of twine around his ankles. It would not keep him entangled for long, but it would be enough.

I now looked back to see him force himself up and back to the bench that he might examine my little trick. His hat had fallen off, and I saw he was indeed hairless, his skull like a tanned and leathery egg. He dusted the snow off said hat and replaced it. It did not afford him the dignity he had hoped.

“I believe you’re the one who has made the mistake, Irishman,” I said. “I fear neither pain nor death. The only thing in the world I feared this morning was that I should not be able to find thirty dollars anywhere in this world.” I took out from my coat the gathering of notes and held it up. I waved it at him. I mocked him with it. “Now I have twenty dollars to spare. So get gone under cover of your sharpshooter, I care not. I’ll find Pearson and then I’ll find you.”

I actually did not get to the end of that sentence, for at some point around I’ll find Pearson a third party crashed into my back, knocking me to the ground so that I struck my head. Once I was down, the Irishman cut himself free while his friend pulled the banknotes from my hand, and the two men ran off, leaving me down in the snow, cold and despondent, happy only that he had left me his very good bottle of whiskey.