by David Liss
Andrew shook his head. “I cannot afford to keep my house and yet not work my shop. I do not see how we can travel out there to inspect our property.”
“If we cannot see the land, we cannot buy it,” I said. “I am sure you understand that.”
“Absolutely. If you cannot see the land, then of course you cannot buy it.” Mr. Duer began to collect his things and spout pleasantries about how if we needed anything of him, we should not hesitate to call. Then he stopped himself in mid-sentence. “A thought occurs to me. It is the very germ of an idea. Hold.” He held out one hand in a gesture directing us to halt while he collected this notion from the ether. “Would it have some effect if you could speak to someone who has seen the lands—who has lived upon them?”
“I cannot say for certain,” Andrew said. “It should very much depend upon the person.”
“It should depend upon the person, I agree. And it would help to speak to such a man. As it happens, I know of a landowner who is in town this very week,” he said. “Perhaps I could persuade him to take a few moments to answer your questions.”
We agreed it would be a worthwhile conversation to have, and two days later he was back in our parlor, this time accompanied by a rough-looking fellow called James Reynolds. He was perhaps no older than my Andrew, but his face was cracked and wind-beaten and sun-blasted. Across his right eye a scar stretched from his forehead down almost to his mouth, half an inch wide, a deep gulf of violence that had mysteriously left his twitching eye intact. He wore homespun clothes of a rugged material, but they were nicely tailored and by no means out of fashion. Indeed, he carried himself with the rigid posture of a proud gentleman planter, though his manner was a bit more coarse. His teeth were sepia from a tobacco habit, and he was inclined to wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
He sipped at his tea, holding the whole cup with a strange caution, as though he might forget himself and crush it like an empty eggshell “So, Mr. Duer here wants me to tell you about Libertytown.” His voice was thick, as if his throat were coated in gravel.
“Libertytown,” Andrew repeated.
Reynolds smiled. “Most of us served in some way or another, during the war.”
“Are you satisfied with your life there?” Andrew asked.
“You have to understand, I wasn’t born to money. My mother was a seamstress, and my father died young. In Libertytown, I work my own land, and I take orders from no one. I grow more than I need, trade some of the surplus to the other farmers, and the rest we cart back east. I’ve got a little bit put away now. I didn’t have that much debt to exchange, not so much as you, so I’ll never be rich off my land. But I’ll tell you this: I won’t never be poor neither.”
“In your opinion it is every bit the paradise that Mr. Duer describes?”
He ran a hand through his hair, which fell freely to his shoulders, was unevenly cut, and was very black but flecked with gray, or perhaps ash. “I wonder,” he said to Mr. Duer, “if you could give us a few scant minutes alone.”
“Come, sir,” Duer protested. “There is nothing you can say that I may not hear, surely. We are all friends to be honest with one another.”
“Only a moment, if you please.”
“Only a moment, then.” Duer stood, offered us a bow, and left the room. In but a moment, I could observe him out the window, pacing upon the street. He did not seem to me particularly uneasy, but more like a man who had other things to do with his time and did not care for matters to run longer than he had expected.
With Duer gone, Mr. Reynolds let out a sigh of relief, like a man who has overdone himself at feasting and now unbuttons his trousers. He set down his teacup and leaned forward slightly in his seat. “Here’s the truth of it. Duer there, he’s as straight as they come. Even so, you have to understand, he wants to exchange land for war debt. That’s his business, and so he puts things in a particular color.”
“It is not paradise,” Andrew said.
“Ain’t no paradise on this earth, Mr. Maycott. Nothing even close, so don’t believe those stories. The winters ain’t as mild as he might suggest; we get big snows just like everyone else. Summers can be hot and muggy and full of flying things that you sometimes think will drive you mad. We’ve had problems with bears from time to time. Couple years back, a friend of mine was mauled to death when his rifle misfired, hitting the thing in the leg instead of the head.”
“Do you regret exchanging your debt for the land?” I asked.
“Not for a moment,” he said. “It ain’t perfect, but I ain’t never had a chance at anything better. The land is wondrous fertile, and the crops nearly grow themselves. The society—well, you couldn’t ask for better folk. He told you about the dancing, I reckon. He loves to talk about the balls. There’s all sorts of societies and clubs. We get newspapers and pamphlets and books—we get them late, but we get them.”
“And the Indians?” Andrew asked.
He appeared amused at our silly question. “The bad ones been run off, the good ones are like children to look at them. They don’t do nothing but work and pray. You ask them to trade you one of your ears of corn for their six, they’ll take the trade and thank you for it. To some folks the redskins are a bit unsettling, but they don’t never do harm.”
“Do you feel that most people out there share your sentiments?” Andrew asked.
“There’s always some that don’t take to it. There’s some that never worked land before, even easy land, and they find they don’t care for the labor. Or they come from Philadelphia or Boston or New York and find they don’t like our simple houses and simple clothes. There ain’t nothing in this world that’s good for all folk, and that’s the truth, but when someone wants to leave, there’s always been a neighbor who’s done well and is willing to buy him out.”
“I thank you for your candor,” Andrew said.
Reynolds shook his head. “No more than I ought to do. We ain’t that big a settlement, Mr. Maycott, and we don’t want people who don’t want to be there. But a patriot like you, I can promise that you’d find yourself most welcome. And I’ll tell you another thing,” he said, looking about our parlor, his eyes falling to the shelves of books we could ill afford. “I see you got books, so be sure to bring them. You’ll get a better price in the West, if you’re looking to sell, and if you’re willing to lend, you won’t find no better way to make friends.”
Mr. Reynolds left, Mr. Duer returned, and we talked more. When we were alone, we said nothing of it, merely going back to our respective duties, but the next morning I woke up with Andrew holding my hand and studying my face in that way he did when his love felt fresh and new. I understood then that all was decided. Andrew, after struggling to keep his shop profitable, could return to the independence of working the land. I, for my part, had become convinced that this was the opportunity for which I had been waiting. If I wished to write an American novel, what better opportunity could I have than to experience a uniquely American way of life? I would go the frontier, live among settlers, write of their ways, of land-clearing and farming, of Indians and traders and trappers, of western folk who lived by their strength and wits and force of will. I would write the novel that would define, for years to come, the very nature of its American form. My enthusiasm grew so great that I could not have imagined the land would fall short of our expectations in any way, yet I would soon enough learn we had been tricked into trading the hope of our future for nothing but ashes and sorrow.
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 fa
ct 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 fac
e 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.
