“He shall do well for himself,” said Skye. “It seems that his good friend Hamilton has convinced Congress to pay in full the states’ debts from the war. All our promissory notes that Duer got in exchange for land are now to be paid at full value.”
“He knew!” I cried. “He and Hamilton must have plotted it out all along. They would trick patriots into surrendering their debt, and when they had enough they would get the American people, through their taxes, to pay off that debt, enriching themselves. It is the most monstrous abuse of power imaginable.”
“That is how things are done in England,” said Dalton, “but it is not how they are supposed to happen here.”
“No, but it is the way of things,” said Skye. “It hardly matters what principles are foremost in men’s minds. Those men are still men, and they will either be too idealistic to maintain power or too corruptible not to seize it.”
“You judge human nature too harshly,” said Andrew. “For what did we fight if this country is doomed to be no better than the one from which we won our independence?”
Dalton regarded him with the greatest seriousness. It seemed his orange whiskers stiffened, like the ears of a cat going back. “You do not submit to a harsh master because the next master may, for all you know, be no better. You fight, and that is what we did. We fought for the chance, lad.”
“And do we not fight now?” I asked, looking up from my needlework. “Is the fighting all done? We fight against England for oppressing us, but when we do it to ourselves, when our own government places men like Hamilton and Duer in a position to destroy the soul of the nation, do we take our ease and do nothing?”
“There’s nothing to do,” said Skye.
I was not so certain. I could not think what we might to do push back against the interests of greed and cruelty that had so clearly gained ground, but that did not mean I could do nothing. I thought of my book once more and considered that perhaps this novel, this first American novel-could I but write it-might be an instrument of change, or at least part of a movement for change, a movement of sincere citizens hoping to keep their government free of corruption. If this news about Duer so troubled me, it would trouble others. All over the country, honest men and women must be looking on with horror as corruption wound its way into the hearts of the political men in Philadelphia. Alexander Hamilton, once Washington ’s trusted aide, had turned the nation in the direction of British-style corruption. I knew I must find my voice, and soon.
These thoughts were upon my mind as I stepped outside to clean dishes in the stream. The men, or so I believed, were still within, drinking whiskey and speculating upon the evil plans laid back east. To my surprise, Mr. Skye stepped out with me. He appeared slightly, only slightly, uneasy, with his hands in his pockets, stepping with a gait too casual.
“I observed to your husband that it might be best to have an escort with you as you went about your chores,” he said, with a slight simper. Were I unmarried, I might think from his tone that he wished to declare himself.
“I do it often enough,” I said, but not unkindly. It was a cool evening for summer, and a light breeze made the air pleasant. The night sky was cloudless, and the thin crescent of a newly waxing moon underscored the brightness of the stars without overshadowing them. Together, Mr. Skye and I strode the short distance to the creek, where, setting down my sack of dirty dishes, I squatted by the cool water and plunged in the first vessel.
He took another dish. We worked in silence for some minutes until Mr. Skye said to me, “I did not mean to make you uncomfortable before. You blushed when I first spoke of your interest in economical books. I am sorry if I stepped upon something.”
He was not sorry, he was curious. If he were sorry, he would not have pursued the subject, but I could not fault him for it. Even so, I hesitated for an instant, for I did not like to speak of my ambitions to just anyone, but I sensed in Mr. Skye a man who would embrace and not scorn my project. I took a deep breath. “I plan to write a novel. Perhaps the first American novel.”
It was dark and I did not look upon his face, but even so I sensed a look of interest and respect. “The first, you say. I believe it may be too late for that. Our own Mr. Brackenridge in Pittsburgh has set his cap at the same thing.”
I felt a twinge of disappointment, but it would not last. I had long been determined to write my book and had not done so. Surely someone with more resolve would succeed where I had only delayed. Instead of dwelling upon this point, I determined that I would have to meet this worthy. “Well, it is not vital to me that I be the first, but that it be particularly American. I know not what Mr. Brackenridge’s novel might be, but I doubt we intend to write the same thing.”
“I have seen part of it,” said Skye. “It is a picaresque-a sort of American Don Quixote, or perhaps an American Smollett.”
“Then we have very different projects,” I said, and saw no reason to say more.
“Should you ever require a pair of eyes to look at it, I hope you will call upon me.”
“You are very kind,” I said, and turned to my dishes. A moment later, because I sensed my words had so pleased him, I repeated myself. “Very kind.”
A ndrew began to spend a great deal of time with these men. They helped him with the land clearing-at least Dalton and Jericho would, for John Skye avoided such work where he could, pleading age and back pain. Instead, he would aid me with the farming or join me in the cabin and ease my isolation while I prepared the evening meal. The five of us would eat together and then pass the evening with whiskey and conversation, or perhaps Andrew would join them, riding out to one of their cabins. Then, so slowly I did not notice, the land clearing diminished until it ceased entirely. Andrew would leave in the morning and come home in the evening. He would more often than not smell of whiskey, but he did not seem inebriated and I had no concern that he had found another woman. Even so, there was something furtive in his looks, as though he had been about something not entirely wrong, but certainly something he chose not to reveal. I did not love it, but I would not ask him to speak before he was ready.
Indeed, Andrew appeared happy, self-satisfied. Though he would approach the cabin with a secretive lightness in his step, I had not seen him appear to be so pleased with himself in a long while. I was lonely, yes, and missed the company of the men, Mr. Skye in particular, but I could not protest. I was a woman, and my presence was expendable so long as I did my duty. I would have to endure the solitude even while Andrew enjoyed company.
It was not only the company of Mr. Dalton and Mr. Skye that drew him in, however. He would sometimes spend his evenings at the Indian Path tavern, where women were not welcome. There the men would talk of the things that plagued Westerners-how the politicians of the East wanted us to tame the land but cared not to help us fight Indians. They spoke of the fear of foreign agents combing Pittsburgh -the British, the Spanish, the French-looking to stir up trouble. They talked of the new government back east, their hatred of Duer, and how all must be set squarely at Hamilton ’s doorstep.
So it was that, with Andrew gone so much from the cabin, my novel began to take shape in my mind-slowly at first, but the characters gathered around me, moths drawn to the flame of my mind. In the quiet, I spent the day making notes, examining the contours of my story, and, soon enough, beginning the writing process itself. I would write, I decided, a novel about our own experiences, about the evil men who defrauded patriots to line their pockets. I would write about the Duers and Hamiltons and Tindalls of the world, and about a group of Westerners who decide to exact their revenge upon them. Perhaps it was the thrill of confronting these men, if only on paper, but the words came to me as they had never done before.