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.