Now all at once I saw what I should have seen before. The lamp outside Mrs. Deisher’s house was out. The lamps by the neighbors’ houses were out. Were I not so out of practice I would have sensed the ambush, but I could not undo what had been done. I could only move forward.
The dark figure-a big man, stocky, probably muscular, wearing a wide-brimmed hat; I could see no more-stood over me on the stairs, perhaps savoring his moment of advantage. He reached into his belt for something and held it up. In the dim light of cloud-covered moon and dim stars and distant lamplight I could see the faint twinkle of polished steel. It was a blade, and rather a long one. From where I lay, even with the wind blowing between us, I could smell him: the rank sourness of unwashed clothes, old sweat, and the peculiar acrid scent of wet, moldy tobacco.
I knew several things now. This man, whoever he was, had not come to kill me. Had his first blow to my stomach been made with that knife, I would now be dead or dying. The blade was to frighten me or to hurt me without killing me. Even so, I knew if I was not careful I might yet end up dead.
My head ached, and I felt a dull, painful heaviness in my gut, but I ignored it. The man loomed closer, only three or four steps away. I was on my back, propped up on my hands. He would think me helpless and at his mercy, but it wasn’t quite so.
Any encounter such as this one is like a game of chess. He had his moves to make and I had mine. We could go only certain ways. Each move creates a new series of possible countermoves. Most important, perhaps, victory goes not to the player who is stronger or more ready to attack but to the player who can see and anticipate the farthest into the future, who can map out the multiplying strands of possibility. This is what I told myself.
He had made his first move, and now it was time for mine. Under the circumstances, I needed to buy time and distract him. Asking him who he was or what he wanted, begging for mercy, telling him I could pay him well to leave me be-none of these things would do. Not because they had no chance of working, but because they were all too predictable. I chose to speak nonsense, but nonsense that would make him stop to think.
“I began to think you would never make your attempt,” I said.
In the dark, I saw the outline of his head shift in birdlike curiosity, as though he took a moment to consider. He took a step toward me, and I believe I as much as saw his mouth open, though I know not that he would have spoken.
He never had the chance because at that moment Mrs. Deisher slammed open her front door and stood there, a dark and billowing figure in her dressing gown, a candle burning behind her, holding something long with a comically flaring end. It took me a moment to identify it as an ancient blunderbuss.
The weapon must have been a hundred years old at least and, from the look of it, would best serve as nothing more than a decorative wall hanging for a hunting lodge, but the stout German lady wielded it like it was Excalibur. My assailant was prepared to take no chances, and he immediately leaped from the stoop and began to run down the street. To my surprise, Mrs. Deisher jumped after him. She launched herself into the air, and her gown ballooned out. Her feet spread wide, she landed upon the cobbled walkway with a crack as wooden shoes struck brick. Taking not even a moment to think of her own safety-or, I might add, to aim-she raised her antique weapon and fired. It exploded like a cannon and belched out a great foul cloud of black smoke. She had fired high, for I heard only the cracking of brittle winter tree branches, the echo of the report, and, finally, the distant slap of feet as my assailant vanished into the night.
Mrs. Deisher tossed her smoking weapon to the ground, put a hand on my forearm, and pulled me to my feet. “I wrong you once,” she said to me, “but not twice. You friend of government, and so friend of me. I save you for America.”
“And America thanks you,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. I pressed a hand to the back of my head, and it came away dry, which was a rare bit of good news. I gave Mrs. Deisher a little pat upon her hand and then looked down the street at the empty darkness, expecting to see nothing and finding all my expectations, for once, fulfilled.
I could not criticize her for having saved me, though I thought that if the encounter had lasted even a few moments longer I might have learned something of my attacker. As things stood, I had not seen his face or heard his voice. And yet there was something familiar about the man. I had no idea who he was, but I believed this was not the first time I had been close to him.
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.