“I remember you when you first joined up with the party heading west. You was just a green gal from the East. Now look at you, killer of men, housebreaker, thief, who knows what else? I told you the truth, missus. The West changes you, I said, and by God it changed you good. But I ain’t gonna let it change you that much.”
He wasn’t going to kill me. I began to feel it, and my muscles loosened. I took a deep breath. “What do you mean?”
“You killed Hendry ’cause you had no choice, so now you think you can kill when you choose. You think it’s not so different. I did too, once. I’d killed some Indians when I was with a scouting party ’cause they ambushed us, and it felt good. I thought of my family when I fired my rifle right into those redskins’ chests. I didn’t mind at all. Then, a year later, I was coming through the woods at night and I come across a single Indian who’d made camp, asleep by his dying fire. I figure, I killed one Indian, why not another? I didn’t know if there was more nearby, so I didn’t use my gun. Instead I snuck up on him real quiet and tomahawked him right in the face. I done his mouth first, so he couldn’t scream none, and then his whole face until he was dead, and then I took his scalp. I was covered with blood at the end, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that when I was done, I knew killing ’cause you could was a different thing from killing ’cause you was made to.”
“You didn’t like it,” I said.
“Nah, I loved it. I love to kill Indians. Killing Tindall was pretty good too. But I don’t love myself no more, missus. That’s the thing.”
“Why would you do this to save me? I thought you hated me.”
“I hate me, missus, not you. I just get it confused sometimes.”
I looked at Tindall, and I could now see the back of his head. The hair was matted with blood. “They’ll figure out he didn’t hang himself of his own choosing.”
“Don’t matter,” he said. “I already wrote up a note, which I aim to bring to that lawyer, Brackenridge, in town. Then I’ll go.”
“But they’ll hunt you.”
“They’ll hunt me, but they won’t find me. I’ll be an outlaw, which I reckon I’d like.” He gestured with the rifle to the side table near the door. “There’s some notes there, a pretty good amount. Three or four thousand dollars. I don’t know what to do with paper, so you can have it. I’ll take the coins, probably six or seven dollars’ worth; they’ll think I took it all. But you best get gone.”
“Thank you, Phineas.”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry I said those things to you, missus. I never had no choice in it. I had to say them, you understand, but I’m sorry all the same.”
“I understand,” I said, though I did not. Perhaps I did not want to.
“None of it meant nothing, and that’s the truth. Now, you get gone. Then it’ll be my turn. I need to get to Pittsburgh, deliver my message, and then get to killing Indians.” He waved his gun at me. “You best go. I cain’t always help what I do.”
I gathered up the notes he’d assembled and hurried down the stairs, considering how best to frame these events to Dalton and Skye. I had not been quite the woman of action I’d wanted to be, but I did not see why they had to know that.
Ethan Saunders
The next morning I awoke to the emotional toll of knowing I must, that night, dine with the woman I had always loved and do so alongside her husband, a man whose improprieties had embroiled not only his own family but perhaps the nation itself.
By the time I awoke, a servant of the Pearson house had already delivered a note to the effect that I was expected at seven of the clock. I had come, in my mind, to see this evening as an opportunity to answer many outstanding questions, so there was little for me to do that afternoon. I may have fallen, therefore, into some old habits, and I spent much of the day in a few comfortable taverns, and yet I did not arrive to the Pearson house more than half an hour late. It had warmed a little and snow had begun to melt, so I should not be ashamed to own I slipped on my journey and was damp when I arrived, but as most of the damage was upon my greatcoat, I presumed my hosts would not know of it.
This house-or mansion, I might style it-was on Fourth Street, just north of Spruce on a fashionable block. The exterior was of typical Philadelphia redbrick, remarkable only for its well-appointed bushes, shrubs, and trees, the true beauty of the gardens not being visible in the winter or after dark. Inside, however, I was treated to the finest of floor coverings in imitation of exquisite white tile, a handsome silver-blue wallpaper-cunningly textured to evoke the impression of the water of a nearly still lake-and numerous portraits, many of the illustrious house of Pearson. A lower servant of some sort, a kitchen boy perhaps, offered to clean my shoes, for, unknown to me, I had traversed through horse leavings. After my grooming was so tended and I was dusted off like a freshly sculpted block of stone, I was at last permitted to ascend the stairs to the inner sanctum of excellent company.
I was shown into a large sitting room where Mr. and Mrs. Pearson sat next to one another on a settee. The gentleman of the house held himself stiffly and formally and waved his oversized hand about as he held forth on some matter of trade. His thinning white hair was wild and unkempt, and though his tone was voluble, his eyes appeared dim and hollow. Next to him, his wife wore a dress of sea green, with a flattering cut. She looked at me as I entered, turned away, then looked up once more and rose.
“Why do you rise?” asked her good husband. “I am speaking and you rise, as though no words come out of my mouth.”
“Our guest has arrived,” she answered, her voice flat.
“Our guest? Oh, Saunders. Hide the state secrets-ha-ha. He has kept us long enough, hasn’t he?” Pearson at last rose to greet me and I shook one of his big hands. His grip was loose and absent, as though he could not remember why he took my hand or what he was meant to do with it.
Also rising was the widow Maycott, who had been sitting in a high-backed chair. She wore a much plainer dress than Mrs. Pearson, ivory in color, high-necked and remarkably charming. Upon another settee was a couple of some fifty years apiece, handsomely if uninterestingly appointed. The man was a bit on the short side, and plagued with that curious sort of fat which accumulates only in the belly, the rest of his body remaining gaunt, so that he appeared great with child. His gray-haired lady, attired in a modest black gown, had pleasing features and must have been acceptably comely some thirty years earlier; probably not so, ten years later.
“Captain Saunders, I am happy to see you once more,” said Mrs. Pearson, her face the very mask of control. I suppose she had a great deal of practice.
“See him at last, you mean,” said Pearson. “It is a dreadful thing to make a man wait for his own supper.”
I bowed. “I do apologize, sir. I was detained upon government business.” I told this lie not only to excuse myself but to excite a general curiosity.
“You must tell us of it,” said Mrs. Maycott.
“What government business could you be about?” asked Pearson. “The kind with beer and rum by the smell of it. In any case, I would think the government is by now done with you.”
Mrs. Pearson, blushing charmingly, made some sort of conversation-changing spouse-scolding noise in the back of her throat. “Mrs. Maycott tells me you already know each other and was the one who invited you here tonight, so I need not introduce you.”
“I have indeed already had that pleasure,” I said, bowing to the lady.
Did I detect a flash of jealousy upon Cynthia’s pretty face? She turned to the older couple. “May I present Mr. Anders Vanderveer and Mrs. Vanderveer, Mr. Pearson’s sister.”