Free The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss

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

    T he 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 fact 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