A Wicked Way to Burn (2 page)

If all went well, he thought as he rode on, it would be a simple matter, this buying up of cheap turpentine and black powder (but quietly, through an agent) before mixing them with a bit of rum from his stores. Once the doctored item had been recasked, it would be sent inland by someone who had nothing to do with the coast trade.
The deadly new product would be difficult to trace back to him. On the frontier, it would be as welcome as any other intoxicant, and would be bought up by enough willing customers to make him a quick and satisfying profit. If a few delicate guts were poisoned by the drinking of it—why, they might have known better, and couldn’t they follow their noses to save their lives? Most who bought would be heathens and savages anyway, and good riddance.

His knobby hand continued to fondle the bag of Dutch gold kept snug and warm beneath the red wool cloak. If all went well, he could soon laugh at the backs of the blasted customs men who peered out to sea. Not that he generally disliked these men; most of them were quite sympathetic, and took pity on a hard-pressed merchant—took bribes, really, for overlooking the outrageous duty of sixpence a gallon on non-British molasses brought up from the Caribbean.

(The commodity was, after all, one of the mainstays of colonial shipping. Everyone knew that much of the coast lived by sending fish, lumber, and livestock to the British, French, and Dutch sugar islands, in exchange for their dark syrup. Brought back to Massachusetts, it then went into dozens of distilleries, and came back out as rum that could be easily moved, and sold for a large profit at home or abroad. Some went as far as Africa, where it was traded for slaves, who were shipped to the sugar islands, where they were sold for more molasses, which would again be brought back to the colonial distilleries. It was a system that worked and would continue to work, because everyone concerned could share in the profits. Well, nearly everyone.)

Lately, however, rumors from London suggested that special interests might soon prevail, and that far stiffer controls could be expected within the coming year, now that Grenville had hold of a depleted royal purse … as
well as the young George’s ear. The coffeehouses had been full of it for weeks.

Thirty years before, old George’s infernal Molasses Act had threatened to stop the Triangular Trade with its tariff on the foreign syrup that now satisfied more than two-thirds of the distilleries’ demand—had even with the war going on! Thankfully, war or no, the Act’s provisions had never been much enforced. But what if that were to change?

There was even an absurd new idea of requiring customs officials to actually
live
in the colonies—instead of staying safely at home in England, leaving their responsibilities to colonial men who were paid nearly nothing.

It was almost unnecessary to pay such men anything at all. Everyone knew where to find their pockets, and had long stuffed them with a little something extra, to feed their families. If the Crown started paying them a decent wage, their eyesight might improve dramatically. Next, they’d be expecting shipping manifests to actually agree with goods carried! Then, where would everyone be?

Long an avowed Tory, Duncan Middleton had lately become interested in Whiggish ideas of liberty, and British abuse of the colonies—which he often read about in the newspapers—although he also felt it was a shame they gave encouragement to the rabble. Still, noisy mobs might keep the long arms of the king and his advisors busy, and away from things that didn’t concern them, like warehouses, and cargo holds.

Suddenly the sea wind hit him fully, and he had a clear view of a nearly spherical moon rising through the trees. Pulling wool closer for warmth, Middleton gave a harsh laugh.

In Rhode Island, away from the old Commonwealth, Britain saw far less, and a man of business could do far more. Of course a great many of Providence’s men of
business were pirates plain and simple—if few went to the trouble of stealing on the high seas. Not unlike himself, smiled the sly old merchant. Let Sam Adams and the rest in Boston earn His Majesty’s displeasure: the Crown would soon make it hot enough for the City on the Hill. Meanwhile,
he
would build a second home to the southwestern, while he fleeced the frontier.

And so, thoughts of death and taxes, pain and profits winged peacefully about the merchant’s head on this quiet evening, complimenting each other pleasantly. The fading light had left the sky a soft rose, and the sea sent up moonlit reflections of lilac and silver.

That must be the final milestone up ahead, and there was a figure waiting just off the road, standing in the shadow of a leaning pine. Next to it stood two oxen and a loaded wagon, as promised. Soon, Middleton thought, he would go on alone to Providence. He looked forward to a very large bowl of crab bisque, and a dozen or two of oysters, for he was keenly hungry. But business first.

Once more, capriciously, he whipped the shuddering animal beneath him, and hurried on his way.

It might be mentioned that the gold the merchant carried was of an interesting and unusual stamp. Several pieces of it would soon leave a glittering trail as they lay about the countryside like autumn crocuses. And watching them from the shadows would be an old reaper. He, too, would appreciate their bright, ageless bloom, while he held a scythe to the ready in his grasping, bony hands.

Tuesday

T
HE SUMMER OF
1763 had sent a good harvest to the village of Bracebridge, just west of Boston. Now, with Nature’s work nearly done, the countryside caught its breath. A well-earned calm, buzzing like a gentle spell, settled over all.

All, that is, except the kitchens, for truly, woman’s work is never done. This was the season of preserving and laying away for the long New England winter. And in more than one house, the steamy air was full of apples—small, striped apples bubbling into applesauce and apple butter in black pots suspended above steady fires, while sliced apples dried slowly on threads among the rafters.

Inside one such kitchen at the edge of the village, close by cupboard shelves lined with crockery, pewter, and china, a young woman stood in a warm ray of amber light. She sighed as she passed a sticky wrist over a wisp
of hair that had fallen from its pins. It was the color of clear, sweet cider, glinting richly with red and gold. Today, Charlotte Willett would not have been pleased with the comparison. She longed to be out walking, waiting for a cool twilight. Thoroughly tired of bending, carrying, peeling, and coring, she tossed down a paring knife with a defiant glance at her stout companion.

“Any more outside?” Hannah Sloan inquired without looking up. She paused to catch at a billowing linen sleeve.

“Three more bushels. And that’s the end. Thank heaven.”

Hannah kept peeling and slicing on the boards that stood between them, her broad back to the fire. The monotonous routine of several days had taken its toll. Words were currently few and far between.

Charlotte leaned back to squint through one of the open windows, adjusting the light muslin bodice that stuck to her skin. Above the house, the barn, and the farmyard between, a huge white oak dropped acorns and leaves around chickens scratching and muttering below.

In the same shade, an old dog lay stretched and dozing, his brown, curling fur dappled with sun and flecked with gray. Once a herder of sheep, Orpheus was now reduced to lifting an eyelid occasionally when a hen came to close. But he
would
stay within earshot, his mistress thought fondly.

Charlotte turned again to watch Hannah reach deep into a basket. On most days, the older woman walked up from her home by the river bridge to work with Mrs. Willett for several hours, leaving her own household to the care of daughters who were in no hurry to see their mother return. Now, her face below her mobcap was colored like an Indian’s—red from the fire on one side, blue from the cooler reflections of a late October sky on the other.

“Hannah, will you still go at four?”

“I’ll stay until we’re done.”

Another hour—maybe two!

Abruptly, knowing there would be eyebrows raised behind her, Charlotte spun around in the heat, and lunged through the open door to freedom.

THE SUGARED STEAM
of the kettles was no match for the whispering breeze outside.

As Charlotte, led by Orpheus, rounded a corner of the house, she was humming an appropriate hymn to the world’s blessings, her plain skirts swinging gently over the cropped grass. Before long, she took stock of all she saw, each thing hers to care for.

The little cherry’s summer leaves were curled and faded, nearly ready to fall. She and Aaron had planted it together. Six years ago they had set the tree in, the same week Reverend Rowe had joined them together. Now, almost three years had gone by since another Sunday—when ropes in loving hands had lowered Aaron into nearby ground. That unbearable winter, Reverend Rowe had counseled Mrs. Willett to listen to the Lord and her elders, and to avoid examining her own inclinations, at least until she married again. The memory of this advice caused Charlotte to lower her round chin thoughtfully and kick a little at the grass.

The first time Aaron had come up from Philadelphia, he had only planned to visit the Quaker community near Boston. A young gentleman of some means, he’d also hoped to take home one of his own for a bride. Instead, he had been taken with Charlotte Howard, and finally chose to stay in Bracebridge. Her family were not Friends. Still, she shared her husband’s trust in an inner light, in the truths revealed by Nature, and in the virtues of simplicity. They both knew that they were fortunate,
and blessed, in each other. But even as they started their life together, they also knew that what comes to a young couple can as easily go.

Well, life
had
moved on, even without Aaron Willett, although it had taken a while for her to accept the idea. Now, it looked as if the country entered a great new era. There was a new king, tall, boyish George III, who promised to take good care of his subjects while he tended his own fields. (Farmer George, they had begun to call him.) The Great War that had unsettled much of the world, fought in North America against the French and their Indian allies, was over. And the peace treaty signed in Paris the past February had given Great Britain uncontested right to Canada, as well as most of the country east of the Mississippi. People were flooding back to abandoned settlements, and pushing the frontier farther west.

For her part, Charlotte Willett had for three years been the sole manager of a farm that had once held a whole family. Still held them, she thought with a familiar stab, in the high, fenced plot that overlooked the river, above the hillside orchard. Not so long ago, her parents had been carried there to join three infants who’d never grown to childhood. Then, suddenly, her sister Eleanor had been taken on the eve of her own marriage. And Aaron had died of the same choking fever within a few weeks, leaving the sharpest ache of all. Why, she wondered, should it be that some families increased, while others declined? For she had no children. Neither had two young cousins, buried where they fell—one with Braddock in ‘57 near Fort Duquesne, the other in Quebec with Wolfe, in ’59. Already, their faces were a blur in her memory. Now, of her own generation, only she and her younger brother remained.