“And the Indians?” Andrew asked.

He appeared amused at our silly question. “The bad ones been run off, the good ones are like children to look at them. They don’t do nothing but work and pray. You ask them to trade you one of your ears of corn for their six, they’ll take the trade and thank you for it. To some folks the redskins are a bit unsettling, but they don’t never do harm.”

“Do you feel that most people out there share your sentiments?” Andrew asked.

“There’s always some that don’t take to it. There’s some that never worked land before, even easy land, and they find they don’t care for the labor. Or they come from Philadelphia or Boston or New York and find they don’t like our simple houses and simple clothes. There ain’t nothing in this world that’s good for all folk, and that’s the truth, but when someone wants to leave, there’s always been a neighbor who’s done well and is willing to buy him out.”

“I thank you for your candor,” Andrew said.

Reynolds shook his head. “No more than I ought to do. We ain’t that big a settlement, Mr. Maycott, and we don’t want people who don’t want to be there. But a patriot like you, I can promise that you’d find yourself most welcome. And I’ll tell you another thing,” he said, looking about our parlor, his eyes falling to the shelves of books we could ill afford. “I see you got books, so be sure to bring them. You’ll get a better price in the West, if you’re looking to sell, and if you’re willing to lend, you won’t find no better way to make friends.”

Mr. Reynolds left, Mr. Duer returned, and we talked more. When we were alone, we said nothing of it, merely going back to our respective duties, but the next morning I woke up with Andrew holding my hand and studying my face in that way he did when his love felt fresh and new. I understood then that all was decided. Andrew, after struggling to keep his shop 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.

The 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 assistance in finding Mr. Pearson.”

“Why should I wish him found?” I asked. “I’d rather he went to the devil.”

“It would be very pleasant if Mrs. Pearson were to become a wealthy widow in search of an old love, but I would not depend upon it.”

“You are ever a delight,” I said to Leonidas. We now found ourselves outside my boardinghouse, so it was time for my man to take his leave. My rooms were cramped, and Leonidas did not choose to lodge with me. Had I larger and more spacious rooms, he still would not have chosen to lodge with me. Like many Philadelphia slaves, he had his own home, which he rented with his own money. I had in the past, for reasons not entirely clear to me, arrived at his door late at night, knocking loudly, calling out, once crying like a child. Leonidas had responded quite soundly by changing his address and neglecting to inform me of where he now resided. Indeed, all local taverners, merchants, peddlers, and landlords knew not to inform me should I come asking.

This sense of independence was my own doing. I won Leonidas in a long and vicious card game not five or six months after my ignominious departure from the army. I was living in Boston at the time, and his owner was as compassionate and caring as a slave owner might be. Prior to his purchase, and therefore through no fault of his owner’s, Leonidas had been separated from his parents when he was little more than an infant and had no recollection of them. His Boston owner had seen to his education, and when he came into my hands he was eleven, clever and already large for his age.

I thought it best to continue his education, and, until he concluded his studies at sixteen, I always found the means to pay for his tuition at a Negro school, even if I could pay for little else. The young Leonidas had been inclined to dark moods, and I could not blame him. Even then he expressed with hot eloquence his hatred of slavery, so I agreed to free him in ten years’ time, when he turned twenty-one. That milestone had come and gone the previous summer, and though Leonidas had been so good as to remind me of my promise, I was reluctant to let him go. I had been prepared to do so when events conspired against me and I had to make a hasty retreat from Baltimore. Then I had to establish myself in a new city, and I hated the idea that I must be made to do it alone.