A Goats Story

by Aodhán C. E. Ridenour

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
parts 1, 2, 3

Part 3: Hircus
conclusion

Three hundred miles to the East, in Philadelphia, a young, determined Alexander Hamilton sat at his desk immersed in wax-sealed letters from the leaders of sixteen foreign countries. His duties as Treasurer of the world’s newest country could not be more tremendous. The United States of America was more than three million dollars in debt, a sum unspoken of in 1789, and he saw no alternative but to fix it.

Moreover, citizens of the frontier complained the Federal government was neglecting its responsibility to suppress the American Indian insurgency to the west. These problems squelched his spirit, racked his brain for months, and he feared the civil distress might split the country; worse yet, besmirch his reputation.

So, he went to church.

“They want protection but offer nothing in return. An income tax is just too radical, and how would we collect it?” prayed Hamilton, kneeling by the candlelight at St. Patrick’s painted plaster feet. “We saw what treachery a tax on stamps can bring a settlement. There must be a mutually satisfactory solution...”

Through a thin lattice door to his right, Hamilton suddenly heard a woman sobbing. “I’ve been drinking, Father.” She struggled to catch her breath. “I got a start one afternoon while weaving, and now I drink a cup with breakfast. The spirit of Monongahela Rye has ruptured my soul, Father. Please, rid me of this demon before it drags me through the gates of Hell!”

Hamilton scooched along the wooden kneeler, closer to the door, abandoning his own prayer, and leaned his ear toward the paper panel. Frankincense tickled his powdered nose.

The priest responded solemnly: “My daughter, thou hast committed great sin. As penance, you must pray to St. Michael five times a day and, for one month, give the church an equivalent sum you might have spent on whiskey. Go now, be with God. You are forgiven.”

Hamilton stuffed a full federal note — the equivalent of ten dollars two centuries later — into the collection box and, bobbing at his toes, exited the church, a sanguine smile peeled across his face.

* * *

On January 27, 1791, Congress passed a tax on the domestic production of whiskey — the first internal excise tax in United States history. It was only a matter of time, the way the speculative Eastern interests saw it. Though from the perspective of the West, having only eight years previously ended the American Revolution, many veterans of the war saw Hamilton’s imposition as a double-cross, a bumptious assault on the common drink of the golden frontier. A virtuous assembly of underground county delegates gathered at the Green Tree Tavern on the Monongahela waterfront.

“It’s egregious! They penalize the men who fought for them.”

“The drink is our right!”

“I fear they wish to become the British. Tax us from afar with little representation.”

“We cannot send our whiskey East, like Neville and Cannon. We should not!”

“It is a taxed designed to weaken the common man and make the rich richer! We cannot accept it!”

Mariam Miller had prepared a great goat stew for the men, and nearly a barrel of rye was drunk amongst their righteous grievances that night. Upon the invitation of Mister Miller, Benjamin had traveled with them to the Tavern. He sat to the side, drinking with Oliver. He was the only one who knew the name of the goat they were eating.

* * *

Around this time, Robert Johnson, a tax collector for the U.S. Treasury, was making his rounds near Pigeon Creek, south of Pittsburgh, attempting to serve subpoenas to farmers and distillers who refused to pay the whiskey tax. He felt accomplished, having dropped off six subpoenas in a single day; curiously, though, none of the men he served them to were present — he merely left the parchments with their wives or sons.

A pink September sunset drenched the sky as Johnson’s horse traversed the open trail, and one thousand evening locusts echoed in between the oaks. Robert Johnson had nearly slipped into a meditative trance, satisfied and tired from a long day on the saddle, when he could have sworn he smelled the spicy scent of distilled spirit.

Snap!

“Who’s there?” asked Johnson, turning on his horse to peer into the dimming forest. Seeing nothing, he moved to carry on at a gallop, but squarely on the trail before him stood a red-faced man, wearing leather boots and a rather unimpressive headdress made of turkey feathers.

Johnson made to grab the musket strapped to his saddle, but as he reached, a pair of hands seized his arm and pulled him to the ground. “Been to tell my wife hello there, have ye, Johnson?” said one of the red-faced men, in a thick Scotch-Irish accent.

Johnson struggled. “Unhand me, savages! What business do you have with me?” but the painted hands of six or seven men constrained his kicks. They tore at his shirt and violently removed his pants.

“We Indians feel great contempt with the government as it exists, believe it or not. You must send General Washington a message for us.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort! Washington does not respond to savagery.”

“Then perhaps our great Washington is nothing more than a chicken.”

It was then that Robert Johnson felt the heat of piping tar across his back and ass. “Do tell your chicken president that the Whiskey Boys have no plans of paying his production tax, and that we will be no less savage than the natives to our west until it be repealed.”

Soft white chicken feathers floated to the earth. The Whiskey Boys ran yodeling, taking Johnson’s horse and with paperwork in hand, into the transitory night.

* * *

Ambushes of increasing violence ensued, and letters citing the “Whiskey Boys” as treasonous outlaws galloped back to Philadelphia, where Hamilton, infuriated and vexed by the primitive unrest, arranged for John Neville, a former Revolutionary War general and Washington’s personal friend, to become the Inspector of the 4th Survey. Neville also happened to be the richest man on the frontier, operated the region’s largest still, and owned a 10,000-acre plantation worked by slaves. Living in a two-story plaster house atop Bower Hill, just South of Pittsburgh, Neville held a position viscerally above the common man.

Benjamin, for himself, sometimes traced after the ambushes, collecting crumpled ammunition in a pouch. He dumped the balls into a jug upon returning home and, pleased with his collection — nearly an entire jug full — he poured a handsome cup of whiskey and retired to the porch. To his surprise, rocking in the chair and munching on a bright green apple, Benjamin discovered a man who introduced himself as David Lenox. The man wore an expensive blue cotton blazer, shiny buttons, and a long, finely trimmed goatee. “Have much business with the good Mr. Faulkner, do you, m’boy?”

Feeling a step of confidence, Benjamin said, “I’m his housekeeper. I tidy up his home after ambushes.” Benjamin shook his jug of musket balls. “What in God’s good name are you doing on my porch?”

“You are very bitter for a young man. Who has taken something from you?”

Benjamin decided not to answer. Instead, he repeated his original question.

“I’m here to investigate the violence occurring in the 4th survey. From what I gather, there are some people who show contempt for the laws of the United States.” Lenox finished his apple, and threw the core toward the feeble goats, twelve of which remained.

Lenox noticed the formidable jumble of ceramic jugs stacked aside the cabin. “You like whiskey, then. I’m of legendary thirst myself. Surely you know where the best of it can be found in these frontier parts. Might I ask who is your supplier?”

Benjamin peered into the man. The man peered back. “I’m very thirsty,” said Lenox, pulling a pouch from his breast pocket, dropping it on the table with a clink.

* * *

That next morning, early, long before the sun had reached its peak, John Neville arrived on the ridge of Henry Miller’s property in the company of Federal Marshall David Lenox. Lenox carried heavy service papers in his satchel.

“You are treasonous to the men who fought and died for you to own this land!” scorned Miller from his front door, sighting Neville on the ridge, the man’s horse a tamping silhouette in the harvest sun. “You stand along to pilot this sheriff to my very door, and are so possessed with cowardice you do not speak a word.” Neville chewed the butt of his cigar and leered across the fields.

“Should I fetch the muskets, Uncle?” asked Oliver, dripping sweat from scything rye with the farmhands.

Before Miller had a chance to answer, Neville shouted from the ridge. “We leave now, Lenox!”

Mad with passion, Miller nodded to his nephew and Lenox presented again his stack of subpoenas: “You will comply, sir. By every legal and necessary step, sir, you will comply.”

Miller’s countenance gnarled and bubbling drool formed at his lips. “Listen to your King and leave! Never return, or you will feel the lead of my rifle inside your blackened heart.”

At that, Lenox dropped the subpoenas in the dust. A hoard of men had appeared from in the trees, hollering and packing muskets. Lenox sprinted to his horse, and he and Neville rode off in direction of the men, as this was their only escape. Rifle fire screeched. Noticing young Benjamin amongst the crowd, smiling proudly, Lenox felt a blaze of anger and pulled back to curse the hoard. The men responded to his frenzy with a blitz of local insults, which confused the city-dwelling Lenox. “What do they mean by ‘gizzard licker?’ I know it must not be a compliment!”

“Ignore them, David. They are simpleminded farmhands. We must go now.”

* * *

Led by “Tom the Tinker,” a man of infamous moniker as well as the public voice of the rebellion, and a boisterous, whiskey-guzzling German by the name of Phillip Vigol, thirty-seven men, including Benjamin, prepared to march on Bower Hill. Mostly veterans, or veterans’ sons, they moved in respectable formation and marched to the beat of drums. Before attacking, Tom the Tinker offered Neville several negotiations and demands, to which the former general refused.

“Allow them your women, farmhands, and children to leave. We do not wish to harm them, Neville. Nor you, if you would simply resign as inspector and allow us our independence,” Tom shouted. Unbeknownst to the rebels, Neville himself had dressed up as a lady, put on a powdered face, and escaped wearing a billowy wool dress.

Then, from the house, the rebels saw a bright white cloth flapping from an upstairs window. Assuming this at least meant recess, if not surrender, the rebels hooted, shaking arms and standing eased. Oliver stepped into the field, acclaiming victory, and had turned to commence a chant when rifle fire rang from up the hill. A horrified expression split Henry Miller’s face as Oliver grunted and collapsed in silence.

* * *

Living still, they formed a cot of sticks and wool for Oliver and trudged the boy back into cover. For weeks he suffered as his organs struggled to perform.

Another march on Bower Hill left Neville’s mansion little more than smoldered char. The rebels, in the name of Oliver, had attacked the house and burned it to the ground, securing what documentation they sought, while Neville fled to Philadelphia. There, in response, President George Washington ordered five thousand military soldiers to march to Pittsburgh and detail two rebels: Philip Vigol and Henry Miller. Under force of law, the two were convicted of treason and sentenced to hang.

Alas, threatening to secede should death occur, the rebels proposed a revolution, and that they would form a new country: Westylvania.

Through Mr. Miller’s absence, Benjamin transferred his few belongings, the jugs, and the remainder of his goats to the Millers’ home and stayed to assist with the harvest, spending substantial time at Oliver’s bedside.

“I believe I am to die, Ben. It feels as though my heart moves with decreasing vigor every breath.” The stocky boy slept on his stomach most of the day. He was fed applesauce by Benjamin or his aunt.

“Take slower breaths,” Benjamin advised. “Allow your heart the time it needs to heal.” Ben had recently returned from the dust and grain outside. Although he found Oliver’s declining condition troublesome, the care they shared provided the lonely Benjamin with his first true friendship in years.

Oliver attempted to breathe more easily, but faltered on the intake, igniting a quivering pain that drove him to tears. “Ben, I tell you I will not heal. The doctor’s extractions and bloodlettings only weaken me further. I will not live to see my twenty-second year.”

“Mabrey is the best doctor on the frontier, Oliver. He believes you will heal.” Benjamin poured himself a glass of cider. He’d switched to it from whiskey in the recent weeks.

“It is the truth that I tell you, Ben. There’s not much more life for me to live.”

“Do not make me go and leave you alone, speaking of what you do not know. I could milk and clean my goats tonight, but I choose to stay and make company with you.” Benjamin removed his pants and shirt, changing into his sleeping attire.

Oliver quietly struggled to breathe, asked, “Benjamin, I wish to know the Lord God Almighty, will you help me?”

Benjamin licked his lips of cider. “What do you mean?”

“Have mercy on me, Ben. The pain, it is unimaginable. Hold my face into the mattress, say it was my heart. Let me meet the Lord our God!”

Benjamin stared at his friend’s face pressed against the burlap. Tears darkened the fabric. Oliver’s face was swollen purple, and he lurched at every breath. The scent of his open wound reminded Benjamin of a beheaded goat, but he didn’t say this aloud.

“You have practice making it painless. I know you care for the goats and honor them with merciful slaughters. Do the same for me, I beg you!”

Benjamin placed his empty cup beside the bed. He lit the beeswax candle they shared, as the sun had already set. “I regret every life I have ever taken. Do not ask me to do this again, Oliver. Now I must go and milk my goats. I shall see you in the morning.”

Oliver whimpered, sobbed, “May you never know a pain like this, Benjamin, nor ever feel the other side of it.”

Benjamin tightened his jaw and left the room.

Skittering between gutters in the candlelight, Oliver saw the jug of Benjamin’s collected musket balls gleaming on the table. He wheezed and reached to grab its tiny handle, pulling it to the floor beside the low bed. The pieces scattered like a swarm of beetles. One by one, feeling them shred his hot esophagus, Oliver swallowed the crumpled lead until no longer could he feel his heart.