Page 3 of Rebel

Tanner sighed. “You’re not the first man to accuse me of being too serious for my own good.”

“I didn’t saytooserious. I think it’s important to think deeply on things.”

Tanner’s eyes lifted back to his, surprised. “The unexamined life is not worth living?”

“Perhaps that depends on the life.” There were some things in Sam’s life that were much better left unexamined, although increasingly more difficult to ignore in Tanner’s presence.

Tanner didn’t respond to that, not with words, but there was that unnerving look in his eye again. “I read novels, too, and poetry.” He glanced down at the table, his finger tracing the whorls in the wood. “Richard Barnfield is a favorite. Do you happen to know any of his work?”

Sam shook his head, dismayed to see a flicker of disappointment on Tanner’s face. “Poetry wasn’t encouraged at home,” he confessed, staring tight-lipped with embarrassment into his glass. If that made Tanner think him an ill-educated oaf, then so be it. “My father didn’t hold with that sort of thing.”

Tanner grasped his wrist, his little finger missing Sam’s cuff and resting warm on the back of his hand. “I didn’t mean to quiz you. I was only…” He smiled, as if to himself, and after a moment withdrew his hand. “Well, my father would have agreed with yours. And they’d both think you make better use of your time than me.”

“Well,Idon’t think so.” Sam watched Tanner’s long fingers reach for his glass again, the ghost of his touch still burning Sam’s wrist. “I’d like to read novels and poetry, and political philosophy. I just wouldn’t know where to begin.”

There was a long silence following that remark, and when Sam looked up, he found Tanner watching him, a slight frown between his brows as if he were trying to puzzle out a particularly confounding problem. “I could show you,” he said at last. “I mean, I could recommend some books. I have a small collection and I’d be happy to make suggestions.” There was a slight rise of one eyebrow. “That is, if you think our tastes run in the same direction…?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Sam said, “I guess we won’t know unless we try.”

“No, I suppose we won’t.” Tanner looked away before Sam could decipher the complicated expression in his eyes.

***

AND SO IT became the custom, over the dark winter weeks, for Sam to visit Tanner in his lodgings after work and for Tanner to select a book from his six full shelves and hand it to him. Sam would take it home, tucked under his coat to keep it safe from the weather, and sit by his lonely fire to read. Novels were a revelation, although it was difficult at first not to hear his father’s voice scolding him for wasting time reading about people and events that had never even happened. The escape, though, and the places a man could visit through words of imagination, felt like opening a door to a new world. Poetry he found more difficult, but he greatly enjoyed the occasional treatise on political philosophy Tanner put in his hands.

They went on like this until the beginning of a cold spring when, one night, the book Tanner pulled from his shelf was written in French. “Du Contract Social,” he said, pronouncing the words with a lilt. “Rousseau’s ideas are fascinating. I’d love to know what you think.”

Sam turned the volume over in his hands. “I’m afraid I don’t know French. What’s it about?”

“I could read it to you, if you like?” Tanner ventured. “Translate, I mean.”

“I’d like that a great deal,” Sam said, unable to keep the broad smile from his face. Sitting by the fire in Tanner’s cozy rooms, listening to his pleasant voice, was a thousand times better than reading in solitary silence at home. And in no small part because he could watch Tanner’s face while he read, see the excitement flashing in his eyes as he described the notion of a contract between kings and their people. Sam’s whole body glowed with contentment, feeling warmer than the fire itself.

It was that night that caused a change in their routine. Absorbed in their discussion of Rousseau’s ideas, Sam forgot the time and Tanner’s landlord had to politely ask him to leave before he locked up the house for the night. Since they’d both been disappointed at having to end their discussion unfinished, Sam invited Tanner to take dinner at his house the following Saturday so they could continue. Tanner agreed with a steady look and one of his watchful smiles.

Saturday came and found Sam feeling unaccountably anxious—or, rather, not anxious but nervous, or, rather, not nervous but excited. He had May build up the fire and Peggy prepare a good dinner. It was the first time since the typhus that his house had been filled with the warmth of another person, and from the smile Peggy gave him, she approved.

He and Tanner talked over dinner, and late into the night, until the candle had burned to a stub and there wasn’t enough light to carry on. They talked of Rousseau and his radical ideas, of the brewing trouble in Boston, of poetry and novels—The Castle of Otranto, which Sam loved, and Nate disparaged—and of nonsense, such as the best honey bread in Rosemont and John Reed’s son (also John) and his vain attempts to pass himself off as a dandy.

After Tanner left, Sam hardly slept. His restless mind turned the evening over and over, dwelling on certain moments: the way Tanner leaned forward as he spoke, elbows on knees, almost brushing Sam’s leg; the way his face softened when Sam was talking, his dark eyes bright; the way he’d dawdled in the hall as he left, holding Sam’s hand in a lingering farewell handshake.

From that night onward, every Saturday evening was spent before his fire with Tanner—sometimes reading a novel or poetry, always discussing what they’d read, but increasingly reading Tanner’s political philosophy. Pamphlets and books with startling ideas that Sam found interesting, but that set Tanner alight. Sam loved to listen to him talk. He loved the way his eyes flashed when he was excited, the way the skin over his cheekbones flushed with fervor. Sam loved that zeal, admired it more than he could express. He didn’t agree with all Tanner’s wild ideas about America’s future, but seeing him burn with passion made Sam burn too. He could feel the heat smoldering down deep, ready to set the world on fire if he let it escape. But he didn’t let it; he knew he couldn’t.

“My father? He calls me a ‘free thinker’,” Tanner said when Sam asked what he thought of Tanner’s philosophies. “It isn’t a compliment.”

“Isn’t it? Why would anyone want to be an unfree thinker?”

“An unfree thinker!” Tanner laughed. “Quite. Conformity of thought is simply recitation.” He sobered, favoring Sam with a warm smile that could only be called pretty. Tanner had a pretty mouth. “I like howyouthink, Hutch. It’s uncluttered.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Isthata compliment?”

“Of course! You see things clearly. You cut to the point and stay there. You’re not battered about by other men’s opinions once you know your own.”

“Myfather used to call me stubborn.”

“You’re constant. I admire that.”

Sam felt himself glow at the praise. “I do like to think I know my own mind. But Mr. Reed’s taught me a lot about thinking clearly; the credit for that is probably his. The law’s a black and white business, isn’t it?”

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