Chapter Text
Aaron Burr took the pistol handed to him by his second. He hefted it consideringly, raised it to sight, and then lowered it again. He nodded, not wanting to waste words. These were guns of excellent workmanship, if not ones he had ever fired with. They would suffice.
Across the river, the sun was beginning to rise. The bright rays slanting across this New Jersey shore would soon become dazzling. Dawn was a damnably foolish time for these affairs, except in that it got rid of them and left the rest of the day clear.
“Are you ready, Colonel?” asked his friend.
“I am.” Across the clearing his rival was little more than a silhouette.
“You may fire when ready, after I give the order to present. Good luck, Colonel.”
Burr nodded and took his position with his back to the city. In a few minutes his honour would be wiped clean, one way or another.
“One, two…” The world was always at its clearest and most beautiful in these moments where death was a possibility. The birdsong in the trees around was a chorus of different sounds that should have been discordant, but wasn’t. How was it that nature could be so beautiful, so content, but humankind never was?
The pistol was a familiar weight in his hand. It was a useful accomplishment, being able to shoot accurately. Others’ knowledge of his capabilities had staved off threats before. It had probably also staved off the kind of posturing challenges that so many of his peers indulged in, mere threats to intimidate. He hated posturing.
“Seven, eight…” This time, it was his entire reputation that was at stake. His integrity, his trustworthiness. His ability to hold office, to pay his debts. The gentleman who stood across from him now had not merely insulted him, he had threatened the very foundations on which life must be lived. Only by showing his willingness to risk that same life could he win it back.
“Ten. Present!” Burr smoothly raised the gun to shoulder height, carefully aimed, tensed his shoulders and jerked the heavy trigger. The flint fell. There was a sizzle and a thunderclap, and the gun kicked hard, sending a familiar ache through his braced arm. A moment later he heard a second thunderclap and something whizzed past his ear. He turned his head away slightly as fragments of leaf and bark pelted his cheek.
Grey clouds drifted from his lowered pistol, like a fog across the field, and all he could smell was the acrid smoke of gunpowder. For a moment it took him back to Monmouth; how was that still possible, after all these years of innocuous morning practice?
A figure walked towards him through the smoke, and he went to meet it.
“Colonel Burr!” John Barker Church called as the haze cleared. He swept down into a bow. “I have come to the realisation that I was indiscreet, and I am sorry for it.” He gave a short laugh, and fingered the breast of his coat. “I have quite the souvenir of our meeting today. See here how neatly your ball has carried off my button.”
Burr had not been aiming at the button; the miss irritated him for a moment, before he saw the gift that providence had given them both. He chuckled. “Then I am satisfied, Mr Church. Perhaps I will see you later at Troup’s dinner?”
“I do hope so. I should be interested in your opinion of the barrel weight…” and the two chatted politely as they strolled back towards the boats, their seconds and unneeded doctor falling in with them. Ahead of them, the late summer sun lit the river in shades of gold.
***
Weehawken, 1804.
Aaron Burr stood again with his back to the river. The rising sun cast his shadow long and slanted across the clearing. The breeze on the river had been almost cold, but here amidst the cleared undergrowth the day was already becoming warm.
At the other end of the wide ledge, Hamilton stood looking back at him. Burr felt rage rise in his throat; he could almost taste it, salt and sour. His friend Hamilton. Twenty years of dining at one another’s houses, of late-night brandies over troublesome legal cases. Swapping political gossip and theatre reviews at parties; getting a little drunk and swapping war stories at Society of the Cincinnati dinners.
They were friends. A few weeks ago, when that note of credit had been called in and somehow there just hadn’t been a way to meet it, no matter what he shuffled around, it had been Hamilton he had gone to. Because Hamilton was a kind man, a man of honour, who would not see a gentleman and friend so embarrassed. And he had persuaded his friends to open their pocketbooks, and that would tide him over until he could start making the returns he expected from his Louisiana land.
And yet his friend Hamilton had been destroying him for almost five years.
Van Ness was making quite a production of ramming that pistol. Burr rubbed briefly at the tension between his brows; the undersized bullets he preferred complicated the loading, but he had given clear instructions. Van Ness had been irritatingly nervous all morning, though. He'd never seen battle.
It was bad form but to hell with that. Burr abandoned his position and strode over to Van Ness. “You didn't grease the chamois, did you?” he said bluntly.
“My apologies, Colonel, but no, I… it somehow slipped my mind, and it was only once the ball was well in that I recollected.”
Burr dropped to a crouch, looking over the pistol Van Ness was working on. They were a matched pair, though he felt that this one sat better in his hand. His, of course; Hamilton had no pistols of his own. He had offered to borrow a pair from his brother-in-law but Burr had had some fascinating conversations about their shared interest since his duel with Church, and knew about the hair-trigger setting. Nothing good could come of an amateur like Hamilton messing with something like that.
“How far is it in?” But he could gauge the ball’s position from where the ramrod arrested, just as well as his second could. Not firmly seated, but too far to be brought out any other way than gunpowder. “Hellfire.”
He looked across at where Hamilton stood with his back to the scrubby trees. His neatly clubbed hair was starkly white against the dappled green and brown shade. He undoubtedly had business to attend to back in New York this morning; the man was never out of court, he took on more cases than a single man could possibly handle.
“We have wasted enough time.” Burr held out his hand for the pistol.
“But Colonel…”
“I’ll take a crack as it is. Just ensure you grease the next.”
He took the gun from his second’s startled hand and stalked back to his position, his back to the glittering river. From behind him he could hear Hamilton's second expostulating, Van Ness explaining.
After a few moments Pendleton delivered the other pistol to Hamilton. Hamilton looked across at Burr and then paused, passed the pistol back for a moment while he fidgeted with his pockets. He slipped his glasses out and perched them on his nose. Burr waited as Hamilton lifted the pistol, tested his sighting. Twice the muzzle swept across him. He almost chuckled at the transparent gamesmanship.
In his own hand he held a pistol that would not shoot correctly. He would be exposed completely to Hamilton's fire. There was a pleasing symmetry to that; if he died, he hoped that whoever spoke at his funeral would not be dull enough to miss the metaphor he had been gifted. If he lived, he must kill the General with his second fire.
“One, two…”
Political rivalry need not stand in the way of personal friendship. A man of honour could speak against his rivals, even machinate against them with clever ruses - and he was still entertained by how successfully he had used the Federalists’ own energies to undermine their banking stranglehold - without genuine insult or injury.
He had been jousting with Hamilton, with Adams, even with Jay for years, taking care never to let the two spheres overlap. It would be meanness in the extreme to let his political differences with the other men lead to disdaining their real merits and accomplishments.
“Three, four…”
It had been four or more years ago, at the time of the presidential election, that he had first started to hear stories beyond the usual.
That he was a voluptuary, he did not deny. He was no hypocrite, and he enjoyed the company of ladies beyond the habit of most men. He approached such affairs with an appropriate delicacy - the letters were marked to be burned upon his death - but he did not hide that he embarked upon them. There was no shame in it, and he took no insult from the rumours that resulted.
Lists of married ladies that he had seduced and ruined went somewhat beyond that, painting him not merely as profligate in his pleasures but as dishonourable in his conduct. Lists of famous prostitutes that he had attended upon. Claims that he had attended upon them even as his beloved Theodosia - that woman who above all her race had proven to him that women had souls - lay dying.
Not just rumours but newspaper stories and pamphlets. Unsigned, or signed with a pseudonym, from multiple sources; but they aligned with certain political ends, and in more than one he recognised traces of Hamilton’s eloquence.
He had chosen to ignore them.
“Five, six…”
It was quiet here. Behind and below, he could hear the faint chirruping of insects in the rushes. Above, the chaos of birdsong was slowly petering out as the light grew brighter. There was barely a breath of air; he could smell crushed leaves, the sharpness of sap where they had broken branches to clear space.
At the far end of the ledge, Hamilton stood proudly upright and impeccably dressed, with his pistol held carefully out to the side, looking back at him.
“Seven, eight…”
He had kept silent while throughout Washington DC and New York people spoke of his holding balls more like Roman orgies, of his defrauding his clients to pay his own immoderate debts, of his political plans to remove the rights of men of property - the very rights that he had founded the Manhattan Company bank to enlarge. Even criticised his war record.
Twice Hamilton’s name had been associated too closely with slanders for him to disavow them, and twice he had made apology, like a gentleman, before it was requested of him. And yet he had continued to rip Burr’s honour into shreds before the world, while Burr’s silence progressed from harmony to forbearance to humiliation.
He knew of only one way to fight this battle. He had ignored it for as long as he could. He still did not know why his friend so hated him.
“Nine, ten…”
He did not think any of Hamilton’s previous affairs had brought him to an exchange of fire.
The man had been taking shots at him for years. How would he take this one?
“Present!”
Burr smoothly raised the gun to shoulder height and aimed. Twenty paces ahead of him, Hamilton did the same, a perfect mirror image. He pulled the heavy familiar trigger. The flint fell. There was a sizzle and a thunderclap, and the gun kicked, jerking his arm a little sideways. The sensation was wrong; he knew without looking that the poorly-loaded ball had flown wide.
From somewhere above him he heard a crash and splinter. Something pattered down onto his shoulders, and he lifted his free hand to brush fragments of bark and twig out of his tightly pulled back hair.
No man was that poor a shot. He knew what he would see even before the smoke began to sluggishly lift; Hamilton standing with his pistol very obviously raised skyward.
Burr whirled away so quickly that the silk tails of his coat whipped around his thighs.
“Colonel?” Young Van Ness walked up to him, his eyes wide. Burr managed to curl his mouth up into an easy smile.
“There is no harm done by your error,” he reassured his second. He handed him the pistol. “But please do not make it again.”
“Colonel?” That was a very different tone of voice. Burr dropped the smile, raised one eyebrow, fixed Van Ness with a stare.
“Colonel Burr, the General has thrown away his fire,” Van Ness said with nervous urgency even as he shifted the pistol to his other hand. “If you shoot him now it will look like murder.”
It would be murder.
“I am aware of that, my friend,” Burr said frankly. “But you know the terms on which I entered into this affair. These things must have an end.”
Van Ness sighed, and then nodded. With an expression of great sadness, he clapped Burr once on the shoulder and retired to the sheltered area beneath the bluff to reload.
Burr turned around, looked through the haze of smoke and dust to where Hamilton was talking to his own second. Next to Pendleton Hamilton looked small.
As if aware of Burr’s scrutiny Hamilton glanced across; the familiar, pleasant, expressive face Burr had so often seen across a courtroom or a crowded ballroom, much given to smiling. He was not smiling now.
Burr held his gaze. He felt lightheaded, suppressed a sudden wild desire to laugh. Was he really about to murder a man whom he had no real desire to kill at all? What a very stupid thing was mankind.
Hamilton looked away, and Burr strolled to the edge of the ledge, looking across the river to New York. The birds had gone silent, scared by the shooting. Behind him he could hear the low voices of Van Ness and Pendleton talking as they reloaded the pistols. He had that long to reconsider.
Hamilton could not escape the consequences of his actions by refusing to participate. Throwing away his shot had not been courtesy but yet another act of manipulation, aimed not at Burr but at the people now waking beyond the rolling expanse of grey water. It was not courage but cowardice; though there was doubtless a letter written in pretty prose that would present it otherwise, ruining him from beyond the grave.
If he killed Hamilton now, Theodosia would be a murderer’s daughter.
The realisation hit him like a lead ball in the stomach. He could not burden Theodosia with that name. And that meant he could not kill Hamilton, but must allow him to walk away to continue befouling him in the eyes of the world. If Theodosia still knew her father to be a man of probity and delicacy, that must be enough.
He might still hurt him, though.
A second exchange would expose him to Hamilton’s fire again. He turned his head to look at Hamilton, pacing in the deep shade beneath the bluff, expostulating to himself. He might throw away his fire again. He might not. He had seen Burr aim to kill, even if the ball had flown amiss.
If Hamilton did give him a mortal wound, he would then be caught in the same vice of public opinion that he had prepared for Burr. And Burr did not think Hamilton had touched a firearm since the war. It was no more risk than he had already assumed when he had first rowed across the Hudson in the morning breeze.
The sounds of thumping and clanging from under the bluff stopped, and after a few moments he could hear Van Ness’s footsteps rustling the leaf debris behind him. He turned to meet his friend. “I assume no accommodation has been offered.”
Van Ness shook his head, looking uncertain and unhappy. “The General will make apology, even for rumour, but only if you name the shape or form of the rumours for which he is to apologise. He still deals in specifics, Colonel Burr, and refuses to make answer for the general tenor of discourtesy with which he has dealt with you.”
“No man who has been spoken of in the terms he has used could be satisfied with that.” Burr held out his hand and, rather reluctantly, Van Ness put the grip of the pistol into it.
“I agree,” Van Ness continued, “But…”
“I will not kill him,” Burr stated before his second could finish. He lifted the pistol, briefly checking that everything looked correct this time. “I would have to be a great booby to rescue my name from Hamilton only to destroy it myself. A foot, I think, will do.”
Van Ness did not seem to know whether to look relieved or even more concerned. “Good luck, Colonel,” was all he said in the end, before retreating to join Pendleton well out of the line of fire.
Burr returned to his position, the weight of his pistol comfortable and familiar in his hand. He studied Hamilton, wondering what the man would do.
“One, two…”
Across the clearing, Hamilton was regarding him just as intently. The bright morning sun flashed across his glasses as he tilted his head.
“Three, four…”
Firing into brightness would not help Hamilton's aim. Burr had wondered why the man had chosen that position; now he understood that it was so his delopement could be clearly seen.
“Five, six…”
It would help him again now. He had no intention of giving Hamilton the chance to gauge his intentions before reacting.
“Seven, eight…”
Hamilton’s gun dropped a little, he opened his mouth - then he gave his head a short, impatient shake and took up his stance again.
“Nine, ten…”
If the man didn't want to shoot he should not have come here. Burr looked down from his friend's face to his chest and arms, which would most clearly signal his moves.
“Present.”
He could feel the way the air moved around his arm as he raised it, would never forget the way sun and shadow made stark patterns on Hamilton's bright blue coat. A pale, tense face above the wedding-ring shape of the muzzle of his gun. They stood in mirror poses, regarding one another, and Burr almost laughed, wondering if Hamilton was going to recreate his son’s ridiculous duel and point his gun for long enough to sing a drinking song before finally shooting.
Then Hamilton's shoulders tensed and Burr quickly swung his gun down and pulled the trigger.
A thunderclap slammed into his chest, turning him partway around. He stumbled back, his shoulder hitting a tree; he tried to lift his hand to support him but there was no strength in his arm. His pistol dropped into the grass by his feet. He sagged against the tree as pain exploded through his breast. Dammit. Hit.
Van Ness was there before he could fall, supporting him with an arm around his waist. “Doctor!” he yelled and Burr recoiled from the loudness of it against his ear.
“How bad is it?” he managed to get out against the deep, burning ache that hollowed out his whole chest.
“I cannot well see,” Van Ness’s voice said, low and worried. “You must sit.”
“Don't be ridiculous, we need to leave.” If he sat down, he was not sure he could get up again. Tremors were starting to run through his body. In the distance he could hear a scuffle.
“I must speak with him!”
“No, General, you cannot be found here.”
For a moment he remembered with astonishing clarity the overwhelming thunder of an artillery volley, could almost feel Montgomery falling back against him. “Get the General away,” he said harshly.
“Mr Pendleton is dealing with General Hamilton. Ah! Dr Hosack! Colonel Burr has been hit in the chest.”
“So I see.” Dr Hosack dropped his medical bag, his voice clipped and professional. “Let me examine the injury, Colonel.”
Burr leaned back against the tree and his friend, trying to ignore the shocks that ran through his body as Hosack carefully pulled the material of his coat away from the raw and burned flesh. Deep, bruised pain shot from his ribs every time he took a breath.
“The wound does not look mortal,” Hosack said at last. He pressed a square of gauze against Burr’s ribs and started wrapping it in place. “I do not think the ball has penetrated your chest cavity, it must have ricocheted from your ribs. But I cannot rule out complications. We must return to New York immediately so that you can be cared for. Can you walk to the boat, if assisted?”
“I can. Van Ness, if I may put my arm around you…”
Time dilated on the journey back down to the river. The pain was only an annoyance, he told himself. But his body was entirely distracted by it, so that he felt himself trapped inside a crude puppet. Every stumble blackened his vision with the shock that hammered through him, and he felt lightheaded with the inability to breathe deeply. The feeling of heat and pain was so achingly familiar that he twice almost asked Van Ness how the battle had gone before he fought his way back to clarity. But he was alive. He kept himself moving, kept focused, by concentrating on the satisfaction of knowing that Hamilton's plan had broken with his own ribs.
Dr Hosack forced him to lie in the bottom of the boat, his shoulders propped up on something softened by Van Ness’s coat. The doctor knelt beside him, checking his pulse, feeling his extremities. A few sips of watered wine restored a little of the warmth that had started leaching from his body, and reduced the shivering that he could not seem to stop. It was becoming harder to breathe.
Dr Hosack frowned and bent to place his ear against Burr’s chest.
“Mr Van Ness,” he said as he straightened again. “Do you know of a house near the dock to which Colonel Burr can be transported? I mislike his breathing, and Richmond Hill is across the city.”
Burr drew in a breath to suggest Davis, and then let it out again in a gasp as pain bloomed in his lungs.
“Mr Davis’s house is not far,” Van Ness replied for him, “And I am sure he would be insulted if we did not think of him immediately.”
Burr closed his eyes and concentrated on re-establishing the rhythm of fast, shallow breaths that seemed to be the only way to get air. When they docked he did not try to stand, but allowed the bargemen to carry him through the streets, gasping at every change of posture, fighting against the stabbing pain in his breast and the feeling of suffocation as his lungs just wouldn't open enough. The sound of panic in Matthew's voice as he greeted them at the door was not encouraging. But the British had not killed him and he was damned if Hamilton would.
Hosack wasted no time cutting his coat and other clothes off him. With Burr’s bare skin exposed, the red and black wound that flowered across half of his breast looked obscene, like so much burned meat. Red fluid pooled sluggishly and flowed in little rivulets down his side. Hosack examined it closely, and Burr tried not to twitch as each probe, each careful dabbing away of the obscuring blood, stabbed pain through his body. “I am afraid, my friend,” Hosack said reluctantly at last, “that your condition is less favourable than I had first thought.”
“How… bad?” Burr managed to pant out, staring at the ceiling as he held his body as straight as he could through the throbbing of broken ribs and burned flesh, trying to give his lungs enough space to expand.
Hosack gently began to wind a new bandage over the wound, more tightly. “It is bad, Colonel Burr,” he said flatly. “I fear there is some damage to your vital organs, most likely from a splinter of your ribs. We may still entertain hopes of your recovery, but surgery may be necessary. I need to consult.”
Burr just gave a tight nod, unwilling to waste precious breath on speaking. He forced himself to breathe in shallow, even breaths. He was not afraid of surgery, if it would increase his chances.
Hosack retired and Davis entered with Van Ness. “Your health is much enquired of,” Davis said as he sat beside the bed. “We will put out bulletins to inform the people.” Burr nodded, once. He didn't want to share his body’s brokenness, his lungs’ cramping hunger for air, with anyone less confidential than Theodosia. But he was the Vice President, and America needed to know.
“General Rey has sent for the French naval surgeons,” Van Ness informed him. “They have experience with gunshot wounds, they may be able to assist Dr Hosack.”
Burr nodded again. The pain was tiring, but he could not rest, he had to keep sucking air into his aching chest. He gathered his strength, being careful not to fill his lungs too deeply. “Read… something,” he requested.
“You want one of us to read to you?” Van Ness asked and he nodded.
“Do you mind being the one to oblige the Colonel?” Davis asked Van Ness quietly. “I need to get ahead of the Federalist press on this.”
Burr closed his eyes and shook his head. The events of the duel must speak for themselves.
“But Colonel…”
Burr shook his head again, forcing himself to raise his head enough to fix Davis with a forbidding glare.
“If that is your fixed wish then I must abide by it,” Davis said at last with bad grace. “But you cannot dissuade me from honesty when I speak of your health, Colonel Burr. My affection for you will not allow it.” He turned to Van Ness. “I'll bring you a book.”
***
COLONEL BURR WAS SHOT BY GENERAL HAMILTON THIS MORNING IN A DUEL. THE COLONEL IS SAID TO BE MORTALLY WOUNDED.
***
To the People of the State of New York,
It is with heavy heart that I must confirm that Colonel Burr, whose record of loyal service to State and country is well known to all, has this morning suffered serious injury in a duel with General Hamilton, long his political rival.
The injuries to Colonel Burr are of such a nature that hopes of his recovery, while not to be disdained, dare not be entered in upon with any comfort. All friends to the Union must feel the greatest apprehension at the most likely outcome of events for the trustee of one of its highest offices.
***
Dr. David Hosack,
I can excuse to you the liberty I take in sending this missive only by the extreme anxiety I feel over the health of my friend Colonel Burr. Despite the exchanges that left me with no other recourse than the desperate one we entered upon, our personal intercourse has always been marked by cordiality, even, I have hoped, real affection. It is in the name of our long personal, as distinct from political, acquaintance that I hope you will be so candid as to share what hopes are entertained of my friend's recovery.
If, as I conclude is probable from the news that is spread among the public, you have insufficient time to write or send to me any account, I would be satisfied if you should be able to indicate at what hours of the day you may most probably be found at home, that I may repeat my inquiries in my own person. It would be an even greater kindness, although an unanticipated one, if you were to do me the honour of calling upon me as you return from Mr Davis’s. You will be welcome at any hour.
Yr friend and humble servant
A. Ham
***
The only sound in the room was the faint scratching of pen over paper.
Hamilton paused and laid his quill aside to read the line again.
‘...reason to apprehend that Col. Burr intended to take my life, and sensible that my criticisms of his political principles and character had at times been very severe, such that for a man of zealous pride it must have been repugnant to make no palpable answer…'
It wasn't working. Somehow, in this extremity, even his quill had turned against him. No matter what he tried to write, the fact was that he had shot to kill a man who had, apparently, not been trying to kill him.
There was a quiet knock at the door. Grateful for the distraction, dreading the news, Hamilton limped to open it.
Dr Hosack looked drained. “General Hamilton,” he said formally. “You asked to see me.”
“Doctor. Thankyou for coming.” Hamilton backed up to let him past. “Come in. Anything my home has to offer is at your disposal, but please, tell me first - does Colonel Burr yet live?”
“I'll take a glass of wine with you and yes he still lives. Or did when I left, at any rate.”
Hamilton felt his vision waver for a moment, passed his hand in front of his eyes. “Thankyou. Into the study, please, doctor.”
Hosack knew the house. He turned right as Hamilton limped into the parlour to quickly collect a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.
When he entered the study Hosack was slumped in the single armchair, rubbing his eyes. He looked up as Hamilton handed him a full glass and then subsided into the chair at his desk. He frowned and gestured at Hamilton's leg. “What's that?”
“Colonel Burr aimed down. His bullet grazed my ankle.”
“You pair of…” Hosack took a slug of wine in lieu of finishing the sentence. “All right, Hamilton. I'm here. Now what is it you want to know?”
“I would be obliged if you should tell me the nature of the injuries sustained by Colonel Burr, and whether I should be prepared for the worst news a friend can hear. I assume from your answer to my previous question that the answer to my last is - unfortunately - yes.” Hamilton turned to the window, but it was too dark to see the garden beyond.
“I didn’t come all the way out here so that you can torture yourself, Hamilton,” Hosack said shortly. “Or so that you can figure out how best to use any information I give you in whatever public defence you’re currently writing. I really don’t care.”
“I have heard what they are saying on the streets, David,” Hamilton said with some passion. “Already I am called a murderer. What if those passions overflow, taint rational reflection with the immoderate passions of the moment, unreasonably exercised against any of my party?”
“The time to have worried about that was two weeks ago when Mr Pendleton and I were telling you not to fight. I do not care about your party or your pride, General Hamilton, and I will take my leave now.”
Dr Hosack stood, and Hamilton leapt up with him. “Wait! No. That is not why I want to know.” He swallowed. “I… this is not the first time that the exigencies of public life have forced me into behaviour that is at odds with my conscience and my personal responsibilities. Contradictory as it may seem, I have never wished Colonel Burr ill. When I ask you of him it is, I assure you, with the solicitude of a friend; what are the chances that he will live?
“Well.” Hosack sighed and sat down again. “The ball struck a glancing blow to his ribs, so that at first we thought him but little injured. Mr Van Ness was able to help him to the boat. But as we crossed the river his breathing became laboured, and once we reached the nearest convenient house a more careful examination showed that a fracture had turned and pierced him inwardly so that he could not fill his lungs except with the most distressing effort and pain.”
Hamilton pressed his fingers to his temples and groaned. There was silence as his mind raced. “Did you essay placing a tube within his chest to suck out the fluids?” he asked at last.
“I did, with the assistance of some surgeons from the French frigates. We were also able to perform surgery to retrieve the fragment that was piercing him, so that he is at risk of no further internal injury. His fortitude throughout the ordeal was extraordinary; the use of laudanum was an impossibility, as if he had he lost any element of his usual vigour he had surely given up the unequal struggle for breath.”
Hamilton felt sick at the thought. He remembered the way Burr had looked when he last saw him, eyes almost black in his shock-pale face as he leaned against the trunk of the tree, refusing to give way. He could imagine him holding onto consciousness with the same indomitable will, no matter the suffering. He very much did not want to imagine it.
“So what are the dangers now?” he asked instead. Details. Information. He needed something he could work with. “Infection?”
“Always, although of course I have applied limewater and oil, and we have used plaster to bring the edges of the surgical wound together. But mainly the question is whether the hurt to Colonel Burr’s lung will allow of healing, or whether he must suffocate despite our efforts. And that I simply cannot know.” Hosack sighed tiredly. “Why did you do it, Ham?”
Instead of answering, Hamilton opened one of the drawers in his desk, extracted a paper, and handed it over. He stood up and limped to the window, not wanting to see Hosack’s reaction. His ankle stung. He thought again about the way the earth had kicked up beside his foot as the bullet had ploughed into it, the way Burr had spun and fallen backwards, the sudden shocked realisation of what he had done.
“‘From principle, rather than pride’?” Hosack quoted disgustedly. Hamilton heard the sound of paper being vigorously shaken. “Your ‘animadversions have been particularly severe’? What is this self-serving muck, Hamilton? You’ll give the apology and the respect Burr pressed you for to everyone else in the world, but not to him, is that it?”
“That is not what I…” Hamilton turned around defensively but Hosack overrode him, crumpling the paper and throwing it at his feet.
“You and your damnable pride! Here is your admission that you have slandered him up and down in the most unreasonable fashion; I would bet my carriage and horses that if you had written to him with something like this after he first saw that bloody Cooper letter, neither of you would have been at Weehawken this morning. I thought he would kill you, Ham, we all did.”
“And so did I!” Hamilton responded equally angrily. “But if I had meekly apologised to him again you know the world would have thought me a coward, and I would have lost the good will of all decent men of standing… ”
“I am not having this argument again.” Hosack pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell yourself what you like, Ham, I am not interested. It’s late, and I need to rest so I can attend on my patient in the morning. If he survives the night.”
“But I must…”
“No. I’m done.” Hosack turned and strode out of the house, leaving Hamilton quivering with frustration behind him.
After a moment, he bent down and picked up his statement. He sat down and smoothed it out carefully on the desk, rereading his careful explanation. No. There was nothing there that would have answered Burr’s final, intolerable demands. He could have said any of it to Burr, it would have made no difference. He tried not to wonder why, in that case, he had not said it to Burr, why it mattered that he said it here.
It had been about the principle. It really had. And yet somehow the principle seemed terribly thin when put up against the tension in the city, or the memory of how Burr had jerked like a puppet when the lead ball struck.