Chapter 17: Melissa

They had kidnapped the colonel's wife. That was all we heard. The staff officers did not say who had done the kidnapping or which colonel had lost his wife; they simply said to Foster's company: go fetch her back.

So we dispersed after a glance at the oval miniature of the dark-eyed lady and a brief description of a twenty-some-year-old who stood about this high (the vain captain held his hand shoulder high) and weighed perhaps eight stone or so, so he said. There were likely ten thousand women in Virginia that fit the description except that she was also said to have green eyes, a fine figure and an Irish temper.

An open carriage was also missing along with the lady's baggage, including some valuable jewelry. Her driver had been found shot to death along a well-used road not far from camp. No reward was mentioned. Nobody said anything about ransom. Thieves were suspected. The worst was feared.

So out we went, scouring the highways and byways, the inns and mills. And I found her the second day we were looking. The carriage caught my eye, lacquered as we had been told and with gilt-trimmed wheels. It sat in a barn well back off the road, its gaudy trim reflecting the sun and catching my eye.

I circled the place and found a spot in the woodlot where I could observe the farm without being easily seen. Not much seemed to be going on. Several horses were grazing and a cow or two along with some goats and ducks milled about slowly doing their usual things in the bright sunlight. I did not hear any calls for help or any other human noises until two men rode into the barnyard an hour or so later. Tory militia I decided from my perch, probably officers since they both had swords, officers or dragoons perhaps, cavalry maybe. Enemy for sure.

I debated going back for help but decided to stay a bit longer, hoping to see the lady in question at a window or on the verandah, assuming she was still alive. I was getting hungry and about to quit my lookout post when I heard a crunch behind me and turned to face two men in drab uniforms carrying bayonet tipped muskets. They smiled at me, disarmed me and marched me to the house, leading my horse.

"Look what we found out in the woods," the small corporal who had captured me said to his seated officer in the home's back room.

"What is he?" the lieutenant asked, glancing at me and then at the men beside me.

"Spy," said the corporal. "He was out there watching us."

"Lock him up; I'm busy," said the officer with a wave of his hand, "and bring that damn woman back down here."

The bigger of the two men that had captured me pushed me down the basement steps, found a set of manacles and clamped my hands around a post. "Don't run off now," he said as he mounted the steps.

Still hungry, I survey my prison, saw only the one door at the top of the rickety stairs and a single, skinny window and wondered what was going on. I still had not heard any cries of anguish from the captive, if she was indeed here, and I did not understand why she would have been taken except for ransom or pleasure, or perhaps both. It was typical army, nobody told the men anything.

I sat on the floor and rested my forehead against the post with my legs outstretched on the dirt floor, trying not to think of food. I probably fell asleep for I was jarred out of my reverie by a door slamming and footsteps on the wooden stairs behind me.

"Get up," the lean officer who had waved me to captivity said.

I struggled to my feet and saw the woman, the woman we had been sent out to free. She was better looking than her portrait, much better, high colored, strong boned, fiery eyed with a body that would make a saint weep. My hungry loins stirred. She would have stirred a plaster statue.

"You know him?" the officer asked the woman.

She shook her head, looking straight into my eyes, her lips slightly parted. She was a beauty, as good looking a woman as I had seen since we left Philadelphia and that memory gave me a chill. I smiled at her and tried not to think what she would look like bare. I failed, as usual.

"Your husband's men don't dress that way?" the officer said.

"No, certainly not," she said, shaking her head, her eyes never away from mine, holding me almost hypnotically. "He's no Virginian."

"Thought not," he said. "Well, cousin, you can stay down here and keep him company until you decide to cooperate. You've got twelve more hours and then we'll feed you to the dragoons, tomorrow morning. They're slavering now at the idea." He smiled and pushed the woman toward me. She was still holding my gaze. "As for you, rustic," he said to me, "You're big enough for some sport. We'll get to you."

He tromped up the stairs and closed and bolted the door above. The woman let her eyes wander, found a box to sit on and leaned back against the wall. She took a deep breath and put her hands in her lap.

I introduced myself, said Foster's company had been out looking for her for two days, asked if she was well, and got smiles in reply. She said her name was Melissa, that all they had given her was water and that they wanted her to act as an agent for them, to be a spy in Greene's army in return for her confiscated jewelry and continued well-being.

"I'm to be raped if I don't give in," she said softly, her eyes back on mine. "By a whole company of Redcoats. That's what they say, what they threaten."

"They might do it," I said, immediately wishing I had not when I saw her frightened look.

"My family is loyal, old and loyal, even rich I suppose, dozens of slaves. They know that; they're using that. That man, the one you saw, he's my cousin, some sort of cousin, a Rappahannock Virginian like me."

I just shook my head. "Look around," I suggested, "see if you can find something to pry these chains open." I had tried to stretch my handcuffs and succeeded only in bruising my wrists. She searched in all the corners of the cellar and found nothing except a broken shovel and some more crates, empty bottles and a few burlap bags.

"Try digging away the base of this post," I suggested. She attempted to make a dent in the hard floor without success. "Put your foot on it," I said, and she showed me her bare feet. After some experimentation, we worked out a way for her to hold the broken-handled shovel where I could step on it, and we were just starting to dig when the door opened and two men hurried down the steps. One took the shovel away from the woman who was trying to hide it behind her, cursed her vilely, threw it aside and pushed her back to the wall while the other produced a key and unlocked my heavy, iron bracelets.

They hustled me up the stairs and then closed and bolted the door behind us. "Out in the yard, shitkicker," one said, pushing me in the back, "time for you to get to work, sing for your supper."

Twelve or fifteen uniformed men were gathered in a rough circle, most of them smiling toward me. It was mid-afternoon, and I could smell the meal they had recently finished. My stomach rumbled. One man, on the far side of the group, had his shirt off, exposing his massive chest and huge shoulders. He probably weighed eighteen stone from what I could see, a really big man with a wide belly.

The officer approached me. "We haven't had a good fight for weeks," he said. "Be a shame to use you for bayonet practice when you're big enough to defend yourself against our champion. Come here, Buck," he yelled over his shoulder. The big man lumbered out to face me, grinning.

"This is Buck Forest from the Tidewater, bare knuckle champion of the whole area from Williamsburg to the Carolina border. Isn't that so?"

The big man nodded and displayed his bulging biceps.

"Your purse held about ten shillings; willing to wager it?" asked the officer.

I nodded, trying the size up my opponent. His breeches were belted well below his belly, and I hoped that might be his weak spot.

"All right," said the officer, "now no biting. Ten falls or ask for quarter. Understand?"

I nodded; the officer stepped aside and Buck took a swing at me. I ducked and hit him the belly as hard as I could. He oofed and gabbed me with one massive arm. I kneed him, he squealed and I skittered away while the small crowd gabbled. One called out, "Kill 'im, Buck." I noticed that more bets were being made.

Buck was big, but he was slow, so I was able to get in, punch him in the face and stomach and kick him somewhere at the price of getting elbowed or taking one swinging punch from his huge fist. The third time he hit me, I went down and got a mouth full of dirt, my head ringing, vision blurred. It was like a mule kick.

"Get up," several men yelled as I scrambled away, those who had money on me I assumed. "Coward, get up an' fight," a man screamed.

I rolled aside from the big man's kick, struggled to my feet and Buck grabbed my shoulder, pulled down my head and kneed me in the face, jarring me, loosening some teeth and breaking my nose again. Then he hit me in the mouth and I fell to my back, head abuzz. I rolled over, spit out part of a tooth, and regained my feet in time to duck his charge and kick him in the thigh as he lumbered by. He cursed and turned, angry at last which was what I wanted.

"That's two falls," the officer cried as I neared him, feeling one eye starting to swell closed. Buck got me cornered by a shed, but when he swung, I ducked, dove for his ankles and tripped him. He fell on his belly, and I jumped on his back bending one of his huge arms behind him and wrenching it up for all I was worth, bashing his head into the ground. Buck rolled over, tossed me off, and we both scrambled back to our feet.

I stepped inside his next swing and hit him hard three times, once in the mouth and twice in the belly, very low, smashing as deep as I could into his groin. He dropped to his knees, holding his privates with both hands, and I kicked him in the side of his head as hard as I could, a jarring blow I could feel in my hips.

Two men grabbed me and pulled me away as Buck fell. "Enough, enough, you don't hit a man when he's down." the officer cried, running across the circle. Buck slowly subsided to his back, still holding his ballocks and moaning, rocking back and forth.

"Fight over?" I asked, wiping blood from my mouth.

"For now," the officer said, looking disgusted. "Lock him up again." He did not offer to settle our bet.

Two men dragged me down the basement steps, found the manacles and chained me again to the post again. "Water," I said. They laughed and left after looking at the woman and whispering to each other.

"I have some," Melissa said, coming to offer me a dipper full, trying not to look frightened. Then she bathed my face with her kerchief, leaving it a bloody mess and revealing most of her fine chest and beautifully curved collarbones. She squeezed my nose back together, gave me some more water, and I sat on the floor again, resting my head on the post between my legs, holding her damp kerchief to my eye and feeling sorry for myself. My mind kept seeing her writhing beneath me, urging me on.

"I was digging while you were up there, scraping really. I heard them cheering." She sat with the shovel between her legs, right where I wanted to be.

I put my hands on the post and pulled it toward me. After a few seconds of strain, it shifted, perhaps just an inch, but it definitely moved. I smiled crookedly at the woman, my lip swollen and my left eye completely closed. I moved around to the other side of the post, pulled again and got some more movement. Then I looked up at the ceiling which was the floor of the room above and wondered if this post supported all that weight. But three posts spanned the middle of the cellar, and the one I was chained to was in the middle, nearest the steps. I guessed the floor would not collapse if it was suddenly removed. I hoped it would not anyway.

"Let's dig some more," I said to the woman, and we went back to our cooperative efforts with me jamming down the blade with my boot while she held the short handle, her arm about my waist. It was almost pleasant and certainly stimulating. She tossed the debris aside, and we stayed steadily at the work for the next hour or so. When we stopped, she glistened with sweat and smiled at me, breathing deeply, a fine sight, as she went to the water bucket.

By dark we had created a trench on one side, and I had been able to move the post six or seven inches along it, listening to the beams creak above. The thing did not seem to be attached at the top, just wedged against the beam it supported. When the door opened again, I sat on the ditch we had made, and a soldier came and fetched the woman, hardly looking at me. She pulled her arm away from him and mounted the stairs. I worked on the post in the growing dark and listened to her loudly and absolutely refuse to do what the officer wanted. They had left the door open at the top of the steps.

Then he evidently slapped her and called her a "stupid bitch." I heard the sharp crack and her gasp and then her bare feet were on the stairs as the door closed and was bolted.

"You all right?" I asked when she was back sitting on her box.

She nodded. I could barely see her in the gloom.

"Drink some water," I suggested.

"He's going to do it, give me to those cavalry men, the bastard. He was playing with my things, my jewels. Says he has women who will appreciate them."

"When?"

"In the morning. They're going to shoot you, get rid of me and move on. They've stripped this area of good horses."

"Then we'd better leave tonight," I said.

"Yes," she sighed. "We must." She found the shovel, and we went back to digging. I enjoyed feeling her arm about my hips and watching her firm breasts move atop her stays as we worked diligently in the dim light that filtered in to us. I was surprised to find that despite the fight and being imprisoned, I was aroused by the sight and smell of her.