Chapter 31: Lucinda

The last river I had to cross was a nameless, northern tributary of the Broad. Winter had finally arrived with day after day of cold rain blowing in from the northwest. The fords were high and I kept going upstream until I found an operating ferry. I beat on the keg intended as a signal drum and a person finally emerged on the far side, waved at me and went to the flat-bottomed barge. Across the roiling stream it came, bobbing up and down, and I loaded my two horses aboard and tried to help the ferryman secure the ropes.

"Get the hell away," came the soprano outcry along with a sharp hip movement that almost put me in the water.

I stood back, surprised, and looked again. Under the short, bulky jacket her white britches stretched tight across her wide, very womanly buttocks and thick, well-muscled thighs although they flapped at her waist. It was a woman in grenadier dress, a hefty woman doing a man's job, soaked and unhappy under her floppy hat. She readjusted the harness of her skiff-like, make-shift ferry, took up her long pole, and we crossed the stream using its tumbling current for propulsion. I hauled my horses to the stable, got them dry and the saddles off and then went into the tavern to see what sort of a person this bedraggled ferryman was.

She had shed her coat and stood before the fireplace wearing a bulky maroon sweater, skin-tight military britches and knee-high boots. Her hair was a mass of dark, wet curls that fell across her broad shoulders and halfway down her back. She rubbed her chaffed hands together and grinned at me. "Sorry," she said, "know you was trying to help out there. Get you a drink?"

I nodded, pulled a chair near the fire and yanked off my boots. She had breasts as big as a two pound sugar cones, and hips as wide as mine. She must have weighed twelve stone, a big woman who carried herself gracefully, a force in britches. She came and took a seat next to me, handing me a glass half full of mellow whisky. "Y'kin mull that if y'want," she said.

I sipped. It was good stuff, and I felt it sliding down within me, warming. We introduced ourselves. She was Lucinda M--, the proprietor. She refilled my glass when it was empty and topped up her own. We listened to the fire crackle and spit and the wind shaking the shutters.

"Where y'headed?" she asked.

"Find the army, American army," I said, "Dan Morgan's force. Ought to be just north of here."

"We've heard," she said. "Think you're right."

"You run this operation alone?"

She shook her head, smiling. "Don't get no ideas," she said. "Cook's off today. Sent the stable man home. Don't need much help. Ain't many travelers in this weather."

"I meant the ferry, too."

"Well, my husband did do that 'til last week, the lazy bastard, but he run off, took my money and ran, the son-of-a-bitch. Him and his no-good friends're out playing soldier. Horse thieves is what they are."

"Loyal?"

"They don' care. Claim to be patriots, rebels like you. Ain't worth a tinker's dam, none a'them" She drained her glass.

"Lot of militia about, both sides," I said, putting down my empty glass. "Any food out there?"

"Go slice yourself some beef; help yourself to bread and there's some apples under the table." She pointed at the back room behind the bar and then pulled off her boots and poured us both some more liquid fire. Her white britches were buttoned down along her calves.

I unfolded and headed for the kitchen as the front door slammed open and a big man followed by three more slightly smaller men tramped in, all looking wet and miserable.

"Lucinda," the big man yelled. "get off yer fat ass and get us some food." Then he saw me and turned, snarling. "Who the bloody hell are you?"

I smiled and adjusted the big bayonet on my hip. "Traveler," I said, "on my way north. You with the army?"

"Shit, no," he said. "Them pissants. We's freebooters, locals, home guards, militia, whatever y'wants."

"Pillagers" I said. "Thieves, shitheads."

He squinted at me.

"Lady over there says you took her money, if you're her husband," I said, glancing at the woman who still sat by the fire, seemingly enjoying our conversation.

"Lady? Haw! Do she?"

"She does," I said. "How about giving it back?"

"How about goin' to hell," he said, fumbling a pistol from his belt. I was on him in two steps, twisted the weapon out of his fingers and tossed it over the bar. I hit the big man low, very low, elbowed one of the men behind him in the throat, hit the next in the mouth and ear, and ran the one trapped behind him back into the wall, head first. Then I went back to the big man who stood gasping, bent over and holding his belly. I grabbed his hair and yanked his head up.

"Out," I said, pulling his purse from his belt. "Take these tramps with you."

The group scuttled through the door, and I closed and barred it behind them. I could hear them cursing each other in the rain.

"You like making enemies?" Lucinda asked, still sitting where I had left her, stockinged feet near the fire, sipping her whisky, long legs fully extended.

I tossed her the leather purse and went to slice myself some meat. When I returned with my supper, she had dumped the coins out on the hearth and was down on her knees making piles of them.

"Think it's all here," she said, "what I had saved and a bit more." She looked up at me. "Thanks."

"Nothing," I said, chewing and admiring her body. "Good beef, like it rare."

"They might be back," she said, sitting again and tying the purse closed.

"They ain't much," I said. "Wouldn't worry none."

"They've got guns, most a'them."

I fetched my two carbines and rifle from the corner by the back door and locked that door while I was at it. I handed her a short musket. "You know how to load?" I asked.

She nodded. "Never saw one of these close up."

"If they want blood," I said, "we can oblige them."

She smiled, and I gave her my cartridge pouch and got to loading my rifle. I watched her bite open a cartridge, pour in the powder and stuff the ball in the muzzle with her thumb. She knew what she was doing.

"I'll prime," I said as there was a battering at the front door. "Think we got company."

"Let go upstairs," the woman said. I followed her. There were several windows on the first floor but only four above and they were in dormers.

From the window over the front door, she yelled down, "Herman, get away from there." A flash and a boom followed. Splinters flew from the window frame as Lucinda ducked back. "Damn," she said, ramming down the load she had begun. I picked up that carbine while she started on the other, my rifle, primed and ready, was set aside. The second floor of the tavern was just two steep-roofed sleeping rooms with pallets on the floor. I could stand up straight only under the ridge pole.