Chapter 34: Boning Jake

I was lying on my stomach near Arabella's cooking fire while she tended the three new wounds in my back, clucking her tongue over the long one where the spike was yanked loose as George killed the man who was sticking me. She began sewing up that place after dripping something she called "styptic juice" on all three. Stung like the very devil.

"How are you?" asked a familiar voice. Jake sat on the log nearby, and I squinted up at her.

"Tolerable," I told her as Arabella pulled another loop through my skin and tied a knot.

"Sorry 'bout the little surprise," she said quietly.

"Gimme your knife," Araballe said, and I handed her the filleting blade and sat up.

"You all right?" I asked the girl.

She nodded. "He didn' really hurt me, but he was gettin' ready to. Thank you. Think he must'a been part bull. Never saw one like that, an' I seen a few." She tried a small smile.

"What you gonna do now?" I asked since by then it was likely that every man and woman in Dan Morgan's army knew the story George had told and embroidered some to make his role a size or two larger and the attempted rape a lot more colorful.

"Got no home, 'cept the army," she said rather mournfully.

"How old are you, anyhow?" I asked.

'Sixteen, seventeen or so," she said, head down, and perhaps adding a year or more. She shuffled her feet in the dirt.

I pulled my shirt on, thanked Arabella and sat beside the girl, feeling her tremble, her lower lip shaking.

"I could go north with you and George," she said, "up to fight Arnold and them. Wouldn't nobody have to know if you didn't tell 'em."

"Don' think that's a good idea. There's a dozen men in Cap'n Foster's company, and ain't none of them been around a woman for some time. Wouldn't know how to behave. You might find that men are just men once they know you ain't. Lord, girl, none of us is saints, and you're right tolerable lookin' now that you washed yer face."

"I don't mind, men, you know, being men," she said, glancing my way. Arabella handed me back my knife and gave me a stern look.

"Might be better if you stayed here and learned cooking and nursin' from Arabella. I know she'd look after you best she could."

"I can shoot," Jake said, lowering her dark eyebrows. "I'm no damn cook."

"Now, don't get so riled," I said, still trying to figure out how I could have looked at that lean face and not seen the girl under the freckles and windburn. I guess no one was likely to call her pretty, but she certainly was not ugly either; a fine, straight nose; good, high cheekbones and a firm chin.

"Won't you take me with you?" she hoarsely whispered, biting her lower lip and pulling her thick waistcoat over her chest.

"Can't," I said. "I know Cap'n Foster won't 'llow it. He's death on camp followers. Says we get enough when we stop 'thout having any along the way. Don't reckon you could scout or spy. Did Gen'l PIckens toss you out his militia?"

She nodded, "Cussed me too. Don' know why I couldn't be some use as a spy up in Virginia. I ride 'most as good as you do."

"You ain't the only woman that's been in this here fight," I told her. "Bet a dozen or more's in the army right now an' Gates, Greene, George Washington, none a'them knows it. Up in New Jersey one a'them served her man's cannon when he got shot. But if any a'them found out a soldier was a female, out she'd go."

"Ain't easy, you know," she said, pushing a smile. "You're a smelly lot."

I laughed, "We are, aren't we. Not many baths taken this winter, that's for sure."

"Men in my company," she said, brightening, "I ain't seen nary a one of them dunked 'cept when it rained, not ever. Never saw 'em undressed, jus' pissing. One feller tole me he took a bath twice a year whether he needed it or not. Suggested I do the same for my health."

"I gotta get packed up," I said. "We're heading out tomorrow. All these prisoners and now them wagons you found, they're slowing us down. We're going north right away."

"All right. I'll stay with Arabella if she don't mind. I can be useful even if they took my gun away from me. But," she dropped her voice down, "I got another favor, kind of private. Come over here."

We stood up together and walked to the other side of the supply wagon where Arabella slept most nights. Jake put her arms around me and rested her head on my chest. I held her gently until she decided she had been held enough.

"Will you roger me?" she asked.

I held her away from me and looked at her, shocked. It was if she had asked if I would skin her. She smiled.

"Please," she said. "When that Redcoat was perched on me, grubbing at me, I felt terrible 'cause the first man to have me was going to be a damned British soldier, a dirty lobsterback."