Chapter 38: Mina

I spotted the string of slaves marching down a parallel track about noon. They were on the dusty, fair-weather road while I stayed mostly in the shade. I tried three times to count them without getting very close and finally gave up and estimated twenty. They were roped together at the neck and had their hands tied before them. As far as I could tell from the trees, they were all women or young boys. Three of them were very light-skinned and one was surely white. They wore ragged dresses or breech clouts and were barefoot. They were guarded by four, mounted, blue-coated dragoons and an officer on a good-looking horse, all Arnold's men I assumed from their dress and manner.

I decided to capture the officer if I could and take him back to be hanged if he was a turncoat as were many of the traitor's men. When they reached a shady place, the captain called a halt and the lead man went down the line giving each captive a sip of water from his canteen. While he was doing that another guard forced one of the women to her knees and buggered her until she screamed for mercy. The officer watched this exhibition and laughed while the other two soldiers smoked their pipes and kept watch.

I tethered my horse, pulled both my rifle and my musket from their scabbards and made another count. Twenty-two of them in the coffle including five boys as best I could tell. When the man who had been enjoying himself on one of the slaves came into the woods to take a piss, I decided I had waited long enough. He finished and heard me just before I put a hand over his mouth, yanked his head back and cut his throat. It was not long before one of his comrades came looking for him, cautiously, calling his name and carrying his spike bayonet well before him. I waited behind a big oak, hoping to surprise him, but he saw the body, turned and yelled, "Cap'n!" before I could stop him. I stepped out and hit him behind the ear with the butt of my old pistol. He fell on his face as the officer charged into the woods, sword in hand.

I ducked back behind the oak, reached out as he rode past and grabbed him out of the saddle by his sword belt. He fell on his face in some berry thorns. I told him to surrender and crawl out, but he pulled a pistol from his belt and thumbed it back to full cock. I shot him. Three heavy buckshot and the musket ball left him with an astonished look but not much chest. I reloaded my musket and waited deep among the trees and underbrush.

"Captain?" came the cry from the trail. "What's goin' on?"

I found a fir with a good limb to rest my rifle on, drew down on the dragoon at the far end of the line of prisoners and waited for curiosity to do its job. In a few minutes the soldier nearest me approached the woods. When he was ten yards away, I shot the distant man, put down my rifle, picked up my musket, and found I had no nearby target. I waited and listened. It was very quiet, but when I glanced at the coffle of slaves, I saw several of them pointing above me, jabbing their arms in the air and smiling.

I looked up, and there he was, getting comfortable in a tree crotch and ready to take aim at the top of my head. My musket shot tore through his dangling leg and into his chest. He screamed and fell backwards out of the tree, striking several limbs before hitting the ground. His musket clattered down behind him. He did not move.

I checked on the man I had clubbed down and found that he was also dead so I cleaned out their pockets, yanked off the officer's good boots and coaxed the horse to a limb near my own animal. Then I went to see about the slaves who waited, squatting in the sun and looking worried. I cut the first woman loose and handed her Magda's knife and then started at the other end of the line with my blade bayonet. Soon they were all free and gabbling around like a flock of turkeys.

I told them they could go back to their homes and masters, if they still existed, or they could try to start a new life out in the hills. Most had evidently left menfolk or children behind and started off in twos and threes, back they way they had come. I gave each of them a coin from the officer's heavy purse, and they smiled their thanks. In a few minutes, only one woman was left, a white woman.

"I'm not a slave," she said quietly, and I really looked at her for the first time. She looked awful. Her hair was matted with something sticky and there were crusty patches of dried blood on her face and arms.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I jes' made myself look pretty for the so'jers, thas' all."