Chapter 49: Mistaken

On the road toward Richmond again, I passed a farm where some nice-looking work animals were grazing in a field by the road. I could hardly believe that anyone in this area had any horses left, so I went in to investigate.

A young black girl answered my knock and called her mistress to the front door. The woman, dressed for work with an apron and cap, was a very handsome matron of thirty-five or so. I told her that I was concerned that roving bands of British and Tory raiders might fall on her home because of the unconcealed horses grazing in front of her place. She smiled and looked at me with some disdain.

"My husband is with Colonel Simcoe," she said proudly. "We are loyal to the crown on this plantation, all of us."

"Nevertheless," I said, "some of these ruffians. these bands of..."

"Sir," she held up her hand, "most of the officers have been guests at my table, and I have found all of them to be gentlemen. I may have some problems with soldiers of your ilk, in fact we have, but I will never be bothered by my husband's friends and compatriots.

"I hope you're right," I said, "but I'd still get them horses back off the road. They've been stealing slaves, too, you know."

She smiled again. "Thank you," she said, closing the door, "good day."

I stopped at her well for a drink and looked at the orderly farm with its whitewashed outbuildings, two large barns and row of slave quarters, a prosperous and well-run place.

I was a mile or so farther up the road when I heard of a pack of whooping riders approaching. I rode into the woods and watched, trying the count. The last one was leading a horse with a girl tied astride it. They sounded liquored up and ready for violence, so I trailed them, staying in the shadows of the pine trees, and sure enough they rode right into the farmyard I had just left.

By the time I had hobbled my horse, stuffed my pistol in my belt and checked my musket, the farm seemed quiet again with only a knot of horses near the well to show that the plantation was entertaining a bunch of bushwackers that looked like leftovers from one of Arnold's ranger companies if I had properly sized them up. Then I heard a cry and saw the black girl who had answered the door being bent over the porch railing and raped by a large man in a green uniform coat. I was about to head that way when I heard a girlish protest from behind me.

One green jacketed man had been left with their horses, and he was deviling a girl who lay on the ground by the fence, her hands tied before her, squealing. He was showing the youngster his flabby member and telling her what he was going to do to her when he saw her look over his shoulder at me. He spun around, reaching for his musket, and I ran him through with my blade bayonet. It came out his back about a bloody six inches and he fell to his knees, coughing. I pulled out the blade, let him fall and cut the girl loose.

"Get up in the woods over t'other side of the road," I told her as she looked wide-eyed at the dying soldier. "I'll whistle like a whip'r-will when I think it's safe to come out. You might find my horse back in there and some grub in the bags."

She scampered off at about the same time there was a shot from the area of the slave quarters. I saw the cloud of powder smoke rise and headed in that direction. I tried to remember how many had been in the party that passed me, perhaps ten to a dozen I figured, maybe one down and a lot to go. I quickly counted the horses and settled on ten to go.

Except for some feeble cries, the quarters were quiet when I reached the most distant cabin, the place where I thought the shot had come from. A large black man lay sprawled in the dirt, his arms spread wide and a gaping hole in his blood-covered chest. I hooked my bayonet on my musket and stepped into the nearest cabin. Two men were busily raping a black woman, one holding her down and the other poking her and laughing ... I clubbed the busy rapist with the butt of my weapon and stabbed the other in the throat, driving him back to the huts' far wall and leaving him there, twitching.

"You all right," I asked the woman who was pulling herself from the dirt floor and straightening her clothes. She sniffed and nodded. I bayoneted the fallen Tory with his britches around his ankles just to make sure he did not bother my work.

In the next slave cabin I almost stepped on the body of a baby in the dooorway. It was obviously dead, its throat cut and gaping. At the back wall stood one of the raiders, with his arm around a black woman and a knife at her throat, his hand squeezing her bare breast.

"Stop right there," he said to me with a growl. "This here one's mine."

"Duck!" I yelled and thrust squarely at the slave woman's nose. She fell straight down, getting scratched by the attacker's blade. I bayoneted him in the upper chest, pinning him to the log wall. I yanked out the blade, stuck him again and left the woman huddled over her dead child. He had not made a sound when I speared him.

Between the next two cabins a hefty man in a flapping green coat was wrestling with a large black woman. I kicked the man off of her and cracked him in the back of the head with the butt of my musket. He fell and she found a piece of firewood and whacked him in the face a couple of times as a man on the other side of the lane pushed aside a blanket doorway and said, "What the hell's going on?" He only had a shirt and boots on.

He reached for his musket, but I got my blade into him before he even touched it. He yelled and fell back into the cabin with both his hands on my weapon, and I drove him to the floor. A woman with most of her clothes torn off sat huddled on a mattress bag and watched quietly while I stepped on the man's face and speared him again.

I stood back in the sunlight, puffing, and saw several black men coming from the distant fields, trotting. I tried to count, six down I figured, looking at the broken stock of my musket. I traded it for the one leaning against the hut and twisted my own bayonet in place. Just as I finished doing that a man came out of the neighboring cabin with his foreflap still undone and his back to me. "What was that?" he asked no one. It was almost too easy, but he screamed when I stuck him and lifted him off his feet so I knew the element of surprise was no longer with me.

I stepped over the body and into the cabin to find a young boy about to mount an even younger girl who was already bleeding. I kicked him off the girl and hit him in the face with my musket's butt plate, smashing his nose. He fell like a sack of meal, and the frightened girl smiled at me.

I stayed in the dark cabin and loaded the musket, and when I stepped out I was glad I had for a ranger was standing in the lane between the cabins pointing his gun at my belly from about twenty feet away. I ducked back in as he fired. His ball hit the doorway, and I stepped out and ran at him as he began to reload. He threw his weapon at me and turned just as I reached him, raising his hands in surrender as he saw the slaves approaching. A noise made me look to my left, and there was another soldier just cocking his musket, probably the man who had been humping that poor girl on the porch judging from his size. I shot him in the chest, and turned back to find the man who had surrendered in the grip of two large black men.

A scream came from the house, a long, sobbing sound. She's learned they all are not gentlemen, I thought.

"We kin take care a'dese," a large. bald man said. "Go hep the missus, sir, please."

I handed him my empty musket, ran for the house, jumped up to the porch and past the body of the black girl, her neck obviously broken and blood on her legs. I opened the door quietly with my pistol in my hand and followed the sounds of cries and pleadings to the back of the house.

"No, please, don't," the woman cried. A man laughed.

Her wrist had been tied to her bed post with a piece of cord and a man in a green jacket sat near her in a small rocking chair, his back to me, with his legs crossed, his jacket open and a curved sword in his outstretched hand. He was plucking away the woman's dress and shift, bit by bit, shredding the cloth and nicking her occasionally in the process. One of her small breasts stood nearly bare and her leg showed through a rent in her torn skirt. When she saw me, she put her free hand to her mouth and stared as the man put his blade to her belly and tore away a piece of hanging cloth.

"Stand up," I said loudly, poking the man in the back of his bewigged head with my pistol. He jumped to his feet and took a wild swing at me, hitting the chair. I ducked the whistling sword and hit him in the mouth with the barrel of my gun. He dropped his blade and put both hands to his face. I untied the woman and then dragged him back through the house and out to the porch.