Chapter 50: Maria

At Amy's suggestion I made another stop on the way back to my duties. She told me that an aunt of hers had a horse farm in a small valley a few miles south and that, as far as she knew, the war had not reached her. The chance to get some good horses for Captain Foster was plenty of incentive, and I headed down a narrow track under dappled sunshine.

The lonely farmhouse stood in a copse of trees and dozens of horses ran and gamboled in the surrounding pastures. I rode to the back door, led my tired horse to the water trough and introduced myself to the pleasant woman who answered my knock. Her name was Maria P--.

She was probably in her thirties, a fine, straight woman with a freckled face and strong looking shoulders, her hair tied back and hanging to her trim waist. I told her the reason for my visit, and she backed off and looked at me with her head cocked to the side.

"You sure don't look much like a soldier," she said with an open smile.

I explained the nature of my work and of our company and said that we had found it awful hard to get fresh horses up near the James with all the British cavalry roaming the area.

She said she would be happy to sell me a few, and I told her I could only give her a receipt and a promise. She grinned and said that was better than stealing. She invited me in, and after we ate we went down to the paddock area where two slaves were working hard.

"One of my young stallions is earning his keep this week," she said. "Several mares are coming into season late, and he's been covering all the ones he can get a hold of."

"Hard work," I said, admiring her long-legged stride. She smiled.

Off near the tree line we could see a big, dark horse. The woman whistled shrilly, and he came running, his huge member swaying beneath him. "Looks like he's been busy," she said.

The big horse stuck his head over the fence for his expected patting and then whinnied and trotted off, shaking his head. We watched him corner one of the chestnut mares, bite at her neck and then mount her using a cock that looked as long as his leg and as big around as a fence post.

"Kind of dangerous loving," I said.

"Mares do get nicked up sometimes," she said, shading her eyes and licking her lips as the stallion reared and neighed. "But I think they enjoy it. They let themselves get caught."

"He's quite a boy," I said, admiring his monstrous weapon which dripped as he withdrew and the mare ran off, kicking her heels.

"A northern Virginian," she said. "Off one of the Fairfax farms. We paid a pretty penny for him, but he's still young. He'll do better in a year or two and earn it all back."

"Your husband off at the war?" I asked

"He was," she said, looking away. "He was. They brought his body, what was left of it. He's buried over yonder."

I kept my mouth closed and watched the stallion speed off after another small filly.

"Guilford Court House," she said. "Artillery."

"I'm sorry to hear it," I told her and put my hand on her shoulder. She did not shrug it away so I pulled her closer. She put her head on my chest and wept quietly. Her back shook, and I petted her and whispered nonsense into her bright hair.

We settled on a string of ten young horses, mares and geldings, and I wrote her out a paper stating that the quartermaster owed her for prime horses at the going rate. I signed it and dated it. I hoped she would get paid eventually, and I told her that.

"When we win this," she said. "I'll redeem that."

The log house was just two rooms with a summer kitchen and attached shed, but well built and comfortably furnished. After we ate, she showed me a bed in the lean-to, explaining that it had been her late husband's body servant's room.

"He was killed, too. They wrote that there wasn't enough left of him to even ship home. Hope you don't mind."

I put my hand on her hip and bent and kissed her, gently. She swung her arms around my neck and greedily kissed me back, smashing her hard body against mine and breathing deeply while she did, grinding against me while I kneaded her buttocks and rubbed her back.

"We most always, Jim and I," she sighed after she pulled her mouth away, "we always made love after watching the stallions do their work. It's kind of, I don't know, stimulating, isn't it, encouraging?"

"Intimidating, might be more like it," I said, caressing her and holding her close, happy she was not a stay wearer.

"But it does put one's mind to the task," she whispered, stroking me with the back of her hand. "Come."

She led me to her big bed which was built into the side of the log wall not far from the chimney. Moonlight let us watch each other undress, and we crawled beneath the quilt, bare as the day we were born, and held each other for a time before our bodies grew impatient.