Chapter 4

Mistress Ella’s wedding had taken place during this slack time and she and her mother had gone to stay with the family of her new husband. Mistress Ella was a long way from the first bride to have a very short first pregnancy, and nobody thought that there was anything unusual going on.

The only problem was this left Master Amos and Master Eli at home with nothing much but fucking to do while they waited for the fall harvest. Master Amos took care of his boredom by having my wife visit him several times at night during the week. Unfortunately, this turned Master Eli’s attention toward my daughter Mary.

Yes, I had fucked Mary several times since our first encounter, but her mother was well aware of the occasions and was more or less tolerant of the situation. These meetings were always at Mary’s request, and she always asked her mother first before approaching me. What could I say? I had already fucked Mary several times, so what difference did one more time with Mary make between Martha and me?

Master Eli showed up again very early, and he demanded to fuck Mary. I did my very best to talk him out of it, but he was adamant that he was going to have his way. One of his arguments was why couldn’t he fuck my daughter Mary if his father was fucking my wife Martha?

About this time, Mary walked into the room to see what all of the noise was about. Master Eli rushed to her and grabbed her arm painfully tight. He tried to pull her toward the bedroom, and Mary tried to fight him off.

Suddenly, I lost control of myself and stepped up behind Master Eli. Without giving the matter any thought, I hit him as hard as I could in the back of his neck. That jerked his head back in the proper fashion to give him a concussion, and he dropped in his tracks. Mary and I both reacted in horror! I was dead as of that moment, and my family would probably join me.

The only way that I could escape was to run, and Martha and Mary had to go with me. I sent Mary to tell Thomas and Henry what had happened, and to tell them that I was running. They were to come along with me if they were looking for an opportunity to escape the plantation. At the moment, I could not tell whether or not I had killed Master Eli, and, if I had, it was likely that every slave and serf on the plantation would be executed.

Mary ran off to spread the word to my two friends while I began to gather up what we needed to take with us. Of course, we were going to take the air guns and the minie ball ammunition, but I also wanted to take as many of my tools with me as I could while still leaving room in the wagon for food and other supplies. We also had to allow for three people to ride, but we could all fit on the driver’s seat.

Master Eli began to come around just as Thomas and Henry were arriving. Well, that saved the lives of everybody else among the serfs and slaves, but it did nothing for me or my family. Just laying a hand on Master Eli was my death warrant!

I asked, “Thomas, Henry, are you going with me? You really don’t have to, if you are willing to waste more of your lives in this cesspool.”

Both men got very serious looks on their faces and Henry said, “I will go with you, but I must first punish this turd for murdering my daughter. The problem is that I cannot kill him without harming almost 40 innocents.”

Thomas said, “I agree with Henry, but what can we do that would be bad enough to make up for killing Eli?”

Master Eli had regained his senses by this time, and he shouted, “YOU FOOLS! WHAT DO YOU MEAN CONSPIRING AGAINST ME LIKE THAT? YOU ARE DEAD MEN, AND YOUR FAMILIES WILL ALL GO WITH YOU! I WILL BURN ALL OF YOU AT THE STAKE!” The interesting thing was that he really was a fool, because he said this while he was surrounded by the three of us, all men who were significantly larger and stronger than he. I guess it was the bully mentality taking him over.

He started toward the door, but Thomas grabbed him and would not let him go, no matter how much Master Eli ordered him to do so. Finally, I had heard all that I could stand and balled up my fist and shook it in Eli’s face. Dammit, I would no longer call him “Master!”

Mary came running up and handed me some short lengths of rope. “Papa, you had better tie him before he has a chance to escape.” Thank God, Mary could see past the moment, and she may well have saved our lives by doing so!

Thomas and Henry held Eli while I tied his hands behind him and tied his legs together. Okay, Eli was not going anywhere, but we had still not answered the burning (literally) question of what to do with him. There were a full three minutes of pause while each of us men tried to decide what to do with Eli. Finally, it came to me.

I said, “Look, we agree that we can’t kill Eli without sentencing all of the serfs and slaves to death, but we all want to punish him in such a way that he will spend his life in misery and can never harm anybody else again. Well, I think I have the answer to our need. It is something the ancient Vikings used to do to an especially despised enemy: we will chop off his arms and legs, but not kill him. That way, he can never do anything on his own, but will have to depend on others to do everything for him, including wipe his ass after he shits.

“Eli loves to fuck, but he cannot do that without arms and legs unless a woman is willing to straddle his hips and put his sorry prick inside her for him. Then she will have to pump up and down all by herself just to make him come. Now, how many women do you know who would do that for the likes of this piece of shit?”

It almost made my day when Eli realized what I had said. He turned almost literally white as a sheet, and fell to the floor as he belatedly tried to run away. As it was, he was trying to roll to the door, and Mary was holding him in place with her foot in the middle of his back as he lay on his face.

Thomas said, “That’s perfect. We will have to cauterize the cuts to keep him from bleeding to death, and that would cancel all of our effort. I have just the thing for the job, and it is sitting on my forge almost hot enough to do the job. I’ll fetch it, and Mary can build up the heat in the stove while I am gone. It should take only a few minutes to do the job.

“You and Henry can decide where you want to do the chopping. There is going to be one hell of a lot of blood flowing before we can get his wounds cauterized, but that won’t make any difference once we are gone. I’ll tell my wife and Henry’s to start packing what she wants to take while we take care of this shit-head. Mary can start your packing after she stokes the fire in the stove.”

I went to fetch the ax and the stump that I normally use as a chopping block. I figured that my workshop was as good a place as any for the job, since I planned never to set foot in here again.

While I was gone, Henry cut the clothes from Eli and laid him back on the floor. I heard him yell to Mary, “DO YOU THINK THAT WE SHOULD CUT OFF HIS COCK AND BALLS, TOO?”

Mary answered, “NO, LEAVE THEM THERE! AS LONG AS HE HAS THEM, HE WILL BE THINKING ABOUT WHAT HE IS MISSING!”

I came back into the house with the ax and the chopping block, and Thomas showed up less than 15 minutes later. That was when we realized that we needed Mary to stick around to help us. The whole job could not be done easily with less than four people. We all agreed that Henry was the surest hand with an ax, so he was assigned the chopping duty. Thomas and I had to hold Eli in place, so it would be up to Mary to apply the cauterizing plate.

We decided to start with his right arm, since we figured that was his most important limb. Thomas held Eli’s left side and I pulled on his right arm to center the cutting point just past his shoulder. We wanted a little stub to be left so that Mary would have a good target for her cauterizing plate past the tourniquet we applied.