Chapter 37: Rebecca

Rebecca liked it face to face with her legs about me and Ramona preferred to be had from the back, usually on her knees. Once I had established their likes and dislikes, the job of tavern manager became much easier. The two woman owned the place. The older one, Rebecca, had inherited it from her second husband, but for being twice-over a widow she surely was not yet forty, perhaps not thirty-five, at least in bed. Her friend Ramona, who was at least ten years her junior, twenty-five I'd say, had signed on as a cook when her husband left her with two small children. When he was found dead, she owned a small piece of in-town property which she sold and invested in the tavern for part ownership.

All that I found out in my first week as an employee. That and the fact that both women enjoyed sex, hard and often. I never had a bed at the place, but every other night I had one or the other of them. Sometimes, as female needs intruded, I spent a week with the same woman, but it was never dull, never ordinary, never anything but exhausting, especially in the early mornings. Oh, how all three of us looked forward to the mornings. Occasionally we would just go to sleep after we closed the place, saving our strength for the dawn.

The day work, on the other hand, was sometimes interesting and my thoughts about the army I had left and the war was I was avoiding seldom intruded. The second week I was there, in the fall it was with Howe still barely in motion, trouble brewed up in he form of Tory militia. At first it was just two or three foul-mouthed men, but soon there were half a dozen of them and then ten or twelve and they were all but taking over the place. One Saturday, I convinced the one I assumed was their leader to come outside for a little talk.

I told him who I was and said I was a Marylander.

He spat near my feet, called himself MacAllister and did not say whether that was his first or last name to all the name he had.

I suggested that he and his men were becoming a bit of a problem, pawing the girl we had hired to serve table and howling insults at some of the other customers.

"Shit," he said, "we's jus' havin' fun. Don' we pay fer our beer?"

"Usually," I admitted, "but so far your boys have broken two chairs and a window, stolen four or five mugs and torn the door off the outhouse twice."

"Haw," he laughed. "That ain't nothing."

I waited, not understanding.

"We all had a meeting," he said, looking serious for a change, "an' we decided to make this here place our headquarters. How y'like that?"

"I don't," I said, "and neither do the ladies that own this place. They've already got a good trade, and you men are fixing on ruining it."

"Too damn bad," he said. "What're y'gonna do about it?"

Now he was not as tall as I am, as I was, but he likely outweighed me a stone or two so when I hit him, I drove my first blow deep into his belly and then I whacked him in the head with a good left and a straight right, right between the eyes. He sat down and shook his head.

He came roaring up at me, his feet slipping on the muddy path to the privy, and I ducked and then kicked him. He flew head first into the stable doorpost and fell on his back, poleaxed.

I threw some water on him and dragged him to his feet and shook him some. "I'd like you and your bunch to leave. Leave and not come back."

He nodded as if he understood.

I got a drink from the well while he staggered into the tavern and emerged a minute or two later with a big youngster by the arm. The rest of his company followed and made a semi-circle about the three of us.

"This here's Buck," the man said to me, wiping at his bloody nose. "He's the bes' fighter we got. Ain'cha Buck?"

Buck nodded and smiled. I do not think he was very bright, but he certainly looked very strong, about a yard across the chest and shoulders with legs like tree trunks.

'So," the man said, spitting blood, "he's gonna beat the crap out'a you and then we's gonna fuck them women in there and this place'll be ourn."

"Knives?" I asked, touching the handle of my bayonet.

"No," the man said, "rassling, catch-as-catch-can."

I unbuckled my heavy belt and hung in on the well and then I smiled at Buck. "You ready?" I asked him as MacAllister melted back to the crowd, chortling.

He ran at me, arms wide, teeth bared, and I ducked low and then raised up and turned him right over. He landed on his back with an "Oof" of expelled air, and I stepped up, planning to kick him in the ear when two men grabbed me and held me back until he boy got on his feet.

"He jus' slipped," the leader said, still sniffing back blood. "Fair is fair."

"I'll fight you all," I said to him, "but one at a time."

"We'll do it my way," he said with a nasty smile.

Buck shook his head and circled around me, back bent, arms wide. His hands were as big a half-peck baskets. I moved in quickly, kicked him in the knee and tried to bend his thick arm up his back. With both my hands on his wrist, I could not even move it. He cuffed me aside, making me see spinning lights behind my eyes.

"What's going on out here?" a woman yelled from the back door. It was Rebecca, and she did not look very happy. She had her shotgun in the hands. "If you're going to fight, fight fair. That's all right with me." She put her big weapon in the crook of her arm and stood there, obviously planning to watch.

Buck took a couple of wild swings at me that were easy to duck, and I kicked him in the back on his other knee as I danced away.

"Coward," one of the crowd yelled. "Get in there."

Buck came lumbering after me, and I stood my ground until the last instant and then ducked aside and stuck out my foot. He fell heavily, twisting and yelling as he went down, and I jumped on his broad back, grabbed his hair and beat his head against the dirt until he swatted me away. I rolled over two or three times and barely got to my feet before he drove a massive shoulder into me and wrapped me in his huge arms.