Chapter 38: Olivia

Late one afternoon the sound of gunfire got my attention. It almost always did. It was not volley fire, but pretty continuous as if five or six men might be shooting at each other a mile or so away. I came through the dense forest carefully, smelling wood smoke and gunpowder, and found a small cabin under siege. A half-dozen Redcoats were out behind trees, rocks and downed logs firing at a well-built cabin with heavily shuttered windows, the kind you often see in a frontier area where Indians have been or still are a problem. I could not tell how many people were shooting from inside, but the odds surely seemed to be with the attackers. I decided to even them up a bit.

The first man came I came upon was busily loading his Brown Bess when I yanked his head back and dispatched him. A wave of blood sprayed out over the tree trunk he hid behind and flowed toward the earth. I dropped the dead man and finished getting his weapon ready to fire, leaving my own across my back, loaded and ready. I drew down on a British soldier forty yards or so to the right, and just after he fired, I shot him in the side of the head, a pretty lucky shot at that range. His hat went up in the air; he threw up his arms and vanished in the underbrush.

That was evidently enough for the attackers who scrambled back to the other side of the cabin, mounted up and rode away, dragoons I suppose. They took the two empty saddle horses with them, but they left their dead where they lay sprawled.

I hallowed the house and then approached with my hands raised and empty. I heard bars being slid away, and a woman admitted me and then almost fell into my arms with a cry of anguish. "He's dead; he's dead," she moaned as I held her. She was a youngish woman, firm and willowy, and behind her stood a boy of fourteen or so, beardless and big-eyed, his mouth black-smeared. On the far side of the cabin, near the hearth lay a man in a growing pool of blood. He was face down and the back of his head was sticky with gore.

The woman was Olivia, the boy James and the dead man was Philip, Olivia's husband who had been killed, shot in the head, early in the fight. Olivia and her brother had held off the Redcoats until I came along, often firing, they both admitted, with their eyes closed tight.

The boy and I dug a good grave, and we buried the young man wrapped in an old blanket. That night the boy carved a marker for the grave with the man's name and dates on it. He did a neat job, and I praised him. At the woman's insistence, her pleading, I stayed the night, sleeping beside her brother and listening to her sob until she slept.

In the morning, the Brits were back.

We had five weapons, four muskets and a fowling piece, and I had brought in the cartridge boxes as well as the food and weapons of the dead men along with their meager purses, just a few shillings and some tobacco. I showed Oliva how to load properly, the army way, and James and I manned the firing holes on opposite sides of the cabin against what looked like eight or ten horse soldiers. I never did understand why they bothered unless they were after the woman; she was worth a battle it is true. The shutters were heavy and narrowly loopholed, but the British fired double loads and their balls blew away big chunks of wood when they struck the edges of the window frames and the double-barred door.

After a few minutes, I saw what they were planning and called the boy to my side of the room. Outside the soldiers had loaded a barrow full of straw and rocks, and as we watched they set it afire. Two men grabbed the handles and ran at the house with the flames roaring between them. The others fired on us, blasting away at our window stations.

"Get the one on your side," I yelled as I waited to be sure of hitting the bent-over man trotting on the left, head ducked low. I brought him down, hitting him in the hip, but James missed his man who abandoned the burning wagon and ran back to the tree line. The Redcoats dragged the other man away, and I held my fire while they did so.

Suddenly a musket poked through the wood-shingled roof. Oliva pointed and screamed, and I think I fired at the same time the man up there did. James was struck in the chest and knocked back to the wall, and we heard the man on the roof cry out and roll off, hitting the ground with a solid thump. The girl ran to her brother and tried to stop the flow of blood with her hands, but the boy was dead in a minute or two. He never even had time to cry out.

The firing did not seem to let up. Now Oliva guarded the back slots, firing only when she absolutely had to, and I held the front and tried to keep our muskets loaded, alternating from window to window. They tried once more with a fire wagon, but gave that up when I brought down both men with two quick shots. One lay screaming under the overturned barrow, burning and writhing, his skin peeling away, while the other crawled until he slumped and was still. I took pity on the burning man and shot him again.

The British left, taking their dead and wounded with them this time. Oliva and I sat and looked at each other, our mouths blackened by gunpowder, our eyes reddened by the acrid smoke. She looked ashen, completely exhausted and rubbed her shoulder where the heavy gun had kicked her time after time. I pulled a couple of splinters out of my face and drank water from an old jug, trying to get my breath. We had only a half-dozen rounds left.

When we were reasonably sure the soldiers had actually gone, she prepared her brother's body, and I dug a hole for him beside her husband. By sunset we had the soil tramped down, and she fed me while I worked on a marker for the boy's grave.

"Will they come again?" she asked, looking up from her plate, her eyes tear filled.

"You can't stay here alone," I said, wondering if they would.

"I've nowhere to go."

"No family?"

She shook her head and a fat, glistening tear ran down her dirty face.

"I'll take you back to the army," I said. "There's some women can help you, washer women.

"I don't want to be a soldier's whore," she said, looking up, her chin atremble, eyes narrowed.

"That's up to you. Some good women following Washington these days."

"Really?" she said, wiping her face on her arm.

I nodded and was glad she did not ask me how many I knew since I was generally familiar with several of the other kind, the strumpets and jades. It was dark now and the only light came from her cooking fire. We went to the well and washed our faces and hands, enjoying the feel of the cool water. Back in the cabin, she took off her dress and pulled her shift over her head. She stood in front of me, barely lit by the coals of the fire, very slim, her hands down at her sides, elbows back, her small breasts rising and falling with her breathing, nipples clearly defined by soft shadows, belly quivering. She just stood there, breathing deeply while I took her in with my eyes, my hands aching to feel her.