Chapter 42: Anna

The officers had commandeered a big, brick house with four chimneys and white trim as headquarters. I was doing guard duty in front of the place when these two women appeared, both well-dressed and well worth looking at. Admirable is what they were, stunners.

"This is my house," the older, darker-haired woman said. "Stand aside."

I did as she demanded, and she stomped up the steps followed by the younger, lighter-haired woman who was carrying a valise and who looked at me very coolly as she passed, lifting her chin. She smelled awful good, and I felt my member tingle when she made a very small smile as she went by.

It turned out that in fact the woman did own the house as the widow of the farmer whose land spread for hundreds of acres around us and included a good hardwood stand and a decrepit mill. The officers crowded together a bit, put their orderlies out in the hall and stairwells and let the females have back the biggest bedroom. Every man there made a heavy-handed play for both of the women and all of them were rejected firmly and politely so I was surprised when the younger woman found me in the camp one day when we were packing up our gear to get back on the road. She said that her mother would like to see me.

"How'd you remember me?" I asked her as we walked back, and I admired her straight back and flowing hair. Her stride was nearly as long as mine.

"You are rather large," she said with a laugh.

"Oh." I said, brightly.

The woman sat on a small chair near the window. She was wearing a dark dress, as she had been when I first saw her, and a gray scarf of some sort lay around her neck and shoulders.

"Your army is moving on we are told," she said to me.

I stood and waited, enjoying the sight of them both and the smell of the room. Lilac, I decided.

"We have been convinced that we should not stay here as the British advance," she said and her daughter nodded agreement.

"We have a carriage and a tenant house up in the hills a ways."

I kept listening and wondering.

"Your officer, Foster is it, has agreed to let you drive us there, trailing a horse, and then you may rejoin the army after we are out of harm's way."

"Yes'm," I said, wondering what Lt. Foster was thinking about since I was sure he had made bold efforts to bed both of these females over the past week. He never passed up a chance to get laid, and he was often successful.

"I requested your services since you are about the size of her late father and can wear his clothes in case we are stopped along the way. You'll not be taken prisoner, we hope."

"It's dangerous for soldiers to be out of uniform," I said and saw the girl raise an eyebrow at her mother.

"Just so," said the woman, "it's a dangerous world. Anna, show him the clothes."

The girl went to a big chest in the well of a window and there, neatly folded, were suits of wool clothing, mostly dark.

"Take your choice," said the girl, holding back the lid while our bodies almost touched. I could sense her warmth.

I drew out a dark brown coat with long skirts and a pair of lighter-colored breeches.

"Get a shirt and some good stockings," said the woman, who was now standing just behind me.

I did.

"Well," the woman said, "let's not waste time. Get dressed. Let's see if they fit."

I looked from woman to woman, shrugged and drew my shirt over my head and donned the fine, soft, almost-new one with its full sleeves and long ties at the throat. I pulled off my boots and ratty stockings, hesitated, glanced at the older woman, turned my back and stripped off my britches. The shirt tail was long enough to give me some privacy as I pulled on the new pants, stuffed in the shirt and buttoned up the waistband. The clothes were bit snug, but they fit. I turned around, holding in my stomach.

"See," said the younger woman, "he's just Father's size."

"A bit taller," said the older woman. "I'm Mrs. Pierce," she said, offering me her firm hand while I stood barefoot before her. "Honesty Pierce. They call me Tee. You may call me Mrs. Pierce. And this is my youngest, Annalee. We call her Anna usually. Two of her brothers are in your army and the other is on a ship somewhere, a warship. Anna is my youngest, just sixteen last month."

The younger woman gave me a slight curtsey and a grin.

We got on the road with their light rig, a pair of chestnut mares and two big trunks of whatever they had packed. They were dry-eyed and did not look back. I had a brief meeting with my officer who told me to do my job and behave myself. He said that both women were dried up old maids and cold as ice in his opinion.

Four hours later we stopped, the women produced food from one of their trunks, and we ate in relative silence. Another four hours, following shouted directions from Mrs. Pierce, and we came to a well-made cabin on a hillside from which you could see the river as a silver ribbon far below.

"We raised sheep at one time," the woman explained as she dusted and unpacked in the musty dwelling. I started a fire in the hearth and saw to the horses.

By night fall, they were settled in, and we ate a hot meal and sat around the sturdy table looking at each other by firelight.

"I hope you can stay a few days," the woman said, "just to make sure this is a safe place."

"Be happy to," I said. "This here is a lot easier than soldiering."

"Do you snore," the girl asked with a wicked grin.

"Been told I do," I said.

"Father did, something awful," she said. She smiled and looked at her mother.

"I can sleep in the shed with the horses," I offered.

"No such thing," said the woman. "We've room, and if you make too much noise, one of us will be sure to kick you." She laughed. "As you can see, the beds are just pallets."

"Going to be a cold night," I said, listening to the wind. "I'll get in some more firewood.

By the time I split some and returned with an armload, the daughter was in bed with her back to the room and her mother sat at the table, brushing her hair and wearing a long nightshirt of linsey-woolsey.

"Aren't your feet cold?" I asked, looking at her bare toes.

She smiled and brushed while I built up the fire. I came and sat beside her, our hips touched.

"She's a sound sleeper," the woman said, nodding at her daughter.

"Is she?" I said. She raked her hair back. It fell nearly to her waist.

"Um," she said, putting down her brush and turning to welcome me in her arms. We kissed gently and at some length. I pulled her onto my lap and my free hand explored her body starting at her knee and working its way north under her gown.

"He's been dead nearly half a year," she said, her head on my shoulder, my hand in the middle of her back.

"You're still in mourning?"

She nodded.

"No more talk," she said in a whisper. She stood and led me to the other bed. She rolled in on the thin, straw mattress and waited, lying on her back, her eyes open, while I undressed.

We caressed each other for a bit, and then I mounted her. She pressed her face tightly against my chest, and I felt her mouth open as our pace increased to throbbing expectancy. She was well into her forties I suppose, but she felt a generation younger, girlishly eager and surprising tight. We slowed and then stopped, and I rolled off. She turned with an arm and a leg across my body and her mouth at my ear and knee at my prick.

"Ah," she sighed. "Wonderful. I'd 'most forgotten."

"Again," I said to her mouth, my hand on the small of her back.

"Soon," she gasped quietly, shivering in my grasp.

We did it like that, on our sides, holding tightly to each other and finally dying together after what seemed hours of giving and taking. We had wriggled and squirmed and shushed each other, grappling with our legs, until we were completely spent.

In the morning Anna stood by the bed, looking down at her sleeping mother and then at me while I lay on my back holding my erection down against my belly. The girl smiled before she went out to the necessary.

I rolled out, built up the fire and followed her outside wearing just my shirt and boots, hard and eager. She was waiting in the shelter of the stable, her arms folded across her chest.

"You'll freeze out here," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder, brushing back her long hair.

"I'm a virgin," she said quietly. She knelt before me. My hands filled with her hair. I gasped and my knees almost buckled while she tried to satisfy my needs with her mouth and hands. I shook, both my hands holding her shoulders, my breath coming in irregular gasps while she snorted through her nose. When I finally shuddered to a conclusion, she stood and kissed me, licked her mouth and smiled.

"I plan to stay a virgin," she said, leaning back in my grasp while I ground her body against mine. She licked her lips.

That day I worked chopping firewood and doing some repairs on the stable. One cabin window was broken, and I boarded that up and mended some loose shingles, while the women swept and cleaned. After we ate, I went out and did some hunting and by dark brought back a gutted, young deer. We ate venison steaks after I butchered up the carcass, some to smoke and the rest to make jerky with. When I went out after dinner to feed the horses, there were campfires in the valley, a lot of them.

I called the women out and showed them. " Germans," I said, "see how orderly the rows are. I don't think you can stay here. They'll see your smoke and come to investigate." We could see small, dark figures moving in front of the fires.

"Damn," the woman said, wringing her hands.

"What can we do?" Anna asked, her hand touching mine.

I did not know. The enemy's camp lay between us and Washington's retreating army. "We can go north and then cross the stream where it's shallow and come back on the other side, beyond those hills where the sun is sinking. I suppose it will be safe," I said. "Do you know the roads?" I asked the woman.

She shook her head.

"Let's get started while we have some light," I said as I headed for the stable. "Pack up some food and get on warm clothes. Make a couple of blanket rolls. I've got mine."

I only found one old, dirty saddle so I threw it on the larger of the two carriage horses and got her ready to ride. She eyed me suspiciously and tried to spit out the bit, but in a half hour with my mare carrying the two women and my reluctant animal packing our gear as well as me, we headed down the backside of our hill, away from the Hessians and north toward the deeper woods.

When the moon rose, we made better time along the well-used trail and rode until Anna said, "Your horse is going lame."

We stopped and I pried a stone out of her shoe. It was probably two or three in the morning so we hobbled the animals, rolled up together in two blankets and all three of us were asleep in minutes with Honesty's hand on my shoulder.

Hoofbeats awoke us in the pre-dawn haze. They were heavy and there were many of them. We got our horses untied and led them deeper into the woods, crouching in the underbrush while a cavalry troop thundered past.

"Now what?" whispered the woman, her hand trembling on my shoulder.

"We can't use the road, the trail," I said. "We'll go downhill to the creek and follow that."