Chapter 43: Another Widow

This story is out of place and should have been entered earlier. But here it is.

Every army has its camp followers, and I generally left them alone unless I was very deeply in need of female solace. Some officers' wives were also in the train that followed the army from place to place, but they usually rode in wagons and the men always left them alone while the washerwomen, trollops and sergeants' girls walked most of the time and were considered fair game.

Shortly after we stopped the Black Watch in a terrible fight on the Heights, Lt. Foster called me to his tent. A tall, black-clad woman was sitting on a stool beside him with a raw, wooden box on her lap. She was dark haired and sad looking, probably about my age.

"This is Mrs. McAllen," the lieutenant said after I saluted, something we seldom did unless someone else was around.

"Ma'am," I said, nodding at her and holding her eyes for a moment. They were gray-green, her eyes, deep and clear like a pool with mossy banks.

"I don't guess you knew her husband. He was artillery, a good man. Got killed. Caisson blew up, him and four men just about disappeared."

"I'm right sorry, Ma'am," I said, and she gave me her gloved hand briefly and pinched her lips down to a narrow line.

"She wants to go home and bury him, his remains."

I nodded again.

"Up near Hartford," Lt. Foster said. "So you take her and guard her and then get back here quick. Understand?"

"Yessir," I said. "How?"

"She can ride. Get two horses, no three, a pack horse. She has some clothes and things."

"Yessir, when?"

"Now, damnit, move," he said like I had done something wrong. The woman's forehead wrinkled, and I left thinking that she almost smiled.

We had our own stable in those days so I was back in about fifteen minutes with two geldings and a mare and helped the lady mount up. She was wearing good boots and a split skirt. She rode astride. I had seen a few other woman ride that way and that is how all the girls back home rode, so it did not seem strange to me.

The lieutenant gave me a pass, a map and some money and off we went toward the Housotonic with this wooden box strapped on the pack horse that I kept trotting along behind us on a tether. We did not talk much, and when we came to a ferry someplace north of Bridgeport about sundown, I rented a room for her, and we stopped for the night. We ate in relative silence, but finally did exchange names. Hers was Julia.

After we finished our meal and I got myself a pipe to suck on, we did talk a bit. Her husband had been a farmer and a part-time preacher and school teacher who had joined up after the British left Boston. She had come along with him since they had no children and were tenant farming, living in a rented house I suppose. She said she had enjoyed the army life for a few months but found the recent retreat frightening and the sad treatment of wounded men just awful. She said she had spent a lot of time working with the medics.

Then she went to her room, and I went to the stable to see to the horses and bed down in a stall resisting the temptation the buxom barmaid offered for just a couple of shillings. In the morning we crossed the deep stream and then headed for the wandering Quinnapac River. The road was good and well marked, and I think we were just south of Wallingford when we got ambushed. I guess I was kind of dozing in the saddle when these men appeared from a small coppice of trees, smiling and pointing guns at us. I did not even get to touch my musket much less bring it into action.

They looked like deserters from some militia company. Two carried Tower muskets and the leader, a fat man with thick eyebrows, had a horse pistol in my belly before I could say anything or do anything. His poke left a shilling-sized bruise.

"Gimme y'purse," he demanded, and I tossed it to him, watching for an opportunity to do something useful.

He weighed it in his hand. "Good," he said. "What'chu got in the box?" He pointed toward the pack horse behind me.

"What's left of the lady's husband," I said, hoping he would turn his back. The other two were sizing up the woman, whispering and guffawing with each other.

"Widder are she," he laughed. "We likes them jus' fine, don' we boys." He laughed again and spat. "Who y'joshin'?" he demanded, looking evil. "That there's no coffin." He pulled a knife, cut the straps and the box fell to the ground. The lid popped open and out came a few bits of rounded skull bone, some bloody cloth, what looked like an arm or shin bone and then a shriveled hand rolled out and lay palm up.

"Damn," the big man said. "Look at that."

"Come on, Jed," one of the other highwaymen demanded. "We gonna get us a piece a'ass or not?"

"Hurry, hurry, hurry, always in a hurry," the leader said with a laugh. "Awright, you boys take her back to camp, an' break 'er in; I'll get rid a'this big rustic." He cocked his pistol as one of the men took Julia's reins from her hand and the other pulled his horse up beside hers and yanked the necklace from about her throat. "We might save you a piece," he said as they headed down the trail. Julia looked back at me with fear on her face but did not say anything. The man who had taken her necklace had his hand on her thigh and was talking to her and laughing.

"Get down," the big man said. "I don' wanna spook y'horse when I kills ya. Looks like a good animal." He dismounted at the same time I did, never letting his pistol's muzzle waver from my chest. "'Sblood. Look at that big knife," he said, reaching for my blade and taking his eyes away from my face for an instant. I elbowed him in the mouth and his gun went off under my arm. I felt the blast burn through my heavy shirt and the ball graze the middle of my back as I pulled my big bayonet from its scabbard and swung it at the man's face. I cut his nose and cheek deeply as he tried to club me with his weapon. We grunted and fought, knowing only one would survive. I kicked him in the knee and then dug the blade in under his left arm, in to the hilt and scraping bones. He gasped, looked surprised and fell to his knees as I withdrew the bayonet. His hands went to his mouth; blood gushed forth, and he fell on his face. I took a minute to reload his pistol and then cut the pack animal loose and jumped on my horse. I kicked him and thundered down the road after the other two bandits and the widow.

Fortunately they had not gotten far and turned when they heard me coming. I fired the pistol at the one on Julia's right when I got close enough, dropped the gun, pulled my feet loose, got a knee on the saddle and jumped on the other fellow, butting him in the middle of the chest. He fell from the horse with me atop him, taking his breath away, and I cut his throat before I stood to see what was going on, my hands dripping with his blood. Julia was a hundred yards away with an empty horse beside her and the other robber was in the ditch across the dirt track, moaning and thrashing about with a belly wound.

I stepped on his groin and he squealed like a pig. "Where's her necklace?" I demanded.

He fished it out of his shirt pocket while I ground my heel into his privates. "Help me," he sobbed. I lifted my foot, stomped on his face and held his head down in the weeds and muddy water until he stopped kicking and making bubbles. His hands fell away from my leg.

Julia sat on her horse and watched wordlessly, her jacket torn open and a white breast exposed to the bright sun. It looked like a porcelain cup, a good sized one. Her nipple was large and dark. I stood, handed her the thin chain and locket, and she sniffed and pulled her clothes together. "Thank you," she said.