Chapter 47: Joy, the Frisker

"It's a trap," she gasped out at me as soon as I removed her gag. "I'm the bait."

And a fine piece of bait she was, young and luscious, overflowing her almost unlaced bodice and standing barefoot in her torn shift, a temptation to any man or boy. I quickly cut her loose from the tree to which she had been bound and pushed her behind it, shrugging my musket from my back and admiring her white body.

"Whose trap?" I whispered to her, my hand clamped to her shoulder as I checked my priming.

"Here they come," she said, pointing. "The foul beasts. They were looking for a big man like you, told me so when they tied me there and raped me."

Five Redcoats came stalking from the nearby tavern led by a subaltern with a straight sword who called out, "Surrender, you damned rebel."

I handed the girl my pistol, and she put it on full cock without my say-so. We smiled at each other. "We'll not take prisoners," I said, twisting my big bayonet onto my musket after stuffing a handful of buckshot down its barrel. "Wait until they are much closer. Did that officer poke you?"

She nodded and sniffed.

"Then he's yours," I said, "aim low so he doesn't hurt any other women." She showed me her teeth and gripped my big pistol with both small hands, displaying startlingly erect nipples in the process. I bent, brushed a lock of hair aside and quickly kissed her cracked lips. The squad was perhaps ten paces off. "Ready?" I asked and she nodded. "I'll fire first and charge; you get that ensign. Don't miss." They were five long steps from us as I stepped from behind the tree and let fly, aiming waist high.

Then I screamed and ran at the powder smoke, hearing my pistol fire behind me and then seeing the subaltern fall back, arms spread wide and a look of astonishment on his face, mouth agape.

Only one Redcoat was standing, and I quickly speared him and then jerked my blade loose and went for a man rolling near my feet. I did him through the neck, stepped over his body and bayoneted a man who had made it up to his knees despite the shredded look of his torn jacket and bloody arm. Behind me, someone was crying, "No, no, no."

I glanced at the four sprawled soldiers and took a step back to find the disheveled girl astride the downed officer, bending over and beating at his face with the butt of my pistol in a series of wet thuds. There was not much left of it when I pulled her away from the dying man she had gut shot.

She was snorting and pawing at the ground, struggling in my grasp, and then suddenly she fell against me, wailing and clawing. I held her and patted her back. Then I searched the bodies, ignoring the fact that the young officer still lived, and gathered up their weapons. I led the girl to the tavern, kicked open the door and dropped the four muskets to the floor.

"You a fucking Tory?" I asked the startled inn-keeper, my own gun still on my back.

"No, no," he cried, "no, never. They jus' busted in here, that bunch. That there's my daughter."

"Brave girl," I said, pushing her toward him.

"No, he's," she began to say when he grabbed her, spun her about and put a small knife to her neck.

"You want this piece of gutter trash to stay alive, put down that pistol and then raise your hands." The grizzled inn-keeper smiled at me, his big hand holding the girl at her waist. I pulled my empty pistol from my belt and put it before him on the bar very carefully. Then I quickly lifted my musket from my back and as I swung it around, I cocked and fired in one motion, hoping the instant between the pan flash and the muzzle flare was not long enough for him to knife the girl whose eyes widened as I fired.

The ball hit him just above his right eye and broke two bottles on the shelf behind him. The knife dropped to the floor and the girl stood there gawking at me and my smoking weapon.

"Damn me," she gasped out. "Thought I was dead. I looked right down the barrel of that thing." She ran her hands through her unruly hair and then looked down at the messy body near her feet, showing me her fine chest in the process.

"Anybody here?" I yelled as I reloaded my musket, ramming hard.

"In the kitchen," came a female response, and I headed that way with the girl at my heels.

"That your man out there?" I asked the haggard woman standing by the fireplace, a big spoon in her hand.

She shook her head. "I jus' work fer 'im."

"No more," I said. "He's dead."

"What happened out front?" she asked, turning to stir her stew. It smelled pretty good.

"More dead men, Redcoats," I said.

"Good riddance," she replied without looking at me.

"Can you spoon us out a couple of bowls of that?" I asked.

She nodded and I left the girl to fetch our food. I dragged the dead inn-keeper out the front door and into the thicket across the road, past the place where the four soldiers lay and their young officer still weakly kicked and moaned, one knee raised.

I returned to stand over the poor young man with the ruined face and the lead ball in his guts. "You think rape is good sport?" I said to him, watching dark blood pump out between his fingers.

He groaned and stared up at me with his remaining eye.

I ripped open his codpiece and cut off his member. He managed to scream, and I left him there with his cock in his hand.

The girl, the cook and I enjoyed the old woman's stew and crusty bread along with a few tins of frothy beer. "You're a good cook," I told her.

She nodded and chewed.

"Whose place is this?" I asked. "He have any kin?"

She shook her head.

"Think you could run it?" I asked her. "You got a man that can help?"

"Maybe," she said, looking at me curiously.

I got up and rummaged around behind the abandoned bar and after some serious rooting found a deed to the tavern in a ledger book, stable and four acres, more or less as it was described. With a flourish, I signed the dead man's name to the paper making it out to the name the woman gave me and then signed, in a slightly different hand, the names of two witnesses and dated the paper a week earlier, blew on it, rubbed it on the tabletop, folded it and gave it to her. "You now own this miserable place," I said. 'Want to hire the girl here?"