Chapter 5: Eleonora

I decided to let the revolt go on without me and found a job since I got tired of begging. I had never worked for a woman before, at least not since I was a young one doing errands for the older ladies in my neighborhood and earning pennies and pats on the head. In fact, I was a week on the job before I learned that the sawmill and the smoking forge nearby belonged to a woman of some means. She wasn't a widow either but an unmarried woman, a good-looking one at that.

I was manhandling logs up to the cutting table when I heard a voice behind me say quite musically, "And who is this great hulk?" I finished my task and turned with a smile to face a tall, well-made woman in a tailored riding outfit of gray wool with dark purple trimmings. She was bareheaded, a very healthy creature, and raised an eyebrow as the foreman introduced me to "the proprietor."

I knuckled my forehead and smiled at her; it would have been hard not to smile at such a handsome woman with such a quizzical look and unruly mane.

"Where are you from, my man?" she asked, making a stiff mouth and acting the superior part although we were likely about the same in years if not in wealth or station.

"Maryland," I said, "Frederick County," I paused and said, "Ma'am."

"And what, pray tell, brings you up here to Connecticut?" She said "he-ah" as if it had two parts.

"Work," I said, "and the troubles around Boston that were. My company sort of dissolved."

"I see. And do you think the troubles are over?" Her eyebrow rose again. "I mean now that the British have left."

"Doubt it, M'am," I said. "But I only signed up for six months. Soldiering ain't a full time job, but it's hard work now and then." I smiled. "I was headed home or back to the army in New York; not sure which."

"Well get on with your sawing. Have you done any smithing, iron work?"

"A bit," I told her as she turned her back with a swish of her wide skirt. She had remarkably fine posture, a broad beam and a rolling walk.

The black man I worked with as a hauler and general lackey, a former sailor with a West Indian accent, nudged me. "Trim un, ain't," he said.

"Aye, an' rich as sin, I suppose."

"She d'reason we got dat sweeper boy. She like ever'thing spick n'span, she do."

"Married?"

"Dunno. This here was her fader's I think."

"What's her name?"

He shrugged. "She d'proprietor."

When we took a break for a meal in the early afternoon, I asked around and discovered several ribald rumors and one or two surmises, but nothing I could call a fact about the handsome woman I was working for. I sat and pondered a bit. She was probably my age or a bit older. She wore no jewelry. She had dark eyes, auburn hair and a good body. That was all I knew, but for some reason it stirred my blood as well as my curiosity.

I approached the foreman, a sturdy Scot named Boone. "What's her politics?" I asked him.

"None a'yer damn business," he said. "She a bloody loyalist, far as I knows. They say she's got a cellar full a'gold. And she's fixin' to marry a big Nor'alk ship owner, least she was til the Committee of Safety landed on him with both feet. Not sure now. Let's get back to work."

With Mr. Boone's permission, I slept in the first floor of the sawmill, lulled by the constant creaking of the big wheel, and warm enough in the thin blanket that I had used since I left Frederick. I awoke the next morning with a painful bone in my britches and a mental picture of the stately woman I had met the day before. I took my problem to the millrace and cooled it off and then got ready for another day of hard work for my food, shelter and two shillings.

The big toothed saw had barely started churning up and down, when the foreman called me over and told me to get down to the forge. I nodded and made my way downstream to the smoking chimney. I found the smith with his left arm in a sling and his apprentice standing by looking helpless. "This boy," the smithy said with a grin, "is willin', but a bit simple; he does what I tell him, only that. If he worked on the sawing floor, he'd lose a finger a day until they was all gone. We're making shoes. You done them?"

I told him I had, and we set to work. I did the rough stages, heating, bending and hammering the bar iron into shape along with the quenching, and the one-armed smith finished off the shoes on his anvil with his boy holding them with big pincers, acting as the smith's left hand and wincing at every hammer blow. Pretty soon we got a good routine going and filled the barrel by mealtime. I sat with my back to a post and ate a cold meat pie and drank some cider and asked more questions about my employer. I did not learn anything that I did not already know. I knew I'd like to bed her and tried to avoid that mental picture, my back bent and her long legs kicking in the air.

We were about to pump our fire back up, when a group of riders came charging past, kicking up dust and clods of earth. "Oh shit," said the smith. "It's them damnfool Whigs come to look for gold again.

"Who?" I asked, walking out where I could see the house behind its screen of big trees and berry bushes.

"Local incendiaries," said the smith. "They've been deviling her off an' on since springtime. Leader's a malcontent that was keen on her, thought she was gonna wed him once or twice after some diligent courting, til the fight up at Concord and the advent of this merchant fellow."

Just then the sound of a shot came from the hill, and I saw a small cloud of smoke rise from the front of the clapboard home with its rows of dark windows and darker shutters.

"Mind if I go have a look-see?" I asked.

"Go ahead," the smithy said. "We can do this here nail work. But don' get them riled more than they is."

I picked up a pair of heavy tongs, walked up the rise, past the loosely tethered horses and found a knot of men about my age surrounding the proprietor of the mill and forge who stood on her front porch with her fists on her hips.

She was in animated conversation with a bulky, red-faced man. All the riders were young and armed and, as far as I could tell, they were enjoying themselves rather than getting ready for a fight. They appeared to have drunk their dinner, perhaps their breakfast as well.

I pushed my way toward the front door which stood ajar. I gestured at my forelock and said, "Can I be of service, Ma'am?"

She spun toward me, and I thought she was going to spit, her fine breasts jutting out and her fist clenched. These men might have been having fun, but this woman for furious and in no mood for jests. "Yes," she said sharply, "you can clear this rabble from my property." With that she stepped into her house and slammed the door.

I grinned at the man she had been arguing with, and his mouth became a thin line, his eyes narrowed and he seemed to be measuring me.

"Who the hell are you?" he said, pulling down his three-cornered hat with its black cockade.

"Employee," I told him, tapping my big pincers in my hand. "Lady would like y'all to leave," I said loudly to the group around me. They mumbled but did not move. "You heard the lady?"

"That bitch?" someone in the crowd said and several men nodded in agreement.

"Go on, move," I suggested, firmly and trying to look serious, but realizing that one against ten was not likely to get me far.

"You ain't from 'round here," said the man who was obviously in charge. He stuck his thumbs in his belt and pushed out his chest.

"That's true," I said, "but it don' matter. You still gotta git."

"What're you doing here?"

"Killing Redcoats, till they ran," I said, poking him in the chest with those big, iron pliers and clamping on one of his buttons.

"That so? How come you're working for the enemy then. This place is run by and for the bleeding Tories."

"Job's a job," I said, twisting his button off.

He evidently did not like the answer and took a swing at me. I blocked it with my pincers and punched him in the belly. He oofed out his air, and a couple of men grabbed me from behind. I shrugged one off and flattened the other with my heavy tool. It got kind of complicated after that, and I ended up on the ground being kicked and pummeled some. Then a gun went off and the kicking stopped.

"Run, you cowards," the woman yelled, standing in the doorway with a smoking, double-barreled shotgun. "This thing's loaded with birdshot." I got one more kick in the back and then they shambled off, mouthing threats. She offered me a hand and helped me to my feet. "You all right?" she asked, eyebrows lowered some and breathing hard.

I nodded and brushed myself off. I felt a loose tooth and had a sore kidney, but I was not hurt. I raked back my hair and retied it, sitting on her from stoop.

"I appreciate you coming up here. I'll put an extra crown in your pay." She turned and closed the door firmly. I went back to my work, had a dipper of water and discouraged questions.

That night they came back, the same bunch, and this time they had torches. I expect they had spent some time getting their courage up on rum or other spirits. It looked like maybe ten of them again, but it was hard to tell in the shifting shadows. Since I slept in the sawmill, I saw them first, scrambled out of my cot and pulled on my britches and the heavy belt that had my new bayonet hanging from it. My musket was up in the rafters.

A torch went sailing into the pile of sawdust farthest from me and then another sizzled through the air and landed almost at my feet. I tossed that one out into the stream, but the other one was burning brightly and another had gone into the lower part of the building where we stored freshly-cut lumber. I knew the mill was doomed. Few things burn faster than dried out wooden structures full of sawdust.

I ran for the forge and woke the weak-minded apprentice who sometimes slept there instead of walking to the smith's home where he had a bed. He ran for the woods, and I headed for the house. The riders got there before me, set fire to the stable and carriage house and then broke windows and tossed torches into the big house. I saw curtains flames up like they were made of wax. The shotgun blazed out from an upstairs window, and I heard cries of pain as I came through the ring of trees.

The gang rode off, cheering their victory, and I put my shoulder to the back door and ran up the narrow, back stairs as the fire gathered strength in the front rooms. The woman met me at the top of the steps with the big blunderbuss in her hands and anger in her face where I had expected fear. She was wearing a pale nightdress and her long hair hung loose.

"Anything you want to save?" I asked when she lowered her weapon.

She shook her head.

"Better hurry then," I said, reaching for her. She handed me the shotgun, ran to her room and returned in a minute with a small box, like the kind merchants use to make change. I hurried her down the stairs as the house filled with smoke and a roaring sound. We left by the back door and hied ourselves for the forge. Behind us the big, square house was quickly engulfed in red and orange, windows were shattering, and the flames soon broke through the roof in two places, roaring like a giant storm.

I found the water bucket and gave her a drink as she stood in her nightgown watching her home and mill vanish in smoke and flame. She was very easy to look at. The stone walls of the mill stood for some time, but then one side fell in and the wheel itself began to smolder. She turned toward me and put her hand on my chest. I put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in. She did not cry or sob but stayed in my arms for a minute or two before she sighed and pushed herself away.

"What about your gold?" I asked as her house began to crumple into the cellar.

"It's all in London," she said. "I've heard the stories."

"Jewelry?" I asked pointing at the small box on the anvil.

"Yes, and some papers, a few coins," she said. She twitched as more of the sawmill's wall fell with a crash.

"Guess I'm out of a job," I said, not meaning to say it aloud.

"Do you think they'll be back?" She wiped away a tear or perhaps some soot.

"Perhaps in the morning," I said.

"What time is it?" she asked.

I glanced up at the cold stars. "After midnight, I think," I said.

She hugged herself, and I became conscious of the fact that she was probably cold in her thin nightgown. I could see her nipples plainly. I pulled my long-tailed shirt over my head and handed it to her. "I'll get the smith's coat," I told her. I went where it usually hung and found the peg bare. She meanwhile had pulled my shirt over the head and wiggled it down a ways and looked very funny with my long sleeves hanging well below her fingertips. She smoothed the shirt down and smiled back at me as she rolled up a sleeve.

"It's not there. He wore it home, I guess."

"Fire banked?" she asked and I nodded. "Get it going and we can stay warm," she said.

I raked it out and dumped on some charcoal while she pumped the bellows with her bare foot. The old chimney coughed and then hummed as the heat increased. I brought out some fresh straw and made us a pallet by the hearth. She found a tattered horse blanket and spread it on the straw.

"Come," she said, "we can keep each other warm."

I hesitated. She was a very pretty woman, still frightened by losing her home and mill, and I was a very randy soldier who found women almost irresistible, who bedded every girl he could get off her feet. But I was bare-chested, barefoot and chilled despite the smith's fire. I sat on the blanket beside her, took off my belt and bayonet and brushed off my britches.

"Guess we're both going to need some new boots," I said.

"I think there's some in the smith's stable area, ones he's been meaning to fix, took 'em in trade," she said, lying down with her face toward the forge and her back to me. I straightened myself out beside her, turned on my side and pulled the old blanket across both of us as far as it would go. She did not get much of it so I rolled over, fit my knees to hers spoon fashion and pulled the blanket across her raised shoulder. I kept my hands to myself as much as I could.

"Thank you," she said and her breathing slowed and became very regular. I doubted that she was asleep but knew she wanted me to think that she was. I spent some time reviewing my alternatives and decided that we might have a bit of trouble getting through the night but were likely to have a lot more trouble on the morrow. About the time I had my mind calmed, or at least satisfied, the woman moaned, sighed and turned over to face me, dislodging the blanket and bumping my knees.

"I don't remember your name," she said very softly. "Mine's Eleanora." She put her hand on my bare arm, and I felt cold air on my back.

I told her my name as our faces lay inches apart, our noses barely touching. I felt my member tremble and tried to ignore it and steady my breathing.

"Thank you," she said. She turned the way she had been, pulled the blanket back over her, folded her arms at her chest and, as far as I could tell, went to sleep.

Chapter 6 »