Chapter 52: Captured Women

On my way back to Foster's company, I ran into Gilly, sitting on the tail gate of an old wagon at the side of the road.

"My, my," she said, "look who's here. Pretty as ever."

Another woman appeared from the ditch at the side of the road, her dress and apron hanging open and her lush, young body ready for inspection, and well worth the effort. She pulled her clothes together and stepped up on the worn road. "Wheel's broke," she said. "I'm Annie."

I took her offered hand and then stepped down where she had been. The end of the axle tree had snapped and the wheel had lost two spokes when it collapsed as the edge of the road gave way.

"C'n y'fix it?" Gilly asked, looking down at me as I knelt in the ditch water. "Wha' happened to your face?"

I smiled up at her. "Accident," I said. "Where's your horse?"

"Mule," said Annie. "Man stole it las' night. Jus' walked it off, jumped on 'er back and rode away. Black feller."

I wondered if it had been Joe. "I doubt we can fix it," I said. "Maybe." I spent the rest of the day whittling out two new spokes and putting them down in the ditch to soak. Then I carved back the end of the axle and worked on boring a new hole for a pin. The women got their belongings shifted to the far side of the wagon and then broke away the floorboard on the damaged side. When it got dark, we ate, and then Gilly and I curled up together and enjoyed each other before we slept. We tried not to be noisy but I expect we were.

In the morning I took my usual problem off into the woods and relieved myself. Annie met me as I returned. She lifted an eyebrow. "You and Gilly ole friends?" she asked.

I smiled and nodded.

"Want a new friend?" She put her hands up on my shoulders. The need was still in me, poking out in fact, so I pulled her to the ground, rolled her to her back and mounted her quickly and thoroughly.

"Yah," she yelled, "s'blood."

After a bit of gasping we settled together into a fine pattern of give and take and met each others needs a time or two before she unwound her legs and pushed me off, panting, "Enough, enough, you'll split me."

I withdrew, kissed her, buttoned up and went to look at the softened spokes while Gilly started a fire, grinning at me. I wedged in my make-shift spokes and managed to dislodge the iron rim as I did. I brought that to the cooking fire. I laid it in the coals and while we ate, pushed at it so it was well-heated all the way around. I carried the hot rim back to the broken wheel with a pair of sticks and, with the women's help and the use of a big rock as a hammer, we got the rim back in place.

I hitched my mare into the traces despite her protests at such an indignity and had her drag the old wagon to a level place. Then I squatted under the bed, took the weight on my back, pushed up with my knees, and the women managed to get the wheel back on the newly shortened axle. I eased the thing down and it stood, groaning a bit. Then I whittled out a peg from some green wood.

"We need some grease," I told them. "I forgot about that." Gilly found a bit of lard she had been hoarding in a stoneware pot, and we put that on the axle and were ready to travel. I walked and Gilly drove with Annie sitting beside her. I watched the wheel wobble on the uneven spline I had shaved and gradually wear them down until the thing rotated reasonably smoothly. By twilight we had made a few miles and were right proud of ourselves.

Then, of course, it rained. We pulled off into the woods as far as we could go, got an old tarpaulin over our heads, sat beside each other on the driver's seat and hoped it would soon stop. My poor horse's head drooped and she looked very miserable.

"What 'as we 'ere?" said a voice, "travelers?"

Somebody pulled our covering aside, and we found ourselves looking into the bores of several muskets. I recognized the sergeant and hoped he would have forgotten me. The light was fast fading.

"Sit there, ladies," the Redcoat said. "Y'get down." he said pointing at me.

I lowered myself to the ground, noting that there were only four men in this patrol, and they looked rather unhappy to be getting wet. "Bradshaw," said the sergeant, "g'up there an' get this broken down rig on the road. Take 'em back to camp. Very tasty, mate," he said to me. He poked me a bit deeper into the trees.

"Y' the one that done Grant, ain't'cha?" he asked, putting his short sword away.

I nodded and watched his eyes.

"Well, y'done us a good deed there, mate, so I'm gonna let y'go. They're lookin' f'ye, far an' wide. M'boys won't make a peep. G'on."

"What about the women?" I asked him.

"Well," he said with a broad smile, "we'll 'orse 'em till the officers catch on. Then they'll swive 'em a bit and send 'em on, no worse for it. They looks like strong girls."

"They are that," I agreed.

He tied my hands behind a tree, said, "Stupid war," and left. I worked on the knots furiously before they got too wet and had myself loose in less than an hour at the cost of a few bleeding scrapes on my forearms. Then I ran after them, in the direction I had seen them direct the old wagon. I smelled their camp before I found it. The rain had almost stopped but the smoke was staying down in the treetops.