Chapter 81: Three Sisters

The wagon came into camp with a slight, blonde girl driving and a tall, lean man sitting beside her. They found a level place and stretched out an awning from the side of their rig. A small pianoforte appeared along with two more young women, one seemingly a good bit older than the other. The man announced himself as a preacher, said we were in for a revival and invited one and all to attend the afternoon session.

Since most of us had little to do and any entertainment or distraction is better than none, a goodly number of us sat in the dirt, listened to the man preach fire and brimstone and enjoyed the women's songs. The older one played the tiny instrument and the other two girls sang, a pleasant soprano melody that warbled in the afternoon stillness.

With women about, at least two of them obviously nubile, I was more than curious if not downright horny. I managed to meet the older woman by herself when she went to fetch water. I offered to carry her buckets and got a good look at her. She was, I decided, younger than she looked and well made. Her stringy hair and dark circles under her eyes seemed somehow artificial, as if she was trying to be off-putting.

"Name's Virginia, if it's any a'your business," she said, looking away from me. Her skin was smooth, unwrinkled and her body moved gracefully beneath her homespun dress.

"You their mother?" I asked, watching her hips roll.

She smiled and shook her head. "That's what it's supposed to look like," she said. "We're sisters. He wants me to, well, tain't your affair."

"I don't' understand," I said.

"Long story," she said, taking her buckets and thanking me. I watched her work with the other females to make a meal while the lanky man in a rusty black suit and stained shirt sat in the shade reading his Bible. After they supped, I caught up with the youngest one as she washed pots and trenchers at the stream. She acted like a flighty deer when I helloed her.

"Can't talk," she said, edging away.

"Why not?"

"He'll get mad?" She rubbed sand on her iron pot.

"Who, your father?" I jerked my thumb back up the hill toward the preacher who was warming up for another session, calling in the lambs as he said loudly, waving his long arms.

"No," she said. "He ain't. Uncle, that's what he is, sort of. Our folks died, got a fever las' winter."

"Sorry," I said. "He treat you all right?"

She was silent and hurried back to the wagon and her reedy singing before I could even ask her name.

The third fair-haired girl, who might have been seventeen or eighteen, was called Lori and was, I guess, the prettiest of the three although they were all good looking people. I came and sat beside her on a stump as she and her younger sister rested between songs, hands primly in their laps and bonnets on their yellowish heads. I introduced myself and offered her my hand.

"You cain't help us," she said in an upcountry accent. "Nobody can."

"You in trouble?" I asked as her young sister watched us curiously.

The girl nodded. "Bad trouble," she said. "He's poking Ginny aw'ready and says I'm next. Then he says he's gonna sell Martha's cherry and poke her too."

"Doesn't sound like what a preacher should be up to," I said, watching the man rant and wave to a knot of squatters in the twilight.

"Tain't," the girl said. "We gotta go." She grabbed her sister and trotted back to sing again while I sat and watched, wondering what I should do.

I went and talked with my lieutenant, telling him what the girl had said and sharing my doubts about the rail-thin man doing the preaching.

"Stay out of it," was Foster's advice as he hurried off to meet one of his favorites in the followers' camp.

I moved my blanket roll out of the tent I shared with George, which made him happy since I take up most of the space and snore something awful he says, and moved closer to the silent wagon. I dug out a hip hole for myself and was settling down on a soft night when I heard a "No, please," hissed out in a very young, female voice. Since the only women close by were in the wagon, I sat up and pulled on my boots. I was buckling on my knife when I heard a, "Please, Mr. Silas, please," and a slap and yelp.

"Suck, you bitch," said a gruff male voice.

"Leave her be. I'll do it," said another female voice in a whisper.

The wagon rocked a bit and there was another slap. "Go to sleep," said the man. "She's doing jus' fine."

I pulled the pins holding the tailgate and let it drop with a clatter and clunk.

"What the hell was that?" a man cried and bare feet appeared, followed by bare legs and distended member. I grabbed a hairy leg and pulled. The preacher, clad only in a shirt, bounced off his bony bottom and scrambled to his feet, sputtering and cursing in a very un-minister-like manner. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shook him a bit. He sputtered some more and waved his fists at me. I kneed him hard between the legs, and he collapsed into a writhing ball.

"You ladies all right?" I asked the darkened wagon. I got no answer, so I pulled the man to his feet and demanded, "What's going on there?"

"None a'yer damn business," the lanky man said, brushing himself off in the moonlight.

"I'm making it my business," I said. "What are you doing to these girls?"

"Nothin'," he said, "jus' nothing. I feeds and clothes 'em. They's my lookout."

"You poking them?" I asked.

"Go to hell," the preacher said.

"Fornication's a sin. Isn't that right?" I asked him.

"Can be, depends," he said.

I drew my big knife and pared at my thumbnail. "Explain," I said, looking mean as I could.

"No, no. This ain't the time," he said.

"Go find someplace else to sleep tonight," I said. "I'll stay here so you don't come back. We'll talk in the morning, get this settled."

"You'll regret this," he said, stumbling off into the dark.

I pulled my blanket up under the tailgate, scrunched out another hiphole and settled down, riled by the anger in my blood. I heard mumbling above me and soon two bare feet hit the ground by my head.

"Let me in," Virginia said, kneeling to pull at my blanket.

I opened and she rolled in beside me, warm and soft, her hair loose and body bare as could be. She turned her back to me, and I wrapped my arms about her and cupped one of her full breasts. Our legs intertwined and my eager prod poked at her back.