Chapter 87: Laura

I had been on the road for most of the day and the light was rapidly fading when a carriage flew past, getting up on two wheels before righting itself and fish-tailing out of sight. The liveried driver was whipping the pair of chestnuts in the traces, half-standing in the box. I just had time to scratch my ear when two brigands thundered by, barely giving me a glance, pistols in their hands and blood in their eyes, highwaymen from the look of them, a rag-tag brace of bandits. I was glad I was not their target and sorry for whoever was.

Since I had no weapons except my bayonet and wits, and one of those was pretty dull after my morning's exertions, and my mule was surely no match for any horse as far as speed was concerned, I turned off the worn path and into the woods, hobbled my beast and set off on foot, trotting and then walking before trotting again, spurred on by curiosity I suppose.

In about five minutes of this, less than a mile down the road, I came upon the bandits at work. They had stopped the rig, shot the driver dead, pulled the two passengers out and were in the process of robbing them of anything valuable. I watched as one tore a necklace from the woman who had her hands to her ears while the other rummaged in the carriage.

When he climbed out, he said something to his companion who put his pistol on full cock, raised it slowly and shot the bewigged man in the face. He fell back against the singletree and slumped to the ground while the woman screamed and covered her face, bending forward at the waist.

The killer put his pistol in the back of his belt, struck the women with his open hand and dragged her to the big back wheel of the fancy rig. He turned her about so she faced the carriage and had her grab the rim of the wheel. Then he tore her skirt and lacy shift away with two or three vicious pulls and smacked the woman's rounded rump after tossing her ruined underclothes aside. As he flipped out his rigid tool and stroked it hard, he roared out something to his companion who was pulling off the dead man's boots and that man laughed.

My brain clicked, two pistols and two dead men and no time to reload, at least so I hoped. I took a deep breath, drew my blade and got as close as I could from the off side. Then the woman screamed, "No! Don't!" and I charged. The man with his cock in his hand gaped at me as I swung around the back of the carriage and drove my big blade into the side of his chest. He spun away, taking the knife right out of my blood-slippery hand, and I pounced on the other robber. We thrashed about for a bit, almost under the horse's feet, until I got him down with a knee in his belly and pounded his head to pulp with a rock that was just about cannon-ball size.

I scrambled to the bleeding highwayman, pulled my knife out of his quivering body and kicked him into the ditch. Then I thought better of it, dragged him out and searched him, finding the gentleman's purse and the woman's jewels. The other body produced a couple of rings and some paper money plus the woman's small purse. Then I threw both corpses in the murky ditch and stomped them down in the weeds. One was still breathing, I think.

The woman was standing with one hand on the wheel, but her torn shift was now down covering her rounded buttocks and long legs, both of which had been bare when I stabbed her assailant. There was a trickle of blood at her nose and mouth.

"Are you all right?" I asked, taking in her expensive clothes, heaving chest and vibrant beauty.

She nodded. "Is he dead?" she asked, nodding at the body crumpled near the horses, his wig strangely askew.

"Fraid so," I said, taking her arm. She trembled and then collapsed against me. I patted her back and enjoyed the feel of her ripe body next to mine. The bloody fight and my horny nature combined to stir my lust, and the woman was enough to enliven a bronze statue to rigid concupiscence. I was painfully hard.

"What will we do?" she stammered.

"Where were you headed?" I asked, my body still trembling a bit, nerves on edge.

"Washington's army, his headquarters. My uncle there was bearing some sort of message, and I was to visit with my intended, my fiancé." She took a deep breath, swelling her round boobies nearly free of her lacy neckline, and I left her for a moment to fetch her skirt. She smiled at me and managed to tie it about her.

"Can you drive this team?" I asked.

"No, no," she said," but I can ride. Where did their horses go?"

We both looked about but they seemed to have disappeared. "I'll fetch my wagon," I said, "and then, well, we'll see."

"Don't leave me here, please," she cried, grabbing my arm. Working together, we got the dead man in dark clothes into the carriage and covered his body with a blanket. Then I hauled the driver down to my shoulder and stuffed him onto the carriage, his limp head lolling. I led the woman back to my wagon, helped her up to the driver's seat beside me, stroking her firm leg as I did, got the mule's attention and we eased up the road. By the time we got back to the scene of the attack, crows were busy at the bodies in the ditch and one was cawing from the top of the rig.

With reins tied to the back of my old wagon, we proceeded down the road in the deepening gloom at the mule's pace, dead slow. The woman held my right arm to her body and sniffed with some regularity. I glanced down and found her heavy-lashed eyes closed, her splendid chest rising and falling steadily, pink nipples appearing and then sinking from sight.

"It was a lie," she said, after a while. "He's not my uncle, and I have no lover in the camp. A trotter, that's what I am."

I held my peace and flicked my whip at the old mule without effect.

"He hired me," she said. "Paid me to come out here with him, to lie with him, swive him, do other things, filthy things."

"We've all got to live," I said.

She let go of my arm and moved away a bit, sniffed and said, "That's so. My name's Laura."

I stuck out my hand, squeezed hers gently and told her my name. "Despite what you see," I said, "I'm a soldier, from Maryland."

She smiled at me. "Appearances can fool you sometimes."

"Yep," I said, spying some lights ahead. We pulled into the yard of a large inn that stabled stage teams. I got the horses and my mule settled, bought an old sheet and a piece of canvas and wrapped up the dead men. If it had not been pitch black by then, I might have buried them, but I hoped they would keep and the critters would leave the corpses alone. It was fairly cool as I recall, frosty in the mornings.

Laura and I had a meal and some beer. She tried to tell most of her life story, but I told her the past did not matter much. She made a face at me. "I'm only eighteen," she said, "barely that, and I've been doing this for almost three years now."

"Why?" I asked. She certainly was pretty enough. Her skin was clear and unmarked by pox, her teeth regular and her eyes shiny. I could not say what color her hair was, auburn I suppose, kind of coppery in the lamplight, and it was long and clean, held back by tortoise combs.

"I ran away from home with a man who said he loved me," she said despite my wave of disinterest. "He used me and then sold me, or traded me or something. Anyhow, he vanished one day, just like that," she snapped her fingers, "and this old fat man kept me for a spell, said I was working off a debt. Then the soldiers came." She looked at me big-eyed and a tear coursed down her cheek.

"Enough" I said.

"This feller, the one out there in the carriage, he got me from the place where I was working in Norwalk, near the docks, bought me clothes and such." She held up her beringed hand.

"Who was he?" I asked, not really curious.

"A judge, I think," she said, "from New Hampshire, he said. Name was Philipson, Isaac Philipson. He wasn't married he told me."

I drank my beer.

"He was good to me, very polite." She bit her lip. "A gentleman."