Chapter 94: Ostler

On the discouraging retreat across New Jersey my outfit acted as rear guard most days. It was hard and nasty work as the British dogged us in a half-hearted manner. An ambitious bastard called Tarleton, I believe, was in charge of this effort while Howe fell once more into Mrs. Loring's plump arms for comfort.

We ambushed them along the forest roads and in the swampy areas, slowed them down and allowed Washington's shrinking army to make its way toward the river and Pennsylvania. Very few local men joined us and as far as I know the Jersey militia was not to be seen.

After one scattered action, I found myself separated from my companions and decided to take advantage of that situation to leave the army, again, at least for a while. At the time it seemed like a good decision. I was sore, hungry and unpaid. I threw away my cockade and my black neckcloth and presented myself to an burly innkeeper near a river ford as a veteran seeking work. He hired me on to tend his stable and do odd jobs about the sprawling, rundown place. I dug a new latrine for him, a huge, bell-shaped hole that was at least ten feet deep by the time I finished. Then I moved his ill-made, two-hole outhouse atop it and used the dirt I had thrown up to fill in his old cess pool. Then I washed myself in the river and met a couple of other employees I had not seen until then. They looked as ill-used as I felt.

The water was cold but the smell had been worse. When I dragged myself back up the bank, two women were sitting near my pile of clothes, shawls wrapped around their shoulders and heads, legs crossed Indian style. They were sharing a pipe and watching me, smiling.

"You the new ostler?" the older one asked. She looked like a sergeant I had known around Boston with a face like a dried apple.

I pulled my britches over my wet skin with my back to them and nodded.

"Talky ain't'cha?" said the other one, a fat girl with blonde hair and enormous dugs.

I got on my shirt and sat beside them.

"We's whores. I'se Tina," the older one said with a happy smile. She slapped me on the thigh, a stinging blow.

"We work for Tom, same as you. I'm Rulla," said the other, lifting her chin wattles.

I told them my name and said I was happy to know them.

"We gets a shilling a turn," Tina said. "Tom, he takes t'other. Sometimes we makes a crown on Sattidy. Ah did fifteen one day, I did."

"Pays me three shillings a week and keep," I said.

"We has to pay for our food and rum," Rulla said.

A clanging sound came from the inn, and the women stood and brushed their clothes. "Back to work," Rulla said. "Time to get poked. Come see us some time."

I got on my boots and returned to the stable, wishing I owned some stockings. An odd sound in one of the empty stalls got my attention, and I found a girl there, crouching in the hay and sobbing.

"Who are you?" she demanded when I touched her shoulder.

"You all right?" I asked, getting down on a knee to be at her level.

"He wants me to marry Carter," she moaned. "Says I must."

It took a while but I finally figured out that this girl was Tom's niece, his late sister's daughter. I had seen her from time to time waiting tables in the tavern but did not recognize her with her hair in her face and her shoulders shaking with anger. Carter, she told me, was a free black man who operated a ferry several miles downstream and had a forge as well.

"He's got two wives already," she whimpered. "An' he's near your size, big as a dray horse and black as coal."

"I'll talk to him," I told her, helping her to her feet. Her uncle, my boss, was a big, bluff man who, as far as I could tell, did almost nothing that was completely legal. The girl was a slight young woman, just starting to blossom.

"None a'your damn business," Tom said when I broached the subject of the girl they called Freddie.

"Who's this Carter?" I asked, pushing the question a bit.

"I owe's him money. He's a good man, hard worker. Might do that uppity gal some good."

"Girl says he's already married."

"Shit, jus' black women, likely jumped over a broom or some such fool thing. They come and go."

"How old's Freddie?" I asked.

"Sixteen mebbe, not that it's your business, old enough. Get back to work. Clean out that ditch back a' the barn an' mind yer own troubles."

The next day I met Carter. In fact he came looking for me and found me splitting fire wood beside the stable.

"Hey," said the big black man, perhaps fifteen stone. He was charcoal color, really black, sooty.

I put down my ax and wiped my brow.

"You innerested in that Freddie gal?"

I shook my head.

"I am," he said.

I tried to imagine it. It was not a very pretty picture.

"How much does Tom owe you?" I asked.

Carter smiled. "More'n you got," he said.

"How much?" I pulled out my purse, enlarged somewhat with pebbles, and jangled it in his face.

"Twenty pounds," Carter said. "Hard money."

"I might like to have that young 'un myself," I said. "What's your game?"

"Dice, cards," he said. "Or knives, sometimes both." He smiled again showing me a gold tooth.

"No," I said. "Least not with your dice. How 'bout we cut for her, double or nothing. Tom's got some cards we can use."

"Why should I?" Carter asked.

I jingled my purse again.

"There's lots'a gals," Carter said.

Tom shuffled. I handled the cards, made as if to cut, palmed a king and then let Carter cut the cards first. He found a jack. I raised an eyebrow, took a short pile and showed him my king. He nodded.

"Again," he said.

"Not for the girl," I said.

"The twenty pounds then."

I shuffled, Tom shuffled some more and Carter found an eight. I turned over a ten without even trying.

"Again," he said.

"Double or nothing," I suggested and he nodded. Forty pounds is a lot of money, and I saw some sweat on the big man's face.

After Tom's shuffle, I turned a jack. Carter smiled and found an ace with a missing corner. I knew what he had done, and I think by then he knew that I knew. He took his money and left without another word.

"So," Tom said as he gathered up the cards. "Freddie's yours."

"No," I said, "but she ain't yours neither. Let her be."

He took a swing at me and I grabbed his fist and squeezed some. He dropped to his knees, and I turned him loose.

"What'd y'want?" Tom asked, rubbing his knuckles.

"Nothing," I said. "Just tell the girl she don't have to marry that big buck."

I turned to go back to my work in the barn and Rulla stopped me, her hand up on my chest. "I saw you palm that card," she said. "That there was real pretty."

I smiled down at her,

"You want a free one? We ain't busy." She showed me her discolored and gap-toothed smile. She dipped snuff constantly.

I shook my head and went to find my pitchfork. I had not mounted a woman in some time, but I certainly was not interested in either of Tom's well-worn harlots. I found Freddie instead. She was standing in the stable door looking a lot happier than the last time I had seen her.

"Heard you turn Rulla down," she said. "Don' you like girls?"

"Some I do," I said.

"Thanks for getting me shet of Carter," she said. "But he might be back."

"Why?"

"I think he really likes me, want's me nohow."

"I can see why," I said.

"I can come to your bed if you want," she said.

I shook my head.

"Why not?"

"You're sixteen."

"My cousin and some a'his friends had me when I was barely twelve, chased me around a barn. Tom's done me too, and one a'his boys jus' since I been here."

"Still," I said, getting to work and trying to ignore the stirrings in my gut.

"Some day," she said, and she turned on her bare heel and went back to the tavern.

The next week was kind of quiet. I cleaned up the place some and avoided the invitations of Rulla, Tina and Freddie. Tom left me alone mostly until a pair of Redcoat officers came to the place one day about sunset. They clanked up the stairs and availed themselves of the ladies and then clanked down to drink themselves numb enough to do it again. When one of them made a grab for Freddie as she was passing their table with her hands full of tankards and cups, she squealed and dropped everything. Tom came running and smacked the girl's face, apologized to the men and glared at me. I was sitting at the far end of the bar minding my own business.

Then I saw him whisper to the lieutenants and all three of them looked at me. Tom called me to the table, and I came and sat at his invitation. "These men have some questions for you," he said.