Chapter 14: Magda

During that week I learned how to use my fine, new rifle with its heavy, octagonal barrel. I soon found that with patience, correct elevation and the proper rest, I could hit almost anything I could clearly see, so I decided that instead of having Felicity dragoon another foolish male to her doorstep the next Thursday, I would bag my own. I hated soldiering, but I enjoyed hunting. When I told my pillow mate of my plan, after we were able to get our breath and speak rationally to each other, she accepted the reasonableness of it.

"Eventually," she said, letting me nibble her fingers, "even the Redcoats might suspect where these officers were going if they kept vanishing, one by one. I never heard even a whisper about the stupid boy you took away from here looking like a fugitive from a debtors' prison. Perhaps we could do one a month like that."

"Have you found me a new set of eyes and ears for the Trenton ordinaries?"

"No, you may have to ask Susan to do it again or give you a name. I know she would help. You know, they are getting worse about stealing things and assaulting women, the Redcoats are."

"Did you talk to Ivy about it?"

"A bit, but she has never even been in a tavern although she had her share of both beer and wine."

"She could do some shopping for you and keep her ears open. I have a list of the places Susan went to, where the people are trustworthy and collect rumors and such, useful tidbits."

"I'll think about it. Now if you'll mount up here, we'll see if you've really learned to post."

"Oh," I moaned, wiping at my eyes, "not again, milady, if you please. Can't I just roger you till your eyes cross like I did before."

"No indeed," she said with a rich laugh, "how common. We've got to get these flabby thighs and non-existent stomach muscles back in shape, m' boy, not to mention these big haunches. Hunting season is coming. You don't want to be left behind, a disgrace to your clan, tossed over some low wall. We'll do some fences this time, a few hedges, just as a test."

She smacked my rump relatively quietly, got me into the position she wanted, arched up her hips and took me in, and in, and in, swallowed me up whole and entire. Then the cantering began, and I did reasonably well judging from her happy moans, but you would not believe the fences. I had never been bucked off before, and she tossed me three times before I learned to use my knees properly, give her her head and time the jumps, feel them approaching as she tensed her muscles. Then we did a few more just to make sure I had the right idea and finished with what amounted to a cavalry charge across a half-mile of broken ground. What little was left of my mind concluded that I had fully recovered from my beating.

Early Thursday morning I rousted my highly satisfied body off Felicity's feather mattress and went looking for a prisoner worth taking all the way up in the hills to Morristown. I rode out toward the Barrens with my new rifle across my back, my musket loaded and leading a second, saddled horse. Late in the afternoon, hungry and sore, I spotted a small group of Redcoat riders cantering up a farm lane followed by a slower-moving wagon with two men on the seat. The cantering was what got my attention, and I admired how they let the horse come up and usually met it with hardly a jounce, using their knees and thighs as well as their stirrups. I needed a lot more work and was pretty sure I would be getting it. I smiled recalling the delighted look on Felicity's face last night when I almost achieved what she wanted.

I tethered my horses as they beat on the distant farmhouse door. By the time I stood on the edge of the treeline, the men in mufti were bringing things from the house and loading them into the wagon, none too carefully. From about two hundred yards away, I saw a white-haired man clubbed to the ground by what appeared to be a British officer who then wrestled a woman in wide skirts back into the house while the two uniformed men with him headed for the barn.

I bent low and walked around until I could see into the barn door and found a good oak limb on which to brace my long rifle. When the first soldier emerged, carrying two heavy bags of something, perhaps potatoes or turnips, under his arms, I shot him squarely in the middle of his body, second button down, by aiming at his forehead. I think he heard the rifle crack just before the ball hit him because he looked up and then fell on his back, legs kicking.

I reloaded as fast as I could, using a leather patch and ramming the shot down three times despite my mind urging my body to do it faster. I primed the pan with fine power, raised the heavy barrel, cocked the weapon and then looked again at the barnyard. The second Redcoat was standing over his fallen comrade, looking about. He leaned down as if to say something, and I shot him in the top of the head. He collapsed like a mud slide, straight down. His hat fell off and a spout of dark red blood quickly filled it to the brim. I don't think he even heard the rifle crack.

As I loaded again, I looked at the men who had been throwing things into the wagon, both were standing in the front yard and looking at the two bleeding bodies piled on each other at the far side of the house. They said something to one another and then ran for the woods, looking back over their shoulders from time to time. When I was ready to shoot, they were out of sight.

I went back to my horse and retrieved my musket, fixed my long, blade bayonet to it and walked up to the open front door of the house, past the unconscious old man sprawled next to the stepping stone, with a weapon in each hand. Once inside, letting my eyes get used to the dark, I set the rifle aside and heard a high-pitched yell, "Don't, damn you, don't!" followed by a slap and a stifled moan. I followed the sounds to the back of the house where the dragoon officer was holding a woman down near the fireplace, with her skirt and shift turned up over her body, attempting to shove his very stiff member into her while he pinned her arms beside her ears. She was thrashing and kicking and making his carnal efforts difficult if not impossible. As I watched, admiring her strength, he sat back on her legs and drew a dagger from his waist.

The woman saw me out of the corner of her eye as the man sitting atop her pointed the knife at her throat and called her a filthy name. She quieted down with seeming reluctance and he pawed at her groin. I stepped beside him and jabbed him in the ear with my bayonet, hard enough to draw blood, flicking away a piece of cartilage.

"Drop it," I said as he howled. He did.

The woman grabbed the knife and swung at his belly. He and his fast-sinking prick retreated quickly. He jumped back as she swung again, holding his bleeding ear and just in time not to be emasculated, and she scrambled after him with a glare in her eyes, the front of her dress torn open. I helped her to her feet and held her against my chest, her head on my shoulder, until she stopped shaking, and then she gave me the knife and buttoned her bodice.

"Is that your father outside?" I asked.

She shook her head, "My husband's father," she said.

"Go see to him," I suggested without taking my eyes from the man who was crouching near the hearth, trying to button up his waistband.

"Get up, you rotten coward," I said to him. "You're no better than your hired German pigs."

He stood, straightening his expensive wig and brushing his britches with their wide stripes. He finished his buttons, adjusted his lacy neckcloth and tried to look calm while his ear dripped blood on his uniform jacket. A couple of inches of lace showed at his thin wrists.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Morris," he said, lifting his chin, "leftenant, fourth dragoons."

"Well, Morris, you'd better hope that old man out front is going to be all right. If he ain't I'm going to let that woman carve out your gizzard and then cut off your cods and feed them to you one at a time."

"You wouldn't," he insisted, a squeak in his voice. He glanced toward a pistol that was lying on the table, and I stuffed it into my waist to remove the temptation. The butt was bloody, and I suspect that he had hit the old man with it.

"What'd you pay for your commission, leftenant?" I asked with a smile as I saw the disheveled woman and her bleeding father-in-law come through the door. He did not answer.

"Take off your clothes," I said to him as the woman began bathing the white-haired man's wounds which seemed to be mainly in his scalp. "You've disgraced your uniform."

"I'm loyal to the King," the old man said in a pained voice. "You miserable bastard, I'm loyal as any man in West Jersey. Your filthy Germans already took my fences for their campfires, stole all my pigs. Thank you, Magda, thank you."

She bound his head and led him off toward a bed on the other side of the cabinet while the British officer slowly disrobed, carefully folding his clothes and placing them on the table. When he got down to his drawers and stockings, he stopped and looked at me.

"I told you to strip," I said, raising my musket. He was naked when the woman came back to the kitchen and dining side of the room. She looked at him and made a contemptuous noise, something like "fah."

"I didn't have much to worry about, did I?" she asked me without a smile.

I grinned at her. "There's two bodies outside that have to be got rid of," I said.

"I know just the place. Come, I'll help. It's not far."

I prodded the lieutenant before us and tied him to the well frame. It was cold as hell and a fair breeze blowing. His ear was still dripping some, but I guessed the cold would stop it. The dark-haired woman looked again at the shivering Brit's groin. She laughed, and we stripped the two dead soldiers, tossing their boots into the barn and finding only a few coins in their pockets.

"I didn't hear any shots," the woman said as she bundled up the dead men's shirts and uniforms. We did not bother with their soiled small clothes or stockings.

"I was over there," I pointed to the tree line. "And you were busy."

She whistled. "There's a slough down in back of the barn, the wild pigs know it. They and the crows will take care of these two carcasses in a few days, and the water's so dank you can't see nothing in it. Look there's buzzards already circling above."

We each took a foot, and I was reminded of the big men in Susan's cabin as their heads bounced along behind us. We had to drag these bodies a good bit farther, perhaps five hundred feet, but they were not as heavy. They disappeared as she had said they would, into the weedy swamp. We stood, arms touching, panting, and watched them sink and wallow until just a bit of skin and hair were visible, their shoulders and the back of their heads barely showing among the cattails.

"Looks like you got a good horse and somebody's wagon out of this," I said as we headed back for the house, successfully ignoring the thin man at the well who was making a deep but unlikely coughing noise.

"Might be a name on it, often carved under the seat," she said, patting the draft horse and then leading him into the barn. I helped her get him out of the harness and into a dry stall. We could find no owner's name on the well-built farm wagon.

"Earlier raiders took our horse and mules, Americans, Whigs, but both the Hessians and the Redcoats have been here, requisitioning as they call it." She looked carefully at the big horse, rubbing his broad withers. "He'll do us a lot of good in the spring."

"Where's your man?" I asked.

"Don't know. Like his father, he's what I suppose you'd call a Tory. Joined the loyal forces back in the summer, New Jersey Volunteers. I'm a Tory, too, come to that. I'm English, we're all English here. You saw the red cloth on the door. Didn't stop this bunch of bloody thieves, did it?" She suddenly wept, deep, tearing sobs, covering her face with her hands, her back shaking.

I put down my weapon and held her for a while, standing in her barn's doorway, the sun going down behind some clouds that looked like they might bring snow by nightfall. We ignored the naked man at the well who seemed to be dancing to keep warm. I was sorely tempted and after a while gave in and bent and kissed her wet lips and salty cheeks, very softly, rubbing her back and making soothing sounds. She gulped a couple of times, lifted her chin and kissed me back, her hands around my neck, in my hair. I'm sure the man at the well watched us while his skin turned to gooseflesh. I was glad I had shaved that morning.

"If you hadn't come, if you hadn't come," she moaned over and over, wrapped in my arms, her head against my chest.

"See to the old man," I said, patting her back and giving her a push toward the small house. "I'll fetch my horses." She looked up at me with big, brown, wet eyes, and we both knew the flesh-filled answer without even asking the old, rude question.

I stabled my animals next to the dray horse where they nodded their heads at each other in a friendly manner and saw that all had some grain and fresh straw. In the small house, I cleaned my weapons carefully and her father-in-law examined my Pennsylvania rifle with admiration, lifting it in his big, spotted hands and smiling at me while the raw-boned woman fixed us some food.

"I had one of these long, heavy rifles once, afore the French war, back in the 40's it was. Sold it to buy this farm, yessir, can't 'member what it brought. Fine weapon. I could hit a squirrel in either eye at a hundred yards." He lifted the heavy rifle with surprisingly steady hands and looked down the long barrel with watery, blue eyes. The woman called us to eat.

"Would you like to fire it?" I asked him, after sitting next to her at the crude table and shoveling in stew and corn bread until I thought I would burst.

"Indeed, yessir, I'd really like that. In the morning, yes sir. That'll be fine." He wiped out his bowl, finished his beer and left the table to visit the necessary out back.

"I don't know your name," I said to the woman as she cleared the table. "What did he call you?"

"Don't you think you ought to bring that leftentant in? He's likely blue by now." She smiled at me warmly, stirring my root.

"Oop, forgot all about him your stew was so good. I'll go see what's left of the bugger."

The young British officer was right where I left him, with his arms stretched skyward, his wrists bound to the frame of the old stone well.

"Like to come inside?" I asked him, almost standing on his toes and putting my hand to his icy chest.

He nodded, his jaw chattering. It was not cold enough for frostbite, but he was turning blue in several places, and I think his cods had crawled back up into his belly and his heart had slowed some. His rod looked like a lump of pond ice.

"I expect you to apologize to these folks, humbly beg their pardon, abase yourself as fully as you can, crawl if they demand it. These are Loyalists," I told him as I untied him. "You are a vile piece of shit, and your parents are disgraced by your existence, your whole family back to when they were painting themselves blue, is ruined. It's a fine name you bear and a good company; you have defiled them both. I'd just push you into the well, but you'd foul the water."

I slapped him in the face, forehand and back, and led him into the house with his arm twisted up behind him. I shoved him to the fireplace and said, "Sit."

The woman found some of her husband's discarded clothes, and he pulled on a pair of coarse britches and a wool shirt, asking her forgiveness in a low voice as he did so. She ignored him. I handed him a bowl of stew and a hunk of bread. Then we both ignored him as long as we could, sitting together behind him and talking of places and people and things. When the old man came to say good night, he barely glanced at the figure still shivering before the fire and eating with his fingers. I stood, and he took my large hand in his gnarled fist. "Shoemaker's the name," he said. "Amos Shoemaker." He turned without another word and went to his bed in the far corner, his bandaged head and white hair the brightest things there. The farmhouse only had one big room, divided by a tall cabinet full of dishes and things. There was a sleeping loft, but evidently no children.