Chapter 16: Gelding

"It's getting worse out there," Felicity said at supper. "The Hessians were bad, frightening, brutal, and they're still around, but now the Redcoats are tearing up the countryside. Rape's back on the increase, common as sin ever was, and the Redcoats don't mind doing boys." She looked across at Ivy who keep her eyes down and ate her food voraciously as did her brothers.

"I saw some of that kind of thing out in the Barrens," I said. "Got me a young lieutenant, too, without much of a struggle."

"I heard of foragers stripping wood from houses and sheds now that the fences are all gone," Ivy said. "A lady at the butcher's told me. And they paraded their camp followers through the town while you were away, dressed in stolen finery, they were."

"Are you shopping for your mother sometimes?" I asked, watching Felicity out of the corner of my eye.

Ivy nodded. "She gives me a list, and I stay away from the soldiers."

"Have you had any trouble?" I asked.

The slight girl shook her head. "Momma ties down my bubbies and knots up my hair," she said, glancing my way.

"Bubbie, bubbies, Ivy's got bubbies," her brothers briefly chorused until their mother frowned at them.

That night, once Felicity had checked out all my reflexes, as well as my length and strength, she pronounced me fit to join the hunt, although, she noted, rather fatigued. Then talked seriously about Ivy doing the dangerous but important job.

"Occasionally," the warm woman said. "We must be careful. She goes out looking as awful as I can make her, but she's so damn pretty.

"I going hunting, starting tomorrow. Maybe if we take a few scalps, it will discourage these raiding parties."

"I hope you're right. If this war lasts much longer, there wont be a farm house or barn left in this part of New Jersey." She rubbed me between the legs with her knee in a highly familiar manner. "You about ready?" she asked.

In the morning, after we did a bit of happy roistering just to get the blood circulating, I headed back into the Barrens, the memory of Mrs. Synder's abundant charms and of Ginny's imaginative rogering and Magda's long legs all fresh in my mind. I had an idea I wanted to talk with her sharp-shooting old father-in-law about.

Well before I made the turnoff into their winding lane, I smelled smoke and then saw it rising and twisting above the bare tree limbs. I got off the trail and made my way carefully through the woodlot. By the time I reached the place where I had first seen the house and the young officer clubbing down the old man, I could see that the barn was burnt down to just one wall and a mass of ashes and cinders. It was still smoking and crackling. The lower part of the back wall stood, probably damp from the nearby swamp, but the rest was gone, just piles of stinking rubbish.

A farm wagon sat in front of the house as it had before, except that there was a big horse tied behind it. What looked to be the same two men were again loading household goods, but I could not see anyone in uniform.

"Hisst," came an odd sound from behind me. "Back here," whispered an old voice. Without taking my eyes from the front door, I retreated to a large granite boulder where old Mr. Shoemaker crouched, looking angry and very worried. "Them two from the wagon went and told, I reckon," he said, spiting tobacco juice off to the side. "I was out in the far field, clearing drainage ditches since it was so mild today. I don' know what they's doing to Magda, but I can guess."

"How many?"

"I seen four ridin' horses besides the two at the wagon, that's six men."

"We go up there running and shooting, they might kill her."

"They might if we don't, and I ain't much good, awful slow."

"But you're sure one hell of a shot."

He nodded in agreement, and handed him my rifle, powder horn and shot pouch and slipped my musket off my back and checked its pan and cartridge box.

"I got a smoothbore pistol here that's really only accurate 'bout as far as you can spit, got it last time I was here in fact, but I can reload this musket fast enough." As we watched, an officer came out of the house, straightening his wig and buttoning his waistband. He walked toward the outhouse.

"I'll get him," I said quickly, "then go 'round back and drive 'em out the front door. Shoot the first one you see and then reload best you can. That's what I'll be doing in the back. It's a couple of hundred yards, but it'll take a fast man more than half a minute to get to the treeline."

The officer went into the necessary, and I took off running just inside the scrubby trees and brush, staying low. I cut past the well, pulled open the privy door and stabbed the urinating man in the back with my bayonet, driving him off his feet and into the rear wall. He gurgled, clawing the wall with both hands. I did not stay around to watch the results but ran on to the back of the house, quiet as I could in the melting snow. One of the soldiers inside was facing me, showing some strain as he held Magda at the hip and worked at trying to get his stiff member into her as she lay writhing on the floor with another Redcoat holding her down. The third watched, grinning, his boot on one of her ankles and his britches undone, waiting his turn.

I smashed the pistol through the back window and gut shot the fornicating soldier. With that weapon, I had to aim at his body. I dropped the pistol as he collapsed on the woman, howling, blood spurting all over her legs. I poked my musket through the broken window and shot the grinning spectator cleanly through the head. He was only twelve feet away, and I could not miss. The ball took him right off his feet. The third man scrambled from the floor and ran for the front of the house.

As I smashed in the back door and went to Magda's side, throwing the bleeding body off of her, I heard the rifle crack. I helped her sit up and ran for the door, forgetting I had not reloaded my musket and no longer had a bayonet. I didn't need to worry. With a stain spreading on his back, the fourth Britisher was spread-eagled in the dirt by the wagon where the two teamsters stood, mouths agape. I pointed my empty gun at them and told them to get down. "Come on in, Shoemaker," I called, and the old man shuffled out of the woods with my long rifle raised in one shaking hand.

I silently tied the two men to the back wheels of their wagon, kneed each of them in the groin as hard as I could and went to see to Magda. Her father-in-law had her up, sitting on the narrow settle near the fire, and he was patting her on the back and making cooing sounds. The woman was bent over and sobbing into her hands, wearing only a torn and bloody shift.

I decided to leave them and went to see about the officer I had left my bayonet in. He was not dead, but he sure was dying, with my long blade stuck all the way through his guts. He was kneeling in the one-holer like a man trying to throw up, clawing at his back with both hands. I put my foot on him and pulled out my blade, wiping it on his coat tails. I yanked him out near the well by his collar, called him several names while he whined and cried, and then I cut open his belly and left him holding coils of glistening intestines in his shaking hands.

I went back into the house, angry as I think I have ever been and pulled the man who had been poking Magda off the floor. He was trying to keep the blood in his belly without much success, his legs thrashing about. I forced him to his feet and pulled him out into the yard and down to the well. I made him to kneel and look at the dying officer with his blue veined insides spread all over his white britches and the frozen ground. He looked briefly and then stared up at me and said, "No." I smiled and cut him open, left to right, just under his belt and over the bullet wound, sawing with my rough-bladed bayonet. He screamed and fell on his face, his hands scrambling to hold himself together. I kicked him in the ribs and turned him over with my foot.