Chapter 27: Family

We were all curious when the big wagon pulled up and five women tumbled out and started raising a big tent with the help and shouted orders of the two burly men. A few questions led to a lot of volunteers. They were building a whorehouse and those who helped put up the tent were promised first crack and reduced rates.

I ambled over and found three quite sturdy, dirt plain and tired looking women, one very young girl with a slim body, bad teeth and a mop of golden hair and a women who obviously did not fit by either her dress or manner although her hair was flying loose and unkempt and her bodice was half undone. I took her by the arm and pulled her away from the rope she was tying down.

"Leave me alone," she demanded, pulling free and looking frightened. One of the big men was watching us, a pistol in his belt and an unhappy look on his face.

I went back to my duties reluctantly and soon the tent was doing a big business. Ordinary soldiers briefly got a woman's time for three shillings while officers could choose between the slim girl or the well-dressed lady for five shillings silver or ten dollars Continental for a guaranteed fifteen minutes.

As I might have guessed, Lt. Foster was one of the first in line on the officers' side of the tent. He returned with the woman I had accosted. He was red-faced and puffing, and she was tight-mouthed with a tear-stained face.

"This ain't no frisker," he said, tossing the sobbing woman at me. "I'm going back to get my piece from that tow head. I done paid for it. You keep her here and leave her be. I want to talk to her."

"Yes sir," I said to him with a pass at a salute since a stranger was about.

The woman sat on a stump, produced a kerchief and wiped her eyes. Then she looked up at me, angry. "What are you looking at, you big mule?" she demanded.

I smiled at her, and she got even more red in the face. She stood, put her hands on her flaring hips and glared. 'What's wrong with that man?" she demanded.

"Doesn't think you belong over there," I said.

"I have to do it," she said, taking a deep breath. "Don't have a choice."

I waited, admiring her fine body and handsome face. She was probably about ten years older than me, perhaps ten stone and well-proportioned with a round bottom and high breasts. Her clothes were of good cloth and well tailored with much attention to trim and details. Her shoes were high and soft, obviously expensive.

"I don't have a choice," she said again.

Still I waited, having figured out that I had almost no skills at talking to women.

"They have my children, damn you," she cried taking a step toward me. I opened my arms and folded her in, enjoying the feel on her firm body. I patted her back and she sobbed.

"Tell me," I said.

She sniffed. "My daughter's fifteen, a good girl, mostly, and they said they'd give her to Hessians unless I did this. The boy's ten. They threatened to let the sodomites have him, make a powder monkey out of him on a ship. Said I'd never see him again in this life. I'm supposed to be a'spying on you. Understand?"

Foster came back, cleared his throat and then listened to her story after I got her untangled from me. He made a face, nodded several times and then ordered me to go back with her and fetch her children. I yessired him, got my gear together, assigned myself a light wagon, and after we both ate something, left the camp and headed more-or-less south.

The woman sat beside me, quiet and obviously deep in her own thoughts and troubles.

"How did he know I wasn't one of them?" she asked after bit. She seemed to relax. "I spread myself for him."

"I don't know," I told her, "but the lieutenant's been with a lot of prostitutes. He would know I think."

"It was embarrassing. Letting men poke me. Lor'."

"Your first time?" I asked.

She nodded. "They raped me, of course, four or five of them, before they sent me out with that bunch. But lying there on that cot, hearing all that grunting and moaning, well, that was different."

"Whores are supposed to make out like they enjoy it," I said. "Pretend, play act, like that."

"Oh," she said, and then she was quiet for some time.

In mid afternoon we stopped along the road and ate the food I had packed. It was a quick and quiet meal.

Then she put her hand on mine and said, "Would you like to poke me?"

I looked into her dark eyes and smiled. "Of course."

"Why?" she asked, settling herself beside me and spreading her skirt as I clucked at the horse.

"Because you're a woman, a fine looking woman, and I'm a man."

"Is that all you men think about?"

"Just about," I said, smiling at her.

She raked her hair back with her fingers, and I found a piece of string in my pocket so she could tie it. We got back on the road.

"I was indentured, apprenticed I guess since I was so young, just twelve when we got here, well, to New York. Some people who ran a tavern in the city bought my paper. I was alone." She sighed. "Milly was born about a year later, the next January. The woman beat the tar out'a me, and her husband lef' me alone after that. Then her boy and some of his friends got me drunk." She paused again and sniffed. "My son's called Bob. They put another year on me for having him." It was a long speech and she said most of it with her eyes closed, hands folded in her lap.