Chapter 29: Six

I think it was just after that when Captain Foster sent me down to the barrens south of Trenton to see about a friend of his. Somehow he had received a message about some kind of trouble so he gave me directions, told me to take three days' rations and go find out what was happening.

"This here's a friend, now, remember that," he said with a smile. "And stay out a'her bed. Her man was a good soldier, died bravely on Long Island. Him and me chased the girls together when we was young."

I followed his map and about noon the next day found the farmhouse deep in the woods. It was a timber-framed, well-built place with a big barn and several outbuildings. Smoke trickled from the stone chimney. I rode clear around the homestead, did not see anything suspicious so stabled my horse, unholstered my musket and knocked on the back door. An aged black servant answered and let me in to a small back room. The kitchen work was evidently done in the cellar during the winter. I could smell something cooking while I waited and it got my taste glands aroused. The place was very neat and very quiet.

The woman turned out to be a tall, dark-eyed beauty of about my age, a really fine looking woman. She invited me into her sitting room and quickly told me what was going on, taking nervous glances out the window every few minutes. It seemed that a British officer had decided to use her home as his headquarters while he and his men raided the countryside for loot and provisions.

"I've sent my children off to their grandparent's, my parents' home and just kept old Sam and his wife here to cook and look after the place. There's not much left to look after."

"What's he done?" I asked, feeling stupid but seeing fear in her fine-boned face.

"You mean other than attacked me regularly, slapped me around, treated me like a common whore, well," she said with a sigh, "we've no animals left. The smokehouse is empty. He took all my good silver. And," she buried her face in her apron and sobbed. I stood and patted her back and saw some redcoated riders coming into the yard.

"Look," I said to her, and she did with a gasp.

"It's him," she moaned. "Why did Captain Foster send just you? There's usually a half-dozen of them. They'll expect to be fed. Oh Lord." She wrung her hands and gripped my arms. "Go hide," she said to me. "Up in the attic."

I watched the officer come striding to the back door and heard him let himself in. "Cecelia," he yelled. "Whose horse is in the barn?"

When he walked into the room, I grabbed him by the lapels. "It's mine," I said, lifting him by his jabot. "Get down on your knees." He knelt, and I pulled his sword and pistol from his belt. I dragged him into a corner of the room, ignored his noisy protests and pushed him to a sitting position and tied his hands together with his neckcloth. Then I cocked his fancy pistol and handed it to the woman. "If he moves, shoot him," I said to her, and then I hurriedly loaded my musket with a handful of buckshot while I held the unused ball in my cheek.

"They're coming," she said from the window, the big pistol shaking in her hand, "four of them, to the front door."

I waited until I heard a footstep on the porch and then pulled open the door and fired, waist high. One soldier threw up his arms and staggered back, spurting blood, his stomach and hip torn open; another screamed and spun away with his hands to his face while a third grabbed his arm and dropped to his knees, making an odd, keening sound The fourth one ran for the barn, yelling something.

I reloaded as quickly as I could spitting the extra ball into the barrel and ramming both down hard. Then I clamped on my old bayonet and made sure the two on the ground were finished, just in and out with my foot on their shoulder. They barely squirmed when I stuck them. The one with the bloody arm tried to get to his feet and yelled, "Don't" once before I tore his throat out.