Chapter 73: Cassandra

The captain asked me to do another little chore for him in the early spring of that busy year, (ed: it must be 1778 but this is from the journal labeled 1777) about the time they were packing up to move the whole army south and east a bit to keep an eye on the Brits. I always worried when he smiled at me and asked for a favor.

It seemed that a local woman, from a family of some note, wished to be transported to New York by way of Philadelphia in order to marry an up-and-coming naval officer, a British naval officer. A safe conduct had been arranged through the usual channels, and all I had to do was deliver the lady and her baggage to the docks in Philadelphia at a certain time on a certain day. The fly in the ointment was that I had to go in unarmed and unaccompanied. Not a happy thought with the enemies I had made.

I tried to duck the assignment, complained of varied sort of aches and pains, but Captain Foster ignored all my malingering, reminded me of how successful I had been in taking his cousin Rebecca down to her aunt and uncle and gave me a direct order. I saluted, remembered Rebecca warmly and went where I was told after, after, also at his command, getting myself a hot bath, a close shave, some new small clothes, a standard-issue stock, and a proper rogering by one of the younger camp followers.

All prepared, satiated and smelling better, I made my way to a fine, prosperous farm in the countryside and met my passenger and charge. I damn near choked. Here was a place that looked like it had been moved out of the English countryside, gardens and all, and plunked down in the rolling hills of Penn's Woods. That was the first surprise. Cassandra was the second.

She was as healthy and pretty a girl, nay, woman, as I had seen in a long time: clear-skinned, bright-eyed. long-limbed, fresh and beautiful. She bounced, from hair to bottom, when she walked. She looked as happy as a successful fisheman and greeted me with a fine curtsey that displayed her swelling, jiggling bosom to best advantage. And she knew where I was looking as she flicked a fan to cover her décolletage. She was wearing a light, lace-hemmed dress of some sort of frothy material and hanging in the cleft between her fine bubbies was a large, misshaped pearl on a thin, gold chain. It was as big as a rifle ball. Her hair was light brown as were her eyes, and she had a frank and confident look about her.

"I've sent my heavy things, trunks and the like, on ahead," was the first thing she said to me. "So all you have are these few boxes and things and me to take care of."

I certainly would have enjoyed doing that, thought I admiring her upright stance and fine body as the breeze pressed the dress between her long legs. "You can leave your horse in the stable, and we'll take this rig. He's ever so fast," she said with a smile, nodding at the high shouldered gray between the traces. She thumped his withers, and he rolled an eye at me. I did as I was told.

As ordered, I had left my weapons in camp, but still had my bayonet on my belt and Magda's blade in my boot, but no rifle, pistol or musket and no cartridge box. I felt kind of naked and mentally undressed the young lady as she made her farewells to make us more equal.

Conversation began about the weather and such generalities as the well-built "chair" moved smoothly down the old road. I opened a different avenue when I said, in an offhand way, "So you're off to be married."

"Again," she said.

"Eh?" I replied brightly, wondering if I had underestimated her age at about my own.

"Again, I said. I've been married once. He died three years ago."

"Oh," I said, "sorry, I didn't know."

"No reason you should have. They just told you to drive, I'm sure. I really could have gone by myself, but they did not think that proper. The old folks are much concerned about what is proper."

I nodded and watched her profile out of the corner of my eye. She raised her chin and took a deep breath, improving the view about fifty percent. If she wore stays they were little in evidence.

The first problem arose an hour or so later at the ferry. It was on the other side, and the ferrymen were evidently in the tavern enjoying themselves. I hollered a bit, and then we settled down to wait, returning to polite conversation.

"My husband, my first husband, was a merchant," she said. "A very successful one, down in Philadelphia. I'm a well-fixed widow." She laughed and jiggled wonderfully. "How do you like that?"

"A merchant was he?" I said, not really interested but enjoying being near her. She smelled grand, sort of lilac but not exactly.

"Yes, his partner killed him," she said. "Ran him through, three times, I think and sliced off his nose and, well; they didn't let me see his body."

"A duel," I asked, turning to look at her, watching her soft lips part and her tongue tip anoint them. She looked nervous about something, thought I.

"No, no, hardly a duel. Philip, his friend and partner, found my husband with his wife, in his own bed, in the middle of the day, enjoying himself as it were, between her fat legs, grunting like the hog he was, so they said. Planting horns on his friend's skull. The poor woman died, too. He stabbed right through both of them while they were, well, you know, joined." She raised a dark eyebrow.

I was smart enough to keep my mouth closed, and she did not continue. Because of the talk, the river and the breeze, I did not hear the men riding up behind us until we were surrounded by a Redcoat patrol. They were a bit out of their area, but Tarleton had been roaming, up and down the river. We all knew that.

"Hallo," said the young lieutenant, raising his hat to Cassandra, "and where might you be going this fine day?"

The woman pursed her lips, rummaged into her hand bag and produced our pass. The officer reached down, flipped it open, scanned it and handed it back. "Get down," he said to me.

I stepped down and stood by the patient horse, and he had one of his men search me. He yanked out my big bayonet and handed it to the officer.

"And what's this?" the man said, turning the heavy blade over in his gloved hands.

"Toothpick," I said. "Drayman's seldom without one, tool of the trade, harness repair and so on, hooves."

"Indeed," he said, tossing it back to me. "I might have thought it a weapon had you not told me, seems it might fit on a musket somehow." He reached down and stuck his finger through the fitting. The soldiers searched under the seat and looked among the luggage strapped to the back of the carriage. I watched them watching the woman, all but licking their chops. I wondered if she could feel all those hungry eyes on her body. Satisfied at last, the officer raised his hat to the young woman and she bobbed her head to him.

"Here comes your ferry," he said, waving his men to get back on the road. "Pleasant journey."

We crossed the river and stopped to eat at the inn on the other side.

"That is quite a large knife," Cassandra said.

I smiled. "An old fiend," I said, "hardly realize it's there, I've carried it so long."

"Do you expect trouble?" she asked, looking at me over her cup.

"Always. Tell me about the pearl." I reached out and touched it, and she never flinched as my big hand approached her mounded chest. The pearl was warm and oddly convoluted, very smooth.

"Ugly, isn't it," she said. "But valuable, I'm told. It's a present from my intended, Captain Moore, Charles Francis Robinson something-or-other Moore, the man I'm going to marry. He is the owner of a fine home in the Downs, a widower, a second son. His brother is a baron, don't cha'know." She smiled with the imitation British accent.

I shook my head, sad that all this beauty was going off to bed some antique Brit.

"He said it came from Asia, India perhaps. He wasn't sure. The Scots have such, you know?"

"Interesting," I said. "I've never seen the like."

She touched a scar on the inside of my left forearm. "What's that?" she asked, running her finger along its welted length.

"Present from your friends," I said. "It's a whip mark, got it in Trenton a while back, from a Redcoat. You ought to see the wales on my back." I smiled, but she did not, and my cock trembled, recalling mistreatment.

"We have not taken sides," she said, rather firmly, holding my eyes. "My family is as neutral as can be. We're Quakers, at least I was; they still are. War is not for us. I just don't care."

I filed that away, and we got back to the carriage. Just around the first sharp curve in the dusty road, two riders emerged from the tall, dead weeds, the bigger one with a very large pistol in his hand, a mean looking pair who gazed at the woman like wolves. I halted the rig and watched them carefully. They obviously knew their businesses, stayed well apart and alert for anything dangerous to them.

"G'me your money." said the younger one, holding out his hand while the other kept his big bore handgun on us, smiling. I pulled my leather purse and tossed it to him. I held perhaps ten shillings of my own and a couple of quid the captain had given me saying he expected an accounting when I returned.

The highwayman weighed the purse in his hand and pulled his horse up beside Cassandra. "Money, lady," he said, reaching down for her pearl. She pulled away, bumping into me, reached inside her bag, pulled out a very small, fully-cocked pistol with a bore as big around as my thumb and shot him right in the mouth as he leaned down toward her, his grasping hand outstretched. He disappeared in a spray of blood and powder smoke.

I leapt at the big man on my side. His pistol went off almost in my ear, scorching my hair and grazing my forehead. I knocked him from his horse, and he came up swinging his empty weapon at me. I ducked and planted my bayonet in his ribs, lifting him from the ground, grunting. I yanked the blade free, left him squirming in the ditch, spouting blood, and ran to the other side of the rig. I could have walked.

The younger man was very dead although the ball did not seem to have emerged from the back of his head. His eyes were still open and he looked surprised. I reclaimed my purse and tossed it to her. She caught it without being really distracted from reloading her pistol. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly and her eyes glistened.

"Use a bit more powder, m'lady," I suggested as I searched the body and then pulled it to the roadside ditch.

"Mind your own," she said calmly, as if she shot highwaymen every day and knew just how to do it.

The big man in the ditch was also dead, so I cleaned out the pair's saddle bags, enriching myself pleasantly and swatted their horses away. I put their two pistols, an old, issue musket, a small bottle of something that smelled like corn liquor and a good bit of ammunition under the seat and covered them with the lap robe.

"Now what?" said the lovely girl, when we got started again. She was still breathing rapidly, her mouth trembling slightly, lips dry. Her hands trembled a bit as they lay on the purse in her lap.

"I don't understand," I said.

"Won't there be more of them?"

"Not likely. Probably deserters, Americans I think. Do you always carry a gun?"

"No, only on the road." She fell silent, and I wondered if she had seen into the eyes of the young man she shot. A Quaker, said my mind in wonder.

A half-hour later, the wind shifted around to the northeast and a squall line approached from the coast, billowing clouds climbed and tumbled, ruining what had been a bright and pleasantly cool day.

"Rain's a'coming," I said, looking for shelter. I turned down a lane to our right, hoping it would lead to a farm as the first big drops pattered down on the light canvas top. The small farm house was gone, burned to the ground along with most of the outbuildings, but a big section of the barn and its sturdy roof still stood. I got us under cover just in time as the wind picked up and the rain fell in fast-moving curtains, marching across the empty fields.

We sat, damp hip and shoulders touching, sensations of which I was fully aware, and we watched the rain.

"When's your ship sail?" I asked.

"Saturday, tomorrow, noon I think."

"So we don't have to hurry and get wet."

She shook her head, looking out at the small, brown rivers flowing around the barn and the deluge falling from the leaden sky. She fingered her pearl as spray filtered through the broken roof.

"I was fifteen when I wed," she said quietly, leaning back and closing her eyes, almost talking to herself. "I was just thinking about it. I was much too young." She sniffed. "The idea was exciting."

I sat, wished I had a pipe to smoke, and listened carefully after getting a nose bag on the patient horse and taking a sip from the bottle under the seat. It was white lightening, potent and jagged.

"He was a Quaker, too, friend of my father, the man I married, but he seldom went to meeting. It was arranged, of course. I had no choice, didn't want one really. We were married for five years, and I've been a widow for three."

My age guess had been pretty good, I thought, as a quirky wind blew a sheet of rain in across us.

"We never had any children. He, he, well, after the first month, he decided I was not going to get pregnant so he went back to his mistress and to other women in the city, older women. As far as I know he never fathered any children. At least there were no claims when he died. After that he only came to my bed, well, perhaps once a month. It was like a brief visit, an obligation or something."

"Odd behavior," I said as she stretched out her legs and crossed her ankles.

"I thought so. That first month was, well, not wonderful, but, hm, stimulating, a promise not kept." She closed her eyes.

"And he had a mistress?"

"Oh yes, in the city. He kept her very well I found out. She was a good bit older, and she had better clothes, more jewelry, and he spent much more time in her bed. And, of course, with other women including the one he died with"

I heard the shot just before it struck the horse. He brayed and his left front leg collapsed with blood pouring from his shoulder. He stumbled down between the traces, looking back at me. I pushed the girl out on her side of the carriage and scrambled down, pulling the musket from under the seat and hiding behind the downed horse, my hand still reporting how good her firm body felt. I assumed the gun was loaded, hooked on my bayonet, primed the pan and waited, squinting into the endless curtains of rain.

We heard the gun fire again and the ball thunked into the post behind us. The woman made a noise, sort of a choked-off squeal. Then out of the treeline and the rain here came two Redcoats, long muskets bayonet tipped, yelling like banshees.

"Get back in the corner," I yelled at the woman, and she did not ask which since there was only one corner left in that barn. I shot the first man as he came through what was left of the barn door. He twisted and fell on his back in the rain, tossing his weapon in the air. The second soldier slid to a stop, knelt and took aim at me as I bit a cartridge and began reloading, half-hidden by the grey's haunch.

Cassandra fired at him and missed, and his shot was wildly high from perhaps twenty feet, hitting the rig. I charged out into the rain, jumped over his fallen comrade and drove my big bayonet into his chest as he stood, one hand outstretched, mouth open. I splashed him back into one of the deeper rivulets. He squirmed on my blade, mouth taking in muddy water. I recognized him as one of the soldiers who had searched our carriage at the ferry. Freelancing did not pay. I speared him again with a crunching sound, stepped on his chest and pulled my blade free from between his ribs.

Back under the roof, I finished reloading while the woman went to see about the horse. She came to my side, put her hand on my arm, sad-eyed. "Shoot him, please," she said, handing me her pistol. I brushed it aside, removed my bayonet and fired a musket ball into the fine horse's brain.

Outside the rain continued to beat down. We were at least ten miles from Philadelphia's waterfront, and it was getting dark.

"You're soaked, and your head's bleeding," she said, looking up at me as I reloaded my musket. "What did they want?"

"You," I suggested, looking at the damp dress clinging to her opulent body, "your pearl, your baggage. Probably you, mainly."

She wrinkled her eyebrows and looked away. "Sorry I missed him," she said.

"You scared him, threw him off. He jumped, fired high. Thanks."

"Not very accurate," she said, waving her small weapon.

"None a'them are," I said, feeling hunger as well as the usual blood rush of battle. I wondered if the house had a root cellar.

She dabbed at my forehead and pronounced it just a scratch, a burn. I had no idea how I got it. I set her to searching the barn for food, corn and such, while I ran out along the ruins of the outbuildings and then to the house foundation. I found a door, yanked it open and ran down a short flight of worn steps to discover a small cellar. Most of what had been there, potatoes and turnips I think, was ruined, rotted and moldy, but some apples and carrots survived. I filled a rough sack and ran back to the barn, my back and shoulder soaked, head dripping.

We made a fire in a cleared spot, starting it with a pistol's firelock, and then fed the flame with twisted straw and pieces of charred barn timber. In better light, we could see that the carrots were also rotted, but the apples seemed all right, and she had found eight small ears of corn, slightly mouse eaten. We put those atop the fire on a broken shovel's blade and ate a couple of soft, wrinkled apples. The rain continued to pour down and the sky got darker. My wet, leather shirt chilled me.

"It has to stop soon," she said, touching my forehead scar again. "Why don't you dry your shirt." It was as if I had transmitted a thought.

"There was that time it went forty days and forty nights," I said, pulling my sodden shirt over my head, wringing it out and stretching it beside the fire on the carriage wheel. It felt good to get the cold thing off my skin, and I squatted toward the fire's warmth. I recalled saying that before but could not remember where or when.