Chapter 83: Plowing

Lt. Foster ordered me and another man to look into stories about a farmer who was selling to the Brits but refusing to let us Continentals buy foodstuffs and fodder. Downright unpatriotic, so we were told as we were sent on our way with orders to change his mind.

Ewell Freeman was the man I was with, and he was in charge, an acting corporal I believe, a tall and gangly Scot from western Virginia, a dead shot with a rifle. What we found, after a long day's ride, was a large and obviously prosperous place with milch cows, some beef cattle and goats, lots of chickens and other fowl and acres and acres of corn, oats and various other grains, just waiting to be harvested. It was that time of year.

The farmer, a man they called "Judge," was not at home, so his house servant told us, but his missus might see us. We sat in a shady parlor and she arrived shortly, dressed in the height of fashion, at least as far as I could tell. Watered silk I think it was called, midnight blue, tight-fitting from narrow waist up and framing a luscious pair of bubbies and milky shoulders beneath a kerchief of some filmy stuff. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back, braided and folded atop her head with some ornate combs, and she wore a look of amusement at our gawking. And she knew we were gawking. Beautiful women know they are beautiful.

"Gentlemen," she said, "how are you at farm work?"

"We come to buy, ma'm," Ewell told her, running his hat through his hands. "For Gen'l Washington, ma'm." He shuffled his big feet.

"We've nothing to sell except for gold," she stated, raising an eyebrow and letting her glance take me in. She looked me up and down twice and made a face, not too pleased at what she saw.

"Yes'm, so we heered, but we's right hungry, ma'm, whole army is," Ewell went on, shuffling his feet in discomfort.

She frowned. "Thought there were so few of you left."

"There's enough," I said. "An' all of us's hungry."

The woman stood up even straighter, her firm chin atop her long neck. She smiled. "My husband will be back in a fortnight."

"Will he sell to us for quartermaster paper?" Ewell asked hopefully.

"Not a chance," she said, beginning to look impatient.

"Y'all might have a fire, y'know," Corporal Freeman said innocently, glancing at me. "Hate to see that big barn ablaze."

"That a threat?" asked the lady, who I supposed was well under forty years, thirty-five I guessed, a woman and not a girl. I mentally undressed her.

"No'm," the corporal said. "We'll be back." He tugged on my elbow and nodded toward the door. I hated to leave, feeling myself hardening at this strangely over-dressed woman in the almost-wilderness.

"You need help with the harvest?" I asked.

She nodded. "Most of the locals have run off, the hired hands."

"I'll help in trade for supplies," I said. "Five bushels of threshed grain a day."

"Three," she said. "No more."

"Three and a ham," I suggested as Ewell stood in the doorway.

"All right," she said, sticking out her hand. I took it and felt the slim bones and thick cords. She was a strong woman and her blood ran rapidly. She held my hand just a bit longer than she had to. She held my eyes as well. Hers were gray.

Outside I convinced the corporal to go on back to camp and return in a couple of weeks with a wagon. I told him Foster was used to me disappearing for a while and would probably be happy to have me gone. "I eat a lot," I explained.

Ewell smacked me on the shoulder, gave me a crooked grin, said, "Stay out'a them darkies' beds," and rode off.

The woman's black overseer, an elderly man with a bad eye, led me to the scythes and sickles, showed me the grindstone, and told me to start cutting the south field. "Lay it down clean for the rakers," he said. "Lay it down straight."

I found a long handled tool that fit my height, worked on the blade for a bit, spit in my palms and got to work. Soon I was back into the rhythm of step and swing, step and swing, my spine bent, my mind turned off and concentrating on keeping the curved blade level. Within a hour my back and arm muscles had gone on past their knotting pain and sweat was lubricating my efforts. When I stopped at a fence and looked back, I was proud of my work. The grain lay in regular windrows and most of the stubble was of an even height. I mopped my brow and started back toward the barn, enjoying the sound of the stalks hissing at my blade and ignoring the pain in my hands.

When a triangle clanged, I finished the row I was on and trotted toward the house, more than ready for a meal. We ate under a big tree near the summer kitchen. The overseer and I were the only men and there were three female servants, two Africans and a Welsh girl. We ate well, corn bread and thick stew, plenty of it with milk, cider, beer and water to wash it down. The overseer slapped my back and told me I was doing just fine. He avoided my questions about the farm and the Judge, but praised the lady of the house for her fortitude and kindnesses.

We all rested for a spell and then the black women got big, wooden rakes, the white girl went off to the house, and I went back to my scythe with a whetstone in my hand. I renewed my edge, convinced my shoulders that they could do more work and started swinging as the sun baked my back. The rakers piled up domed mounds of hay and I did my work until the sun sank behind the woodlot and the triangle rang again.

"Good work, good work," the overseer told me as we stood at the well. "You earned y'pay this day, big feller."

I smiled at him, enjoyed a light meal and a good bit of fine beer, borrowed some tobacco to smoke and sat watching the bats emerge, trying to ignore my aching hands and popped blisters.

The woman came and sat beside me on the back porch. She was wearing a long tan skirt and apron over a loose-fitting white shirt, obviously work clothes. "We'll make it five bushels," she said, untying the cloth about her hair.

I knuckled my forehead and smiled at her. "Tell me about the Judge."

"Good man, usually. Well respected in these parts." She took a deep breath and flapped the shirt at her chest.

"Any children?" I blew out a cloud of blue smoke.

"Oh yes. He has seven I think, yes, seven living. All grown, two boys. I'm his third wife." She reached out and took the clay pipe from my hand. "Do you mind?"

I smiled at her, and she drew deeply and then let the smoke trickle from her mouth and nose. "A secret vice," she said in a mock whisper.

We shared the tobacco until it was gone. When I knocked out the dottle, I asked, "Where am I to sleep?"

"Didn't Jaspar show you? Come." She stood, and I followed her long stride past the outbuildings to a shed-roofed building with windows on every side. I enjoyed walking behind her and watching her fine, mature body move within her clothes. There were six rough-planked beds inside, hooks on the wall and rolled up blankets in a corner.

"Pick one," she said, waving at the beds. " I had the place cleaned up after the men fled, recruiters around here are much like press gangs"

I thanked her, touched my forehead and she turned at the door.

"Don't do that, pull your forelock," she said, "you're nobody's servant."

I smiled and said, "Yes'm. Habit."

I peeled down to my shirt, picked the softest shuck mattress I could find and turned off my head. Almost at once, the door opened a crack and one of the black girls tip-toed in wearing just her shift.

"You want com'ny?" she asked.

"Not tonight," I told her. "Plum wore out."

"Shit," she said and left, closing the thin door firmly.

On my third day as a farm hand, making vittles for Washington's army with the sweat of my brow, some Redcoats with a commissary wagon appeared. I paused out in the field, squinted and hoped I had properly stashed my musket in the loft. I went back to haying, hoping nothing would happen. When the gong sounded for supper, the talk at the table was about the loud words between the mistress and one of the British officers.

"Never heard such lang'age 'fore a lady," one of the black girls said.

"Thought she was gonna hit that big one," the Welsh girl said with a laugh. "They's on the third bottle."

"What going on?" I asked Jaspar.

"They wants ever'thing you done cut," he said, "and she don' want 'em to have it."

"Fodder?" I said.

He nodded.

"They well mounted?" I asked.

"Oh yes," he told me. "Fine horses. Saw that cob a'yourn an' sneered."

Just then two soldiers came from the stable area and took seats on the benches with us, smiling aimlessly. One of the girls fetched them some food, and they ate silently, looking neither left nor right. When they finished and washed down their grub, the older one turned to the Welsh girl. "How much f'a quick swive?" he asked her, trying to look pleasant despite his pock-marked face and rotten teeth.

The girl shook her head and got to her feet. The soldier grabbed her arm, twisted it up behind her and clambered from the table with a foul curse. I stood quickly as the Redcoat dragged the squalling girl toward the barn and the other soldier produced a very large pistol. I threw a pitcher half filled with beer at him and dove across the plank table, scattering food and taking his face with one hand and his gun with the other. We rolled off on the ground, and I got my forearm across his neck and my knee in his groin. When he let go of the gun, I scooped it up and broke his nose with the heavy barrel, scrambled to my feet and cocked the thing.

The other big Redcoat saw me coming, tossed the girl aside and drew his own pistol. I dove to the ground, rolled over as a shot blasted out and came up with my thumb on the frizzen pan. On one knee I shot the man squarely where his belts crossed, and he twisted back and fell on his face, spouting crimson, arms flung wide.

"That will do!" said a commanding, but very female, voice, and I spun to see the woman and the British officers on the back porch. "What's going on?" she demanded. arms folded across her chest.

"'E was gonna do me," the Welsh girl cried, looking down at the dead man at her feet. "Fook me."

"Was that you that screamed?" her mistress demanded.

She nodded vigorously, as the Redcoat with the smashed nose got to his feet, wiping his face and looking hatred at me.

"I think you had better leave," she said to the lean officer beside her.

"We need that hay," he said quietly.

"Not today, major," she said. "Not today. Get them out of here."

"B'damn, madam, we'll get what we came for. Don't thwart your husband's will," the older officer demanded, very red in the face.

"Go," the woman said loudly. "Another day. Take that body with you."

"You'll regret this," the major said, hitching up his britches and stalking off.

"I'll get y'fer what y'done," the bleeding soldier told me as he stepped past and then dragged his friend to the barn. He hoisted the bleeding body into the wagon like a sack of meal, and the British left in a dust cloud. The place was very quiet.

The black servants went off with their rakes, the mistress sent the Welsh lass to some chores and Jaspar disappeared quietly as he often did. "You need a drink?" the woman asked me. She had come to stand at my elbow. I put down the pistol which I had forgotten was still in my hand.

"Might help," I said, and I followed her into the house. She found a stoneware jug and handed it to me. I popped out the cork and hefted the thing to my shoulder. The whisky was smooth and strong. I felt it to the pit of my belly almost instantly.

She smiled. "Haven't seen a man drink like that since I was a girl," she said. "What happened out there?"

We sat at a rough table where the Welsh girl often prepared food for the stove or the big, open fireplace.

"I don't know your name," I said, apropos of nothing in particular except that fights generally got my blood up and I was hoot-owl horny.

"Lucy," the woman said with a fine smile, offering me her hand. "Lucy F--." I told her my name and shook her hand a bit longer than I should have. She pulled free. "So tell me," she said.

I told her briefly what had taken place. "If Ginny had wanted to lie with him, it would have been different," I said.

"Have Sophie or Melinda visited you?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"I'm surprised."

"They've offered," I said.

"Not your style?"

"Something like that. Mainly the work out there does not leave me needing much but sleep."

"I see," she said. "What about now?"

"I've only worked half the day," I said, feeling the urge rising.

"Hm," she said, reaching out to touch my stubbled face. She beckoned with a finger, and I followed up the stairs to what I suppose you would call a bathing room at the landing. It had a big wooden tub, a large basin and pitcher, a plank floor and two drains that led outside to the rainwater scuppers. Ginny fetched in four buckets of water with a smile glued to her face, and I stripped off, settled myself into the tub and washed my dirty body with Lucy's enthusiastic help. She said she had never seen such a hairy human being. Then I stood dripping and eager, but she handed me a fine razor and pointed to the mirror hanging on a wall. I shaved, close and neat with my proud prod, which had been sticking out like a bowsprit, sagging but still crying for attention, hanging full and firm. By the time I was finished scraping my face, I was reasonably dry, barely turgid but still mentally eager.

She lay on her high bed, naked as the day she was born, up on one elbow and wearing only a grin. Her hip rose like one of those sugarloaf mountains. "You certainly are a well-equipped laborer," she said as I approached her bed, quickly past tumescent and growing bigger fast.

"Good workmen always have the proper tools," I said as I rolled in beside her, gathered her up and found her generous mouth.

"Gently," she said after we had explored and kissed for a while, "I've not done this for some time."

"The Judge," I began and she stiffened.

"Not your business," she said, spreading wide her knees and then lifting her thighs, her hands beneath her hips. I had never had a woman present herself like that. It made it very easy.

I inched my swollen spear into her as gradually and steadily as I could, and when it was well planted, I rested it there, my weight mostly on my elbows, and looked down at her. We kissed gently as it jerked, pulsed and swelled.

"That's fine," she sighed, wiggling beneath me. "Don' think I've ever felt one like that." I flexed the well-buried root, and she jumped and her mouth fell open. "Slowly, slowly," she sighed as I rotated my hips some and pressed it deeper. Her legs rubbed along mine. "You're exploring new territory."