Chapter 90: Freedom Dues

Foster sent us, me and George, out to do some requisitioning. Our orders were to get something for the men to eat, anything, but especially corn and flour. "Do it legally if you can," our officer said with a smile as he gave us a sheaf of quartermaster forms, "but get us some grub." We took two tired riding horses and a wagon and mule, both old as dirt, and we started scouring the countryside. It did not take us long to figure out that a lot of men had been out doing the same thing before us so we widened the scope of our endeavor.

In the morning we would find a place to picket our mule and leave our wagon, and then we set out in opposite directions, planning to be back at our camp by high noon. After two days of doing this and still coming up empty-handed, George returned saying he had found a farm with a true-believing Whig on it who was willing to share with the great Washington's army. So he took the wagon, promised to meet me at the same place that night, and I hurried off to try to top his accomplishment.

I found the small farm which looked reasonably prosperous, dismounted and knocked at the sturdy back door. The door opened a crack and a woman's eye and nose appeared. I knuckled my forehead and told her my mission. She shook her head and from inside the house came a curse. She closed the door firmly but quietly and disappeared. I went back to my horse by way of the well and found a barefoot girl patting his withers.

"What's going on?" I asked her.

"He don' like nobody," the girl said, squinting up at me in the bright sunshine.

"Your paw?" She looked to be sixteen or so, right scrawny but budding toward ripeness.

"Uh uh," She shook her head. "I'm 'prenticed, and my Ma's 'dentured. He's the master, he is."

"I'm looking for food for the army," I told her. She seemed to be wearing nothing but a homespun shirt-dress, a shapeless thing that hung from her bony shoulders and had big, useless, wooden buttons down the front as its only decoration.

"He won' give y'none," she said. "Miser, that's what he is."

"What's his name?" I asked.

"Mr. Miller," the girl said with a sour look.

"He treat you all right?"

She shook her head. "Tries to poke me regular," she said, looking down at her bare toes. "Same as his boys. One a'them done it too. Hurt me."

"And your Ma?"

"Beats her when she won' do what he wants. I hide when he's drunk which is most always. His boy's crazy I think."

A cry, nearly a shriek, came from the house, and the girl shuddered and scurried back into the darkness of the barn. I hurried to the back door, lifted the hatch and went on in, uninvited but feeling I had to investigate. More than curiosity, I hoped. Somebody was whimpering and gasping.

The fat, gray-haired man sat back in the big chair with the woman's head held firmly into his groin, her arms up on his thighs. His hands were tangled in her hair and his eyes were closed.

"That's it," he moaned. "More, more." He slapped at her and then his whole body spasmed.

I yanked the woman away from his spurting prick, and she rolled across the floor with the back of her hand to her mouth, eyes wide. I pulled the man to his feet, a bit surprised at his weight, most of which seemed concentrated in his huge belly and stumpy legs. I bent one of his arms up in the middle of his back and marched him out the back door, kicked him a time or two, and tossed him into the dusty yard. He smelled like a rum barrel.

He sputtered and growled, red-faced, climbed to his feet, put his limp member away and charged at me like a mad bull. I side-stepped, tripped him and he ran head first into the steps, windmilling his arms. One of the treads caught him on the forehead, and I heard his neck snap like a dry twig. He rolled over, flung his arms wide, kicked his feet and expired, head resting on the bottom step at a very odd angle and one leg bent under him.

"Damn," said the woman standing in the doorway. I heard feet behind me and the girl rushed past, leaping over the body to grasp her mother.

"Is he?" the woman asked, holding the girl tightly.

I nodded, prying a fat watch from the dead man's pocket and pulling a ring from his pudgy finger. "Any kin?" I asked.

"Two sons," the woman said, "both nasty as he is, was." She made a small smile. I put the watch back where it had been and screwed the ring on too.

"Know the sheriff?" I asked.

The woman shook her head as she and her daughter both stared at the dead man. I grabbed one of his feet, towed him into the barn and threw a piece of worn tarpaulin over him. The women stood in the doorway watching.

"Where the nearest son live?" I asked.

"Nex' farm, jus' over the hill," the girl said, pointing. I mounted and rode slowly in that direction, trying to assemble my thoughts. My goal was still food for the troops, but now I had a dead man and two tasty women to think about. The women's bodies slowly pushed the other thoughts from my head. The older woman, who might have been thirty, was full-breasted, wide-hipped and long-legged, and I soon longed to plumb her depths and watch her face change while I plunged into her a hundred times or so and she kicked at the clouds. The younger one was plenty ripe enough, but I preferred some experience in my rogering, more meat, too.

The farm house proved to be small and new-looking with a curl of smoke coming from its stone chimney. The man who came out the front door to meet me carried a shotgun and a mean look.

"What do you want?" he yelled.

"Miller?" I asked.

"Josh Miller," he said as I dismounted.

"I'm seeking food for the army, the Continental army," I said.

"Keep moving on. I ain't got none to spare."

"Been an accident," I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder, "back yonder; came to tell you."

He cocked his head and waited.

"Women said you were his son. He's dead," I said, "your father. Broke his neck, fell on the back steps."

The man leveled his shotgun at me.

"You kill him?" he asked with unblinking eyes.

I shook my head. "He missed a step, cracked his head and died. Did he drink?"

"None a'your business," the son said, the gun unwavering.

"Just thought I'd tell you," I said, sticking my toe in the stirrup.

"Wait," he said, "I'll ride back with you." I waited and we rode back, him behind me, shotgun in his lap, without any more words.

He looked down at his dead father when I rolled back the canvas, lifted his head, saw the redness on his forehead, cleared his throat and stood. "This here farm's mine now," he said. "mine and my brother's."

"How about the women?" I asked.

"Them too," he said, "the stupid bitches. Only good for one thing, both of 'em." He made a crude gesture with his fist and forearm. "Old man paid five pounds for the pair 'bout a year ago, after Ma died."

"How about I take some of the corn?" I asked, "maybe half."

The shotgun came up again.

"Wish you would quit pointing that thing at me," I said.

"You best move on," Josh Miller said as the older woman came into the barn. "You," MIller said to the woman, "clean him up so's we can bury him."

"Wouldn't touch him," the woman said, spitting to the side.

The man backhanded her, knocking her off her feet, and I stepped up and took the gun out of his hands. He growled as I dumped out the pan and took the weapon off half-cock.

"I'll help you dig a grave," I told him as the woman got to her feet, wiping blood from her mouth. I handed her the long gun.

"All right," he said, "some shovels over there."

So we dug a sizable pit near where the young man said they had buried his mother. Then we rolled his father's body up in the tarp and gently dropped it into the hole. I let him shovel in the first dirt and then we filled the grave, beat down the mound and covered it with stones.

About the time we finished, another man rode into the yard. He could have been Josh Miller's twin, but he was his younger brother. One of his eyes stayed fixed on his nose. "This here's Jim," Josh said in introduction. "He popped that girl's cherry first night they was here." He slapped his grinning brother on the arm, and the man smiled. "Paw's dead," the older Miller said.

The younger one just blinked his good eye.

"Jim don' talk much," his brother said. "He lives here; works this farm."

The man had a vacant look about him and seemed to shamble as if he was not put together just right. One hand constantly twitched. His brother led him back to the barn, talking steadily into his ear.