Red Shirt ignored her so Marty volunteered the answer. “Red Shirt laid claim to Junior there. He said ‘mine’ and took him. It looks like the lad has a real Pa now.”
Rachel beamed but didn’t say a word. Instead, she walked up to Red Shirt; his back was still to her and Marty, and put her arm through his, joining him in holding her son, their son. Red Shirt didn’t say anything but pulled his shoulders back in pride. He had a wife and heir now.
The Indian band with their two new members and one tag-along continued down the unmarked trail to wherever it was they were going. Marty wanted to be on his way to his own home but didn’t want to be lost again. He’d go with the Indians for now. He was sure Red Shirt knew where The Trees were. It may be that he first had to get his men and new family back to his village or settlement or whatever it was called, but hopefully, after they were all safely ensconced, he’d see fit to show him the way to The Trees.
The sun was getting low and no village was in sight. However, Marty could smell water—there was a creek nearby. They made the last half-mile at a quickened pace. The horses were trotting and he was jogging, but he knew why. If they got to the creek at the right time, they’d have fresh fish for supper. The jerky provided sustenance but wasn’t a belly filler.
Number Two and The Young One picked up the pace and raced ahead. As they sped ahead, Red Shirt slowed his pace, coming in front of Rachel’s horse to bring her back to an easy walk. He’d let his men catch dinner and start the fire so all was ready for him, his new family, and crazy white man friend when they got there.
And, so it was. In the half hour that it took for the late shift to catch up with the hospitality crew, dinner and a fire were waiting. Red Shirt took his son from Rachel, offering her his free hand to help her dismount. She accepted it graciously and gave him a sincere smile of gratitude that promised more, hopefully. He wanted to lie with her tonight. It would be best if he sealed the union before they got back to the village.
“That’s some mighty fine fare you fixed there, men,” Marty commented after finishing his filet of trout on a stick. “I’d offer to wash the dishes but since we didn’t have any, I’d like to know if anyone would mind if I went down to the creek and washed myself up a bit.” Marty stuck his nose near his armpit and sniffed, made an ugly face, then grinned at his small audience.
Red Shirt was standing close to Rachel, who was seated, feeding little bits of trout to her son. He nodded and grinned: ‘That’s a good idea, stinky white man—go,’ he said without words.
Marty trundled down to the creek and found a shallow, calm pool. The water wasn’t warm but wasn’t icy like the fast moving stream either. He took off his boots and set them on a boulder. He removed his malodorous shirt and tossed it into the still pond. Now, his Indian wear: the breechclout. This time he knew what he was doing. He untied the knot and pulled away the thong, bowed his legs like Red Shirt had, and let the leather loincloth drop to the dry ground. It didn’t need cleaning but he did. Marty picked his way over the slippery, moss covered river rocks, sat down in the tepid pool, and employed fistfuls of sand as his soapy washcloth. He scrubbed the stink of two weeks of sweat and dust off his skin, bent his head sideways, and sniffed his armpit: fresh as a North Carolina mountain stream. He reached over and rubbed the shirt into the sand at the bottom of the small pond. Fish poop smell would be better than marinated man odor. He finished his primeval bath with a silica face and scalp scrub. “Too bad the whiskers won’t rub off,” he commented as he ran the back of his index finger over his scraggly beard. “But, at least there’s no chance of lice now.”
Marty rinsed his shirt a second time, twisted and wrung it out as best he could, then shook it briskly a dozen times, flipping out as many of the residual drops of creek water as he could. He threw it over his shoulder and exited his bath, taking deep cleansing breaths, trying to keep his newfound confidence in place. He didn’t know where he was going or what was waiting for him at the end of the journey. He’d have to wait to go home to his own family, but at least he now had a better chance of finding the right route; Red Shirt could help him as long as he stayed in his good graces. He bit his bottom lip then bent over and retrieved his thong belt and breechclout, slipping it on in, for him, record time. ‘I can be a good red white man,’ he thought. ‘At least I don’t have to put on an act. Red Shirt likes me as I am.’
“I think I’ll let you dry out a bit,” he said aloud to his shirt as he spread it out over a bush at the edge of the creek. Marty picked up his boots and walked back slowly toward the campfire, using its glow as his beacon. He carried his boots rather than wear them for the short walk back. His feet were damp and his boots still stank of Grant. He’d bear the discomfort of walking over sharp stones for a few yards in exchange for having dry tootsies and aired out footwear for the morrow.
The sleeping arrangements were already established. Number Two was at the end of camp where they had come in and The Young One was at the other end, the two sentries positioned at the most logical entrances. Red Shirt was sitting next to Rachel, who was nursing Junior, evidently giving him his bedtime nightcap. Red Shirt looked up at Marty, held his gaze, and shifted his eyes away from the fire, back to where Marty had just come from. ‘We want to be alone tonight: sleep over there,’ he said without words.
“Good night, everyone; I’ll be sleeping down there if you need me for anything,” Marty commented to the air above the three of them. He realized it was perfunctory—the new little family had everything they needed in each other.
Red Shirt watched as Rachel discreetly bared her breast to feed her son. She looked up, saw him watching her, and pulled the blouse down further, exposing more of her skin to his view. Marty was gone and so were the two other braves. It was just her, the baby, and the man who she had chosen as his father. No, not just his father—this was the man she wanted as her husband.
She had thought that all men were pigs. At least the ones she had known growing up were. Her father and Atholl had been fondling and clutching at her since she could remember. It wasn’t until she had sneaked into Sunday school one trip into town that she realized that what they did was wrong. She hadn’t heard the whole story the preacher was telling: Grant had reached in and yanked her away before the sermon was over, but she had heard enough. A man was not to touch a woman who was not his wife. She tried telling her father what the preacher had said, but he slapped her and told her the man was lying.
A short time later, her father was dead. He had cut his hand while butchering the hog. The wound had festered, become red and hot all the way up to his shoulder, over the next two days. She had tried to tend to it, but he wouldn’t let her touch him. He screamed all that night in pain, cursing and crying. She had slept with the goats to keep away from the noise. When she came back to the house the next morning, he was quiet, very quiet. He was also dead.
She felt sorry for him, sort of, but she couldn’t have done anything. The day before he died, he made Atholl promise to take care of her, take care of her real good. “Don’t let her get wayward or get big ideas in her head. Don’t let her talk to the other women or go to Church. Smack her if she gets out of line, and give her the strap every once in a while, ‘just because.’ She doesn’t need much so don’t give it to her.”
Well, Atholl had done what Daddy had said and was happy to take over ‘the good part of havin’ a daughter.’ However, Atholl did more than grab and paw; he wanted more. The first time he did it, he had given her whisky until she passed out. She woke up with him on top of her, sweating and panting. Then he collapsed on her chest, almost suffocating her. The next morning, he was gone and she hurt; hurt real bad between her legs and behind her eyes. She knew what the pain between her legs was and didn’t tell him about that. The pain in the head was a hangover, he said. “I guess you won’t be getting any more whisky,” he told her. “I’ll not waste it on you if it’s just going to make you sick.”
Then for the next few weeks, he’d wait until she was
asleep before he came in and ‘did his duty.’ Later, he got braver, not even bothering to wait until she was asleep. She tried hiding in the woods in the evening to escape his attentions, hoping that he’d be asleep when she returned. She didn’t want to come home to the strap and his drunken pawing and caressing that inevitably led to him shoving her down and pulling up her shift, putting his stinky prick between her legs. She gave up crying when he did it because he seemed to like it when she did. “Come on, give me some more tears,” he’d holler, and then smack her cheek. “I like it when you move around like a worm on a rock.”
When her belly started swelling and she felt movement, she realized she was pregnant. She had watched the cat have her kittens and figured out how to pant and breathe when it was time for babies to come. She birthed the first baby, her daughter, by herself. She was proud of her effort; the child was so perfect. She also became bolder. When Atholl came to her a week later to ‘do his duty,’ she told him, no; she didn’t want him near her again. She had already decided that she was leaving but didn’t tell him that. She would find a way to escape him and Grant and make a better life for her and her daughter. He glared at her when she said ‘no,’ grabbed his bottle of whisky, and left for the barn.
She went back to work in the kitchen. A couple hours later, she left little Esther napping in the house while she went outside to gather eggs. Her daughter was still asleep when she got back. She was sleeping longer than usual though, she was usually hungry every couple of hours. Something didn’t seem right so she woke her. Or tried to. When she picked her up, the little blanket fell away and she saw the bloody clout and gown. She had spurned Atholl so he ‘did his duty’ to her infant daughter and killed her, battering her insides, and causing her to bleed to death.
She buried the baby wrapped in the only thing she could, the bloody shroud she had found her in. There wasn’t even wood for a proper casket. She dug a deep grave; made sure she piled lots of rocks on top of it, and pulled up nearby wild flowers, transplanting them at the head of the site. Little Esther would have fresh flowers for eternity.
After the internment, she grabbed a half loaf of bread, her blanket, a jug of water, and walked away. She wouldn’t have left them a note even if she had paper, quill and ink, and had known how to write. She was done with Atholl and Grant.
Or so she thought. She had only been gone one day when they found her asleep, just outside of town. Atholl and Grant took turns whipping her, ‘Just to make sure she got the message.’ She never tried to leave again.
Atholl took her whenever he had the drink. She didn’t try to resist anymore. But, she did hide his whisky. He wouldn’t even look at her ‘that way’ when he was sober. He didn’t have the urge unless he was drunk. A short time later, he left ‘to do his soldiering’ and was gone for months at a time, sparing her his attentions.
At least Grant didn’t touch her ‘that way.’ She had never seen the results of Daddy’s wrath but had overheard Atholl teasing him on several occasions. ‘Little no prick’ he called him. “Still sittin’ down to piss?” he’d taunt when Grant went to the privy. “Daddy’s first daughter,” he’d crow, then laugh until Grant was so red in the face, she thought he’d burst. They had fought a few times when the teasing was too much for Grant, but Atholl was much bigger and older. He’d thrash him every time. After Grant was beat, he’d find her, whipping her to vent his frustration at losing the fight with his big brother, or as he said, “Just because.”
Atholl had wanted to be a real soldier, had even managed to steal an officer’s uniform, but the British army didn’t want him. “Too much anger,” they said.
“How could a soldier have too much anger,” he carped. “They need captains like me to get the soldiers inspired. Kill ‘em all! Kill all the Colonists and take their money and livestock. Americans my ass—they’re just a bunch of cattle that need to be watched over and harvested.”
No, it wasn’t until she had seen Evie and Wallace together that she knew there was another way for a man and a woman to be together. Sarah had found her and Grant on the road to New Bern and invited them to take a break and share a meal with her. She was a healer and wanted to check on her and her babies: Junior, the one young ‘un she was toting on her shoulder, and the one still in her womb. Yes, Sarah probably saved her life three months ago by delivering her of her dead infant daughter, Mary.
Sarah and Evie may have saved her life but they definitely saved her sanity. They told her of hope—that she could have a new life with Junior. They said they were sure she could find a good man but to make sure she was married to him before she gave him children. Well, Red Shirt was a good man. He was also an Indian. She didn’t know how they performed a marriage. Maybe taking care of her, feeding her, and letting her ride the horse was part of their ritual. She nodded. Even if it weren’t, she’d believe it was. She wanted to be married to him.
She had watched the way Wallace had sex with—no, he made love to, Evie. They didn’t know she was watching; she pretended to be asleep. She heard the soft words of love. “I love making love to my wife,” he had said, then kissed her all over. The moaning Evie made wasn’t of pain. She was enjoying it more than eating fresh baked apple pie with cream. At the end, she heard both of them panting. Both of them! She knew Atholl panted when he was finished, or almost finished, but Evie did, too. Maybe some women got that same feeling that made Atholl grin so big when he was done and made her all sticky. At least she knew Evie was extra happy the next morning and didn’t appear to be hurting.
Red Shirt watched as she wrapped the sleeping boy in the blanket and lay him down beside her. She left her breast bared then turned to him. He tried to control his breathing but kept gulping air as she removed her blouse. She stood up slowly and untied the strings that held her clothing around her waist. She let her skirt drop then looked at him and smiled. She bent over and pushed the clothing into a makeshift bed then sat down on top of it. She put her hands out in invitation.
As she was undressing, he had noticed the lash marks on the back of her legs where she had been whipped. She couldn’t have done that to herself—the thief he had buried this morning must have done it to her. No wonder she didn’t care about him. Yes, her legs and back were marked but the rest of her was perfect. She was pale and a bit bony but her breasts were round and full and her hips were wide enough to bear children. And, she wanted him.
Red Shirt stood up. He hoped he wouldn’t have trouble getting the white man’s pants off. His manhood had swelled and was uncomfortably bent behind the buttons. He didn’t want to embarrass himself with being awkward in undressing as he came to her as her husband for the first time, but these white man’s pants weren’t as easy to remove as his breechclout.
Rachel saw that Red Shirt was having difficulty in unbuttoning his pants. She wasn’t sure if it was because of his excited condition or if he was just new to brass buttons. The other braves were wearing breechclouts, as was Marty. Marty had said they did some trading. This had to be it: Red Shirt had traded ‘pants’ with Marty.
Rather than shame him by exposing his clumsiness, Rachel decided to make the undressing a part of the lovemaking. At least she remembered that Wallace and Evie had shared the task, so maybe the red man did, too. She stood up, moved in close to Red Shirt, and put her hands around his waist, gently stroking his back. She slowly worked her hands around to the front of him and stroked the front of his pants, eliciting a gasp from him as she touched his firmness. She smiled at him and tip toed up to give him a gentle kiss on the lips, making sure she left her hands on the waistband of his pants. The kiss lasted longer than she thought it would and that was fine by her. She had never been kissed, really. Her father and her brother had forced their mouths on hers but those weren’t kisses. What she was getting from Red Shirt felt great!
She stroked her hand down the outside front of his fly again. She carefully put the fingertips of one hand inside the top of his pants while unbuttoning with the other. She slowly worked her
way down, unbuttoning one brass stud at a time until the access was open. She reached in, wrapped her fingers around his hard cock, and freed it from its awkward angle inside the cotton cloth. It sprung up of its own accord next to his belly, hot and pulsing, eager to mate.
Rachel wasn’t sure what she should do next. Surely, the Indians had their own way to make love. She’d let him take over. She was pretty sure, no, she was positive, that whatever he was going to do it wouldn’t be done in anger or with cruelty.
She wanted him. Even his wife hadn’t been so generous in her kisses and caresses. She had seen his predicament and taken care of the closures on his new pants, freeing his manhood and letting him know that she would take him as a husband. Now she was on the ground, waiting for him to make the next move. Yes, he would join with her and make her his wife. His hands were on his hips, ready to shove his pants down, when he remembered Dances Naked’s advice: take off your moccasins first. He bent over quickly and untied his laces, stepping on the toes to remove his footwear swiftly and efficiently. Now it was time for the best part. He shimmied out of the white man’s pants and stepped over to his bride, straddling her now prone position. Maybe his seed would overtake hers and he’d make a baby on the first try. But, even if it didn’t, he’d keep making happy with her. Daylight was a long ways away.
10 There Once Was a Village
August 21, 1781
reakfast for the group consisted of cold water consumed in a reserved silence. The two braves had already removed traces of their campfire by the time Marty was back from his toilet—they were ready to roll.
Red Shirt helped his new wife and son onto the mare, both unable and unwilling to hold his pride in check. He didn’t have to tell his men that this was his woman now—they could see it in his face. Number Two would be back with his wife soon and The Young One still had a winter or two until he would be ready for a mate. Maybe he’d help Dances Naked get back to his woman and maybe he wouldn’t. That was a bad medicine area and he didn’t need any more problems. His tribe was still trying to recover from the terrors of the last two years.
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