Laurie woke up the next morning before the sun came up. She had a restless sleep and was even afraid to go back to sleep. She was frightened she would dream again of Moses and her having sex. She lay in bed thinking how she could have dreamed of such a thing. How could that even come to her mind even though it was unwillingly? To have a dream about another man besides her husband, even though he has been dead for years, was bad enough; but for that man to be a black man, a former slave, was unimaginable. Yet she did imagine it in her dream and it filled her with shameful dishonor.
Laurie finally did drift off to sleep and was grateful she didn’t dream of Moses again. When she woke up, she was irritated and angry. She was irritated from lack of sleep and angry at herself for having that dream. The woman was also angry at Moses even though she knew she had no right to be.
She was angry at the large black man because he invaded her dream of her husband and turned it into a nightmare. She was angry at him for getting whipped even though it was not his fault. She was angry with Moses because he would not be able to go to town with her and would be laid up for a few days while he healed. She would have to do all the work herself.
Laurie was also angry at Melanie Flanagan for being such a whore and her father for beating her because of it and blaming it on Moses. She was angry at the Night Riders for whipping Moses and then most likely hanging an innocent man. Laurie was angry at the world that morning.
The red-headed woman had always had a temper, but as of the past several months, her temper seemed to flare up for no particular reason. Even though she knew it was wrong, she took that anger out on Moses. The man just stood there as Laurie yelled at him for the smallest reasons or even no reason at all. He would just say “yes, Ma’am or no Ma’am” as she yelled and sometimes berated him.
That made her just angrier and she would scream in her head for the large black man to fight back, but he never did.
Laurie put on her corset, the only pair of pantaloons she had left, and then her going-to-town dress. She had lost much weight since the war started and her pantaloons were loose and the corset was loose around her waist but still hugged her breasts as it pushed them up. Laurie Sinclair always had nice breasts since they started to develop. Even now at age thirty-eight, they were still firm and they were tipped with rosy pink nipples.
She brushed her long, lustrous red hair and then did her best to style it like she once had become accustomed to before the war. She did care how she looked but others did and people were more inclined to buy from a woman who took pride in her appearance. Laurie did not wear makeup like some of those Yankee carpetbagger wives or those painted harlots who worked in the sporting houses. A true Southern Lady relied on her naturally attractive looks and would not lower herself to paint her face. Even after the hardships she suffered, Laurie Sinclair was still that, an extremely attractive woman.
Laurie wished she had her hair curler so she could add to her slightly long curls at the tips of her hair, but that was long gone with most of her jewelry and other personal possessions. Some damn Yankee officer’s wife is most likely using it right now, she thought. She was angry at all the Yankees that morning also, but that was nothing new. She hated every one of them all the time. She tied her hair with ribbons to try and control it.
She had woken up earlier than normal when she went into the small city of Milledgeville. Without Moses, she was going to have to take the longer route and avoid going too close to Shanty Town. The black man had been right when he told her there were bad men on the roads. When Moses went with her, any man or even a small group of cutthroats, thieves, or worse would think twice about assaulting them. Moses’s size intimidated most people. She would have her pistol, but she was not a very good shot with it as she was a rifle or her shotgun.
While her father had taught her to shoot a rifle and how to lead birds with a shotgun, he never taught her how to shoot a pistol. Laurie was a crack shot with both her shotgun and a rifle and could outshoot many of the men in the county, but with a pistol, she could barely hit anything unless it was close enough to spit on.
Laurie walked downstairs and into the kitchen and started a fire in the stove and pumped water into a coffee pot. Laurie checked the coffee pot and frowned. This was the fourth day she would have to reuse the coffee grinds. She enjoyed her coffee in the morning and sometimes in the evening.
Most women drank tea, but Laurie liked coffee ever since she was a girl when her father would sneak her sip or two of his when her mother was not looking. She could buy more coffee at Donovan’s Mercantile in town but it was expensive. She would have to buy other things she needed first before she splurged on coffee. Laurie laughed harshly. Other things, she thought, I need everything.
As the coffee was brewing she went to check on Moses. She would have to change his bandages before she left. She found the man sleeping on his back in the small bed. He did not have any covers on his body and was shirtless and wearing only worn thin white linen drawers. They were clean but no longer white. Age had worn them thinner and the white cotton had faded to a yellowish-like color. The same color as her undergarment.
Laurie stared at the man and once again she felt her nipples tighten. The drawers seemed too small for Moses, they were most likely not even his, and some he had scrounged somewhere, and they hugged his muscular buttocks tight. His muscular body reminded Laurie of a stature she had seen in London on her honeymoon; an ebony bronze statue of the Greek warrior Achilles on display at Hide Park in London. Moses’s skin was darker though but his defined muscles looked similar.
Laurie thought of what it would feel like to run her hands up his powerful-looking legs and over his muscular buttocks. What his buttocks would feel like as the muscles tighten as he vigorously thrust his manhood into her over and over again. Her eyes went up to his back and the sight of Moses’s back erased all the thoughts from her head and she felt deep shame and guilt.
Laurie felt shame that she was thinking of a black man in that way and guilt when she saw the bandages on his back that his blood had seeped into. She also felt a renewed anger at Moses for her thoughts even though he was not at fault and anger once again that he got whipped even though that was not his fault either.
“Moses!” the woman said harshly. “Moses!” she said louder and just as harshly when he did not stir.
The black man woke at the third call of his name and turned his head to look at Laurie.
“Lawdy, Misses Sinclair, is it time to go already?” he asked as he began to move to sit up and winced in pain. “I’ll hitch up the mule and we can get goin.”
Laurie adverted her eyes and blushed as Moses sat up and the man suddenly realized his body was not covered.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said as he covered his body with a wool blanket. “I’m sorry you had to see me undressed like this.” He was looking down at his feet submissively.
Moses was a free man now, but eighteen years of slavery had been embedded into him. He also knew that even being free that if a black man even looked at a white woman the wrong way he would be hung from the nearest tree after they peeled to skin off his back with a whip.
“It’s ok. Just put your pants on,” she said still in a harsh tone. “I have to change your bandages before I leave.”
“You can be doin’ that when we get back, Misses Sinclair,” the man told her. “I’ll hitch up the mule.”
“Don’t be a damn fool, Moses!” she yelled. “You are in no condition to go anywhere and I’ll hear no back talk about. Now get some pants on while I make us some grits for breakfast. We don’t have any bacon left and I don’t have time to check the hen house for eggs so it’s grits and a cold biscuit for the both of us. Coffee is going to be weak this morning.”
Laurie Sinclair had always been a strong-willed person and stubborn even as a child. She always got what she wanted, not from tantrums or childish outbursts like most spoiled children did. She was spoiled as a child and as a young lady, but Laurie never used that to her advantage except on her father. Laurie was the apple of her father’s eye. He spoiled her and gave in to her with just one of the girl’s charming smiles. Her mother, on the other hand, was different.
Laurie’s mother was the epitome of a Southern Lady. Her mother was calm, kind, and gracious. She showed every behavior of a perfect Southern Lady. She was a soft-spoken woman even in anger who was always capable of anything. While Laurie’s father was the master of the house, it was her mother who ruled behind the scenes. She was the most respected woman in the county for her manners, social graces, and integrity and she bestowed that character on her daughter.
Laurie more than loved her mother; she worshipped the woman as if she was one of the ancient Greeks goddesses her tutor had taught her about. She looked upon her mother in awe and was even slightly afraid of her and her wrath. Her mother was too wise of a woman to fall for Laurie’s charms and tricks.
Laurie had inherited a dangerous combination for her parents. From her father, she got her Scottish temper, which for her father was bark than bite, but from her mother, she received her resolve to carry out her threats.
Before she left the room, Laurie picked up Moses worn pair of Brogans.
“Why you taken my shoes, Misses Sinclair?” the man asked.
“Because you can’t follow me to town without them,” she answered.
Back in the kitchen, the woman looked over the worn-out shoes. The length of them was too small for Moses’s big feet so he had cut the toes out of them and the soles had holes in them that Moses patched with strips of leather. She decided to take them with her and get them resoled at the cobbler. There was nothing she could do about the cut out tip of the shoes. Even if she could afford to splurge on a new pair for the man, it was doubtful they had any his size.
After a meager breakfast and weak coffee, Laurie washed Moses’s wounds and changed the man’s bandages, she saw no signs of infection and his wounds didn’t smell to be infected. She then went outside and hitched Old Tom to the wagon and left for Milledgeville. She gave strict instructions for Moses not to leave the house and if he had to go outside to stay in the yard area.
Laurie took two of her remaining twenty-dollar gold pieces and hid one under the jars of honey she was going to sell and one in her poke along with Moses’s shoes.
Moses had spent days searching out bee hives and then smoking them out to collect the nest. Moses and Laurie then removed the honey and honeycombs and bottled them. They had jarred ten jars. Two she kept and would be used sparingly and eight she would sell. Honey would sell for a good price and quickly.
Laurie placed the pistol in a cloth poke that held the coin and shoes and hid it under the seat of the wagon. She was not worried about animals. There were no large predator animals like wolves or cougars in Georgia and no one has seen a bear in the county since she was a young girl. There were only two types of animals she had to fear, ruffians and Yankee soldiers on patrol.
Both would steal from her and the ruffians would do worse for sure and maybe the Yankee soldiers as well.
Laurie left before the sun came up, attaching lanterns to the sides of the wagon. It would take her about four hours to get to town going the route she had chosen and she had plenty of time to be lost in her thoughts.
At first, she thought of the times before the War, he husband, her sons, and social events with her neighbors and friends; then as always her thoughts turned to worse times. The night she got angry at her oldest son and her husband when they told her they had joined James Pettis’s volunteers to go fight for the Cause. How she lay in bed that night and cried and begged her husband not to and not to take their son with him.
She thought of how her husband told her he had to go for honor’s sake and that the men in the company had elected him captain and he couldn’t let them down. She begged him not to take their son, but he reminded her their oldest was a man now and even he refused to let him go; the boy would run away and join another company of volunteers. What better place for him to be than with me? Her husband had asked her. With me I can watch over him, he told her.
In public, Laurie put on a brave face. How she acted so proud her husband and oldest were going to fight for the Cause and repel the Yankee invaders, but in private she didn’t feel proud, she felt sad and hatred for the Yankees that were invading their country. Why couldn’t they just leave them alone, she thought? She hated Union President Lincoln for raising his army to attack the newly formed Confederacy.
As Laurie rode in the wagon to town, her thoughts of her husband turned to the last night they were in bed together. She thought of how he made love to her over and over again until her sex became sore but she still wanted to feel him inside her. She thought of how their bodies were glistening with their mixture of sweat. She thought of how he used his mouth and fingers on her sex to bring her to orgasm when he tickled her small pleasure nub with his tongue while his fingers found that delightful spot inside her.
Laurie thought of how after each orgasm her husband gave her she had cried knowing this was the last night she would enjoy her husband in that way for a long time. Unlike most Southern people who believed they would “whup them Yankees” in a week or less, her husband knew better and told Laurie the War could last years. That last night with her husband was the last time she had been touched by a man in that manner. The last time she felt the blissful ecstasy of orgasm. That was over six years ago.
As Laurie made her way to Milledgeville she tried to think of something else, her memories of sex with her husband seemed to be dominating her dreams and her idle thoughts as of late. She soon felt her nipples become erect and wet between her legs as she had such indecent thoughts of her husband.
Laurie was a prim and proper Southern Lady and knew such thoughts were not becoming a woman of her social stature, but she also was a sexual and sensual woman who highly enjoyed making love with her husband. From the very first time on their wedding night when she had her first orgasm, she wanted more, many more; and her husband gave her many more. She knew it was indecent to have such desires even for her husband, but she didn’t care. She wanted him always.
Laurie wanted his kisses, his hands and mouth on her shapely breasts and pink nipples. She wanted to touch his hard manhood and stroke it as they kissed and explored each other’s bodies. She always wanted her husband to use his fingers and mouth on her sex and penetrate her with his manhood and make love to her. They were in love and married and she could not get enough of her husband and he could not get enough of her.
Laurie even enjoyed it when her husband showed her other unseemly positions to make love. He would have her get on top of him as he lay on his back in the bed or the embarrassing position of her on her hands and knees on the bed while he took her from behind. She particularly enjoyed that position because it made her feel submissive to her husband when they made love. Feeling submissive to her husband’s sexual desires excited her when he took her.
The first time while on their honeymoon he took her harder and rougher than normal, she had screamed out in pleasure over and over as he thrust powerfully and deep inside her sex. When he brought her to orgasm, Laurie had wept from the sheer pleasure of it. Then he took her again right after he climaxed inside her just as hard and rough. He took her many times that night in the same manner and left her sore and exhausted before he was even finished with her.
When Laurie awoke the next morning, her husband was gone from their bed in the Hotel in London they were staying in. He left a note on the pillow explaining he went to get them breakfast and would be back soon. Laurie lay in bed and tried to sort out her emotions from the previous night.
Her husband that took her that night was not the man she married and their lovemaking had never been as it was that night. He had hurt her and used her brutally through a mad and wild night and she had gloried in it.
Laurie knew she should have been ashamed, should shrink from the memory of hot swirling darkness. A real lady could never hold up her head after such a night. But stronger than shame was the memory of the rapture of the ecstasy of her surrender. Her husband was insatiable in his primal desire to take his young new bride in such a way.
When her husband had returned with the breakfast and told her to get dressed and eat, Laurie smiled at him, uncovered her naked body, and asked him to come back to bed to take her again the way he had that night. Her sex was sore and her body ached, but she wanted more.
Her husband had laughed at her and told her she needed to eat. Laurie then begged her husband to take her again. She could not believe herself! Her, Laurie Campbell Sinclair begging a man, begging anyone! That was unlike her but she begged. So strong was her need to have her husband inside her again she was willing to swallow her pride and beg the man.
Her husband chuckled and removed his clothes and joined her in bed, telling his beautiful redheaded bride to turn over. Laurie did without hesitation as exposed herself in a vulgar manner to her husband. He knelt behind her, took her arms and her head fell to the bed. He held her wrists in one hand behind her back and penetrated her in one powerful thrust. Laurie screamed out in both pain and pleasure. Her husband then took her and took her hard and brutally and the young woman relished in it and orgasmed twice before he had finished.
Even after years of marriage and bearing two sons for her husband, their sex life never diminished. There were many times he took her as he did that night and many nights they made love and were intimate and passionate with one another. Laurie found both ways equally satisfying.
As she made her way on the wagon, she tried to drive those thoughts from her head, but she couldn’t. She started to become angry and frustrated as the wetness between her legs increased and her nipples became painfully erect. She cursed Moses aloud for getting whipped and was angry at him. If he was with her then her thoughts would not be consumed with sex, she thought.
She could talk to him about other things and keep her mind occupied with something else. Her angry thoughts seemed to work and she no longer thought of her husband, at least for a while, but soon they once again came unbidden to her mind.
She was thinking of how she used to lay in bed, naked and with her pale legs spread. How her husband would have her head in between them and use his mouth and fingers on her sex. How she enjoyed that so much. How she would place her hands on the back of his head and run her hands through his soft, black hair as he pleased her body.
Her husband’s soft hair became coarse and shorter and in her thoughts, Laurie opened her eyes and looked down. Her husband’s face was black and had turned into Moses’s. Laurie screamed out in pleasure as the black man penetrated her sex with his long, thick finger. She cried out again as a second huge finger entered her.
“Oh, God!” she screamed out. “Yes, ohhh yes, Moses, there, please touch me there!” Laurie cried out as Moses’s fingers found the sensitive pleasure spot inside her sex that her husband used to expertly find and stimulate.
Moses grinned up at the older white woman. He then lowered his head and placed his mouth over her pussy and his tongue found her little nub, now swollen from arousal. Laurie gripped his head tighter and again cried out in pleasure.
When the young black man quickly brought the older white woman to orgasm, Laurie’s back arched and her stomach and thigh muscles tightened and loosened in rapid succession over and over again as she screamed out in ecstasy.
After her orgasm ended, Laurie lay on her back in a euphoric state, panting and whimpering as she enjoyed a feeling she had not felt in such a long time. Moses was not done with the woman yet though and his sexual need had yet to be sated. The large black man got off the bed and undressed in front of the white woman. Laurie watched as he took off his shirt and under drawers. She could not look away as the man undressed nor did she want to.
She made an audible gasp when Moses took off his shirt and then another when he took off his drawers and exposed his black, magnificent, muscular body for her. Laurie looked down and saw his black manhood was erect and jutting out between his legs from a patch of coarse dark hair. She wanted, no needed, that manhood inside her.
Moses grinned as he got back on the bed and Laurie spread her legs slightly apart and Moses knelt on his knees between them. The man grabbed her thighs roughly and spread her legs further apart. Laurie lifted her body off the bed slightly and reached up and started running her hands over the man’s large, hairy chest and dark nipples. She could feel his hard manhood pressing between her legs.
“Take me, Moses, please take me now,” the woman told him as she moved her hips, trying to get the man to penetrate her sex.
Moses moved his hips to avoid penetrating the woman, grabbed her arms forcefully, and pulled Laurie to him so that she was now sitting up in the bed with her legs draped over his large, muscular thighs. Moses wrapped his strong arms around her waist and crushed his body to hers and lowered his head to kiss her.
Laurie eagerly moved her head to meet his and she parted her lips slightly and Moses pressed his big lips on her smaller ones. She gasped out a whimpering moan into Moses’s mouth when he brought one hand to her chest and started gently teasing her erect, pink nipple with his fingers.
“Please now, please Moses, make love to me now,” she begged as the man started kissing her neck.
“Shhh,” he whispered into her ear. “I want to enjoy your white body first.”
Moses grabbed the wrist of her right hand and guided it to hand to his manhood. She wrapped her loosely hand around his erection and started to run her hand up and down his shaft.
“You like touching my black manhood, don’t you?” he asked whispering in her ear.
“Yes, Moses, dear God yes,” Laurie admitted as she touched the younger man.
Moses pinched her nipple harder and Laurie cried out from the pain and pleasure of it, but she still ran her hand up and down the shaft of Moses’s manhood. In her lust and need to have the black man, the older white woman could not force herself not to touch him there. She gave another cry but this was in frustration when Moses’s fingers left her nipples. She wanted him to keep pinching it hard. She wanted to continue to feel the painful pleasure of it.
Laurie opened her mouth to tell Moses to keep teasing her nipple but before she could say a word his large lips touched her and kissed her with powerful passion. Laurie moaned into his mouth as she parted her lips and sucked his tongue into her. As they kissed fiercely, she felt Moses’s large black hand run down her stomach and then between her legs. Still kissing him, Laurie cried out a third time when one of Moses’ large fingers entered her wet sex.
Laurie moved her head back and looked into the man’s dark brown eyes. “Now, Moses, damn you, Moses, put it in me now!” she demanded.
Moses grinned at the older white woman. “Not yet,” he told her. “You don’t own me anymore. You remember that, woman.
Laurie was strong-willed and stubborn and normally got what she wanted, whether through physical looks and womanly charms or her sheer will. Only one person saw another side of her and that was her husband. Laurie was very similar to her mother when it came to her marriage. She
In bed with her husband, however, she was submissive to him and obeyed him in every way. In her thoughts of Moses, she felt the same. She wanted to feel the same with the black man.
Laurie felt a big bump in the wagon and heard Old Tom braying that brought her out of her perverted daydream. She had not been paying attention and the mule was old and of poor eyesight and he had run the cart into the ditch on the side of the road.
“Hell’s fire!” Laurie cursed aloud.
The wagon was titled to the right side and both right wheels were in the ditch. Laurie first checked the cargo and it was fine. Not even the glass jars of honey had been broken. She climbed off the wagon and checked the wheels and sighed in relief when she saw both were unbroken.
Laurie walked to Old Tom and grabbed his bridle and pulled the stubborn animal trying to free the wagon from the ditch. It would budge. She tried again and again until the mule had enough and refused to cooperate. He was too old and too weak to be able to pull the wagon free.
Laurie cursed the mule, the wagon, and even Moses for not being able to come with her and for invading her daydreams with perverted thoughts. She knew with the strong man’s help she could have pulled the wagon free; he was as strong as three men.
Laurie knew she was only about three miles from Milledgeville and could walk and get help, but she didn’t want to leave the wagon. She knew that most likely by the time she got back, someone would have stolen all her cargo and even as old as Ole Tom was, stolen him also. They would take the entire wagon if they could get it out of the ditch.
She screamed aloud in frustration and sat on the edge of the ditch. She then lowered her head, placed her hands on her face, and started to cry out of anger and also shame. She was angry at Moses more than anybody even if she had no cause to be. She was angry at the young black man for invading her thoughts and dreams with such perversions and felt shame in herself for letting the thoughts arouse her.
“Damn him!” she cursed Moses aloud. “It’s all his fault!”
Laurie cried for some time and then she heard the sound of horses coming down the road toward the town. She looked up and saw six riders coming her way. She could see them through the dust of the dirt the horse kicked up.
“Yankees,” she said out loud. She could make out their blue uniforms.
The woman wiped her eyes and ran to the wagon, reached under the seat, and grabbed the white cloth poke that contained the pistol shoes, and one of the twenty-dollar gold pieces. Laurie tossed it into the tree line over the ditch. She knew they would search her wagon. She didn’t have time to retrieve the other gold piece hidden under the honey jars before the soldiers were upon her. Laurie stood behind the wagon as the soldiers reined in their horses and stopped.
The lead rider walked his horse close to Laurie and touched his hand to his hat. “Ma’am,” he said.
“Sergeant,” Laurie replied. She had noticed the stripes on his blue jacket.
He was a kind-looking man who appeared to be in his forties. His face was wrinkly and his mustache bushy and unkempt, but the rest of his face was clean-shaven.
“Got yourself in a tight spot, I see,” he told the woman. Laurie nodded but didn’t respond to the obvious situation. “Well, me and the boys can help.”
His northern accent made Laurie’s skin crawl. It sounded like he was from the New England area.
The sergeant ordered his men to dismount. One held the reins of the horses and the sergeant and the other four soldiers went to work pulling and pushing the wagon from the ditch. It didn’t take them long.
“Thank you, sergeant. I’ll be on my way now,” Laurie told the man.
“Can’t let you do that, ma’am. We got to search the wagon for contraband,” he told her.
“Since when are vegetables considered contraband?” the woman asked in a haughty tone.
“Since you rebels can hide things under the vegetables,” he replied. He turned his head to his men. “Reynolds, keep an eye on her while we search the wagon.”
The sergeant and two of his men walked to the wagon as another soldier walked toward Laurie. He was a big man and had two stripes on the sleeves of his uniform, a corporal. He was ugly and had a cruel face. He walked toward the woman slowly and was leering at her as he stepped closer to her. His eyes roamed up and down Laurie’s body. He stopped close in front of her, too close Laurie thought.
“We had some trouble last night with the Klan. Wouldn’t know anything about that would you?” he asked her.
“The Klan?” Laurie asked, confused by the name.
“It’s what you rebs are calling them Night Riders now. The Klu Klux Klan,” the man told her. “All over the South.”
The Klu Klux Klan, Laurie thought, she had never heard of a more ridiculous name.
“And what kind of trouble?” she asked.
“They hanged an African last night down near Shanty Town. That ain’t no concern to us, but they also shot and killed a white man who was with him. That is our concern since he was a veteran of the army.”
“Serves him right for the company he keeps. Maybe he should have chosen his associates more carefully,” Laurie told the man with an indignant tone of her voice.
The man smiled and leaned in closer to her, so close she could smell his rancid breath. The corporal reached up and touched her cheek with the back of his hand and ran it caressingly down her face. Laurie didn’t flinch and just stared hatred into the man’s eyes.
“You’re a feisty reb, ain’t you,” he told her. He then ran his hand through her thick, red hair and brought a handful of it up to his nose, and smelled it. “A nice right piece of ginger cunny, for sure.” He gave her hair a little tug. It stung Laurie’s scalp but she didn’t flinch. “What say we go into the woods there for a bit? Give you something your reb husband can’t give you as well as I can,” He smelled her hair again. “Might reckon you would even enjoy it and get your ginger-haired cunt all wet and tingly.”
Laurie’s followed his gaze and looked over the other men. Most seemed nervous and uncomfortable but two were grinning and leering at her. She turned her head back to the corporal and did a very unladylike thing. She spat in his face.
The soldier backhanded her across her cheek, just under her left eye, with so much force Laurie fell to the ground and it knocked her hat off. She looked up at the man defiantly. She wished she had her pistol in her hand. Even she could not have missed at that close range.
“Why you rebel bitch,” he yelled at her as he wiped the spit from his face. “I was going to make your feel good, but now I just going to hurt you.”
Laurie was frightened but she didn’t show it. The big, ugly man raised a foot to kicked her.
“Corporal,” Laurie heard a voice behind her. “That’s enough.”
She turned her head to see the sergeant looking at her as he spoke to his corporal. Laurie could hear a hint of fear in the sergeant’s voice. He may have outranked the other man, but he was afraid of him. The sergeant had his hand on the butt of his pistol.
Although she was grateful, Laurie hated him for that look. She hated anyone pitying her, and it coming from a Yankee soldier made it worse.
“We didn’t find any contraband and we best be getting back. The captain will want our report,” the sergeant told his men.
Laurie looked around and saw most of the men nodding their heads and looking relieved, but the two that had been leering at her looked disappointed at the sergeant’s words.
The corporal looked down at Laurie. “Maybe I’ll find out who you are and where you live and come to pay you a visit one night” he threatened.
The sergeant ordered his men to empty three of the crates holding her corn and they filled them up with assorted vegetables, including all of her tomatoes. He then took the crate holding the eight jars of honey.
As they mounted their horses, the sergeant looked at Laurie again and tipped his hat to her. He looked like he wanted her to thank him. Laurie spat on the ground.
After the soldiers left, the woman stood up and rubbed her cheek, she knew by the force of the blow it would leave an ugly bruise. She then picked up her hat and put it back on her head.
When the Yankees rode around a bend in the road, Laurie walked into the tree line and retrieved the poke. They had taken one of her twenty-dollar gold pieces when they stole her honey. She hoped when they found it they would fight over it and one of them would get killed in the fight. She hoped it would be the corporal.
Laurie got back into her wagon and picked up the reins. Her hands started shaking uncontrollably. She started breathing hard and tears came down her cheeks as what might have happened overwhelmed her. Unlike her earlier crying fit where she cried from the shame of thinking about Moses as she did and even though she would never admit it to herself, she cried out of sexual frustration. I true lady does not admit to such things even to herself. Sitting in the wagon, Laurie cried out of fear of what happened and might have happened.
Once she calmed down as best as she could, Laurie urged the mule forward and rode into the small city of Milledgeville.
Once the state Capitol, the city had such a future and was on the way to becoming the largest city in Georgia. The Yankees and the state legislation put an end to that. Sherman’s army and Sherman himself occupied the city for weeks before they continued their march to Savannah.
Being not only the state capitol but also home to Confederate General Howell Cobb, one of the leading Generals in the Confederate Army and once Secretary of the Treasury under President James Buchanan, Sherman wanted Milledgeville and its inhabitants to suffer. He gave his officers orders to spare nothing.
They looted and burned a large portion of the city and committed terrible acts of senseless vandalism. The Yankees raised the Union flag over the capitol building and held a mock session of the legislature, where they voted to repeal Georgia’s ordinance of secession. The troops ransacked the state archives, looted the state library, and burned Confederate currency. Sherman himself gave orders to his officers to encourage the freed slaves that were following his army to take whatever they wanted.
The Yankee Blue Coats even forever ruined the pipe organ at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. The pipe organ was crafted by the Austrian Matthaus Abbrederis, considered one of the greatest pipe organ manufacturers in the world. The organ was handcrafted, the pipes elaborately decorated, and the keys made of ivory. The pipe organ was the largest and most elaborate in the state.
It now sits as a pile of useless junk after the Yankees poured gallons of molasses they looted from the Cobb Plantation down the pipes and pried out the ivory keys.
Sherman’s Bummers looted the countryside and seized food, livestock, draft animals, wagons, and other supplies needed for their march, including Laurie’s home. The Yankees looted and burned countless homes and businesses, leaving large swaths of destruction in their wake. Many civilians were left without food or shelter.
After the War, the city was under military occupation and martial law during reconstruction and would remain so until the state was once more allowed to join the Union. The Georgia State legislation had voted to change the capitol from Milledgeville to the growing city of Atlanta. Milledgeville would never fully recover from Sherman’s destruction or losing its status as the state capitol. It would remain a small town forever.
Laurie drove the wagon into the town and decided to try and sell her goods at Donavan’s Mercantile instead of the market. She didn’t have much left after the soldier’s thievery and it wasn’t worth the price she would have to pay to rent a stall at the market.
Plus she was behind schedule, with her wagon getting stuck in the ditch and her crying fit had put her behind almost two hours. The best stalls would be taken and most people would have already purchased what they needed by the time she had herself set up and opened for business. She hated dealing at Donavan’s, however, but had no choice.
Donavan’s Mercantile had been owned and run by Old Man Donavan and his wife before Laurie had been born. Everyone called him Old Man Donavan, even people his age. When the first Yankee bummers came into the city, they looted and vandalized the man’s store. Even in his old age, Donavan had tried to fight them with a broom. One of the bummers hit the poor man with his rifle butt and knocked him unconscious. He died four days later.
Having no children that survived childbirth, his wife was left with just an almost empty store after the Yankees left. She did her best to reopen the store and even received help from neighbors and the other good people of the county, Laurie included, donating what they could spare. But no one had enough and most nothing at all. Mrs. Donavan sold the store after the War to a Yankee carpetbagger for a minimal price. The new owner kept the mercantile store’s name as Donavan’s.
He bought and sold at two different prices. For the Union soldiers and the Northern folk who had invaded their land, he bought and sold at a reasonable price. For the good, honest Southern people, he bought at a lower price and sold at a higher price.
Once a black couple and their sons had opened a mercantile store on the edge of the west side of town and Laurie sold her meager crops there for a decent price. Gossip flew about her for doing that, but she didn’t care. Their Yankee greenbacks and coins were just as good as a white man’s. The Night Riders, or the Klu Klux Klan as they now called themselves, had burned them out and killed one of his sons almost a year ago. Now the good, honest black folk who didn’t live in Shanty Town and tried to scratch out a living bartered only between themselves.
Laurie drove her wagon around the back of the store, haggled over the price, and sold all her goods for the best price she thought she could get or traded for other items she needed. After all the deals were done, she was left with not much, but maybe just a bit more than if she would have sold them in the market with the overhead of renting a stall. While at Donavan’s, Laurie brought Moses some good smoking tobacco for his pipe.
Laurie drove the wagon to the livery, paid to stable Old Tom and the wagon, and even for some oats for the mule. He only got oats when Laurie went to town so it was a treat for the stubborn old beast. She took her poke containing Moses’s shoes and the gold piece with her. She left her pistol with Jones Davis, the man who owned the livery. He was the sheriff’s cousin, but unlike the sheriff, Jones was a good man and would hide it and keep it safe for her.
Laurie’s next stop was to have Moses’s shoes resoled but instead, she saw they had a pair of Brogan’s that would fit the large man’s feet and she bought him a new pair instead. She decided to buy herself a pair as well, a boy’s size pair to fit her smaller feet. They would not be stylish but more practical than the shoes she wore currently. She had to break her twenty-dollar gold piece to buy the shoes.
For some reason the woman could not explain, buying Moses new shoes and smoking tobacco made her feel good. It made her feel good he would be pleased. Oh, he would complain about her spending money on him, but he would be pleased that she did. Making Moses pleased with her gave Laurie an excited chill up her spine. She blushed at having that thought but smiled as well.
The rest of her time in town was mostly uneventful. Laurie ran into a few women she knew and was filled in on the latest gossip, not that she cared for gossip anymore, but she listened anyway.
The first woman she ran into was Harriet Hamilton, whose husband was one of the riders that came to her home the night before. Laurie had known Harriet since they were children. They used to be good friends with each other when they attended The Milledgeville Female Academy and graduated together at age fifteen.
At the Academy, Laurie learned her reading, writing, and basic mathematics. She was also taught music, basic French, dance, needlepoint, and the etiquette and fine art of being a proper Southern Lady.
After her graduation her parents wanted her to be more educated so they hired a private tutor, a small bookish Englishman. He taught Laurie world history, both modern and ancient, and Laurie loved the stories of the Greek gods and goddesses and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. He educated her on advanced math, which she excelled at, science, Shakespeare, and other subjects. He was her first crush.
The only thing that held any interest for her was when she read a posting at the county courthouse that the property taxes would be raised again that year. The notice stipulated the tax increase would only be on land and property that was owned by the owners before 1861. That meant only on the Southern land owners, not the Yankee carpetbaggers land.
That worried and angered the woman. She did not know how she was going to afford her taxes previously, but now it was going to be more difficult.
With her errands done, Laurie walked back to the livery, and on the way, she gave a veteran of the Confederate army some money to buy himself something to eat and told him to go to Mrs. Leary’s home. She took in borders and would not even consider taking money from a Confederate veteran.
She took the time to talk to the young man, who reminded Laurie of her oldest son. The poor boy had lost a leg in battle and was from Augusta. By the time he made it home after the War, he found the small farm his parents owned burned down by the Yankees and his father dead, and his mother gone. He was headed to Tennessee where he had heard his mother had left for because they had kin there.
Laurie told the boy that a train left Macon and had a stop in Chattanooga. The boy blushed as he told the pretty red-headed lady with a bruised cheek he didn’t have money for a train. He tried to refuse the money Laurie gave him for a train ticket, but he found the woman insistent and stubborn and she would not take no for an answer.
Laurie went to the livery, collected her pistol, and drove her wagon back to the mercantile store to pick up the supplies she had purchased and bartered for and headed back to her home. Without any further delays, she should be home in time for supper.
As Laurie drove the old mule she realized that she had spent more money than she earned and that made her angry. She was angry again at Moses; this time for needing new shoes and buying him the tobacco. She no longer felt good about how happy he would be. Laurie was angry about being robbed and the taxes increasing.
She could start sharecropping, she thought, but no that took money to set up the sharecroppers and she did not have money. Plus the thought of giving her land away did not sit well with her. She could remarry, the woman thought.
The pickings would be slim at her age but there were few unmarried men left that had at least some money. They were men much older than her and widowed. Most of the younger men had not come back from the War and the ones that did were snatched up by the younger girls in the county. Not that the younger men would marry her. They would happily share a night or several nights in her bed, but not marry her.
She was too old for the younger men and could not give them children. She had a difficult birth with her youngest son and the doctor told her she could no longer become pregnant.
If she did remarry it would be a marriage of convenience and she would only have to perform her wifely duties two or maybe three times a month. In exchange, the man would have a pretty younger wife with a well-respected reputation and family name at his side to show off. She didn’t want to remarry, but remarrying was her best hope if she could not find another way to pay her taxes. She would do anything to save her home.
By the time Laurie’s wagon turned up the long, red clay road to her home she was fuming with anger about everything. She had been so angry with any small annoyance over the last few months and could not understand why, but everything just seemed to grate on her nerves. Fear suddenly replaced her anger as the wagon made its way up the drive.
She smelled smoke! Memories of the first time the Yankees came through flooded her mind. Maybe that Yankee corporal had asked around and found out who she was and where she lived. Maybe he came back with some of his fellow soldiers to finish what he started and to burn her out. Did they kill Moses? She thought with panic rushing over her.
She knew the large black man would defend her home with his life if need be. Laurie knew his loyalty to her. She suddenly caught another scent; the scent of cooking meat. She sighed and her fear washed away only to be replaced by anger again.
“Hell’s fire!” she said aloud. “If that man went hunting today in his condition and barefoot I am going to skin him alive!”
She urged the mule on and sure enough, when she drove closer to her house, she saw Moses standing over a fire pit and basting a small pig on a spit. God it sure smelled good, Laurie thought and her stomach rumbled with hunger and her mouth watered. But she was still angry at the black man.
There were plenty of wild pigs on her land, but Laurie avoided hunting them even though they chased other game away and told Moses to do the same. Wild pig hunting was dangerous under the best of circumstances but with Moses injured and no hunting dogs and only a shotgun, the fool could have gotten himself skewered by a boar!
Laurie then saw another sight. Tethered to the front porch were a horse and a mule. A saddle lay on the ground next to the horse and on the back of the mule was a pack saddle that seemed to be full.
Laurie became frightened again, but this time it was a different fear. She was afraid Moses had stolen a horse and a mule and was going to leave her. She couldn’t bear the thought of that! She couldn’t survive without Moses! Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought.
Moses turned when he heard the wagon drive up and he gave Laurie a large grin. Laurie pulled the wagon to a stop and quickly jumped down.
“By hell’s fire, Moses!” she yelled at the black man, close to breaking down into a crying fit again. “Where did you get that pig!”
“Now, Misses Sinclair, don’t be getting all riled up,” Moses told her. “It ain’t healthy for ya and…Lardy, Misses Sinclair, what done happened to your face? Done someone….”
“You never mind my face and don’t tell me what to do, you stupid big oaf!” interrupted him.
She was angry and afraid and her temper was at a boiling point. Moses was still grinning at her and that inflamed her more. The woman picked up a rock and threw it at Moses’s head. It missed him by a good three feet.
“And…and where did you get the horse and the mule? If the sheriff finds out you stole them he is going to whip and hang you for sure and there is nothing I can do to stop him this time!” she screamed. “And…and by hell’s fire, Moses, where do you think you are running off to? The sheriff’s dogs will track you down in less than a day! You know he trained them special to catch runaways before the War!” Laurie had tears running down her cheeks from anger and fear.
“They’re mine, Miss Laurie,” Laurie heard a voice behind her, a sweet female voice.
She turned her head to see Cecelia Trelawney standing on the porch at the doorway smiling. The small girl was wearing a pair of man’s trousers that were too big for her and cinched at the waist by a belt and wearing a man’s shirt that was also too big for her. The young girl was wiping her hands on an apron around her waist.
“The horse and mule are mine and Billy shot the pig this morning,” the pretty girl then grinned. “He still is a good shot even with only one arm now. Not as good as me though, he never was as good as me. Moses and I were cooking you supper since we knew you’d be tired after you got back from town.”
Billy was Cecelia’s older brother who had lost an arm at Gettysburg. Billy had been Laurie’s oldest son’s best friend and the two were inseparable. He had been wounded in the arm going up the hill trying to push the Union troops off Cemetery Ridge during that valiant but disastrous charge now known as Pickett’s Charge. Billy had his arm amputated as a result of that charge; Laurie’s son had lost his life going up that damn hill.
Laurie looked at both Moses and Cecelia and back to Moses and then back to Cecelia. She was shaking. She took several deep breaths and calmed down and looked at the younger girl.
“If you are staying for supper, might ass stay the night,” she told Cecelia. “Be too late for you to ride home and it will be dark out before you get there.”
The girl was grinning. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And we are eating in the dining room and Moses is joining us. You have a problem with that, Cecelia Trelawney, you best ride home right now and you can take that pig with you,” Laurie said sharply with her hands on her waist.
The girl was still grinning and she looked at Moses and then back to the feisty older woman. “No, ma’am, I ain’t got no problem with that at all”
“It’s ‘I don’t have any problem with that at all’,” Laurie corrected. “I know where you went to school; even if you were lucky Mrs. Fayette didn’t expel you for your antics, I know what you were taught because I went there also.”
Laurie noticed the girl was trying not to laugh. That annoyed her, but she had known the pretty girl all the girl’s young life and knew nothing could ever dampen her spirits. Laurie turned to Moses to take her frustration out on him.
“That goes for you too, Moses,” she yelled at the black man, who was grinning just as much as Cecelia. “I hear ain’t from your mouth one more time and I’ll skin you alive you hear me?”
“But I done hear you say it plenty of time, Misses Sinclair,” the man told her.
“Just you never mind what you hear me say. I’ll hear no more back talk from you,” she turned to face the young girl, “and you either, young lady.”
“Why, Miss Laurie, I haven’t said anything,” the girl said and started giggling. She emphasized the word haven’t.
Laurie heard Moses chuckle and she turned back to the black man. “Just…you…just unpack the wagon and don’t you dare open any of the packages,” she told the man.
She wanted to surprise him with the shoes and tobacco and see his face when he saw what she bought him.
The older woman stormed past Cecelia and into the house, muttering under her breath as she did so. She knew when she was fighting a losing battle.
“Moses, Miss Laurie sure is riled up something fierce, ain’t she,” she heard Cecelia tell Moses as she was giggling.
Once she got into the house she smiled. She smiled because Moses was not leaving her as she feared and she smiled because Cecelia Trelawney had come to visit. She had always adored the spirited, young, beautiful, vivacious girl and it would be nice to have female company for the night.
