THE FRENCHMAN’S PROMISE
By
Hank Valon
The carriage hurtled down the dirt road throwing up mud with each wheel. On top in the driver’s seat Oscar the driver handled the pair of bays and dodged the mud thrown up by their hooves while Old Simon the butler, struggled just to stay aboard. Inside, even though they had their feet braced against the seat opposite and were hanging on for dear life, the jolting unsprung frame bounced the three female passengers free of their seats occasionally. The dirt road with its occasional large rock and potholes gave quite a jolt at eight miles an hour. The driver’s sudden “Whoa! Whoa there!” and the resulting skidding stop as the brakes were applied. Amanda was thrown up out of the seat and across the coach to land on top of her mother and sister.
Extricating herself from the pile of petticoats and dresses, she struggled to her feet angrily. With hat and curls askew she unlatched the door and intended to step out in a dignified manner and reprimand Oscar severely for his careless driving. However her heel caught in the hem of Rebecca’s dress and sent her diving out the door headfirst. She landed in the mud with her posterior skyward and the rest of her buried under a pile of petticoats.
The sound of several male voices laughing uproariously did not bode well. It was Rebecca that pulled her into a more upright position and dug into the pile of petticoats and quickly restored her modesty, though not her dignity. Her hat was askew and the brim torn through and down around her neck when Rebecca pulled her to her feet. It was at this point she could see the sources of the laughter. A semicircle of horses faced the coach. The mounted men were masked and held fusils pointed at Oscar and Simon. “The highwaymen!” flashed through her mind.
“Good day to you, ladies,” said the tallest of them. He didn’t tip his hat, which was clamped down over a black hood. I hope one of you is Miss Amanda Greene?”
“I’m Amanda Greene,” she said trying to be belligerent instead of scared to death. “What do you want? We aren’t carrying any money.”
“Well now missy, we didn’t expect you to be carrying the family fortune today, but we thought your papa should be willin’ to part with some of it to get you back. We have calculated you to be worth about two hunnerd pounds.
“Davy, fetch the lady her horse.”
A tall thin rider led a horse from the bushes. “We takin’ both of ‘em?”
“No, we’re not greedy,” said the leader. “Don’t want ta take all a man’s daughters bein’s he doesn’t have any sons. This one will do for now.
“Now Madam Greene, you tell Mr. Greene we’ll be notifyin’ him as to how to pay the ransom. Don’t want no tobacco or corn nor cattle. We want coin of the realm, gold or silver.
“Git her up there, Davy?”
“’ope she don’t fall off,” replied Davy.
“I won’t fall off. You men will rue this day,” she warned as two of the ruffians hoisted her aboard the horse sideways. She slipped her muddy shoe into the stirrup “You just wait. I am engaged to be married to Giles Sanford. He’ll have every ranger in the colony after you brigands.”
“Why missy,” said the leader. “That is plumb frightening, but the last time I looked we already have every ranger in Virginia looking for us. Haw, haw. Let’s go.” He waved his hand over his head and lead the band into the trees. In just a few seconds they were gone.
***
The leader of the highwaymen was alone when he rode up to the huge barn in the darkness. He could see the same carriage parked in front of the house. The two bays were standing patiently. He dismounted and walked his horse into the breezeway.
“That you Harry?” came a voice in the darkness.
“Yes, You Red?”
“Yep, Gilly’s got visitors. Mr. Greene is bringin’ Gilley the bad news ‘bout his daughter bein’ kidnapped. Ain’t that a shame,” said the mocking voice.
“Just terrible,” replied Harry. “Poor thing, she had to eat with her fingers tonight.”
“You have any trouble keepin’ her on the horse?”
“You know, we was surprised. She stayed on that horse the whole way to Number Two. Never fell off once. I warned Davy to keep an eye on her. She can ride purty good. If she gets loose and makes it to a horse she’ll be the devil to catch again. You got a bottle out here? Looks like Gilley might be busy awhile.”
“I’ll go fetch you one from the house,” said Red. “Want something to eat? Tully can get the cook to fill you a plate?”
“If you would. I didn’t stay to eat with the others.” Harry led his horse to a stall and slipped off the bridle and saddle.
It was an hour later before the carriage left and Harry walked up to the house. Tully led him into the big hall with its long table. Gilley was sitting at the table with a bottle and glasses in front of him.
“I take it everything went as planned,” said Gilley pouring two glasses.
“Without any problems,” replied Harry taking a seat. “Your part?”
“The fool couldn’t wait to sign the note for a mere two hundred. He is working harder than we are to make this work. It’s hard to believe. He thinks he’s taking advantage of me! Can you believe it? Last month he comes to proposition me to marry his daughter so she’ll be financially secure. He tells me she is his heir to bait me into the proposition. He has title to twenty thousand acres. Five thousand is already under cultivation with twenty tenants. I already have that much and more so he has to make his daughter seem worth my time. He signed a marriage contract that gives the whole thing to her when he dies. Then tonight after you kidnap his daughter he comes to me to borrow the ransom money. He doesn’t have the cash, just tobacco and land. He signed this note, which he thought was a collateral note for the two hundred pounds. He thinks he’s to repay me two hundred pounds in tobacco next spring.”
Harry sipped his whiskey. “What does it say?”
“It says that he borrowed two thousand pounds and if he dies before next spring his property comes to me if his estate can’t come up with two thousand pounds in gold or silver to repay the loan. Of course I had to agree to marry his oldest daughter, Amanda. I had to write in a lot of words to befuddle his mind. He doesn’t read too well. He was only interested in getting me to agree to marry his daughter. He ignored the rest.”
“So we still have to work the ransom for the two hundred?” asked Harry.
“Well, that will just give your boys something to do. The two hundred will go to them. We have to keep them happy and out of trouble. We don’t want any of them going off and working on their own and getting caught. Think of me, I have to marry the girl. From what I have seen she looks all right, but she’s spoiled rotten. I doubt she can make a decent cup of tea.”
“And we have until next spring to make her an orphan,” said Harry.
“And then me a widower. That’s a whole year,” said Gilley. “I daresay we could murder the both of them a hundred different ways in that length of time. We can sell the land or put a good overseer on it and retire to Williamsburg or Charlestown and drink good whiskey and make bastards for the rest of our lives.” He raised his glass in a toast.
“Sounds good enough,’ agreed Harry. “But I don’t know. I don’t think I could live the life of a gentleman. I get the urge to cut a throat every now and then. Gentlemen aren’t allowed to do that.”
“Oh, but they are,” replied Gilley. “A gentleman is allowed to do things the common folks can’t. If a gentleman gets caught stealin’ he just says it was all a mistake and here your honor, here’s a hundred. Why don’t you buy your wife a new butler? Or Mr. Smith you thought I stole your horse? Why I was just buyin’ him. Here’s a sack of money.”
“But I was sayin’ throat cuttin’,” said Harry. “That’s a little different.”
“Not so,” said Gilley. “You just have to know who to pay for the privilege. After we sell these estates we’ll have more than enough to pay for all the privilege we want.”
“Speakin’ of privilege,” said Harry, “Some of the boys went over the mountains to see what was there. They run across some Shawnee Indians out huntin’ buffalo. There weren’t many Indians, so they lit into ‘em. They collected some scalp bounty and took a couple women and a boy for slaves. The boy escaped and one of the women come down sick so they traded her to some other Indians for buffalo hides. The one woman they brought back they brought for you. They know how you like your play women. This one is about as pretty a woman I ever saw. And just about as mean a one too. You like ‘em with a little fight. This one nearly killed Quint. She caught him lookin away and hit him in the head with a rock and she was tied up at the time.”
“You say she is pretty?” said Gilley brightening.
“Very,” said Harry. “Every bit as pretty as that bit of fluff we took to Number Two.”
“And frisky?” Said Gilley smiling.
“I’d call it vicious,” said Harry. “I’d slit her throat and sell her scalp. But you have different tastes. Couple of the boys insisted we save her for you. We’ll bring her around. You can always slit her throat later, if she don’t slit yours first.”
***
Amanda was shoved through a door that was slammed behind her. She quickly jerked off the hood and looked around for someone to vent her wrath. There was only darkness and foul smells. The door was opened again. The bonfire silhouetted a woman in the doorway. Before she could say anything the woman dropped a small kettle on the dirt floor and closed the door. Amanda approached it. In the darkness she smelled some sort of meat. Her hunger overcame her reluctance to be wary of anything from her captors. By feel she found the hot kettle and a turkey leg protruding from cornmeal mush. There was no spoon. She had to resort to her fingers. Afterwards she knew her hands and face were a mess, but there was no way to clean them other than a vigorous wiping with one of her petticoats. There was no water in the small cabin, nor furniture or bed. She finally laid down and rested her head against the wall.
She could hear the brigands through the wall. They were playing at some dice game and drinking. She could hear their loud exclamations and the clink of their bottles. She was tired and wanted to sleep, but she feared what would happen. There was nothing to stop these men from doing what they wanted, and she had heard what happened to women who fell into their hands. She knew they would come for her sooner or later. What she didn’t know was what to do when that happened. She was certain begging and pleading would be useless. She was too small and too weak to fight these men. Submission seemed her only choice.
It was morning when she awoke. She hadn’t been bothered during the night. “Why?” She wondered. “Am I so repulsive?”
A woman brought another kettle or rather the same kettle. Apparently she had come in during the night and retrieved it. It was half full of just mush this morning. Amanda ate a little with her fingers, trying to keep as neat as possible. Before she was finished the door opened again and the woman appeared with the bag that had been her hood the previous day.
“Put it on,” she ordered. “You’re going.”
Her first thought was the ransom had been paid and she was being freed, but that thought quickly died. Papa couldn’t get that much money together so quickly and get it delivered to the highwaymen in the night. They were moving. Perhaps the rangers were close by. The brigands were fleeing.
Throughout the day her thoughts were random and varied. From inside the hood her hearing and smell senses were tested. The sounds and smells only left her confused. The brigands talked very little all day. They traveled mostly through forest. Occasionally the breezes suggested they were in open country. They stopped less frequently than her bladder wanted, but any protest was provocation for a cursing and a cuff to the head. They meant their order to keep silent.
They reached a rock overhang late in the afternoon. She wasn’t allowed to remove the hood at this camp. Food was a large slice of roast venison. A band was tied over the hood clamping it to her eyes then the lower part of the hood folded up to allow her to eat and drink. She was tied to a tree by a noose around her neck. The brigands left her and moved off a little way so they could talk without her hearing their conversation.
And that set the pattern for her sojourn with the brigands for the next two weeks. They never stayed at one camp more than three days and that was because of rain. She determined there were four camps and she was carried back and forth between them. Whether it was to confuse her into thinking they were moving between many camps or just to confuse their pursuers she couldn’t tell. They refrained from talking to her and she didn’t attempt conversation. She just listened.
She learned names: Harry, the leader, Davy, his lieutenant, Quint, Harvey, Smith, and Luke. There were others but she didn’t learn their names. She listened and remembered. The other women never spoke in her presence other than to pass instructions from the brigands. After two weeks she feared her father had been unable to raise the ransom. The brigands began making remarks that indicated there was some sort of problem in the negotiations. They began making suggestions about collecting the ransom in other ways. They began taking liberties. Hands began touching places that had been respected. While she waited to be placed on a horse one of them used a stick to lift her skirt and petticoats for a look under. She whirled away to foil the attempt, drawing laughter from the others that had been watching.
***
Matthew Greene was meeting in his sitting room with Colonel Barton and Captain Ashley of the rangers and Will Carstairs.
“I have the money,” he said to the others. “But I’m not paying it out for a corpse. I love my daughter. I want her to be happily married to Giles Sanford and settled in her life. But if those brigands have killed her and expect me to reward them for their villainy they are badly mistaken.”
“But they have always surrendered their hostages when the ransom was paid,” argued Will Carstairs. He was a sandy haired planter whose property was farthest west and butted right against the mountains. His hill farm was hard work with poor return. “You’re delaying the ransom will only anger them. They will take out their anger on her.”
“Possibly, but I’m not betting my daughter’s life in trusting such men. I want assurances she’s still alive. If I pay the ransom what is their incentive to return her? Their word of honor? Please gentlemen, she is my daughter. Please spread the word that I will pay the ransom in gold as they requested one week from today at the place of their choosing. I will bring two armed men with me and they can bring two armed men with them. I will bring the gold and they will bring my daughter. We will make the exchange and go our separate ways. They can wear their masks. I suggest a wide open field near a forest or swamp so they can make a safe retreat afterwards. I don’t care if they get away. I only want my daughter returned safely.”
“We should make an attempt to outwit them,” said Captain Ashley. “Who knows who they will kidnap next?”
“That is their problem,” said Matthew. “I just want my daughter back safe and sound. You can set your traps on the next kidnapping. This time I want the rangers to stay away, far away.”
***
Harry was away and his lieutenant, Davy, was left in charge. They were at the camp where she had been kept the first night. Through the door they ordered her to put on her hood. Then they brought her out to the bonfire where several of the brigands were gathered. She could hear the clink of bottles and smell the liquor. The voices were slurred.
“Now, missy,” said Davy. “Your pa is being a bit of a problem. ‘e must not love you as much as we thought. We know ‘e borrowed the money, but ‘e don’t seem to want to part with it. Now, we ‘ave treated you just as nice as any gentlemen would. But your papa is takin too much of our time. We think you ought to pay a little extra for this delay, so we have decided you should make one of our evenings just a little bit more interestin’. We tossed the bones all fair as can be and ‘arvey, here, won the privilege of having you warm ‘is blankets tonight. Now, if you behave yourself and treat ‘arvey as kindly as you would any fine young gentleman we’ll see to it you get a better place to sleep.”
The time had come. Amanda had reached the point of decision. Should she make a futile fight or submit to this rude crude brigand’s lust?
***
The Frenchman drove the dugout cedar canoe through the water and up onto the mudbank. He hopped out and dragged the canoe out of the water and up the bank into the bushes. His longbow and arrows and bag were removed from the canoe and set aside. After rolling the canoe over he dragged dry branches and covered it with a pile of dry leaves. Hopefully a rain shower would mat the leaves down and conceal the canoe even more. With his bag and weapons he pushed through the bushes and made his way up the hill, looking for a path going east.
***
Matthew Greene pushed forward with his plan to marry his eldest daughter to the wealthiest man in the district. Her kidnapping had merely delayed the event. Giles Sanford’s loan of the money for the ransom cemented his involvement in her welfare. The brigands couldn’t possibly back out of the exchange. He had made certain they would get their money if they followed through with her return. But they had to return her. She would have no value to them dead. He was certain they would not pass up the ransom money.
Giles Sanford also had a scheme. He intended to acquire all of Greene’s property. He had much and intended to acquire more. He liked women who gave him pleasure. If not, their value was nil. He had an Irish lass and an African wench to entertain him. Now Harry was bringing him a Red Indian with beauty and spirit. His life couldn’t be better.
In the big house on the hill Tully, the potbellied butler, was bathing the Indian woman. Of course he had help. The woman was bound hand and foot with a leather strap tied through her mouth. The weapons nature had given her had been brought to bear more than once against her captors. Two men held her in the tub while the two housemaids, Colleen and Mary, bathed her. Tully just supervised. He didn’t approve of his master’s women. If it was his decision they would all three be bashed on the head and dumped in a deep ravine. But butler’s must merely follow orders and see to their master’s wishes. This Indian would no doubt cause trouble for Master Giles. Tully could see she was not just an ordinary Indian wench. She was extraordinarily beautiful that was obvious to everyone, but Tully had talked to her before she had been gagged. He heard her say her name and threaten dire consequences in French. This was a French Indian who had friends and family. They would be looking for her. Master Giles just laughed off his concerns.
***
Amanda chose to submit. Harvey took her by the hand and led her away from the fire. The other brigands hooted and jeered at Harvey, commenting on his abilities or lack thereof, and offering to help. Amanda followed meekly dragging her feet. She guessed they were going to Harvey’s bed.
They were suddenly brought up short by a running horse being reined up short. Then came Harry’s booming voice. It was an angry voice. “Harvey, what are you doin’ with her?”
Harvey was caught by surprise. What had seemed like a good idea at the time suddenly seemed very foolish. He stammered, knowing what he said could cause dire consequences. “Just takin’ her for a walk.”
“Un huh,” replied Harry, knowing full well what Harvey’s intentions were. “Now suppose you walk her right back to her cabin. If she was to get loose you’ll be owin’ the boys about two hunnerd pounds. You ready to put that much up to make sure you don’t lose her?”
“Two hunnerd!” exclaimed Harvey. “Ain’t no woman worth that much.”
“Well, this ‘n is,” said Harry dismounting. “So suppose you march her right back where you got her and make sure her door is barred.” He turned his horse over to one of the men and made his way to the fire.
“Davy, you know better’n that,” he admonished. “Suppose she got away in the dark. We might not get her back before she got to the rangers or somebody who’d take her to the rangers.”
“Aw, we’re just tired of nurse-maiding ‘er. When is ‘er papa gonna pay up?”
“Couple days,” said Harry turning his backside to the fire, “He just didn’t want to risk payin’ and not git her back, as if we wanted to keep her. We’ll take her down to Gilley’s tomorrow and hide her in the barn until the ransom time.”
Inside the cabin Amanda breathed a sigh of relief. She had escaped being raped again. She heard the bar on the outside of the door drop into its brackets. She jerked off the hood and went to the crack in the boards next to a post and pulled out the turkey leg bone she had hidden there. Carefully she went to the door and dug the mud out of the knothole and slipped the bone through and under the bar. She eased it up and pushed the door open. She held the bar and opened the door and stepped out. The brigands were still around the fire listening to Harry. They were too far away for her to hear, but at that moment she was not interested in their conversation. They would probably catch her, but she was not going to make it easy for them. She eased the bar back into the bracket and ran into the trees behind the cabin.
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