Chapter 10 – In the hills overlooking the Oostanuala at John’s Creek, sometime during the morning of May 16th 1864
“We need to hightail it, Will,” the dusty coated guerrilla standing next to William Quantrill spoke quietly, but his words were intoned with a clear, definite air.
Quantrill nodded, but replied “I ain’t leaving without her Jesse, I know the negro she sent told us to go to Kentucky, but the girl is coming with us. If ‘n you ain’t happy with that then you take them all with you and leave now. I will bring Catherine along with me as soon as I can.”
William Clarke Quantrill was one of, if not
the most, notorious Confederate Guerilla leader fighting for the Southern Cause. Since the gutting of Lawrence, the previous year, his fame/infamy had grown as had his band of followers, a group of mounted Rebels that now exceeded six hundred, all hardened to ways of waging war without rules.
‘I love her Jesse, and I
will make my life with her …”
Jesse James, along with his brother Frank, had ridden with Quantrill since the beginning and he was one of the commander’s most trusted Lieutenants.
“Will, I know what you think of her, I know that you love her … but …”
Quantrill looked out through his spyglass before cutting off the words from his friend. “There is no ‘but’ Jesse, I will find her, I will rescue her and I will take her with me …”
Chapter 11 – An old, ruined station house near to the abandoned Union Encampment on the Banks of the Oostanuala River near Lay’s Ferry, 11:05am May 16th 1864
Lieutenant Sampson had proved himself so capable of charming deception, that it was hard to believe his appearance camouflaged a psychopathic devil. Only his eyes gave him away. Even when he looked at her with compassion in an effort to break her resolve, there was something foul and abominable coiled in their murky depths.
He had asked his question again only to be met with a profound silence.
His hand shot forward, fingers bunched together into a point, and Sampson struck her between her bare breasts, punching the nerve cluster in her breastbone, a trick he had first learned as a boy during his time boarding at the Hebron Academy back in Maine. He did not hit hard, he did not need to, but he hit skin that was healing from the whipping and so the nerves screamed in response as if they'd been thumped with a sledgehammer!
Breath flushed from her lungs and her heart lost its rhythm for a moment. Gasping for air, she doubled over.
"Silence is not an acceptable response, Catherine," he said. "Now, why don't you spare yourself anymore pain ... where is Quantrill?"
Then, in most uncharacteristically sardonic manner, she replied, "He is nowhere Lieutenant, he is merely a figment inside your stupid, empty skull."
Sampson looked at the girl with such sadness in his face that she could almost believe he really felt the emotion. Shaking his head, he replied, "Poor Catherine, making such bad decisions and causing herself such pain ... how sad."
Then he reached into his jacket pocket and removed two spring levered wooden pegs. Catherine cocked her head when she saw the little devices.
“You have no idea what these are do you, huh?” He grinned. “Well you have a man from Vermont to thank for them. Clothespins, we’ve had them for several years now, your slaves would know what they are, but they would never have seen them used like this …”
Stepping closer to her, he grasped her head in his arm and pulled her backwards. Catherine’s yell was muffled as his movement took her by surprise. Sampson used his free hand to grip one of her eyelids between his finger and thumb, before trapping the thin folds painfully between the pin’s gripping parts! Bright sparks of pain danced through the thin layer of sensitive skin as the wood bit into the delicate flesh! But before she could react, he snapped the other pin on the tender stretch of flesh and bone that separated her nostrils.
“Ohhhhh … my God, what are you …?” Her speech sounded nasally, her eyes opened wide, the pain already excruciating … Catherine was taken by total surprise. The Lieutenant had avoided her healing scars and gone straight for areas that were, thus far unmarked …
More pinching, biting pain penetrated her nerves. But, gathering her senses, Catherine clenched her teeth, determined not to let him see how much it hurt, and promised herself that she would NOT cry again in front of this beast.
He stepped back, briefly surveying his handiwork. "I will let you think about this for a while, Catherine ... alone. Then I will return …" he turned towards the broken-down door in the derelict wall, before adding, "… with new, more painful, tortures for you to enjoy, unless of course you wish to share with me the truth about what you know?"
There was a slight pause, then the Lieutenant smiled, and left her alone, roped, naked to this damn chair … her sense of distress mounting by the second.
Chapter 12 – The abandoned Union Encampment on the Banks of the Oostanuala River near Lay’s Ferry, 11:30 am May 16th 1864
“You got her naked Lieutenant?”
Sampson smiled at the remark without offering a specific response.
“We gonna get a turn at her, huh?” Private Ebenezer Dolan piped up gripping his crotch as he spoke.
“We better. I ain’t missing this fighting we should be doing right now without getting myself inside that bitch!” It was Private Blake, one of the soldiers who had discovered the buttons and coins in the Peach Orchard back at the plantation, who added to Dolan’s request.
“All in good time boys … I need to hurt her a little first. Make her squeal and yell, and beg …”
“And suck your dick, huh Lieutenant?” The troopers laughed heartedly.
“Listen boys, this here is a serious undertaking with which I have been entrusted, and by no one less than Gen’l Sherman himself. So, I got to make her talk. She has to tell me where the bastard Quantrill is, and she has to do that before we have our fun, or else she will be no good for nuthin’!”
The excitement in the tent calmed down momentarily. Each man lost for a minute or two in his own thoughts. Then a voice spoke.
“Tell us what she looks like Lieutenant.”
“You know what she looks like. You all saw her on the post with that wooden cock inside her.”
“No, I mean now. With the catgut and the bruises and whatnot.”
Sampson laughed, “You’re all just a bunch of no good perverts, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, we know Lieutenant, but still …”
“She is like a dream fantasy, boys. I have her tied naked to a chair. Her tits are pushed out, her back straight and her legs apart.”
“You can see her cunt?”
“I can see everything, and she is still smooth where we shaved her, more or less …”
“We can shave her again maybe?” It was Sergeant Oak’s turn to speak.
“Maybe we can, we will have to see. For now, she is suffering with one of them new-fangled clothespins clipped to her eyelid and another right here between her nostrils. I left her thinking about what she might want to tell me, and so now boys I need to return to our damsel in distress!”
To Be Continued ...
Footnote - Today, many clothes-pegs (also clothespins) are manufactured very cheaply by creating two interlocking plastic or wooden prongs, in between which is often wedged a small spring. This design was invented by David M. Smith of Springfield, Vermont, in 1853. By a lever action, when the two prongs are pinched at the top of the peg, the prongs open up, and when released, the spring draws the two prongs shut, creating the action necessary for gripping. Smith was also known for being an excellent violin player. It was one of his hobbies. He used to think clearly whenever playing violin, thinking about every day problems. That was how he came up with the idea to invent a clothespin. (Source Wikipedia)