Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:00:29 -0400
From: Jake Preston <jemtling@gmail.com>
Subject: Queering Benedict Arnold 7
Queering Benedict Arnold 7
Norwichtown: 1760-1762
By Jake Preston
"Queering Benedict Arnold" is historical gay fiction. The story alternates between
twenty-first century scenes in which Jake Preston and Ben Arnold (a descendent)
investigate Benedict's life, and eighteenth-century scenes imagined by Jake and
Ben. Some characters and allusions hark back to "Wayward Island" (in nifty's file
on Beginnings). Jake Preston is the narrator in both works.
Most episodes are faithful to history, except for sexual encounters, which are
fictional. You should not read this story if you are a minor, or if you are offended
by explicit gay sex.
Benedict Arnold was an American military genius who was treated unfairly by
jealous rivals while he lived. After his death, he was demonized as the archetypal
traitor in history and folklore, but he was a target of inexplicable hatred long
before his treasonable conspiracy with John André to surrender the fort at West
Point to the British. Taken as a whole, "Queering Benedict Arnold" is an attempt
to discover the origins of that hatred. Comments welcome: contact Jake at
jemtling@gmail.com.
Nifty stories are free to Readers, but donations are encouraged.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
It is difficult to think of Benedict Arnold III (Benedict's father) as
anything other than a tragic figure. In early colonial times, his family had been
illustrious and wealthy, but the family was reduced to poverty during Benedict's
youth. The Wheel of Fortune turned in his favor when he befriended Captain
Absalom King, and later married King's widow (Hannah Lathrop Waterton) in
Norwichtown. During the 1730s and 40s, the Arnolds were prosperous and
influential, but in the 1750s their trading-business floundered, so Benedict Arnold
(IV) grew up in genteel poverty, apprenticed to the apothecary business of Dr.
Daniel and Colonel Joshua Lathrop. In the last decade of his life, Benedict III was
the town drunk, an object of derision by men who formerly worked for him on
ships and in the harbor.
Two of his ancestors were giants in colonial history. His great grandfather,
William Arnold (1587-1676) was a friend of Roger Williams. Sometime before
1638, these two men led a party of settlers from Massachusetts Bay to Rhode
Island, where they founded Providence Plantations. In 1640, William Arnold
bought land from the Narragansetts and founded Pawtexet. The fact that he and
his son Benedict I (1615-1678) spoke Narragansett facilitated their purchase of
land and trade with the Indians. Benedict I surpassed his father in knowledge of
Algonquian languages: he spoke Wampanoag as well as Narragansett. By 1650,
William and Benedict owned 10,000 acres, and were the wealthiest men in Rhode
Island. In 1657, Benedict I succeeded William Rogers as the second President of
the colony. (In colonial times, governors were called Presidents in Rhode Island.)
He was re-elected President several times, and under his governance, in 1663,
Rhode Island received its Royal Charter from King Charles II. The charter
confirmed Benedict Arnold as President, and affirmed the colony's adherence to
religious toleration-a principle that made him famous. In 1658, when the
Quakers were persecuted in the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth
Plantation, New Haven, and Connecticut, he offered them protection in Rhode
Island and Plymouth Plantation.
To the misfortune of the family line, Benedict Arnold II (1641-1727)
Benedict's grandfather) was content to rest on the laurels of his father and
grandfather. To maintain his aristocratic lifestyle, he sold off his lands in
Pawtexet, and the family started its downward spiral into penury. Benedict II had
to apprentice his sons, Benedict III and Oliver, to a cooper; so the Arnolds
became tradesmen, fashioning barrels from staves. In 1730, the brothers sought
work as coopers in the thriving new port in Norwichtown. There Benedict III
befriended Captain Absalom King, learned the arts of trading and seafaring from
him, became his lover, and inherited King's business along with his widow-
while Oliver continued to work as a cooper-a reminder that when Fortune's
Wheel turns down, it does not always turn up again; but when it turns up, it can
always turn down. In the 1750s, Benedict III's trading business floundered. In
1754, Benedict III was arrested for unpaid debts. He was rescued by the Lathrop
brothers, and would have ended up in debtors' prison, had they not paid off his
creditors in exchange for some land that Benedict still owned. By 1755 the
Arnolds were too poor to maintain Benedict IV in Dr. Cogswell's school in
Canterbury, so they gave up their ambition to send him to Yale College, and
apprenticed him to Dr. Daniel and Col. Joshua Lathrop's apothecary, where he
worked until he came of age.
As Aristotle once said, it is one thing for a man to have ancestors who
were illustrious and rich, and quite another to be illustrious and rich yourself.
What Aristotle calls 'happiness' requires a reasonable fortune to sustain it, but the
Arnolds were poor. But Aristotle also said this: that when adversities reduce a
noble family to poverty, "even then, [in their poor descendants], nobility shines
through, when a man bears misfortunes with courage, not through insensibility to
pain, but through greatness of soul." Weighed down by old age and drunkenness,
Benedict III did not rise to Aristotle's standard, but Benedict IV's nobility was
apparent in his daring adventures with Mohegan youths, in schoolboy pranks at
Canterbury, and even in two boyhood flights from the Lathrop apothecary, when
he ran away to join the British Army during the first year of his apprenticeship.
Always aggressive in matters of personal independence, he formed friendships
with Mohegan youths, and he followed his heart in his love affair with Red
Feather, which began months after his eighteenth birthday.
After the death of his mother in August, 1759, the fortunes of the Arnold
family fell to their lowest depths. It was often Benedict's filial duty to rescue his
father from a drunken brawl that he had started in a tavern, or from a ditch into
which he had fallen unawares. On three occasions he borrowed the Lathrops'
chaise-the one with the coat of arms on the side-to convey his semiconscious
father back to the Arnold Mansion. The scene inspired ironic comments from
citizens in Norwichtown, for Benedict III, at age 77, became a prodigal emblem
of rakishness, a living cartoon, as if he had stepped out of the frame of William
Hogarth's Rake's Progress. In the Congregational Church, the Pastor sometimes
alluded to Benedict III in sermons about how idleness leads to poverty and
drunkenness, and when he did, his gaze fixed on young Hannah, unworthily
seated in the front pew with her worthier cousins, the Lathrops. Once, when
Hannah managed to get her father to attend church, the Pastor refused to give him
communion. Benedict wasn't present; he spent his Sundays with his true friends,
Red Feather and Caribou Brave.
On the last Sunday in March, Hannah prevailed upon father and son to
attend church, in consideration of Benedict's return to the Army. On this
occasion, he preached a bombastic sermon using Benedict III as his text. "The
tavern is the devil's temple, in which he performs his miracles," the Pastor said.
"Those who are sighted become blind. Those who can hear become deaf. Those
who speak become dumb. Those who can think become idiots. A man walks into
the tavern able-bodied, and is carried out lame, conveyed in a carriage by savages.
What is this carriage if not a foreshadowing of a cortège? These are the miracles
that the devil performs in the tavern, which is his temple!"
Benedict Senior ignored the prolonged pastoral assault on his character.
He had received worse in the taverns of Norwichtown. The younger Benedict was
sullen. After the service, he told Hannah to take their father home while made a
pilgrimage to the Mohegan village. Red Feather and Caribou Brave were off
fishing upriver in a canoe, so Benedict spent the afternoon chopping wood for
Chief Benjamin Uncas. When his friends returned, they made dinner of fish.
Afterward, they cleansed themselves in the sweat-lodge by the river. Benedict
invited them home to his bed for the night. Injured in his soul by the public
humiliation of pastoral care at the Congregational Church, Benedict found private
consolation in sex with his friends.
His sister Hannah ignored the clatter when Benedict, Red Feather, and
Caribou Brave arrived at the Arnold Mansion. Their father was asleep, having
dosed himself with rum at home, since the taverns were closed on Sundays. "This
is your game, Benedict," Caribou said when they reached Benedict's bedroom.
"Just tell us what you want."
"I want you to bugger me," Benedict said, "both of you. But first I want
you to decorate your bodies with war-paint."
Caribou Brave was already accustomed to buggering Benedict; that's the
way they always made love.
Caribou Brave was first to get naked. Red Feather and Benedict prepared
his body for buggery through the application of war-paint to his body with
sponges. Benedict had applied his apothecary knowledge to the production of
paints: red from raspberries and madder-root, blue from blueberries and woad,
yellow from weld, yellow-orange from ochre, black from ground charcoal, white
from white clay-each tincture mixed with egg-whites or yolks for consistency
and adhesion. From his face to his feet, his body was ornamented with red and
yellow lightning bolts, blue wavy lines for two sides of a river, bear-paws for
prosperity, and wigwams in trios. On his brow, the symbol of Manitou: an ochre
diamond, and inside it, a woad-colored oval, and inside the oval, a madder-
colored circle. They painted four tridents, symbols of peace: raspberry-red on his
right cheek, blueberry-blue on his left, and on his ass-cheeks, weld-yellow on the
right and ochre-orange on the left. On his chest, just below his nips, they painted
signs of the warrior: on the left, two parallel three-fletched arrows pointing in
opposite directions for war, and on the right, a broken three-fletched arrow for
peace. Each application of a symbol was foreplay, painted with artistic care,
accompanied by fondling.
Then it was Red Feather's turn to get naked and painted. Benedict and
Caribou Brave ornamented body with symbols that matched Caribou's, with
special attention to the Manitou-sign on his brow. Below the nips on his chest,
Red Feather's special symbols were a red feather on the left, and on the right a
"medicine man's eye": an ochre diamond superimposed on an ochre-orange
square, and inside it a woad-blue circle? . "Did you know, Benedict, that for the
Algonquians, a feather is a symbol of healing?" Caribou asked.
The body-painting of Red Feather was matched by the fondling that
Caribou received. When the painting was complete, an Abenaki warrior and a
Mohegan Shaman stood ready for action. Benedict lay back on the side of the bed
and gave a frog-legged view of his portal, his cheeks spread wide with both
hands. "Benedict needs no body-painting. He's got it already, in his beautiful ass,
Red Feather said to Caribou Brave. "Here's Tuscany and carmine deep inside,
and an inner circle colored burgundy, strawberry, alizarin, crimson, and
vermilion." He traced colors with his fingertip while the Abenaki warrior
watched. "Look, Caribou Brave, in the outer perimeter, hints of magenta,
amaranth and carnation like sprays in a garden of pinks and wild roses- a study
in red with so many shades; colors laid within colors, like the eye of the medicine
man."
"I wonder if Pieter Van Heuveln has colors like these?" Caribou asked,
recalling their tryst in the parallel lines of sunlight in a barn. More worshiper than
warrior, Caribou followed ridges of color with his eyes, and then with the tip of
his tongue, while he knelt between Benedict's legs like a pilgrim at an altar; his
journey from the Abenaki homeland to Norwichtown as a war-prisoner had been a
sort of pilgrimage. A colonial cloak and a white-powdered wig were his pilgrim's
weeds when he retraced his steps to Lake Champlain in Benedict's company and
became Benedict's lover; on his return he himself became Pieter's lover. In his
hirath, his longing for homeland, he exchanged an Abenaki wigwam for a Dutch
farm south of Poughkeepsie. "Bugger me!"-Benedict's command roused him
from reverie. His warrior's spirit and cock rose erect and entered the body of his
colonial friend. Red Feather followed his example. The warrior and the Shaman
stood before Benedict, their bodies extravagant in war-paint, and took their turns
following Benedict's command.
Benedict positioned Caribou Brave on his back on the bed. He straddled
Caribou and lowered his butt, which engulfed Caribou's shaft. He told Red
Feather to mount at his backside. Red Feather gave it a go but could not push past
the barrier formed by Caribou's cock. "That's all right, Red Feather, Destiny did
not plan this role for you," Benedict said. He told them to reverse their positions.
Red Feather lay on his back and let Benedict ride his rod. Caribou mounted
Benedict and thrust his cock upward and in, not without stimulating an
inspirational yelp from Benedict. Ignoring Benedict's protests and groans,
Caribou inserted his shaft with a forceful push. A double erection occupied
Benedict's arse. The sensitive underside of Caribou's Abenaki prick ran parallel-
rigid against the sensitive underside of Red Feather's Mohegan rod-two cocks
locked together in the embrace of Benedict's anal canal. Benedict squeezed while
his gentleman-callers fucked his arse in a mutual frot. The air turned potent with
jizzy aroma when Benedict erupted and oozed. Musky-erotic fragrance captured
the senses of Red Feather and Caribou Brave. Two silken rivers, Mohegan and
Abenaki, flooded the delta below curvaceous hillocks of Benedict.
As for the Arnold family's adversity, the worst of it came after Benedict
returned to the militia in New York (March 30, 1760). He was absent from
Norwichtown until weeks after the British capture of Montreal from the French
(Sept. 8, 1760). On May 26, Benedict III had been arrested for public drunkenness
by the Justice of the Peace, Isaac Huntington, after "one of the King's grand
jurors" swore a warrant that he "was drunken in said Norwich so that he was
disabled in ye use of understanding and reason, appearing in his speech, posture,
and behavior, which is against the Peace of Our Lord, ye King and ye laws of this
Colony." In April, while Benedict III languished in jail, two tavern-keepers in
Norwichtown seized the moment to satisfy a paltry debt by a fortune; they
indicted Arnold for unpaid debts, hoping that this would force Hannah, his
underage daughter, to sell the Arnold Mansion and its contents at a bargain. Other
creditors surfaced like sharks in the harbor, claiming debts that exceeded £950.
Hannah appealed to Jerusha Lathrop, whose husband, Dr. Daniel Lathrop, agreed
to cover the debts by a mortgage. In the meantime Col. Joshua Lathrop audited
the debts to the sum of £290. Two of Arnold's creditors, under the threat of
indictment for attempted fraud, withdrew their claims altogether-thus reducing
the family debt to £250, still a substantial sum in an age when the annual salary of
a Norwichtown official was under £50. To make an end of the matter, Dr. Daniel
Lathrop mortgaged the Arnold Mansion for £300. This was enough to satisfy the
creditors, and left Hannah with £50 to run the estate. She did this with exceptional
industry. She maintained a large kitchen garden that her brother had started,
which supplied the house with vegetables, and the Lathrop apothecary with
medicinal herbs. The carriage-house served as a barn for four dairy cows that
grazed on the estate.
Benedict returned to Norwichtown in time for Thanksgiving in 1760, and
resumed work in the apothecary. His apprenticeship wouldn't end until his 21st
birthday (Jan. 14, 1762), but as time went by the Lathrop brothers treated him less
like an apprentice and more like a partner. He captained a trading-ship that the
Lathrops had purchased, and served as their agents on missions north to Nova
Scotia and south as far as Barbados. On these voyages, he was accompanied by
Red Feather and Caribou Brave, the only men whose loyalty he trusted. To allay
the colonials' suspicion, Caribou passed himself off as 'John Lathrop', and mixed
with the crew on every occasion, always on the alert for hints of mutiny. Benedict
taught them the arts of seafaring and trading. Their voyages to British colonies
were an education, especially for Caribou, who came to realize that the British
Empire was so vast that the Native American dream of "driving the colonials back
to their ships"-a phrase repeated often by his father Natanis-was a vain
illusion. Aboard ship they abstained from sex; not an easy thing for three vigorous
men in their twenties, but they feared the danger of discovery.
In July 1761-between sea voyages-Benedict and Caribou Brave drove
the Lathrops' chaise on a trading mission north to Ticonderoga. Caribou wore
colonial garb and powdered his hair white, as he had done when they made the
same journey two years before. The fighting between British and French armies
was over in North America, but it continued in Europe, so technically he was still
a prisoner of war. The Abenaki had made peace with the British, but rumors
spread that Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawa, was recruiting warriors in the Ohio
River Valley. Pontiac announced his ambition "to drive the colonials back to their
ships."
"I've been pining for you like a horse for his absent trainer," Caribou told
Benedict when they settled between blankets for their first night by a campfire in
the woods. "You were so close, yet so far away all those weeks at sea. There were
times when I got so horny I thought I could fuck a toad." Caribou had never
before declared his feelings to Benedict, although he had done so to Pieter Van
Hueveln. It was a brave thing for a warrior to do.
"Does that mean you're the horse and I'm the rider?" Benedict quipped.
"Who said anything about a rider?" Caribou retorted. He seized Benedict's
haunches and held his own with the metaphor: "You know I was born a stallion."
Benedict was about to test his wit with a smart reply about horseplay, but Caribou
smothered his words with a lingering kiss, and Benedict surrendered to his touch,
as he always did when his partner was Caribou Brave. The night was windless
and quiet, so they made love quietly. Caribou sidled Benedict in buggery and
afterward suckled the ache from his prick. Their spermatic exchange was
conducted in silence, unheard by any soldier or farmer who might be passing by
on the road at night. During their embrace après de sexe, the only sound was the
crackling fire, whose reddish coals and yellow flames seemed to mimic the
afterglow that they felt in their loins.
"Man, I love that sweet white arse," Caribou said while he fondled the
cleft that had given him satisfaction.
"Lucky for me that you like arse so much," Benedict replied. "You'll
forget all about me when we get to Poughkeepsie. A runaway stallion, that's what
you'll be."
"My feelings for Pieter are like yours for Red Feather," Caribou said. "Sex
between us is friendship. With Pieter it's love."
A silence ensued while Benedict thought about this. He felt jealous of
Pieter, for a moment forgetting that he had a similar romance with Red Feather. In
outward appearance, Caribou Brave and Red Feather were a study in contrasts: an
Abenaki warrior from the north who could dominate him at will; a Mohegan
Shaman-in-training whose childhood friendship had evolved into limitless love.
The warrior was robust and rugged; the Shaman was mystic-gracile. He wanted
both, but when it came to romance he could have only one, and the choice wasn't
his to make. 'How could a simple Dutch farmer steal the heart of this Abenaki
warrior without even trying?' he wondered. The attraction between them was
inexplicable, but so was the secret of own magnetized heart, drawn to the
lodestone-heart of Red Feather.
"Sex for friendship; sex for love-it's all one, the sex, so why does it feel
so different?" Benedict asked.
"Actually, it IS different," Caribou replied. "Pieter buggers me."
"Now I'm REALLY jealous!" Benedict exclaimed.
"You shouldn't be," Caribou said. "When I'm with you I can be myself.
When I'm with Pieter, well.... If you really love someone, you can be whatever
he needs you to be. Benedict, my dear, you must get used to the fact that you can't
bugger every butt that you fancy."
Benedict freed himself from Caribou's embrace and left their primitive
bed to put wood on the campfire. When they snuggled again, Caribou changed the
subject: "Benedict, have you ever seen a man hanged for buggery in
Norwichtown?"
"No, I haven't," Benedict replied. "But it's a capital crime in all the
colonies. The Quakers are the only colonists who 'live and let live' when it comes
to buggery, as far as I know, but in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania-the only
colonies where Quakers are numerous-their opposition to the present War made
them unpopular."
"I should like to meet these Quakers, sometime," Caribou replied.
"You won't find any in the Army," Benedict said. "I've heard tell that in
England, and especially in London, they hunt down sodomites like they hunted
down witches a century ago. Sodomy is the new witchcraft. Every time ten or
twelve people get hanged at a public spectacle in Tyburn, the victims include one
or two sodomites, whose sins are proclaimed by the chaplain as a warning to
others. During the present War, I've heard tell of two or three British soldiers
getting hung by the Army for unmentionable crimes."
"You think it was sodomy?"
"That would be my guess," Benedict said. "When the crime was desertion
or cowardice, other men in their units were compelled to watch the hanging and
their crimes were announced publicly. When the crime was sodomy, they were
hanged in secret."
"The Abenaki don't much approve of buggery either," Caribou said. "But
it's not a capital crime. In fact, it's not a crime at all. When two young men are
suspected of romance, they get a stern lecture from the Chief, or maybe from the
Shaman, even though the Shaman himself is permitted to take a man as a lover.
All the Algonquian tribes take this liberal attitude toward sodomy, so far as I
know."
"I remember a leather-bound printed copy of a letter in the family library,"
Benedict said. "It was written by Michele de Cuneo, a 'gentleman-sailor' who
sailed to the Indies with Columbus in 1493. He was a friend of Christopher
Columbus growing up in Genoa. The letter was addressed to Hieronymo Annari
in Genoa, and dated October 28, 1495. It was printed in Genoa in 1625. In the
1740s, my father asked an Italian sailor on his ship to translate it. As I remember,
Cuneo wrote about buggery among the Arawak Indians and the more primitive
Caribs: 'According to what we say in all the islands that we visited, both the
Arawaks and the Caribs are largely sodomites, not knowing (I believe) whether
they are acting right or wrong. We have judged that this accursed vice may have
come to the Arawaks from the Caribs; because the Caribs, as I said before, are
wilder; and when they captured and cannibalized Arawaks, they may have also
committed that extreme offense on them, which proceeding thence may have been
transmitted from one [the Caribs] to the other [the Arawaks]'. Columbus must
have seen this, too, but he never mentions it in his Diaries. Columbus was too
preoccupied with locations where trinkets and beads could be exchanged for gold,
so he said little about native customs."
"There's more diversity among Native American nations than I thought,"
Caribou said. "Or there was, before the Europeans arrived."
"Speaking of Europeans, have you ever scalped anyone?"- No one but
Benedict would have the audacity to ask such a thing, but Caribou was unfazed:
"In the first year of the French and Indian War, I scalped a British soldier. I was
eighteen, and took a scalp to prove myself as a warrior. It was at Fort Bull on the
Mohawk River. The French defeated the British Army in a rout, and their
Algonquian allies scalped soldiers and slaves, farmers, women, children. It was a
massacre."
"How did it make you feel, taking a scalp?" Benedict asked.
"Full of self-loathing," Caribou said. "It got me the recognition I needed
as a warrior, but I never took another scalp. Does this repel you, Benedict? Does it
surprise you?"
"Not at all," he replied. "Life has a way of making us do things that we
wouldn't do if we had a choice. This happens often.... Christian doctrine teaches
us that we have free will, but I think 'free will' is an illusion. I admire that you
stood your ground by not taking part when the warriors around you took scalps.
That took courage. It makes me wonder: maybe free will exists after all. Still, I
think that there's a quality in your character that made you shun the brutality of
scalping, and it's the same quality that made you fall in love with a Dutch farmer
in Poughkeepsie. We're drawn to each other because we're alike. When I was a
child, my playmates were Mohegans. Except for the Lathrops, they're still my
only friends in Norwich, the only ones I trust. We played a lot of pranks and
practical jokes, and I got into trouble quite a lot, but I was never a bully; I never
picked on anyone who was vulnerable or weak. If we had been changelings at
birth and you had grown up as me, I think 'Benedict Arnold' would be the same,
only with a cuter butt. It's like we're the same person in Abenaki and English
forms."
"Benedict, when we get to Ticonderoga, we must head north to my
village. I must talk to my father. It's important," Caribou said.
"I know."
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Their second encampment was on the Hudson River. They reached Van
Hueveln's farm on the following day. Pieter couldn't have been more surprised.
Benedict was relieved that Pieter wasn't bedding another Army deserter in his
farmhouse- when it came to not taking scalps, Caribou might make an exception
for an unexpected rival! His fear was unfounded: Benedict he saw how Caribou
pitched in with the farm-work, milking cows and harvesting vegetables from the
garden. It was haying season. Pieter's hay was stacked in piles to dry in the
meadow. Benedict and Caribou extended their stay. It took three days to move the
hay to the barn.
At noon they broke bread by the sweat of their brows. Afterward, they got
naked in the pool below the waterfall. The men could have passed for brothers-
all muscular and tall-except for diversity in their colors. Caribou's complexion
and skin was copper-red, his hair and eyes dark brown. Pieter was blond, blue-
eyed, and as fair-complexioned as a white man could be without being called an
albino. Benedict' hair and eyes were brown like Caribou's. His complexion was
light brown, except for his arse which was almost as white as Pieter's. Pieter and
Caribou took turns sucking Benedict's cock; it was a contest to see which man
could spooge him. He orgazzed in Pieter's mouth, and returned to the field to
pitch hay in the wagon and carry it to the barn.
Pieter led Caribou back to the farmhouse. After much kissing and fondling
in bed, Caribou frog-legged Pieter. "I want to study the colors of your arse,"
Caribou said. Pieter complied-amused by this unusual form of attention, and
flattered by Caribou curiosity about anatomical details. The love that they shared
was based mainly on character. Pieter admired Caribou for his 'warrior's
honor'- how he kept his word as a prisoner of war at times when escape was
easy- and for his personal discipline in times of danger. Caribou admired Pieter
for his 'life's work'- carving a farm from the forest- and for the risks he took
during the French and Indian War, harboring deserters from the Army. Sometimes
he drove to Poughkeepsie with his horse-drawn hay-cart, patrolling the Hudson
River road for deserters, not to apprehend them but to rescue them from danger.
Some of them- Benedict included- ended up in Pieter's bed; a small price to
pay for Pieter's generosity. Some came wounded or sick- men who deserted the
Army to save their lives. Pieter rose to the challenge by developing the skills of a
medic.
Looking deeper into character, Pieter and Caribou Brave were drawn to
each other by a more fundamental quality that was (as it were) hidden in plain
sight. Both were outsiders. Pieter was a farmer, like most of his neighbors in
colonial New York, but he was Dutch in a colony that became increasingly more
English as time went by. The colony's Dutch past contrasted all the more sharply
with its English present during the French and Indian War, when the countryside
was littered with British soldiers, who often treated colonists with contempt. "Are
you a Quaker?" Caribou asked him once. "There are no Quakers living in these
parts," Pieter replied, "but I have a Quaker's heart." Caribou Brave grew up as a
warrior in a warrior-culture, but he had a Quaker's heart, too. He believed,
instinctively, that peace was better than war, and felt more comfortable in the tiny
Mohegan village than in the Abenaki nation where his father was Chief and he
was the Algonquian equivalent of a Prince. The same-sex attraction of Caribou
and Pieter was an extension of their accustomed roles as outsiders.
These qualities of character led to mutual admiration, which mingled with
red-blooded lust and caused them to fall in love. The physical attraction was
important, too. In many ways, Pieter and Caribou were mirror images of each
other- both were muscular and taller than most men in colonial times. But it was
physical differences that drew them together. Pieter was drawn to the copper-red
skin tone of Caribou, and to the erotically dark-brown, almost black coloration of
his cock, repeated in parts of his scrotum and in the inner circle of his portal.
Caribou's body seemed even darker when it came into contact with the fairness of
his own skin. No less eroticized by the clash of colors, Caribou was drawn to
Pieter's blue eyes: they adorned his face like shining blue topaz, something he had
never before seen in a man or a woman. His hair and his body were carnivalian
whiteness. Who would have thought that an achromatic color could have so many
exotic shades! He wondered if Pieter would ever feel free to surrender his angelic-
white body to a copper-toned Abenaki, but for the present, he was content to
accept the love that Pieter was able to give. At their first meeting, Caribou Brave
had volunteered for his role, in the hope (unarticulated by him) that reciprocation
would come when it would come. And it would, but not yet.
Love in the afternoon was more erotic than sex in the dark. The cheeks of
Pieter's arse were whiter than Benedict's. How oddly marvelous that Pieter
presented his most angelic shade of whiteness in the fundament; it was a secret of
the body known only to Caribou, until Caribou disclosed it to Pieter. Caribou
traced a finger down the greyish-white cleft, "Fur Valley" he called it, for tender
hairs that grew there, short and fair. Fur Valley descended to the portal, encircled
by pink and magenta, vermilion-streaked and freckled with rubies. Caribou
squeezed Pieter's arse-cheeks apart to open the portal. A rosy inner circle gave
way to a riot of red in nameless shades. Caribou had once asked Benedict if all
white men walked around with pink-and-red targets between their legs, and
Benedict replied, "No, it's usually just a brown hole with hints of pink." How
lucky for me, Caribou thought, that Pieter presents such a colorful portrait!
Pieter turned over on his hands and knees, spread his legs wide apart, and
arched for Caribou. "You have such a cute curve in your arse when you arch!"
Caribou said. No boundary separated admiration from lust. Pieter would not have
consented to buggery, so Caribou did the next best thing: he fucked arse with his
tongue. Pieter's response-great sighs and cries of pleasure-inspired Caribou to
do more, in diverse exhibitions of Pieter's splendid white arse. Their interactions
made Caribou feel strangely compliant. It was Caribou who summoned Pieter to
buggery. It's hard to say what pleased Pieter more, the feeling of Caribou's
rectum wrapped around his cock, or the fact that it was Caribou's idea.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Fort Ticonderoga was all but deserted. With the French on the run,
Ticonderoga lost its strategic importance to the British. On June 27, 1759 (while
Benedict was 'away without leave' in Norwichtown), the French abandoned Fort
Carillon to the British, who renamed it Fort Ticonderoga. When the French
departed, they blew up their armory. The damaged building was still in disrepair,
but as Benedict noted, dozens of cannons were still in good order, heaped over
with rubble. Weeks after the battle, Major-General Jeffrey Amherst moved his
troops to north Crown Point, and from there to Oswego, while his second in
command, General James Wolfe, marched northward toward Quebec with most of
the troops. To guard Ticonderoga, Major-General Amherst left his bastard son-
Lt. Jeffrey Amherst-in charge of a garrison of 38 soldiers, including twenty men
who were injured or too sick to travel to Canada. About thirty colonial women
and children lived in the fort. Ticonderoga seemed more like a backwoods village
than a military installation.
Lieutenant Amherst gave Benedict and 'John Lathrop' permission to sail
north along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. He let them use the Confiance,
a three-mast frigate, which they loaded with medical supplies and merchandise
from the Lathrop apothecary. The vessel was too large for two men to handle, but
the Lieutenant sent five soldiers along to reconnoiter the shore and deliver a
written message to Chief Natanis. Benedict and 'John Lathrop' were the only men
aboard who knew how to sail a ship, so on this occasion they served as Captain
and First Mate.
When the Confiance anchored on the northeast shore, twenty-four
unarmed Abenaki warriors approached the frigate in twelve canoes. The Abenaki
had observed their progress as the Confiance sailed north into their territory. Two
Abenaki boarded the frigate. Benedict greeted them in their own language-to the
surprise of the British soldiers on board. 'John Lathrop' kept quiet and pretended
he didn't understand Abenaki. During an elaborate negotiation, which Benedict
prolonged for the benefit of the British soldiers, 'John Lathrop' showed the two
Abenaki the merchandise that they brought. Neither Abenaki gave 'John Lathrop'
a sign of recognition: his colonial disguise was effective. The Abenaki formed a
brigade, and loaded the Lathrop merchandise into their canoes. When Benedict
announced that he and 'John Lathrop' would follow the forest trail to the Abenaki
village, the British soldiers were relieved to learn that their task was to guard the
frigate.
The portage to the village was short-just three miles. To the
astonishment of their warrior-escorts, Benedict and 'John Lathrop' spoke to each
other, and to them, in Abenaki. They were even more astonished when they
reached the village and 'John Lathrop' led the way to Natanis's wigwam. How
could he know the way? They wondered. The gossip that evening would be all
about two strange colonials who arrived speaking Abenaki, and familiar with a
village that they had never seen.
Chief Natanis recognized Caribou Brave at once by his voice, and rushed
from the wigwam to greet his son. "This is Benedict Arnold"-he introduced
Benedict-"He's a colonial from Connecticut, but he's also a Mohegan. Benedict
is the foster-son of the Shaman, and Chief Benjamin Uncas's nephew. Red
Feather is his brother." In the presence of a gathering Abenaki crowd, Caribou
told how he was freed from a British military prison in Albany, on parole to
Benjamin Uncas. "It was Benedict who choreographed Chief Uncas's negotiation
with Captain James Holmes," Caribou said. "Benedict had served under the
Captain, and taught him how to make a deal. He cautioned Chief Uncas against
asking for my freedom; instead, the Chief offered to keep me in his custody as a
prisoner of war. Benedict also prevailed upon the Lathrops to send many gifts to
Captain Holmes. In the first few months of captivity, I spent three days a week in
the Lathrops' apothecary, and two days with the Shaman. I was free to go where I
pleased on Saturdays and Sundays. Some nights I stayed with Chief Uncas, but
Benedict gave me a room of my own in the Arnold Mansion, so most nights I
stayed there. But for the last year, Benedict and I have been in command of a
trading-ship owned by the Lathrop brothers. Benedict taught me the arts of
seafaring and trading."
Caribou Brave ignored the astonished gaze of Abenaki people who had
gathered around them, and addressed his father: "There is much more to tell, but
first, we need to meet in the sweat-lodge with Grey Wolf and Blackhawk-on-the-
Wing."
He knew court protocol. Only Chief Natanis could summon a council of
elders in the ceremonial wigwam, but Caribou was free to call for a sweat-lodge
meeting. The Abenaki crowd had been silent, but now they were abuzz with
speculation. Grey Wolf and Blackhawk were the fathers of Whitewater Beaver
and Red Fox, the two injured boys who Benedict had rescued from prison in
Ticonderoga. Caribou asked for the sweat-lodge so he and Benedict could wash
off the dirt of their journey and change into Abenaki clothing.
The sweat-lodge was situated outside the village, near a pool that was fed
by a brook as it flowed toward Lake Champlain. When Natanis, Caribou Brave,
and Benedict approached it, Grey Wolf and Blackhawk-on-the Wing were waiting
in loincloths, seated 'Indian style' in front of the entrance. Caribou greeted them,
and introduced Benedict. He stripped off his colonial breeches and shirt, tossed
aside his undergarment, and jumped into the pool. He was not an exhibitionist at
heart, but he wasn't shy, either, and his movements conveyed justified pride in the
strength of his thighs. Benedict followed his example, aware that a crowd of
Abenaki women and children had gathered in nearby bushes to observe them.
Some of the women giggled at the naked whiteness of Benedict's arse, but mostly
they marveled at the double vision of male vitality sporting in the water. Abenaki
maidens imagined them as husbands. Mothers imagined them as sons by
marriage. "They look so much alike," one of the mothers said. Young boys
imagined what it would be like to grow up and be like them.
When Caribou and Benedict emerged from the pool, two older women
approached them, accompanied by a warrior in his early twenties. Unabashed at
his nudity, Caribou led them to the edge of the clearing, away from the others.
"Your sons are alive and well in Norwichtown," Caribou said softly,
outside the hearing of others. The women wept softly. The warrior reminded
Caribou that he was the older brother of Whitewater Beaver. "Laughing Bear,"
Caribou said- "Last time we met you were short, and still wearing baby-fat.
You've grown to manhood, quite handsomely. Well, you'd better strip then, and
join us in the sweat-lodge."
Laughing Bear glanced at the women spectators in the brush. He blushed.
"Never mind about the ladies," Caribou said. Modesty gave way to pride as
Laughing Bear left the company of women and joined the men. He got naked and
the three of them jumped into the pool while Natanis, Grey Wolf, and Blackhawk
waited at the entrance to the sweat-lodge. Determined to give the ladies the show
that they came for, Caribou dove under water and emerged hoisting Benedict in a
theatrical display of thighs and genitalia, and ducked him under the surface in a
spectacular splash. He did the same with Laughing Bear. A three-way wrestling
erupted as each man tried his strength against the other.
"Caribou Brave is so festive, the news must be good," Blackhawk said to
Grey Wolf and Natanis. In the sweat-lodge, Caribou told the story about how
Benedict rescued Red Fox and Whitewater Beaver from confinement in
Ticonderoga, and how a Dutch farmer named Pieter Van Hueveln tended their
wounds. "Pieter stitched their open gashes with silken thread. It was an amazing
thing to watch," Caribou said.
Grey Wolf and Blackhawk wondered what their sons' life was like in
Norwichtown. "They share a room in Lathrop's home, and they work as
apprentices in the apothecary. Jerusha Lathrop is teaching them everything she
knows about medicinal herbs. On weekends they go the Mohegan village and stay
with the Shaman. They hunt and fish and play war-games with Mohegan boys,
just like I did when I was young."
"And they don't get into trouble playing practical jokes," Caribou said
with a grin in Benedict's direction. He didn't have to explain that Benedict had
been the town's trickster-raccoon during his youth.
Benedict explained what was meant by 'weekends' and 'apprentices'. The
fathers feared that their sons had been reduced to slavery. "I'm an apprentice
myself," Benedict said. "Your boys do the same things that I did when I was their
age, and they learn something new every day. They read and write English, too.
Jerusha sees to that. When we return to Norwichtown, we'll take them on their
first sea voyage."
Laughing Bear was quiet, but listened intently. "I'm grateful that my
brother and Red Fox are still living"- he broke his silence: "But will they be lost
to the Abenaki?"
"I've been living in Norwichtown longer than them," Caribou replied. "Do
I look like I'm lost to the Abenaki?"
"Knowledge is better than not-knowledge," Natanis said. It was unusual
for an Algonquian leader to serve as both Chief and Shaman, but he had played
both roles for years. Caribou Brave was destined to succeed him as Chief, but as
Natanis got older, he started to look for his people's next Shaman. Perhaps the
next generation needed a Shaman who mastered both native and colonial
medicine, and was wise to the ways of the colonial world.
After the sweat-lodge, Caribou Brave and Benedict- dressed in Abenaki
clothing- were honored guests at a feast. Once again Benedict surprised the
Abenaki, when he and Caribou joined the celebratory dancers. Benedict had
danced often with the Mohegans. The Abenaki dances were similar, and Benedict
could not restrain his competitive impulse. He, Caribou, and Laughing Bear got
into an informal contest with their energetic dancing.
Night fell. Chief Natanis led Benedict to a wigwam that would be his
sleeping quarters. Caribou had warned him that he would be expected to spend the
night with his family. In the privacy of the wigwam, Natanis offered Benedict the
company of a maiden. "It would be poor hospitality to leave you alone for the
night without any company," Natanis said.
"A maiden is one man's daughter and another man's future wife,"
Benedict said. "I'll not sleep with a maiden. It would be the cause of resentment
in the future."
Natanis admired the man's foresight. He asked if one of the boys could
serve as Benedict's companion for the night.
"Manitou forbid!" Benedict exclaimed. "My customs do not include
sleeping with boys."
"Then I bid you good night," Natanis said.
All was quiet in the village, lit dimly by an emerging moon. Benedict felt
himself slide into sleep. He heard a low rustle at the entrance to his wigwam, and
woke with a sudden start. He unfastened the buffalo-hide flap. A man stood at the
entrance, shaded from moonlight by an overhanging white pine. "Do I... trouble
you?" he asked softly.
"Come in, Laughing Bear," Benedict said. "I recognized you by your
voice." Laughing Bear entered the wigwam. "You came to learn more about your
younger brother?"
"Yes, well.... I came to keep you company, and maybe to learn more
about Whitewater Beaver," Laughing Bear said, almost in a whisper. "I'll go, if
you want me to."
"Did Chief Natanis send you?" Benedict asked.
"Caribou Brave sent me to keep you warm," Laughing Bear said.
"In that case, there's room in this bed for two," Benedict said. They
snuggled between blankets. Benedict told Laughing Bear every anecdote he
would remember about Whitewater Beaver. "That's an unusual name," he said.
"I've never known beaver to build a dam close to rapids."
"If you travel upstream in the forest, in four miles you'll come to some
rapids and a waterfall, and above it a beaver dam. When my brother was a boy, he
used to go there alone "to commune with the beaver," he said. That's how he got
the name Whitewater Beaver."
"On the Quinnebaug River, just outside Norwichtown, there's a falls and a
gristmill, and below that a pool. For me and my Mohegan friends, it was our
favorite swimming hole because the water was deep enough to dive off one of the
boulders," I said. "Whitewater Beaver likes to go there, too. He's gotten to be a
strong swimmer."
"Thanks for telling me that, Benedict." Laughing Bear laid a hand on
Benedict's inner thigh.
"Has Caribou told you much about his life as a prisoner of war?" Benedict
asked. He put his hand over Laughing Bear's hand and by this means invited him
to explore.
"Only that he's not really a prisoner," Laughing Bear replied. "He said he
could leave if he wanted to, and no one would report him to the Army." His hand
roamed the length of Benedict's upper leg, and barely touched his scrotum.
"That's because no one except Chief Uncas and the Shaman and Red
Feather, and me and the Lathrops, are aware that he's a prisoner of war," Benedict
said. "We never speak of it, not even among ourselves. And we never thought of
him as a prisoner, or an enemy." Benedict explored Laughing Bear's nips with his
fingers.
"I'm starting to realize that you colonials have your good points,"
Laughing Bear said, fondling Benedict's cock for the first time.
"Not all of us," Benedict said. "Many people in Norwichtown despise me
for my friendship with Mohegans." His hand roamed down Laughing Bear's taut
abdomen. He fingered Laughing Bear's pubes.
"Ah, you mean Red Feather," Laughing Bear said.
"Caribou told you about him," Benedict replied.
"He did. He told me about Pieter Van Hueveln, too."
"Then you know all our secrets, at least in a general way," Benedict said.
"Maybe we could work on the details," Laughing Bear said. Benedict felt
Laughing Bear's breath on his cheek. The kiss that he wanted was not refused.
Fondling let to groping, groping to mutual fellatio, but when they sucked cock in
mutual admiration, it was Benedict's cleft and his butt-cheeks that won all the
points with Laughing Bear: "You're such a magnificent man, Benedict," he said,
"so powerful and beautiful, I was hoping you'd let me play warrior. Your arse is
whiter than snow on a hill on a bright winter's day after a blizzard."
Had these words been said by some sly Irish seducer, Benedict would
have said 'Blarney!' It had been his intention to bugger Laughing Bear. Spoken in
Abenaki, Laughing Bear's praise of his arse was poetic; hypberbolic to be sure,
and blatant flattery, as Benedict knew, but he could not resist rewarding the
hopeful Abenaki by yielding the object of his desire. Anyway, Laughing Bear's
lust was sincere. That's what mattered.
"Since you have such a way with words, you ought to have your way with
mine arse," Benedict said. "But before you fuck my arse with your cock, I want to
fuck your arse with my tongue."
Laughing Bear frog-legged while Benedict went to work on his portal. He
flipped and praised Benedict's performance as he tongue-fucked from the rear.
"Some men rim arse when they're planning to fuck," Benedict said. "For me,
Laughing Bear, rimming you this way makes me feel more compliant. I probably
shouldn't give away secrets about how to seduce me, but since it's your destiny to
conquer my arse, you may as well know everything."
Benedict lay on his back and Laughing Bear spread over him. Benedict
was stronger and eight inches taller; it would be an exaggeration to say that
Laughing Bear was conquering a giant, but it felt like David getting the better of
Goliath. Laughing Bear retrieved a tomahawk from his belt, and raised it high
while he straddled Benedict. "Suck my cock while I scalp you!" he said. Benedict
sucked. Laughing Bear placed the blunt side of the tomahawk near Benedict's
brow, and pretended to scalp. He tossed the tomahawk aside. "Naw-let me fuck
you instead," he said.
Benedict flipped and arched. In a fell swoop, Laughing Bear buried the
hatchet in his hot hole. "Maybe scalping would have been easier to take, you've
got such a big tomahawk," Benedict said, matching Laughing Bear's blarney
about a snow-covered hill. Laughing Bear flattened Benedict and fucked
intercursally. He sidled and fucked from behind. He fucked frontally. Benedict sat
on his cock, forward and backward, an active participant in the conquest of his
arse. Laughing Bear was one rough fucker, but he could be gentle when
gentleness was needed. When Benedict was ready to orgazz, Laughing Bear
fronted him frog-legged, fucked gently, and helped him frig his throbbing cock to
a fragrant conclusion. If one of the jealous maidens was eavesdropping from
outside the wigwam- and this was possible, since bachelor warriors were much
in demand- she would have experienced the joy of vicarious sex from the jizzy
aroma that wafted while Benedict oozed cum over his belly and Laughing Bear's.
Fucking continued. Nature had cheated Laughing Bear in height, but in
compensation for this shortfall, Manitou granted him an amazing power of
duration, which, to put it plainly, took Benedict's breath away, and gave him a
chance to prove that he could enjoy buggery long after his spooge had been spent.
Laughing Bear's loss was Benedict's gain when Abenaki seed passed into
colonial furrow. The once-rigid tomahawk softened like a cow's udder. The
rugged warpath turned silken.
"So that's what it means to bury the hatchet," Benedict quipped when they
lay together in an embrace.
"I hope I wasn't too rough on you," Laughing Bear said.
"I wouldn't have it any other way," Benedict replied.
But let us close the buffalo-hide flap, and allow these newfound lovers
some privacy in the wigwam, for their passions were high, and the tomahawk
would soon find its way to the warpath again. A Great Horned Owl hooted in the
white pine above their wigwam. The feathers of the owl could be counted, but
tomahawk thrashings that Benedict received could not be counted.
The next day at noon, Chief Natanis called a council of elders to meet with
Caribou Brave. This was Abenaki politics, so Benedict took the opportunity to
hike with Laughing Bear to another part of the forest. Caribou came with a
warning: The Ottawa chief, Pontiac, was forming an alliance of tribes. He
promised an uprising that would be so fierce it would drive the British and the
colonists back to their ships. "I've sailed one of these ships on the sea, captained
by Benedict Arnold, and I've seen the extent of the British Empire, which
stretches from Nova Scotia south to Barbados and Honduras. A century ago it
might have been possible to drive the Europeans back to their ships, but by now
the empire is so vast, so fortified and so wealthy from trade, that the notion of
driving them out of North America is an illusion. I've seen the colonial cities, too.
Their people outnumber the stars in the sky. The only people capable of driving
the British away are the colonists themselves. If Pontiac succeeds in mounting a
rebellion, we must remain neutral. The future of the Abenaki depends on keeping
peace with the colonists."
Caribou's advice gave way to a lively debate. Some of the elders thought
that Caribou was too much influenced by Benedict. Others noted that the Abenaki
were wrong to trust the French. They said it was better to put the highest priority
on the welfare of the Abenaki people. "It is true that the Ottawa are Anishinaabeg;
they are our cousins, Algonquians like us, but Chief Pontiac is ambitious for
himself, and for his own people in Canada," one of the elders said.
"There is something else you should know," Caribou said. "After ten years
of this French and Indian War, the colonials are well armed, and experienced in
fighting in the forest. The Pontiac alliance will not have the advantage of surprise,
or of inexpertise on the part of their enemies. Pontiac will be outnumbered no
matter how many tribes fight for him."
The elders debated whether they should take a last stand as a warrior-
culture, or exchange their traditional values for peace and prosperity, as the
Mohegans had done in Connecticut. One of them proposed to postpone the
debate, since the Abenaki had not yet received an invitation from Chief Pontiac to
join his alliance.
"The invitation from Pontiac will come," Chief Natanis said. "When it
does, we will be ready with our answer." It was first time that Natanis spoke in
the council-meeting.
"There is something else you should know," Caribou said. "Benedict
heard a rumor that the British Army is collecting venom from victims of small
pox, and storing to use for infecting the woolen blankets that we receive from the
colonists on our trading missions. They have the capability of poisoning our
people with small pox. They are debating whether or not to use it."
"Many colonists would die in a plague of small pox."
"That's true, but the proportion of Indian deaths would be higher. A
plague of small pox would destroy our people."
Natanis ended the council by promising a decision on the next day.
While all this was going on, Laughing Bear led Benedict on a forest trail
that followed the brook upstream. They reached the waterfall, and beyond it the
dam from which Whitewater Beaver got his name. Benedict protested when
Laughing Bear stripped him of his borrowed Abenaki clothing. "I am too sore and
pricked with tender shaft," Benedict said, quoting a line from Romeo and Juliet.
He was bigger, taller, and stronger than Laughing Bear; if he really wanted to, he
could have fended off the seducer who led him up the forest path. Instead he
demurred while Laughing Bear laughed. He interpreted Benedict's display of
resistance as an invitation to rough sex. He kept his clothes on, for greater
empowerment when he fingered Benedict's body and guided his limbs into
awkward positions that exposed his arse and his genitalia. When their eyes met,
Benedict glared in mock-defiance, but melted is gaze on Laughing Bear's stern
resolve. Laughing Bear whipped out his cock and fucked Benedict's mouth. "I
feel like a colonial whose about to get raped by an Injun in the forest," Benedict
said in plaintive mockery. Laughing Bear got naked and frog-legged Benedict
frontally.
"How 'bout some bear-grease?" Benedict protested.
"You got plenty of bear-grease last night," Laughing Bear laughed. "This
time you're getting it raw."
Laughing Bear took lustful delight in the shock in Benedict's eyes at the
thrust of cock-through the portal and up the shaft in one fell blow. This time
Benedict's complaints were sincere. In the village four miles downstream, the
Abenaki people thought they could hear the howl of a wolf, and wondered why a
wolf would be prowling the forest in the afternoon light. Fortunately for Benedict,
his anal canal was still lined with the liquefied bear-grease that Laughing Bear
had seeded into him the night before. The pain could have been worse, and
Benedict pretended that is was. Lust came to him at the lascivious look in
Laughing Bear's eyes.
Laughing Bear pulled out his prick and gazed at Benedict's portal.
"You've got a gape the size of a bear-paw," Laughing Bear quipped. Benedict
pulled Laughing Bear into an embrace and kissed him. "Get back in the saddle
and rape me some more," Benedict whispered in his ear.
Laughing Bear responded by treating Benedict to a session of punch-
fucking. Each punch of his prick was harder than the last, and sunk deeper into his
arse. When Laughing Bear examined Benedict's anal gape, he said it was larger,
and rounded to match the circumference of his cock. "Don't cum yet," Laughing
Bear said when Benedict started fondling his cock. "I want to jizz you first, and
then watch you jack off." Benedict complied. Laughing Bear mounted him from
behind so he could fuck with maximum force. He oozed Abenaki seed into
Benedict, and soaked his cock in the spillage of bear-milk. Benedict flipped on his
back and jacked himself. When he got suitably horny, Laughing Bear straddled
his chest and lowered his arse-hole to Benedict's mouth while he watched his
partner jack off. When Benedict got hot, he pushed his tongue into Laughing
Bear's portal. It delighted Laughing Bear to find that the force of Benedict's
rimming marked the progress of his jack-off to orgasm.
That evening, Benedict gave Chief Natanis the diplomatic letter from
Lieutenant Amherst. "I don't know what's in the letter," Benedict said. "All I can
say about it is that the Lieutenant has no standing as a decision-maker, and in any
case, I wouldn't trust the British Army." Caribou Brave translated the letter into
Abenaki for Natanis, who told him to stash it in a chest filled with birch-bark
scrolls and copies of broken treaties.
During the night, Laughing Bear continued to be a welcome pain in the
arse for Benedict. The next morning, Natanis met with the elders and announced
his decision about Chief Pontiac: "The Abenaki nation will remain neutral if
warfare breaks out between Pontiac and the British Army. In the future, if warfare
breaks out between the colonials and the Army, we will review the situation with
an open mind. In the meantime, we advise the Abenaki people not to purchase
blankets from the colonials, nor to accept them as gifts. And if they do, any
blanket must be boiled in water before using it."
When Benedict and Caribou Brave returned to Norwichtown, they heard
the bad news that Benedict's father had died during their absence. Nineteen-year-
old Hannah had to grow up fast: she presided over their father's funeral, and
managed the family estate. She proved to be efficient, and continued in this role
after Benedict's return. This proved to be a good omen for the future. In later
years, Hannah managed Benedict's household, and also his apothecary business in
New Haven, while he spent most of his time captaining his ships as a trader and
smuggler.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Christmas of 1761 was celebrated by a feast in the Arnold Mansion.
Benedict's sister Hannah proved herself a competent hostess. Colonel Joshua
Lathrop was there, and Dr. Daniel and Jerusha Lathrop, accompanied by
Whitewater Beaver and Red Fox, who still lived at the Lathrop Manor. Caribou
Brave was there, more as a family member than a guest: he had a room in the
Arnold Mansion. Among many Mohegans present were Red Feather, his father
the Shaman, and Chief Benjamin Uncas.
Benedict's 21st birthday was three weeks away. During the Christmas
feast, Daniel and Joshua Lathrop offered Benedict a full partnership in the
apothecary business in Norwichtown. It was a generous offer, but Benedict
declined. "I've heard tell that business is booming in New Haven," Benedict said.
"They have a new wharf. Yale College is growing. The town now has 5000
residents, and no apothecary. I'd like to start my own business there."
Toward the end of the evening, when gifts were exchanged, Dr. Lathrop
presented Benedict with a sealed envelope. When he opened it, he found the
original of the £300 mortgage to the Arnold Mansion. At the bottom was an
inscription in the Doctor's own hand:
Consigned to Benedict Arnold, in consideration of his faithful
service as our apprentice in the Lathrop apothecary for seven
years, 1755-1761- Dr. Daniel Lathrop.
14 January 1762
The inscription was co-signed by two witnesses:
Col. Joshua Lathrop, Apothecary, Norwichtown
Chief Benjamin Uncas, Mohegan Village
"We had to postdate it to January 14," Dr. Lathrop said. "Otherwise it wouldn't
be legal."
On January 14, Hannah hosted a birthday feast for Benedict. On this
occasion, the Lathrop brothers gave him £500. "When you sail to London to
purchase merchandise for your apothecary in New Haven, you'll need money.
Otherwise the merchants there won't extend credit," Dr. Lathrop said.
To appreciate the value of the Lathrop brothers' gifts to Benedict, a high
official in Norwichtown earned about £50 a year. Benedict's uncle, Oliver
Arnold, still worked as a cooper, and had to get by on less than £10.