Conflagration by Mick Farren Read Free Book Online

with the native people, but at the time, she had never suspected just how deep that reacquaintance would go. She had met Magachee on the second day of the advance into Virginia. Jesamine had been resting her horse, leading it at a slow walk, and had stopped as a column of Ohio rode past. Out of nowhere, a voice had called to her. “Jesamine!”
    Jesamine had turned, and a young woman quickly dismounted and waited for her to catch up. She was dressed in white buckskins, and her face and arms were painted with the Ohio symbols of both war and ecstasy. Jesamine had not recognized the girl, but she already seemed to know this and quickly introduced herself. “I am called Magachee. We met just once. That night when the men were sent away, and the women were together.”
    Jesamine remembered the night. It had been an experience too intense to forget. “I’m sorry. There were a great many of you and only one of me.”
    Magachee had laughed. “I don’t expect you to remember me. We only spoke briefly. I was just happy to see you.”
    “You are traveling with the warriors?”
    Magachee’s smile fractionally faded. “Among the Ohio, we women fight alongside the men, if we so chose.”
    She saw Jesamine’s confusion, and quickly continued. “I ride beside a brave named Oonanchek.”
    “Oonanchek?”
    “You must come with me and meet him.”
    Jesamine hesitated, unsure of how to answer. “I…”
    “You have duties?”
    “No, not right now.”
    “Then come.”
    As they and their mounts walked side by side, some Albany infantrymen had leaned on their muskets, and regarded her with concealed smirks. Jesamine had scowled. “They never let me forget that I was previously a slave and concubine.”
    Magachee had halted and looked at her with a patient calm. “Our energies are needed to fight our enemy, not to deal with the complexities of our supposed friends.”
    In that instant, a bond of trust had been formed, but, even after they had talked a while longer about how dislocated Jesamine felt, Magachee’s offer came straight out of the blue. “Would be easier for you if you traveled with us?”
    The idea took her completely by surprise. “With you? With the Ohio?”
    “The army of Albany has regulations against such a thing?”
    “Not that I know of. They have a lot of regulations, though.”
    “Your uniform proclaims you a major?”
    “That’s right.”
    “And you have no commander to forbid it?”
    “Not directly.”
    “So?”
    “If I traveled with the Ohio, it would confirm everything the bastards already believe about me; that I am a former slave and probably a whore.”
    “If they believe that already, what do you have to lose?”
    Jesamine hesitated. “But how would the Ohio react to such a thing?”
    “The Ohio do not judge.”
    “And what would Oonanchek think about me traveling with you?”
    Magachee had shrugged, but her eyes were dark and knowing. “We can only ask him.”
    And with that, she had swung herself back onto her pony, indicating that Jesamine do the same. When they found him, Oonanchek turned out to be a tall warrior with strong, confident features, and his long hair tied back in the beaded band of a mystic adept. Far from raising objection to Magachee taking in a stranger, he almost seemed to be expecting her. “You are Jesamine.”
    “And you are Oonanchek.”
    “And now we travel together.”
    That first night with her newfound Ohio companions had seemed like a cocoon of black velvet studded with fires and stars. Slow drums had been beating, and voices that sang with rich ululations helped drown out the raucous barrack ballads of the Albany soldiers. A pipe had been passed, and Jesamine had used her clout as a major to send for a bottle of Albany applejack. Perhaps Jesamine had loosened her inhibitions a fraction too much, or maybe what happened next was somehow preordained, but the conversation had become more intimate and self-revealing. Jesamine had told Oonanchek and Magachee