“That was a fine supper,” Major Blain said pushing his chair back from the table. “My
thanks to you, Ma’am.” He poured both of them a drink from the bottle he brought.
“Most welcome, Major. Thank you for the food.” She had been lucky that the crop had
matured enough so that she could dig a few new potatoes and not disturb the plants. She
sent her cook, Doris, to gather some poke salad and the early garden produced enough green
plants for a salad. Together with the cornmeal and salt pork he had delivered, it was a
nice repast. Better than she had had in a long while.
“Are you alone here?” he inquired.
“No, my husband will be home shortly. I expect him any time now. I…”
“Please, Mrs. Treadwell,” the officer interrupted her lie. “Forgive me, but I know your
husband was killed during the battle at Vicksburg. I was asking about your help. How many
laborers do you have?”
“Oh, I have five families, share-cropping,” her face was red being caught in the lie.
“Colored people?”
“Yes, they are all freed slaves. Why do you ask?”
“Finding out which farms can produce crops is part of my responsibilities. How long ago
was your husband killed?”
“June of sixty-three,” she answered. “Why is that important?”
“It’s not important for any reason other than I was trying to assess how long it had been
since you had a man to warm your bed.”
“How dare you, sir!” she said jumping to her feet. “That is insulting. Please leave my
house at once.”
“Be quiet and sit down,” he said calmly. “You have to learn one thing. You rebels are at
the mercy of the Army of the United States of America. You live here only because we allow
you to. If I say so, you will be taken from this place to live or starve on your own. You
lost the war, Mrs. Treadwell, so you have no right to be insulted. Sit down I said!” She
slowly sat back down. “Drink your whiskey,” he continued calmly. “Have you been chaste,
Polly?”
“Of course I have! What do you take me for?”
“I take you for a young, beautiful woman,” he answered with a smile. “One who is going to
be very nice to me if she wants to keep her farm.” Polly was shocked into silence. “Do you
get my meaning, Polly Ann Treadwell?”
“This plantation has been in my husband’s family for generations,” she finally managed to
utter. “By what right do you threaten to take it away?”
“The right of the victor, my dear lady,” Adam Blain said. “Your husband was an officer in
the rebel army and as such, forfeits all right to claim on this land.” He paused and took
a sip of his whiskey. “However, as I said, all is not lost. The men from the Office of
Reconstruction will be along any day and my word will have a lot of influence with them.”
FYI {Reconstruction was that period between eighteen sixty-five and eighteen
seventy-seven. The so called period of readjustment following the Civil War. At the end of
the Civil War, the defeated South was a ruined land. The physical destruction wrought by
the invading Union forces was enormous, and the old social and economic order founded on
slavery had collapsed completely, with nothing to replace it. The eleven Confederate
states somehow had to be restored to their positions in the Union and provided with loyal
governments, and the role of the emancipated slaves in Southern society had to be defined.
Reconstruction was also a golden opportunity for who the southern called carpetbaggers to
gorge themselves on the spoils of war.
Carpetbaggers came like locus and took everything, land and farms included, for
themselves. It wasn’t unusual for carpetbaggers to be in collaboration with the Office of
Reconstruction. The further away from Washington they were, the worse the reconstruction
people became.}
Polly Treadwell was aware of the absolute power these people had over her. For nearly a
year after the war ended she was in constant dread of when they would come to Ravenwood.
What Major Blain didn’t tell the woman was because she was producing crops with black
share-croppers she would have been exempt from forfeiting her land. The reconstruction
people would not have dared to take her farm. Even the northern newspapers were taking a
dim view of their high-handed seizures.
“Now, Polly,” the major said. “What’s it going to be? Be nice to me and keep your land or
lose it?”
“I shall do whatever I have to do to keep my husband’s land,” she answered coldly.
“A wise choice,” the officer said. “Stand and take off your clothes, please. Let me feast
my eyes on the body you are offering me.”
“Here? In the dining room? I can’t…” her voice stopped when she saw the hard look he gave
her. She rose and slowly, face red with acute embarrassment, took off her threadbare dress
and under clothing. When she was naked before his steady gaze she gave him a direct look.
She made a resolution that this Yankee soldier would not beat her into total submission.
She turned around when he motioned for her to do so. No man had looked on her naked body
in over three years. Her embarrassment was mixed with a kind of eagerness. It had been so
long.
When Jason had taken her virginity on their wedding night he called sexual intercourse
‘fucking’. It was a new and naughty word for her. He always referred to sex as that, and
she relished the word as she had the act itself.
“Come over here,” Blain said, his voice husky. The woman had proved to have a delicious
body under her rags. “Pull my boots off and help me undress.”
Polly did as she was ordered. She moved without hesitation, because she told herself that
she was under duress. She reminded herself that she had no choice in the matter. Polly
removed his heavy boots and pulled his suspenders down. He shoved his pants down as she
unbuttoned his shirt. Soon he was as naked as she was. At his order she led him to the
bedroom where she submitted to him. Reluctant at first, but quickly warming to the
situation. Major Blain took her twice before falling into a deep slumber.
Polly lay awake for a while. First just basking in the afterglow of the long denied sex
and then thinking about how she would control this man to Ravenwood’s advantage.
| 
