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.