A/N: Pim and Lon first appeared in chapter 14 of Epic Sitch. KP:1776 is part of the Epic Sitch universe.
Thanks to JeanieBeani33, campy, Acaykath, Classic Cowboy, Molloy, Yankee Bard, Exbok58a, JPMod, Zaratan, kemiztri, momike, Ultimate Naco Topping, Josh84, whitem, surforst, daywalkr82, kpandron, TAZER ZERO, US.Steele, jasminevr, Ace Ian Combat, conan98002, mattb3671, and darkcloud1 for reviewing.
Thanks to campy for beta and proofreading.
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I.
"Lon, I am so sorry," Pim said, cradling his head in her lap.
"'Tis nothing, Pim," he replied. "Your father is a hot-tempered man who wishes only the best for his daughter."
Pim scowled. "Sadly, I must disagree. Were what you say true, he would wish me to marry you. Instead, he, he has betrothed me to that swine."
Lon looked into Pim's eyes. They were filled with sorrow and longing. He wished he had a solution. But at that moment, he had nary an idea. The truth be told, as much as he yearned to be with Pim, he never believed they could have a future together. The obstacles confronting them were just too great.
Pim returned Lon's gaze. She saw the look of resignation in his eyes, and it angered her. It made no sense that she should be parted from the person she loved most in the world, especially now that they had crossed a threshold. She determined at that moment that she and Lon would not be separated and a plan quickly began to take form in her head.
II.
Colonel Zin Possible was ushered into the library of Squire Mankey's elegant brick house. The room was warmed by a roaring fire, most welcome on this bitterly cold winter's night. Mankey sat in a wing chair, his gout-swollen left leg propped up on a stool, a glass of Madeira in his hand. He indicated that his visitor should take the seat opposite him.
"Possible," the fat man said, as if acknowledging a subordinate. "What brings you out this evening? Should you not be with the General?"
"I will soon be rejoining the Continental Army, Squire," he answered. "But I first needed to discuss a most nettlesome problem with you."
Mankey took a sip of his wine, then cocked an eyebrow. "And what might that be?"
"It would seem that Priscilla has taken a fancy to young Stoppabilski."
"I see," Mankey replied evenly. "I trust this will not affect the nuptials? That would be most … unfortunate."
Zin gulped. He knew he could not afford to alienate the squire. "Worry not, sir. I can control my daughter. But I believe matters would be less complicated were Zebulon to be …"
"… permanently indisposed?" Mankey interjected.
"Yes. No! I mean, well, if he could be, perhaps, somewhere else, then Priscilla would be forced to abandon the folly of her ways and prepare for her marriage."
Mankey looked at Possible through hooded eyes. He was a predator, a once handsome man who had run to fat and now looked like a rotund reptile ready to eat another creature's meal.
"Worry not, Colonel. I shall attend to the matter this very night."
III.
"You are sure of this, Pim?" Lon asked nervously.
"Yes. I will not spend my life parted from my beloved, even if it means living in a rude hut in the woods. We will flee to the West and make new lives for ourselves in the Ohio country."
Lon looked around the comfortably appointed room. Pim was preparing to sacrifice so much to be with him.
"You cannot do this," he said.
Pim arched an eyebrow. "You, sir, are not the master of me. You will not tell me what I can and cannot do." Then, in a softer tone, she added. "Dearest Lon, do you not understand? I wish to be with you, and you only. I most certainly do not wish to be with the odious Squire Mankey. What good are the comforts of a warm home if I am unable to share them with my beloved?"
Lon sighed, filled with both joy and fear. Pim had made up her mind and he knew there was no turning back. Then he brushed his lips against hers. "Very well, m'lady. I shall retrieve my belongings and then I will saddle up the horses. When will you be ready to depart?"
"I need but a few minutes to gather together some necessities for our journey." Pim not only planned on packing some clothes, but on raiding her father's strong box and gun case. She wanted them to be prepared for what lay ahead.
IV.
Zin left Mankey's house feeling distinctly uncomfortable. This was the place his beloved daughter would soon call home. Yet he knew that it would not be a home for her, but a prison. He tried to suppress the image of Mankey being with Priscilla as a husband would be; the notion made him want to retch, especially when he recalled the expression on her face when she was kissing Zebulon. That had been love. Misguided, inconvenient, unwelcome from his perspective, but it was true and pure. He wondered if he had made a mistake, but then chased the thought from his mind. He could not afford to be sentimental, not now. Too much was at stake.
V.
Lon carried his small bag to the stable behind the Possibles' house. The colonel had a good eye for horseflesh, and was one of the finest riders in the county; his daughter, by some accounts, was even better. Lon, on the other hand, would never impress anybody with his riding skills, though he could at least handle himself; Pim had seen to that over the years. He chuckled as he recalled how she had forced him to learn how to ride, refusing to even acknowledge his initial terror when around the animals. She was determined to have his companionship when she was out and about the countryside and that was all there was to it. He was now glad for her insistence.
Pim had her own horse, a beautiful chestnut mare she called Artemis. Though Lon did not have a horse of his own (if he had, he would have named it Rufus for reasons even he could not fathom), he often rode the stallion called Mercury. He hoped that that night the huntress would watch over and protect them and that they would be able to travel as swiftly as the messenger of the gods.
He had finished saddling up the animals when he heard footsteps. He smiled and turned, glad that Pim had arrived.
VI.
Pim avoided the worthless Continental currency; she instead filled a small pouch with gold and silver coins. Valuable on the seaboard, they would be worth a fortune in the interior. She then turned to the gun cabinet. She took down a musket, powder horn, and a container of shot. Then her eyes fell upon Zin's pistols. Those would prove most useful. She felt a momentary pang of guilt stealing from her father, but that feeling quickly passed as she thought of the love that her father intended to deprive her.
She slipped the pistols into the band of her breeches, picked up the sack of coins, and grabbed the musket.
She looked around the room, not expecting to see the familiar space for a long time. Perhaps after she and Lon had married and settled down she would return. While she was furious with her father, she bore no ill will towards her brother, Phineas.
She would miss Phin. The boy was two years younger than she, but had as adventurous a spirit. She knew that by leaving town, her father's finances would suffer grave, perhaps irreparable, decline and that Phin would pay the price. He would most likely have to withdraw from the College. But she could easily see him taking up soldiering or even following Lon and her to the frontier. She wanted the best for him – but not at the price of her heart and body. She knew he would understand. As would her mother have. If only she had not passed away two years earlier. She would have helped prevent her father from losing his bearings.
Pim was turning to leave the room when the door opened and her father entered. His eyes opened wide as he saw his daughter with her bag, sack, and weapons.
"Priscilla!" he exclaimed.
"Father," she said evenly.
"What are you doing?"
"I am leaving; is that not obvious?"
"But you cannot do that!" he exclaimed, realizing what she was about to do. "What of Phin? What of me?"
As much as it broke her heart to do so, she couldn't help but look at her father with contempt. "What of you? What of me?" she snapped. "You ride off to war to fight for the liberty of your countrymen, but you care nothing for the liberty of your own child! You would sell me to Squire Mankey to pay off your debts!"
"You speak harshly, my daughter," he said, noticing that she had unsheathed one of the pistols. "Do not do this, Priscilla, I beg of you."
"I do what I must, Father."
Zin stiffened. "Do you? You follow your heart, and abandon your family, your duty, your responsibility."
Pim's eyes widened in shock. "'Tis not I who betrays principle for expediency, whose words have hypocrisy as their handmaiden."
"That is not true!" the colonel protested, now trying to save face before his elder child.
"Oh? Did you not proclaim Mr. Jefferson's declaration the grandest work ever to come from the mind of man?"
"Yes, I did," he said soberly.
"'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,'" she recited. "Yet to you not all men are created equal when it comes to being worthy of my affections. To you those words apply not to Lon simply because he is of the Hebrew race and he is poor."
Zin blanched. His daughter was right.
"You will move aside, Father, and let me pass," she ordered, her hand on the pistol stock.
"Pri–"
Both heads turned as they heard noises outside – things were being knocked over. And a person was yelling. It was Lon. He was in trouble.
VII.
Lon had turned, thinking that it was Pim who had entered the stable. He was surprised when instead he saw two ruffians.
"You'll be coming with us, zur," one of them said. His companion merely smiled at Lon, who could not help but notice the number of teeth the man was missing. Nor could he miss the pistol that was pointed directly at his heart.
"I thank you for the invitation," Lon said, his eyes darting around to see how he might make an escape. "But I shall have to decline. I am, uh, otherwise engaged." Lon saw a hoe, dove for it and came up swinging. He struck the first man on the arm, knocking him off balance, then turned to the second – only to find the pistol now mere inches from his face.
"I was told by the Squire not to shoot you," the thug snarled. "But he said nothing about an accident. The young lady would suffer quite a shock if she were to come out and find you without a face, eh, zur?"
"Mankey," Lon hissed, as he felt the other man seize his arms and begin to bind him. He had only one hope. "PIIIIMMMMMMM!" he cried out. It was the last thing he remembered doing.
VIII.
Pim and Zin ran out of the house but Lon was nowhere to be seen. She darted to the stable, saw the saddles on Artemis and Mercury – and Lon's bag next to the latter's stall. She ran back out and found her father.
"What have you done?" she demanded.
"I, I …"
"Damn your eyes! Speak to me!" she yelled with a ferocity Zin never imagined possible.
"I asked Squire Mankey to spirit Zebulon away. I thought that were he gone, you might …"
"… Be more willing to marry the foul swine? You thought wrong, Father. I will never marry him. Never!" she declared. "Now where are they taking Lon?"
"I do not know," he said, broken. It was dawning on him that his daughter now truly despised him. He did not stop her as she ran out of the courtyard and down the street towards Mankey's house.
IX.
Pim rapped the knocker violently, not stopping until Mankey's butler opened the door.
"Yes?"
"I am here to see the Squire," Pim said.
The butler appraised Pim, looking at her with distaste. "I am sorry," he said. "But the Squire has retired for the evening. Perhaps you might return on the morrow."
Pim's eyes narrowed. She lost no time in drawing one of the pistols and leveling it at the supercilious retainer. "I think I shall see him now, please and thank you."
The butler gulped. "Follow me, if you will."
Pim was shown into the library, where Mankey still sat by the fire. He looked up at Pim and smiled. "Ah, so my future bride has come to visit."
"What have you done with him?" she demanded.
"I know not of what you speak," the squire said innocently.
"Let us try again," Pim said, now leveling the pistol at the fat man. "Where is he?"
"He is gone. That is all you need to know, dear."
"I am ready to pull this trigger, Squire."
"And if you do, you foolish girl, you are as good as dead. Surely, you will hang."
"I am as good as dead, already, if you have stolen Lon from me. Now speak!" she ordered. Not getting a response, she pointed the pistol at a spot just to the side of Mankey's head and fired. "I missed on purpose that time, sir. The next time I will not," she said tucking the pistol in her waistband and withdrawing its companion, which she pointed at the Squire. "Now tell me, you worthless scoundrel, where is he?"
Mankey's sangfroid was shaken; beads of perspiration had begun to form on his forehead. "I have arranged for Stoppabilski to be impressed into the Royal Navy."
"What? How?" Pim asked. She knew that the English controlled the seas and could move about with impunity. Still, there were no members of the Navy present in Princeton to scour the streets for men to man the King's ships.
"He is being brought to Camden …"
"Where?" she demanded.
"Tyler's Wharf."
Pim turned and ran from the house. She knew she did not have much time if she was to save Lon. For once he was on board that ship, he would be lost to her forever.
X.
When Lon came to he discovered that he was bound and gagged – and in a trunk. The way it was bouncing around, he suspected that he was on top of a stagecoach. He still had no idea of where he was being taken, other than away from Pim. He hoped she was safe.
He thought of her, of their years together as friends, and of their recent acknowledgments to each other of their true feelings. He thought of the life they were going to make together on the frontier. And he thought of her kisses. Lon felt hopelessness encroaching as he thought of how all of that was taken away from him; he had a very bad feeling that these men weren't going to leave him somewhere from which he could return to Princeton. He wanted to cry, but would not allow himself to succumb to despair. Not yet. For now, for Pim, he would be strong.
XI.
Artemis raced across the Jersey countryside. Pim was pushing the horse harder than she ever had before. She wasn't sure what she was going to do when she reached the waterfront; all she had at her disposal were her father's pistols and the musket, which she'd slung across her back. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her body wrapped in a man's greatcoat. She would at least enjoy a moment before anybody realized she was a girl.
She had never known such fury or despair before. The anger she felt for her father was intense, though it was nothing compared to the hatred she felt for the Squire. She would deal with him, somehow, after she had rescued Lon. He would pay for his villainy, of that she was sure.
XII.
The coach had come to a stop; Lon could hear muffled voices, though he couldn't understand what they were saying. He was struggling against his bindings, but to no avail, when he felt the trunk being shifted. The lid was opened. Hands reached down and rudely pulled him up.
Lon tried to get his footing, but he was pushed and fell to the street; he was grateful it was so cold, elsewise, he'd be lying in mud. He looked up and found himself peering at a party of uniformed men holding muskets with bayonets.
The uniforms weren't American. And the weapons were pointed at him.
"Here are your five shillings," one of the uniformed men said to one of Lon's captors. "Now be gone."
The two men who had abducted him quickly disappeared.
"To your feet!" the man commanded.
"W-what's going on?" Lon asked, confused and a bit scared, as two of the uniformed men grabbed his arms and began leading him towards the end of the wharf.
"Quiet!" the man ordered.
Lon was now terrified, convinced that he was going to be killed.
Lon closed his eyes, and let out a silent prayer, then he thought of Pim.
"Get in!" the man ordered.
"Huh?" Lon responded.
"Get into the longboat, rebel," the man hissed.
"W-why? Aren't you going to kill me?"
The uniformed man laughed. "Kill you? Why would I do that when we are in need of seamen?"
Then it dawned on Lon. He was being impressed. And that meant that as far as seeing Pim again was concerned, they may as well have shot him.
XIII.
Pim raced through the streets of Camden to the waterfront. She turned a corner and saw in the distance a party of men descending to a boat. One of them was Lon. She spurred Artemis on, but wasn't there in time and could only watch helplessly as the boat began pulling away from the wharf.
XIV.
Lon looked up and saw Pim waving frantically.
"Piiiiimmmmmmmm!" he cried, jumping to his feet. He managed to add "I love you!" before he was yanked back down to the thwart.
XV.
Pim was too late; she knew that. Tears began to form in her eyes. She was losing her Lon.
She dismounted Artemis. She looked around, hoping there might be someone nearby who could help; desperate, she called out for help, but there was no response.
Pim was alone.
As she looked out upon the night waters and his receding figure, she called out to him, "Lon, I shall always love you!"
TBC …