Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (29 page)

She looked up to see Hunter standing over her,
talking in slow motion, not making sense. Mattie and the doctor appeared too,
all floating in some sort of cloudy substance.

Something’s wrong
, Andrea thought with
strange detachment. She stared at her fingers and thought how peculiar they
looked, seeming to wrap around the glass like a vine.

She looked up again at Hunter, alarmed now, and
tried desperately to read his lips. But the more she concentrated, the more his
image began to distort and fade away like smoke carried on a breeze. A great
gushing roar began to vibrate in her ears, and the room began to careen. Andrea
wrapped her free hand around the arm of the chair in a panic, just as the floor
in front of her opened its mouth.

She felt the glass in her hand slipping from her
grasp. Did someone catch it?

She never heard it shatter. She never heard
another sound before the room swallowed her whole.

Chapter
26

“To restrain her is to restrain the wind.”

– Proverbs 27:16

Hunter mounted the staircase to his chamber for
a welcome rest after two hellish days in the saddle. His head throbbed
violently, and his injured shoulder ached with a pain so intense it nearly
robbed him of breath. He hoped his houseguest was not in similar agony.

The sound of footsteps hurrying down the stairs
made him pause in mid-stride. His gaze came to rest on Mattie, and then on the
tray she carried—still laden with food.

“The lioness is not hungry?”

 “She won’t eat nor drink,” Mattie wailed. “Say
she gonna leave Camp Miz’ry one way or anutter. Tol’ me if I enter her room
again, she gonna—” Mattie, whose stern disposition was usually feared by all
who met her, sniffled like a child and did not finish.

Hunter growled, grabbed the tray from her hands,
and sprinted up the steps two at a time. Having departed before the doctor’s
procedure, he had hoped her anger would be gone upon his return. Yet it
appeared the hopeless discord in the house had not abated, or even lessened, in
his absence.

“Careful, Massa,” Mattie yelled when Hunter
reached the landing. “She so mad, if you put water on huh, she’ll sizz.”

Hunter frowned at that announcement, but did not
pause. “Miss Evans,” he said, striding through the door without knocking. “You
are vexing my patience sorely. Must you constantly dig everyone with your
spurs?”

Hunter could see with one sweeping glance he was
in for another unpleasant brawl, and that going head-to-head with the girl’s
irascible spirit was going to be even more demanding than the skirmish he had
just fought with her Northern compatriots.

“I will not
eat your poison again.” Andrea turned her head and talked to the wall. “I shall
become food for worms before I am twice deceived by your tricks.”

Hunter sat
the tray down roughly on the table beside her bed and turned her face to look
at him. “Look you here. Were I the evil Rebel you portray me as, Miss Evans, I
would have ringed your neck with my bare hands long ago!”

 “My injuries are considerable, sir, but I am
not deaf!” Andrea shouted as though she were.

 “I’m sorry.” Hunter lowered his voice a little.
“But I am weary of enduring, and having my household endure, your volatile and
vicious disposition. You are free to denounce me and my allegiance in any terms
you wish, but I forbid you to take out your wrath upon my servants.”

“How dare you insult me after what you did,”
Andrea spat. “Pray excuse me if I refrain from expressing gratitude that the
ailment has worsened with the treatment.”

Hunter could see she was hurting. Her fingers
lay buried to the knuckle in her thigh as if to cut off a throbbing nerve, and
her other foot was in constant motion, as if the movement helped keep the
raging pain at bay. Even with her lids closed, he could see her eyes quivering
beneath the thin skin. “I’m sorry if it pains you,” he said in a softer voice.

“
Pains
me?” Andrea opened her eyes wide.

“Hurts you,” Hunter said, trying to explain.

“I’m not altogether unfamiliar with the word!
Yes, it pains me! Had you the decency to seek my opinion on the matter
beforehand, I would have informed you that having my leg broken once by vicious
Rebels was quite enough for a lifetime!”

“Miss, what I did was for your own good,” Hunter
said. “It appears imperative that I use my good judgment since you seem to have
none of your own.”

Andrea did not respond, other than to stare
again at the wall. But the look she allowed to flash across her face before she
turned away made words quite unnecessary. In fact, Hunter decided there was
nothing quite so eloquently unnerving as Andrea Evans’ eyes when she was
angry—save perhaps a masked battery of cannon discovered at close range.

Hunter paced back and forth beside her bed in
frustration. I thought perhaps your injuries were to blame for your surly
temper, but I’m beginning to believe it’s merely a part of your Yankee
character.”

“Do not waste your time fretting about my
character. I assure you any disagreeableness is only brought out in the
presence of traitors to our flag.”

Hunter stopped and whirled around to face the
bed. “Young lady, I did not come in here expecting to be eaten up with fondness,
but neither did I intend to have my loyalty assaulted and my country insulted.
If you would spend as much time trying to recover as you do feeling sorry for
yourself, you would likely be up and running by now.”

Andrea drew a deep breath like she had been
slapped. “Tell me, sir,” she said, narrowing her eyes to mere slits, “are you
as adept at reading your own shortcomings as you are mine?”

Hunter lowered himself into a chair beside the
bed and tried to cool his temper. His houseguest was, he decided, a natural
born devil, possessing a temper as volatile and unpredictable as if spurred by
some demon from the very depths of hell—and by the look on her face, she was
consigning him to that very place at that very moment.

“It’s imperative that you eat if you wish to
gain your strength.” Hunter stood and paced again. “It is for your own
well-being.”

Andrea snorted and hurled words back in open
defiance. “Are you speaking to dispel your own worries or are you under the
illusion you are relieving me of mine?”

“Do you never throw down your weapon? Let down
your guard?”

“In the home of the enemy?” Andrea snorted with
profound indignation. “What do you expect?”

“Come now.” Hunter stopped and faced her. “We’ve
lived together far too long to be considered enemies. Surely you can agree to a
flag of truce.”

“You forget,
sir, it is misfortune, certainly not desire, that places me here.”

“I assure you I do not forget. Likewise, it was
necessity, not desire, which compelled me to bring you here.”

“Then let us be clear. I am determined to endure
my prison term. Pray do not think that I am going to enjoy it.”

“Come now, Miss Evans, is it so bad?”

“Major,” Andrea replied without a pause. “If I
make up my mind to go to hell, allow me to cut my own throat so that I may go direct,
instead of lingering in this miserable manifestation of a wholehearted hell on
earth called the Confederacy.”

Hunter had hoped he could silence the batteries,
that they could call a truce. He frowned at the prospect. Trying to reach a
compromise with her would be like trying to stop a typhoon with his bare hands.

“Miss Evans, you are simply going to have to
accept the fact that you are here under my care. And you could, despite our
differences, extend me some gratitude, allowing you to stay here as I do while
I am out defending my native soil.”

“Defending your native soil?” Andrea gave an
enraged laugh.  “Is that what you call the midnight mischief created by your
mob of marauding miscreants?” Andrea squinted at Hunter with one eye in such a
way, he was beginning to learn, meant things did not sit well with her.

“May I inform you, Miss Evans, that I practice a
completely legitimate method of warfare. In fact, my men live by the Golden
Rule at all times: Do unto others as they would do unto you—but do it first.”

“Your nomadic tribe of trigger-happy horse
thieves knows nothing but pilfering and pillaging and plunder,” Andrea said
with a toss of her head. “The only thing your bloodthirsty gang of guerillas
would not steal from Union troops is their valiant dead!”

“I can hardly be blamed if the fear of a hundred
of my men in the Yankee’s rear is equal to the fire power of ten thousand in
their front.”

“Union troops cannot be blamed for fearing the
ferocity of those who know no laws! You are nothing but an engineer of evil!”

“Engineer of evil? You wound me,” he said,
placing his hand on his heart. “I had no idea my reputation was so misconstrued
in the North, no doubt by those who have been painfully, and, dare I say,
frequently, defeated by my
avengers
of evil.”

Andrea stared at him for a few long moments, her
cheeks turning an unusual shade of red at his quick-witted comeback. Hunter
noticed her foot had begun to move even faster beneath the covers, a sure sign
she was not at peace.

“Can we call a truce in the war of words?”
Hunter pleaded. “I regret that we had to resort to the measures we did to reset
your leg, but it was for your own well-being.”

Andrea’s mouth dropped open in a most unladylike
fashion, then snapped shut like a nutcracker.

“Surely my hospitality deserves some degree of
respect,” Hunter said.

“You fight against the flag of your nation.”
Andrea’s tone indicated that such an action demanded no respect.

 Hunter blinked at her impudence. “I fight
for
my state. In case you did not know, Virginia followed her Southern sisters in
secession after an invasion by your government.”

This made Andrea’s jaw drop again. “You have the
audacity to place the blame on the North for this cruel and needless rebellion?
You fault the Union, when it was the South that commenced hostilities with her
traitorous uprising?”

“We have the right—and the duty—to guard our
homeland from incursion, our property from desecration, and our institutions
from destruction.”

Hunter grew decidedly uneasy at the direction of
the conversation, having never experienced a discussion about the war with a
woman. Still, she had started it. And though he had learned that few could
trade insults with her and come out ahead, he was determined to give it a
soldier’s try.

“You invaded our country and kill us for
defending it.”

Andrea groaned as if he had assaulted her. “The
North’s so-called invasion is due to armed aggression by a traitorous regime of
Southern fanatics. Our government is obligated to defend and maintain itself
against acts of rebellion.”

“Miss Evans, the compact of the constitution was
broken by the North when they invaded the South, making Virginia no longer
bound by it. Therefore our actions are not an act of treason or rebellion.”

“You are deceived. Disunion by armed force is treason,”
Andrea responded. “And a government using force in compelling obedience to its
own authority is not war or
invasion
..”

“It is my, and Virginia’s ardent belief, that
the Union was a partnership voluntarily entered into by the states to secure
liberty and self-government,” Hunter argued. “The right to withdrawal was never
surrendered, and the power to coerce a state to remain was never delegated—nor
does it exist.”

Andrea half-choked, half-laughed. “I believe it
is safe to assert that no government ever had a provision in its law for its
own termination!”

Hunter stared
at her for a moment, weighing the benefit of continuing the argument. Even if
he was right, he did not seem destined to win. Her opinions were fervent and
fanatical, and she felt no reserve about expressing them.

“I believe
you are failing to see the line of distinction between the Constitution, which
it is the duty of citizens to obey, and the unconstitutional edicts of a
military despotism we are, in fact, obligated to resist,” he said as if
explaining something to a child. “We severed our relationship with the Union
peacefully through ordinances of secession, with no contemplation of war.”

“The ordinance of secession is but a cloak
behind which you try to conceal rebellion and treason.”

He shook his head sadly. “We did not agree to
the severance of ties without just appreciation of the significance of the
deed, I assure you.”

“Yes, and now you show the solemn convictions of
your deed through boundless expenditures of blood,” Andrea said, staring at the
ceiling again. “You have successfully opened a vein that is bleeding a nation
to death.”

Hunter let out his breath in exasperation.
“Every drop of blood shed is a price freely paid by a soldier for his inherited
beliefs and cherished convictions in the Constitution.” He made no pretense at
calmness now. “It was the only option left open to us.”

“You are deceived if you believe that. The Union
torn asunder is not a remedy for any evil in government—real or imagined.”

“My dear, we, as Virginians, will not have terms
dictated to us by tyrants. Surely you do not believe the Old Dominion is made
of a race of cowards who will easily surrender the most sacred rights of
self-government.”

Andrea pretended to reflect a moment upon his
question and then gave him a wintry smile. “As to the qualities of the race
that is spawned upon the soil of Virginia—I prefer not to comment.”

The words were spoken with such an air of
disdain that Hunter clenched his fists. The sneer had awakened his
combativeness, and her insolence and dogged invincibility of opinion destroyed
his capability for restraint. He had no intention of being driven back from
ground he had already captured.