Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (57 page)

“Andrea.”

She heard her
name faint and detached, like it was coming through fog, or water, or from a
thousand miles away through the distance of time and years.

“Andrea,” the voice said again.

She tried to open her eyes, but could see
nothing but darkness. Then someone began to unravel a bandage she had not known
was there. When it was off, she attempted to focus her eyes. She could see only
that the uniform standing before her was blue, the face too blurry to identify.

“Andrea,” the voice repeated. “It’s J.J. How ya
feelin’?”

Andrea took a deep, pain-filled breath, trying
to remember where she was. She could only see out of one eye. The other was
swollen shut. Her confusion must have been evident.

“You’re in a field hospital. You took a fall.”

Andrea closed her eye and remembered the battle,
remembered galloping through the smoke, remembered— She gasped, struggling to
sit up. “Justus?”

Memories rushed back. No, it could not be
memories! It had to be the vision of a frightful dream, like the one about
Hunter that seemed so real upon awakening. How silly to think that mere mortals
could produce the scenes of horror she recalled.

J.J. gently pushed her back down.

Squinting with one eye, Andrea looked up in
desperation, her hand grasping his sleeve. She pulled him down closer and tried
hard to focus on his face. She could see now that it was full of concern—and it
told her all she did not wish to know.

“You’ve been through a lot,” he said, ignoring
her questioning stare. “Try to get some rest.”

Andrea closed her eyes, whimpering
involuntarily.
If Justus is gone, then Boonie is gone—and how many others?
My God, how many others?

“Boonie?” She mouthed the word.

“I saw that his— He was sent home.”

Andrea continued to cling to his hand in
desperation.  “How I envy him,” she said after a long silence. “He would not
take me.”

“Don’t talk that way,” J.J. scolded her. “This
pain will pass.”

Andrea did not believe him. “Thousands are
dead.” She closed her eyes tightly to shut out the memory. “All for glory, I
suppose.”

“Listen,
Andrea.” J.J. sounded desperate. “Just try
…
try to forget—what you saw, what you heard, what you felt. It’s over.
You just have to forget. We all do.”

Andrea sighed again. Indeed she wanted to
forget. Yet she knew her memory would never be erased as quickly and as
effortlessly as had all those once-living souls on the battlefield.

She tried again to banish the image of the guns,
the smoke, the cannons—the terror, the dead, the dying. Her horse had reared an
instant before the fatal blast, had taken the death shot intended for her. He
had been no match for that death-dealing ball of iron that consumed everything
in its path. But that’s what a cannon was for, was it not? To devour flesh and
bone? And that’s what the war was for, was it not? To destroy as many souls, as
many lives, as possible?

Andrea kept her eyes closed and lay still,
thinking how silly and senseless had been her arguments with Hunter. Who cared
anymore who was right or wrong? This war was nothing but a killing machine now,
a living, breathing killing machine devouring all in its path, wrecking
everything, and destroying what everyone thought they were fighting for.
Nothing and no one could stop it now, until perhaps everyone in the whole
country was dead. Or like her, longed to be.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” J.J. said.
“In a day or two.”

Andrea moaned softly at a searing, stabbing pain
in her arm and wondered how long she had been here. Was it one day? A month?
She wondered how
he would move her. The
pain was too great to open her eyes. She could not
imagine the prospect
of having to travel.

A tear squeezed through Andrea’s swollen eyelid.
Her other eye was open, but it focused on nothing. “I have lost everything,
save that which I have been most willing to give,” she whispered.

She felt J.J. grip her hand firmly. “God has not
willed the sacrifice of your life, Andrea. And neither should you.”

She responded by mumbling something she knew he
could not understand, then something he could. “No, he was right all along
J.J.,” she said, her voice cracking with pain. “
God is nowhere to be found
in this war.
”

Chapter
56

“I cannot love as I have loved,

And yet I know not why.

It is the one great woe of life,

To feel all feeling die.”

– Robert Bulwer-Lytton

“What is your name and rank?” Colonel Hunter
leaned slightly forward in his seat and looked the Union officer who questioned
him in the eye. “Lieutenant Maxwell Harrison.”

“What were you doing in the Turner house when we
captured you?”

Hunter leaned back in the chair and took a deep
breath of exasperation. “Sleeping. Obviously.”

The two interrogating officers—one a major, the
other a colonel—took a step back and began to consult with each other in hushed
tones. Hunter knew the routine. He had done it himself a thousand times.

“Let’s get to the point.” The colonel stepped
forward. “I have reason to believe you are lying.”

Hunter did not flinch. Although he had been
captured while catching a few hours’ sleep in the house of a citizen, he had
been taken without his coat. The papers within its pockets and the stars
denoting his rank on the collar would provide the Federals all the verification
they needed. But they did not have it.

Or did they?

“Upon what grounds do you make that absurd
accusation?”

“Upon the grounds that we were told, by some
excellent sources, that Colonel Hunter was in the house where you were found.”

“Then I’m sorry to disappoint you.” Hunter’s
voice was utterly calm, though his heart picked up its pace just a little. “It
appears you have been given some erroneous information.”

“If we can’t settle this one way, we can settle
it another.” The colonel stomped to the door and waved for an aide. “Is
Sinclair still in camp?”

“He was this morning, sir.”

“Go find him!”

When he shut the door, the room grew quiet. An
icy sensation crept up Hunter’s spine.

“Tell me, while we’re waiting, Lieutenant,” the
colonel began, his voice dripping with disdain, “why is it, do you suppose,
that you Rebels win so many victories against a superior army?”

“I assume by
superior
you are referring
to numbers. In which case, we have found that audacity and a righteous cause
doubles ours.”

The silence that followed was broken by voices
outside.

Hunter
squinted at the sudden burst of light when the door opened. Even though her
face was not visible beneath the hat pulled characteristically low, he could
see it was her. She returned the officers’ salutes in a purely mechanical
manner that had nothing of respect in it, and looked down, trying to remove her
gloves. This appeared to be tedious work, both mentally and physically.

Hunter swallowed hard, accepting the fact that
his death warrant had arrived. He lifted his eyes to meet the inquisitive stare
of a general who walked in behind her. Quickly averting his gaze, Hunter chose
a mark on the wall on which to concentrate.

“General Jordan. Sinclair,” the colonel said,
“thank you for joining us.”

Hunter looked down at the floor a moment and
thought of all the times he had wondered how he would feel if he ever saw her
again. Would it be anger for what she had done? Remorse for what he had done?
He found it was neither. It was concern, forgiveness, and now even regret for
the position he placed her in—betray the Union or seal his fate.

Hunter willed Andrea to look up, to see him
before being taken by surprise, but she stood with head down, still
concentrating on her gloves. His gaze flitted across her faded, threadbare
coat, too big for her small frame and marred with more than one bullet hole. He
winced at the thought it was on her when they were collected, and it disturbed
him that she had been placed in harm’s way.

Andrea did finally look up, but not at him. She
stood directly in front of the two officers, close enough for Hunter to reach
out and touch her back.

“You wished to see me, sir?” She addressed the
colonel in a dull tone that made it evident she did not carry a favorable
impression of him either.

“Yes, Sinclair. I was hoping you could identify
this man as Colonel Hunter.”

Hunter tried to look relaxed, but every muscle,
every fiber of his being was taut with the expectation of exposure.

Andrea turned slowly, painfully, and looked at
him for the first time.

Hunter watched her closely, expecting to see a
hint of surprise, or anger, or maybe even compassion flash across her eyes.

But he did not.

The surprise was all his when she lifted her
head high enough for him to see beneath the brim of her hat. One of her eyes
was barely visible, so swollen was the lid. The other one sent a chill down his
spine. It stared at him cold and emotionless. No fire or ice glimmered there as
he so often remembered. No joy or sorrow, no flicker of hope or spirit. He
beheld no trace of the Andrea he once knew, nor any indication that any thread
of that being remained within her.

The room grew quiet. Hunter removed his gaze
from her, swallowed hard, and looked straight ahead. He felt the eyes of
General Jordan boring into him from where he stood silently observing, and
wondered if he had given himself away already. Had the pain in his soul at
seeing her again—at seeing that lifeless look—been reflected in his own eyes?

“Why do you think I can identify this man as
Hunter?” Andrea turned back to the officers, giving no indication of what she
was thinking. She held her right arm against her body and rubbed it like it
caused her great pain.

“He is the one who captured you, sent you to
prison, is he not?”

The room grew deathly quiet for a long moment.
Hunter held his breath. Any hope that he had for freedom, for life, was dashed.
He knew she would not lie. It was not within her to be disloyal to the Union.

Hunter cleared his throat. He would not make her
answer the question. He would admit to his true character and save her honor.
He owed her that at least.

As he opened his mouth to speak, he saw her
raise one finger down low by her side, anticipating his intentions behind her
back. Her sign of warning, intended and seen only by him, cautioned him to
silence. He pretended to cough instead of speak.

“Indeed, I was captured by Colonel Hunter and
know his image well.”

Hunter’s heart banged in his ears. He discerned
no emotion in her voice.

“But I have the duty to inform you, the man
behind me is not the one who sent me to prison.”

Hunter sat looking straight ahead. If he had
expected her to say something else, he did not allow it to show, though it took
every ounce of his strength to hide the admiration in his eyes. Once again she
had shown her resourcefulness. He should have known she would find a way to
spare him—and yet, she had not lied.

“You are certain?” The colonel’s disappointment
was obvious.

“As I said, sir, that is not the man.”

Hunter found himself holding his breath. He was
close enough to touch her, to take her in his arms and protect her from
everything and everyone that would ever dare harm her. The feeling to do so was
so strong, despite what she had done to him at Hawthorne, that the strength it
took to overcome it caused his muscles to tremble.

Hunter watched Andrea give the officer a
truculent nod of her head in response to his and turn to leave. He noticed her
limp was present, but less pronounced than when he had last seen her. Yet she
moved stiffly, as if now her entire body pained her, not just her leg.

He contrasted the Andrea who had been forever in
motion with this one, who now moved as though an unseen blanket of weight
hindered every move. She appeared like the walking dead, her body seeming to
have aged by minutes, rather than by years.

“Will that be
all?” Andrea did not wait for an answer as she proceeded to the door. Reaching
for the door latch, she twice came up with nothing but thin air before General
Jordan stepped forward and opened the door for her.

“Yes, that will be all,” the colonel sneered,
apparently enjoying the sight of the young scout struggling with double vision
from only one eye.

* * *

The misty, damp night adequately reflected
Hunter’s mood. Most of the other prisoners sat around a smoky campfire playing
cards with the guards, but Hunter stood apart, staring into the darkness.
Although successful in hiding his true identity, he knew he was still destined
for a Union prison. But the thought of losing his freedom did not weigh as
heavily on his mind as the image of a spiritless Andrea.

The scent of pipe smoke on the breeze reached
him at about the same time as a voice from out of the darkness behind him. He
recognized it as General Jordan’s, but could not make out his form in the inky
blackness.

“That Sinclair is really something, is he not?”

Hunter hesitated to answer, fearing a trick. “I
suppose so,” he said noncommittally.

“A little headstrong sometimes,” the officer
continued.

Hunter failed to suppress a snort of agreement
but said nothing more.

He heard the general take a few puffs on the
pipe and smelled the sweetness of the effect. “We’ve known each other a long
time, Sinclair and me,” he began again, seeming to choose his words carefully.
“And I know that if he ever protected a Confederate officer over all that he
believes in, and fights for, and protects so passionately—then he has a darn
good reason.”