Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (75 page)

It was not until Andrea had pushed away and
brought her heel crashing down onto the top of his foot, and then her toe into
his shin, that he realized her aforementioned actions were but a maneuver—a
feint as they called it in the cavalry—to get him to let down his guard and
relax his own grip so she could make her escape.

“Tell them, no! I can take care of m-y-y-self!”
she cried, as she picked up her skirts and ran away toward the woods. She
looked back only once—and then with an expression that would haunt Pierce for
the rest of his life. For he could recall no other look, in dream or in life,
that so fully expressed despair and sorrow.

* * *

 “Mother.” Daniel watched his mother’s eyes open
slowly. “Mother,” he said again.

“Yes, dear?” She turned her head toward him but
her eyes appeared unfocused.

“I believe you were dreaming, Mother,” he said,
“about the memorial.”

Her eyes met his, then drifted over to his wife,
Ellie, standing beside him.

“Yes,” she smiled weakly. “I guess it’s the
fever. Funny, I remembered every moment of it.” She struggled to take a breath.
“That was where you and Ellie met. Do you remember?”

“Yes, we remember,” Daniel said smiling at his
wife. “But that was ten years ago, Mother.”

Her eyes closed again as if trying to remember
something or account for the time lost. “Yes, I suppose it was,” she said.
“Where is Alexandria?”

“I’m right here Nana.” The little girl stood on
tiptoe, poking her nose over the side of the bed between her parents.

“Well, come up here and talk to me.” Andrea
patted the covers.

Daniel helped his green-eyed bundle of energy
up. “Why are you in bed so early, Nana?” Alexandria asked. “In the morning,
won’t you take me for a ride? You’re the only one that takes me fast!”

“I told you, Alexandria,” Daniel said. “Nana is
not feeling well.”

“Maybe I can make you feel better.” Alexandria
laid her head upon her grandmother’s heaving chest and Andrea wrapped her arms
around the child. But the little girl did not stay quiet long. She reached for
the locket around Andrea’s neck and opened it. “There’s the Kulnel,” she said,
staring at the faded image of Alex in uniform and speaking as if she knew him
well. “My grandpapa.”

Daniel looked at the wistful smile on his
mother’s face and knew she was thinking the same thing as he. This child would
have had her grandfather wrapped tightly around her little finger.

Alexandria closed the locket and replaced her
head on Andrea’s chest. “I wish he was here.”

“He’s very close, dear,” Andrea said. “He’s
waiting for me.”

Alexandria sat up. “Can I see him?”

“Yes, some day. But for now, you must be a good
girl for your mother and father.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Alexandria glanced at her father.
“I am being a good girl, right, Papa?”

“Yes, you are being good today.”

Andrea must have noticed the tone of her son’s
voice. “I fear she has inherited more of my traits than you would care her to
have.”

“Grandpa Pierce says I’m just like you,”
Alexandria said proudly. “He said when you were young, you were as fearless and
stubborn as a Yankee—”

“Alexandria!” Her mother and father yelled in
unison, trying to stop her.

“—mule,” she finished.

Andrea’s eyes lifted to her daughter-in-law.
“Your father would surely know,” she smiled. “Your parents are well?”

Ellie nodded. “Yes, ma’am.

“You will tell them I was thinking of them
today, won’t you?”

Ellie gazed at Daniel with look of confusion.
“Yes, ma’am.”

“Mother, don’t talk like this. I believe you are
getting stronger every minute.” Daniel only hoped his voice did not betray him,
because she looked weary and weak. Her eyes were sunken and glassy, her lips
pale, and each breath seemed to be a struggle.

“I’m very tired today.” Andrea took a raspy
breath. “Ellie, you will take good care of my son.”

Ellie looked at her husband with an expression
of sadness and fear, her mother-in-law’s words causing the former—the
commanding tone of her voice the latter. “Yes, ma’am.”

Daniel cleared his throat and pulled his wife
away from the bed. “Will you send for the doctor?” he whispered, his voice
filled with concern.

Ellie nodded. “Come with me Alexandria.” She
backed out of the room on her errand, her eyes never leaving her mother-in-law
until she was out the door.

“Son, will give you this to Ellie?” Andrea
removed the Hawthorne medallion from her neck. “She is a part of Hawthorne
now.”

Daniel sat down on the edge of the bed. “Mother,
please don’t—”

“And this,” she continued, ignoring him. “I
would like Alexandria to have this to remember her grandfather—always.” Andrea
likewise handed him the locket that had not left its place next to her heart
since the day her husband had been laid to rest beneath Virginia soil. Then,
without hesitating a moment, she slipped Daniel’s ring from her finger, though
her eyes were now closed from the effort. “Here, son. Your Uncle Daniel would
be honored for his namesake to have this.”

Daniel reluctantly took the ring and watched his
mother’s fingers move to her left hand. “Bury me with this one,” she said
weakly of her wedding band. “He put it on. I don’t want it taken off.”

“Oh, Mother, please don’t talk like this,”
Daniel sobbed, taking her hand in both of his. “Please don’t! I don’t wish you
to leave!”

Andrea’s eyes were open now and staring at the
flickering shadows created on the ceiling by the gas lamp beside her bed. “He
has been waiting long enough.” Her voice was filled with impatience.

Daniel took a deep breath and spoke softly,
placing his hand on her shoulder. “You mean,
you
have been waiting long
enough.”

Andrea turned her head slowly to meet the eyes of
her son. “You understand, don’t you, dear?”

“I know you have not the will to go on.” His
eyes were moist with tears as he bent down and kissed his mother’s cheek. “But,
you have always been here for me, so strong, I do not know how—”

“My dear Daniel.” Andrea reached up and gently
stroked his face like she did when he was a child. “You have a family of your
own now. You do not need me.”

“Do not say that, mother,” he pleaded. “That
does not mean I do not need you!”

“I will still be with you,” she comforted him.
“In the hills and the sky of Virginia.”

“Are you sure you will see him?” Daniel asked
worriedly.

Andrea smiled peacefully, her eyes closed again.
“Yes, I can see the stream.”

“And Father is there?”

She nodded.

“But you always dream of that. Yet, he is always
on the other side, and you can never cross.”

“But tonight,” Andrea said, a smile beginning to
light up her face, “tonight there is a bridge.”

Daniel held her hand and watched her take a deep
struggling breath. “It is as I always told you, my son. Eternal love is
stronger than—”

Opening her eyes again, Andrea turned her head
to look him in the eye. Daniel waited breathlessly for her to finish her
sentence, but her gaze shifted to somewhere over his shoulder, and her eyes
began to dance and blaze with a sparkling look of vitality. Her lips turned
upward into a joyful grin that was both shy and radiant, while her entire
countenance changed from sickly and frail to beaming and blissful. Cheeks that
had been sallow, bloomed with an adoring blush, and she literally glowed with a
light so bright that Daniel turned to see from where the illumination was
coming.

“Alex! Oh, at last.”

By the time Daniel turned back, a peaceful smile
had settled upon her face.

 She was gone. Gone where her soul longed to be.

* * *

Twenty miles away, Isaac Carter stole away from
a dinner party and retreated to a far window.

“Something wrong?” William Pierce came up behind
him, sipping from a glass of brandy.

“I believe she has passed on,” Carter said
calmly. “They are reunited.”

“Why do you say such a thing?” Pierce’s voice
was full of distress. “I know she is very ill, but—”

“She did not die of the fever, Mr. Pierce,”
Carter said knowingly. “She succumbed to a wound of the heart.”

Just then two dazzling flashes of lightning lit
the sky, streaking and forking with brilliant intensity toward each other,
until they touched and exploded into a violent roll of thunder that shook the
windows in their casings and seemed to cause the entire house to tremble.

“Strange time of year for a thunderstorm.” Will
stared out the window at the incredible celestial display with a puzzled look
on his face, while other guests joined him to witness the strange autumn
weather. “And that with no rain.”

“It’s no storm,” Carter said, with a hint of a
smile on his face.

“Sparks are flying in heaven.”

He turned back around to face Pierce and
repeated the words, taking silent reassurance in the rapture of united spirits.

“Sparks are flying in heaven.”

Like happy endings? Read
NOBLE
CAUSE
, a new version of SHADES OF GRAY with a happily-ever-after ending.

Noble
Cause Awards

2012
Bronze winner Foreword Magazine Book of the Year in Romance category

2011
John Esten Cooke Award for Southern Fiction

2011
USA "Best Books 2011" Finalist in Historical Fiction

2011
Next Generation Indie Award for Best Regional Fiction

2011
Next Generation Indie Finalist in Romance category

2011
Next Generation Indie Finalist in Historical Fiction category

2011
NABE Pinnacle Book Achievement Award

To the Reader

Though he may seem an exceptional and iconic
character, Colonel Alexander Hunter is no more remarkable than thousands of
other citizen soldiers who fought for the Confederacy during the War for
Southern Independence.

In fact, the inspiration for his character came
from the real life exploits of Colonel John S. Mosby of the 43rd Virginia
Cavalry—Mosby’s Rangers.

Mosby and his band of recruits terrorized the
Federal army in northern Virginia from 1863 to 1865. Like the fictional Hunter,
Mosby grew into a myth, effectively using terror as his weapon of choice and
surprise as his watchword. The Yankees believed that Mosby and his band of outlaws
appeared and disappeared with the mist, that when they arrived they made no
sounds, and when they departed they left no tracks.

Today, travelers on Route 50 (John Mosby
Highway) in Virginia can still enjoy the beautiful vistas and quaint towns and
villages where Mosby and his Rangers once roamed.

I hope you enjoyed
Shades of Gray
, and
more importantly, that you will want to read more abut the brave men and women
who believed that honor and principles were worth defending at all costs.

Surely there is something in all of us that
longs to return to a time when faith in God and duty to county were noble
ambitions, and when love endured as long as the spirit of life remained.

Jessica James

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@Jessica James

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