The Velvet Shadow

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  “What have we in the way of weapons?” he asked, peering back inside the cabin. Flanna’s rifle stood there and he picked it up, then lifted the pieces of her discarded Confederate uniform to see if she’d thought to bring a dagger or pistol.

  “I have only the rifle,” she called from outside, “and it’s not loaded.”

  “No cartridges?” Roger heard Alden ask. “No powder?”

  Roger slipped Flanna’s knapsack onto his back, then stepped back out into the yard. “There’s nothing.” His lips thinned with irritation as he handed the rifle to Flanna. “You carry this. If we’re in trouble, you can always use it as a club.”

  Flanna took the gun, then jerked her head toward the row of trees beyond the house. “That is east.” Wonder and dread mingled in her voice. “And we’d better move quickly if we want to stay ahead of the patrols.” Her silky brows rose in concern as the sun revealed the violently purple bruises on Alden’s face. “It will be harder walking through the woods,” she said, in a distracted voice, “but the roads will be too dangerous.”

  She stepped closer to Alden as if she would support his weight, but Roger pulled her away, insinuating his own bulk beneath his brother’s arm. “I’m stronger,” he said in answer to her questioning look. “And faster. So let’s be on our way.”

  “Wait.”

  Roger bit back his impatience as Alden hesitated.

  “Flanna,” Alden asked, “are you certain you don’t want to go home? Roger and I can return to the regiment alone. You could find a safe place outside the city. Within a week, maybe two, I’m certain you could find a way back to Charleston.”

  “My home in Charleston is gone.” She lifted her shining face and seemed to find her mirror in Alden’s eyes. “For now, at least, my home is with you.”

  Roger closed his eyes against the nauseated sinking of despair, then forced a light note into his voice. “If you two don’t hush, the Rebs will have us for breakfast.” He stepped forward, tugging on Alden’s weight. “Let’s go. The regiment waits in the east, not here.”

  Flanna set off at a fair pace, and, like a horse drawn to the carrot, Alden fell into step beside Roger and followed her.

  Flanna moved ahead with the rifle in her arms, wishing over and over again that she hadn’t promised Wesley and Mrs. Corey that she’d wear a dress. The heavy fabric was hot, the narrow waist impeded her breathing, and every branch and vine clung to the full skirt, slowing her progress.

  They moved steadily southeast, knowing that the Union army waited somewhere in the trees beyond. Flanna had not heard any sounds of battle during her few days in Richmond, but the fighting could resume at any moment.

  “They’ve replaced Joe Johnston with this Robert E. Lee,” she remarked offhandedly as they walked. “Johnston took a bullet at Fair Oaks. The men I nursed seemed enthusiastic at the idea of serving under Lee; they say he is nothing if not audacious.”

  “Let’s hope his audacity holds him in Richmond until we reach our picket line,” Roger joked, his eyes anxiously sweeping the horizon.

  Flanna followed his gaze. The Rebels were camped out here, too, and Jeb Stuart’s infamous cavalry was said to be traversing the countryside and taunting the Yankees.

  They fell silent again, walking quickly across an open field. Flanna sighed in relief when they entered a forest; she felt much less exposed here than in the meadow. The forest whispered to itself around them; the faint patter of dewdrops on the leaves blended with the subdued rustle and rub of leaves and branches. They’d been walking for nearly two hours, covering a distance of at least seven miles, and Flanna sensed that they ought to encounter something soon.

  A faintly familiar scent caught Flanna’s attention. She sniffed in appreciation, then threw up her hand and stopped the others.

  “What?” Roger’s eyes widened in alarm.

  “A cigar.” Flanna stood perfectly still, suddenly grateful for her green dress. The plaid pattern might serve as a bit of camouflage.

  She could see no movement in the woods, but straight ahead the ground rose in an abrupt swell. Anything could lie behind that bit of earth.

  “Wait here.” She put her finger over her lips and dropped the rifle to the ground.

  “Flanna, no,” Alden warned, but she ignored him and hurried forward. She was faster on her feet than Alden, and Roger was encumbered by his brother’s weight. If trouble lay over that hill, at least they’d know to move around it. But Union scouts could be sitting there, and perhaps they’d have a horse to carry Alden back to camp.

  She breathed deeply, inhaling the scent again. Yes, it was tobacco, rich and pungent. She thought she could smell coffee, too, but perhaps her empty stomach was merely playing tricks on her.

  She reached the rise and debated walking around it. But any men who stood on the other side might see her before she saw them, while no one would expect her to appear over the edge of this nearly vertical mound. She walked to the rise, buried her hands in the vines and leafy ground cover that blanketed it, and began to climb, pausing to kick toeholds into the soft earth.

  A chorus of birdsong echoed down from the high canopy of the trees, and Flanna took comfort in the utterly normal sound until a murmur of voices caught her ear, the slow and lazy drawl of relaxed men. They were probably pickets, placed out here as the army’s eyes and ears. If Flanna was lucky, they’d be concentrating more on their hardtack and coffee than on the rustlings of leaves.

  Inch by inch, foot by foot, she hoisted herself up the rise, then pulled herself onto the narrow ridge at the top. Lying flat on the ground, she stared into the concave depression below. She saw three men huddled around a campfire, their eyes fastened to a slab of bacon sizzling over the fire. Flanna’s stomach clenched at the sight and smell of food, but she fought her hunger down and studied the strangers. The nearest one wore a white shirt and dark pants; the man next to him wore a dark brown jacket. She frowned. Though men of both armies had taken to wearing clothing removed from the dead, these men did not look at all military. They could be the conscription patrols Wesley had warned her about.

  Another man abruptly stepped out from behind a tree at her left, so close Flanna could have spat on him. He tugged at his blue trousers and walked toward the fire, then picked up a coat on the ground.

  A gray coat, with a double row of brass buttons. A stripe on the sleeve, just like Wesley’s.

  A Confederate captain.

  Her high hopes vanished in an instant. Flanna pushed herself backward, scurrying away like a rat. Her feet slipped over the edge of the embankment, and prickles of cold dread crawled over her spine as she scrambled down.

  Keep calm, she told herself, taking care that her trembling hands did not lose their grip on the vines. The men hadn’t seen her. And though there might be a Confederate camp in the woods ahead, they could circle around it. They’d just have to walk further than she had hoped. If Alden’s strength waned, she could find a stream and check his bandage. With water and the cornbread from Flanna’s knapsack, he ought to be strong enough to make it back to a Union regiment as soon as they found one.

  She whirled and ran the instant her feet hit the ground. Like the quick, hot touch of the devil, fear shot through her, urging her to flee. She didn’t know exactly who those men at the campfire were, but they weren’t friends.

  She caught sight of Alden’s startled face. “Rebels!” she gasped, her feet flying over clumps of brush and dead leaves. “Go!”

  The words had scarcely left her lips when she tripped over her skirts and fell, slamming into the ground with such force that her breath left her body. She lifted her head, dazed and bewildered, and felt strong hands on her upper arms.

  “Hurry.” Roger pulled her up as though she weighed no more than a sack of feathers. He slipped his arm about her waist while Alden came to her other side. Half-carrying her, they began to move away, but then a sharp, ringing voice shattered the silence.

  “Halt, there!” A nasal twang cut through the air like a
knife.

  Flanna closed her eyes as her heart went into sudden shock. This, too, was her fault. Not only was she responsible for bringing both brothers behind enemy lines, but now these Rebels had heard her clumsy crashing through the brush.

  “You’ll halt right there if you know what’s good for you!”

  Roger and Alden stopped, and Flanna felt her legs begin to tremble.

  “We’re going to be fine, Flanna,” Alden said, looking at her. His voice was calm, his gaze steady.

  “Turn around, so we can see what we’ve done caught.”

  They turned to face the ridge, and Flanna shuddered when she saw all four Rebels standing atop the embankment. Two of the men pointed rifled muskets directly at them.

  “Come closer, and let us take a look at you.” The Rebel captain stood propped against a tree, panting with exertion from his climb. “Come on up here, so we can see what the cat dragged in.”

  Roger looked at Alden. “I don’t like the looks of this. I only see one uniform—the other three probably have more in common with that brute who beat you than with the regular army.” His voice was smooth, but insistent. “You take Flanna and run for the brush over there.” He jerked his head toward a stand of thick foliage. “You’ll have time to hide yourself in the thickets while I deal with these men.”

  Flanna flinched at the resolute tone of his voice. “Roger, these men are not politicians.” She saw the determined expression on his face and felt a cold blade of foreboding slice into her heart. “You can’t charm Southerners, you know, any more than you can trick a trickster. We’ll all go forward together, and no one will get hurt.”

  “Let me do this, Flanna.” A faint light twinkled in the depths of his dark eyes as he looked at her.

  He turned to Alden next. “Take her, Alden, and go.”

  Flanna’s blood pounded thickly in her ears. “Roger, no!”

  Alden’s hands fell upon Flanna’s arms, holding her back. An unspoken understanding passed between the two brothers, then Alden gave Roger a look of thanks, which Roger acknowledged with just the smallest softening of his eyes.

  “Come up here now, or I’ll shoot you dead!” the Confederate captain called again.

  The next few seconds stretched into an eternity. Roger opened his mouth and screamed, “Go!” and Alden pulled Flanna toward the thicket with a strength born of desperation. As she fell back, Flanna lifted her eyes to the men on the embankment. Caught by surprise, they were slow in lifting their rifles, but Roger moved like a man possessed. In one swift gesture, he swung Flanna’s useless rifle off his back and brought it to his shoulder, then squinted down the barrel like a sharpshooter.

  Flanna choked back a scream as Alden dragged her into the brush, then his hand clapped across her mouth. She fell back against him, her vision filling with green leaves and blue sky as the sharp crack of rifle fire snapped through the rustle of insects. For one appalling instant, even the continuous birdcalls from the forest canopy ceased, and the woods overflowed with silence.

  Unable to control the spasmodic trembling within her, Flanna closed her eyes and turned into Alden’s embrace. He shuddered deeply as he held her, then he urged her to her feet. “Hurry,” he said, pulling her out of the thicket. “Come, Flanna!”

  Gasping for breath, she obeyed, running until she thought her heart would burst.

  In the next few hours, Flanna plumbed the full breadth and depth of fear. The four Rebels pursued her and Alden with fiendish glee, shooting randomly into bushes and beyond trees, once sending a bullet through Flanna’s sleeve as she and Alden crouched behind a huckleberry bush. The forest rang with their taunts and a yipping, nasal version of the Rebel yell, and if Flanna had once imagined that these men were military, she knew now they were not. The captain was either an impostor or a renegade; the other three probably bounty hunters on the lookout for deserters.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are, missy!” one of them shouted as he took a moment to reload his rifle. “You looked awful sweet! Come on out here and let me show you what a real man looks like!”

  Huddled beside Alden behind the huckleberry bush, Flanna felt a bead of perspiration trace a cold path from her armpit down her ribs. What were they to do? She and Alden could not outrun them in the open, for the Rebels were healthy and well fed. She, on the other hand, was half-petrified by fear and the shock of Roger’s sacrifice, and Alden was breathing so heavily that the heaving movements of his chest might open his wound at any moment.

  “Come on out here, sweet thing!” The man in the Confederate uniform walked slowly ahead of the others, his rifle cradled in his arms. “I won’t hurt you. Why are you hiding with that whipped-looking son of a pup? Why, he isn’t even worth dragging to the recruiting office, but we’ll do you a favor and put him out of his misery. So you come on out now, and let’s say a proper how-do-ye-do.”

  He paused less than thirty feet away, and glanced down at a spindly oak seedling. Flanna watched, transfixed by terror, as he smiled and broke off a small branch, then lazily twirled it between his fingers. “Your man’s bleeding, sweet missy,” he called, his eyes roving through the woods. “He won’t last much longer. But if you come out, we just might help you patch him up.”

  Flanna tore her eyes from the tormentor and looked at Alden’s chest. The wound had opened and bled through the bandage, for a red spot bloomed on Alden’s white shirt, bigger and brighter than a full-blown rose.

  “Alden!” Panic stole her breath, which came in short, painful gasps. “What are we going to do?”

  Alden’s eyes were abstracted in thought, but they cleared as she gripped his hand. “Three choices,” he said in a clipped, low voice. “Stay, run, or hide.”

  Flanna blinked. Stay here? Out of the question! In another fifteen steps that phony Confederate would be upon them. Run? Impossible! Alden couldn’t run another hundred yards, and she could never outrun her pursuers in this long, heavy skirt. Hide? Where?

  “Come on out, little sweetheart!” The leader came closer, so close that Flanna could see the red smear of Alden’s blood on the oak leaf.

  She looked at Alden then, too afraid to speak. Silently he lifted his hand and pointed toward a rotting log ten feet to his right. The log was partially obscured by a leafy screen in front, and some animal—Flanna didn’t want to imagine what kind—had hollowed out a space in the mud beneath the log.

  It was a small trough, barely five feet long and three feet wide. But the log lay over it, and it was their only chance.

  “Sweetheart!”

  She could hear the renegade’s heavy breathing now, so Flanna nodded. Alden took her hand and crept forward in a crouch, then knelt and rolled into the hole. Flanna crawled in after him, filling the space between him and the log. With her last remaining strength, she pulled at the log, managing to roll it a few inches to the right, obscuring the opening even more.

  A twig snapped beneath the renegade’s foot. From inside her hiding place, Flanna could see his heavy boots. He stood at the huckleberry bush and glanced down, then wiped another drop of blood from a huckleberry leaf.

  “What’s that you got there, Will?”

  The sudden voice seemed to come from Flanna’s left ear, and she felt Alden shudder against her as a heavy weight fell against the tree. One of the other Rebels stood right above them, his boot resting against the fallen log.

  “The man’s bleeding pretty bad.” The one called Will rubbed Alden’s blood on his coat as he scanned the woods. “Don’t think they’ll make it far, but we’ll keep looking.”

  “What about the other one?”

  Will shrugged, then leaned his rifle against the huckleberry bush and paused to bite off a chaw of tobacco. “No use to us dead, is he? But the woman might be a pleasant diversion, and the man worth a dollar or two—more if he’s a runaway.”

  The second man stepped over the log and sat down, his weight pressing the heavy log onto Flanna’s anklebone. She gritted her teeth, willing herself not to cry
out.

  “Should we go on?” The second man rocked slowly on the log, each movement grinding against Flanna’s ankle.

  “Yep.” Will spat out a brown stream of tobacco juice. “I suppose we could check a little further, then double back. She couldn’t have got far.”

  The second man stood then, relieving the pressure on Flanna’s leg, and she wanted to weep with relief. The two men called out to the other two, who were searching the woods farther to the east, and soon the sound of their voices faded.

  “Alden?” Flanna whispered.

  He did not answer.

  Turning in the confines of the shallow pit, Flanna wriggled her hand up to Alden’s shoulder and drew in her breath when she encountered a warm stickiness. Alden was still bleeding, and there was nothing she could do about it. The Rebels were going to double back, they’d said, and they would undoubtedly return to their campfire to gather their things before moving on. She and Alden could do nothing but wait.

  Sighing in surrender, she let her head fall upon his shoulder, taking comfort in the steady warmth of his breath on her face. If they were to die, at least they’d die together. And perhaps death in this shallow grave would be more merciful than death in prison or at the hands of the renegade Rebels.

  She lay still for so long that she lost all sense of time. Something—an insect or spider, she couldn’t tell which—crawled across her cheek, and she steeled herself to ignore it. Her arms felt too tired and heavy to even bat it away.

  A chorus of crickets had begun to sing by the time Alden began to stir. “I’m sorry, Flanna,” he apologized, his hand falling upon her neck. “But I think I fell asleep.”

  “You passed out.” Flanna’s hand moved to his shoulder and felt the stiffness of dried blood. Good. The blood had coagulated while they rested. If Alden didn’t push himself, perhaps the wound would remain sealed until they found shelter.

  Flanna squirmed out of the pit, then turned and helped Alden up. He moved slowly, like an old man, and once he straightened she examined him in the fading rays of the sun. The colors of health had completely faded from his face, leaving him wounded and ghostly in the shadows.