“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.”
Hunter held his breath and waited for him to speak again.
“He’s a strong one, no doubt, but having his horse shot out from under him … he hasn’t really recovered.”
“Justus? Is dead?” Hunter turned toward the direction of the voice in the darkness, forgetting entirely about staying noncommittal. He knew the enormity of that loss.
“Yea. She was lucky to get out alive.”
Hunter winced, not even noticing the general’s change of gender.
“She lost one of her best friends there too,” he said sullenly. “I don’t believe she’s quite made it back to us yet.”
Hunter closed his eyes, knowing by us, he meant the living. What scenes of suffering and death had she witnessed? And what he wouldn’t give to have protected her from them—yet if not for him, she might have been spared the experience.
“We had a bit of an argument after the interrogation today,” General Jordan said, his voice quivering ever so slightly. “Due to the state of her health, I felt compelled to inform her that her services were no longer needed
Hunter let out his breath.
“I should not have, I realize. But I was trying to protect her.”
Hunter slid down the tree he was leaning on to a sitting a position with his head in his hands. He knew her duty to country meant everything to her—was all she lived for.
“Too bad it’s so dark, tonight. You can almost see the river from here,” Jordan said softly.
Hunter blinked hard, understanding immediately his intent.
“It’s a bit steep and rocky on the way down, but a couple hundred yards, there it is. Darn Rebels are right on the other side.”
“Is that so?”
“Yea, they’re close. I should probably have camp guards on this side, but we’re shorthanded and the men are tired.”
Both men were silent for what seemed an eternity. Then Jordan spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “I fear for her safety. She’s gone.”
“Gone where?” Hunter knew his tone was far too full of concern to deceive the general.
“I wish I knew.”
Hunter closed his eyes, and for the first time in his life, said a quick prayer. By the time he opened them, he knew the general was no longer there.
He glanced over at the group playing cards and began to form a plan of escape. He did not care if it was a trick. Did not care if a firing squad of twelve or the whole bloody Union army was waiting f
or him at the river. General Jordan would be looking for her on this side. By Jupiter he would be looking for her on the other!
Chapter 57
“Noble is the courage that performs without hope or without reward.”
– Anonymous
It was that time of year when leaves on the trees change from gold to gone, seemingly overnight, leaving no doubt in the minds of those who gaze upon them that winter will soon descend.
Three weeks had passed since Hunter’s escape from the enemy camp, yet no trace of Andrea had yet been found. If General Jordan’s search yielded better results, Hunter had received no word of it. It pained him to know that he probably never would.
“A courier is here with a dispatch for you, Colonel.”
Hunter lifted his gaze from the plate of untouched food before him to the smiling face of his hostess.
“At the door, sir.”
Excusing himself, Hunter went outside to accept the communication. Before he opened the envelope, a strange, sinking feeling overtook him, as if a part of him knew that somewhere, something had gone terribly wrong. He broke the seal and hurriedly devoured the contents.
November 15, 1864
Col. Hunter,
It is my undesirable duty to inform you that a deserter from my command has been recaptured. It appears he relayed information to the Federal forces concerning the intended raid on a train by your men in September, having heard of your intentions through careless members of my staff. It can be presumed this was the reason for the fateful events that followed.
I will supply additional information as it becomes available.
Your most obedient servant,
Colonel Wade Burton
Hunter read the dispatch again, his hands trembling as his mind absorbed the words. A deserter was responsible? Could Andrea be innocent of the charges of which he had accused her?
He dropped the note to his side and stared into the darkness. No. Justus was proof enough that she had ridden out that night. And that the horse had been ridden she had not bothered to deny. Even the servants had corroborated that she had been absent from Hawthorne. Hunter went quietly back into the house, trying to make sense of the dispatch.
Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia Page 43