Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (18 page)

“We
make
a good team.” Andrea cut in, her
voice now pleading. “Surely your hopes are no different than mine.”

Daniel opened his eyes and gazed into hers as if
trying to read the sincerity of her words. “No one . . . promised tomorrow.”
His speech was now slurred and barely audible over shouts outside of a soldier
coming in under a flag of truce.

“Right this way.” Andrea heard an officer bark
the command outside the window.

“I wanted to … protect you,” Daniel whispered.

“I will let you protect me!” Andrea felt a
tightening in her stomach as panic began to grow. “I will stay. I will do
whatever you ask, Dan. Just please, don’t leave!”

“Must … stop … Andrea.” He spoke with his eyes
closed, yet there was urgency in his voice. “Please! Say you will … for me.”

Andrea leaned down close to make sure she had
heard him. “Dan, I will do whatever you wish,” she said, her heart breaking at
the sight of him. “But please don’t ask that of me now. Not like this.”

A shadow fell over them as someone entered the
room and blocked the only light coming in. Glancing briefly over her shoulder
at the intrusion, Andrea turned her head back for a second look. Captain
Alexander Hunter stood in the doorway, a slouch hat pulled down low over his
face, the uniform of a Confederate private stretched across his large frame.

Andrea’s mind was too confused to wonder why he
was here, her heart too numb to care. She watched a similar look of surprise
flash across his eyes when he recognized her, but it was quickly replaced by
concern for the man lying before her.

“How is he?” He kneeled on the other side of
Daniel.

Daniel opened his eyes. “Alex?”

“Yes, Dan, I’m here.” Hunter bent down close.

 “You shouldn’t … have come.” Daniel coughed and
winced. “Too … dangerous.”

Andrea could not help but agree. She surmised
Hunter had not used his real name to cross the lines, for the Federals would
never consent to letting him back out if he had—not even under a flag of truce.

Hunter
grasped Daniel’s shoulder firmly. “You’re going to be all right, Danny boy,” he
said in a voice that urged the man to live. “Just hold on.” Then Hunter raised
his head and looked around. “Where’s the blasted surgeon?”

Andrea looked incredulously at Hunter. She had
never dreamed it possible to see so much compassion and concern shine in those
cold, gray eyes.

“Don’t think …you can fix it … this time …big
brother.” Daniel’s breathing grew more shallow. Andrea blinked and gazed up at
Hunter, but he was looking down at the hand Daniel was trying to raise. Hunter
grasped it, and Daniel smiled weakly.

“You’re … the best … Alex,” he whispered. “I
wish that we …”

“I understand, Dan.” Hunter’s voice trembled.
“Don’t try to talk. Just rest.”

Andrea took a deep breath during the ensuing
silence, willing herself not to look up at Hunter, and yet half afraid to
glance down at Daniel. After what seemed like an eternity, Daniel opened his
lids again, his eyes bright and glazed with pain. “You will … let no harm …
befall her.”

It was not a question, nor a statement, but was
spoken clearly in the tone of an appeal.

Hunter’s gaze lifted and met Andrea’s, then
lowered again. “You have my word.”

The promise had no effect on Daniel, save make
him more restless. He struggled to raise his head. “But there are things …
things you know not of.” He sounded frenzied as he looked deep into Hunter’s
eyes.

Andrea pushed Daniel back down. “Daniel, please
rest.” She felt Hunter’s gaze burning into her.

“No matter the circumstances, Dan,” Hunter said
reassuringly “You have my word.”

Daniel closed his eyes and relaxed then as if a
great weight had been lifted. When Andrea stroked a lock of hair from his
forehead, his eyes fluttered open at the contact. He gazed glassy-eyed at her
as if he wanted to speak again. Andrea leaned down close, her face just inches
from his. “It was an honor … to have known you,” he murmured, his breathing growing
raspy.

Andrea kissed his cheek. “The honor, Daniel,”
she said softly in his ear, “is all mine.”

He must have heard the words, because he opened
his eyes and took another deep, raspy breath. “Andrea, remember me …”

Andrea barely heard his whispered, feeble words.
She leaned even closer, waiting breathlessly for him to finish, but not another
word was spoken. The gallant soldier closed his eyes and was still.

Desperate to believe he was just gathering
strength, Andrea continued to hold her breath and listen for the sound of his
voice. Hunter reached over and touched her arm. “He’s gone.”

Andrea stared at Hunter intently for a long
moment as if the language he spoke was foreign to her. Then to prove him wrong,
she reached down and picked up Daniel’s hand to give it a gentle squeeze. It
felt cold, not at all like Daniel.

Dropping it in revulsion, Andrea heard the limb
hit the floor with a thud. She sat back on her heels and looked at Daniel’s
face. His eyes, half-open now, stared vacantly at the ceiling.

Blinking repeatedly, Andrea looked accusingly at
Hunter, as if he should do something. “But—”

Hunter stood and offered his hand to help her
up. “There’s nothing more we can do.”

Andrea continued to shake her head, wringing her
hands and rocking back and forth.
Dear Lord, they killed him
! She raised
her eyes and glared at Hunter, who now conversed in low tones with an orderly.
Already they wanted to move Daniel. They had a body, a living one, to put in
his place.

“I’ll take him back to my family home for burial.”

The orderly nodded. “Very well. I’ll get some
men to help.”

Andrea struggled to stand, grabbing Hunter’s arm
as she stumbled to her feet. “Wait! No!”

Hunter looked down at her hand like he was
unaccustomed to people touching him without permission. “I beg your pardon?”

“In the
ground
?” Andrea’s gaze darted
from the man on the floor to the man standing over him. “You’re going to put
Dan …
in the ground
?”

Hunter looked her squarely in the eye and
responded in an unemotional voice. “I don’t know how they do it where you come
from, Miss Marlow, but that’s generally how they bury people in Virginia.”

Andrea felt a wave of nausea overcome her.
Suddenly the stench of the room, the sounds of dying men, the blood soaking
into the bottom of her dress in this ghastly house of suffering was more than
she could take. She picked up her skirts and ran out the back door, past the
very tree where she had stood with Daniel a few weeks earlier—the same tree
whose bare limbs now stood guard over a haphazard heap of mutilated arms and
legs.

Hand over her mouth Andrea ran, the cold air
stinging her face, until at the river’s edge, she could hold it no longer. The
sights and sounds and smells rendered her convulsively ill. Clinging to the
side of a tree for support she choked and retched as the river lapped playfully
at the banks below. For so long, death had passed her by. Now it was real.
Andrea could hear the clods of dirt falling on Daniel as clearly as if they
were falling on her own body, smothering her, choking her. Her heart shuddered;
her chest ached. She was sweating and freezing; she shook, yet was numb.
Daniel. Oh, Daniel. So many things she had meant to tell him.
Dear Lord, I
never even told him my full name!

Andrea started to pace. It was a dream. It must
be a dream. She would wake up soon.
Dear God in heaven, don’t let it be
real!

But when
Andrea glanced to her left, the reality was all too real. Fresh mounds of earth
told of the dead that already slept below. The vaguely penetrating odor of
blood and death grew inescapable and overpowering. Andrea grabbed her chest,
pulling and tugging at her cloak to give her heart more room to tremble.
Hearing the sound of wood sliding on wood, she turned to see men loading a pine
box in a wagon behind her. She flinched when an icy drop of sleet fell from the
sky, stinging her cheek and confirming it was not a dream.

“The favorites of the gods die early,” her Mammy
had always told her, “and then the angels cry.” Andrea raised her face toward
heaven and let the angels’ frozen tears fall unhindered upon her face. When she
opened her eyes, she saw Union soldiers mounting to accompany the wagon back
through the lines, and Hunter striding toward her. She turned back to the
river.

“Are you all right, Miss Marlow?” His voice came
from just behind her shoulder.

She nodded, but continued to gaze out over the
water.

“They will allow you safely back through the
lines to Richmond?”

Andrea nodded again.

“Very well.” He turned to leave.

“Captain.”

“Yes?” Hunter came back to her and she turned around.

“That is a good man you’ll be b-b-burying.”
Andrea stumbled over the word, as if by saying it she admitted he was gone.

Hunter took a deep breath as he gazed over her
head. “I know that.”

Andrea
stepped forward when she heard the pain in his voice. She did not see him as an
enemy at this moment, but Daniel’s brother, his own flesh and blood.
Tentatively reaching out to console him for his loss, she felt him stiffen a
moment before hesitatingly wrapping his arms around her, a concession that he
needed her comfort as much as she needed his.

“The price is too high,” Andrea whispered,
clinging to the coarse wool of his coat.

“Too high indeed,” was the grave reply.

And so they stood there holding onto each other
as the sky spit snow—he fiercely devoted to the Confederacy; she, fervently
dedicated to the Union … yet joined, at this moment, in solemn unity for a man
they both had loved.

Chapter
17

“Stand by your principles, stand by your guns, and victory,

complete and permanent shall be yours.”

– Abraham Lincoln

Richmond, Virginia

May, 1863

Even though angry clouds gathered overhead,
Andrea knew the storm would not amount to much. She hurried along the sidewalk
with her head down, contemplating how soon—and how—she would depart from
Richmond. Daniel’s death had settled over her like a dark cloud of despair
these past five months. She no longer had the heart to continue her work in the
Confederacy, or the will to keep up her charade as a loyal Southerner. As each
day faded into the next, she grew more and more determined to leave.

A loud scream and the sound of thundering horses
broke through her thoughts. “Runaways!” She heard the word just as a two-horse
team and wagon barreled into view.

Andrea watched a soldier run alongside the
wagon, jump into the seat, and haul on the reins, but the horses continued
running, too frightened to stop. The street ended a mere half a block away, and
an open market with dozens of unsuspecting shoppers lay directly in the horses’
path.

Without hesitation, Andrea stepped onto the
road. “Whoa there, boys,” she said, stretching her arms in front of her.
Although the horses surged toward her, Andrea stood motionless, giving no
ground. “Easy. Easy.”

As the team
drew nearer, they continued throwing their heads and grinding the bit in their
teeth, fighting the person hauling on the reins. Andrea sidestepped out of
their way when it became apparent they were not going to stop. But when they
got directly beside her, she grabbed the bridle of the nearest horse.

“Whoa, son!” She yanked hard with both hands,
throwing all her weight into the move as the leather burned her hands. The
horses jerked to a nervous stop and stood shaking and foaming in the street.

“Easy now, boys.” Andrea talked in a soothing
tone while patting the frothing horse on the neck. The team continued trembling
and snorting, and Andrea knew any sudden movement could cause them to erupt
again.

“Nice catch, Miss Marlow.”

Andrea whipped her head around as Captain Hunter
jumped lightly from the seat.

“Captain Hunter.” She clenched the horse’s
bridle. “I didn’t know you were in Richmond.”

“And I didn’t know you were such a foolish young
lady,” he said rather harshly as he grabbed the bridle from her hand. Andrea
noted that his formerly bronzed face appeared pale.

“Someone could have been hurt.” She looked at
the street beginning to fill again, then at her tender, dirt-stained hands.

 “Yes, and that someone could have been
you
!”

“I thought—”

“No, I don’t
believe you
thought
at all. No o
ne who had any thoughts in their
head would have stood directly in front of more than t
wo tons of horseflesh!”

Andrea did not have time to argue as a young man
came running up the street.

“Thank you, sir.” Breathing heavily, he took the
reins from Hunter. “Blasted kids lit a firecracker right under their feet.”

Andrea backed up to the sidewalk. She was about
to bid Hunter goodbye, when he spoke.

“I just engaged a hack. Will you permit me the
favor of escorting you home
safely
?”

Andrea thought his voice conveyed true concern,
but with Hunter she could not be sure. She wanted desperately to refuse, but
knew it was obvious to him by now that she was on foot and had no escort. She
did not want to raise suspicions by declining the offer. “That would be
lovely.” She took a deep breath, knowing her tone failed to communicate the
words.

 “It’s right this way.”

When he turned and started walking away, Andrea
had to practically run to keep up. “Are you in Richmond for business or
pleasure?” she asked, gasping for breath as he helped her into the seat of the
rented carriage.