Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (21 page)

When the door
clicked shut, Hunter sank down with a groan. What a cruel joke! The fate of his
most coveted prize had been placed in his grasp, yet he could not celebrate the
triumph, nor even feel the smallest sense of satisfaction.

Daniel’s obscure request on his deathbed was now
strikingly clear. He had known she was a spy, and had feared—and suspected—this
day would come. “
You will let no harm befall her.
” The words rang in
Hunter’s ears, followed by, “
I do not wish to be anyone’s sacred
obligation.”

Hunter stood and paced again.
What in the
hell is this confounded war coming to?
If she had just taken the parole,
his path, and hers, would be clear. She would be unable to return as a menace
to the South, and he would have a clear conscience.

But now he was forced to make a decision that
would cost him dearly. Betray his men, Virginia, the Confederacy—or betray his
brother.

Hunter despised her for the position she had
placed him in, and was so angry he feared he could carry out her preferred
sentence with his bare hands. Yet how could he punish one who had done her
work, served her country, and had no fear to die?

The memory of the first time he met the infamous
Sinclair emerged in his mind. If
she
was
he
, then Maryann Marlow,
or whoever she was, had pulled him from the water and saved his life.

But what did that matter? This was war. Rules
and chivalry no longer counted.

Did promises and honor?

Hunter put his head in his hands and groaned.
Could nothing in this bloody war be clear? What had happened to the world he
once lived in where things were black and white, right and wrong, good and
evil? Did that world even exist anymore?

Making his decision, he signed the papers and
called for Private Malone.

Had he believed in God, he would have prayed he
was doing the right thing.

Chapter 
19

Let this lie heavy on thy soul tomorrow.”

– Hunchback Richard

December, 1863

A knock at the door interrupted Hunter as he was
finishing a report to General Stuart. “Enter and make it quick.”

“Just some paperwork for you to sign, sir.”
Malone handed over the correspondence.

Hunter scribbled his name across the pages
without reading them until he reached the last one. “What’s this?”

Malone leaned over the desk to look at the
document. “Oh, that’s your authorization to have that boy moved from Libby to
Castle Thunder. It’s just a formality to have your signature.”

“What prisoner?” Hunter leafed through the
paperwork, looking for a name.

Malone took the papers and flipped to the last
page. “Andrew Sinclair,” he said unconcernedly, handing them back.

“I never sent this prisoner to Libby!” Hunter
continued to stare at the last page, his hand beginning to tremble slightly.

“Oh yeah, that’s the order that Major Simms
changed. I’ll just send it down for him to sign.” Malone started to take the
papers from Hunter.

“What do you mean he
changed
the orders?”
Hunter’ snatched the paperwork from Malone’s grasp.

“He-he came to headquarters that night after
you’d ridden out. He said that since you weren’t here and he outranked everyone
else, he had the authority to change the orders.” Malone shifted his feet under
Hunter’s sharp gaze. “He did outrank you,” he added meekly.

“He has no authority over me! I don’t care if
he’s a blasted general!”

“I’m sorry, sir, I—

“You mean to
tell me this prisoner, this Andrew Sinclair, has been in Libby for the past …”
Hunter looked at the date on the paper again. “
Four
months?”

Malone nodded.

Hunter closed his eyes, trying to imagine what
she had gone through, then closed them tighter, trying not to. Four months in
that hellhole surely equaled four years on earth.

He strove to push all thoughts of the prison out
of his mind. The deed was done. There was no time now for either sorrow or
regret. All he could do is try to mend the mistake. But Hunter heard her voice
even now as if she stood right beside him
. I prefer death to prison
.

“Have Johnny get my horse,” he said, keeping his
voice calm. “Inform Lieutenant Carter he’s in command until I return.”

“Yes, well, it is Christmas,” Malone offered.

Hunter gazed a moment out the window. “Then I
suppose the men can have a short furlough.”

“Is that an order, sir?”

Hunter picked up a pen and scribbled on a piece
of paper. “It’s an order. See that it’s carried out to the letter, Malone.”

“Yes, Captain.” Malone started to back out the
door.

“And Jake—”

“Sir?”

“See that no one changes it!”

* * *

Captain Hunter paced in his library, waiting for
the doctor to finish his examination. He had not slept in three days, nor had
it entered his mind to do so. After seeing the limp, motionless mound that had
been loaded onto his wagon in Richmond, he’d made the decision to drive straight
through. If not for the slightest hint of green showing through the figure’s
half-open lids, he would not have been sure he’d been given the right person.

When the doctor finally entered, Hunter handed
him a brandy he had already poured. “Well?”

Doctor Hobbs patted his sweaty brow with a
handkerchief and nervously downed the entire contents of the glass in one
swallow. Known more for his gruffness and lack of sympathy than his bedside
manner, Hunter thought it unusual for him to be displaying so much duress.

“What in the hell happened to that girl?”

“That’s not important now,” Hunter said
impatiently, taking the empty glass from his hands. “How is she?”

“How
is
she? She’s got a broken femur
that was never set. She’s malnourished, dehydrated, and suffering from
exposure, any one of which could kill her. Together . . .” He never finished
the sentence.

Hunter searched Hobbs’ face for any sign of
hope. He had seen the unnatural bend of her leg at the prison, had been told
she had “taken a fall.”

“But she’s got a strong will. She can fight.”

“Aye.” Hobbs’ sat down beside the warmth of the
fireplace as if suddenly chilled to the bone. “If the old scar she bears is any
indication of her will to live, she’ll fight.”

“Scar?”

“She’s been whipped.” Hobbs stared vacantly into
the fire as if trying to imagine the atrocity. He sighed heavily and looked at
Hunter. “Someone darn near ripped her in half.”

Hobbs stood and poured himself another drink.
“Looks like it happened a number of years ago,” he said, grimacing as the amber
fluid rolled down his throat. “Healed quite nicely, I must say.”

Hunter looked into Hobbs’ eyes and could tell
they both thought the same thing. She was still very young. She must have been
but a child when it occurred.

“She’s made it this far. I’m certain she’ll
fight.” Hunter knew well her fighting instincts and wondered if they would be
enough to save her.

“We can hope,” Hobbs replied, though his tone
conveyed none. “Unfortunately, sometimes the body is weaker than the soul.” The
doctor turned his attention to his medical bag, and shoved a small vial into
Hunter’s hand. “If she wakes up, she’ll need this.”

“If?” Hunter stared at the bottle of laudanum.

“If,” the doctor repeated. “I’ll give her a
fifty–fifty chance.” He closed his bag with a loud snap. “And that’s being
optimistic.”

He turned to leave with Hunter following close
behind. “But what can we do for her?”

With his hand on the doorknob, Hobbs paused.
“Nothing really. Just let her rest. Keep her comfortable. And wait.” He
squinted through tiny spectacles up at Hunter, who stood a good foot taller.
“She has to heal on the inside before she can heal on the outside,” he said in
a grave voice. “The body and the soul are too closely bound for one to suffer
without the other. And I would hesitate to guess, after seeing her injuries,
which is suffering more.” Tipping his hat, he opened the door. “Good day,
Captain Hunter.”

Hunter put a hand on his forehead and pressed
his temples. He had to ride out tonight and didn’t know how soon he’d be able
to return. His servants would have to be relied upon to take care of his new
charge.

Heading back up the stairs, he paused in the
doorway and watched her breathe through half-closed lips, her chest rising and
falling under the covers so slightly and so infrequently that at times he could
barely distinguish if she breathed at all.

For the most part she looked as motionless as a
corpse, her face pale as death. Her hair, which had been snarled in a tangle of
filth and mold, had been washed and combed by the servants. The long-neglected
tresses now rested in soft blonde waves on the pillow. She lay on her back,
exactly as she had been placed a
few hours
earlier, the covers tucked neatly up to her chin.

Hunter moved closer and looked at the thin arms
protruding from the rolled up sleeves of one of his cotton shirts. His focus
was drawn to her right hand curled unnaturally in a fist atop the blanket,
seemingly unwilling to relinquish a ring that hung loosely from its perch on
her bony finger. He looked closer, though he knew it was the same ring she had
worn the last time he had seen her. Daniel’s ring.

He blinked in surprise at her tenacity. The
doctor had been perplexed that the uninjured hand had been bound, fingertips to
palm in putrid, bloodied rags. It was not hard to conjecture why. By doing so,
she had saved the ring from prison thieves. But what permanent damage the
bandages may have caused remained unknown.

Hunter’s
gaze traveled to a vicious bruise above her cheek and a cut above her eye. Even
in sleep, the torture she had endured was evident upon her countenance. He
swallowed hard at the cruelty of war. What had compelled her to endure an
incarceration so tedious and painful—and unnecessary?

But that is the way of war, he reminded himself.
And this is no innocent, guiltless child, but a cunning, dangerous enemy. This
is the foe he had vowed to defeat—and the stranger he had sworn to his brother
he would protect.

Hunter sighed and placed his hat back on his
head. How he would resolve his opposing intentions he had no idea, but there
was no sense in worrying about that now—not with the slim chance that she would
even survive.

From the corner of his eye, Hunter caught a
movement in the doorway, and saw his servant Mattie standing there with a stack
of fresh linens.

“I can come back later, Massa.”

“That won’t be necessary. I was just leaving.”

As he passed Mattie in the doorway, Hunter
stopped for a moment. “I’m riding out tonight. Be sure to send Zach with a
message if there’s a change.”

 “Yes, Massa,” was all Mattie said. But Hunter
detected a puzzled look on her face as he turned and left the room.

Chapter
20

“He shed soft slumbers on mine eyes, in spite of all my foes.

I woke and wondered at the grace that guarded my repose.”

– Psalms 3:5

Andrea’s broken body was falling. She did not
know where it fell from or where it was falling to, only that it spun and
spiraled out of control in a gaping darkness full of pain. She waited to hit
bottom, waited for the end to come. But the bottom never came, and the end never
followed, and the pain did not recede.

But little by little the darkness fell away,
until it became more like a deep, hazy fog.

Sometimes in this fog Andrea saw images of
herself as a little girl lying on the banks of the Ashley River in her Mammy’s
lap, watching the clouds float by. Other times she saw her father’s face, red
with rage and contorted with hate—always with a whip in his hand.

The dreams
made her heart pulse, and the pulse made her body throb, and the throb left her
falling back into darkness to escape the pain. But still the dreams came,
confusing and bewildering her, because she could not figure out what was memory
and what was fantasy, what was real and what was not.

At times, Andrea thought she heard voices. They
seemed to be right beside her, yet sounded muffled, like they were talking to
her under water. “I declayah, she alive on de inside, but dead on de outside,”
she thought she heard one say. She tried to speak, to tell them she was not
dead, but her two lips had seemingly fused into one.

In desperation, she tried to reach them, to tell
them she was there. But the figures never heard her, so she just lay quietly
for what seemed like days, but just as easily could have been hours or weeks,
and waited for the haze to recede.

* * *

When Andrea
awoke again, everything was still far away and hazy, yet she could sense a dim
light, a warmth that drew her out of the darkness. She concentrated on moving
her fingers, concentrated hard. She felt a soft blanket and realized she was no
longer in the dark abyss that haunted her dreams.

The sound of breaking glass interrupted her
concentration. “Izzie, what is you about?” a stern woman’s voice filled the
room. “You clean that up, you heah?”

“She moved her fingers,” a younger voice
exclaimed.

“Is you awake?” the first voice asked, sounding
skeptical.

Andrea tried to open her eyes.
How could
eyelids be this heavy?
She had wrestled horses with less effort than this.
She paused a moment to summons her strength, and then slowly they complied,
revealing two black faces, mother and daughter perhaps, bending over her. They
stared at her as if she had performed a miracle or had risen from the dead.
“Thirsty,” was all Andrea could manage to say.