Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (66 page)

“I have no such orders,” she yelled.

Whirling her
horse around, Andrea headed back to the river, though she had no idea what she
could do. But she had a feeling Carter would follow to stop her—and he did. And
she had a feeling the rest of the men would follow him—and they did. Dozens of
those from the main body, apparently thinking there was to be a renewed fight,
advanced at a full charge toward the river where their companions stood firm
against the enemy’s fire. Some of Carter’s men charged undaunted back across
without orders, willing to sacrifice all in defense of comrades they knew were
in serious trouble.

Carter joined forces with Pierce, who split the
command to attack the flanking parties, hoping to keep them back long enough to
get the final seventy-five across.

More heavy firing a half-mile to the east, and a
lessening of fire where the rearguard had been fighting, caused Andrea to cast
her eyes in that direction. Seeing Carter again, she rode up beside him. “What
could that be?” she yelled. “Have some of the men gotten separated?”

“Probably the Colonel creating a diversion,”
Carter said with forced calmness, continuing to wave his men forward.

Andrea felt her heart do a summersault as she
stared at him in horrified astonishment. “A diversion?” She grabbed him by the
arm when he started to ride away. “He told me he was serving in the rearguard!”

“That too … but if I know him, he’s engaging the
enemy to the east.” He nodded toward the sound of gunfire. “Giving time for more
men to cross. Then he’ll cross over with . . . er-r,
after
. . . the
rearguard.” Carter took a deep breath, and then added, “If all goes as
planned.”

“But the diversion—” Andrea shook her head,
trying to allow her brain to catch up with what her heart already knew. “How
many men has he with him?”

She suddenly found it hard to concentrate with
the whooshing in her ears that had nothing to do with the lead flying around
her.

Carter shrugged. “The object is to draw their
attention from the ford—”

“I know what a bloody diversion is,” she
screamed, standing in her stirrups. “How many men has he with him?

Carter gazed at her intently, looking like he
did not wish to answer. “There is but one man popular enough to distract the
Yanks.”

He did not finish. He did not need to. A
thunderous explosion of gunfire in that direction caused Andrea’s jaw to drop.
Hunter was facing the enemy alone. She remained motionless, watching the scene
play in slow motion before her eyes.

“Is it a diversion?” she cried out like a terrified
child. “Or a sacrifice?”

“It’s his duty,” Carter said, more brusquely
now, apparently afraid he was going to have a bawling woman on his hands. “And
he is not one to evade it—not at any cost.”

Andrea looked back toward the sound of gunfire.
It grew quiet for a moment, the enemy apparently checking to see if the target
still stood. Then it began again with renewed and more violent intensity.

Damn him! Damn him!

His words came back to her. He never said he was
going to retreat. He had said he would allow the officers to decide what the
Command
would do. He knew all along he was going to stand and fight while securing his
men’s safe passage. His instinct to protect his country’s honor was stronger
than his instinct for personal safety—even in so desperate and unequal a
struggle. His own personal gallantry would not allow him to quit the field and
retreat, even when solid military prudence made it clearly advisable

Andrea blinked hard, fighting back tears that
were stinging her eyes. She looked at Carter with brimming lashes.

“He’ll come out all right, darlin’,” he said in
a reassuring tone. “He always does.” Then he turned his horse and galloped back
into the fray.

It seemed like only minutes later, but was
certainly much more, when Carter and a dozen other riders splashed through the
river now red with blood. “Move out!” he ordered to all those who remained on
the bank. The firing behind them continued and the water around them gurgled
with gunfire as his remaining men galloped through. The rearguard, cut and
slashed and war beaten, followed across beneath a hail of suppressing fire from
some reinforcements Gus had brought up to cover their passage.

Andrea, who had been helping load men into
wagons that had come with the reinforcements, caught a horse, and with great
difficulty in the excitement, mounted. She tried to find Carter again, but
could not in the rush. All around her were battered, yet living, men. Almost
all suffered a wound of one kind or another, but she knew few had been killed
outright.

Glancing back at the far riverbank, which was
now filled with blue, Andrea watched the fresh troops move forward, ready to
shell anyone who ventured any closer than the northern bank. She swept her eyes
over the faces of those around her, searching desperately for Alex or any sign
of his fate, as a vague uneasiness began to gnaw at her spine.

Dripping wet and stiff with cold, Andrea blew on
her fingers to keep them warm in the cool evening air. The only sounds now were
that of distant and sporadic gunfire to the rear, the men being either too
exhausted or too injured to speak. Someone apparently noticed her shivering and
dropped a coat over her shoulders. Too exhausted to turn and see who it was,
Andrea slipped her arms into the garment, thankful for the warmth.

Dozing in
her saddle as the horses walked single file down a narrow path, Andrea awoke
when the rider in front of her struck a match. For just a moment in that flash
of light, she saw the color of the coat she now wore. Odd, it was lined in
scarlet, just like the one Alex often wore. Trying to suppress the strange
feeling in the pit of her stomach, Andrea reached up and ran her fingers across
the collar. Three stars. She pulled the coat more tightly around her, reveling
in the comfort it provided both to her body and her soul.

But when she did, her hand passed over a damp
spot, and then a large hole in the fabric. She stifled a scream. The sickening
realization hit her with such force that she unknowingly spurred her horse
forward, causing it to run into the next horse and creating a general bunch-up
and swearing match ahead.

Andrea looked frantically around for Carter just
as the road opened up on both sides. The men fanned out into a field to rest
their mounts as Andrea rode up the line, searching the faces for someone she
knew. She spotted Carter in a circle of men, but when he saw her approaching,
he put his hand in the air to stop the conversation. With a nod, he gestured
for Andrea to follow him into the woods.

“He’s still alive,” Carter said, turning his
horse to face hers. “Or he was when I saw him.”

Andrea stared at him in stunned silence, her
trembling lips the only sign she had heard him. “But where is he? I need to see
him.”

“It’s too dangerous.” Carter shifted his gaze
away from her. “We got Yanks crawling everywhere. They know he’s been wounded.
They’re looking for him.”

Andrea kicked her horse and moved him to within
inches of Carter’s mount. She leaned over and looked straight into his eyes.
“Where is he?”

He shrugged and looked down. “It’s the Colonel’s
orders. No one is to know where he is, or go there, in case … you know, they’re
being followed.”

Andrea tried
to suppress her tongue, but her emotions got the best of her. She unleashed a
cavalcade of curses, pointing out that Major Carter was no judge of whether or
not she could successfully evade the enemy, followed by the general
proclamation that he had no right, jurisdiction, or authority to stop her.
“I’ll not remain in suspense as to his fate,” Andrea said defiantly.

“He’d have me court-martialed if I told you.”

“He’d do no such thing,” Andrea shot back.

Carter squinted and rubbed his chin, but still
hesitated.

“Have it your way, Major Carter.” Andrea picked
up her reins. “It would be easier to dodge the enemy if I knew where I was
going. But I will find him with or without you.”

A low rumble of angry thunder growled in the
distance, sounding heavy and threatening. Andrea glanced toward the sky where
lightening stabbed the horizon to the west.

Carter followed her gaze, then looked at her
long and hard. “They took him to a farm about a mile due south. Whether he’s
been moved—”

Before he could finish the sentence, she had
disappeared.

“I hope to God you have a pass to get through
our men,” he said to nothing but the night.

Chapter
66

“Honor has caused more deaths than the plague.”

– Julian Pitt Rivers

“At ease, men.” Andrea spoke in the lowest voice
she could muster as three heavily armed soldiers stepped in front of her horse.
“I’m here to see Colonel Hunter.”

The click of another half dozen guns being
cocked at close range was the reply that greeted her.

“Dismount or we’ll shoot,” a threatening voice
in the darkness drawled.

“I’m here to see the Colonel,” Andrea said
again.

“We heer’d what you said.” The man nearest her
horse grabbed the reins. “And if you don’t soon hear what I said, you ain’t
gonna live long enough to tell about it.”

Andrea dismounted at gunpoint, while another man
helped himself to her horse. Since none of the men surrounding her appeared to
be in particularly amiable frames of mind, she did not dispute their authority.
“I have a pass,” she said, suddenly remembering the one Alex had given her. 
“I’m here to see the Colonel.”

“Shur you is. Too bad the Kulnel ain’t heah.”

“I know he’s here, and he will see me if you’ll
just tell him I’ve arrived.”

“Zat so?” The soldier sounded skeptical. “Little
young to be out after dark, ain’t ya?”

The soldier nearest her then yelled to someone
in the darkness. Andrea felt the cold metal of a Colt pushing into her back,
which she suspected meant that someone wanted her to move forward. “Now walk
real slow, boy soldier. Don’t do nothing stupid.” The man pushed her in the
opposite direction of the farmhouse she had hoped to find Hunter, instead
moving her toward a barn.

“No!” Andrea stopped. “You don’t understand. I
need to see the Colonel!”

“It’s
you
that don’t understand. You
ain’t getting nowhere near the Kulnel—if he was heah—which I ain’t sayin’ he
is. You can show your pass to the officer in charge.”

“But I
must
see him.” Andrea stopped again
and turned so abruptly that the gun caught her in the ribs and almost knocked
the wind out of her.

At the same time, another man came up from
behind her and grabbed her arm. His iron grip held her with one hand, while his
other continued pointing his gun at her head. Andrea kicked and struggled but
to no avail. The man did not even flinch as he continued dragging her toward
the barn.

“At ease men,” a deep voice drawled from out of
the darkness.

“You know this kid?” one of the men asked the
solitary soldier on horseback who rode out of the shadows by the barn. “Says
he’s here to see the Kulnel.”

Captain Pierce leaned forward in his saddle and
squinted, either deciding if he did or not—or deciding if he wanted to say or
not. “Yea. Let him go,” he said gruffly. “He’s the kid from earlier today.”

Nursing an injury of his own, he dismounted,
then grabbed Andrea none too gently by the arm and turned her face toward a
lantern. He wore a perplexed look on his countenance. “How’d you get here? An
owl couldn’t find that road in the dark.”

“I have a duty to perform,” was all she said in
response.

“Follow me.” Pierce began walking, or rather
limping, toward a small outbuilding around which a number of men were standing.
“Who sent for you?” he asked over his shoulder. “Why didn’t they send an escort
with you? These men were ordered—by me—to shoot anything that moves.”

“Major Carter told me where to find the
Colonel.” Andrea thought it best not to lie to him. He seemed to be highly
agitated.

“What for?” he barked. “No one can see him.”

Andrea
noticed Pierce’s limping grew steadily worse, and that a shirtsleeve, dripping
scarlet, had been tied around a serious wound to his thigh. From the amount of
blood flowing forth, it appeared a bullet had plowed clean to the bone, causing
her to wonder why he was still walking on it. With her thoughts and eyes
focused on the trail of blood spilling in her path, she ran straight into him
when his massive form stopped and whirled around. “It’s
you
!”

Andrea’s breath caught in her throat. She did
not respond. If he had figured out who she was, he needed no further
information from her. If he had not, she was not going to help him. Anyway,
what had he figured out? That she was Andrea Evans? Or that Andrea Evans was a
long-sought enemy? It did not take her long to find out.

It was both.

“Your expertise on a horse is conspicuous,”
Pierce said, his voice now cold and cruel. “One might even say—memorable.”

Andrea stood
before him, looking at the ground, trying to appear confidant and calm beneath
his inscrutable gaze. In her mind she was neither.

Glancing at
the house, she saw it was but fifteen yards away. Yet the officer in command
stood between her and the door, and it looked like the ruthless reputation of
which she had been warned was going to make an appearance tonight. From the
look on Pierce’s face, and from the stance of the sentries posted on the porch,
Andrea knew permission had been granted to fire first and ask questions later.

“Almost as memorable as your eyes.” He leaned
down closer. “You had to have known I would recognize those bloody, bewitching
eyes.”