Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (3 page)

“Other than a few scratches and a sore ankle,
I’m fine.” Andrea smiled to reassure him. “Much better off than Captain Hunter,
I’m sure.”

Colonel Jordan had turned to light a second
lamp, but at the mention of the Confederate captain’s name, he stopped and
whirled back to face her. “You tangled with Hunter?”

“You could say … we met.” Andrea hobbled over to
the nearest chair and lowered herself into it. “Can you help me get this boot
off?”

Colonel Jordan’s soft brown eyes appeared to
change from concern to apprehension, and the tone of his voice became laced
with alarm. “What’s wrong with your ankle?” He stared at the obvious swelling
of her boot.

Andrea watched his eyes flick up to her ripped
pants and scan her torn and ragged coat. She knew, even without a mirror, that
if she had escaped from a den of tigers, she could look no worse.

“If it was Hunter after you,” he said, raising
his gaze to meet hers, “it appears like he darn near succeeded.”

“Now, J.J.,” Andrea said, making light of her
injury by calling him the pet name only she and his wife were privy to. “You
know ‘darn near’ doesn’t count in time of war.”

Andrea thought her comment was cause enough for
a good laugh, but “J.J.” ignored it and knelt down to examine her ankle.

“Blazes, Andrea, how long has it been like this?
We’re going to have to cut your boot off.”

Andrea gripped the side of the chair, her
knuckles white, and put her head back as the throbbing intensified. “It’s only
a sprain,” she said through gritted teeth.

“And a ruined
pair of boots.” Colonel Jordan did not bother to hide the sarcasm in his voice
as the leather fell apart under his knife.

Andrea
shrugged and drew in a sharp breath as she gazed at her cousin’s husband. Having
lived with them for five years, Andrea considered J.J. more like a dear brother
than a commanding officer. Obviously a man of courage and conviction, she
esteemed him even more for his remarkable gentleness—a trait she had never
before witnessed in the male species. With striking good looks and warm, brown
eyes, he had an easy-going manner that made everyone feel instantly at home.

Even his men admired and respected him, both for
his calm demeanor in camp and his steady nerve under fire. If they could only
see him when in the company of his wife. She took a deep, exasperated breath.
Sometimes the love J.J. and Catherine shared scared her. It seemed foolish to
care for someone so, to depend on someone so desperately. Her mother had
married for money and power alone. The adoration and esteem Catherine bestowed
upon J.J., and that he returned tenfold, confused her.

“How does that feel?” He looked up, tearing
Andrea from her thoughts.

“Much better.” She leaned back in the chair,
resting her gaze on the ankle that had swelled to more than twice its normal
size.

“Hopefully the swelling won’t get any worse,” he
said as he wrapped a bandage around it. “I should have someone take a look at
it in the morning—and this.” J.J. grabbed her arm and narrowed his eyes at one
of the deeper gashes. “Now, tell me what happened.”

Andrea chewed the inside of her cheek, took a
deep breath, and closed her eyes for a moment to gather her thoughts. J.J. must
have seen how fatigued she was.

“Never mind. You must be famished and exhausted.
Hunter is no doubt long gone by now. You can tell me in the morning.”

Andrea smiled. “More tired than hungry—or too
tired to eat. I’m not sure which.”

“You can sleep here.” J.J. nodded toward his
cot. “I’ll find quarters elsewhere.”

“No. I’ll sleep
in my tent.” Andrea stood to leave, but her eyes never left the cot. Though
small, it appeared considerably more comfortable than the ground.

“That’s an order.” J.J. blew out the lamp to end
the conversation. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Chapter
3

“That man will fight us every day and every hour till the end
of the war.”

– General James Longstreet, speaking of General U.S. Grant

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead.” J.J. opened the
tent flap, allowing a stream of sunlight to gush in and fill every corner.
“Please tell me you didn’t sleep with one boot on,” he said, holding a steaming
cup of coffee in one hand and a pair of shiny boots in the other.

Andrea blinked at the sudden brightness. “I
guess I was more tired than I realized. It’s been awhile since I slept in a
bed.”

J.J. winced. “I would hardly call that a bed.”
He stared at his wife’s cousin sitting on the edge of his cot, elbows on her
knees and face in her hands, trying to wipe away the sleep that remained. Her
blonde hair lay tangled with twigs and leaves like the mane of an unbroken
horse. Her pants were torn and muddy. The picture she presented was one of
determination and a strong will, two traits equally at fault for leading her
into frequent trouble.

“You must stop this.” He handed her the cup of
coffee. “It’s getting too dangerous.”

“Now is hardly the time for ease and comfort.”
Andrea gave him a look that indicated she did not think he was being rational.
“The Union is at stake—”

J.J. shook
his head and put his hands up to stop her. She pushed his patience, and his
nerves, to the limit. The decision to allow her into camp had been a source of
much regret from the start. But in his defense, he had been given little
choice. She had enlisted the aid of his wife to stand against him, and between
them, they had worn him down. With much reluctance he had allowed her to carry
messages back and forth to Catherine, a distance of some fifteen miles. At the
beginning of the war, the idea seemed harmless enough. He rather enjoyed the
frequent communications from his wife. But that was back when everyone assumed
the Confederacy would be defeated in a single battle, when the conflict’s
duration was prophesied to be short, and the Union’s success was considered to
be certain.

Although he could not recall the exact
circumstances, somewhere along the line she had been asked to deliver a message
to an outpost close by—then another and another. And now here she was,
entrenched in a war that had no end in sight, her heart and soul enlisted in
such a way it seemed impossible to remove her. Every officer in this part of
the state knew of the kid called “Sinclair.” They knew of his familiarity with
the countryside and the swiftness of his horse. And though they assumed he was
too young to enlist, they heard he was fearless.

What they don’t know is that “he” is a “she”
who has more courage than sense.  And that it’s entirely up to me to keep her
out of trouble.

“You were supposed to be back two days ago,”
J.J. said, shaking his head. “I cannot allow this to continue.”

“I came close to finding the headquarters.”
Andrea took a sip of coffee and did not bother to specify whose headquarters.
“I could not just
leave
.”

“You see?” J.J.’s voice grew loud. “I sent you
to deliver dispatches to General Nelson. There was no mention of finding any
headquarters in those orders.”

Andrea let out her breath in rude exasperation.
“We must not stop now. We need only to match his cleverness and cunning.”

“You disobeyed my orders. I cannot allow
insubordination in my ranks.”

“J.J.—”

“Don’t
J.J.
me. I’m your commanding
officer.”

“Colonel Jordan,” she began again. “You cannot
expect me to ride into enemy territory with my eyes closed. Hunter’s men cause
chaos in our ranks, and every unit sent after him is destroyed.”

“That has nothing to do with you,” he snapped.

“But, sir, I
ride alone. I have been able to move around his command unnoticed. I have given
you valuable information about his movements, have I not?”

J.J. stared at her unblinking, knowing she was
right. “That is not the question.”

“But if we found his headquarters we could
stop—”

“You are a courier, at best. Not a spy. Not a
scout. Do you understand? You are to deliver dispatches, not gather
intelligence on the enemy’s strength and movements.”

Andrea nodded, but defiance remained in her eyes
when she turned away, making it obvious the furtive headquarters of Captain
Hunter had become an obsession.

“Andrea, the man is satanically clever,” J.J.
said, trying to reason with her. “He knows what we are doing—and even what we
intend to do—yet no one can tell where he’ll be, when he’ll be there, or what
he’ll do—”

“I can play his game.” She swung around to face
him. “He operates unmolested, robbing with impunity, picking up supplies from
our troops as he desires, and greeting and accepting invitations from citizens
with the popularity of a king. If you would authorize it, I could find his
headquarters.”

“Yes, that would work splendidly,” J.J. said
sarcastically. “That is if Hunter didn’t capture you, which he probably would,
and then decided to spare your life, which he probably wouldn’t.”

“You worry overly much.”

J.J. studied the uncompromising look on her face
and decided to change the subject. “How’s the ankle?”

“Much better.” Andrea sounded none too sincere
as she limped over to the chair.

J.J. knelt down, took off the bandage, and
checked the swelling. “It’s still swollen. You should try to stay off it. Why
don’t you head back to our place and rest for a few days?”

Andrea nodded somewhat willingly in response to
the invitation, then sank deeper into the chair.

“Now, tell me about last night.” J.J. stood and
crossed his arms.

After propping her foot on a chest, Andrea
wrapped and re-wrapped the bandage in an obvious effort to stall for time. J.J.
surmised she had planned to think her story through before being questioned.
That plan, he concluded, had not been implemented and was now too late to
enact.

When he began tapping his foot, she gazed up
with a forced smile. “On my way to deliver your dispatch, I noticed a couple of
Hunter’s men hanging around on the outskirts of town.” She stared out over her
toes. “So I found one of our patrols and told them they might want to take a
look.” Andrea paused for a moment to catch her breath . . . or figure out how
she was going to continue her account. “I guess they pretty much scattered the
riders.”

“You’re sure it was Hunter’s men you saw?”

Andrea shrugged and focused her attention on a
single button on J.J.’s coat rather than his eyes. “Pretty sure.”

“But that’s not everything. How did you sprain
your ankle?”

Andrea gulped. “Oh yes, my ankle. I, uh,
sprained my ankle when . . .”

“Come on, Andrea, the truth.” J.J. continued to
stare at her, focusing on every word and concentrating on any possible
slip-ups.

“All right, that’s not quite the end of the
story. Justus needed a drink and so did I, so we stopped along Swift Run.
Unfortunately, Captain Hunter had the same idea.”

“You were
that
close when the Union
patrol attacked?” His eyes grilled her, letting her know he had deduced the
part of the story she had neglected to tell—that she had acted as a decoy to
divert Hunter’s attention from the alerted patrol. “What did you do then?”

“Well, the
good thing is, he was on one side of the stream and I was on the other. You
know how Swift Run is
…
it’s kind of
…
well … swift
…
”

“Yes, I know how it is,” J.J. snapped, agitated
at her ramblings. “What happened next?”

Andrea sighed. “Unluckily for him, but happily
for me, his horse fell and he fell, and I was able to get away.”  Finishing the
sentence, Andrea clapped her hands together and stood.

J.J. stared at her back, knowing he could
probably find a shade of truth in her story. Yet he knew Andrea well enough to
recognize she had a way of taking an acorn of fact and turning it into a great
oak of fable. “You still have not told me how you sprained your ankle, Andrea.
What are you hiding?”

“Blazes, why do you have to know me so well?”
Andrea hobbled to the far side of the tent while biting one of her fingernails.

“You said the good news is he was on the other
side of the creek and he fell off his horse,” J.J. started for her. “What, pray
tell, is the bad news?”

“The bad news … ” Andrea bit her lip. “The bad
news is, I … Well, he struck his head when he fell.”

“And?”

“And I thought he might drown.”

A long pause ensued before J.J. prompted her
again. “And?”

“So I jumped into the water and dragged him
out.”

Andrea
mumbled the last part of the sentence, but J.J. heard her just the same. He
threw back his head and laughed—until he saw the look on her face. Then his
expression lost all hint of humor. “You
are
joking, right?”

“No, I’m not joking.” Andrea threw her hands up
in exasperation. “He hit his head, and I thought I could at least get him out
of the water. But by the time I did, his men were swarming around. They heard
the gunshot I suppose—”

“
Gunshot
?” J.J.’s voice grew thunderous.

Andrea took an exasperated breath. “Well, yes.
He fired a shot—”

“At
you
?”

She winced at the shrillness of his voice. “Yes,
but no need for alarm. His aim was amiss.”

“It’s your logic that is amiss!” J.J. yelled.
“There’s a war going on everywhere except between
your
ears! Do you
think Captain Hunter would pull
you
out of the water?”

When she did not answer, J.J. took her by the
arms and shook her. “War is not a game! How many times do I have to tell you
that? War means fighting and fighting means killing.”

“There are better ways for a man to die than
drowning in a blasted stream,” Andrea responded defiantly. “If he’d been
bleeding to death on a battlefield, that would be different.”