“Don’t talk, Boonie. And don’t worry. Best friends know everything.”
Yeah,” he whispered so faintly she could barely hear. “Best friends know everything.”
He lay quiet then, his face pale. But his coughing had aggravated the wound, causing the blood to flow even faster.
Andrea tried in vain to catch the precious fluid, tried in vain to return it to its rightful place. She pushed it back toward the hole by the fistful, but it would not go in, would only come out, bubbling and gushing between her fingers. “Oh, Boonie!”
He looked up once more, a mute appeal filling his eyes even though he could no longer speak. That’s when Andrea stopped trying to stop the blood. Instead she contented herself with stroking his hair and speaking bravely to him, easing his passing as best she could.
Within minutes, she raised her head and gazed statue-like over the field of battle, knowing her friend’s spirit now floated above—up there where his eyes vacantly stared.
Andrea looked down to the spot where the soil had drunk the last drop of life from his bleeding breast. She stared disbelievingly at her own hands soaked in sticky humanity, then gazed up at the sun. Sinking behind crimson clouds, it appeared to be fleeing into its own sea of blood. The sight caused her to shudder, then shake uncontrollably. A scream rose up from the deepest recesses of her heart. “W-h-h-y-y???”
She pounded the ground by Boonie’s corpse in a delirious rage, though it was not because he had died. “Please,” she beseeched with her cheek against the blood-soaked dirt, “take…me-e-e!”
Chapter 5
What a cruel thing war is…to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors.
– Robert E. Lee
Andrea awoke to the drone of a low, moaning wind that sounded almost human. She turned her head side to side in an effort to stop the noise, then realized it was coming from her own throat.
“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 that the uniform standing before her was blue, but the face was too blurry to identify.
“Andrea,” the voice repeated. “It’s J.J. How are you feeling?”
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 goodness, 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. Yes, she wanted to forget. Yet she knew the 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 cannons were for, were they 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.
“You’ll be okay.” She felt J.J.’s hand close on hers, as if he’d read her thoughts.
“No.” Andrea turned her head back and forth on the pillow. “The war has changed everything. And no one and nothing will ever be the same.” She felt a tear squeeze through her swollen eyelid. “I have lost everything, except that which I have been most willing to give,” she whispered.
The pressure of J.J.’s grip increased. “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, followed by 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 6
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
Three weeks later
“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. “Private 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 the homeowner had hidden them as Hunter was being roused at gunpoint from his bed. These officers did not have them.
Or did they?
He attempted to mask his inner turmoil with deceptive composure. “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.”
The statement caused Hunter’s heart to pick up its pace. It explained why the Union soldiers had burst through the door and gone straight to the room where he rested instead of searching the house.
“Then I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said, making sure to keep his voice calm and measured. “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 as an icy sensation began sliding its way up Hunter’s spine.
“Tell me, while we’re waiting, Private.” The colonel’s voice dripped with disdain. “Why is it, do you suppose, that you rebels somehow manage to win victories when fighting a superior army?”
“I assume by superior you are referring solely to numbers. In which case, we have found that a righteous cause doubles ours.”
The silence of shock that followed was broken by voices outside, and then the sound of the door opening.
Hunter squinted at the sudden burst of light and studied the figure silhouetted briefly in the threshold. Even though her face was not visible beneath the hat pulled characteristically low, he could tell it was her. She walked in and returned the officers’ salutes in a purely mechanical manner that had nothing of respect in it. Then she looked down and attempted to remove her gloves, a task that 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 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, because he was placing her in a very uncomfortable position—betray the Union or seal his fate.
He willed Andrea to turn around, 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.
His eyes unconsciously lowered to her trousers and boots. Both were covered with dust and showed signs of heavy wear. Neither bore much likeness to the gifts that had been so lovingly bestowed upon the wearer—on a night that seemed like it had taken place a lifetime ago.
“You wished to see me, sir?” Andrea finally walked over and addressed the colonel in a dull tone that made it evident she did not carry a favorable impression of him either. She stood directly in front of the two officers, close enough for Hunter to reach out and touch her back.
“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 saw none of that.
The shock 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.
It was as if all her emotions…affection, tenderness, sympathy, compassion…that had once been such a vital part of her had shriveled up like the nerves of the dead. He wondered if the Andrea he once knew could ever be brought back to life—or if she even existed anymore. Perhaps like so many others, she had been lost to the war.
Silence fell upon the room. 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 breathlessly long moment. Hunter didn’t move. But 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 signal of warning 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’m sorry to tell you that the man behind me is not the one who sent me to prison.”
Hunter sat looking straight ahead. He did not allow any emotions 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, that the strength it took to overcome it caused his muscles to throb and tremble.
Andrea turned to leave, giving the officers a truculent nod of her head in response to theirs. Hunter noticed that 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 years, rather than by months.
“Will that be all?” Andrea did not wait for an answer, but continued toward 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 smiled, apparently enjoying the sight of the young scout struggling with double vision from only one eye.
Chapter 7
The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
– Gilbert K. Chesterton
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, gazing 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.
He stared absently at the scarlet tendrils of poiso
n ivy wrapped around a nearby tree and lit by the flickering illumination of a nearby fire. Nature, unconscious of war, had dressed herself in vivid and vibrant hues, erupting in a carnival of color that resembled great tongues of flame crawling up the bark.
The scent of pipe smoke on the breeze reached Hunter at about the same time as a voice spoke from the darkness behind him. He recognized it as General Jordan’s, but could not make out his form in the deep shadows and inky blackness.
“That Sinclair is really something, isn’t he?”
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.
“Yes. She was lucky to get out alive herself.”
Hunter winced at the news, barely 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’s voice quivered ever so slightly now. “Due to the state of her health, I felt compelled to inform her that her services were no longer needed
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