“I would simply join up with one of the other guerrilla bands. Colonel.”
He looked at her tiredly. “The 43rd Virginia Cavalry is a recognized regular Partisan Ranger unit, under the laws of war. We are not guerillas.” He paused. “I know what you would do, so I will not discharge you for the time being, but I may change that at any time.”
Collecting her horse, Mary left the encampment. The few sparse flakes of snow that were falling had begun to grow larger and more numerous, sparks of cold on her face and cheeks as they melted.
She was certain that the Colonel was planning to relieve her from service as soon as he could do so with a clear conscience. He very much considered himself a gentleman and she’d always felt he was uncomfortable with women directly participating in war. He seemed, like many men, to feel that women should be making bandages or peeing into pots to make gunpowder, rather than dealing more direct blows for the Cause. Whatever that was, she reflected. If anything, she had learned from her long talks with Jeremiah that the war was far more complicated than she had ever believed.
Mary rode on through the whirls and eddies of snow, the early winter storm. She doubted it would be a bad one, but she also knew it was impossible to be certain of the weather in the Shenandoah. The hour-long ride down the trails and tracks turned into three hours and took her through the abrupt darkening of the western sky. Night fell suddenly in the valleys of the Shenandoah. There was enough dull moonglow pushing through the winter clouds to fall with the snow to make her way, but if she didn’t reach camp before moonset, she’d have to huddle down wherever she was rather than risk a fall into a draw.
Just as she passed the twisted oak at the edge of the camp, she heard the oddly muffled shots and shouts of battle in the snow. A Yankee patrol must have stumbled across the encampment.
It had to have been an accident since even the Yankees weren’t damn fools enough to attack with mere minutes of moonlight left. The sounds were more of marked confusion than anything coherent, Mary had been in enough clashes to know the difference. She pulled her Colt Navy from the saddle holster. She thumbed the hammer back before resting it across the pommel, as she moved cautiously in on the camp.
A burst of gunfire focused her just in time to see a figure racing through the darkness and snow and she steadied the big revolver on it.
The swirling snowflakes made it all but impossible to see her target, a looming shadow, barely visible except as a pattern in the blindness. But that pattern had the unmistakable shape of a Union Cavalryman. A glimpse of dark blue through the snow confirmed her suspicion.
Her Colt revolver boomed, and the shadow seemed to fall apart. The larger part raced past her, resolving into a galloping horse, the smaller part falling to the road, still and quiet.
Two more figures, obviously in pursuit of the first drew up slowly and cautiously, one finally calling out in a hoarse whisper. “Show yourself.”