And One Wore Gray Read Online Free PDF Page B

pounding of the horses’ hooves, the clang of steel, and the horrible cries of men. Then it was all gone, as if a clean, clear breeze had come to sweep it away.
    The James River. He could feel the breeze that came off the James, that sweet coolness, touching his cheek. He could hear the drone of bees. He was lying in the grass on the slope of the lawn at home, at Cameron Hall, staring at the blue sky above, watching as white clouds idly puffed by. He could hear singing, down by the smokehouse. Something soft, and sing song, a spiritual. A deep, low male voice rumbled, and beautiful female voices chorused around it. He didn’t need to open his eyes to see the smokehouse, or the hall, or the endless slope of green lawn where he lay that stretched all the way down to the river, and the river docks and the ships that came to take the crops to market. Nor did he need to open his eyes to see the garden, bursting with bright red summer roses that wove enchantingly down the path from the wide, porticoed back porch ofthe hall. He knew it all, like he knew his own hand. It was home, and he loved it.
    But he needed to get up. He could hear Christa’s laughter. She would be coming up the slope with Jesse to get him. Pa would have sent them to bring him in for dinner. Jesse would be teasing her, and Christa would be laughing. They’d both be ready to taunt him for his daydreaming. Christa, still just a little girl, was so accomplished in the house. And Jesse always knew what he wanted. An appointment to West Point, a few years in a good medical school, and an assignment in the West. While he …
    “Daydreaming, Daniel?” Jesse asked. His brother sat down beside him on one side, while his sister, her bright blue eyes as shimmering as the sky, sat on his other side.
    “Nothing wrong with daydreaming, Jess.”
    “No, nothing wrong at all,” Jesse said. He was the most serious of their family, and he always had been. He was the peacemaker, calm, decisive, and as stubborn as they came. There weren’t all that many years between them and so they had always been the best of friends. They might fight, but let anyone else ever make a critical comment about either of the Cameron boys and the other brother would leap to his defense, willing to take on any fight. And no one had best ever find fault with Miss Christa, for both boys—though they might torment her endlessly at home—would instantly be ready for battle.
    “Dreaming about what?” Christa demanded. She laughed, and the sound was like all the others that Daniel heard, the ripple of the river, the whisper of the breeze. It was a sound that belonged to the languorous days of summer, to childhood.
    “Horses, I daresay,” Jesse volunteered for him, and pulled his hat low over his head. The eldest of the threesome, he was always quick to speak his mind.
    Daniel grinned. “Maybe. Christa is going to be the most beautiful and accomplished young lady in the country, you’re going to be the greatest doctor since Hippocrates, and me, well, I guess I’m going to be a horse master.”
    “The best darned horse master this side of the Mississippi,” Jesse promised him.
    Daniel leapt to his feet, swinging an imaginary sword. “The best horseman, the best swordsman. I’ll be just like one of King Arthur’s knights!”
    “And save damsels in distress!” Christa laughed, clapping.
    “What?” Daniel demanded.
    “Damsels. Fair maidens in distress. Well, it’s what all the best knights are supposed to do.”
    “They’re supposed to fight dragons.”
    “Or Indians,” Jesse observed wryly.
    “Everyone know that you have to save the damsels from the Indians and dragons!” Christa insisted.
    “Woah!” Jesse, always the voice of reason, warned them. “Give him time, Christa. Damsels tend to be interested in knights before knights tend to be interested in damsels. He’ll get there. But right now, there’s supper on the table. Honey-smoked ham and sweet potatoes and new peas and