Amy Card had mused in front of the dying fire for over an hour, trying to avoid conversation with the overly talkative lieutenant by her side when she finally caught sight of him. Drunk, as usual on nights like this, Gabriel Martin stumbled toward the fire's light. "Wwhat," he managed to slur as he noticed their watching faces. Shrugging Amy began to turn back to the fire when she caught a startled look in Gabriel's eyes. Hunching over, and mimicking a cough Amy prayed he wouldn't recognize her. Moments like these had become all too familiar lately as Gabriel teetered on the brink of discovery. Trying to disguise her fear, Amy glanced over the worn blue shoulder of her Continental uniform, sighing quietly as Gabriel stumbled into his tent. Moments like these were always a draw for her. Fear of being recognized as what she was and thrown out fought stubbornly with the urge to run up to him and shout, "Yes, you're right it's me! I'm here!" The conflict only ended when Gabriel turned away still slightly bewildered.
Bidding the lieutenant good night, Amy stalked over to her tent with the air of an injured wild cat, dangerous and waiting. The day Gabriel to join the Continentals came back to her unbidden along with the same familiar surge of anger. Gabriel had never wanted to admit that he understood her need to ride the family horses or shoot his father's gun, just as she had never approved of his learning to stitch for odd chores. Deep down they both knew the truth of it, knowing with instinct each other's need to be apart of the others activities.
But when the war came to South Carolina, Gabriel turned a deaf ear to her pleas and rode across the golden cornfield, with a straight back and a firmly set face. Turning to go to the barn, Amy was aware of Benjamin Martin staring at her with something like acceptance mixed with surpressed anxiety and anger. After saddling her chestnut mare and leading him down by the pond, Amy slowly walked back through the cornfield and up the porch steps where Benjamin Martin stood waiting. Kissing him on his left cheek, Amy was startled to be pulled into a tight hug. Nodding, she turned and ran down the steps and across the field to her waiting horse.
So much of those first few months was a blur, the stealing of men's clothing from clothes lines and laundry baskets, the clumsy hacking of her hair that left a livid gash along her left cheek, and the constant fear of exposure were all things she preferred to forget. For weeks, Amy found herself drifting from town to town searching for Gabriel's regiment without plan or even idea as to what she would do when she found him.
It was dark the night she finally ran across them, laying up for the evening in a wooded creek bed. Tightening the binding about her chest in the hope of smoothing the still noticeable lump, she had walked firmly into camp, attempting to appear as masculine as possible. Later she realized all the mistakes she had made. Walking right into a camp of armed and trigger-happy men, Amy had found ten barrels trained on her before she was halfway to the nearest tent.
After hours of questioning, Amy somehow found herself wearing a blue Continental coat and cream breeches and being assigned a tent. It was then that she saw him, walking back from the creek, his arms filled with canteens. He had glanced at her before turning to stare at her again. He was thinner than she remembered, gaunt from months of rough usage, and his eyes, still as brown as before, had stared out of a hungry tired face.
So many times Amy could sense him staring at her, looking for all the world like he'd seen her ghost. And so many times, Amy had had to hide, to fight to keep herself near him.
Sliding between the paper-thin sheets of her cot that night, Amy tried to shut out those brown tired startled eyes, as they gazed at her through the dancing shadows.