Dream Shadow by Mary Wine

was amazing in a way, to just be one of the group. It was a façade of course. Jacobs would never leave her back exposed.
    A man on horseback was off to the side of the field. He raised his sword and lowered it in the early morning sunlight. The deafening sound of three hundred rifles discharging cracked the air. Smoke clouds rose up among the men on the field. The sword rose again and the eight cannons fired off next.
    The class seemed to be over, but the men weren’t leaving the field. The officer atop the horse kneed the animal forward to address the assembled men. There was enough brass sitting on the man’s shoulders to almost blind her. All the men on the field raised their right hands and repeated the five rules of conduct for the weekend. Grace found the rules highly amusing. Among them was the rule that everybody had to be friendly and play nice together.
    Grace wandered down to the camp area. She decided she was improving her walking skills. She only tripped once.
    The upper field was considered the Northern camp. They were in blue so that made them Yankees. There was a good deal of activity here. Women were cooking over open-fire pits. The women were, for the most part, dressed exactly as she was, yet they bent and walked without any effort. Several smiled, calling out greetings to her as she walked among them.
    Beside the fire pits there were rows of tiny, one-room cabins built into the mountainside. Below the more permanent structures, there sat almost a hundred canvas tents. Many were lying on the ground waiting for the men to return before they were raised.
    Children ran about with wooden toys and cloth rag dolls. The little boys sported knickers, while the girls dashed about wearing long calico dresses. The smells of breakfast started to drift with the breeze. She could see why this would appeal to people. You could step out of the modern world and its stresses while you were here. There was an air of acceptance and community. The camp was beginning to be overrun by blue coats. Any woman who had hot coffee became an instant point of congregation.
    “Good morning, Ms. Grace. It sure is a pleasure to see you today.” That deep tone was instantly recognizable. Grace turned to find Brice standing not more than two feet behind her. Her mind simply went blank. It should have been against the law for a man to look quite that good in a costume.
    Brice took advantage of her lack of response to capture her slim hand and carry it to his lips for a soft kiss. The contact of their flesh impacted her and she pulled her hand from his grip.
    Grace slowly took in the sight before her. The dark blue wool molded to his frame with precise care. The length of crimson that she had seen at his home was in fact a sash that was wound about his waist. Lean hips tapered into strong legs. The pants were different from Jacobs’s. These pants had patches on the inner thigh area. For riding , she thought. That meant he had a horse here. She brought her eyes back to his face. His brown eyes had been watching her assessment of him, and he seemed to approve of her looking him over. He locked stares with her for a moment before he slowly returned the favor. With absolute dread, Grace felt a blush burn her cheeks.
    “Do you care for stallions, Ms. Grace?”
    The blush deepened to beet red. Grace thought she heard him laugh under his breath, but was too busy trying to regain her emotional balance to know for certain. Before she could form a good answer, Brice reached for her hand again. This time he placed it on the inside of his arm as he started to escort her down the hill.
    “Jacobs is over at the corral. I told him I’d bring you over.”
    Spending some down time with him was one thing, but she wasn’t ready to stroll arm in arm with him. She extracted her hand from his arm and firmly folded her hands together in front of her.
    “That’s just fine if you don’t want to take my arm. Of course, it’ll just announce to all the other