That evening after a supper of hash and stewed tomatoes, Mary helped Victoria into the light-blue calico dress with the pale-yellow squares, smoothing down the boned basque and admiring Private München’s knife pleats and well-turned buttonholes.

“Here is the plan,” Victoria said as she put her gold earbobs in place. “At midnight we will retire to a back room and take off our calico dresses, then put on our ball gowns. Everything will be packed away and ready to mail to the First Congregational Church on Hamlin Avenue. Mrs. Stanley says we have already collected seventy-five dollars for the deserving poor.”

Mary nodded. Maybe in a few days or weeks, or until she left, she could suggest that Victoria and the other officers’ wives consider the deserving poor closer to Fort Laramie, across the footbridge and down a draw behind Suds Row.

After the Mastersons left, Mary stood at the window and watched the snow. She hoped that His Pony, Shell, and Smooth Stone were at the Whetstone Creek Agency with Spotted Tail. Rowan had said the newly formed agencies near the Black Hills were protected.

“Let’s just hope no one discovers gold in the Black Hills. I hate to think what will happen then,” the sergeant had told her last night, when she was tacking down the coffin lining.

“I can tell you what will happen, if someone wants Indian land,” she told her reflection in the window glass. “Take care of your family, His Pony.”

She had gone to her room to find some stationery for a long letter home to Mama when she heard footsteps on the porch, Rowan Blade footsteps. She knew them by now. Heavens, but the man was persistent. She didn’t have a dress.

She opened the door with a smile to see a man with a heavy heart. He carried a pasteboard box, which looked remarkably like something a dressmaker would use. She ushered him inside, and he set the box on the dining room table. Sukey’s Dresses was stenciled on the box in a flowery script. She looked at the sergeant in surprise.

“The supply train got through a half hour ago. Open it.”

She lifted the lid and gasped. It was the dark-blue calico with the white pinpoint dots that Sergeant Blade had picked out for her in Cheyenne, done up with lovely mother-of-pearl buttons and row on row of tucks on the bodice, the work of hours. The shirt had a knee-deep flounce that would look magical on a dance floor.

She ran her hand over the fabric. “Rowan, my goodness.” She felt brave and put her arms around his neck. “You did this when you went back to Fort Russell, didn’t you?”

“Guilty as charged. I did have paperwork at the fort, and there was time. Sukey didn’t mind getting up early to help me out.”

He hugged her close, then held her off so he could look into her eyes. “There’s something else, Mary, and it’s more important. Sit down.”

He didn’t look like a man ready to take a lady to a calico ball, even though he wore his uniform. She could almost smell the sorrow under a layer of bay rum. This was a sergeant whose first concern would always be his men. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I don’t even know how to ask this,” he said simply. “I wanted to surprise you with this dress.”

“You certainly did,” she assured him. “But that’s not what is bothering you.”

“No. I finished painting Mathilde’s coffin by noon. We took it down to Bill Curly an hour ago.” He swallowed and shook his head.

He couldn’t talk. Mary understood this sort of silence. She thought of her one visit to the Curly quarters, tidy and clean but absolutely bare bones. The girls were dressed neatly, but she doubted they had anything more. She thought of their mother. Her heart went out to this lovely man because she knew what he was asking for without the strength to ask.

She took the dress out and held it against her body. It was complete and utter perfection, the work of a talented dressmaker. She knew it would fit her. She also knew it would fit Mathilde Frere.

Mary held the dress a moment longer, then arranged it back in the box. She put on the lid. “Take it to Mathilde.”

He clung to her and cried, and she held him close, smoothing his hair, knowing this man could never do enough for those he led. If by some miracle he asked her to marry him, she would probably have to make allowances for his strong sense of duty. A wife could get used to that, if she loved her husband enough.

He pulled back finally and opened his mouth. She put her fingers to his lips. “Don’t you dare apologize to me,” she told him, startled at how fierce she sounded, almost like Grandmama Jane in the longhouse when she spoke of soldiers, and longhouses on fire, and retreat.

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Rowan picked up the box and left as quietly as he had come.

She sat at the table and stared at her hands, thinking of all the sorrow in the hut behind Suds Row. Maybe the dolls would help Mathilde’s daughters. She knew she would go there tomorrow and take raisins and her love. Maybe the Arikara sat in silence by coffins. She had done that before, impatient and bored. Now she would do it quietly, her heart invested in lives closer to hers than she could have imagined only weeks ago.

How odd to realize that this six-month exile to the Wild West she had undertaken so grudgingly had come full circle and taught her lessons she could have learned nowhere else. She could write Mama about that.

She was still staring at the blank sheet of paper in front of her when she heard Rowan on the porch again, stamping snow off his boots. She rose to open the door, but he opened it before she stood completely on her feet.

He carried a pasteboard box with Sukey’s Dresses stenciled on the top. She wondered why he hadn’t just left the box at the Curly house. Boxes always had their uses.

He set the box on the table and took off his overcoat this time, as if he planned to stay awhile. She went to take his coat from him as a good hostess would, but he tossed it onto the settee.

“Open it.”

She smiled at him. “I did, remember? I do hope Bill Curly was all right with what we did.”

“He was so appreciative. So were the other scouts’ wives. Open it.”

“You’re a knothead.”

He put cold hands on her neck, and she swatted him. “Mary Blue Eye, open it.”

She did as he commanded, then stepped back in amazement.

“I asked Sukey to make another dress for you. I picked out this material too. I know wedding dresses aren’t supposed to be wool and deep pink, but it’s cold here, and I like it.”

Mary reminded herself to breathe. The wool was cashmere, softer to the touch than a rose petal and about the same shade. More mother-of-pearl buttons marched down the nicely boned bodice that came to a vee. There was a flounce on this skirt, too.

She picked it up as she had picked up Mathilde’s calico dress, holding it to her, smoothing around her curves, which made her smile when the sergeant sighed. Her shoes barely peeked out from below the flounce. She would be the most beautiful bride in this entire godforsaken territory.

“What do you think?”

What did she think? “Do you mean about the dress, or what might have been a proposal, or about needing wool because it’s cold outside? Explain yourself, Sergeant Blade.”

He took the dress from her and set it carefully on the table. “I’ve never proposed before. I know that I love you. That’s the first thing. I think you will be a lovely mother to our children. Heavens, don’t cry about that! They’ll probably drive you to distraction on a regular basis.”

“I like children,” she wailed, and he gave her his handkerchief. “I love you.”

“This is encouraging,” he teased, more sure of himself now. “If you think the army won’t do, I’m one step ahead. That paperwork at Fort Russell was to inform my regimental commanding officer that I will not pursue another enlistment.”

“My goodness.”

Somehow she was sitting on his lap now, her head tucked against his chest. She wondered what her parents would think of all this. They had always been such careful parents, warning her, teaching her, training her, whether she knew it or not. And here she was sitting on a man’s lap and enjoying every second of it.

“How do you plan to support me and all our children?” she asked, which made him laugh and run his hand down her sleeve.

“I build things. Cheyenne needs builders. Maybe your Genesee Valley needs builders. There are any number of pretty towns in Nebraska that need builders, because this country is growing. We can reconnoiter the terrain when we go to New York in a month to get married.”

“We’re getting married here before we take that trip,” she informed this man who might or might not have proposed yet. “Imagine how much fun a Pullman compartment will be if we’re married. Um, have you proposed yet?”

When he stopped laughing, Sergeant Blade held her off so he could see her face. “Miss Blue Eye, I love you. The thought of continuing on this arduous journey through life without you is distressing in the extreme. Please marry me. There. Will that do?”

“I will marry you, Sergeant Blade,” she said, and kissed him. “You would even move to the Genesee Valley if I wanted you to?”

“The matter is open for consideration. I will live where you are happiest.”

She thought of something Mathilde Frere had said. “I will be happiest where you are.”

He reached into an inside pocket and took out a blue bead. His fingers were warm now, and she didn’t mind them on her neck this time as he tugged out the medicine bag that Shell had given her. He opened the pouch and dropped in the bead next to the brass button and the elk tooth.

“Bill Curly gave me this bead for you.” He reached in his pocket again and pulled out a wedding ring. “This is from me. Let’s keep it here until we do the deed. I was a busy boy in Cheyenne that morning.”

She gasped and hugged him close. “Rowan, what time do stores open in Cheyenne?”

“Anytime you want, if you bang on the door hard enough.” He held her in a loose embrace and fingered her sleeve. “We can go to that blamed calico ball, you know. They’re still dancing in the storehouse.”

“I’d rather sit here with you,” she said, then sat up. “Hmm. There’s no church here, and no pastor.”

“True.” He kissed her cheek, then found her lips. After a lengthy pause he resumed his commentary, out of breath now, but game. “I happen to know of a corporal in D Company, Ninth Infantry, who is an ordained Methodist minister.”

“What is he doing in the army?”

Rowan shrugged. “You’d be surprised why men enlist. I don’t prod too much, and you shouldn’t either.”

She digested that. “I’m still a Keeper of the Western Door. I would die if people slighted you because of me.”

“That will never happen, Mary Blue Eye. If you haven’t already noticed, I’m very good at taking care of my own.”

Mary rested her head against his chest. She thought of packing dresses for shipment to the General Relief Committee in Chicago, attending a funeral, finding that little girl who needed more raisins and a doll of her own, and assuring Victoria Masterson that she could manage without a servant.

“I am, too, Sergeant Blade.”