Two days later, with a pouch of money from ladies needing dresses, Mary found herself thrown into the saddle by a man who knew what he was doing. She smiled down at the sergeant, pleased to be riding with a well-organized, efficient troop, and not negotiating life, for a few days at least, with a childish employer and her increasingly baffled husband.

I am with an adult, she thought, relieved and not a little amused. “Just tell me what to do, and I will do it,” she told Sergeant Blade. “I mean, I can stay out of the way however is most convenient.”

“All you have to do is ride beside me. No eating dust on this trip. I’ll take better care of you.”

Why should that make her face go warm? The perpetual wind blowing cool across her face helped tamp down the pink. Thank goodness the sergeant had turned away to speak to Major Pettigrew, department paymaster who had finished his circuit of forts and was headed to headquarters in Omaha.

He turned back, and she noted that his face was red, too. Perhaps the wind was stronger than she thought. Or perhaps he wasn’t any more practiced in female conversation than she was with talking to men not of her family. Mama had been scrupulous about her only daughter’s deportment.

“Miss Blue Eye,” he began more formally. She doubted the sergeant had mentioned to his troops that he was already calling her Mary.

“Yes, Sergeant?” she asked, not slow by any means.

She saw the appreciation in his eyes. “Major Pettigrew here has suggested you put the calico fabric money in the strongbox as we travel to the railroad.”

She leaned over and handed the pouch to the major. “That way I won’t be tempted to steal it, will I?”

“Miss Blue Eye, I didn’t mean . . .”

“Sergeant, I know you didn’t,” she said, wondering where her nerve was coming from. “Major Pettigrew will feel safer if an Indian doesn’t carry it.”

“You’re the Indian?” the paymaster said as he took the money.

“I am, sir,” Mary said.

“I wouldn’t have known,” he replied. “I thought . . .”

“I know,” she said, and started backing up her horse to get out of the conversation. “We Easterners of the Iroquois League do tend to look lighter, don’t we? But I understand your reluctance.” She couldn’t help but notice admiration in Sergeant Blade’s eyes. Whether it was the expert way she handled her mount or the fact that she stood up for herself, Mary had no idea. “I am Seneca, from Genesee, New York. My great-grandmother was Mary Jemison, whom you have perhaps heard of.”

The major nodded. “Anyone who has read any history at all has heard of Mary Jemison.”

What had gotten into her? “I am named for her. My great-grandfather was Hiakatoo, Mary’s second husband. And imagine this: my father is a graduate of Dartmouth College.”

The major tried to return the pouch, but Mary backed her horse farther away. “No. It is safer with you, sir. I trust every man in this detail, but who knows who we will run into? I trust you, too,” she added, feeling generous.

Mary sat a little straighter, overwhelmed by what she had just done. Up to this moment, she had spent much of her life hoping no one would notice that she was different from Victoria Masterson’s other friends, or that she knew how to ride, or sit quietly in council in the longhouse. I am Seneca, she thought, I am a Keeper of the Western Door. She would have to write to Papa and let him know. It was a letter long overdue.

She sat quietly by herself as Sergeant Blade continued his work. When the detail had lined up, he motioned her closer, and she obliged.

They left the fort’s corral area as the sun rose, fanning out soon so no one had to eat dust. Sergeant Blade set a brisk pace.

Mary knew she had said too much to Major Pettigrew. He probably meant well.

“Should I apologize to Major Pettigrew?” she asked her riding companion.

“Under no circumstances,” Rowan said, with no hesitation. “I don’t mind that he feels a little downtrodden.” He looked around at his troopers. “You have a lot of allies here.” He laughed, mostly to himself. “After all, they remember how you so selflessly leaped into the water to save Mrs. Masterson’s china.”

She shook her head at that one. “Sergeant Bl—”

“Rowan.”

“Very well then, Rowan! You’re fighting my battles, and I don’t know why.”

“It feels good,” he said, after a lengthy pause worthy of a Seneca elder.

They rode in silence for some distance. It was enough to pound along on a good horse and breathe deep of autumn advancing and winter coming. There was something beguiling about the expanse of earth and sky here that appealed to her. No wonder the admittedly more primitive Sioux and Cheyenne were reluctant to give it up and submit tamely to a reservation. She understood. There were old Seneca who wore sad faces when they talked about land no longer theirs.

Mary watched the sergeant and saw his head on a nearly continuous swivel, watching, always watching. When they reached an area where the terrain became more gullied, he motioned to a rider on each end of the fan. When they rode ahead, the other soldiers pulled back into a double file.

“We’re in an area where Sioux don’t mind lying in wait to cause a bit of trouble,” he told Mary. “If I see warriors, I’m plunking you in the ambulance.”

She nodded and sidled her mount closer to his, an act that wasn’t lost on the sergeant.

“You’ll be fine, Mary,” he said. “In fact, talk to me. Do you live on a reservation? I don’t know anything about the Seneca.”

Silently, she blessed the man beside her. She knew he was keeping her calm by letting her talk.

“My family lives on land that used to belong to Mary Jemison herself.”

“The White Indian of the Genesee,” Sergeant Blade said. “I’m from Connecticut, and I remember hearing the stories.”

She thought she had heard a bit of New England in Rowan Blade’s speech. “I am named after her: Mary Jemison Blue Eye.” She couldn’t help her sigh. “Everyone back home calls me Jemmy. Mrs. Masterson used to.”

“What do you like to be called?”

No one had ever asked her that before. “I’m used to Jemmy.”

“May I continue to call you Mary? I like it.”

She wanted to tell the tall, careful man riding beside her that Mary would be a name for no one but him and her. Her practical nature reined in that thought. He’s just making conversation, she told herself, but yes, she would be Mary now to this man.

“Certainly you may,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I like it, too.”

She wanted to say more, but the point rider on the west rode toward Sergeant Blade, who spurred his mount ahead. She looked around and noticed that all of the troopers watched intently, some leaning forward, ready to do immediate bidding. The corporal edged his horse closer to hers.

“Sarge’s orders, ma’am,” he said cheerfully. “If he’s not beside you, I am.”

“Is he this careful with all his hangers-on?” she joked, and the corporal surprised her.

“Nope. Just you.”

“All because I tried to rescue a crate of china a few months ago?” she asked.

“He didn’t mention any china, ma’am,” the corporal replied, and there was no overlooking the twinkle in his eyes. “Here he is. Sarge?”

Rowan motioned his men to gather closer. When Mary started to back off, he reached for her reins and kept her there.

“Private Reilly saw a handful of chipper fellows in the next draw,” he said. “No one’s painted up, though. Be alert but not overly interested. Maybe they’re just playing mumblety-peg.”

The troopers chuckled at that. Mary saw no fear. “Where do you want me?” she asked.

“In the ambulance,” Rowan said. He tightened his grip on her reins and led her back to the vehicle. “If any shooting starts, lie down on the floor.”

She nodded and let him help her down. The sergeant spoke a few words to the major inside, and the door opened. “Major Pettigrew, here is Miss Blue Eye,” he said. “Take care of her, sir.”

The major ignored Mary, and she would have been fine with that, except that such a stance seemed almost cowardly. She took a deep breath and decided to make conversation. As they traveled that notorious part of the trail, Mary decided she had been hasty in thinking ill of the paymaster, who, she learned, had a wife back East he saw now and then and two grandchildren.

She was well on her way to telling him more about her father, a Dartmouth graduate who served as Judge Wilkins’s secretary, and Mama, who cooked, when the driver set the brake and Sergeant Blade opened the door.

“I believe we’ll arrive at Hunton’s stage station with all our hair,” he said. “Thank you, Major Pettigrew. I trust Miss Blue Eye wasn’t unruly or demanding?”

“Not at all,” the paymaster replied. “In fact, if she’d rather stay with me . . .”

“Your choice,” Rowan said to her.

“The point is, I had a choice,” she told the sergeant a few minutes later after she had thanked the major prettily and resumed her place atop a horse that didn’t mind a sidesaddle or an Indian.

“That’s all anyone wants,” he said. “The major decided you weren’t a fearsome creature?”

She knew he was teasing her, but Mary saw something else in his firm expression. Funny that she had ever thought him formidable.

“I never was,” she said.

He smiled at that. Maybe it was his turn to feel shy.