“Miss Everett, my adjutant will take you to your tent. We haven’t a change of clothing for you, but at least there is soap and water.” He bit off each word like good peanut brittle.

I thanked him with amazing serenity, which made him glare, but what could he do? He left the tent.

He allowed me to stew there for the rest of the afternoon, maybe thinking I would break, or at least show some remorse for my sass, but no. Dr. Tilton and Dr. Gardner needed help and I did what I could, which amounted mainly to washing dirty faces and holding someone’s head over an emesis basin.

After dark, I was escorted to my tent by a lieutenant who must have been told by his boss that I was a recalcitrant female who didn’t know what was good for her. His disdain for me was probably obvious to ships at sea. He did pull back the tent flap, which was nice of him. I thanked him.

“Where are the Nez Perce?” I asked.

“Over there,” he said with a vague gesture.

“Have they been fed?”

“Yes.”

“Their wounds tended to?” I wondered what the surgeon thought of that purple brocade around Hawk’s knee.

The lieutenant wasn’t a happy man. His expression more than suggested that I wasn’t like the white girls he probably knew. He did have some dignity, though. “The assistant surgeon is seeing to them now, Miss Everett.”

“May I go to them?

He leaped back as if I had spit on him. “You…you want to join those savages, after all” – he coughed delicately – “…all they have done to you?”

Sigh. Here was another man who would never believe that I wanted to see those Indian because of all they had done for me. I wanted to see with my own eyes that they had been fed. I wanted to thank Old Mary for her kindness when I felt so alone in the tunnel. Mostly I had to see Hawk and tell him what I had learned.

“Yes, I really want to see them.” I started forward but he put his hand on my arm to detain me. “You’re welcome to accompany me, lieutenant, if you think I need an escort.”

“Colonel Miles said you are not to leave this tent.” He gestured to two privates watching this whole exchange. “They are here to make sure no one comes in, and no one goes out. For your protection, of course.”

Of course. “I’m a prisoner in this tent?” I asked so sweetly.

“For your own protection,” he repeated.

“Good night then. Pleasant dreams,” I told him. Too bad you can’t slam a tent flap shut.