She gasped and her hands flew to her mouth. I could tell she hadn’t thought about that common expression. As tears welled in her eyes, I think I loved her more at that moment than I ever would have thought possible. I have wished many times since then that I had said something.

Eugenie hurled herself at me, pelting me with questions even as she hugged me over and over. “Lizzie, what was it like how did they treat you were you hungry did you ride astride?” tumbled out. Her face had a pinched look, so unlike Eugenie, and I knew she had worried. Dear Eugenie. I wish you had lived long enough to know my children. Our daughter Millie is so like you.

Phil stepped forward most formally to shake my hand and kiss my cheek. I could tell he was bothered about something above and beyond my homecoming, so I asked him what was wrong.

“Lizzie, I tried to ride with General Howard. I really did.” He started to cry. “He wouldn’t let me!” He sobbed, his voice high and strained. “I nearly got into a fight with him. Can you imagine?”

I could; I knew my little brother. I pulled him close. “It’s over now, Phil. General Howard himself told me how hard you tried. Believe me, it was better you didn’t follow.”

“Really?” He didn’t believe me.

“Yes, really,” I assured him. I leaned closer, for his ears alone. “You wouldn’t have believed how bad it was.”

He managed a brief smile. “Not like Nancy Ames, Heroine Schoolmarm?”

“Not even like Daring Dick, Boy Rancher,” I teased gently, smiling back.

That was my homecoming. It was at the same time better and worse than I could have thought possible. The frozen geraniums in the window boxes testified that Mother worried about me more than her reserved nature could say.

It was worse in a more important way: I didn’t want to be there.

I have never forgotten my first morning at home, waking up to the scratching of bare branches against the window. I heard no children crying, no big guns booming, no wounded groaning, no women wailing. I heard no loud English voices, no soft Nimiipuu tongue. I lay there listening and thinking, Doesn’t anyone in Omaha know what’s going on?

I had one nightmare nearly every night: Blue Mountain Woman bludgeoned and scalped before my eyes, then turning into Poker Joe disintegrating, and Bear Coat Miles chasing me across the plains, grinning and grinning. Too often I woke up with my heart being abnormally fast and my bed wet with perspiration.

I still haven’t entirely outgrown that nightmare. Sometimes after a busy day, or a day with too much frustrating correspondence from Washington D.C., I still have that nightmare. Duncan pats me back to sleep. I do the same for him.