The Scout's Bride. Kate Kingsley

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      “I think it’s a good thing for you the war is over.” Rising, the scout sat on the adjacent bed. “Go ahead, ma’am. Your hands are cleaner than mine and I bet you don’t have nearly the vermin.”

      Her face bright with color, Rebecca turned back the sheet, glad Teddy had closed his eyes on the situation. She was aware of Injun Jack sagging wearily in the shadows behind her, his head resting against the iron bedstead, his azure eyes following her every move.

      Her brow puckered with worry when she saw the gash and the red streak running up the soldier’s leg. The cut had been packed with an alcohol-soaked bandanna in the field. The cloth was now brown and crusted with dried blood, its original color unidentifiable. After hours on the trail, it had adhered to the edges of the wound. Calling for hot water, she carefully set about removing it.

      Teddy gritted his teeth and endured hot compresses to loosen the packing, though his jaw worked furiously as it was extracted. When blood gushed from the cut, Rebecca allowed it to flow for a moment to carry away the debris lodged inside. Tears sprang to the young man’s eyes, but he was silent while she washed the wound.

      Looking around for the doctor or the steward to sew the gash, she was relieved to see the sergeant approach. “Hello, Injun Jack,” he greeted the scout while he inspected Rebecca’s handiwork.

      “Hello, Unger.” The man made no effort to stand.

      “Good work, Miss Rebecca.” The steward handed her a small tray which held a needle, thread and paper of morphine powder. “Here, you’re going to need these.”

      “But-”

      “If you’ll take care of Private Greeley, I’ll take care of the rest,” he told her reassuringly.

      She glanced at Injun Jack who hunched in the shadows, seemingly dozing. “Very well,” she managed.

      After the sergeant departed, she waited until the morphine took effect and Teddy’s breathing became deep and regular. His eyelids fluttered as she sewed, but he did not seem to feel any pain. She worked quickly for his skin was already hot and dry to the touch and on his cheeks were two bright spots of color.

      “How bad is it?” he asked sleepily when she finished.

      “I’ve seen worse,” Injun Jack answered for her.

      Rebecca started at the unexpected voice behind her.

      “How bad, angel?” Teddy pressed, struggling to stay awake.

      “The cut is deep, but it’s clean and closed now,” she replied cautiously, “If there’s no infection—”

      His eyes glittering with fever and the drug, Teddy strained to see the scout. “Promise you won’t let Doc cut my leg off, Jack.”

      “Rest easy, boy. He isn’t coming near you with a saw,” the big man vowed, glowering at the woman as if daring her to object.

      Placing a wet cloth on the soldier’s forehead, she urged soothingly, “Just rest now.” But the red streak on his leg concerned her.

      She beckoned a nurse, but the man halted twenty feet away and would come no closer. Unwilling to awaken the entire ward, she went to him. “Please bathe Private Greeley,” she instructed, picking up a change of undergarments from a stack on the dispensing table. “And dispose of his old clothes while I fetch something for his fever.”

      “Injun Jack won’t let me get that close, ma’am,” the nurse protested, “not without sliding his pig-sticker between my ribs.”

      “He didn’t stab me,” she pointed out, shoving the long johns into his hands. “He didn’t even try.”

      “No, but—”

      “Tell him I told you to make Teddy more comfortable.”

      “Yes’m.” The nurse trudged toward the sickbed, glancing back at her unhappily when the scout reached down to reclaim his knife from the floor. “Miss Rebecca says I’m to bathe Private Greeley.”

      Injun Jack regarded him through slitted blue eyes for a long moment, then resheathed his knife. “Don’t hurt him,” he grunted, sliding down on the bed and covering himself with a blanket, “or I’ll have to skin you alive.”

      Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Rebecca left the rattled nurse to his duties.

      Injun Jack lay still, listening to the howling wind. His arm throbbed and he was tired, so tired, but he could not sleep yet.

      From behind a fringe of dark eyelashes, he watched Teddy’s Yankee angel at work. Her eyes modestly averted from her patient’s bath, she mixed a concoction for him. Slender, erect and not very tall, she moved with quiet competence, her glossy brown braid slapping between her shoulder blades with every move.

      When she turned to dip whiskey from the crock, Jack glimpsed her profile. Her delicate features reminded him of a brooch his mother had worn. But unlike the cameo, her face was animated and expressive.

      He judged her to be about twenty-five and pretty enough, but too prim and proper for his liking. She did have a nice mouth and a dimple when she smiled, but when she was riled, her stare could stop a bull buffalo in a dead run.

      He closed his eyes wearily. Fatigue was making him foolish… foolish over a woman. But her eyes were beautiful. He wished he could remember what color they were.

      Rebecca was relieved to find Injun Jack asleep when she returned to Teddy’s bedside. The patient was clean and quiet, but still unclothed. His new undergarments lay neatly folded at the foot of the bed, and the nurse was nowhere to be seen.

      Though she knew it was silly, she ducked to peer beneath the beds. As she straightened, she found herself staring into Injun Jack’s blue eyes.

      He grinned lazily. “If you’re looking for your nurse, you won’t find him there.”

      “What did you do to him?”

      “Not a thing,” he protested, the picture of innocence.

      With a sniff, Rebecca turned her back to him and lifted her patient’s head. Holding the cup to his lips, she coaxed, “Drink this, Private.”

      The groggy Teddy took a sip, his cooperative stupor ending when he tasted the medication. Shoving the cup away, he gagged, “Jehoshaphat, she’s tryin’ to poison me!”

      “That’s not so.” She retreated, half expecting Injun Jack to leap from his bunk and cut her to pieces, but he did not move.

      “Pass me your flask quick, Jack,” the young man appealed with a horrible grimace.

      His benefactor was unsympathetic. “Soon as you finish what you’ve got there.”

      “What I’ve got here is rotgut,” Teddy complained.

      “It’s more quinine than whiskey. For fever…” Rebecca’s defense trailed off when he fixed her with a baleful stare.

      “I could live through a fever, ma’am. I’m not sure about the whiskey.”

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