The sound of small arms fire drew her from a past that had seemed so certain into the present, to a life that might now be measured only in fleeting moments. An eerie sound drifted on the pristine whiffs of white smoke that rose into the air beyond the Union lines like so many puffs of breath. A keening, undulating cry of defiance and, oddly, joy.

The Rebel Yell.

"Here they come," Milton whispered with near reverence.

"Yes," Vance said, striding quickly toward the hospital staging area. She removed her coat and rolled back the cuffs of her white cotton shirt as she walked. Once there, she retrieved her surgical kit from the wagon and spread her instruments out on a rough pine bench next to the makeshift operating table. She doubted she would need more than the probes, the amputation knife, and the saw for the first round.

Minnie balls and cannon canisters left her little choice but to amputate.

She dipped her hands into the carbolic acid and shook off the excess, scanning the nearby rise for the first sign of wounded.

v "Look smart, men," General Philip Sheridan exhorted as he galloped up and down the forward line of the first of his three cavalry divisions, saber rattling against his thigh in its gold-braided scabbard.

"Lee's infantry will be upon us before the sun burns the dew from the grass."

Sheridan's line of mounted cavalry, poised for the signal to strike, shifted in the sunlight like a huge black snake, the horse soldiers and animals alike agitated by the sound of weapon fire and men screaming.

The light artillery, mounted on wooden platforms, bucked and belched fire as they disgorged their deadly hail of grapeshot. The ground trembled with the force of thousands of feet pounding the hard-packed red earth, and the air shimmered with the ominous thunder of war.

Vance heard the bugler signal the charge, and Sheridan's cavalry stormed toward the advancing rebel lines. Then from out of the smoke and shifting shadows she saw the first stretcher bearers emerge, running as fast as they could with their burdens of damaged humanity in tow.

When the first man was laid upon her table, the battle receded from her consciousness. There were only the wounded now.

"Change the saw blade," Vance said as she turned from the table and immersed her hands in the blood-tinged antiseptic in the basin balanced on a tree stump by her right side.

"Ain't got but two left," Milton said as he sluiced the blood and gore off the wooden tabletop with a bucket of water.

Vance looked at the line of waiting wounded. Those who could walk were sitting under the shelter of the trees, bandaging themselves or their friends. She might get to some of them before the day was over, but those who weren't seriously injured would wander back to their regiments before she ever had a chance to tend them. They knew as well as she that there was little she could do beyond what they had already done for themselves. Those who needed her services were the soldiers with major injuries to body or limb, and these waited on the bare ground in a dense semicircle that stretched as far she could see.

"We'll make do with the one we're using for now," she said. It had taken her a little over fifteen minutes to amputate the last leg because the saw blade was so dull she'd had to wrench it through the bone by sheer force for the last half inch. She'd always been active, eschewing the carriage to walk whenever she could and working in the gardens that surrounded her family home in the spare moments between her studies. She was strong enough in body to do what needed to be done, but her heart suffered. "Next."

The boy looked no older than fourteen and might not have been, because as the war had dragged on, anyone who could carry a rifle and declared they were sixteen was welcome in the ranks. The cannonball had struck him just below the knee, destroying most of his lower leg bone and leaving only a mangled mass of muscle connected to his foot.

She looked into the boy's eyes.

"I'm going to remove your leg, son, and you're going to live."

Vance nodded to Milton, who stood to her left with a cloth and a can of chloroform in his hand, and as he pressed the anesthetic to the boy's face, she tightened the leather strap around his lower thigh with one firm yank. Once again, she picked up the amputation knife bare- handed and swiftly cut down to bone, four inches below his knee. With a circular rotation of her wrist, she completed the incision around the stump and dropped the knife on the table in exchange for the saw. It should have taken her less than two minutes to transect the bone, but it required twice that long to worry the blunt teeth through the young healthy leg. When the destroyed portion fell onto the door that served as her table with a thump, Milton picked it up and tossed it onto a nearby pile of amputated limbs.

"Damn flies," Vance muttered, waving at the ever-present insects that buzzed around her head and the boy's motionless body, obscuring her vision. Milton passed her a straight needle threaded with black silk, and she rapidly located and sewed closed the major vessels in the stump. Then she covered the end of the exposed bone with a flap of skin and muscle and swiftly sutured it in place to complete the amputation.

Somewhere behind her she could hear men shouting, even above the cannon barrage and general cacophony of battle.

"Move him to the evacuation wagon. Next."

When another body did not immediately appear before her, she looked up questioningly. Sweat and blood spatter ran into her eyes and she blinked, then automatically wiped her face on her sleeve. Seeing Milton gesticulating wildly as a lieutenant on horseback leaned down and shouted something at him, Vance called out, "What is it?"

"Lee has broken Sheridan's line," Milton called on the run. "We're to fall back."

Vance looked at the wounded covering nearly every inch of ground around her and shook her head. "We can't move all these soldiers."

"Then we'll leave them for Lee's surgeons," Milton said, hurriedly gathering drugs and instruments.

"No. Lee's surgeons will take care of their own first, and these men need attention now. You go. I'll stay."

Milton stopped what he was doing and stared at Vance. "If you stay, they'll make you a prisoner."

"That may be. But I'm a surgeon and I'll be valuable to them. Go on, Sergeant. Leave me enough medicine for these men and go."

"I don't think I can do that, Doc." Milton moved up beside her.

"We fought together side by side these three years. Wouldn't be right.

Besides, my mama didn't raise me to leave a woman to stand alone when times got hard."

Vance stared into his placid brown eyes. "You know?" He nodded.

"Does everyone?"

"Can't say. You wouldn't be the first, and most choose not to remark on it, even if they know." He shrugged. "Seen some pretty damn good fighters, myself. And never a better surgeon than you."

"Thank you, Milton. Let's get the next one up here on the table."

Vance worked on, the sounds of battle growing closer. As the war closed in around them, the air grew thick with smoke and misery. The pain in Vance's chest returned, skewering her with each breath. She coughed and shook her head, flinging sweat from her thick dark hair in an arc around her. Incongruously, the sun broke through for an instant, and crystal droplets danced on the sunbeams before falling into the blood that pooled around her scuffed black boots.

"That's the last one, Doc," Milton said. "Now we gotta skedaddle."

"I believe you're right, Sergeant," Vance said, tossing the saw into her kit and rinsing her hands one more time. Reaching for her coat, she glimpsed the look of horror on Milton's face at the same time as she felt the earth shake. Then the world revolved crazily, and the next moment, she was lying on her back staring at the sky. A few small patches of brilliant blue still peeked through the dense battle fog. She couldn't hear through the ringing in her ears. She turned her head. Milton lay ten feet away, his neck bent at an unnatural angle, his eyes blank.

The pain came next, unspeakable waves of agony. Reaching out blindly, Vance felt the iron rim of the barrel that supported the operating table and, gripping the top, pulled herself to her feet. The left side of her body was soaked in blood. Her left arm hung uselessly by her side. Dizzy, she sagged against the table and hoped it wouldn't topple, struggling to sort out her injury. Bright red blood spurted into the air from somewhere near her elbow, the pulsations keeping time with her heartbeat. Of one thing she was certain--she'd bleed to death in another few minutes. Biting down against the pain and the screams that threatened, she found the leather strap she used as a tourniquet and cinched it down around her upper arm. The bleeding slowed.

A minnie ball struck the table and kicked splinters into the air. Not much time. She slid down to the ground, her back against the barrel, her damaged arm cradled in her lap. Then she closed her eyes to wait.


CHAPTER TWO

Montana Territory


May 1866

The pain jerked Vance from her restless sleep, the shadowy images of danger and misery lingering on the edges of her consciousness even as she opened her eyes and blinked in the half- light of the stagecoach's interior. She met the curious stare of a young brunette seated across from her in the coach and fervently hoped she hadn't been talking in her sleep or, worse, moaning. She shifted on the hard wooden seat and realized that her legs spanned the short space between them and brushed against the young woman's traveling dress.

Hastily, she sat upright and pulled back her booted feet.

"Sorry, miss," Vance murmured quietly, aware that the young woman's traveling companion, probably her mother, was eyeing her with scornful reproach. She imagined she looked unsavory, in the clothes she been traveling in for weeks. The dark gray woolen trousers, matching coat, and double-breasted shirt she had taken from her brother's trunk had been new, or nearly so, at the start of her journey.

Her favorite ankle-high black boots no longer held a shine, but the fine workmanship was obvious. Still, even were she a man, her appearance would draw attention. Being female and so unconventionally presented always evoked scandalized expressions, even this far from Eastern society where it was slightly more common to see women out on the range or even in town dressed in masculine attire. She knew, however, that it was more than just her manner of dress that drew stares.

"Are you quite all right?" the young woman asked, knowing no polite way to express her concern that the mysterious woman's face was dead white and the dark eyes beneath a darker slash of brows appeared fevered. She'd taken her fellow traveler for a man at first glance, when she'd climbed into the coach just before their departure from Denver.

But her face, though slightly square-jawed and perhaps too strong to be considered ladylike, had a refinement in the arched cheekbones and a fullness about the mouth that was most decidedly female.

"Yes, thank you." Vance was surprised that the young lady, perhaps eighteen years old, would go so far as to speak to her, a stranger and someone of whom her mother clearly disapproved. The brunette's silk dress, bonnet, and parasol were new and fashionably styled, and spoke of wealth and privilege. Such young high-society women, Vance well knew, were often exceedingly haughty and rarely ventured into circles considered beneath them. Nevertheless, the eyes that studied Vance were direct, part concerned and part inquisitive. "Pardon me for disturbing you."

"You didn't disturb me," the young woman said, extending a gloved hand. "I'm Rose Mason. And this is my mother, Mrs. Charles Mason."

Vance took Rose's fingers gently in hers and bowed her head politely. "Ladies. I'm Vance Phelps."

"Are you a...gambler?" Rose asked with barely suppressed excitement. She had heard of such women, but never thought to meet one.

"Rose," her mother said sharply, "your questions are unseemly and your manners even more so." She turned her steely gaze to Vance.

"Please forgive my daughter's impertinence."

"Not at all," Vance replied smoothly, understanding Rose's confusion. Some more adventurous women did make their living by frequenting the gambling halls, often donning dapper male garb to enhance their reputations and garner invitations to the high-stakes games. "I'm afraid I have never been good enough at cards to make it a profession." She hesitated, then added, "I'm a physician."