Author's note: I do not believe that there is a need for any cautions. If you find something that bothers you, do not hesitate to let me know.

This is a story that is set in the Old West and in the present day. It starts out slowly, but it speaks to the fact that transgenderism is not something new but has existed for a long time.

- Marina Kelly and Monica Rose
Proof-read by Qmodo

Chapter 1 - Prologue

Nebraska, summer 1897

Mitch Bridger, the wagon master and the son of the legendary Jim Bridger, finished his morning ride through the grouped wagons on the train and headed over to the chow wagon where his chief scout Bill Cody was waiting for him. They both sat on a make shift bench that had been put together for their extended stop. They had been forced to halt the wagon train's progress because many of the settlers had become sick.

The quarantine wagons were set away from rest of the train, the chow wagon and main camp fire sat between the two sets of circled wagons. Bridger had done his time in the Army of the Potomac and knew that cholera was not easily contagious, but he thought that it would keep rumors and panic down. Everyone on the wagon train knew about the Cholera Pandemic of 1837 that had killed thousands and filled many a cemetery. Some religious fundamentalists still insisted the disease was some form of righteous consequence which only afflicted those who were least likely to be in God’s grace. Those in the wagon train with Irish last names were ostracized, as some saw cholera’s causation as based in the unchecked immigration into the United States of foreign born persons, especially the Roman Catholic Irish with their genetic inferiority.

Bridger, along with the more rational members of the train, tried to relieve tensions and avoided discussing the cause of the malady and concerned themselves with the more practical matter of treating the afflicted and preventing its further spread. The sick were isolated away from the healthy in the second ring of wagons. Volunteers to care for the sick were few and far between as most still believed that the disease was contagious. Even family members were reluctant to tend to their sick kinfolk. Thankfully, this trip had included a young woman who was knowledgeable in caring for the infirm. Mitch watched with admiration as Yolanda moved between wagons treating the victims.

Bill offered Mitch a steaming cup of coffee and said, “Hey Mitch, any more come down with the pestilence?”

He took a sip of the beverage before answering and he just shook his head. “No Buff. Thank the lord we may be over the worst of it.” The wagon master didn’t want to condemn anyone else to the quarantine wagons. “I made my tour of the wagons and it looks like no one else has come down with it.”

“Damn it Bridger! You know I hate that Buffalo Bill moniker!”

“Sorry Bill, it is said you shot over 4,000 of them in a two-year period. It seemed to be a well-deserved title."

“Ah shucks, it twern’t that hard to do. Those is the dumbest creatures on this here planet.”

I just wish you had left a few of them for us. We could use the fresh meat. Thanks to men like you, they are now as scarce as virgins in a whore house.”

They both looked across the makeshift compound to where the hospital wagons sat, each man lost in his own thoughts for a moment. The wagon train had been stopped for the past two days because of the number of people who were down with cholera. It was about twenty percent of the people on the train and it would be next to impossible to move on in this situation.

Cody turned to Mitch and brought up his old argument. “I tell you Mitch, we still got a fur piece to go. We need to just leave those folks and push on to Oregon. If we lose any more time, we will never get out of the mountains before the snows hit. We sure don’t need a repeat of what the Donner party went through.”

Mitch looked around to ensure no one could over hear him and said, “Damn it Bill, you know I agree with you. But if I even suggested that we just move on and leave those people, we quite probably would face a revolt. Every one of them settlers are armed. I don’t want to face down a bunch of angry farmers armed with Colt rifles. I’m worried enough about those farmers shooting at an Indian scout. We’re in Pawnee territory and they’re friendly for the most part. Shoot one of them and we could all lose our scalps.”

Bill went on to say, “I have seen cholera outbreaks during my time scouting for the Union Army, but nothing quite this severe. Back in Missouri, I heard reports of cholera in earlier wagon trains, but I never put much stock in those tales. I never expected we would have to deal with it.

“If we maintain this pace we will have no other choice but to winter over in Wyoming territory at Fort Laramie. I sure don’t want to spend a cold winter next to an Army fort but it would beat being Sunday dinner if we got caught in the blizzards. Bill, I know that this sounds pretty cold of me, but all I can do is hope that anyone who is going to die would do so quickly.”

Cody nodded solemnly in agreement.

While they were talking, they saw a swarthy-looking young woman exit the back of one of the quarantined wagons and trudge tiredly on to the next one.

“I don’t know why you decided to make some dark skinned half-breed Indian the doctor on this trip.” Bill sneered.

“I know you don’t like her, Bill,” Bridger replied. “I couldn’t find a replacement after Doc Anderson broke his leg before we left Independence. If we hadn’t pushed off on schedule, we would have to cancel this trip and that wasn’t an option. I thought that we were damned lucky that girl was along with the Wilsons. Hell, she set an arm and leg on a couple of folks before your own men got to their part of the train after that tornado overturned their wagon. But she ain’t no half-breed. Most folk refer to her as a gypsy. Bill, let me give you some advice. Don’t call her a gypsy to her face. She’s made it plain to anyone who will listen that she's Romany, claims her family comes from someplace called Hungry, wherever that is.

“All I care about is that she is the finest midwife on the train. The women folk openly seek her help and advice. On top of that, she spends her evening’s learn’n the young’uns their letters and numbers.”

Bill egged his friend on, “I’ve seen good and bad Injuns, but I never seen one that could read and write. Until I know more about her, I don’t want anything to do with her. She is always reading or writing in that damn book of hers. I reckon it just ain’t natur’l for a servant girl being able to read and write. Besides, from my experiences, a young woman without a man or family is nothing but a passel of trouble.”

“Listen Bill. I’ve kept a keen eye on her. She gives the young bucks a wide berth. It’s like she is not interested in finding a man and I don’t need the trouble caused by a bunch of boys chasing a girl looking to become a woman. She's the best thing we have, next to a trained physician.”

Cody shook his head. “Maybe its doctr’n and maybe it’s just gypsy magic. I just don’t trust her.”

Mitch stood and stretched his legs, “All I know is that she seems to have a mystic understanding of herbs and poultices. No one who was with her when we were getting water has gotten sick. I talked to her about it and she said that she stopped some of the young’uns from using water that the animals had been walking through. She thinks that those who are sick drank the soiled water.”

Cody finished his coffee and grimaced at the fact that it was now stone cold. “Dag nab it Mitch, she may be the medical person for us, but; that don't make me no nevermind. It doesn’t mean that I have to accept her,” he said. She may be a nicin looking gal, but when she looks at me with those dark eyes, it’s like she can look inside me. It makes my blood run cold.”

“Oh come on Buffalo, an Indian fighter and Army scout being afraid of a mere girl. I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe what you want just keep her away from me.”

Cody stomped off to corral his men so that they could head out on their hunting and scouting parties. Mitch watched him go, bemused at Cody’s unwillingness to accept Yolanda. Did it matter what the girl was? He didn’t care if she was white, black, Indian, or whatever. She was a valuable person to the wagon train and he was thankful that he had discovered her talents. Cody would just have to deal with his mistrust and hope that he didn’t need her help on the trip. However, the luck Bridger had seen so far on this trip made it doubtful that anyone would get to Oregon without getting hurt or sick at some point.

* * * * *

As Yolanda climbed out of the Johnson’s wagon, she saw Mitch Bridger and Bill Cody watching her from their spot by the chuck wagon. Because she was the wagon train’s medical practioner, she was entitled to eat with the staff of the train. She just was not hungry though. Besides, everyone would want to keep their distance from her. Death and disease had a way of scaring people.

Since people had started to become ill with the cholera, Yolanda had hardly slept. She’d already spent hours getting everyone stabilized and then trying to recruit help from the rest of the members of the wagon train. Even though she had assured everyone that cholera was not a disease that could be contracted like a cold, she had only been able to find four volunteers brave enough to be willing to care for the ones who could not care for themselves. She had given them a quick lesson on how to help everyone who was ill and how to maintain their own hygiene to remain healthy. She kept a low fire going all the time to maintain a supply of hot water. She insisted that everyone wash their hands after leaving a patient. What good it did was a mystery to the helpers but they followed orders and so far, none of them had become sick.

Once she had help, they worked to clean everyone up who could not do so for themselves and to get food and water into those who would take it. They all wished that they had more help, but they made do with what they had. It was afternoon of the second day of their stop before Yolanda was able to consult the journal she had been given by her mother before the wagon train left Independence. She had been adding to it with information she gained along the way as well as using it as a personal diary. She kept it on her person at all times and would not allow anyone else to read it.

Yolanda was proud of the fact she a full blooded Romina who had been trained in the healing arts by her mother, a midwife and herbalist. The pronoun ‘her’ was a bit of a misnomer. Yolanda was actually a young man just entering puberty. He’d been unjustly accused of murder back in his home town of Independence and his mother had disguised him as a young woman to escape a lynch mob. To pay for his passage, he had agreed to indenture himself to the Wilson family as a servant to help with Hiram’s sickly wife and their two small children. Hiram had been very happy with her when Mr. Bridger had seen Yolanda’s actions after a tornado had swept past the wagon train. He had asked Yolanda to act as the medicine woman for the train and that meant that the Wilson wagon ended up in the middle of the train, escaping the dust-eating position near the very end.

Yolanda had been through her journal three times without finding any information that could help them. If this had been a civilized area, a trained doctor would have been called and he would have known how to treat cholera. As it was, all she could do was try to treat the symptoms and to get food and water into her patients and work to keep them clean and warm.

Everyone was holding their own in the wagons she visited until she reached the Anderson’s wagon. Two of the family’s children and their mother had been hit within hours of each other. She found the youngest child, April, still and cold in her blankets. She blinked back tears while she quietly covered the small body and moved it to the back of the wagon. As much as the loss of the little girl tore at her heart, Yolanda still had to check on April’s older brother and mother. There would be time to cry later. Both of the other two were weak from dehydration, but with Yolanda’s help and encouragement, they were able to keep down the water she gave them.

Once she was done seeing her patients, Yolanda went down to the river to get cleaned up. She avoided the marshy areas that they had passed through as the wagon train made its way to their camping area. She didn’t know why, but the damp ground and bogs made her uneasy and she had warned the children in her charge away from the area. Of course, she wasn’t teaching her reading classes right now. The parents had pulled the children back to their wagons while there was sickness present. Besides, they didn’t want Yolanda to infect their children.

Yolanda essentially collapsed into her bedroll when she reached the tent Bridger had arranged by the wagons for her. She appreciated the gesture, but she also suspected that he was trying to keep the infection away from the main medical wagon.

It was midafternoon when Marie Hanson shook her awake so that Yolanda could eat. Marie left her alone to eat her modest meal of cornbread and beans with tiny bits of venison mixed in, while she and the other helpers checked on everyone in the wagons. She assured Yolanda that everyone was still doing okay and left Yolanda to pick at her meal.

Once Yolanda decided that she had eaten all she was going to, she tracked down her helpers to make sure that no one needed attention. April Anderson’s father had dug a grave for his daughter on a bluff away from the trail and someone had fashioned a marker. Yolanda stood to one side as she was laid to rest, silently weeping for the little girl who had not had a chance to grow up. She wished that she knew more about medicine so that she could have saved April. She said a silent prayer for April and an apology for not being able to save her. She hurried away once the short service was over, not wanting to speak to anyone, most especially April’s father.

She found herself wandering near a wooded area across a field from the wagon train. She must have been lost in her thoughts, either from anger with herself or because she was feeling sorry for herself. She walked toward the trees with the intention of sitting in the shade to think, but pulled up short when saw two men standing on the edge of the forest.

It was immediately apparent to her that she was looking at a pair of Indians. One was much older than the other, with longish grey hair, and the other sported a black, braided pony tail from the back of his shaved head. There appeared to be a family resemblance between them, making Yolanda think that she was looking at father and son.

The older man was dressed in leather jacket and trousers with a pouch that hung in front of him on a turquoise necklace. His son could have been only a few years younger than her own father would have been. He too wore a leather jacket, but it looked more like a vest. A modern-looking knife in a leather scabbard hung from the belt of his trousers. Both men were wearing leather moccasins that were tied around their ankles. Obviously, the stories she had heard of Indians always going barefoot were wrong.

She had heard all the stories of what Indians did with captives and was immediately frightened. Once they found out that she was not a natural girl, they would kill her out of hand. At the moment, they showed no signs of aggression and almost seemed to be trying to make themselves appear to be non-threatening. As much as she wanted to turn and run back to the wagons, she knew that they could outrun her easily. Instead, she began to back away slowly without turning, silently cursing herself for being so far away from the wagon train alone.

There were probably twenty paces between them at the moment, so they all had a good view of each other. When she began edging away, the older Indian raised his hand to indicate that she should stop. It was not a threat as she could see that their hands were empty.

Even though she was terrified, her tired mind grasped at the idea that the people who lived here might be able to help her. Finding a way to get her need across would be a challenge though. Against her better judgment, Yolanda stopped her tentative steps toward escape. If these men wanted her, they had her and they would not be pleasant about it if they did.

Yolanda did not know it at the time but this encounter would turn out to be wagon train’s salvation.

She bowed slightly in an attempt at respect, gaining return bows from them both. The stories Yolanda had heard about the plains savages had led her to expect men to be walking about with war paint on their faces and covered with nothing by a loincloth. The men in front of her put a complete lie to those stories. Both were clear skinned, with deeply tanned faces.

The three studied each other for several moments before Yolanda tried to communicate her problem. She pointed back to the wagon train and mimed someone being violently sick. Then she held up her hands and raised her fingers one-by-one. The message was that many people were ill.

Yolanda could not have been more surprised or delighted when the older man said, “Bad water.” It should have stood to reason that there would be someone who might speak English, considering the number of pioneers who must have passed through the area over the years.

She nodded and said, “Yes. But I don’t know what to do.” She spread her hands helplessly. Her eyes misted up when she let herself think about how small April Anderson’s body had seemed and how few people had been present when she had been buried. She did not want to bear witness to more of these tragedies.

The old man studied Yolanda for a few moments longer. In her mind, he was the younger man’s father. She did not know if their interest was because she was a woman or if it was her swarthy coloring. The plains Indians were familiar with blacks as the Buffalo Soldiers, the name the Native Americans gave the “Negro Cavalry”, had fought in this area during the Indian wars. Her skin color was one of the things that made her stand out among everyone else on the wagons. Some people on the train assumed that she was a free Black instead of a Gypsy and she had given up explaining herself to folks.

He turned to his son and spoke quickly in their tongue. Yolanda was a bit surprised to see that the older man behaved deferentially to the younger one. Respect for age was a universal trait among all societies, so the older deferring to the younger had to mean that the younger man held a position of importance. Yolanda concluded she was in the presence of the tribal chief, but she wasn’t sure. Her question was answered when he turned back into the trees and called out in his language. Half a dozen braves seemed to appear from nowhere and run up to them. After the chief spoke to them, they looked briefly at Yolanda before fading back into the trees. She had apparently stumbled upon a hunting party as she now saw that the trees held drying jerky and the ground was littered with animal skins.

Yolanda had no idea what was going on, but she decided that it might be safer to try to return to the wagons after all. She bowed to the Indians again and smiled warmly, knowing that she faced the tribal equivalent of royalty.

Before she started to turn away, the chief said, “Come.” He gestured for her to follow them into the woods. She paused for a moment, considering whether it was safe to do so. The fact that she was being invited to follow them and that she was not being forced, made her decide to find out what they wanted. Besides, they were being friendly and refusing to cooperate might make them angry.

She followed them a ways into the trees until they reached a clearing with a small fire. A brave was tending the fire who stood when the old man approached. He poured out cups of water from a clay pot that sat near the fire and handed each cup to the older man who sprinkled crushed leaves into it before passing it on to the chief and to Yolanda. The fact that he was dispensing herbs and feeding them to the chief meant that the chief trusted him. She had heard enough stories from Mr. Cody’s out-riders to think that he might be his tribe’s shaman or medicine man.

She was not sure how she should behave, so she watched her hosts for clues. Just being invited to be their guest was confusing to her and she did not want to offend them. She doubted that anything she did would be bad for the wagon train, but she was getting the feeling that they had been waiting for her and that she was here for a reason. Something in her wanted to be deserving of the hospitality these men were showing her.

“Drink,” the medicine man told her. She took a strong sniff of the cup she held and could only smell some aromatic herbs. She took a tentative sip before taking a larger swallow. The tea had a minty, but peppery flavor that seemed to spread through her head and chest. It had a calming sensation upon her and she smiled at the feeling. The two men sipped their tea with her and returned her smile.

The tea appeared to have no other affect other than to taste good and to make her feel like she could breathe more freely. Perhaps she could learn how to make it and help some of her future patients who might have the croup or bad colds? She noticed that the tired feeling she had come into camp with seemed to have lessened, a sensation she was glad for. Maybe she could think through how to help the wagon train.

A discreet cough from the old man caused her to look up from her cup and her thoughts. Both were looking at her with a combination of expectancy and appraisal. The shaman also seemed to approve of her reaction to the tea. What could they want from her? She had heard the stories the outriders on the wagon train would tell about the Indian tribes. They said that Indians always just took what they wanted. They would have just grabbed her if they were going to kidnap her. Right? But even now, it seemed as if she were being treated as a guest and not some sort of target.

The shaman must have been able to understand her confusion because he reached out to touch her lightly on the forehead then below her throat. All he said was, “Two spirits,” as he smiled and bowed his head to her. The chief bowed his head to her as well. It was not until she had reached Fort Laramie and had spoken to the folks there before she understood what had actually happened here.

The medicine man beckoned to her again and said, “Come,” as he came to his feet. The chief also came to his feet as Yolanda stood. He bowed his head to Yolanda again before he left her with his father.

The old man moved easily, making her wonder if he really was as old as he appeared. Yolanda followed him over to an open lean-to. The old man gestured that Yolanda should be seated as he made himself comfortable as well. His helper stood off to one side, not really part of this meeting, but his attention upon the shaman.

In the shelter of the lean-to were small piles of leaves and plants. Some she knew from the lessons her mama had taught her while others looked completely foreign. She recognized the leaves and stems as some that she had seen on their travels from Missouri. She also saw at least one pile of dirt or ashes, so she assumed that some of these herbs needed to be roasted or burnt.

What ensued was an intensive education in herbs and healing. The medicine man proved to be able to communicate quite well with a combination of gestures and the words he must have learned from the wagon trains that had preceded hers. She learned that as the tribe’s medicine man he was revered for his second sight. With the disappearance of the buffalo, the tribe was having a hard time finding enough game to feed everyone. So despite his advanced age, he was asked to accompany the hunting part to lead them to game to sustain the tribe. Yolanda was mightily thankful that his tribe had been treated with respect by preceding wagon trains.

As he finished showing her each bundle and trying to explain how it could be used, the medicine man would tie it up and set it to one side. The final bundle was the pile of ash and it was quickly apparent that it was more than just waste. When he began showing her that the ashes came from certain trees and that it should be mixed with water before being consumed, she understood that it was another medicine. When his pantomime made her see that it could be used for the bad water illness she was being confronted with at the wagons, her eyes grew round.

It was all she could do to keep herself from tearing this finial bundle from his hands. She suddenly felt like her body was vibrating with excitement. She had to get back to the wagons. There were children who desperately needed her help, and this medicine could save them. Her energy must have been obvious to the medicine man because he smiled at her and rose to his feet in one smooth motion. He helped Yolanda stand and he handed her the bundle containing the ashes.

That was all that it took for her. She took the ashes from him and bowed deeply in respect. She was smiling madly as she turned and literally ran back through the trees toward where the wagons were parked. She passed a couple of braves who had not quite concealed themselves, but she paid them no mind even though both were armed with bows. They also did nothing to her, causing her to realize later that they were not present as guards to keep her there.

She seemed to cross the field in no time at all and she was among the group of armed men who had started to gather. There were angry voices raised, scolding her for wandering off for so long without telling anyone, but she barely heard them. She ran through the crowd, making a direct line toward her work tent.

The tent was just a sheet thrown over a rope and a couple of poles. She really missed the Wilson’s wagon and all of the children she had been caring for. When so many people had started to become ill, Mr. Wilson had thought that it was better to have his wife’s helper to be near her patients instead of exposing his children. He wouldn’t listen to her assurances that they were safe as long as they continued to drink clean water and to be careful about their hygiene.

She set the bundle she carried down on the makeshift work table. She already knew that the amount of ashes she had been given was woefully short of what she was going to need. She was going to need more. Once she had been shown that feeding a patient small doses of wood ash, she could see that it would help to fight the dehydration that was killing her people.

The solution was given to her as Mitch Bridger stepped into the tent with his hat in his hand. “Miss Petalengro,” he said heavily. His tone of voice was very similar to what she had heard coming into camp. “This territory is not safe and I do not want you leaving the wagons again without one of my men.”

Not wanting to argue the issue with him, Yolanda nodded quietly. “Mr. Bridger, I discovered something while I was out there that will cure the sick. I’m going to mix up a potion to give to my patients, but I am going to need more.”

“What do you need?” he asked.

“Charcoal.”

* * * * *

“Do you think we should wake her?” Yolanda’s helpers were stood outside one of the wagons after having checked everyone. Yolanda had been going strong from the time she had come running back to the wagons until the last patient had been treated with the concoction she had cooked up. To keep anyone from questioning the wisdom of feeding ashes to people, Yolanda had worked in her tent to create the thick-looking paste. She also did not share the secret with anyone, other than Mr. Bridger, there would be time for that later. If they knew what she was going to feed the sick people, she would have to fight for their cooperation.

Yolanda had watched over everyone after treating them, going from wagon to wagon to see if there was any change. She almost collapsed from exhaustion after her fourth round. Daniel had caught her as she practically fell out of the wagon and he had carried her back to her tent. He and Amelia had taken care of ensuring that Yolanda was laid out on her bedroll and her tent had been closed up.

“It has only been a few hours since she went to sleep,” Amelia told the rest. “Let’s check everyone again in an hour. Once we are done, we can wake her up and tell her what has happened.”

She was only a year or two older than Yolanda and she thought that their young doctor was doing a wonderful job. Yolanda was the younger sister that she wished that her parents could have had.

There were only four of them to check on the conditions so many people, so it was almost two hours later before they gathered again.

“I had to clean up a couple of the kids,” Amelia said. “But it doesn’t look like anyone is any weaker.”

Daniel reported on the condition of the older pioneers he had checked. “Mr. Jackson wanted water and he said that he felt kind of hungry. I think that’s a good sign.”

Mary and Sophie echoed similar results and all four of them actually smiled. “Do you think that we can tell Yolanda the good news?” Sophie asked.

They all nodded. This was something worth waking their acting doctor up for. As a group, they walked over to Yolanda’s tent where Amelia untied the flaps. Only the older girl went in to wake Yolanda while the others paced excitedly. It looked hopeful that the sickness might be beaten, but they wanted Yolanda to make that call.

It was only a short time later that Yolanda was standing among them, yawning herself awake. They allowed her to relieve herself at the latrines before they all assailed her with their bits of good news. They followed her anxiously as she went from wagon to wagon, checking on the conditions of the occupants.

It appeared to be good news. The sickness seemed to be lessening, but she thought that it would be wise to continue to feed her charcoal mixture to everyone until she was sure. She was smiling when she told her team that it looked like their medicine was working, but she would need to mix up more. It was going to take her an hour or more before she was ready, so she sent them to their wagons to rest while she worked.

She sought out Mitch Bridger to get her charcoal and found him overseeing the bonfires he had started in response to Yolanda’s request. Yolanda was able to collect several handfuls from each fire and a couple of the men helped carry the baskets back to her tent. It was only a matter of time now before she had this sickness beat. She was not going to watch another baby be buried because she could not do anything.

Sadly, April Anderson’s mother and brother had not been strong enough to recover from the cholera, despite the care that Yolanda and the others had given them. Yolanda had wept openly when they were laid to rest beside April on the bluff that had become a small cemetery for pioneers that would never reach Oregon.

* * * * *

The wagon train remained in place for another two days before the cholera victims were strong enough to travel. Time that had Bridger grinding his teeth. As much as he wanted to get moving again, he knew that forcing the recovering victims to leave too soon meant that they would only slow the rest down and they would be burying more settlers as a result. He directed his frustration into roaming up and down the wagon train yelling at wagon owners to make sure that their wagons were ready to travel. To show that he was not completely inconsiderate, he moved the wagons that belonged to the cholera victims closer to the middle of the train.

Yolanda’s time was spent in moving back into the Wilson’s wagon and caring for the Wilson children. Hiram Jr and James were very happy to see her as they had been kept with their mother while Yolanda was taking care of her patients.

After storing her bedroll and medical supplies, she saw to Mrs. Wilson’s needs. The mother of two was not sickly, only weaker than most and prone to tiring easily. Elisa and her family would not have been allowed to join the wagon train if she had been an invalid and Yolanda’s addition to the household had appeased the wagon master at the time the wagon train had departed Independence, Missouri.

“I’m so very glad that you did not get sick Yolanda,” Mrs. Wilson said.

“I was lucky ma’am,” Yolanda responded. “I thought that I knew what I needed to do to protect us, but we could have all gotten sick.”

“But you didn’t,” the older woman said with a smile.

“No, but I wasn’t able to save April Anderson and the rest either,” Yolanda said, tears forming in her eyes.

Elisa pulled Yolanda to her and wrapped her in a tight hug.

“My dear,” she said over Yolanda’s head, “you did something that no one else here could do and you did the very best you could do. I’m very proud.”

Yolanda had come to think of Mrs. Wilson like a second mother. It had been months since they left Missouri and she missed her own mother terribly. She had been homesick for the first couple of nights, but the need to take care of the children had kept her distracted.

“I have some clothes that I want you to have,” Elisa said, pushing Yolanda out so that she could look at her. “They are some dresses that I no longer wear and I would like you to be able to have some pretty things to wear once in a while.”

Yolanda didn’t know what to say. All she could do was say, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Yolanda,” Mrs. Wilson started hesitantly. “You have been with us for a while now and the boys love you. I have come to think of you as the daughter I never had. Would you please call me Mother?” It was obvious that she was as afraid of being rejected as Yolanda was.

The tears in Yolanda’s eyes that had dried, started again. “I would be glad to call you Mother, Mother,” Yolanda said through her tears. The two of them proceeded to look through the dresses Elisa was giving away. Then Yolanda held up a short, rigid garment and she looked at her surrogate mother with a confused expression.

“It’s a corset dear. It gives you a smaller waist and pushes your breasts up.”

Yolanda fumbled for words and said, “I have nothing to push up.”

Mrs. Wilson hugged her again and patted her gently on the shoulder. “I know dear. Your secret is safe with me.”

Yolanda smiled tentatively as a cold finger seemed to stroke her spine. She wasn’t sure what secret the might be talking about, having no breasts or the greater one of her true sex. She had been so careful not to be seen or reveal herself.

“Thank you,” was all she could say. That was the safest route. If she asked for an explanation, she risked the possibility of making Elisa wonder what else might be going on and that could reveal the very secret that would ruin her life.

Mrs. Wilson looked in the eye and said, “Dear, you have been taking care of my sons for weeks now and I have watched you. I’ve seen you changing and I have seen glimpses of your body. I have seen you blossom into a beautiful young woman and I am sure that it is only a matter of time until you develop the charms that separate us from the men.”

She paused for a moment and continued, “I really do think of you as my daughter. I want you to be more careful when you change clothes and when you answer nature's call. Most people will not be understanding, but you are a lady in my book.”

The two of them exchanged another tight hug and then Hiram Jr. and James came running up to the wagon looking for Yolanda. She had suggested a picnic before the wagon train pulled out, so the four of them gathered up their blankets and baskets and made their way out the fields beside the camping area.

The boys were thrilled to be with her again and that they were able to run and play. Everyone they saw along the wagons was laughing and singing while they worked. It was as if they thought that the illness had been cured instead of the symptoms being addressed until the sickness had run its course. Yolanda really hoped that no one else became that ill any time soon.

Because Elisa could not make the long trip across the field, they set up their picnic under a tree beside the fields. Yolanda had no concern about the possible danger from Indians because of how she had been treated by them and she assured Elisa that they would be okay, without explaining anything. While they were not in a settled area, all the activity from the wagon train made it unlikely a wild animal would attack them. Their destination was actually a large patch of wild flowers she had seen. They could see acres of blues, reds, and yellows that seemed to stretch off over the hills.

While they ate their lunch of cornbread and jerky, Yolanda told the children what she needed and how they could help her. Hiram and James spent the rest of the afternoon picking flowers and running back to lay them on the blankets so that Yolanda would be able to store them in her jars and bottles. The children had already enjoyed the syrups and teas that she had made in the past weeks and looked forward to seeing what she might make from the flowers they were gathering for her. Some of the teas were good for Elisa and she looked forward to seeing what new things Yolanda might come up with.

Yolanda spent some time searching out roots that might be of use to her and collected a respectable pile. Everything that they were gathering would be taken back to the wagon so that she could save the important bits. It would give her something to work on when they stopped for the night, Yolanda would be walking beside the wagons like every other able bodied adult.

The last thing she did before they returned to the wagons was to dig up a large pile of flowers, roots and all. It took Yolanda an hour after they returned to plant the flowers around the graves of April and her family. She knew that the crosses that had been posted as markers would only last a short time, but the wild flowers would be hardy enough to live for years and provide an enduring monument to the people she could not save.

When she finally stepped up into the medicine wagon, she saw the different bundles of roots and herbs that the medicine man had shown her. They must have been sent to her. She wondered how their delivery could have been done without anyone seeing. Then she saw the eagle feather talisman laid across the pile, so very similar to the one worn by the medicine man. Something told her that no one would know anything about how these bags got here.

* * * * *

Modern day New York

Mary Sue was just so frustrated that she felt like screaming and pulling her hair out. A successful doctoral thesis had to contribute to the general body of knowledge in some way, but she could not come up with a viable subject. Not for the first time, she questioned her decision to study history.

Every idea she had for her thesis was shot down by her advisor. He had shown himself to be a pompous jerk minutes into their first meeting. He had been a member of the faculty for decades and he seemed to have a very low opinion of students. Mary was sure that his attitude was mostly directed at her because of her gender. Never mind that her grades were the highest of any other grad student.

She had been hidden away in the reserved section of the library stacks for most of the day, poring over the notes she had compiled over the past few weeks. She pulled the notebook back over and flipped back to the start. Maybe an idea would come to her that had not occurred to her during the past three passes through the book.

One of her first ideas had involved frontier America, but she had not been able to come up with an original concept. A stray breeze fluttered the papers on the desk so that she was left looking at the pages that dealt with that very idea. She had already discounted it because of the number of papers that had been written already and she could not conceive of a way to write a thesis that approached that era in a new way.

A flowery scent hung in the area in the wake of the breeze. When she felt another draft, she turned her head in the direction it had come from to see what was going on. The building was climate controlled to protect the books so the windows were sealed shut and ceiling fans had never been installed in this part of the library, so it had to be someone walking by rather rapidly.

A movement in the stacks drew her attention and she turned to see who it was. About halfway up the aisle stood a young woman looking intently at Mary Sue. She was dark-complected, almost swarthy, but her features looked European instead of Middle Eastern. Her jet black hair was pulled back and braided so that the single plait wrapped around on her shoulder and hung down before her. Her dark eyes almost seemed to be dancing with happiness as their eyes met.

She was rather out of place here in the library because of how she was dressed. She looked like someone who should be at a Renaissance fair or a Wild West show. She was wearing a plain white blouse that covered her torso from her wrists up to the high collar. The skirt appeared to be some sort of denim, but it was not a familiar kind that Mary Sue had seen before. It extended from high on her waist down to almost brush the floor and cover the moccasins that she wore. She wore a vest that was made of the same material as her skirt, open at the front. Her vest allowed the necklace that she wore to be visible as she turned toward Mary Sue. It appeared to be a small leather pouch with three feathers woven in.

Smiling impishly at Mary Sue, she reached out to the shelf beside her to pick up a thin book. She held it up for a moment, almost as if she wanted to make sure that Mary Sue had seen it, and then she dropped it on the floor in front of her.

Mary Sue’s eyes widened. Books in this section of the library were restricted from the general collection because they were too fragile or too important to be allowed into circulation. To mistreat a book the way the girl had just done was just wrong.

“Hey!” Mary Sue called. She might be in a library where it was supposed to be quiet, but if someone was damaging books, she had to stop it.

When the girl turned and began to walk away without picking the book up, Mary Sue struggled to stand and hurry after her. The girl turned at a break in the shelves and stepped into the next row as Mary hurried down the aisle. She reached the book and picked it up in passing as she hurried after the girl, intent upon giving her a piece of her mind.

She was only about thirty seconds behind, but there was no one there when she reached the corner. She looked down the next several rows but saw no one. She stood still and listened for telltale footsteps. But she heard nothing. It was as if Mary Sue was the only person in the entire section of the library. She didn’t know what to think. She knew that someone had been here, she could smell the girl’s perfume and she held the book she had dropped. The scent that hung in the air was rather flowery, but pleasant.

She had heard all of the campus legends about this building being haunted. It had stood since 1831 but the idea of ghosts actually existing just went against everything she knew as an educated woman. It was all just a folklore.

Just standing there, she felt a deep chill that came from nowhere, it was just suddenly present. She shuddered, whether it was from the cold or something more sinister she wasn’t sure. Out of the corner of her eye she could have sworn there was movement. But there was no sound.