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You’re a woman. We can’t leave you. We can take on the enemy—”
    “The hell you can!” she swore flatly. “My sex doesn’t matter—can’t matter!—now. I’ve been in this too long for such consideration. Longer than you, far longer than you. Listen to me! Would you kill our injured? Go.”
    “But—”
    “Go! And don’t you mention a word of this to anyone, Jemmy Johnson, or I’ll shoot you down myself, do you hear? Take our injured down the Seminole trail. Move fast. I’ll take Blaze along the eastern route, hopefully drawing any rider who would follow, and after I assess the enemy strength, I’ll change course and meet up with you by nightfall.”
    “Yes, ma’am!”
    To her relief and amusement, he saluted. She saluted back, then regretted the action—wondering just how much of her long, concealing hair she had readjusted so that it didn’t quite conceal anymore. He tried to look into her eyes, but his gaze kept slipping. Then, as she had ordered, he turned and fled. She saw him and their little party of injured hurry along the trail, disappearing around the bend and slinking into the old Indian trail, just as she had ordered.
    As soon as they were swallowed by the foliage, she started across the little tributary, thinking that she would regain her clothing, but she had barely taken a step when she realized that she could just hear the sound of hoofbeats against the soft earth and that someone was coming closer and closer. Blaze was on this side of the trickling little tributary of the river.
    She would never manage to have both her horse and her clothing. The situation was desperate. Seconds were ticking away. She had to do something, make a decision.
    Clothing ... horse?
    Clothing!
    No! She had to make the right decision to protect the injured men who were in her care. What was a little bareness when death might be the alternative?
    What in God’s name had made her decide that today, of all days, she just really had to give herself a complete and thorough scrubbing?
    Maybe the enemy would pause for water, and just go away.
    Maybe he wouldn’t be the enemy.
    Just as that thought filled her mind, a rider came into view, a tall man on a tall horse. His face was hidden beneath the slant of his plumed, wide-brimmed hat, and his shoulders were encased in a Union -issue, cavalry frockcoat.
    He was definitely the enemy, she thought, her heart sinking.
    And he certainly wasn’t hiding his identity as a Yank.
    He was but one man. A lone rider. Tia felt a sense of relief, and even superiority—she knew this terrain as few men did. Her home was across the state, but she had learned her geography from her father and her uncle, whose Indian blood had led him in dozens of merry chases across the terrain throughout the long, treacherous, and deadly Seminole wars.
    And yet ...
    Who was he? What was he doing? Not exactly a spy, for he was in full uniform. A scout? Yes, searching for troop movements, perhaps even looking for her own little pathetic band of injured and raw men who were, in truth, little more than children playing at being soldiers.
    Just what would she do if he were to note that they had followed the old Indian trail.
    He was a lone man ...
    But well armed. He had come with a sharpshooter’s rifle tied across his saddle, a Spencer repeating rifle in a case below it, and a pair of six-shooting Colts holstered in the gun belt that rode his hips. Mean weapons. And something about the easy, agile, and assured way that he moved seemed to testify to his ability to use them.
    The boys had already ridden on. If he followed them, there was no question in her mind—at least half of them would be dead.
    Coming into the copse, the Federal cavalry scout paused. Felt the air, listened, surveyed the landscape. Hoof prints, near the water. Broken and bent branches.
    Yes ... someone was near.
    By dusk, the slender offshoot of the St. Johns was an exquisite place to be. Pines rose in green splendor, shading the