Fast paced historical novel, with a beautiful but bittersweet romance build around a progressive young woman's struggle to become a trauma surgeon, a profession unheard of for women in the 1890s. When Becky Russell and her friends from the Sewing Academy in Red Wing, Minnesota, bucking the propriety norms of the time, take an unescorted excursion on a paddle steamer to Lake City to view a military display at the nearby National Guard camp, little does she realize her life will change forever. When the Sea Wing flounders during the return trip to Red Wing, Becky's life is saved by a dashing young Army Lieutenant, Bill Cravats. As Becky and Bill slowly fall in love, events move to separate them. Becky's close call with death solidifies her true passion for becoming a doctor, and even more unlikely, for the time, a trauma surgeon. When Bill is posted to Pine Ridge in South Dakota to help quell a native uprising, the pair are separated, but not before they become engaged. Given the obstacles thrown in their path, will these two young lovers ever find their way to be with each other? The story follows Bill's harrowing experiences at the Battle of Wounded Knee and the Battle of Bloody Pocket, a box canyon where the Indians have the 7th Cavalry pinned down, He is shot trying to sneak out to get help, his body is not found, and he is reported missing and presumed dead. Meanwhile, with the help of very influential proponets of women's rights, Becky is accepted at the Minnesota Medical School and begins the torturous and challenging task of learning medicine and enduring the disdain and bullying of many of her male classmates and professors. Bill, taken captive by the Indians when they left Bloody Pocket, suffers memory loss. Not knowing who he is, and with no memory of Becky, he falls in love with Melia, the Chief's half-white granddaughter, a nurse, who has been providing his care. When he suddently recovers his memory after almost two years, Melia is pregnant.
