Rebecca is a very attractive young woman, 17 years of age.  She is a petite 5'2", a fairly thin 110 lbs, with almost waist-length strawberry blonde hair and pale grey/green eyes.  She still has a young figure, but looks to be a true beauty when she ages but a bit more.  A faint but noticeable sprinkling of freckles adorn her cheeks, nose and arms.

She is very agile and precocious, a wonder with horses and a fair shot with a rifle.  She smiles often but prefers to get her way, often becoming vexed with those who do not give that to her.  An orphan now, she is clearly untamed and ready to find her way in the world.

Background:

Rebecca's family were Irish immigrants.  Patrick 'Paddy' O'Dell and his wife Lynn came to Kansas in 1855 initially to farm, but ultimately let the farm be worked by Paddy's older brother Stephen so that he could serve in the Army at nearby Fort Leavenworth.  Robert was born in 1855 and Rebecca was born in 1858.

Rebecca's father served in the 4th US Cavalry, Company E in 1855 prior to the Civil War, serving under Solomon Jericho, a Bostonian who took command in 1855, rising to Sergeant in a short amount of time.  General McClellan requested elements of Company E, and that unit went to fight in many battles.  Both Jericho and O'Dell were wounded in Fredricksberg in December, 1862.  When they were both healed in early 1863, they were re-assigned to the 7th Kansas Cavalry because the 7th Kansas volunteers needed the expertise of Regular Army veterans.  Solomon, knowing his son was being assigned to the 7th Kansas Cavalry right out of West Point, asked a personal favor of Patty to volunteer to be one of the veterans transferred to the 7th Kansas Cavalry so that Pat could keep an eye on Solomon's son. Paddy was a hardworking and dependable soldier, counted on by his officers to get work done.  It was his duty as well as a pleasure to mentor both recruits and new officers, including Jericho's son Cyrus.

After the war, Paddy stayed on with the Army, transferring back to the 4th, and his children spent a lot of time at the post during this time.  Robert (Bobby) was a rambunctious boy, full of energy and a favorite of the soldiers.  He loved to ride, work and shoot... all skills he wanted to develop to be a soldier just like his father some day.

Little Rebecca was also a favorite.  A very pretty little girl, with long strawberry-blonde hair, she was as rambunctious as her brother, constantly on horseback, breaking and training horses and caring for horses.  She often rode bareback, her hair flying behind her.  As she became a teenager, she became the focus of many of the young men in the Fort as she rode about.  Her father joked that 'Kitty,' his nickname for her, would never be married.  "There's no man alive than can be catchin' my Kitty when she's ridin'," he would proudly say.

Patrick O'Dell retired from the Army in 1875 and gathered his family to head to California.  He had heard there were many opportunities there for a hard working Irishman, and felt it was time to try new things.  Leaving the farm to his brother and family, he joined a caravan of wagons taking the road down through Texas towards Santa Fe.

Talks of Indian raids had followed the caravan, which was fairly small.  But they saw very little until they got into Texas.  One moonlit night, they were beset and overwhelmed.  The Army unit that discovered them saw burned wagons and scalped and burned bodies lying everywhere.  It appeared that anything of value, including gold, had been taken.  A single stallion, fully black in color, was left alive of the stock, appearing to have run quite a distance, and was rummaging under the wreckage of one wagon, the sun glinting off the silver of the bridle which had etched on it the name 'Kitty.'

It was under that wagon that they found Rebecca, injured and unconscious, identified by the silver pendant that she wore with her name and pictures of her now slain parents.  Everyone around her was dead, the only body missing was her brother.  The Army took her to the nearest town where she has been in and out of fever and is now only starting to recover.