THE ORIGINAL settlement of Hopetown now called to mind a ghost town, the rotting wood shells of an old church and a general store standing gray and skeletonized, empty houses dotting the landscape, weeds and wildflowers coming up through the porch boards, tree roots tilting the foundations. And yet there was life back here, in this other Hopetown; fruit trees and cornfields and lush vegetable gardens stretched out in front of the few houses that still stood tall and proud, painted in yellows and shell pinks, dusky blues—except Leroy Page’s home, which was as white as the Christmas snow that occasionally fell on Caddo Lake. A strong smell of fresh paint lingered about the house when Darren climbed out of his truck in front of the cottage. It was one story with a large attic window, an unblinking eye on the world past Mr. Page’s tidy front porch. He was growing collards and turnips, rainbow chard and cucumbers, had a pecan tree shading one side of his house. He was picking the last of its harvest off the ground beneath the tree, his back hunched as he scooped up the nuts and dropped them into a crinkled paper bag in his hand. His house sat on a quarter acre next to the stables and a conical grass hut that rested atop a hillock, a mound of compact earth. Donald Goodfellow and his son were seeing to the three horses.