“Just waitress work, I hope. I’m not much of a cook,” Liz said.

“I do the cookin’. That’s why I bought the café. Just need someone to serve it up and run a cash register. You ever done any waitressing?”

“Little bit,” Liz answered. Running a concession wagon was the same thing, wasn’t it? She took orders. She served them. She took money and made change. There couldn’t be a whole lot of difference.

“Tell me about your family. Was Haskell the only one from Texas?” Dewar asked. “He mentioned his sisters and having a niece, but he didn’t ever say where you lived.”

“Texas born and mostly raised in this state. Mama was born out near Amarillo, little town named Claude. I was born over in Jefferson, Texas. I guess I’m truly a third generation Texan. Just never thought about it like that until now,” Liz answered and started to tell them about the carnival, but she remembered what her mother had said about people judging the ones who lived and worked in carnivals or circuses.

“You didn’t visit Haskell much, did you?” Dewar asked. “Raylen said that he remembers you being over there only a couple of times when you were a kid.”

“We didn’t come this way very often,” Liz answered. “Uncle Haskell usually came to our winter place between Amarillo and Claude for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year, and we saw him in the fall of the year when we came through these parts. Grandma died when I was a little girl, but my grandfather is still alive and he’s out in west Texas. But y’all knew that because that’s where Uncle Haskell has relocated to help with Poppa. How long have the O’Donnells been in Ringgold?”

Raylen yelled over the din of voices all talking at once. “Daddy, how long has the family been in Ringgold?”

“Grandpa used to say we squatted in this area, and they built the town around us. I expect we’ve been somewhere up and down the Red River border for a hundred years or more,” Cash answered.

“And the O’Malleys have been here every bit that long,” Grandma said. “And if y’all don’t eat your dinner, we ain’t never goin’ to get out there and do some playin’. I been lookin’ forward to music all week, and all y’all want to do is jaw around. I guarantee you it’s goin’ to come up cold here pretty soon, what with Thanksgiving in a little more than a month, and we won’t be able to play outside. Remember that year back in about ninety-one or ninety-two when the whole area iced up on Thanksgiving? It could happen again. And spring is a long way off if we get an early winter.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dewar grinned.

“Who are the musicians?” Liz asked.

With a wave of her hand, Jasmine took in the whole family. “They all play something or sing.”

“Really? You?” She looked at Dewar.

“Dulcimer is my specialty, but I can fill in on an acoustic guitar if Rye gets tired, and I can play a little bit of fiddle.” He finished off his sweet tea. “And Raylen plays any of the instruments, too.”