Zaragosa arose. “It will be a long and hard trip. And it may be for nothing.”

“It is the only answer I can see.” Andrew touched a hand to Petra’s cheek. He saw sadness in her eyes at the thought of his going. He went to English. “The plantin’ has to wait, querida. I’ve got to go see if I can help my kin.”

“Michael will be here tonight. Wait and talk with him.”

He shook his head. “You know Michael and his restless ways. If I wait, he’ll go instead of me. And once he’s gone, Lord knows how far he’ll ride or when he’ll find his way back home. But if I’m gone, he’ll have to stay here and look after things.”

Zaragosa said, “I wish I could go with you. I still know many of the military in Nacogdoches. If one speaks to the right officers, anything is possible.” He looked regretfully toward his son. “But I have Manuel with me.”

Petra offered, “Manuel could stay here with us.”

The boy said hopefully, “Or I could go with you, Papa.”

Zaragosa said to Petra, “If he would be no imposition—”

“He would have a good time with Ben and Mordecai. And they could learn much from him.”

Zaragosa was not long in making up his mind. “While I am gone, son, you will remember that you are a gentleman.”

Covering his disappointment, Manuel replied, “Yes, Papa.”

Andrew smiled, grateful for having Zaragosa’s company on the long journey ahead. “Fix us somethin’ to take along, Petra. I’ll go fetch up my horse.”

II

THE UNITED States lay most of a day behind them. They had crossed the two canvas-covered wagons over the Sabine River shortly after dawn, the rising sun at their backs. They were many miles into Texas now, and James Lewis was not sure he could see a big difference from the Louisiana side. Texas did not appear to have many people in it, at least not this part along the trail that meandered through the dense shade of tall pine trees and the formidable canebrakes that at times seemed to extend for miles. The wagon ruts had been cut deeply through years of passage by heavy, iron-rimmed wheels, moving westward toward Nacogdoches in Texas or eastward toward sister town Natchitoches in Louisiana. More headed westward than eastward, James would judge by the stories he had heard. People who went into Texas usually stayed. Certainly his two older brothers had. Now James was going to join them and the excitement tingled within him again the way it had the day he and the others had set out from their old home in Tennessee.

Texas! The word had a ring to it, a sparkle, a magic that conjured up all manner of exotic images, even if so far the country looked the same as much of the land they had already passed through. It was the name that made the difference.

Riding a long-legged bay horse named Walker, James Lewis was a tall, thin, wiry man crowding twenty-one. He eagerly studied this new Texas with the restless, searching blue eyes that had run in the Lewis strain from as far back as the oldest could remember. Though James recalled little of his father, his mother had told him he had the same strong jaw, the same lean and sturdy frame. James supposed it must be true, for he remembered that look in his older brothers. He remembered it especially in Michael, who in a sense had taken his father’s place. Woodsman Mordecai Lewis had put a strong stamp upon his sons.