Older sister Heather had married at seventeen, as a young lady properly should, and she had four children now, as a young married woman properly should. Naturally she had not entertained any of this foolishness about going to Texas. But Annie had always been of an independent mind; you never could tell her anything she did not want to hear.

Following in the second wagon were cousin Frank and his family, moving lock, stock, and barrel to Texas. Frank Lewis was the same age as Michael, thirty or thereabouts. To James that seemed a little old to be setting out upon a new life. He was unsure of Frank’s reason for leaving Tennessee, for Frank had just about everything there that a man could reasonably want, and he was by all odds the happiest-natured of the Lewis clan. It was said of Frank Lewis that you could set him down in Hell and he would find something to enjoy about the warm climate. James supposed Frank’s restless, questing spirit had brought him here. Frank had been talking Texas for years, ever since Michael and Andrew had gone there. He talked Texas during his waking hours, and James suspected he dreamed about Texas when he slept. As Uncle Benjamin’s oldest son, Frank stood to inherit a considerable amount of land back home someday. Nonetheless, Frank had said a man could amass far more land in Texas than he ever could in Tennessee. Ambition, he called it. But James suspected it was an adventuresome spirit, like brother Michael’s. As a young man, Michael had never been able to stay in one place long. James wondered sometimes how his brother had remained in Texas for most of ten years. It would have been like him to have kept moving west until he came to mountains he could not climb or an ocean he could not swim.

James’s heartbeat quickened with excitement when he thought about finally seeing Michael again after all these years. Never had anybody had an older brother quite the cut of Michael.

He heard a whistle from the wagons. Annie hailed him, waving her arm. She could stick two fingers in her mouth and whistle like a man. Heather never would have done that; she had too much feminine dignity. But anything Annie saw a man do, she took as a challenge to go him one better. She was even wearing a man’s hat now instead of a conventional woman’s bonnet. To James, that one fact was a pretty good indicator of her nature. He rode back to the front wagon and turned the bay horse around, keeping the steady pace of Annie’s mule team. Annie stared expectantly at him with big blue Lewis eyes, as if he should already know what she wanted. “What you need, sis?”

“I was thinkin’ you ought to be ridin’ ahead and findin’ us a likely place to camp the night. We don’t want to still be travelin’ when dark catches up with us.”