James crossed the San Antonio River at a shallow ford and rode toward the forbidding high stone walls of the military presidio. They were gray and cold and inhospitable. He found himself hating Goliad on sight. It was the kind of place that made him think uncomfortably of chains and whips and dungeons. He could imagine that terrible things might have happened there in the past. It had been fought over several times in its eighty or so years. It would be easy to envision the ghosts of its past dead hovering over it, casting a dark curse upon all who entered. He did not intend to remain longer than necessary.

He was admitted through the gates without difficulty, for he was clearly American by birth. He suspected that had he been a Mexican, even a lifelong inhabitant of the Goliad settlement, he would have been at considerable inconvenience ever getting that far. He saw men halfheartedly drilling in the open courtyard. There was no Texan uniform. The volunteers wore whatever clothing they had brought with them, homespun cotton or wool in many instances, or buckskins or flannel. They wore boots or shoes or mocassins, and he noted that a few were barefoot. Hell of a thing, he thought, in the middle of winter. But Texas was hardly a rich man’s paradise. Most settlers here lived from one crop to the next, one hunt to the next. The wolf of hardship and privation was always prowling, always near.

He had a long wait before he was finally ushered in to see Colonel Fannin. A native of Georgia, Fannin had just enough West Point training to get him in trouble, some people said. His responsibilities for the army left him little time for helping some farmer find a lost brother, and his impatience indicated that he would rather be doing something else. But he took the trouble to study his rosters, running his finger hurriedly down the pages. “Lewis, you say? A common enough name. I find a Henry Lewis here, and a Matthew Lewis. And there is a Nathaniel Lewis with Shackelford’s Red Rovers. But I find no Michael Lewis.”

James explained that his brother had come in the early fall and might have been in the short fight that had originally taken this fortification from its thirty or so Mexican defenders. Fannin said, “Scarcely any of the men who originally took this presidio then are still here. They have scattered to other places, other battles.”

James felt a letdown, though he had known within reason that he would not find Michael here. In a garrison like this one, with people constantly coming or going, there was no reason for Michael not to have sent word home, to let Marie and the rest of the family know where he was. “Well, sir,” he said, “I thank you anyway for your time and trouble. I reckon I’ll be movin’ on, huntin’ for him somewhere else.”

“He could be with any number of small companies and scouting parties between here and the Rio Grande. You cannot hope to find them all.”