“I’ll damn sure make the effort,” James said firmly. He started to leave, but Fannin called him back. “Do you know this part of Texas?” he asked.

“No sir. Never been this far south before.”

“I’ll make you a rough map, and I’ll show you where I last knew the various units to be. But I want it understood that you’ll memorize this map, then burn it.”

“Burn it?”

Fannin frowned. Reluctantly he said, “We must recognize the possibilities, no matter how grim they may appear. By going south there is more than a good chance that you will run afoul of Mexican troops. Should they capture or kill you, it would not do to have such a map found on your person, would it?”

James swallowed. He had acknowledged to himself that his mission carried an element of risk, but nobody had spelled it out in terms quite so raw. “I believe I get your meanin’, sir.”

It did not take Fannin long to draw the map. On it he included the creeks and rivers and the few settlements at which Texan units might be headquartering, or at least camping temporarily. Handing it to James, he said, “I have to suppose you have taken the probabilities into account.”

“The probabilities?”

“That your brother in all likelihood is dead. The fact that you have not heard from him in so long and the fact that a number of men have been killed in skirmishes with Mexican units south of here ever since last fall leads me to recognize that as the strongest probability.”

“Us Lewises don’t give up till we see the body.”

“Do you have any conception of how much land lies between here and the Rio Grande, and between here and the Laredo-San Antonio road?”

James looked at the map. “It doesn’t look like so much.”

“That is a small piece of paper. Those are not paper miles out yonder.” Fannin made a sweeping motion with his hand. “I could use your strong right arm and your rifle here at Goliad. We feel that sometime in the spring Santa Anna and his minions will be coming again. We intend to stop them at these walls and push them back far into Mexico.”

“I didn’t see that many men out there.”

“They will be here. There are only a few hundred now, but I expect to have a thousand more by the time the grass is green and we again face the Mexican soldiers. Even now, we continue to receive recruits from the United States. If you inquire outside you will find that a majority of the men within these walls are not longtime residents of Texas. Those all seem to be home breaking their fields for next spring’s planting, or dallying at commerce. These men are mostly lately come from elsewhere, willing to fight to protect the lives of their fellow Americans in Texas. Would that more of the Texans themselves would do so.”

James could have told him that many of the old settlers would have been content to live under the flag of Mexico, provided the government guaranteed them continued freedom like they had known in the early years here. The loud cry for independence had sprung up mostly from the later immigrants, those who had no memory of a benevolent Mexico that gave them little help but caused them little trouble. He decided, however, that to say such a thing would only start a needless argument. Fannin was known to have begun calling for independence almost immediately upon his arrival in Texas a couple of years ago. Like Travis, but not so vocal about it. Fannin had not spent time in a Mexican jail to pay for his intemperate language.