“I’ll be whatever you want me to be,” James said, a little put off by the man’s brusque manner. He was not used to being spoken to in this way. “I walked most of the way from the Rio Grande to the Colorado River. I reckon I can walk some more. Horse ain’t mine, anyway. I just taken the borrow of him.”

Shipman said stiffly, “Well, this horse is mine, and I ain’t about to give him up.”

Houston appeared disposed to give Shipman an argument. James put in quickly, “I have a brother here somewhere. I’d like to join up with whatever bunch he’s in.” That headed Houston off with nothing more than a scowl for Shipman. He called to a junior officer. “See if you can help this man find an outfit. That other insubordinate son of a bitch, too.” He turned back into his tent.

Shipman frowned. “If he treats his own men that way, he must be hell on his enemies.”

The younger officer made a thin smile. “It’s not personal. You’d be quarrelsome, too, if you were a bulldog and had a bunch of yapping little terriers nipping at your heels.” He beckoned the two into another tent. James told him he was looking for Andrew Lewis. Searching through a set of rosters, the officer said, “We were on the point of a mutiny from some who wanted to march right out and attack Santa Anna without any thought to the consequences. But the general has wanted to delay until the families had time to get to safety. And he’s wanted to pick his own battleground. I believe he knows what he’s doing.”

James worried. “He said eight hundred men. I heard Santa Anna has got several thousand.”

“He does, but not all in one place. Our spies tell us he has moved out ahead of his main force. He wants to cut us off before we can cross the Sabine to safety.”

James looked at Shipman, whose face reflected James’s own disappointment. “Is that what we’re fixin’ to do?”

“You’d have to ask the general, and he wouldn’t tell you. But I don’t think he has any intention of crossing the Sabine. There are some in camp who still call him a coward, but I prefer to believe he is baiting a trap.”

The officer found that Andrew had joined an infantry company and had relinquished his horse to an officer of cavalry. “I reckon I can do the same,” James volunteered.

Shipman said, “Be damned if I give up a good horse. Anything that can’t be done a-horseback ain’t worth doin’. Put me with a cavalry outfit.”

James found Andrew without much difficulty. The two embraced each other fiercely, for each had feared the other was lost to the enemy. Shipman stood quietly, holding his horse, until the two brothers had finished their greeting. Andrew finally took time to shake hands with him. “How’d you leave Annie?”

“It wasn’t easy, but I saw her onto the ferry with the rest of the family.”