“Friend, you taken them into danger as soon as you left home.” He turned to Annie. “Ma’am, reckon it would strain hospitality too much if I was to ask for another little piece of that venison?”

Supper finished, they sat around the campfire. Frank asked Shipman a lot of questions about Texas. James listened closely. They were questions he would have wanted to ask if he felt more kindly toward the young smuggler.

Annie climbed down from the wagon with a pencil and some papers in her hands. She sat a little way back from the fire and started sketching. James wondered what she found here that was worth drawing pictures of. Annie had always been something of an artist. Before she left home she had sketched a couple of pictures of their mother to give to Michael and Andrew. She had sketched others of the family, and the old family cabin. Along the trail from Tennessee she had sketched scenes they encountered and wrote notes about the things they saw. At least, when she was sketching she wasn’t giving him the jaw about something or other.

Shipman was eventually nagged by curiosity enough that he pushed to his feet and went over to see what Annie was drawing. He declared in surprise, “Why, that’s me.”

She nodded. “As near as I can draw you.”

“I didn’t think I was all that handsome.”

Annie seemed to blush. “I draw things the way I see them.”

James said, “It’s gettin’ dark. You probably can’t see very good.”

JAMES SLEPT little that night. He was always conscious of the Mexican soldiers camped beside them. He did not know what manner of men they might be, how far they could be trusted. He insisted that Annie sleep in the wagon, though it was cramped and uncomfortable because of the farming equipment and few pieces of cookware and furniture they had hauled all the way from Tennessee. He rolled his blankets on the ground close beside the wagon, where he could hear if anyone tried to sneak into it. Nothing happened. He heard the Mexican soldiers talking quietly at each change of the guard. He noticed that the guards faced into the camp rather than outward from it. They were more concerned about keeping their prisoners than about any threat that might come upon them from outside. They need not have worried, James thought. He saw no way to escape.

If he had been by himself, it might be different. He almost wished he had come alone like Michael and Andrew, carrying nothing that he could not pack on a horse. These soldiers would have played hell catching him, or holding him if they had caught him. Unencumbered, he could have given them a run for their money. Once into the woods he would have been gone like a red fox.

They were up at daylight and fixed a hasty breakfast. Sergeant Díaz impatiently prodded them to be done with it so they could set out upon the trail. He spoke harshly to James and to Sly Shipman, but he was civil to Frank and chivalrous to the two women. He seemed particularly solicitous about Hope’s welfare.