Andrew asked, “How’s Marie and the young’uns?”

“They’re fine. Marie said she might come over this evenin’ and set a spell with Petra. Ain’t likely that me and Mordecai will be back before dark.”

“Petra’ll be tickled to have her,” Andrew said. Marie was French and Spanish, out of the old Louisiana town of Natchitoches. She usually fetched along samples of her cooking when she came visiting. It differed in some ways from Petra’s East Texas Mexican. And both women had learned a lot of American dishes. Between the two of them there was always something good to eat.

He said, “If you can take the time, I’ll walk up to the cabin with you and drink a little of Petra’s coffee.”

Michael shook his head, as Andrew had expected he would. When he was headed for the woods, Michael had little interest in anything else. “I expect we’ll be gettin’ on. Mornin’s half spent already.” He looked eastward. “You ain’t seen any sign of them, have you?”

Though he had done the same thing just a few minutes ago, Andrew said, “No use wastin’ your time lookin’. We can’t even know for sure that they’ve left Tennessee yet.”

“They’ve left,” Michael said confidently. “They’re kin of ours, so they’d've been itchin’ to leave as soon as the snow melted. They’re apt to come rollin’ in just about any day now.”

“Maybe. But they might run into trouble along the way.”

“Ain’t no trouble ever stopped a Lewis when his mind was set. And mine’s set on a little huntin’.” He turned to his son. “You ready, Mordecai?”

The boy nodded enthusiastically. He carried his late grandfather’s given name and already had much of his grandfather’s look. There was an old family story that when the first Mordecai Lewis had been six months old he had crawled out of his crib and taken hold of a rifle. It was certain that from the time he became big enough to carry one, a rifle was never far from his reach. Mordecai, the father of Andrew and Michael, had been the first Lewis to come west into Texas, back before 1816. It had been Spanish then, and Americans were unwelcome. Fatally unwelcome. Mordecai died in Texas, a Spanish officer’s bullet in his brain.

Much had happened in Texas in the fourteen years since; it was a different country now. Mexico had shaken off the Spanish imperial yoke, winning its independence on the battlefield, much as the United States had won its freedom from England. In an effort to settle Texas and put a buffer between itself and hostile Indian tribes, Mexico had welcomed Stephen F. Austin and other impresarios who brought American colonists into the thinly-populated land. She had granted them freedoms she did not allow even her own people down in the interior of Mexico. She had been generous with her lands to those who would live on them and make them fruitful.

It had been a mercurial, often-changing government, however. From the beginning, there had been those in the Mexican hierarchy who counseled for caution. There had been those who declared Americans to be an acquisitive and grasping people, unworthy of trust. They said that when Americans became too numerous, they were likely to want more and more land, until at last they took it all. Stephen Austin had often felt compelled to travel the long, hard road to Mexico City to plead the colonists’ case, to pledge their loyalty, and to vouch for their gratitude.