Zaragosa’s eyes narrowed. “I had not heard of this.”

“You will hear much more, I think, when it becomes generally known. I wonder how your friends the Lewises will like having convict soldiers sent to watch over them?”

Zaragosa frowned darkly. “They will not like it. But as I told you, they are loyal to Mexico.”

“For how long, my lieutenant? For how long?”

VI

TEXAS GOT to looking a lot better to James as he and Andrew and Zaragosa rode southwestward, the wagons and the loose stock trailing behind them through the dark pine woods, through the clearings where small farmers struggled to gain even a meager subsistence. Andrew insisted on their spending the first night out of Nacogdoches at a small carcho owned by a Mexican family named Moreno. Remembering Sergeant Díaz, James had reservations about associating with anyone who looked Mexican, including even Zaragosa. He was taken by surprise when a short, heavyset matriarch threw her arms around Andrew. Andrew explained that this dark-faced woman who talked in happy torrents was his mother-in-law. James did not understand a word, for she spoke no English. He stood by uncomfortably, not knowing whether to nod yes or shake his head until Andrew translated for him. On this farm, Andrew recounted, he had learned to know Petra and her family at the time of the abortive Fredonian rebellion.

Here, too, some ten years earlier, sixteen-year-old Michael Lewis had fought for his life against a wound given him by a Spanish soldier in the slaughter that had felled the first Mordecai Lewis. Only the care and attention of the widow Moreno and old Eli Pleasant had pulled him through. And the vigilance of the two larger Moreno boys, at considerable risk to themselves, had prevented him from being retaken by searching Spanish troops.

“I came here in pretty bad shape myself,” Andrew said. “Some of those Fredonians like to’ve beaten me to death in Nacogdoches. Old Eli came along and taught them the Scriptures. Mother Moreno and Petra took care of me till I got on my feet, the same way they took care of Michael.”

James dimly recalled hearing a little something about the Fredonian rebellion. “From what we heard in Tennessee, it didn’t seem like much,” he remarked. “Just a handful of people who declared an independent republic or some such of a thing.”

Andrew’s brow furrowed. “They took it serious down in Mexico. You can blame that new immigration law on the Fredonians. Just goes to show what trouble a few hotheads can cause.”

James suspected that Andrew was trying to make some kind of point. He had probably been talking to Annie.

Andrew introduced the newcomers to brothers-in-law Carlos, Ramón, and Felipe, and to a pretty young sister-in-law named Juanita, who appeared to be within a year or so of James’s age. The younger Morenos seemed pleasant, but they spoke little more English than their mother. Annie and Juanita traded a lot of sign language and confusion and laughter. Frank eagerly pressed Andrew to translate for him while he questioned the Moreno men about their farming and stock-raising methods. Frank tried telling them some stories out of Tennessee, too. James suspected a lot was lost in the translation, for they often laughed in the wrong places.