“The key to handlin’ your little brother,” Patience Lewis had said, “is to make him think everything is his idea and not yours. Don’t try to boss him, or he’ll rebel.”

That part of her mother’s advice Annie had not been able to take very well. It was not in her nature to be devious. When something came into her head, she spoke it straight out. In short, she herself was a lot like James. She was Mordecai Lewis’s daughter.

Mrs. Willet said, “A pretty young woman like you, it’s hard for me to imagine that you didn’t have a lot of willin’ young bucks pressin’ for your hand back home. I doubt that you’re single for lack of opportunity.”

Annie forced a smile. “There was opportunity, all right, but nobody I could see livin’ a long life with. Most of them couldn’t talk about anything except corn and chickens and cows. They hadn’t been anywhere and didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to see somethin’ before I got myself hemmed inside of a field fence.”

“I expect you’ve seen a right smart on this trip.”

“I didn’t know the country was so big.”

“It is, and there’s a lot more of it yet to see. Get your brothers to take you to Bexar sometime. It’s like another part of the world.”

Much as Annie enjoyed the company of Mrs. Willet, her daughter-in-law, and the two babies, she itched to be back on the wagon and making the final few miles to the place that would be her home, where she would finally see Michael again after all these years. She tried to picture how her brother would look, for she had only memory to go by, and imagination. Andrew’s appearance had given her some idea. The heritage of Mordecai Lewis had always shown strongly in Michael and Andrew, as it showed now in James. She loved all her brothers, but Michael had always been special, for in a way he had been her father’s image. She had always clung tightly to Mordecai, and after his death she had clung to Michael. Texas had taken Michael from her. Now Texas would give him back.

ANDREW HAD told her the trail would lead by Michael’s place first, so she knew when the wagons topped a small hill that the double log cabin she saw down toward the river was the place where her brother had made a home. From the distance it looked much like the Tennessee farm where the family had lived during the final years of Mordecai’s life. Consciously or unconsciously, Michael had probably copied that pattern when he built the cabin, the barn and sheds, the livestock pens. Even the pole-fenced field lay in much the same relationship to the cabin as the old field had done back home, except that this one had more open country around it. The only deep woods were along the rivers. She saw a man working in the field, following an ox and a plow. A boy walked along behind him, dropping seeds into the freshly-turned rows. The boy stopped suddenly, seeing the wagons. He pointed, and the man halted the ox to look up the slope. Though the distance was considerable, Annie knew instinctively that this was Michael, the lost brother she had come so far to find again. She felt tears well up and spill down her cheeks, wet and warm. Blinking them away, she saw that Michael was taking the ox up to the shed while the boy ran toward the cabin.