The man reached the cabin before them. He sat on the horse, staring at Annie. Much of his face was covered by a dark beard, but his eyes looked friendly. And they looked familiar, though Annie could think of no reason she should know him. He said, “I don’t believe I know you, ma’am, but by the look of you, I’d bet this horse and saddle that you’re a Lewis.”

“I’m Annie Lewis,” she said, wondering. “Michael and Andrew are my brothers.”

The man’s brown eyes widened. “Come all the way from Tennessee? That explains the wagons, then. They’s a bunch of you, I’d surmise, judgin’ by the load them wagons is a-carryin’.”

“My brother James, my cousin Frank, and his family.” She wondered, once she had said it, if she ought to be telling so much, not knowing who he was or on what business he had come. She was troubled by the familiar look about him and her inability to place a name to him. She was troubled, too, by the way he stared at her, as if he were looking through her eyes and into every thought that lay behind them.

He said, “I’m Isaac Blackwood.”

Blackwood. She had all but forgotten that three of the Blackwood brothers had moved to Texas and had settled near Michael and Andrew, to her own brothers’ great disgust. They had left plenty of troublemaking kin behind in Tennessee, however, and she had known them well enough—too well. When a Blackwood came around, you counted your fingers lest you come up short. She wondered now why she had not recognized him as Blackwood; the look was there, plain enough to see now that she knew who he was.

He said, “You’re a mighty handsome lady, Miss Annie Lewis.”

The Lewis men back home would not long tolerate forward behavior by a Blackwood toward their womenfolk. But this was Texas, and perhaps things were different. Moreover, Annie doubted that Isaac meant to take liberty. He was just speaking what had come into his mind, and she accepted it as a compliment. Andrew and Michael were near enough to have heard, but they did not challenge the man directly. Michael only stared at him, no welcome in his eyes. Andrew nodded civilly and said, “Isaac.”

Isaac nodded back. “Andrew.” He silently studied the other two Lewis men, James and Frank. He knew both from back in Tennessee, though James had been but a boy when Isaac and his brothers had left there. “Welcome to Texas,” he said.

Frank came nearest to smiling, “Howdy, Isaac.” James said nothing.

Isaac brought his attention back to Andrew. “You missin’ a milk cow?”

Andrew blinked in surprise. “So my wife just told me.”

“I brought her back. Left her at your place just a while ago.”

Andrew looked suspicious. “Where was she, Isaac?”

“Over on our side of the river.”

Michael’s suspicion was more palpable even than Andrew’s. “Reckon how she come to be on your side of the river?”