Travis was taken aback. “You believe in Mexican rule over Americans, do you, sir?”

“I don’t believe in anybody rulin’ over anybody. But that’s the way the world is set up, at least in Texas and the rest of Mexico. Back where you come from, you could say what you wanted to so long as you could whip anybody who took offense and wanted to test your mettle. The law didn’t mix in it. But once you cross that river you’re in another country. They got a whole different way of lookin’ at things. Say the wrong word and they’ll figure you’re tryin’ to poke up another revolution. They’re sensitive about revolutions; they’ve had so many. Some army officer is liable to hang your ears up over his mantle.”

Travis gave Shipman’s advice a courteous hearing but did not take it to heart. “I have crossed many rivers, sir, and I have found that however I felt on one side, I still felt on the other. I do not believe the Sabine River will effect any change in my principles.”

“Maybe it won’t, but I hope it’ll make you careful who you’re with when you speak your mind.”

The next morning James and Shipman watched the wagon train move on westward. Their own destination was Natchitoches, to the east, where they were to pick up goods from merchant Baptiste Villaret for another trading trip over into Texas. The trade was still clandestine, but many of the Mexican soldiers seemed to have wearied of trying to stop it, for it was like trying to halt the flow of the river with their hands. The two tradesmen could take their pack trains within shouting distance of Nacogdoches and run little risk of challenge. They had a little more difficulty down on the Gulf coast because a stricter officer controlled that part of Texas. The way James heard it, Mexico was beset by rebellions, one following another, to a point that the soldiers were never sure who their president was. Communications were slow and uncertain. To a degree, therefore, each commandant at an army garrison was a law unto himself. Some exerted this power like lions. Others turned their backs to trouble and pretended it did not exist.

Watching the departing wagon train, Shipman grumbled, “One thing Texas don’t need any more of is lawyers. It needs farmers and carpenters. It needs more teachers and merchants, but it’s already got a plentiful sufficiency of lawyers to muddy up the waters for honest workin’ folks like us.”

He and James were regarded by some as smugglers, but they looked upon themselves simply as merchants, ministering needs that would not be met were they not there to meet them. James had never known much about lawyers. He had been brought up too far out in the country to see them at work. He said, “I guess they’re not a bad thing to have sometimes. They’re good at settlin’ disagreements.”

“Who do you think stirs up most of the disagreements in the first place?” Shipman demanded. “Come on, we got work to do.”