Chapter
Six

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Caleb stretched out in bed, watching Sarah brush out her long, red-gold hair. There were times when she seemed eighteen again—still slender, her skin soft. Sarah had lost much of the weight she had gained from the baby, and it pained Caleb’s heart to realize that part of the reason was the work and worry of living in this land he called home. But Sarah never complained. They were together again. That was all that mattered. Caleb felt joy at the memory of the little girl at Fort Dearborn who, the first time he met her, had taken his hand and led him to the house, eager to teach her way of life to the Indian boy her uncle had brought home. She had not really lost that sweetness. Byron Clawson had tried to destroy it, but it had survived.

“Do you think there will be trouble with those Mexican soldiers?” she asked.

“Most likely. But not just for us—for everybody. When I rode off with Tom earlier we ran into Wil Handel. He told us there is going to be a meeting in San Felipe in a couple of days with that Sam Houston fellow. I intend to go.”

Sarah sighed and put down the brush, removing her housecoat as she approached the bed. Caleb turned on his side to watch her climb in. He reached out with a sore left arm and urged her to move closer. She reddened almost like the young girl she had been when he first took her. Neither of them had been able to think about sex in weeks; she had been big with child, then Caleb had left to rescue John, and then their awful grief had come between them.

“I like you this way,” he told her, “all soft and warm in a flannel gown, your hair long and loose.” He bent down to kiss her, lightly massaging a full breast with his big hand. His lips hungrily met her mouth. Sweet, beautiful Sarah, his best friend in youth, his lover, now, finally, his wife. His lips left her mouth and traveled over her eyes, her cheek. “She’ll be all right, won’t she? Tell me she’ll be all right.”

She knew he meant Lynda. “Of course she will,” Sarah answered softly. “She’s a Sax. We’ll all help her through this and when she has the baby it will help. And some day there will be another man for her. She’s so young and beautiful. It’s just so sad that she had Lee for such a short time. Things like that are so much harder to accept when you’re young.”

“We both know that,” he answered. “Yet if I lost you now, being older wouldn’t help much. It hurts at any age.” He studied the green eyes. “I just hope I never have to go through losing you again.”

She kissed his chest. “You won’t lose me.”

He nuzzled her hair. “Who can promise anything anymore? This damned Mexican situation—”

She put her fingers to his lips. “Let’s not talk about it.” She decided to change the subject before all his troubles and grief spoiled the night. “Caleb, I never told you—while you were gone I went to San Felipe with Mildred Handel, and guess who I saw. No, don’t guess. You’d never guess in a hundred years. Emily Stoner!”

His eyebrows arched and he raised up, leaning on his right arm. “Emily? In San Felipe?”

“Yes.” Sarah grinned. “And would you believe she has a husband?”

He smiled, but he didn’t laugh. He rested his head on his hand. “I’ll be damned. I would love to meet the man. He must be a saint.”

“Oh, Caleb, don’t tease. It isn’t funny, not when you see the look on Emily’s face. She told me he knows nothing about her past. When she first introduced us, she talked about her ‘first’ husband, how he helped her take care of you.

“She has told Howard, that’s her husband, that she’s a widow. And she talks so fast around him, I think she keeps him confused enough not to question her. Her husband is a blacksmith and is from Texas. He was in New Orleans to recruit people to settle here when she met him. I really think Emily came here hoping she could start a new life and leave her past behind.”

He lay down and pulled her into his arms. “Emily Stoner—married,” Caleb said reflectively. “At the time she was nursing me back to health, I could tell she was wishing she could live a different life. But she didn’t have much faith in herself. I tried to tell her what happened in her childhood—her tyrant of a father—and being captured by the Indians—didn’t have to stop her from being happy. What is her husband like?” he added tentatively.

“He’s a big, rather clumsy-looking man in his forties, and I think he all but worships Emily—calls her ‘Emmy.’ You should see his eyes when he looks at her. His name is Howard Cox.”

Caleb grinned. “Imagine that—Emily Stoner settled, and living right here in San Felipe.”

“They might come and visit. If they do, you mustn’t give anything away. You have to act like it was she and her husband who helped you, not just Emily.” She sighed deeply. “We owe her, in spite of what she was, Caleb. She saved you from death, and later she came to see me in St. Louis to tell me you were alive. It helped me so much to know that, even though neither of us knew where to look for you. I at least had some hope. She didn’t want to be seen coming into my house that night, but I didn’t care who saw. And I’ll never forget how lonely she looked. I dearly hope she can be happy here.”

Caleb frowned. “How did she explain to him about knowing us?”

“She just told him we had all known each other at Fort Dearborn.”

Caleb’s heart tightened. He had never told Sarah the reason he had first fled Fort Dearborn in his teens and ended up living among the Cheyenne. Sarah had already been sent to St. Louis to be with her father when it happened. They had all been hardly more than children then. The promiscuous Emily Stoner seduced the then-virgin Caleb Sax into a torrid series of sexual pleasures, until her violent preacher father found them together, at which time a frightened Emily Stoner screamed rape and nearly got poor Caleb hung. He had to flee for his life, and not long after that Fort Dearborn had to be abandoned. In their flight south, Tom Sax and Emily’s father were killed by the Potawatomies, and Emily was taken as their captive.

When Caleb ended up in New Orleans years later, during the War of 1812, he discovered Emily living there, working in a brothel. He hated her then, but later when she helped him after being wounded, they came to an understanding, and Caleb learned the horrors of what her life had been like with her crazed preacher father. His animosity left him, and they parted good friends. That had been at least eighteen years ago. And their teenage sexual fling had been even earlier than that. What was the sense of saying anything to Sarah now?

“I’ll look her and her husband up when I go to San Felipe,” he said aloud.

“You be careful in San Felipe. We’re caught between, you know. You’re an American settler, with the same complaints as the rest. You’re one of them, and yet you’re not. I have heard settlers grumbling about the Indians coming into Texas from the southern states. It would be easy for the talk to turn against all Indians.”

Caleb began to unbutton her gown. “I don’t want to even think about it tonight.”

She reached up and touched his face. “My strong, wonderful Caleb. The past few weeks, I hated watching you suffer so. It’s been so hard. I was wondering if you would ever be my Caleb again.”

Pain stabbed at him again at the memory of Lee, but he forced it out of his mind. He had to remember the living and their needs. This was his Sarah—so special, so damned special. Caleb pulled her gown off her shoulder, exposing a breast. He bent closer and lightly sucked at the firm nipple, catching a taste of his own son’s nourishment. Desire ripped through him as she let out a small whimper. A man could take nourishment from a woman’s breast, too—a different kind of nourishment, a kind of security in knowing he was loved and desired.

His touch brought out her own long-buried desires. “Oh, Caleb, it’s been so long,” she whispered.

He nuzzled his face between her breasts then, eager from so many weeks without his woman. He kissed her slowly as he moved down, taking the gown with him, refreshing his memory on her every curve and shadow, her every secret place. He pulled the gown off her ankles and threw it aside, lost in her, hardly aware of her remarks about hoping she still looked good to him. How could she not look good to him? She was Sarah, and these were her lovely ankles he was kissing, her slender legs, her smooth, firm thighs. This was her secret place, owned by Caleb Sax, the first man to invade her, the only man she’d ever loved.

Sarah was glad Lynda had chosen to sleep in her own cabin that night. She would not want the girl to overhear their sounds of lovemaking. Tom had long ago decided to sleep in the bunkhouse so his father and Sarah could have more privacy. John slept in the loft, and he always slept soundly. James slept in a cradle nearby. The house was quiet. Sarah could not control the whimpers and cries of ecstasy as her husband touched her in all the right ways, exploring, bringing out her every passion, reawakening desires that had not been stirred for a long time. Her pleasure came not just from his touch, but from the knowledge that emotionally he was healing and was her Caleb again.

Caleb moved quickly, and she understood. It had been a long time. She was as anxious as he. His lips moved back over her belly, her breasts, to her throat. He supported himself mostly with his right arm as his powerful legs forced hers apart and that most manly part of Caleb Sax found its way into the nest of love that waited for him.

He pushed deep and hard, groaning her name, needing this as a last step in overcoming his grief, needing to be human again, to know there was still life and love in a world of prejudice and violence. He moved rhythmically but almost frantically, grasping her hair, his body damp against her naked skin. Her own passion rose to greet him with a pulsating climax that sent fire ripping through his loins. He held out as long as possible, to satisfy her own intense needs. Then his life spilled into her, and he relaxed beside her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her hair.

“I love you, Sarah,” he whispered. She felt his trembling, and when she reached up to touch his face, she realized his cheeks were wet with tears.

“It’s all right now, Caleb,” she said softly, curling up against him and kissing his chest. “It’s over. Lynda will heal. We all will heal.”

Steam poured from the water into which Howard Cox was dunking a red-hot horseshoe. He looked up for a moment, just in time to see a couple entering his small work shed. He grinned when he recognized Sarah.

“Mrs. Sax!” He removed the shoe from the water with hammer tongs and hung it over an iron bar. He then wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve and dried his hands on a heavy apron. “Nice to see you again.”

Caleb studied the big man, whose smile and eyes suggested a very decent, good-hearted person.

“We asked where we could find the new blacksmith,” Sarah told him, walking up to him and putting out her hand. “We knew if we could find you, we could find Emily.”

“Oh, ma’am, I can’t take your hand. I’m too dirty.” Cox looked somewhat embarrassed, as Lynda and Tom also came inside, standing near Caleb. He ran a hand through his dark, curly hair.

“Well, not too dirty for another man,” Caleb put in then, putting out his own hand. “I’m Caleb Sax!”

“Well, well!” Cox shook his hand heartily. “I’ve heard so much about you. Emmy has told me all about you folks. Why, you’ve got to go and see Emmy. She’d be real proud to see you walking so tall and strong, Mister Sax.”

Emmy. Caleb was astounded to see immediately that this man seemed to have no inkling of his wife’s past.

“Yes. They were very good to me,” he replied, letting go of Howard’s hand.

“Well, I’m real glad you two found each other.”

“And we’re glad to see Emily is over the grief of losing her first husband and has found herself a good man,” Caleb answered.

Cox just laughed. “Well, I was never one to settle … roamed the mountains mostly—trapped, hunted, laid trails. But I always knew smithy work—just never stuck to it. Now that I have a wife to support, and couldn’t quite make it at farming, I came to town to do what I do best.”

Caleb grinned. “I’m sure you’re good at it. I’m here to go to the meeting. I want to get a look at Sam Houston. What do you think of him?”

Cox shrugged. “Seems like a good man.”

“Well, I’d like to see Emily and then go to the meeting. He turned to the others. “This is our daughter, Lynda; and my son Tom by my first wife. I guess you’ve already seen the baby.”

Cox nodded to Lynda and Tom and turned to Caleb. “Right handsome family you’ve got, Mister Sax. And a new baby to boot. You must be a very proud and happy man.”

Caleb nodded. “I am. I have another son at home—John.”

Cox wiped his hands again. “Well, then, you did get him back from the Comanche. Emmy said you would—said no Comanche could take on Caleb Sax and win. Is the boy all right?”

“He’s fine. But my son-in-law—Lynda’s husband—he was killed.”

Cox sobered, turning to Lynda with genuine sorrow in his eyes. “Oh, I’m real sorry about that, ma’am. Real sorry.”

Lynda gave him a faint smile. “Thank you.”

“Well, you’ve got a fine family to support you and help you—strong parents, an older brother who I’ll bet would defend you to the death. Isn’t that right, Tom?”

The man looked at Tom and the young man grinned. “Yes, sir. We will take care of her.”

“Of course you will.” Cox looked back at Caleb. “Emmy and me live in a little cabin up at the left end of the street.” He walked out of the small shed. “Right up there. She’s got roses all around the front step. You’ll see it. Lord knows there’s not much in flowers around here, or women, for that matter.”

“Thank you, Mister Cox.” Caleb shook his hand again. “I really am glad to meet you.”

“Call me Howard. And any friend of Emmy’s is a friend of mine.”

The man’s almost innocent ignorance was close to amusing, if it were not for the wonder of what he would say or how he would feel if he knew the truth about his Emmy’s past. Caleb was truly glad for Emily. The problem was how sad it would be for her if her husband discovered she was once a prostitute.

“And to you I am Caleb. Bring Emily out to our place some time. Sarah and Lynda don’t get much chance to visit.”

“We’ll do that. I’ve been kept so busy here, what with so many newcomers, we just haven’t had the time to leave town at all. Things are getting pretty busy in San Felipe.”

“I can see that. When I first settled here it was peaceful, and there weren’t many of us. Now with this offer of more free land, people are flooding in.”

“Well, you know how it is. The frontier just keeps pushing west. They’ll surge right through to California some day, mark my words.”

“I don’t doubt that. I’ll let you get back to your work, Howard. Don’t forget our invitation.”

“No, sir, I won’t. Have a good visit now.” The man nodded and went back inside, and Caleb led Sarah to where they had tied wagon and team, taking the baby from her while she climbed up, then handing James up to her.

“I’ll take Lynda to the supply store,” Tom told Caleb. “It’s been a long time since she’s been to town, and your first visit with this Emily should be alone.”

Their eyes met. Tom knew all about Emily Stoner, as did Lynda. But none of them knew about the teenage affair that had exiled a young Caleb Sax from Fort Dearborn. Caleb looked at Lynda.

“Go ahead, Father. I’ll be with Tom. We’ll stay at the supply store and wait for you.”

Caleb looked back at Tom. “Make sure you do just that. These newcomers are troublemakers, and Lynda has been through enough lately. I don’t want her to have any problems. God knows she’s pretty enough to cause a stir and a lot of men around here haven’t seen much in the way of women in a long time. And some of them think an Indian woman is anybody’s property.”

Tom slipped an arm around his sister’s waist. “I can take care of her. We’ll see you in a few minutes.” He whisked Lynda away, determined to keep her busy enough to help her forget her grief. She had argued against coming along at all, but Tom would hear none of it.

Caleb watched them walk off, and again the deep pain of ending Lee’s life quickly moved through his chest, stirring lingering sorrow and guilt. He looked up at Sarah.

“Let’s go find Emily,” she told him. “We’ve all got to get back to the living, Caleb.”

He sighed and climbed up in the seat beside her, nudging the horses forward with a slap of the reins. They headed up the street to look for a cabin with roses around the steps.

* * *

“Caleb!” Emily’s eyes widened as she stood in the doorway, looking at him as though he’d been resurrected from the dead. “My God! Look at you! So healthy and …” Her eyes teared. “Caleb Sax.” She reached out to him and he embraced her.

“Hello, Emily.” No matter what Emily Stoner had been, if not for her Caleb would probably be dead, or at least perhaps still lying paralyzed.

She pulled back, and Caleb studied the thin, scarred face. Even at Emily’s age and all she had been through, there was still that hint of her considerable beauty that had been destroyed by an Indian captor, and the hard life of a prostitute. She was still too thin. She had always been too thin, making her seem even taller than she really was, although that was taller than most women. She wore a plain blue dress, and to Caleb, Emily looked prettier without all the paint on her face she used to wear, even though she was actually a couple of years older than he.

“When I saw Sarah a few weeks ago, it was so wonderful to know that you two had found each other again, and you had a new baby! I told her I would pray for your safety. Thank God you’re all right. What about your son?”

“He’s fine. But my son-in-law was killed—Lynda’s husband.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ve not met her yet.”

“She and my son Tom walked to the supply store. They thought maybe this time Sarah and I should come alone. Howard told us how to find you.”

Her face colored slightly. “Howard? You’ve met him?”

He smiled. “He’s a fine man. I’m glad for you, Emily. We both are.”

She stepped back. “Come in.” She reached out for Sarah. “Both of you—or I should say, all three of you!” She took the baby from Sarah. “Oh, how I wish I could have one of these. But the life I led …” She sighed. “How I wish I would have found someone like Howard before then.”

“I told you once you should have tried to get away from that damned life, Emily,” Caleb told her.

She looked up from toying with the baby’s cheek. “I was so sure it was much too late.” She reddened slightly, turning away, thinking that there was a time when she’d wanted Caleb for herself. “Well, if we are to be friends here in Texas, we might as well get things in the open, hadn’t we,” she spoke up. She faced Sarah. “Surely you can imagine … nursing Caleb back to health and all … watching him struggle … feeling all his sorrows … I couldn’t help but have deep feelings for him.” She handed the baby back to Sarah. “But the man was so full of Sarah Sax, there wasn’t much hope, let alone the fact of what I was. Lord knows I was never the kind of woman for Caleb Sax.”

Sarah struggled a moment with a twinge of jealousy. That was the kind of woman Emily was—open, bold. All of it was so many years ago, and they owed this woman so much. The room hung silent for a tense moment, until Sarah gave her a kind smile. “He’s easy to love. And thank God you did love him—enough to work with him and encourage him to walk again.”

Emily looked away. “Well, at least I finally did what he told me to do. I got out of New Orleans and I found myself a man—a hell of a man, I might add.” She turned to face them both then, smiling. “Oh, but let’s not talk about that. It seems so incredible that we’re all here together. Texas certainly attracts all sorts of people, doesn’t it? I never dreamed when I was a young girl growing up at Fort Dearborn that I’d end up in a wild land like this. But I’d live anywhere as long as it means being with Howard. The only thing I couldn’t take was the danger of Comanche. I had to live closer to town.”

She put a hand self-consciously to the pink, puckered scar on her cheek, the brand her Potawatomie captor had given her to show she belonged to him. “I told Howard that if the Comanche ever got hold of me he’d better shoot me. I’ll not go through that kind of hell again.” Her eyes teared again, her conversation nervously fluctuating. “Would you believe it doesn’t matter to Howard? I told him about how I got the scar. I just never told him the other—about what I became after that.”

She turned away, again going to a coffee pot that sat on a grate over hot coals in a fireplace. “Sit down. I have coffee. If I had known you were coming, I would have baked something fresh. I do have some cake from yesterday.”

James began to fuss. “Coffee sounds good,” Caleb answered, inwardly astounded at the change in the woman from when he’d known her. “And it sounds like James could use a meal himself.”

His eyes moved over her as she poured coffee into china cups she took down from a cupboard. “It’s good to see you, Emily, to know you’ve found a husband and you’re happy. There were so many times I was tempted to come back to New Orleans and check on you—let you know I was all right in return. But I married a Cherokee woman and settled here, and God knows trying to make a go of it here takes every hour of every day. A man has little time to get away.”

Emily moved to the table with a tray of cups. She set it down and pulled out a chair for Sarah, then moved around the table to take another chair herself.

“At least we’re all alive—and together in Texas,” Emily said then, reaching out to touch Caleb’s hand. She smiled encouragingly, looking from him to Sarah. “Why, it almost gives me the chills to think of it—the three of us just children at Fort Dearborn—then going in so many different directions, so many miles apart, suffering our own forms of hell, and ending up together again here in Texas. Fate certainly deals strange hands, doesn’t it?”

She looked back at Caleb, and he knew by her eyes she would never say anything about their teenage sexual play at Fort Dearborn. “It certainly does,” he answered. He gave her a smile then. “We really are happy for you, Emily. Come and see us at the ranch when you can.”

She nodded. “Sure.” She could not help but feel the old twinge, the desire he stirred in her. He had been a young, and, in many ways, totally innocent Indian boy when she first seduced him; a ravaged, heartbroken man when next she saw him; then a badly wounded, nearly dead man the third time. Now he was close to forty but seemed as fine and strong and handsome as that young man at Fort Dearborn, only more handsome and more desirable in spite of added scars and lines of age in the dark skin around his blue eyes. But he belonged to Sarah Sax. He had always belonged to Sarah Sax, even during the years the two had been separated.

Sarah watched the woman’s eyes. Yes, the love was still there. Caleb saw it, too, and watched the two women. “Caleb, why don’t you get the sack of vegetables we brought?” Sarah asked her husband.

Caleb quickly scooted back his chair. “That’s right. I almost forgot.” He let go of Emily’s hand. “Sarah keeps a garden,” he told Emily. “I don’t know how she does it in this soil, but she grows the prettiest vegetables. We brought some for you. God knows fresh vegetables are not easy to come by.”

He walked out and Emily turned to Sarah. “Oh, Sarah, that wasn’t necessary. With such a big family, you must need everything you grow.”

“We can spare some for a friend.” Their eyes held, and Emily, who in her profession had long ago learned to read a look, spoke up.

“No,” she said quietly. “In spite of what I was at the time I helped Caleb, Sarah, we never slept together.”

Sarah reddened. “I never asked—”

“Yes you did. With your eyes. It’s all right. What woman wouldn’t wonder, considering the circumstances? Caleb was just too full of you. He had no interest in anyone else.” She smiled as James began to fuss more. “Feed that poor baby. He looks so underfed.” They both laughed, for James Sax was a very healthy-looking baby with fat hands and knees and a double chin.

Sarah relaxed and opened her dress, covering herself with a blanket as James found his nourishment. But she looked nervously toward the door when she heard wild hollering farther up the street. It seemed that her whole life had been constantly threatened by wars and violence. Sarah looked back at Emily. They were two very different people, yet their lives held many parallels, and now here they both were in Texas.

“Thanks for not letting on to my Howard,” Emily was saying, as she moved to take a cake from another table.

“Oh, we would never do that, Emily. But we both think you should tell him.”

Emily brought the cake over to the table. “I will—some day,” she said quietly. “I just have to get up the courage.” She breathed deeply, meeting Sarah’s eyes. “You’re such a lucky woman, Sarah Sax. Why, I feel honored to have you in my house.”

Their eyes held. “I don’t think we’re so different, Emily, you know. Not deep inside.”

Emily nodded. “Maybe not.”

Caleb walked in then and Emily looked away, picking up a knife to cut the cake. “I’d better eat quickly and get on into town,” he told them, plunking a gunny sack full of raw vegetables onto the table. “Sounds like things might be getting out of hand. I’m a little worried about Lynda and Tom.” He looked at Sarah. “Why don’t you stay here and visit with Emily until I get back. There’s no sense you going to that meeting with the baby and all. He’ll probably want to nap when he’s through eating. I’ll go find Lynda and Tom and go to the meeting, then come back for you. I have a feeling it will be no place for you anyway. I probably shouldn’t have let Tom take Lynda to the supply store.” He sat down to quickly guzzle some coffee.

“All right,” Sarah told him. She jumped a little when another shot was fired. “Just be careful.”

He swallowed and set down the cup, which looked too delicate for his big, dark hand. “I learned to be careful when I was a very small boy,” he answered with a wink.

“Oh, Sarah—Caleb—these vegetables are wonderful,” Emily put in, rummaging through the sack. “How kind of you.”

“You deserve a hell of a lot more than a sack of vegetables,” Caleb told her. “How does a man set a price on being able to walk?”

She looked at him lovingly. “Just being able to call both of you friends—that’s all I need,” the woman answered.

“Well that’s something you’ll always be able to call us,” Caleb answered.

Horses thundered by then, their riders laughing. Caleb glanced at Sarah.

“I’d better get into town,” he spoke up. He moved out of his chair and bent down to kiss Sarah’s cheek. “You stay here and visit—and stay inside.”

“Caleb, you didn’t even have any cake,” Emily told him.

“Maybe later.” He reached across the table, grasping her hand. “It’s damned good to see you again, Emily, and doing so well. We’ll talk more when I get back.” He hurried out then and Emily looked at Sarah.

“He’s restless, isn’t he?”

“Always.” Sarah patted James’s bottom. “He loves his family so much—has so much to protect. It’s getting harder all the time and it worries all of us.”

Emily folded her arms. “Caleb’s a damned good man. I look forward to meeting your daughter and his son Tom when they come back.”

Sarah cradled James in one arm, reaching out with the other hand to sip some of her coffee. “Lynda is pregnant. At least she’ll have Lee’s child to comfort her. We’re all praying she’ll carry to full term and have a healthy baby. She had a miscarriage about three years ago by a gambler she’d been living with.” She met Emily’s eyes. “She had a pretty hard life before she found me, after Byron put her in that orphanage. Poor Lynda learned about life the hard way, at a very young age. She’s been through so much.”

“Well, thank God she did find you. And it’s good that she’s pregnant. It’s too bad about her husband.” She glanced at the doorway. “Caleb still harbor thoughts of killing Byron Clawson?”

Sarah felt her blood chill. “Yes. He doesn’t talk much about it, but I know it’s as fresh in his mind as it was twenty years ago.”

Emily nodded. “That’s the way it is with men like Caleb. I had a feeling time hadn’t eased his hatred of the man. Hate can be a very powerful force, maybe even more powerful than love.” The woman sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “Trouble is, that could apply to my Howard, too. If he ever found out about me, maybe hatred would win out over his love for me. I live with the fear of it every day.” She put on a false smile. “Come on. Have a piece of cake,” she said then, feigning a casual attitude and hoping to keep Sarah’s thoughts off the noise and hollering outside. San Felipe—Texas itself—was changing, perhaps growing too fast. Sarah felt something intangible slipping away, but she could not name it.