Introduction
Their name was Sax, and the land was called Texas. They fit each other, the Saxes and Texas, big men and strong women in a big and strong land. The year was 1833, a time of increasing turmoil in the Province of Texas, which still belonged to Mexico. Caleb Sax and his family were the owners of 49,000 acres of land northwest of San Felipe de Austin, the American settlement founded by Stephen Austin. It was an area of Texas growing rapidly with a heavy influx of new settlers, most of whom were from Southern states like Tennessee and Kentucky. The newcomers were seeking free land, offered by the Mexicans in return for a promise to settle and civilize Mexico’s northernmost territories. But to do that they had to face the Comanches and Apaches, who considered the land their own and used any ruthless means necessary to prove it. The American settlers had only to promise to abide by Mexican laws, accept the Catholic faith and give up voting rights. It all seemed a small price to pay for vast amounts of free land, and so they came.
Mexico welcomed them—at first. Its own government was new, and the country hoped that the industrious Americans would help their land prosper. But they underestimated the American thirst for expansion; the American determination to live and do as they damn well pleased; and to worship as they wished.
By 1833, Texas was a land made up of many different types of people, perhaps too many, with more arriving every day and many of them straining against ever-tightening Mexican rule. All-out war was not immediately considered, but the word was whispered. It was a worry to the common settler, already plagued by Indian raids, spring flooding, summer drought, grass fires, violent storms and marauding outlaws.
But the Saxes were accustomed to struggles and deprivation. And, for now, Caleb and Sarah Sax cared little for the outside world. They had found each other, after years of separation, and their love had not changed. Theirs was a passion as big and magnificent as the land in which they had chosen to settle.
Caleb had come to Texas first. He was the half-breed son of a Cheyenne woman who had been raped by a French trapper. His looks were all Indian but his eyes were a stunning blue, and his mixed blood left him a man torn between the white and Indian worlds. The first nine years of his life had been spent with the Cheyenne and Sioux, who called him Blue Hawk. But war among the Indians had left young Blue Hawk wounded and orphaned, and he had been adopted by a white man.
Ever since, he had lived in both worlds, once marrying a Cheyenne woman who was killed, then falling in love with his beautiful Sarah. That love had been violently stolen from him, and years later he had found solace in the arms of a gentle Cherokee woman, Marie, with whom he had settled in Texas. Marie died, but Caleb had lived to continue building his vast ranch, raising some of the finest horses in all of Texas and beyond, selling them at the Gulf to buyers from the States.
And then he found his Sarah again. He was united with his one great love, and finally had the home and family he had always wanted. More than that, he felt he had found a solid compromise for his two bloods—the wild land called Texas, which offered enough freedom to satisfy his Indian blood; yet was civilized enough to settle and build a future for the white woman who was his wife, and for whom he had chosen the white man’s way of living.
Texas was home, where he and Sarah could forget their tormented past and start over, in spite of the hardships of the land. Nothing and no one would ever again separate them. Even in death, they would be together, for such great love does not die with the human body. It goes on and on, living in the sons and daughters and grandchildren …