At the time, Peter was serving as secretary of territorial affairs, a position he had taken on midway through her second term. It was one of the most visible jobs in the cabinet, and Vicky made no secret of the fact that she was grooming him for something more. Still, he had assumed that Chase would be the one to step in; the man had been with her for years. When Vicky called Peter to her office, he wholly expected a meeting to discuss the transition to Chase’s administration; what he found was a judge with a Bible. Two minutes later, he was president of the Texas Republic.

This was, he came to understand, what the woman had intended from the start: to create her successor from the ground up. Peter had stood for election two years later, won easily, and ran unopposed for his second term. Some of this was his personal popularity as a chief executive; as Vicky had predicted, his stock was very high. But it was also true that he had assumed the office at a time when it was easy to make people happy.

Kerrville itself was on its way to becoming irrelevant. How long before it was just one more provincial town? The farther out people settled, the less the idea of centralized authority held sway. The legislature had relocated to Boerne and almost never met. Financial capital had followed human capital to the townships; people were opening businesses, trading commodities at market-established prices, negotiating life on their own terms. In Fredericksburg, a group of private investors had pooled their money to open a bank, the first of its kind. There were still problems, and only the federal administration possessed the resources for major infrastructure projects: roads, dams, telegraph lines. But even this wouldn’t last indefinitely. When Peter was being honest with himself, he understood that he was not so much running the place as guiding it into port. Let Chase have his chance, he thought. Two decades in public life, with its endless closed-door bickering, was plenty for any man. Peter had never farmed; he’d never so much as planted a tomato. But he could learn, and best of all, a plow had no opinions.

Vicky had retired to a small, wood-frame house on the east side of town. A lot of the neighborhood was empty, folks having cleared out long ago. It was getting dark when he stepped onto the porch. A single light was burning in the front parlor. He heard footsteps; then the door opened to reveal Meredith, Vicky’s partner, wiping her hands on a cloth.

“Peter.” About sixty, she was a petite woman with sharp blue eyes. She and Vicky had been together for years. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I’m sorry, I should have sent word.”

“No, come in, of course.” She stepped back. “She’s awake—I was just about to feed her some supper. I know she’ll be happy to see you.”

Vicky’s bed was in the parlor. As Peter entered, she glanced in his direction, her head jerking side to side against the elevated pillows.

“Ssss…bout tahm…Misss…ter…P…p…reeee…sa…dent.”

It was as if she were swallowing the words, then spitting them out again. He drew a chair to the side of her bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Toooo…day…n…not ssso…b…b…a-duh.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been away.”

Her hands were moving about restlessly on the blanket. She gave a crooked smile. “Thasss…oh…k…kay. Aaas you…caaan see…I…fff…been…bizzz…ee.”

Meredith appeared in the door with a tray, which she placed on the bedside table. On the tray were a bowl of clear broth and a glass of water with a straw. She cupped the back of Vicky’s head to lift it forward from the pillow and tied a cotton bib around her neck. Night had fallen, making mirrors of the windows.

“Do you want me to do it?” Peter asked Meredith.

“Vicky, do you want Peter to help you with dinner?”

“W…w…why…n…n…not.”

“Small sips,” Meredith told him, and patted him on the arm. She gave him the faintest of smiles; her face was heavy with fatigue. The woman probably hadn’t slept a solid night in months and was simply grateful for the help. “If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Peter began with the water, holding the straw to Vicky’s lips, which were flaked with dryness, then moved on to the broth. He could see the tremendous effort it required for her to swallow even the tiniest amount. Most of it dribbled from the corners of her mouth; he used the bib to wipe her chin.

“Sss…sss…fun…neee.”

“What’s that?”