The Path To San Jacinto

Preface

Most of what needs saying I prefer to leave in the work or in the quiet that came after it.

What follows is the shape of something that started in a bar in Austin and refused to stay there. Never claimed to understand all of it.

I was raised in Waco and learned early that some names are heavier than others.

I learned to keep my head down, do the job in front of me, and not ask for more than the day required.

That method worked for a long time. Then a woman sat at the end of the bar one night, told the truth without decoration, and left a card on the table that I still see when I close my eyes.

What came after was months of careful exchanges. Gifts sent one direction. Readings sent the other. No grand promises. Just the ongoing fact of two people who kept answering when the other reached out.

I am writing this one because the story exists whether I explain it or not, and because she deserves the record to begin with someone telling the truth about how it started.