Theo sat facing backward on a crate in the ox-wagon, feeling not liberated, as he had expected, but snared within the boundless landscape that receded around him. Scratching his two-month beard, which would be gone blessedly soon now, he tried to appreciate the music of Texas, so different from the flapping of sails and whining of passengers aboard ship. Oxen snorted. Wagon wheels creaked. The drover snapped his whip and bawled curses. Theo supposed they were curses.