Both MacDonald and Anna were aching from the bumps and jolts of the stagecoach when they stepped onto the street in Houston. MacDonald was again consumed with wanting, but nothing, absolutely nothing would have induced him to use one of the small rooms at the stage stops. Anna was bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. She did not trust the other passengers and there was so little time to run to the outhouses and eat. The water for washing hands in the basins was none too clean. She had gritted her teeth and used it anyway on the theory that at least the soap was strong.
MacDonald had been to this city before and he hailed a small cart pulled by a black horse that looked like he had been worked too many years. The black man driving the horse looked about the same. His white hair poked out of hol
