In seventeen well-wrought tales, you see people across Texas and around the world. There's an East Texas artist confronting a wild tiger in a Southeast Asian jungle, a child in Port Arthur trying to understand death, a young unlikely pirate saving a woman from slavery in Madagascar, an American soldier in Vietnam struggling with his wife's infidelity, a young couple's courtship as they canoe the Brazos River, a woman in Amarillo breaking away from an abusive husband, a comical gold prospector in Venezuela dealing with bandits, and other vivid characters you will remember long after you close the book.