Ten years have passed since Michael Lewis made his first venture into Texas, now a province of Mexico. Together with a small number of Americans pioneering on the Brazos and Colorado Rivers, Michael and his brother Andrew each have a plot of land assigned to them by the entrepreneur Stephen F. Austin. Michael Lewis has his father's wanderlust; Andrew is less footloose and excitable but the two act as one when trouble starts. To secure their places in Texas, the Lewis boys have to fight not only Mexican authorities and hostile Indians, but their own kind, renegade white men attempting to settle on Texas land without permission. In The Raiders, Elmer Kelton continues his saga of the Lewis family and the formative years of Texas.