Section 4, South by Southwest, Chapters 1-14 Summary and Analysis

As William crosses into Texas he feels the pangs of loneliness made more evident by the time spent with relatives in Shreveport and the lack of communication from his estranged wife. William is intrigued by the name of Dime Box, Texas, which appears on his map and heads there to find a small town which could be the perfect set for a Western movie. After lunch at a café, William visits the town's barbershop where he meets the owner, Claud Tyler, who gives William an animated history of his life and the town of Dime Box.

William is particularly struck by the authenticity and preservation of the past in Fredericksburg, Texas, which still has an old hardware store, nineteenth-century buildings and other architectural elements untouched by progress. Outside of Fredericksburg, William...