When you hunt in Texas, there is no escape from the lessons of the past. Even as late as the early 1900s, the Hill Country north and west of San Antonio was one of the West’s last untamed places. Comanches camped at backcountry waterholes and outlaws from both sides of the border took refuge in this land of junipers, live oaks and prickly pear.

Rio Bonito Ranch was built early in the 1900s with defense of the family as the highest priority. A limestone wall protected the house from the front and a high cliff protected it from behind. In the 1990s it was turned into a 28,000-square-foot hunting lodge in the middle of 25 square miles of habitat home to free-ranging whitetail deer, wild turkey, wild boar and 16 species of exotic game.

The water, feed and cover are the keys to the hunt at Rio Bonito (www.riobonito.com). The ranch employs a feeding program to supplement native browse. We hunted there last week on a quest for my 14-year-old daughter Tiffany’s first whitetail.

Our second stand was a box blind, on a 15-foot tower, constructed of angle iron and enclosed with plywood. We commanded a view of a clearing a hundred yards long. In the middle of the meadow, an island of three oak trees remained for cover.

For the first two hours, we watched cardinals and blue jays. Far back in the oak trees, a sika buck bugled in the still evening air. At almost 5 p.m., a whitetail doe walked into the clearing. She stopped, tested the wind and listened, then began to feed. Halfway across the opening, she looked over her shoulder.

”She’s watching something,” I whispered to Tiffany. ”Probably another deer.”

In another minute, we saw it. ”It’s a spike,” Tiffany said. He had antlers that probably measured ten inches tall. A young legal buck, but not the deer we’d traveled to Texas to hunt. And he wasn’t interested in feeding.

When he spotted the doe, he walked toward her, his upper lip curled back, testing her scent. This was the first season he’d be able to breed, but his prospects weren’t looking good.

He stopped and hooked his antlers on a small oak tree, then trotted ahead. When he’d approached within 50 feet, the doe turned. For ten seconds, she sized him up then turned and bolted for the trees. Jilted, Junior stood there for a moment, then took another trail into the brush and all was still.

For the next 20 minutes, we watched. The doe would reappear, then the spike would follow her out and she would run for cover. Once, the pair circled behind our stand and the doe dashed across the clearing with Junior hot on her heels. When she was out of sight, he stopped and whined, a plaintive cry in his voice.

When we next saw the doe, she was relaxed again. She entered the clearing at the same spot we’d first seen her, disappeared behind the island of oak trees, then came out into the open. Now it was 5:45. In another 15 minutes, the light would be gone.

A buck picked his way out of the timber, 40 yards behind the doe. He stopped to hook his antlers on the same little oak tree that Junior had used. I lifted my binoculars.

”How big is he?” Tiffany asked. Her hands shook as she laid the fore-end of the 270 in the web between her thumb and forefinger, steadying it on the wall of the blind.

”He’s big enough. I think he ran Junior off. He’ll go behind those oaks and then come out into the open again.”

Through the branches of the oaks, I could see his antlers, polished from rubbing on the oaks and junipers. ”When he comes out into the open, wait for him to stop, then take your shot.”

Tiffany pulled the rifle into her shoulder and snicked the safety from ”safe” to ”fire”. The buck trotted, out in the open now, and stopped ten yards from the doe, his upper lip curled back. Tiffany squeezed the trigger.

Ten minutes later, we stood over her first buck, a fine whitetail with three points on one side and four on the other. At Thanksgiving, there will be deer steaks on the table, along with the turkey.

Over the next two days, we watched as the Texas Indian summer gave way to autumn. Whitetails were entering the breeding season and we caught glimpses of several big bucks that followed the does into the clearings at last light.

There was one thing left to do. Texas is Texas today because a few gave their lives. On Wednesday, we visited the Alamo, that shrine where nearly 200 names are carved in stone, their blood long since mixed with the mortar. We traced bullet holes in the adobe walls and walked where William B. Travis died and Jim Bowie and David Crockett faced their ends on Mexican bayonets. Their sacrifice at the hands of Santa Anna fueled a revolution that won the freedom of many.

Today, there are still American heroes defending liberty around the world. Many of the stories will not be told, but their service means the same for all those who yearn to breathe the air of freedom. Happy Thanksgiving.