Harper, Texas, is a hamlet 100 miles west of Austin, strung out along Highway 290 near the source of the Pedernales River. We sailed into town on a Sunday morning past arid hills covered with mesquite and prickly pear, with bluebonnets and black-eyed Susans blanketing the roadside. Pulling up at the two-year-old Easy Pickens—a weekends-only lunchtime barbecue occupying a rustic limestone building on the dusty main drag—we watched as parishioners trickled out of the white-spired Methodist church next door. Dressed in their Sunday best, men and women chatted as their children cartwheeled around... More >>>