After nearly six years along the Texas coast, Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes, Castillo, and Estebanico finally make a run for freedom during the prickly pear season.

But escape does not mean safety.

They walk into hunger, cold, unknown languages, unfamiliar peoples, and a world no European had ever described before.

In this episode, the four survivors encounter the Avavares, hear the chilling story of La Mala Cosa — The Bad Thing — and watch their reputation as healers begin to spread across the land.

They are no longer conquerors.

They are wanderers.

Healers.

Men surviving only because Native communities feed them, guide them, fear them, and begin passing their story from village to village.

Before Texas was Texas, this was the world already here.

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Music: "Anamalie" by Kevin MacLeod(incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License ⁠http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠