CHAPTER ONE

The Cahill gang rode into Ponderosa through the mist. Nate Cahill held the reins of his prancing blood bay in his left hand. His right rested on his thigh, inches from the butt of his single-action Colt Army .45, though his oilskin slicker was between his hand and the gun.

The five hard men angled onto Main Street. Across the way, the Comstock sawmill blew its noon whistle. The steam-driven saws screeched to a halt and the mill workers started their 30-minute noontime rest.

Main Street bustled. Two wagons stood tailgate to tailgate in front of the general store. A burly man in a canvas apron shouldered gunnysacks of grain into one. A rancher in a four-by-four hat loaded supplies into the other. Both men stopped long enough to give the five horsemen with a quick glance. Nate Cahill ignored them.

The men had ridden from the Indian Nations. Cahill figured no one in Ponderosa would recognize the gang. He’d bought everyone new duds before they rode out; it wouldn’t do to look like trash.

The mist dripped off Cahill’s slicker and from the brim of his black Stetson. His sharp gaze picked up a comely woman in blue calico coming from a small building with Examiner painted on its window. Maybe she’d still be around when he owned the town. He’d see how she tasted then. Their eyes met – his cold and calculating, hers bold and forthright. Cahill raised a finger to his hat brim in salute. She looked away. He grinned.

Main Street in Ponderosa ran along the bluff overlooking the Comstock log pond, which occupied what had been a small swale in Bog Creek before Comstock Log and Lumber built a dam at the west end. Now the three-hundred acre pond held the carcasses of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir.

At the railroad yard, Cahill took the road to Bogtown. His conquest of Ponderosa would start there.

Bogtown occupied the high land on the south side of Bog Creek, now a trickle that ran from the rock-lined spillway of Comstock Dam. Three saloons and Miss Murdock’s Institute for the Redemption of Wayward Young Ladies fronted the road, which, if followed to its winding conclusion, led to Camp Kinishba, a dozen miles away. Cahill reined his bay up before the plank-and-batten two-storied building that housed the saloon called Old Glory.

"Reckon we’ll homestead right here," he said. The mist turned into a drizzle.

Cahill dismounted and unbuttoned his slicker, just in case. His four riders followed his example. "You know what to do," he said, and pushed his way into the gloomy saloon.

Wynn Cahill and the other riders were only a step behind their leader as he entered. Cahill sauntered the length of the saloon and took a chair, back to the wall. Wynn sat to Cahill’s left where he could watch the bar. Morales bellied up to the far end of the bar itself, and Tag and Breed stood on each side of the door to provide cover if Cahill had to leave in a hurry.
"What’ll it be, gents?" The rotund barkeeper called from behind the plank bar.

"Bring your best whiskey, Holladay," Cahill said. "And get Bart Sims out here."

"Do I know you boys?" The barkeep’s face wore a puzzled frown.

"Just bring the damned whiskey."

Jake Halladay pulled a bottle of Turley’s Mill from the hutch and took it to Cahill’s table with two cloudy glasses. "Here ya go," he said, his voice oozing bonhomie.

"Get Sims."

"Yes, sir. Who should I say’s asking for him?"

"The new owner of Old Glory," Cahill said.

Halladay stared at Cahill.

"Move!" Cahill roared.

The barkeep scrambled through the back door and his footsteps pounded up a flight of stairs.

Cahill filled a shot glass with Turley’s Mill. "You boys can have a drink as soon as this business with Sims is over," he said. He tossed the amber whiskey back and shuddered. The 90-proof liquor burned its pleasurable way down his throat and into his guts. Fumes from the potent whiskey filled his nose and made his eyes water. "Damn good whiskey, this Turley’s Mill. Be worth the wait," Cahill said. He swallowed the saliva that flooded his mouth. It was almost like taking another shot.
An angry voice came through the thin walls. "He’s what? You’re jerking my leg. I’m the goldam owner of this goldam saloon." Angry stomps marked Sims’s progress down the stairs. He burst into the room, a big man in gartered sleeves and suspenders. His belly hung over his waistband and jowls flapped at his neck. He held a Smith and Wesson in his right hand.

"Who the hell are you?" he shouted. The revolver pointed more or less at Cahill.

"I’m Nate Cahill, and this here’s my brother Wynn. Now before you get sudden, let me tell you about Wynn. He’s not like other people. You see, Wynn likes to hurt things. Cats. Dogs. Women. Men. Don’t matter much to him, long as they yowl."

"So what? I’m the one holding this here S ‘n’ W. Don’t even have to cock the damn thing either, just pull the gawdawful trigger. Shit. Likes to hurt things."

Wynn showed a feral grin that bared teeth as sharp and pointed as fangs. His breath hissed out from between lips as thin and colorless as a sidewinder’s.

Involuntarily, Sims took a step back. His arm began to swing up as if of its own accord, bringing the double-action revolver into line. Wynn shot him just above the knee from beneath the table.

The big lead bullet smashed into Sims’s thigh bone and drove him backwards. The S&W flew from his hand as his arms windmilled and he crashed into the bar. He came to rest with his back against the bar’s frontpiece and his legs spraddled. Blood ran in rivulets from beneath the ruined left leg.

"Jesus. Jesus. Mary Mother of God. Holy Father." Sims clutched his leg above the wound, but the blood still ran. "Help. Please. God." He pleaded.

Wynn scraped his chair back from the table and holstered his Colt. He casually walked around the table and dug a boot toe into Sims’s leg wound.

Sims screamed.

"Oh, sorry. Did I hurt you?" Wynn’s toe probed the wound again.

"Aaargh. Doctor. God. Help." Tears streamed down Sims’s face. "Oh, please. I’m bleeding. My leg’s broke. Get Doc Huntly. Oh G-g-g-god."

"Get him to sign the quit claim," Cahill said. He pushed a folded sheet of paper across the table to Wynn.

"Senor. Don’t try. Por favor. Place your hands on the bar where I can see them," Morales said to the barkeep, who may have been contemplating a dive for his shotgun.

Wynn unfolded the paper and held out his hand. Cahill pulled a turkey quill from his hat and trimmed it to a point with his clasp knife. He handed the improvised pen to Wynn.

"What do I use for ink?"

"He’s bleeding pretty good," Cahill said. "Use that."

Wynn nudged Sims’s shattered leg again. Sims screamed. Wynn leaned over and waved the paper in front of Sims’s face. "Hey, Mister Sims," he said. "Can you see this? It says you gave Old Glory to my brother Nate for . . . value rendered. You sign and we’ll send for the doc."

Sims moaned.

Wynn dragged a chair over and spread the quitclaim out on its seat. He dipped the quill in the blood welling from Sims’s leg. He slapped Sims’s face. The owner’s eyes sprang open. "Sign," Wynn said. "Live."

Sims was hardly able to take the quill. He squinted at the paper, held it down with his left hand, and scrawled his signature across the bottom in blood.

"That’s right," Wynn said. He passed the quitclaim back to Nate.

"Doctor," Sims croaked. "D-d-d-doc-tor." He tried feebly to stop the flow of blood with his gore-covered hands.

"Let me get Mister Sims some help," Holladay said. "Please."

Wynn Cahill turned his serpent’s stare on Holladay, showed his feral smile, and shot the bartender through the left eye. The bullet tore a chunk of bone from the back of Holladay’s head and plowed into the plank wall not two inches from the plate glass mirror behind the bar.

The bartender smashed against the wall and crumpled into a lifeless heap.

Wynn nudged Sims’s wounded leg with a boot toe. Almost no response. "Leave him like that," Cahill said. "He’s about bled out. We got what we came for." His conquest of Ponderosa had gotten off to an excellent start.

Two days later, Bogtown knew the Cahills had taken over Old Glory. A week later, the saloon sported a new paint job, a roulette wheel, a tall skinny barkeep with a tick in one cheek, and a card shark who divided his winnings with the house. Nate Cahill informed Bucktooth Alice Murdock that Tag Riddle would "protect" her customers for a dollar a head, and Tag moved into a chair in Alice’s parlor, where he sat with a long-barrelled 10-gauge across his knees. At closing time, Tag collected the protection money and delivered it to Nate Cahill.

With soldiers in town and sawyers off work, Old Glory rattled on its foundations.

The roulette wheel clicked to a stop. "Red seven," the operator intoned.

"Yee---Haw! I’m king of the mountain and I ain’t begun to roll." A young cowboy raked a pile of chips over. "Holy roller," he said, hand steepled before his face. "One more time. He divided his chips. Then, "Aw, Hell with it. Put it all on red again."

Word travelled around the room like a prairie fire before the wind. "Richie Brown’s riding on red –" Bluecoats and sawyers gathered round.

"Any more bets gentlemen?" The operator nodded and set the wheel in motion. He took one more look at the players and then flicked the white ball onto the spinning wheel. The saloon went quiet as the ball clicked its way around. It came to rest on red 27 and the room erupted.

Nate Cahill fired a round into the ceiling and the bedlam dropped to a murmur. The operator handed him a piece of paper. Cahill held it up. "Gentlemen," he shouted. "Old Glory’s right proud to announce the biggest winner she’s ever had." He gestured toward the cowboy. "Mister Richie Brown of the Bar B Bar. He put the whole wad on red and damn near broke the house. Now I owe him five thousand five hundred and fifty-five dollars – exactly." Cahill turned to the winner. "Mr. Brown. Let me buy you a drink."

"You’re a big man, Mr. Cahill," the cowboy said. "I’ll take that drink, and I’ll buy one for you and everyone else in the place!"

Suddenly men stood four and five deep at the bar, hands outstretched for free drinks. Cahill steered Brown to his table in the back. "Looks like everybody’s happy about your generosity, son. We’ll charge you by the bottle – cheaper that way. Have a seat." Cahill crooked a finger at Breed, who stood guard at the rear door, shotgun in hand.

"Jigger can’t hear in this noise, Breed. Could you get the special bottle from his for Mr. Brown?"

Breed nodded and shouldered his way behind the bar. He returned with a bottle full of pale liquor.

"Don’t look like prime whiskey to me," Brown said.

"You’re absolutely right, Mr. Brown. It ain’t whiskey, it’s rum and it’s goldam over 100 proof and it’ll knock your socks right off your feet if you can’t hold your liquor. Want to try it?"

"More’n a hunnert proof, eh?"

"A lot more."

"Ye-e-e-e-e ha-a-a-aw! Pour that sumbitch. Let’s get to drinking."

Cahill filled Brown’s glass with rum, 140 proof. He held up his own, full of whiskey.

"Ain’t you having none of this rum?"

"Can’t handle it, to tell the truth. Getting too old, I reckon," Cahill said.

Brown grinned. "Well, okay. Down the hatch she goes." He tossed a double shot of the potent rum.

"Whoooo-ee. That’s some firewater," the cowboy said.

Cahill refilled Brown’s glass, and kept refilling it. When Old Glory closed, Richie Brown still sat at the rear table, glassy-eyed and unable to move.

Marshal Braxton Webber pushed through Old Glory’s batwing doors, a stocky man with graying hair and middle-age spread. He wore a Colt Peacemaker on his right hip, covered by his black frock coat. A sawed-off shotgun hung from the crook of his arm.

The skinny ‘keep stood behind the bar and Wynn Cahill sat at the Cahill table in the back of the long room.

Webber stopped just inside the door to let his eyes adjust to the dim interior. The sober look on his face said he wasn’t just calling to see neighbors. The wrinkles in his nose indicated he might not like the odors of old sweat, sour beer, puke, and fresh sawdust that formed the ambience of Old Glory. He brushed the tail of his frock coat back behind the Peacemaker.

Wynn slipped the thong from the hammer of his own Peacemaker. No telling when a lawman would pick a fight.

Webber looked at Jigger the barkeep. "Get Nate Cahill in here," he said.

Jigger glanced at Wynn for instructions.

"Now what would the law want with my law-abiding brother?" Wynn asked.

"Stick around, you’ll find out." Webber turned to look at the barman once more. "Get him. Tell him Brax Webber’s come calling."

Wynn jerked his head toward the back door.

"Yes, sir, marshal. I’ll get him." Jigger fled through the door to find Cahill.

In the silence, the whine of the big steam saws at Comstock seemed to draw closer. Webber stood stock still, feet apart, as if primed for a shootout on some dusty street. Wynn Cahill licked his lips. It’d been too long since he’d got to kill Sims. He was starting to get thirsty for blood again. He stared at the marshal and wondered how he’d stand up to a little pain.

Jigger trotted back in and took a position behind the bar. "Mister Cahill will be here directly," he said. "Would you like something to drink?"

One corner of Webber’s mouth twitched in a sardonic grin. "Sure," he said. "Gimme a sasparilla."

"Ain’t got none."

"Webber nodded. "Thought not. Whiskey rots the mind, you know. Be careful how you drink."

Silence. The three men waited for Cahill to appear. Jigger fidgeted, then wiped the bar with a damp rag. Wynn was motionless. So was Webber.

The upstairs door slammed and boots clomped down the stairs. Nate Cahill entered in a white planter’s hat, grey frock coat, white shirt, maroon silk cravat, pearl gray trousers, and Wellington boots. His hair curled about his collar, glistening with pomade. He was the picture of prosperity. Cahill glanced at his men – Wynn at the table, Jigger at the bar, Morales against the far wall, Breed slouched on a bar stool – all set. He stopped, spraddle-legged, just inside the door. To look at him, a man would think Cahill was unarmed. He wore a smile on his face as he spoke. "You want me for something, Webber?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"When you last saw Richie Brown."

Cahill frowned. "Richie Brown? He damned near broke me last night. Thank God he bought a round or two for the boys. We got to make a little back. He was here till closing. Don’t know what happened after that. He was fairly well drunk when he left here, though." Cahill shrugged. "That’s about all I can say, Webber."

Webber heaved the shotgun into his hand. It pointed at the space between Cahill and Wynn. "Seems funny to me," he said, "that Richie would end up floating face down in the Comstock log pond this morning, don’t you?"

Cahill’s eyebrows shot up. "The log pond, you say. That’d make for soggy greenbacks, I’d say."

"No greenbacks on him."

"Robbery?"

"All I’m saying is, Richie’s dead."

Cahill shrugged again. "Well, that’s sad, Webber, but I don’t see how that has anything to do with me or Old Glory."

"Cahill. The fact that Richie won big here last night and turned up dead in the log pond this morning seems almighty coincidental to me," Webber said.

Cahill laughed. "Webber, half the people in Bogtown would cut their own grandmother’s throat for a double eagle. Gambling’s part of my business. We win some; we lose some. It all comes out in the end."

"You’re almighty jolly for a man who had to shell out a cartload of cash last night." The shotgun still aimed at a spot between Wynn and Nate Cahill.

Wynn sneered. "You waving that scattergun around just to scare us Cahills?"

"Just playing things safe," Webber said. "Cahill, you mind my taking a look in that safe you got on the second floor?"

"Can’t do that, Webber. You got no right."

Webber took a deep breath. "I’m the one with the badge, Cahill. This may be Bogtown, but it’s still part of Ponderosa, and I’m the law."

Cahill smirked. "That so? You figure there’s some way to make me open that safe for you?"

"There is." Webber eared back the hammers of the sawed-off shotgun, but the moment the marshal’s hand moved to the hammers, Wynn Cahill palmed his Colt and shot Webber just below the breastbone. Webber stumbled backwards. His dying fingers triggered the shotgun into the ceiling. He fell on his back, his head crashing on the hardwood floor.

The Cahills watched as the marshal tried to suck air into his punctured lungs while his dying heart pumped blood out his ruptured pulmonary artery into his chest cavity. His heels beat a weak tattoo on the floor; then he went limp.

"Damn," Wynn said. "Why’d he have to die so quick?"

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