Excerpt from Chapter One

1884 Delaware Bend, Texas

Lucky leaned against the far end of the bar in the Red River Saloon. He eyed the double swinging doors as he sipped red eye. And he clicked a silver dollar back and forth, lady liberty to winged eagle.

He was bored, a natural product of watching and waiting. He was also fidgety, as if something was about to break. For distraction, he set aside the dollar and stroked the top of the legendary bar. A down–on–his–luck Eastern tenderfoot had traded art for whiskey and carved cavorting naked women into the mahogany. The shapeliest parts were worn smooth and shiny by appreciative patrons. Glasses and bottles sat at angles, but it was a small price to pay for beauty.

As Lucky watched the entrance, tracing face to breasts to thighs while imagining warm flesh responding under his fingertips, the swinging doors slammed open. A woman dressed in black from hat to boots stomped into the saloon. She held a small hatchet as she glared around the interior.

No longer bored, Lucky straightened and set down his glass. Instinctively, he dropped his left hand to the six–shooter riding low in a leather gun–belt strapped around his narrow hips.

"Sinners!" She strode right up to the bar, back straight as an arrow.

Patrons set down cards, drinks, smokes, and fell silent. They watched her with astonished expressions since ladies rarely graced the saloon with their presence.

"Repent your evil ways!"

Lucky doubted if a man in the place had felt he was on the path to perdition up to this point.

"Whiskey. Tobacco. Poker." She raised her hatchet. "Think of your loved ones at home. Wives toiling alone from dawn to dusk. Little ones crying with hunger. Farms lost on the turn of a card. Have you no shame?"

Lucky looked over the swinging doors, but she appeared to be alone. He expected her to be with like–minded ladies, a flock of determined blackbirds. He couldn't imagine that she represented anything less wanted in Delaware Bend, one of the three wildest towns in the West. The Bend thrived on the Three W's. Whiskey, women, and wagers. If Temperance wasn't this lady's name, it ought to be.

"Please close this saloon at once."

Lucky glanced behind the bar at Big Jim McMahon to see how the bartender was taking to the idea of shutting down the Red River Saloon on this woman's say–so.

"Lady, you got a beef with some man, go find him and give him the rough side of your tongue." Big Jim crossed muscular arms across his broad chest. "This here is the finest saloon in the Bend and we don't want trouble."

"You refuse to close this saloon?"

"That's the truth. And set down that ax afore you hurt yourself."

She raised the hatchet up over her head, brought it down with all her might, and sank it deep into the top of the bar.