Chapter One

Crystal Creek, Texas, was in the grip of insanity.
The fact was proclaimed everywhere.  Each store window declared it.  Children carried yellow
balloons announcing it. In bright letters, a banner hanging above Main Street repeated it: “MAY
MADNESS!”  
The annual sidewalk sale was in progress. Outside every shop, displays offered their
temptations.  “Buy me!” the goods seemed to call. “Buy me now!”
At the display before Wall’s Drug Store, stood a fat man with a mercenary grin.  He wore a
yellow T-shirt that said,  “WANT TO BUY?  I WANT TO SELL!”
This sentiment pleased the stranger.
He wanted to buy, and what he wanted to buy, some might say, was the town’s soul.
He knew who all of these merchants were and what they owned.   He knew about everyone of
importance in Crystal Creek, although he had never before seen the place.    
It was a pretty little town.  He liked it, and he would enjoy practicing his arts here.
The stranger paused before a small, neat building with flower boxes at the windows and a red-
striped awning over the door.
The Longhorn Coffee Shop did not look like a significant place, but it was.  This was where
Crystal Creek’s movers and shakers met and talked, made deals both big and small.  It was the
town’s lively, throbbing pulse.  
The stranger went inside.  He was a tall, lean man, and his name was Nick Belyle.  
His Stetson was neither black nor white, but thundercloud gray.   He wore a white shirt of
western cut, jeans, and gray snakeskin boots.  His silver belt buckle glittered and was shaped like
a dollar sign.
Crossing the threshold of the Longhorn was like stepping backward into the 1950’s. The seats of
the stools and chairs and booths were upholstered in red leatherette. Red and white checked
cloths covered each table, and each booth had its old-fashioned individual jukebox.
The air was fragrant with the scents of coffee and fresh cinnamon rolls. It was an hour before
lunchtime, but the place was already half full and abuzz with conversation.
In a corner booth sat a trio of men, talking over their coffee. Nick Belyle was pleased, for these
men interested him deeply. Close to their booth was a small vacant table. Belyle moved to it and
took the chair facing the corner booth. From beneath the brim of his hat, he watched the men,
and his keen ears took in their every word.
“I don’t like it,” the heavy-set one said. “Too damn many changes. Nothing’s the same no more.”
The hefty man was Bubba Gibson. In his mid-sixties, he had a jowly face and the band of his hat
was studded with turquoises. On one hand was a wedding band and on the other a turquoise ring
with a stone the size of a halved Ping-Pong ball.  Bubba owned the Flying Horse Ranch, 8,000
acres of rolling land--a very nice piece of real estate, wasted on raising ostriches, of all things.
Fairly profitable, but Bubba was getting too old and fat to chase ostriches.
Yes, someday Bubba could be ripe for plucking—or not. Nick sensed unpredictability in the man,
a strange mix of the conservative and the reckless.
“Things have changed a lot since I got here,” admitted a second, younger man. He shook his
head as if in bewilderment.
Brock Munroe was a big man, well dressed yet somehow disheveled. He had a gentle air and pie
crumbs on his shirt.
Munroe had come from Montana less than ten years ago and bought a ranch, 5,500 acres that
were more scenic than useful. He was hurting from the cattle-killing winter of two years ago and
the drop in beef prices. Yes, Munroe, too, was a good possibility.
“There’s new doctors comin’,” grumbled Bubba, twisting his turquoise ring. “New preacher. My
damn lawyer’s gonna retire. I gotta find a new one. Don’t want a new one. Want the one I got.”
“Times change,” said the third man. “You’ve got to change with them. Stop complaining. You
sound like an old geezer.”
“I am an old geezer, dammit,” Bubba retorted. “At my age, I got the inalienable right to
complain.”
The third man, J.T. McKinney, only smiled. He was different from the others. If the town had
anything akin to royalty, it was the McKinney clan.
J.T. owned the Double C Ranch, 35,000 acres of prime Hill Country. His elder son had
established a successful vineyard in its south quadrant; his younger son was filthy rich in his
own right, and his daughter raised thoroughbred horses.
All three offspring were ferociously loyal to the land and to their father. Their mother was dead,
but now there was a second wife, Cynthia. She had borne J.T. his youngest child, another
daughter. At this point the little girl was the only McKinney who didn’t wield formidable power.
Although J.T. was in his sixties, he was still trim, handsome, and looked as if he had plenty of
fight in him. His hair was silver at the temples, but the dark eyes were alert and full of
intelligence.
He was, in fact, discreetly watching Nick Belyle and taking his measure. Then a waitress made
her way to Nick’s table, coming between him and McKinney and blocking their view of each
other.
At first Nick, irritated, saw nothing of the woman except her white apron trimmed in red
rickrack. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said in a breathless voice. “We’re short-handed today.
What can I get you?”
“Coffee, black,” he said, and raised his eyes. He was about to add, “And a piece of pie,” but a
freakish thing happened. The words stuck in his throat, unsayable.
The woman was beautiful. She was a goddess with a coffeepot in her hand.  What’s more, she
seemed strangely familiar, as if he’d known her in a previous life. Tall and slender, her long-
lashed eyes were dark, and her skin seemed to have a sheen of gold. Her hair, gleaming and
black, fell to her shoulders, and she carried herself like a queen.


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Purchase this book at
Amazon.com
Barnes and Noble