PART 1: The Woman Behind the Bar

The first thing Jack Callahan won in Nevada was a saloon.

The second thing he got was a headache wearing a purple dress and holding a shotgun.

“You have exactly ten seconds to get out of my establishment,” the woman behind the bar announced.

Jack stopped in the doorway, his winning deed still folded in his pocket.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered. “Eleanor Whitcomb.”

His ex-mother-in-law narrowed her eyes.

“Nine seconds, Jack.”

Three years earlier, Jack had divorced Eleanor’s daughter, Margaret, after a marriage that ended with broken promises, two overturned dinner tables, and a memorable argument involving a runaway goat.

He had ridden hundreds of miles to escape that family.

Now, apparently, he owned the building where its most terrifying member worked.

“Actually, Eleanor, I own this place now.”

He proudly unfolded the deed.

Eleanor examined it, then smiled.

Jack knew that smile. It had preceded every terrible Christmas dinner of his married life.

“Congratulations,” she said sweetly. “You’re late for work.”

Before Jack could protest, she shoved a broom into his hands.

“Rule number one: No drinking before sunset. Rule number two: No gambling on Sundays. Rule number three: Every gentleman removes his hat indoors.”

“This is a saloon!” Jack protested.

“And rule number four: Nobody raises his voice at me.”

By noon, Jack had swept the floor, washed forty-seven glasses, and been forced to apologize to a customer for calling his horse ugly.

By three o’clock, Eleanor had confiscated his whiskey.

By supper, she had informed him that his room upstairs needed curtains.

“I won this establishment in a poker game!” Jack shouted.

“Then perhaps you should’ve played for a respectable business.”

The customers laughed so hard that one fell backward off his chair.

But something about the saloon bothered Jack.

Every evening, Eleanor checked the locks twice.

She refused to serve three well-dressed businessmen who visited every afternoon.

And whenever someone mentioned the Silver Crown Trading Company, her face turned pale.

One night, Jack overheard her speaking to a stranger behind the kitchen door.

“I told you gentlemen before,” Eleanor whispered. “The saloon isn’t for sale.”

“Then we’ll take it another way,” the stranger replied.

Jack moved closer.

“You already frightened the last owner into losing his deed,” Eleanor said. “Leave my family out of this.”

The stranger chuckled.

“Your family? Mrs. Whitcomb, perhaps you should ask yourself why your former son-in-law happened to win this particular saloon.”

Jack froze.

Then the stranger spoke again.

“And if Callahan discovers what you’re hiding beneath the cellar floor, we’ll have to deal with him too.”

Jack looked down at the wooden boards beneath his boots.

For the first time since arriving in Nevada, he wondered whether winning the saloon had been the worst mistake of his life.

Then a floorboard creaked behind him.

“Jack,” Eleanor whispered, gripping her shotgun, “whatever you do, don’t open that cellar door.”

But from somewhere beneath the floor, three slow knocks answered her warning.