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nothin' like taking those vows to send a man out looking for a bottle and a willing woman."
    Sam tossed his half-smoked cigar into the spittoon by the door, barely missing Jesse. "Good thing you got better aim than half the cowboys in town, Markham. I'd hate to have to shoot my best bartender."
    "Make jokes all you want, Jesse. I ain't gonna fight you. You own half the goddamned town as it is."
    Jesse raised one hand to stop him. "I own the whole goddamned town and don't you forget it."
    Sam caught on to Jesse's meaning real quick. "Ain't none of us gonna forget it. You're the most powerful man in town and that's why the League needs you, Jesse. Without you it don't stand a chance."
    "League? What League?"
    Sam glanced away and Jesse followed his gaze back to the lectern to the right of the full-length portrait of Jade wearing nothing more than a feather boa and a diamond ring. Old Harry Calhoun, Big Red and Three-Toed Morton stood there watching them right back.
    "Ain't you been listenin' to nothin' we got to say, Jesse?" Sam's voice was low and urgent. "The Single Men's Protection League. We're bandin' together to make sure Silver Spur don't become another one of those sissified towns like Chicago or New York."
    If everyone else in the town hadn't been so likkered up and ready to shoot, Jesse would have thrown his head back and let out with the biggest belly laugh this side of the Mississippi
    "Why don't you start a sewing circle while you're at it, Sam? Of all the damned stupid ideas, this one—"
    Sam stepped in front of Jesse. "They're takin' this serious, Jesse. I wouldn't let them see you laughing at something that means a hell of a lot to 'em."
    "And what do you expect your damn fool League to get you, Sam? A cut rate from Jade? Drinks on the house from me?"
    Sam's broad face creased in a frown for a few moments then his usual smile returned. "We're gonna keep this town safe from do-gooders and Bible salesmen and spinsters, that's what. If we all hang together on this those gals will be back on a stage east by the end of the summer and this place'll be fit for men again."
    Harry Calhoun cupped his hands and hollered, "Are you with us, Jesse, or ain't you?"
    Three hundred men turned and stared as Jesse ground out his cigar beneath the heel of his hand-tooled boot. No money-hungry, dried-up, old-maid Eastern woman could rope Jesse Reardon into marrying if he didn't feel like marrying. He didn't need the protection of three hundred panic-stricken bachelors to keep him from tying that particular noose around his neck.
    But, business was business and making a show of being one with them would go a long way toward keeping Jesse's coffers filled. He vaulted onto the platform and faced the crowd. Men who had once been bankers and lawyers stood next to desert rats who'd never seen the inside of a drawing room. The mines had brought them to Silver Spur but it was more than riches that kept them there. Silver Spur was a man's town, a place where a man could have whatever he wanted as long as he could pay the price.
    And Jesse Reardon was Silver Spur in the flesh. "Harry asked if I was with you or against you." His voice was deep and rich; it rang out through the smoky room as he pulled his Smith & Wesson from his holster and spun it lazily, enjoying the nervous shuffling and coughing of the men who watched him. "I should turn this on Harry for askin' such a damn fool question."
    Harry Calhoun looked as if he'd swallowed a whole bottle of Big Red's rot gut whiskey without coming up for air.
    Jesse slid the gun back into his holster. The crowd of men started breathing again. "If you think it's time to take a stand then, hell, it's time to take a stand. We'll be there in front of the Crazy Arrow this afternoon when that stage gets in and we'll show those Bible-clutching old maids that they ain't wanted in Silver Spur!"
    The crowd whistled, stomped, and yelled their approval and when Jesse said, "Follow me to the King of Hearts, men.