1 - Prologue
Nobody messed with him. He was an outlaw.
He is nocturnal. The only time his signature smirk terrified the entire town was when the moon was shining over the town. He was the leader of the meanest, toughest gang in the west. Their name? The Black Hill Bandits.
Every man in this town envied him in some way. He received the attention from all the woman in the room. Everyone had their eyes on him, in an exception of me. I wasn't sure of his intentions , but they weren't good. His dark hair disappeared under his cowboy hat, a old black bandanna wrapped around his neck, a white button-up shit under his long jacket was tucked into his pants. His boots clicking on the ground and the spurs shining against the light of the candles. His trademark Colt handgun always peaking out of it's hip-holder under his jacket, that was the gun every cowboy - not only in this town, but on the west side of this county - was afraid of. The scruff on his face around his mouth and under his nose and those blue eyes almost screamed at you. I'm trouble.
He was the town Hoyden. He got whatever he wanted when he wanted it. All he had to do was smile, that small smirk without showing any teeth, and he would cock his head at you, and you were his for the taking. Many girls will enter his high established estate on the north end of town, and most of the girls have never walked out. Nobody could point fingers at him, but he was to blame. Nobody knew if he killed the girls, or if they were still there.
I hated not only this man, but his entire family. Even though they were already six-feet under, I still hated them. His daddy killed my own, with that same pistol that he carried in that holster on his hip. His daddy had mine at gunpoint, all because my daddy couldn't save his momma from dying from Scarlet Fever in the winter of 1862, almost four years ago.
My life changed, not only for the worst - but it would change forever. The day I met him face to face in the Birdcage Theater, he gave me that smile, and I was his. All because he found out who my daddy was - and he wanted revenge for his mother dying.
His name?
Zachary Bagans
And he was going to get his revenge, whether I liked it or not.