June Bride

Slaughter's my name. Luke Slaughter. Cavill's my business. It's a tough business. It's big business. I've got a big stake in it. There's no man west of the Rio grand big enough to take it from me.

Luke Slaughter of Toon Stone. Luke Slaughter of Toon Stone. Civil war cavalry man turned Arizona cattle man. Across the territory from Yuma to Fort Defiance, From Flagstaff to the Wachukas, and below the border through Chihuahua and Sonora, His name was respected, or feared, depending on which side of the law you were on.

Man of Vision, Man of Legend, Luke Slutter of Tombstone. Lots of people back east think us westerners are rough, uncouth, and ill-mannered. Although it might not appear so to a stranger, we do live by a fairly rigid set of manners.

For instance, we don't care what a man was, but what he is. All of us have come out to this new country from somewhere else. And why we came as our own business. Of course sometimes a stranger may drift into town, or remind us of things we just as soon forget.

Like the time Wichita and I were sitting out front of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, waiting for the dinner gone to ring. Ha! Sure he's gonna be good to tie on a store-bought feed bag, Luke. Yeah, I'm getting a little hungry myself.

Yeah, well, I wasn't thinking of quantity, so much as quality. I don't trust that pig-tailed bean wrangler you got down to ranch. I swear there was cat meat in that son-of-a-gun stew he made for supper last night.

I doubted Wichita. The Chinese are supposed to be excellent cooks. Yeah, if somebody should get that message through the lumpchung. Maybe you ought to bring him up here for a feed sometime so he can learn what a large fried steak or a taste like.