Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!"

***--Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming...]

Here, I think, are the various plot threads that need to be tied up:

1) Why does Ruth Kinney change her mind and accompany Curts?
2) How do the Devil's Band get involved with Curts and/or Lilly, leading to the duel with "Three-Eyes" Thatcher?
3) Need some detail fleshing out the duel and the subsequent trial.
4) The final fight between Curts and Mama Snow at the stranded train.

I think those are the major points. Have I missed anything?

The fate of the rest of the Devil's Band on the train. Something's gotta happen to Pretty Boy and Swiftfoot.

Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!

-Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

*** Event:
Citing Arizona Territory-vs- Bill Tutt and Oklahoma -vs- Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Burwell builds his case that Curts acted in self-defense.

He then skillfully dismantles testimony by twenty witnesses presented by Thatcher Lawyer Beaudreau Goforth Thibodeaux Of New Orleans.

After testimony from Roger "Hardtack" Banks and Reginald "Sidewinder" Banks that they witnessed Curts leaving Jedediah Cobb's home after hearing shots fired, Burwell moves for dismissal of the murder charge of the killing Jedediah Cobb and dramatically produces Cobb, alive and well, in the courtroom. A near riot ensues.

The Cobb charges are dropped, and despite Curt's claim of self-defense being technically invalid under the state law pertaining to "mutual combat" (since he had come to the square armed and expecting to fight), the jury decides that he was justified in shooting "Three-Eyes" Thatcher.


--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming.

Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!

-Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

--Event:
Citing Arizona Territory-vs- Bill Tutt and Oklahoma -vs- Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Burwell builds his case that Curts acted in self-defense.

He then skillfully dismantles testimony by twenty witnesses presented by Thatcher Lawyer Beaudreau Goforth Thibodeaux Of New Orleans.

After testimony from Roger "Hardtack" Banks and Reginald "Sidewinder" Banks that they witnessed Curts leaving Jedediah Cobb's home after hearing shots fired, Burwell moves for dismissal of the murder charge of the killing Jedediah Cobb and dramatically produces Cobb, alive and well, in the courtroom. A near riot ensues.

The Cobb charges are dropped, and despite Curt's claim of self-defense being technically invalid under the state law pertaining to "mutual combat" (since he had come to the square armed and expecting to fight), the jury decides that he was justified in shooting "Three-Eyes" Thatcher.


--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

***--Event:As the train pulls into Horsetail, Lily and Ruth disembark to find Pretty Boy Thatcher and Sih Swiftfoot waiting for them with pistols drawn. "Y'all ain't getting away from us that easy," Pretty Boy said. "Or maybe they will, with a little help," a voice says from behind them. The last of the Devil's Band turns, seeing no one, but the distraction is enough for Ruth and Lily to get out their own guns and shoot the desperadoes dead. "What do you reckon...?" Lily asked. "Lily," Ruth said, putting her hand on Lily's arm. "I'd know that voice anywhere. That was Esther's voice."

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming.

Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

****--Event: Curts takes the letter and is prepared to give "Horn-Head" the mercy of letting him live, but the Thatcher patriarch tries to shoot Curts in the back. He is promptly killed when Ruth Kinny shoots him him in the head - through the horn, no less - the moment Thatcher raises his weapon.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!

-Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

--Event:
Citing Arizona Territory-vs- Bill Tutt and Oklahoma -vs- Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Burwell builds his case that Curts acted in self-defense.

He then skillfully dismantles testimony by twenty witnesses presented by Thatcher Lawyer Beaudreau Goforth Thibodeaux Of New Orleans.

After testimony from Roger "Hardtack" Banks and Reginald "Sidewinder" Banks that they witnessed Curts leaving Jedediah Cobb's home after hearing shots fired, Burwell moves for dismissal of the murder charge of the killing Jedediah Cobb and dramatically produces Cobb, alive and well, in the courtroom. A near riot ensues.

The Cobb charges are dropped, and despite Curt's claim of self-defense being technically invalid under the state law pertaining to "mutual combat" (since he had come to the square armed and expecting to fight), the jury decides that he was justified in shooting "Three-Eyes" Thatcher.


--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

--Event:As the train pulls into Horsetail, Lily and Ruth disembark to find Pretty Boy Thatcher and Sih Swiftfoot waiting for them with pistols drawn. "Y'all ain't getting away from us that easy," Pretty Boy said. "Or maybe they will, with a little help," a voice says from behind them. The last of the Devil's Band turns, seeing no one, but the distraction is enough for Ruth and Lily to get out their own guns and shoot the desperadoes dead. "What do you reckon...?" Lily asked. "Lily," Ruth said, putting her hand on Lily's arm. "I'd know that voice anywhere. That was Esther's voice."

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming.

Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

--Event: Curts takes the letter and is prepared to give "Horn-Head" the mercy of letting him live, but the Thatcher patriarch tries to shoot Curts in the back. He is promptly killed when Ruth Kinny shoots him him in the head - through the horn, no less - the moment Thatcher raises his weapon.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!

--Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

--Event:
Citing Arizona Territory-vs- Bill Tutt and Oklahoma -vs- Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Burwell builds his case that Curts acted in self-defense.

He then skillfully dismantles testimony by twenty witnesses presented by Thatcher Lawyer Beaudreau Goforth Thibodeaux Of New Orleans.

After testimony from Roger "Hardtack" Banks and Reginald "Sidewinder" Banks that they witnessed Curts leaving Jedediah Cobb's home after hearing shots fired, Burwell moves for dismissal of the murder charge of the killing Jedediah Cobb and dramatically produces Cobb, alive and well, in the courtroom. A near riot ensues.

The Cobb charges are dropped, and despite Curt's claim of self-defense being technically invalid under the state law pertaining to "mutual combat" (since he had come to the square armed and expecting to fight), the jury decides that he was justified in shooting "Three-Eyes" Thatcher.

--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: Dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

--Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

***--Event: The Band boards the train in secret just before it leaves the station. Mama Snow begins living up to her namesake, using her magic to work up a blizzard powerful enough to isolate the train. She tells Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy that she'll send the sheriff their way while she moves in to personally take out Lily.

--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

--Event:As the train pulls into Horsetail, Lily and Ruth disembark to find Pretty Boy Thatcher and Sih Swiftfoot waiting for them with pistols drawn. "Y'all ain't getting away from us that easy," Pretty Boy said. "Or maybe they will, with a little help," a voice says from behind them. The last of the Devil's Band turns, seeing no one, but the distraction is enough for Ruth and Lily to get out their own guns and shoot the desperadoes dead. "What do you reckon...?" Lily asked. "Lily," Ruth said, putting her hand on Lily's arm. "I'd know that voice anywhere. That was Esther's voice."

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming.

Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

--Event: Curts takes the letter and is prepared to give "Horn-Head" the mercy of letting him live, but the Thatcher patriarch tries to shoot Curts in the back. He is promptly killed when Ruth Kinny shoots him him in the head - through the horn, no less - the moment Thatcher raises his weapon.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!

--Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

--Event:
Citing Arizona Territory-vs- Bill Tutt and Oklahoma -vs- Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Burwell builds his case that Curts acted in self-defense.

He then skillfully dismantles testimony by twenty witnesses presented by Thatcher Lawyer Beaudreau Goforth Thibodeaux Of New Orleans.

After testimony from Roger "Hardtack" Banks and Reginald "Sidewinder" Banks that they witnessed Curts leaving Jedediah Cobb's home after hearing shots fired, Burwell moves for dismissal of the murder charge of the killing Jedediah Cobb and dramatically produces Cobb, alive and well, in the courtroom. A near riot ensues.

The Cobb charges are dropped, and despite Curt's claim of self-defense being technically invalid under the state law pertaining to "mutual combat" (since he had come to the square armed and expecting to fight), the jury decides that he was justified in shooting "Three-Eyes" Thatcher.

--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: Dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

--Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

--Event: The Band boards the train in secret just before it leaves the station. Mama Snow begins living up to her namesake, using her magic to work up a blizzard powerful enough to isolate the train. She tells Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy that she'll send the sheriff their way while she moves in to personally take out Lily.



--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

***---Event: Curts spots Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy aboard the train. He draws and fires without hesitation, but a charm given to Swiftfoot by Mama Snow causes his bullets to veer off. Pretty Boy then throws a knife, catching Curts in the gut. Frightened by the barrage of bullets despite the charm's protection, they flee the train without making sure Curts is dead.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

--Event:As the train pulls into Horsetail, Lily and Ruth disembark to find Pretty Boy Thatcher and Sih Swiftfoot waiting for them with pistols drawn. "Y'all ain't getting away from us that easy," Pretty Boy said. "Or maybe they will, with a little help," a voice says from behind them. The last of the Devil's Band turns, seeing no one, but the distraction is enough for Ruth and Lily to get out their own guns and shoot the desperadoes dead. "What do you reckon...?" Lily asked. "Lily," Ruth said, putting her hand on Lily's arm. "I'd know that voice anywhere. That was Esther's voice."

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming.

Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

--Event: Curts takes the letter and is prepared to give "Horn-Head" the mercy of letting him live, but the Thatcher patriarch tries to shoot Curts in the back. He is promptly killed when Ruth Kinny shoots him him in the head - through the horn, no less - the moment Thatcher raises his weapon.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!

--Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

--Event:
Citing Arizona Territory-vs- Bill Tutt and Oklahoma -vs- Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Burwell builds his case that Curts acted in self-defense.

He then skillfully dismantles testimony by twenty witnesses presented by Thatcher Lawyer Beaudreau Goforth Thibodeaux Of New Orleans.

After testimony from Roger "Hardtack" Banks and Reginald "Sidewinder" Banks that they witnessed Curts leaving Jedediah Cobb's home after hearing shots fired, Burwell moves for dismissal of the murder charge of the killing Jedediah Cobb and dramatically produces Cobb, alive and well, in the courtroom. A near riot ensues.

The Cobb charges are dropped, and despite Curt's claim of self-defense being technically invalid under the state law pertaining to "mutual combat" (since he had come to the square armed and expecting to fight), the jury decides that he was justified in shooting "Three-Eyes" Thatcher.

--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: Dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

--Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

*** Event: A partially scalped "Stinky Pete", having escaped the Mohaccas and bent on revenge, detonates several pounds of TNT at a choke point in Mesquite Gulch starting an avalance that rains boulders down on the heads of both sides of the conflict below.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

--Event: The Band boards the train in secret just before it leaves the station. Mama Snow begins living up to her namesake, using her magic to work up a blizzard powerful enough to isolate the train. She tells Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy that she'll send the sheriff their way while she moves in to personally take out Lily.



--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

---Event: Curts spots Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy aboard the train. He draws and fires without hesitation, but a charm given to Swiftfoot by Mama Snow causes his bullets to veer off. Pretty Boy then throws a knife, catching Curts in the gut. Frightened by the barrage of bullets despite the charm's protection, they flee the train without making sure Curts is dead.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

--Event:As the train pulls into Horsetail, Lily and Ruth disembark to find Pretty Boy Thatcher and Sih Swiftfoot waiting for them with pistols drawn. "Y'all ain't getting away from us that easy," Pretty Boy said. "Or maybe they will, with a little help," a voice says from behind them. The last of the Devil's Band turns, seeing no one, but the distraction is enough for Ruth and Lily to get out their own guns and shoot the desperadoes dead. "What do you reckon...?" Lily asked. "Lily," Ruth said, putting her hand on Lily's arm. "I'd know that voice anywhere. That was Esther's voice."

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming.

Are we still going to finish this one up?

I just thought we were waiting on Gargantua.

That was my thought as well.

Sorry, don't know how I missed this.

Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

--Event: Curts takes the letter and is prepared to give "Horn-Head" the mercy of letting him live, but the Thatcher patriarch tries to shoot Curts in the back. He is promptly killed when Ruth Kinny shoots him him in the head - through the horn, no less - the moment Thatcher raises his weapon.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!

--Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

***--Event Word comes to the Devil's Band that Horn-Head Thatcher has died from an infection to the gunshot wound to the arm from Sherrif Curts. Three-Eyes swears that he'll make Sheriff Curts pay and challenges him to a duel.

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

--Event:
Citing Arizona Territory-vs- Bill Tutt and Oklahoma -vs- Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Burwell builds his case that Curts acted in self-defense.

He then skillfully dismantles testimony by twenty witnesses presented by Thatcher Lawyer Beaudreau Goforth Thibodeaux Of New Orleans.

After testimony from Roger "Hardtack" Banks and Reginald "Sidewinder" Banks that they witnessed Curts leaving Jedediah Cobb's home after hearing shots fired, Burwell moves for dismissal of the murder charge of the killing Jedediah Cobb and dramatically produces Cobb, alive and well, in the courtroom. A near riot ensues.

The Cobb charges are dropped, and despite Curt's claim of self-defense being technically invalid under the state law pertaining to "mutual combat" (since he had come to the square armed and expecting to fight), the jury decides that he was justified in shooting "Three-Eyes" Thatcher.

--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: Dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

--Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

Event: A partially scalped "Stinky Pete", having escaped the Mohaccas and bent on revenge, detonates several pounds of TNT at a choke point in Mesquite Gulch starting an avalance that rains boulders down on the heads of both sides of the conflict below.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

--Event: The Band boards the train in secret just before it leaves the station. Mama Snow begins living up to her namesake, using her magic to work up a blizzard powerful enough to isolate the train. She tells Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy that she'll send the sheriff their way while she moves in to personally take out Lily.



--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

---Event: Curts spots Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy aboard the train. He draws and fires without hesitation, but a charm given to Swiftfoot by Mama Snow causes his bullets to veer off. Pretty Boy then throws a knife, catching Curts in the gut. Frightened by the barrage of bullets despite the charm's protection, they flee the train without making sure Curts is dead.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

--Event:As the train pulls into Horsetail, Lily and Ruth disembark to find Pretty Boy Thatcher and Sih Swiftfoot waiting for them with pistols drawn. "Y'all ain't getting away from us that easy," Pretty Boy said. "Or maybe they will, with a little help," a voice says from behind them. The last of the Devil's Band turns, seeing no one, but the distraction is enough for Ruth and Lily to get out their own guns and shoot the desperadoes dead. "What do you reckon...?" Lily asked. "Lily," Ruth said, putting her hand on Lily's arm. "I'd know that voice anywhere. That was Esther's voice."

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming.

Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

--Event: Curts takes the letter and is prepared to give "Horn-Head" the mercy of letting him live, but the Thatcher patriarch tries to shoot Curts in the back. He is promptly killed when Ruth Kinny shoots him him in the head - through the horn, no less - the moment Thatcher raises his weapon.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!

--Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

--Event Word comes to the Devil's Band that Horn-Head Thatcher has died from an infection to the gunshot wound to the arm from Sherrif Curts. Three-Eyes swears that he'll make Sheriff Curts pay and challenges him to a duel.

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

--Event:
Citing Arizona Territory-vs- Bill Tutt and Oklahoma -vs- Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Burwell builds his case that Curts acted in self-defense.

He then skillfully dismantles testimony by twenty witnesses presented by Thatcher Lawyer Beaudreau Goforth Thibodeaux Of New Orleans.

After testimony from Roger "Hardtack" Banks and Reginald "Sidewinder" Banks that they witnessed Curts leaving Jedediah Cobb's home after hearing shots fired, Burwell moves for dismissal of the murder charge of the killing Jedediah Cobb and dramatically produces Cobb, alive and well, in the courtroom. A near riot ensues.

The Cobb charges are dropped, and despite Curt's claim of self-defense being technically invalid under the state law pertaining to "mutual combat" (since he had come to the square armed and expecting to fight), the jury decides that he was justified in shooting "Three-Eyes" Thatcher.

--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: Dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

--Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

Event: A partially scalped "Stinky Pete", having escaped the Mohaccas and bent on revenge, detonates several pounds of TNT at a choke point in Mesquite Gulch starting an avalance that rains boulders down on the heads of both sides of the conflict below.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

--Event: The Band boards the train in secret just before it leaves the station. Mama Snow begins living up to her namesake, using her magic to work up a blizzard powerful enough to isolate the train. She tells Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy that she'll send the sheriff their way while she moves in to personally take out Lily.

--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

---Event: Curts spots Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy aboard the train. He draws and fires without hesitation, but a charm given to Swiftfoot by Mama Snow causes his bullets to veer off. Pretty Boy then throws a knife, catching Curts in the gut. Frightened by the barrage of bullets despite the charm's protection, they flee the train without making sure Curts is dead.

****--Event: Disgusted with Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy's incompetence, Mama Snow places a hex on the charm she gave Swiftfoot as they escape that curses the both of them, not wanting to waste the time necessary to kill them herself. She then boards the train to finish off her targets herself as he mumbles about good help being impossible to find.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

--Event:As the train pulls into Horsetail, Lily and Ruth disembark to find Pretty Boy Thatcher and Sih Swiftfoot waiting for them with pistols drawn. "Y'all ain't getting away from us that easy," Pretty Boy said. "Or maybe they will, with a little help," a voice says from behind them. The last of the Devil's Band turns, seeing no one, but the distraction is enough for Ruth and Lily to get out their own guns and shoot the desperadoes dead. "What do you reckon...?" Lily asked. "Lily," Ruth said, putting her hand on Lily's arm. "I'd know that voice anywhere. That was Esther's voice."

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming.

Premise: The Chronicles of Orville Curts, Volume 2

Starting Period: Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney search for Orville's wife Lilly Curts.

--Event: In Horsetail, Sheriff Curts prepares to leave in search of his missing wife. He asks bounty hunter Ruth Kinney to join him, but Kinney declines, saying she needs time to mourn the loss of her sister, Ether, who perished in the ride on Crawley Canyon. However, at that moment, the two hear a voice say, "You was warned, Sheriff."

--Event: The speaker reveals himself as "Horn-Head" Thatcher, gun-for-hire and patriarch of the freakish Thatcher clan, who came to Horsetail to eliminate the sheriff after Lily was taken away. Sheriff Curts engages Horn-Head in a shootout, which ends when Curts puts a bullet in the mercenary's arm Curts demands to know where his wife is, but Horn-Head knows nothing about that, only that the people who hired him sent a letter from Needles, OK.

--Event: Curts takes the letter and is prepared to give "Horn-Head" the mercy of letting him live, but the Thatcher patriarch tries to shoot Curts in the back. He is promptly killed when Ruth Kinny shoots him him in the head - through the horn, no less - the moment Thatcher raises his weapon.

--Event: Tennessee preacher Sidney Brixton informs his congregation that he's had a vision. In his vision, an angel had told him to travel to a place called Angel's Prairie and there usher in the Kingdom of the Lord. To a man, his flock joins him in his pilgrimage westward.

--Event: Lily Curts regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark room. When her captor opens a door and steps into the room, Lily realizes with horror that her past has finally caught up with her.

****--Event: Three figures step into the room. The first, Lily recognizes as the somehow walking corpse Henri Laveau, a voodoo man who, among his many other crimes, attempted to rape Lily years ago. He failed, and was hung for his crimes, thanks in part to Lily's testimony. She shortly thereafter fled her hometown of Needles and changed her name from Samson to Dunning upon arriving in Horsetail. The second figure in the room is the reason she fled: Mama Snow, Laveau's widow, who swore to kill Lily for her actions. The third is Snow's assistant, a dwarf named Cornelius Mallard.

--EVENT: Mama Snow glares at Lily and snarls "It was your testimony that sent my husband to the gallows. And three years ago, it was your husband who killed my brothers in a shoot-out at Dodge City. Now I will at last have my vengeance on both of you!"

--Event: Lilly manages to work herself loose of the ropes. While Mama Snow is outside the house, Lily attacks Mama's dwarf assistant with a frying pan, leaving him dead with a cracked skull. She then flees the house and runs for it.

--Event: After Lily Curts escapes the house she's been kept in, she realizes why it's familiar: the house is her childhood home, the Edgewater Orphanage in Needles, Oklahoma.

--Event: With her captors in hot pursuit, Lily sees a large campfire in the distance and seeking safety in numbers, runs toward it. It turns out to be Sidney Brixton's party, moving through on their way to Angel's Prairie. Sidney informs her that "it ain't safe for a woman to be traveling alone in these parts." Lily replies that "it ain't safe for anyone around these parts," but nonetheless accepts his invitation to travel with the group. At least for the time being.

Period: The Formation of the Devil's Band

--Event: "One Ear" Thatcher, brother of "Three-Eyes" Thatcher, escapes from Yuma prison, killing two guards and a fellow prisoner in the process.

--Event: Having escaped from prison, One Ear and Three-Eyes meet up with their brothers - "No Nose" Thatcher and "Pretty Boy" Thatcher, the latter of which known as such by looking perfectly normal in contrast to his brothers - several miles outside of town.

--Event: As the reunited Thatcher brothers split a bottle of whiskey around the campfire, the tall figure of Sih Swiftfoot walked into the firelight.

--Event: Meanwhile, Orville Curts and Ruth Kinney finally arive in Needles, where they soon discover that Lily grew up there. They pay a visit to the Edgewater Orphanage, only to discover that while there are signs that it was recently occupied, it is currently abandoned.

--Event: The Thatcher Brothers and Swiftfoot launch a series of brutal raids on outlying farms and ranches, soon earning the name "The Devil's Band."

Period: The Duel Against "Three-Eyes" Thatcher

--Event Word comes to the Devil's Band that Horn-Head Thatcher has died from an infection to the gunshot wound to the arm from Sherrif Curts. Three-Eyes swears that he'll make Sheriff Curts pay and challenges him to a duel.

--EVENT: Knowing that "Three-Eyes" Thatcher has no intention of fighting in a manner that's even remotely fair, Curts and Kinney plot for her to sabotage Thatcher in order to give Curts a genuine fighting chance against the man.

--Event: Ruth Kinney bribes "Missy" Lovingood, proprieter of Missy's Hitchin' Post (a brothel frequented by the Thatchers), to allow her to pose as a an employee.

--EVENT: Having heard about Orville Curts' reputation, "Three-Eyes" decides to both kill two birds with one stone and get a backup plan in place in case Curts successfully kills him. He does this by having former slave turned wealthy business man and philanthropist turned politician Mayor Jedediah Cobb murdered - revenge for the man beating him in the last Mayoral election - then sees to it that when Cobb is discovered dead, Curts will be framed for the murder. That way, if Thatcher dies, Curts will die too, and if Thatcher lives, he can claim credit for killing Cobb's murderer.

--EVENT: One-Ear and Pretty Boy Thatcher are initally very intrigued when the new lady of the evening at Missy's Hitchin' Post says she wants to tie them up. Their mood changes when Ruth also gags them, and walks out on them, saying, "That oughtta even the odds some when Sheriff Curts fights your brother this afternoon."

Period: The Murder Trial of Orville Curts

--Event: As the Brixton Party enjoy the hospitality of the 8th Cavalry at Fort Carterette, Lily Curts sees a newspaper with the headline "Sheriff Orville Curts - Murderer!" She asks commanding officer Jebediah Graves for a horse so that she can ride to his side for the trial.

--Event: Renowned Boston lawyer B. Banks Burwell is hired as Curts' defense attorney.

--Event:
Citing Arizona Territory-vs- Bill Tutt and Oklahoma -vs- Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Burwell builds his case that Curts acted in self-defense.

He then skillfully dismantles testimony by twenty witnesses presented by Thatcher Lawyer Beaudreau Goforth Thibodeaux Of New Orleans.

After testimony from Roger "Hardtack" Banks and Reginald "Sidewinder" Banks that they witnessed Curts leaving Jedediah Cobb's home after hearing shots fired, Burwell moves for dismissal of the murder charge of the killing Jedediah Cobb and dramatically produces Cobb, alive and well, in the courtroom. A near riot ensues.

The Cobb charges are dropped, and despite Curt's claim of self-defense being technically invalid under the state law pertaining to "mutual combat" (since he had come to the square armed and expecting to fight), the jury decides that he was justified in shooting "Three-Eyes" Thatcher.

--Event: With Curts found not guilty and now being escorted to Needles by Marshal MacKenzie, the remaining members of the Devil's Band, Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy, have all but given all hope for revenge. They are then approached by the feared voodoo houngan Mama Snow, who gives them an offer: the three of them will track down Lily Curts for Snow, and in exchange, she will help them kill the sheriff.

--EVENT: "His first death was when he lost his arm!" screeched Mama Snow. "His second death was when he was swallowed by the terrible Storm! His third death will be his final death! This I swear!

Period: The Cannibals of Mesquite Gulch.

--Event: Claude "Stinky Pete" Muldoon more or less accidentally kills his middle son Jack. Not wanting to face any possible legal entanglements, and low on foodstuffs, he disposes of the body in the stewpot. Finding the results rather tasty, the Muldoons begin hunting similar sustenance, in and around their environs of Mesquite Gulch.

--EVENT: The Muldoon's cannibalism comes back to bite them in the butt - literally. After the Muldoons kill and eat a couple members of the local Mohacca tribe, the Mohaccas decided to take revenge on them. What starts as an attempt at poetic justice when the chieftain decides that the Muldoons shall suffer the same fate as their victims turns into a movement when many of the Mohaccas decide that human flesh tastes good, too. Members of the tribe objecting to the practice are either killed themselves or driven into exile.

--Event: Dime novelist Socrates Brixton and his entourage of eastern dandies Embark on an ill planned junket to Mesquite Gulch. Ostensibly to find the "spirit of the West"

--Event: Sidney Brixton and his flock are joined by the party led by his estranged brother, Socrates, who's intention all along was encountering Sidney in Mesquite Gulch and disrupting his pilgrimage. The two engage in a violent argument as hungry eyes watch from the shadows...

--EVENT: 8th US Calvary Colonel Jebediah Graves leads a search party into Mesquite Gulch to investigate the disappearance of the Brixton Party.

--EVENT: The Mohacca tribe launches an ambush on the 8th US Calvary, overwhelming them. Only a handful manage to escape thanks to the timely intervention of some of the exiled Mohaccas.

Event: A partially scalped "Stinky Pete", having escaped the Mohaccas and bent on revenge, detonates several pounds of TNT at a choke point in Mesquite Gulch starting an avalance that rains boulders down on the heads of both sides of the conflict below.

--Event: One of the few survivors of the attack, Socrates Brixton, is dazzled by the acts of heroism he's seen. Deciding to commit to the false goal he set out with, Socrates decides to follow the Curts party and write of their adventures, believing he's discovered the true spirit of the West.

Ending Period: "And That Was The Third Time I Died."

--EVENT: With Orville and Lily reunited, they, along with MacKenzie, board a train to Austin, unaware that the Devil's Band is following them.

--Event: The Band boards the train in secret just before it leaves the station. Mama Snow begins living up to her namesake, using her magic to work up a blizzard powerful enough to isolate the train. She tells Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy that she'll send the sheriff their way while she moves in to personally take out Lily.

--EVENT: Despite having been a warm April afternoon, the weather bizarrely turns bitterly cold and the train is trapped in a blizzard 50 miles from the nearest town--the tracks hopelessly blocked by snow.

---Event: Curts spots Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy aboard the train. He draws and fires without hesitation, but a charm given to Swiftfoot by Mama Snow causes his bullets to veer off. Pretty Boy then throws a knife, catching Curts in the gut. Frightened by the barrage of bullets despite the charm's protection, they flee the train without making sure Curts is dead.

--Event: Disgusted with Swiftfoot and Pretty Boy's incompetence, Mama Snow places a hex on the charm she gave Swiftfoot as they escape that curses the both of them, not wanting to waste the time necessary to kill them herself. She then boards the train to finish off her targets herself as he mumbles about good help being impossible to find.

--EVENT: As Mama Snow approaches Lily, Sheriff Curts, suffering from a knife wound in the gut and with his revolvers empty, tackles the wicked voodoo queen. The two crash through the window of the train and plummet down the cliff side. The sheriff is presumed dead, as no one could survive a fall from that height, but Lily and Ruth are both faithful that he'll make his way back to Horsetail soon enough.

--Event:As the train pulls into Horsetail, Lily and Ruth disembark to find Pretty Boy Thatcher and Sih Swiftfoot waiting for them with pistols drawn. "Y'all ain't getting away from us that easy," Pretty Boy said. "Or maybe they will, with a little help," a voice says from behind them. The last of the Devil's Band turns, seeing no one, but the distraction is enough for Ruth and Lily to get out their own guns and shoot the desperadoes dead. "What do you reckon...?" Lily asked. "Lily," Ruth said, putting her hand on Lily's arm. "I'd know that voice anywhere. That was Esther's voice."

--Event: Curts lies broken and bleeding out at the bottom of the cliff. As he resigns himself to the inevitable, be sees El Barril sauntering over to him. The shade of the Mexican bandit takes a seat on a nearby boulder. "Is this how you plan to die, gringo?" he sneers, "I expected better of you."

--Event: Curts finds the willpower to pick himself up and drag himself through the snow to the nearest town, where he arrives just barely in time to get proper medical attention. As he lies in bed recovering, waiting for word to get to his wife that he's still alive, he is visited by the ghost of Marshall Roy Oatlash, who tells him he better rest up and get ready, because he's going to need every ounce of everything he's got to prepare himself for what will soon be coming.