And the Devil Makes Five

Chapter 1 – The Devil Rides Along

The horses were tired and the riders were saddle-sore and hungry. This had stopped sounding like a good idea a long time ago, and now it was just a never-ending litany of misery. And to make matters worse the clouds above them were gathering and growing darker by the minute.

"I think we better find shelter before the storm hits," the youngest one of the bunch suggested.

"I'm tryin' to," his brother snapped back, then regretted the hasty response.

"Up ahead, isn't that another cave?" asked the man with the unfamiliar accent.

"Does it have a bar?" This came from the fourth member of the group, the one that brought up the rear and weighed his mount down with two full bottles of whiskey

"Who cares?" answered the young one again. "It'll be dry, at least."

"No bar?" moaned the man riding last. "What kind of a place is this, anyway?"

"It's the desert. It's not a town, it's not a saloon, it's not a cantina. And you have more than enough to drink with you." This from the brother once more.

"Look, I was right. It is a cave."

Just as the comment finished the thunder boomed and the lightening cracked, and they urged their bone-weary horses into a gallop. The last member of the quartet had barely ridden into the cavern when the skies broke open and the rain poured down, drenching everything. Everybody dismounted; the youngest collected the horse's reins and led them further back into the cave. The brother and the man with the odd speech patterns gathered wood from around the cave opening and started a fire. The fourth rider clutched the bottle of whiskey to his chest that he'd removed from his saddlebags; it was the only thing standing between him and sobriety.

A few minutes later they were all seated around the fire, three of them chewing on another piece of the jerky that the brother had brought along just to be safe. Right now they were extremely glad he'd taken the precaution. The fourth was getting ready to take his first drink of the night from the bottle.

"I'm so tired I could sleep standing up," the youngest volunteered. "We're in for the night, aren't we?"

Two heads nodded in unison, the third bobbed to its own rhythm. "At least we're warm and dry. We've been in worse spots."

Three voices agreed to the sentiment. The fourth asked the rhetorical question. "When?"

There was no answer. Even the fourth member of the group was hard pressed to think of a more deplorable situation. They were wanted by the rangers in Laredo and pursued by the Mexican police; the banditos of Nuevo Laredo, El Cenizo and Rio Bravo and the Franciscan monks wanted a piece of them; and a beautiful senorita named Carmenita would happily marry any of the four she could get her hands on. And that wasn't the worst of it. Somebody had stolen their gold.

This group of four Americans that started out in all innocence as a bunch of treasure seekers was now being pursued by a variety of both desirable and undesirable elements. There were no longer just four of them. There was an additional rider with them; sometimes for them and sometimes against them. The first two were brothers; the next their cousin, the last a good friend. The final one wasn't a real entity, but a spirit that seemed determined to curse their lives, wherever they went. The group consisted of brothers Bret and Bart Maverick; cousin Beau Maverick; friend Doc Holliday; and the devil made five.

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