A Texas Beauty, Smart and Strong

By Johnny Hughes

Previous Reviews:

You have a great writing style, very credible, and entertaining. Those were dangerous times. Almost all of the guys are gone. A great book!...

Doyle Brunson, Poker Hall of Fame, author.

Hes as good a writer as he is a player. When it comes to poker tales...Johnny Hughes is your man....

Anthony Holden, London, President of the International Federation of Poker, author

... a captivating raconteur and avid historian...brings them to life with a unique flair and panache...(He) paints word pictures with witty, lush brush strokes reminiscent of Tom Wolfe...

Paul Dr. Pauly McGuire, author

..the William Manchester of poker historians...a Hughes narrative is like lighting a lantern into the darkest recess of pokers subculture...provides the very best portrait of these unique real-life characters of anyone on record...

Nolan Dalla, Media Director. World Series of Poker, author

...told with the authenticity and the knowledge that only a true road gambler could possess...A highly enjoyable read..

Anthony Kelly, Editor, Player Europe Magazine,

Dublin, Ireland.

www.JohnnyHughes.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491788356

Johnny Hughes

Johnny Hughes has written for Bluff Magazine, Bluff Europe, Player Europe, Texas Observer, TexasMonthly.com, GuinnessandPoker.com, PokerPages.com, PokerForum.com, WisehandPoker.com, Bet-the-Pot.com, and Truckin?. He has been a gambler, salesman, and university lecturer. Learn more about Hughes at www.JohnnyHughes.com.

Book preview

A Texas Beauty,

Smart and Strong

A Mystery, Comedy and Romance

JOHNNY HUGHES

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A TEXAS BEAUTY, SMART AND STRONG

A MYSTERY, COMEDY AND ROMANCE

Copyright © 2016 Johnny Hughes.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8833-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8834-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8835-6 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 1/20/2016

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

About the Author

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to Facebook and all my Facebook

friends, many of whom are thanked in the back.

THE FACEBOOK GOLDEN RULE

Like other’s posts as you would have them like your posts.

Share other’s posts as you would have them share your posts.

Block others anytime you wish.

OTHER BOOKS BY JOHNNY HUGHES

Texas Poker Wisdom, a Las Vegas and Lubbock-based novel.

Famous Gamblers, Poker History, and Texas Stories, a collection of my best articles and short stories published in magazines, mostly Bluff Magazine and Bluff Europe Magazine. It has four sections: Famous Gamblers, the Old West, Memoirs, and Short Stories.

These books are available on all Amazons world wide and by bookstore order. They come in paperback, hardback, Kindle, Nook, Sony eBooks, and Google eBooks

web site: www.JohnnyHughes.com

BigTexan.jpg

The Big Texan Steak Ranch, Amarillo, Texas. Photo courtesy, Bobby Lee.

Chapter One

M isty Morgan was having one of the worst weeks of her life. She had a stalker. Dylan O’Malley was having one of the best weeks of his life, and then, he fell in love . For a gambler, love puts everything at risk. It was his last week in Las Vegas. The poker bankroll that he and his uncle, Matt, owned together had finally surpassed $4,800,000, after five years of ups and downs.

Dylan was coasting in a $25 and $50 blind, no-limit Texas Hold ‘em game, not so big by Bellagio standards. Then Misty Morgan walked up and changed Dylan’s life forevermore. Ain’t love grand? She had changed many a man’s life. She knew this older, heavy man in the poker game with a hopelessly out-dated, orange, jump suit on. Well, hello, Misty. I thought you played downtown these days, he said. That was the first time Dylan had heard him speak except to say call, raise, or fold. It was the first time he had smiled in an hour of poker.

Dylan immediately thought she looked like a movie star, like so many others before him. That beauty opened doors, but it created barriers and stereotypes galore. Misty’s thick, auburn hair was almost an exact match to Dylan’s. She always kept it just long enough to rest on her breasts, above the nipples. Misty always showed cleavage, and had the top two or three buttons undone. Her perfect hour-glass figure, narrow waist, and large breasts were a near match for movie star Selma Hayek.

Misty walked around behind Dylan and put her hand on his shoulder. "I’ve heard about you, she said. We are practically neighbors. I’m from Amarillo. Dylan played poker out of Lubbock, Texas, 140 miles south of Amarillo. Close, by West Texas standards. I’ll be back in a little while. I want to talk to you some about the poker in West Texas. We both know Rusty Bailey. I may get a job dealing for him near Lubbock."

Dylan stood up to talk with her. He was 6’2 and 175 pounds of solid muscle, none of it from working. He’d lifted weights while in the Navy. Misty thought he looked like Texas actor Matthew McConaughey. The same sly grin, but not so thin. Dylan gave Misty the full tilt O’Malley charm and asked her to dinner that very night. I’d rather look at you than play all the poker in the world!" he said. She noticed the rust colored, wool sports coat draped over the chair so that the Hart, Schaffner, and Marx label showed and the cobalt blue, silk handkerchief in the breast pocket that matched his shirt.

Misty could see her stalker, Tom Chapman, over Dylan’s shoulder and it chilled her whole gorgeous body. Chapman often had this foolish smile look but now he was glaring, thinking that his imaginary soul mate was talking to another man. Jealousy consumed him. Jealousy has to be God’s little joke. Since the first caveman hit his promiscuous lady love upside the head with his decorated club, jealousy has not once benefited the jealous person.

She asked Dylan about Rusty Bailey’s poker game and what kind of tips she’d get. He told her they’d be great, and a great place to work with world-class food. But it was the toughest poker game he played in in four states.

After he saw her walk out, Dylan cashed out, and looked all about for her. In his head, he began writing the first song about her he was to write:

She put her hand on my shoulder.

I’d never seen her before.

That touch and her beauty.

Opened love’s door.

Searched all over Las Vegas.

Looked for her everywhere.

She said she was headed for Texas.

So I headed there.

Dylan’s Svengali-wannabe uncle had given up his life-long devotion to the law of averages to entertain beliefs in the mystical, supernatural, karma that fueled their amazing two-year long lucky streak. Dylan wondered if meeting Misty might be part of this time in life when good fortune smiled on him as often as the sun came up. The O’Malleys were five generations of road gamblers, con artists, snake oil salesman, and musicians. Dylan and Matt were honest, square gamblers and proud of it! The O’Malleys who were square gamblers were the most successful down through time.

Big Ed O’Malley had arrived in Leadville, Colorado for the silver strike in 1880. He would sit on the bar in a chair with a double-barreled shot gun in his lap to make certain everything was on the square. Later, he was a boss gambler in Denver with five gambling houses. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson had worked for Big Ed O’Malley at different times as faro dealers. Celebrities packed the joint.

As Misty Morgan left the Bellagio poker room, most of the people there paused to watch her go. Misty had thought she could go about freely on her last night in Las Vegas, but there was Captain Tom standing by the women’s room. He looked angry. Misty disappeared into the crowds. When Misty would go to a different Las Vegas poker room, Tom would often find her because he was doing a search.

Dylan cashed in and watched the game awhile. He had planned to hook up with Dr. Pauly, Iggy, and Otis at the Rio for some drinking and silly prop bets, like throwing limes at trash cans from a distance. He walked all around the poker room sipping a beer and looking for Misty. He felt kind of silly. Then he took a cab downtown and walked around the poker rooms, while he drank. He asked the brush in each poker room if they had seen Misty Morgan. All knew who she was, but said she had not been around that night.

Dylan O’Malley, super-controlled, super-cool, Texas road gambler, had fallen in love. It was as if he could still feel her hand on his shoulder. Actually feel the warmth. He still had a perfect picture in his mind of her standing over him. She’s heard of me, he said out loud. "What does that mean?" He clicked his heels and did a little dance down Fremont Street recalling an old Fred Astaire movie in his head and thinking the night and her lingering aura just required dance!

Misty Morgan had decided to walk through the Bellagio poker room, and the Venetian poker room, and be seen. Between all the attacks on her on the poker blogs, and her fear of Captain Ben Chapman, her ex-poker coach, and mentor, turned scary, psycho stalker, Misty’s life was, like her poker playing, running bad. Very bad. She had convinced herself she was hiding out successfully, but her box-car odds beauty made that a long shot.

Misty grew up a few blocks from Interstate 40, the old Route 66, in Amarillo, Texas. It was the Mother Road, America’s Main Street, America’s Highway.

Misty’s mother would often point at the busy highway, "Hollywood is at the end of that road. You are going to be a movie star, baby. You look just like those old movie stars." Misty had heard about her beauty so much, it was assumed. Not pondered. Not questioned. Assumed. She could walk through a crowded casino, and know heads were turning, and ignore it. That was simply the way it was, nothing more. She could look off into the distance, or give them a gentle, stewardess smile, but she could not stop being remarkably beautiful.

When Misty won $40,000 at the Venetian Deep Stack Tournament, pictures of her were all over the Internet, even though it was a small, insignificant win. She called her mother from the 22nd floor of the Plaza Hotel, in downtown Las Vegas. She watched a slow-moving, long, freight train slowly headed north, far below her.

Hello, Mama. Did anyone eat the big one? Misty asked. Smiling Sally Summers had been a waitress at Amarillo’s legendary Big Texan Steak Ranch off and on for twenty-seven years. They had a standing offer that if anyone could eat a 72-ounce steak, and all the trimmings, in one hour, it was free.

No, baby. A man last week got about half way through. I got a $100 tip last night from a big table from Ohio, Sally said. Asking about the free big steak was an affectionate family ritual, comfortable to Misty since she was eight years old.

Well, you are running lucky, Mama. I put $20,000 in your Wells-Fargo checking account this afternoon. Call ‘em, and check your balance, just to make sure. Misty had dreamed of moments like this for as long as she could remember.

"You sure didn’t have to go and do that. You are telling me you won that money playing poker? It won’t be changing my opinion of gambling any, but I am sure grateful. Thank you, honey. I’ll hold on to it for you. You already paid off my bills. You’ve always wanted to make me happy." And now both women were crying, and hiding it successfully.

You want to make me really happy, show up some Sunday morning at Big Texan, and sing at Cowboy Church. That would make lots of folks happy. Bobby Lee loves it when you come sing. Did you call Clifton? You know they are moving to Iowa to be near their daughter. I am still not so sure I should have let him teach you poker, and all those games. Misty had made her singing debut at the Cowboy Church when she was eight years old. The mother and daughter duo sang perfect harmonies on Nearer My God to Thee, and led a sing-a-long version of Do Lord. Everyone there, including Sally, were surprised at how loud and clear Misty’s voice rang out. I’ve got a home in glory land and out shines the sun …

Afterwards, a white man with an Afro and aviator glasses told them he was a big Nashville producer. He was really a local, failed, bass player. He boasted that he could make Misty a star, making him the first of a very, very long line of men with that line.

With twenty-seven years at the Big Texan, except for a spell when she went to beauty college, Smiling Sally Jo Summers wasn’t just any waitress. She had business cards, a web site Misty had made in high school, and she blogged every night on her web site AmericanWaitress.com, where she was the most famous, single person. Her business card said she accepted all friends on Facebook and MySpace, and she had thousands. There was a small line drawing on her web site and business card of Sally made by a man from Croatia who did not speak English, much less Texan.

Smiling Sally Jo Summers gave advice on how to get tips, and she was the best in the whole world at it. She would approach her table, speaking in her exaggerated Texas accent, Where y’all folks hail from? You ain’t from these parts. Kansas! Bless your heart. The nicest folks that ever walked in shoe leather are from Kansas. She told Misty that she always put her hands on men, or touched their backs, saying she estimated it increased tips ten to twenty percent. Sally even had a theme song, "Sally was a good ol’ gal …"

Sally had a one-line speaking part in the movie, Waking Up in Reno, starring Billy Bob Thornton. Part of it was filmed at the Big Texan. They filmed Sally Jo handing Billy Bob her business card and telling him about her web site but that was cut. Billy Bob tries and fails to eat the challenge to eat a 72 ounce sirloin with all the trimmings in one hour. He fails, and Sally says, Try again next time you are in these parts.

Again, Sally urged Misty to get back in touch with her so-called Las Vegas acting agent. When her mother began the tired saga of her cousin, the family gambler, Duck Hawkins, Sally sighed, but listened. Duck followed the horses that followed the horses, and was always in debt. One day he told his wife he was going for a loaf of bread, and he never came back, leaving her to raise two tow-headed, angry, young Texas boys.

The next person Misty called was Clifton Clowers, her Godfather, and long-term neighbor. Master Sergeant Clifton Clowers, U.S. Army (ret.} and his wife Bonnie had bought a little three bedroom house next door to Misty and her mother when Misty was eight. They met at Cowboy Church. The Clowers went from baby sitters to a surrogate family. He missed marching troops, so he’d march Misty all around the neighborhood. They lived two blocks north of U.S. 40, the old Route 66. Clifff taught Misty the names of all the states and their capitols, and they counted how many states were represented in the Big Texan parking lot. He also taught her the rhyming game, where he’d say a word and Misty would say rhyming words. He paid Misty $50 a month to write five poems, starting when she was nine years old.

Sarge Clowers ran a poker game for guys he had met at the VFW. It started out on his kitchen table every Thursday night. After three years, he had finished his basement club room, complete with a green-felt poker table, a pool table, and a wet bar. Misty Summers was allowed to watch, and serve cokes and beers for tips from the time she was ten. Bonnie warned Cliff that Misty liked poker a little too much. Misty and Cliff played each other for pennies, and she wanted to play poker as often as possible.

Chapter Two

I n 1902, the trail drives and the cowboy days of so many movies had just about played out. James Morgan, a twenty-two year old, Baltimore, Maryland banker, had been sent to the Panhandle of Texas to help sell off ranch land owned by a large Irish syndicate. He bought his own little 300-acre spread with the help of Asa Parker and the Borger State Bank. James would watch the sunset from the long porch of the one-room ranch house. He could only see a lonely string of barbed wire a.k.a. the Devil’s Rope between himself and New Mexico. In his lifetime and that of his son, the first Sean Morgan, the ranch grew to 46,000 contiguous acres, small by Texas standards. Later, the historic Morgan Ranch had a whopping 978 oil wells, most still producing today, out of a high of over 1100 oil wells.

Folklore conventions and the ghost story crowd talked each year about the Morgan Curse, the string of accidental deaths that had kept the Morgan family small, snake-bit, and running scared. The first Sean Morgan took the name Colonel, as rich Texans tended to do around those days. He didn’t marry until he was 36, and he fathered a son at 42. The Colonel rode his horse straight into a blue norther and was found frozen to death, stuck to his own barb wire fence. Even though he had a car, he had ridden his horse six miles to sip some whiskey and play dominoes with some of his cowboys. A record-breaking blue norther rolled in causing a whiteout and leaving eight inches of snow on the ground. Many livestock were lost to this storm.

During the great depression, they were land rich, and cash poor. Sean’s widow, Christine, was running the ranch. The County Commissioners sued for back taxes. Christine hid out and refused to go to the courthouse. When Dry Hole Hank Crawford was driving across the edge of the Morgan Ranch, his truck broke down. He decided to drill right there. Christine signed her name to an oil lease contract on the fender of the wildcatter’s Model A Ford truck.

Colonel Sean Morgan could not have known how prescient he was, adding pasture land that turned into one of the richest oil fields in the Texas Panhandle. He might have known a little something, because he hung on to the mineral rights as he sold off farm land.

By the time it was time for Sean Jr. to begin pretending he had any power with his mother, they had moved to a mansion in Amarillo. He was still living at home at age 29, when he married 16 year old Evelyn Flournoy, from a family from the right side of the tracks, but just barely. You would have thought he’d of shot Christine. She argued and argued that he should get the marriage annulled. Sean Jr. just ignored the ranch lawyers who came with pre-nuptial agreements for Evelyn to sign.

When he was 54 years old, Sean Jr. was joking with some cowboys near the bunk house. He whipped out his gold watch from his vest pocket, and the chain broke. The watch fell behind a horse. As Sean bent to pick it up, the horse kicked him in the head. He was dead. This story spawned all manner of conspiracy theories, because a smart horseman wouldn’t do that.

When Sean III brought the future bride he’d met at the A&W Root Beer out to the ranch to meet his mother, Evelyn showed her usual reserve and class, but she was deeply disappointed. Carhop had a certain ring to it. Gum chewing, and generally loud, Shirley Jean Bumgardner, reminded her of the girls at Amarillo High that she felt so superior too, even though her family was dirt poor. Shirley Jean and Evelyn’s concealed hatred of each other was prelude to a decades-long struggle for the things Texans love most: oil, cattle, land, and money. They had no reason to fight over water rights.

Shirley Jean and Sean III begat Sean IV. As Randy Newman said, Anyway, he died. Sean lll was always quite a cowboy, and loved the camaraderie of the working cowboys on the Morgan Ranch. A group were out gigging frogs on a full moon night on Stink Dog Creek. Sean III slipped off the edge of the bank, and yelled, Hey! He never did come up out of the muddy water. At first the cowboys thought he was joking. It wasn’t but four feet of water. They got him out pretty fast, and did artificial respiration to no avail. They were all big drunk, and waited about three hours to call the Justice of the Peace, while they sobered up.

The curse story heard all over Texas was that Evelyn didn’t cry when they told her that her son had died. She just said, I see. She didn’t ask many questions. Clyde Farley was the lawyer that handled everything for Evelyn. She asked the shaking sheriff’s deputy to inform Clyde saying, He knows what to do. Evelyn Morgan seemed ready for the death of her only child. Mothers whose sons are in a war are not ready for that.

Mean folks that whisper about such things had plenty to talk about with Shirley Jean Morgan. It was as if she took Priscilla Davis as a role model, going for drink, downers, and dumb men. She bought a second big house in Dallas, and welcomed riff-raff late at night. Shirley Jean and Evelyn came to a truce before the lawyers ran up million dollar tabs, like they planned to. After a whole lot of threats from Shirley Jean’s lawyers, Evelyn invited her out to the ranch for a sit down. Shirley Jean walked in the door owning twenty percent of the oil royalties of the Morgan Ranch and its mineral interest, according to her lawyers. She walked out happy to get eight percent, which meant over a million in oil royalties every month.

The main thing the two women agreed on was that Sean Morgan the fourth was going to be kept as safe as possible. He lived with Shirley Jean in Amarillo, and Dallas some. He gladly spent summers on the Morgan Ranch with his grandmother. That first summer, Sean was sitting outside with three of the cowboys who were sipping morning coffee. Evelyn walked up and said, How about we call you Billy? That is a better cowboy name, Billy. And that was it. He was Billy, and sometimes Billy the Kid. Maybe Evelyn just associated that name Sean with death and dumb accidents.

Russia’s Czar Nicolas and Alexandra had a son named Alexis with hemophilia, a bleeding disorder, and he was the most protected child in Russia. He had a giant sailor as a keeper and bodyguard. Evelyn knew that story. She called Jack Burns, a third generation Morgan Ranch cowboy, into the ranch house. She asked him to take on the bodyguard, best friend role, both on the ranch, and in Amarillo. She tripled his salary. Jack’s pleasing personality was known far and wide. He appeared as a cowboy poet at varied gatherings and the chuck wagon breakfasts for tourists on the nearby Hanging Tree ranch.

Billy Morgan was cooperative in all things. He took orders and did what he was told. He was the last person alive to have the blood of the first Sean Morgan, since his mother and grandmother had married into the family. He was a Texas boy who was asked not to play football, not to rodeo, not to fist fight, not to drive drunk, and to stay out of rough bars. He did all those things, without a hint of rebellion for a few years.

They gave Billy an old, gray gelding as a saddle pony. It was the gentlest horse on the Morgan Ranch. Evelyn, who rarely rode a horse, rode Traveler every day for a month before she gave him to Billy. Some safety experts from Dallas suggested several changes at the ranch house, but most were to prevent burglary. Jack Burns studied first aid and CPR. They got a defibrillator. Jack got a concealed carry license, and always had at least one gun on him, usually in his boot.

When Billy Morgan was a senior at Amarillo High, he was sitting on the front row of the assembly when Misty Summers came out to sing, The Impossible Dream. He kept trying to distract her, and he got her eye. That afternoon, Billy stopped her in the hall.

You want to go get a coke some evening? Billy asked, flashing his signature, corny grin.

I’m just a sophomore. My momma doesn’t let me date yet. I go to the mall some Saturdays. Misty wouldn’t give him her phone number.

That next Saturday, they sat in the food court for four hours talking. Billy talked about his grand momma’s ranch, but never let on he was big rich. The Big Texan Steak Ranch was open 365 days a year. Misty talked about all the Christmas days she had spent there since she was eight years old. She’d talk about her mother, Smiling Sally, as if she were the governor or somebody rich and famous. For whatever reason, Billy never said anything about her being the best looking girl in Amarillo. And she noticed that. She kept waiting for, Anybody ever told you that you are the prettiest girl. Oh, they call it puppy love.

They went from a lot of making out at a drive-in movie to parking past the airport on a dirt road a few nights. It just happened way too fast. Billy was acting a bit wild, as was fashionable with high school seniors. He got drunk and came to Smiling Sally’s door step at three a.m. yelling loudly, he was asking for Misty’s hand in marriage. Sally had him in and made him coffee. Misty laid on the floor near her bedroom door trying to hear what they said. The next day in the hall at Amarillo High, Misty asked him if he was serious about all of that.

Later in life, Misty couldn’t even remember why it happened. Billy and Misty made the long drive to El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. It was there, they were married. That’s how she became Misty Morgan, for real, for awhile. Part of what Billy was doing was fueled by pent-up rebellion, knowing that his mother would automatically be against it, and that lawyers would be involved. Misty would ask herself in the years to come how much Billy’s money had to do with her impulsive decision to marry.

Sally took them in and they continued in high school. Billy’s mother cut off his credit cards and closed his bank account which probably wasn’t legal. When the spring break came, Billy was gone a week to the Morgan Ranch. When he got back, he stayed with his mother and ranch lawyers brought papers seeking an annulment for Sally and Misty to sign. After Sally refused, they were back the next day with a check for $25,000, and they both signed.

A couple of years later, when Misty was in Amarillo College, Billy was a regular at both the Big Texan and Sally’s house and the two were very close friends. She liked for him to call her mom.

Chapter Three

S hortly after Misty left Amarillo for Albuquerque to work at Sandia Casino, Billy was at a keg party on a farm near Canyon, Texas. He saw a rabbit run into an aluminum irrigation pipe. He held the pipe up to shake the rabbit out. The pipe hit a high-line wire, and Billy was electrocuted. Every barber and beautician and a few Amarillo talk show hosts were talking about the Morgan Curse the next morning.

Sally and Misty attended Billy’s, large, graveside services. The crowd contained more than its share of the morbidly curious. No-account folks were gawking to get a look at Evelyn Morgan, Billy’s grandmother. Everyone sang Amazing Grace and Strawberry Roan. After the service, Evelyn Morgan came over and gave Misty a brief hug. Both women started crying. Evelyn said, I was married at sixteen. Come out to the Morgan Ranch to visit me sometime.

When she was twenty-one, Misty entered the Miss Amarillo contest. Most nearly everyone in the room knew that Misty would win Miss Amarillo before she sang the first note of Red River Valley. A week later a front page newspaper story told of the crown being taken from Misty because of her previous marriage. Her picture was there and a headline, Misty Married a Morgan. Sally was furious and wrote a letter to the editor about Harper Valley PTA hypocrites. Misty was humiliated by the whole experience and it motivated her departure from Amarillo. Her mother hounded her and insisted she enter the beauty contest saying that annulment meant a marriage never happened. It was the single worst thing that had ever happened to Misty. The humiliation made her want to flee Amarillo, Texas forevermore.

Misty played and dealt poker in five casinos in New Mexico and Arizona. She started to go by the name Misty Morgan. She confided to a few people about being an heir to the giant fortune of the Morgan Ranch. If they looked on the Internet, the history of the ranch shouted