Luke Lilavelt has built his Window Sash brand into a cattle empire using methods to add to his holdings that have been bloody and only marginally within the law. For the last several years this has been accomplished largely through Dave Wall, who has been acting as Lilavelt's trouble-shooter. Wall's reputation has suffered considerably by his association with Lilavelt, but Dave Wall has been motivated not by the pay he receives from Lilavelt, who is both a miser and a coward, but by blackmail.