Nevada
 A young boy, Meade Slaughter, works along with his uncle Charlie Brent as a carny barker at a carnival and amusement park in early 1900s San Diego. Charlie had retrieved Meade from the custody of a sheriff of a small Texas town where his mother, working in a whorehouse, was killed by a John. The story follows Meade and Charlie as they work various games of chance in various amusement parks all over the U.S. Meanwhile, Meade meets, falls for, courts and marries a comely young lady named Shirley Reed. By 1929, Meade is invested heavily in the Stock Market, and loses a great deal of money. Meade is in trouble because he owes thousands of dollars. Charlie bails him out, same as Meade did when Charlie's wife wanted half of their bankroll to divorce him a few years earlier. With only a few hundred dollars between them, Charlie and Meade start over running some new concessions. They run into long-time friend Bob Terhune, a major Nevada politician who tries to convince them to set up shop in Reno. Both Charlie and Meade believe that Nevada doesn't really have enough potential to be worth going there. Low on funds, and with his and Charlie's business hurting because of low turnout, Meade decides to go to Chicago and run a series of amusements while Charlie continues to run their spots in San Diego. The rigors of the trip are so severe that Shirley and David, Meade's new son, would not be able to go. Meade returns home months later with only a few hundred dollars. On the way back he decides to take a side trip through Reno, and after a short visit to the town deciding that the place is still lacking adequate interest to be worth starting business there. While working one day, Meade returns home early due to stomach flu to discover that his wife has been with a lover. Meade leaves in a hurry, then goes to see Charlie, only to discover not only that Charlie knew about it, but that she has had more than one. Meade realizes it is partially his fault, if he had given her more attention this would not have happened. A few months later, in a moment of tenderness he lets Shirley discover he knew about it, and holds no bitterness. Realizing they need to make a clean break, a few months later Meade takes his half of the money in their business, and moves his family to Reno to try to make it on his own. Meade starts a small gambling club, called the Plush Wheel, and is almost bankrupted his first day. One of the customers he meets is a very smart man who decides to let Meade know that some of his employees have been rigging the game to rob him blind. The man realizes that Meade is an honest operator, and he doesn't want to see his type chased away. Meade learns that the man who helps him is Frank Smith, a well-known wealthy Nevada real estate investor known as Smitty. As Meade builds his business, his family life suffers. His wife, unhappy by her lack of friends and activities to be interested in, becomes seriously depressed and turns to alcohol for solice. One of the issues that drove her to acoholism include a serious incident in which two thugs, in attempting to beat up and rob Meade, are killed by Meade while defending himself. He even asks Charlie to come to Reno to help run his club so he can spend more time with her. Unable to breach the gulf between himself and Shirley, they drift further apart, until, at one point, she is killed in a tragic accident while drunk in public. Smitty convinces Meade to visit Las Vegas for the Helldorado celebration, and to scout out possible future places to open a Las Vegas Plush Wheel. While there, Meade spots an extremely attractive lady named Sandra Farley. The two hit it off and over a few weeks become lovers. They make plans to marry. Janice Terhune, Bob's wife and friend of Meade and Charley, takes David under her wing, feeling that Meade really isn't capable of taking proper care of him. In the mean time, Carlo Guiliano, owner of a number of casinos, who has been the cause of sending "crossroaders" (crooked gamblers) to try to bankrupt Meade, and was responsible for sending the thugs who were killed tried to break up Meade's club, decides he wants to drive Meade out of the business. He sends some more thugs, who attack Meade on a side street. Sandra, waiting for Meade, sees the men and tries to stop them, but is murdered by one of them. Meade sees the face of one of the killers and realizes it's one of the top enforcers for Carlo. The men run, leaving Meade severely injured and paralyzed from the waist down. Meade decides to sell his business and move to San Francisco. Living in San Francisco, Meade's hatred and anger over the murder of his fiancee Sandra, drives him to hire a local carpenter to build him various devices to allow him to strengthen his wasted body. Over time, his body heals and he secretly regains the ability to walk, hiding his ability. He decides that he wants to be able to walk by August 10. A few days before, he goes back to Reno, and lying in an alley, pretends to be a bum as Carlo Guliano exits his casino. He pulls out a sawed-off shotgun, shoots and kills the man who killed Sandra, then speaks to Guliano, letting him recognize who he is, and to make him realize that he must die too. Meade shoots and kills Guliano a few minutes after midnight, August 10, 1938, two years to the day that Sandra was murdered by Guiliano's men. Smitty picks up Meade and they hole out for a few days until the police stop looking for the killer. Meade decides to come back to Nevada, only to stay away from Tony Guiliano, Carlo's son, Meade decides to reopen his business in Las Vegas. As Meade is believed to be crippled, Tony figures it was a mob hit. Later discovering that Meade is able to walk again, he is incensed and wants to have him killed, but because Meade now has bodyguards, he can't get to him. Tony decides to wait to exact revenge. Over the years, Meade meets a number of people involved in the gambling trade, including Moe Sedway, whom Meade literally throws out of his office when he discovers that Sedway wants kickbacks in exchange for anyone wanting race results for bookmaking. Meade becomes friends with Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, a mob-connected casino operator. Because of knowing Siegel, Meade meets an extremely attractive woman named Cindy Guest. They become attracted to each other and start a romance. This sours David because he sees Cindy's relationship with his father forcing a wedge between him and Meade as well. At one point, David, miserable, gets into a fight with Meade and when Meade confronts him about his attitude, asks Meade if he is going to "blow him away" like he did to Carlo Guliano, then turns white realizing he didn't mean to admit it. The fight can't be reconciled and David grows even more distant from his father; he runs home to "mama", that is, to Janice Terhune, who has been defacto mother to him and her own kids over the years. Meanwhile Tony Guliano tells one of his employees, Carlo Gatori, to become friends with David so Carlo can use it as an edge to try to go after Meade. Cindy discovers she's pregnant, then decides if she wants more out of her relationship with him, then decides to ask Meade (without telling him that she's pregnant) if he would want to get married. Meade asks for a day or two to think about it. He comes to the conclusion that no matter how much he loved Sandra, he does love Cindy and would want to marry her. He heads home to find a "Dear John letter"; Cindy has confused his reticence, believes she pushed too hard, and decides that since he doesn't want to get married, that it's best she leave. After considerable fruitless searches by detectives, Meade decides to give up looking for her: she has effectively dropped off the face of the earth. David joins the Marines, fights in the Korean War, and is wounded in his left arm. He returns and meets a Vegas Showgirl named Gari Carter, with whom he strikes up a romance. David and his father reconcile when Meade tells David everything, including why he had killed Carlo. David decides to ask Gari to marry him; she figures it would be a bad idea, in view of the fact that as a showgirl, it was well known that she also did part-time work as a high class hooker. David is persistent, until she tells him to stop asking or he won't see him any more. Meade goes to meet Gari, and tries to talk her into taking a bribe to leave town. A fight ensues and Meade, after unintentionally insulting her, leaves hastily. Realizing she does care about David, she later calls Meade, not wanting to drive a wedge between him and David, tells him that she told David she would marry him. Janice Terhune is killed in an automobile accident, which devastates her family as well as close friends, especially David, who saw her as his mother. Gari has a baby girl, named Ann. David's war injury becomes worse, requiring him to take pain pills. Tony Guliano has plans for a large casino in Lake Tahoe, only he is unable to buy the land after its owner died because Meade had bought it from the owner's daughter, who was executor of his will. In a rage, Tony decides to strike at Meade by paying Carlo Gatori to do something to David. Meade and Gari notice David's physiological and psychological deterioration, and decide to try to find out what is wrong, even going so far as to become friends as a result of their concern over him. They suspect Gatori may have something to do with it, David's friendship with him seeming unsavory. Charlie dies of a massive heart attack. David goes missing, and a few weeks later, Meade is informed by the San Francisco police that David has been picked up, suffering from an addiction to heroin. Meade puts David in one of the best sanitoriums in the country so he can go through withdrawal. Meade hires the best private detective he can find to discover who got David addicted. David will be in Holton Sanitarium for at least six months, so Meade convinces Gari to move out to his ranch and rebuild the place. He decides also to give her a job as Vice President of Special projects for the casino, because of her ability to get things done. Meade goes back to San Francisco to meet with Thorton, the private investigator he hired, who has discovered that Gatori had gotten David hooked. Meade goes to see Smitty, who knows some tough characters. Smitty asks Meade what he thinks should be done. Meade admits "Gatori can't live after what he's done." Tony Guliano is kidnapped and taken out to the desert, where he is forced by two men at gunpoint to dig a grave in the desert; he figures they are going to bury him in it. When he is forced at gunpoint to get in the hole, and believes his captors are about to kill him, another man appears above him. The man is Meade. He asks Tony about David; he claims not to know him. Meade says that Gatori said otherwise while being tortured, as Gatori's bullet-ridden corpse is dumped into the hole next to Tony. He then tells Tony that he's not killing him because he wants him to remember this if he ever tries to evoke revenge against Meade. David comes out of the sanitarium; Meade and Gari decide to try to make things easy for him, hopefully so he can go back into some work he can handle. The attempt fails and Meade ends up having to re-commit David to the sanitarium.