text: [Themes: Western, Comedy, male protagonist, western, humor]
  
  > Inventory
  In the twilight, you sight the sheriff's sturdy brick office near the edge of town. "That's mighty fine construction," notes Muddy, sounding less feisty now. "Mighty fine indeed." The coach rolls to a halt and a thick arm yanks you roughly from your seat. You land awkwardly in the rutted street, where the sheriff holds you in place with the heel of one boot. He yells to his men, "Bring the coach around back, we got to impound that evidence." You are shoved into the sheriff's office and then into a small holding cell.
  
  The deputy wakes with a start, whips his dusty boots off the desk and stands, tucking his shirt back into his pants. The sheriff gives him a brief, judgmental glance and offhandedly tosses an arrest warrant on the desk. He barks, "Jimbo, listen up. Picked up these two down near the train. A federal marshal will be coming for them at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. There's going to be a hanging!" The deputy nods slowly. The sheriff continues, "Please take care of our 'guests'. I got to head down to Wichita Falls to discuss my invention with some investors, so you is in charge." The deputy smiles until the sheriff adds, "Jimbo, don't screw up," as he heads out the door.
  
  Why are you not surprised to have landed right back in the hoosegow after another one of Muddy's dubious plans? Will you ever learn? How did it come to this?
  
  The small jail cell is brick on three sides, metal bars on the other, with a tightly locked gate. A small window is set into the brickwork above your head. Through the jail bars you can see the sheriff's office.
  
  A broken stool lies on the floor.
  
  Muddy leans against the wall tapping a harmonica on his arm.
  
  In the corner of the cell, a disheveled man in a black suit is stretched out on a crude wooden bench and is snoring loudly, oblivious to your presence.
  
  > check your inventory
  You're carrying your pocketwatch and a scrap of paper. You are wearing your hat, pants, overcoat, left boot, and right boot.
  
  Your revolver was confiscated, it seems.
  
  Muddy puts his hands in his pockets and seems to be daydreaming.
  
  > look at paper
  Muddy's scribbled instructions for holding up the train, which you carried out faithfully before the Sheriff showed up.
  
  Muddy closes his eyes and rubs his temples.
  
  > read the paper
  In smeared scribbles: "DEER RICK, 1. GET DYNA-MITE FROM MTNSIDE, 2. INSERT SPARKER, 3. BLOW UP TUNNEL, 4. WAIT FOR ME".
  
  That was Muddy's cunning plan, and unlike most of his plans, it went off without a hitch: you got the silver, nobody got hurt. Yup, not a single hitch -- except for getting caught.
  
  A faint breeze wafts by.
  
  > Examine watch
  It's the wind-up timepiece you received when you were commissioned as an officer in the Confederate Army. You may have lost everything else in that war, but at least you have this fine pocket watch. It currently reads eighteen minutes past seven in the evening  -- less than thirteen hours until you and Muddy are hanged.
  
  > About yourself
  Big boots, pants, a plains hat, a tattered overcoat, and some attitude. Not so different from the uniform you once wore, just more lived-in.
  
  Back in the office, the deputy stares at Muddy.
  
  > examine the deputy
  Big and strong, but lacking numerically in ancestors.
  
  > look at stool
  A small stool, with legs a couple of feet long. It's three-legged by design, but two-legged in practice, hence its inability to stand upright. There's an empty socket where the third leg should be. All of the paint has been worn off the seat by your illustrious predecessors who inhabited this cell. Those same occupants carved every square inch of the stool's seat with their initials (and the initials look intriguing!)  A small bronze plate has been nailed to the bottom of the stool.
  
  Muddy stares out the window.
  
  > read the initials
  You notice a set of initials. "It says here, "RH"".
  
  Muddy nods knowingly, "That'd be Ricochet Howard. Cattle rustling, hog hauling and snake twizzling".
  
  "Snake twizzling?"
  
  "All right, I made that one up. But the rest is true."
  
  A couple of other sets of initials catch your eye.
  
  Over in the office, the deputy sniffles loudly and wipes his nose on his sleeve.
  
  > read the initials
  "Here's some more initials, Muddy: S.X."
  
  Muddy smiles slyly, "Oh sure. That's Sixshooter Xavier, the roughest Friar west of the Mississippi. An ornery character with a taste for mead, and he plays a mean five-card stud."
  
  "What'd he do?"
  
  "Knocked over the Tulsa Casino, but donated it to orphans."
  
  "That don't sound so bad."
  
  "They wasn't orphans when he started."
  
  One other set of initials catches your eye.
  
  > read the initials
  "Hey, how about this one, Muddy: MTO. That's a strange one."
  
  "That's got to be Tymme O'Malley, or the Leprechaun Kid like they call him in Kansas. Wicked fast with a rifle."
  
  "Nah, I said MTO, must be someone else."
  
  "Nope, that's him all right. Dyslexic as all get out. Feds caught him red-handed with a bag of tool."
  
  > look at the gate
  (the gate)
  A metal gate stands between you and freedom. The gate is set into the metal bars that surround your cell, and its hinges must be internal. The gate has a massive padlock that clicked definitively behind you when you were thrown into the cell. You've seen banks with poorer locks. At least this is a quality institution.
  
  Back in the office, the deputy reaches into his pocket, produces a strip of beef jerky, and chews on it for a while.
  
  > examine the padlock
  A cast-iron padlock of diabolical ingenuity. It is like no lock you've ever seen.
  
  > pick the lock
  You don't know how. The thing doesn't even have a keyhole.
  
  Just to the side of the desk, the metal contraption rumbles for a moment and then stops.
  
  > look at the contraption
  All bronze and shiny, with lots of pipes, rivets, and flanges, the word "Protocappuccinomatic" is engraved on the main body of the machine. The device stands about five feet high and must weigh a ton. A sturdy iron pipe runs from the machine to the boiler.
  
  > look at the man
  The man crumpled in the corner wears black vestments and a pastor's necktie. He'd almost look respectable, if it weren't for the immediate environment. He reeks of booze and snores loudly. A pamphlet is sticking out of his pocket. You don't consider yourself a common pickpocket, but it makes you wonder what else he might have on him.
  
  > get the pamphlet
  You carefully slip the pamphlet out of the sleeping man's pocket. He almost wakes up, but doesn't.
  
  "Whatizit?", Muddy rasps.
  
  On the other side of the jail bars in the office, the deputy runs his hand through his sparse hair.
  
  > read it
  You read it aloud:
  
  "The Prairie Gospel Church of Uncanny Righteousness (copyrighteous 1871)"
  
  "For lo, the impetuous and retributive spirit of FINAL JUDGEMENT is stirring in the heart of the unfaithful, and a FIERY thunderhead of retribution is gathering across the plains of the undeserving, the bereft of propriety, and promulgators of heresy, and the scalding hot sparks of TRUTH are spraying forth, catching light the arid and HIGHLY FLAMMABLE and veritably kerosene-soaked sawdust of the weak-willed. And into this fray, the unwholesome BEAST shall arise and the earth shall tremble. Its body shall tower above like a mountain, and upon the body shall be nineteen heads, each like unto a serpent. Upon each head, twelve horns, like that of the ram, the bull, and the elephant, say four of each. And upon each horn, sixteen stalks, not unlike celery in some respects, yet more flexible, more like the arms of an octopus, except being twice as numerous. And upon each stalk, eighty eyes, or forty pairs of eyes, if you prefer!"
  
  Muddy, who had been staring intently at his boot tips, looks up, eyebrows knit in concentration. "I don't get it. Why would anything need two hundred ninety-one thousand, eight hundred and forty eyes?"
  
  "What?" you remark, looking up from the pamphlet. "Are you kidding me? How could you figure that out?"
  
  "Don't rightly know. Just something I do. Same way as I know there's 69,105 railroad ties between here and Muskogee. Ma said I was some kind of idiot savage."
  
  Dumbfounded, you stop reading halfway through the pamphlet to stare incredulously at Muddy, who picks his nose. "Yeah, go on. What else's it say?"
  
  > read it
  You straighten out the pamphlet and skim it, paraphrasing for Muddy.
  
  "Well let's see. It keeps going on like that for a ways without really saying much. By and by there's this part about a revival meeting. Some kind of doxology works, but out in the open, like under a circus tent. It says they'll be some preaching, some healing and even some dancing. I'd allow it sounds like a right pleasant shindig, it do."
  
  Muddy pauses. "Can I see that pamphlet a minute?" asks Muddy
  
  "Ain't you gonna ask me about my plan?" Muddy whispers.
  
  Muddy scrapes some dust off his boots.
  
  > give the pamphlet to muddy
  Muddy grabs it from you, squinting and sounding out words silently with his mouth. His eyes open wide in amazement.
  
  "Pete? Wait a gosh darn... PASTOR Pete? That really him? Hot diggity!"
  
  Muddy jumps to his feet, runs to the bench and shakes Pete wildly; Pete screams and throws his hands into the air, gesticulating to heaven as he's awoken from his dream --
  
  "BEGONE, daemons! The Prince of Piety shall SMITE thee! He who brushes the Celestial Cavalier's horses shall not clean the stables of PARADISE!"
  
  The grubby preacher collapses back on the bench, eyes closed and snoring before either of you can take a step.
  
  "This time my plan is surefire -- go ahead, ask me. C'mon." Muddy jibes quietly.
  
  > ask muddy about PASTOR
  There ain't no reply.
  
  "Ain't you even a speck curious to ask me about my plan?" taunts Muddy.
  
  Muddy tugs down on his vest, which had ridden up a bit.
  
  > ask muddy about PASTOR Pete
  Muddy replies, "Seems mostly harmless."
  
  "Truthful, Rick," whispers Muddy solemnly, "this ain't like all my other plans, this one is iron-clad. Ask me about it. Go ahead."
  
  Over in the office, the deputy looks tired.
  
  > count the bricks
  You can ASK someone ABOUT something or SHOW something TO someone.
  
  Muddy vibrates with excitement and gushes, "I got to tell you, Rick, or this new plan of mine is going to drive me plumb crazy!"
  
  "Let's keep this between us, though," he whispers.
  
  Muddy leans towards you, his face barely an inch from your ear and his buzzard-worthy breath even less so from your nose. "Okay, Rick, I'm a-going to tell you my plan." Muddy pauses dramatically. "Here it is: we got to break out of this jail before we get strunged up."
  
  "That's it? That's your whole damn plan? That don't count as no plan!" you fume.
  
  "Keep it down, Rick!" Muddy's gaze darts over to your third cellmate. "Yeah, that's it for now. It takes time to cook up a good plan. You need lots of ingredients."
  
  "Muddy Charlie," you retort, "I heared you was the worst cook in the Confederate Army. Your cooking like as did more damage than Sherman's March."
  
  Muddy gives you a hurt look and sulks in the corner. After a while, you regret being so quick-tempered with your old buddy.
  
  > read the bronze plate
  You find a tin of chewing tobacco. It looks interesting, so you borrow it.
  
  You read aloud the engraving on the bronze plate: "Donated to the Crawdad's Gulch Municipal Hoosegow by the Gunslinger's Widows Association, Chapter Forty-One."
  
  Muddy shakes his head, "They sure are an upstanding organization."
  
  > examine the tin
  A rectangular tin of "Spitting Image" chewing tobacco. The cover shows a cowboy painting a portrait of an Indian, and true to its name, the image on the canvas looks just like the Indian. The tin is closed.
  
  Pastor Pete throws his head back, howls, and stands on the bench. He screams, "The ENVELOPE of KNOWLEDGE is sealed with the WAX of PRIDE and impressed by the unwieldy RING of TWISTED ASPIRATIONS, but did anyone remember to put the LETTER of CIVILITY in the envelope? Does the envelope bear the STAMP of HUMILITY, or is it sent cash on delivery? Shall it thusly come to pass that FATE arrives one day in our letter boxes, and we find ourselves searching and shuffling through piles and piles of ADVERTISING, only to find a bill for a life of sinfulness? No! Not if we are quick-witted and change our addresses or even our names, and leave no forwarding instructions and nail shut our letter box, and saw it down, and cast it in a tall VOLCANO and watch it sink into the sulfurous lava. Yea! That might just work!"
  
  Pastor Pete faints onto the bench and resumes snoring without missing a beat.
  
  > open the tin
  You open the tin, revealing a wad of tobacco.
  
  > search pastor
  You don't find anything that Pastor Pete wasn't born with.
  
  Muddy looks like he's about to have a great idea, but then goes back to staring at the floor.
  
  > search the tobacco
  You don't find nothing at all.
  
  Pastor Pete curls up into a ball, muttering to himself.