text: [Themes: Western, male protagonist, strong NPCs, humor]
  
  > Look around
  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.
  
  You can also see an empty can (in which is a spoon) here.
  
  A dented food bowl sits on the office floor, only a few feet from the jail bars.
  
  In the office you can also see Flash.
  
  > ask muddy about the harmonica
  Muddy replies, "Give it a toot, Rick."
  
  > play the harmonica
  You got to be holding it first.
  
  Pastor Pete pedals the air with his feet, while making sounds like a ringing bell.
  
  > get the harmonica
  "I ain't never seen you play the mouth organ, Muddy."
  
  Your partner turns the harmonica back and forth. "That's 'cuz I ain't never learned how," he replies.
  
  Muddy hands the harmonica to you.
  
  > play the harmonica
  Tentatively, you blow a few notes. The bars in the jail cell rattle sympathetically.
  
  "Look at that, boy", Muddy laughs, "I swear that screw up there holding that bar is wiggling loose!"
  
  > play the harmonica
  Again, the room resonates with the rich and vibrant tones of a bagpipe connected to the blowhole of a beluga whale.
  
  Muddy points excitedly towards the top of the gray bar, "When you played, that screw worked its way out more. It's like you got some kind of sonic screwdriver or something! I think one more time will do it."
  
  Muddy tugs down on his vest, which had ridden up a bit.
  
  > play the harmonica
  The screw vibrates out of the ceiling, rebounds off the concrete floor in a shower of sparks, and rolls under the deputy's desk. A hollow gray tube falls loose from the upper reaches of the jailbars and lands at your feet.
  
  "You done it!" shouts Muddy.
  
  Flash drools.
  
  > get tube
  You grab the bar.
  
  You hold it lengthwise and stare down its hollow shaft at Muddy. He looks back at you.
  
  "Don't that just beat all," ponders Muddy.
  
  Flash lazily sniffs the machine.
  
  > look through it
  The bar is a hollow tube, with an inner diameter of about a half-inch. If you look carefully, you can see a spiral groove running up the length of the inside of the shaft, kind of like a rifle.
  
  Over in the office, the bronze machine creaks.
  
  > put the meat in the tube
  You don't reckon there's much point in that.
  
  Pastor Pete curls up into a ball, muttering to himself.
  
  > put bar in the socket
  You flip the stool over and wiggle the hollow gray tube into the empty socket. It fits perfectly and remains in place when you let go of the bar, but you think you could yank the gray bar out again if you needed it. You now have a stool with three even legs: two wood, one metal.
  
  Not far from your jail cell, the boiler rumbles for a moment and then stops.
  
  > stand on the stool
  Muddy holds it steady as you climb up. Your head is now even with the top of the window.
  
  > examine the window
  Pretty far up on the wall, as wide as your shoulders, and secured by four vertical iron rods as thick as your thumb. And you have thick thumbs. The green tip of a vine pokes in from outside and lies on the narrow window sill.
  
  > look out window
  The jail is at the end of a long street. Directly across the street is a saloon, which is open, unlike the stores on both sides of the street that have pulled down their shades for the evening. Below the window there is a covered barrel; you can almost touch its top. Just to the left of the window, a berry-covered vine has grown up the side of the building, and pokes in the window, lying on the narrow window sill.
  
  Up in the sky, you notice a couple of hungry, circling vultures.
  
  Flash looks admiringly at the dinner bell.
  
  > look at the barrel
  It's a weathered oak barrel. You can't tell what's inside it, if anything.
  
  > look at the sill
  A three or four inch wide ledge just inside the small window that looks out onto the street.
  
  > examine the berry
  Each berry is plump and red, and got no short of mystery about it. Don't look so edible.
  
  > get the berry
  You pluck a plump juicy red berry from the part of the vine growing outside the window.
  
  Flash gazes at the dinner bell.
  
  > eat the berry
  Muddy stops you, "Don't be a coward -- if'n you eat that, you'll sleep clear through to the afternoon -- and we only got till eight in the "A" of "M" to get out of here."
  
  Muddy leans against the wall and sighs.
  
  > examine the bell
  A shiny silver bell with a black handle. It is hanging on a small hook by the doorway.
  
  > put the berry in the bowl
  You can reach through the bars, but not far enough to touch the food bowl.
  
  Flash moves his front leg slightly.
  
  > Spit at bell
  Muddy shifts around too much for you to even attempt the shot.
  
  > put the berry in the tube
  You don't have the gray bar in hand.
  
  Pastor Pete leaps into the middle of the jail cell. He rants, "Blessed is the terribly, terribly DISMAL. How glorious in unpleasantness, how lovely in loathing, how simply pleasing in depravity. In the whole world full of pain and suffering and plagues, not to mention sock monkeys and advertising, how refreshing is the endless potential bounty of disappointment. How much more character we might build were we but marginally more afflicted by adversity, we can only pray. Let us extol the joyfulness of misery and cheer the horrifying facts underlying the production of sausages, and revel in the lack of things we have to celebrate!"
  
  Pastor Pete dives onto the bench and resumes snoring without missing a beat.
  
  > get off the stool
  You jump down to the ground again.
  
  A fly buzzes past your ear and lands on the ceiling.
  
  > Unscrew bar
  Nothing obvious happens.
  
  Muddy drums his fingers against the wall.
  
  > take the grey bar
  You yank the gray tube out of the stool's socket.
  
  Flash keeps an eye on his food bowl.
  
  > put the berry in the tube
  You drop the berry into the gray tube.
  
  "Oh, I get it!" nods Muddy, "You're making some kind of berry gun. I seen the Injuns do something like that, except you ain't got no darts in there to blow at people."
  
  Pastor Pete froths at the mouth.
  
  > shoot berry at bowl
  The berry hits the food bowl, then bounces away out of sight.
  
  Muddy murmurs to himself about not being able to recall a limerick he once heard that had something to do with cowboys and farmers.
  
  > shoot the berry at the bell
  Ding! The bell is hit so hard that it spins around on the hook several times, clanging like a church bell on Sunday.
  
  The amoeba-like mass of fat and fur known to you as Flash leaps immediately to his feet, saliva dripping from his toothless jowls. He lunges like a champion fencer for his food bowl. His leash snaps taut, pulling the lever away from the front door and towards the strange machine.
  
  The boiler hisses and gurgles, steam jets from the rivet joints in the pipe that connects to the machine, and the machine itself vibrates and rumbles for a minute. A white cup drops from a chute and brown liquid squirts from a nozzle and fills the cup. The smell of fresh coffee pervades the office.