(Revised)

This chapter was devoted entirely to the Western movie in which our characters are acting, Trail Ridin' Mama.    

The chapter opened as Clementine Carson and Mattie Jensen left their luncheon at the Pearl Hotel Tea Room in Red Bluff. Clementine was relieved and excited because Mattie had just offered her a job as a saloon girl, a godsend for the broke and desperate woman. (See Chapter 10, The Tea Room and the Devil's Dance.)

Outside, they exchanged a few sharp words with arrogant attorney Bonaparte Sprigg, who was still smarting over losing Clementine's case in court. But before the conversation could go very far, they were all startled by the sounds of church bells ringing frantically. They smelled smoke, and realized that the Eight Balls Hotel was on fire!

Townspeople rushed to the hotel area to watch, and the volunteer fire crew hurriedly assembled under the leadership of blacksmith John MacTavish. Men came from everywhere to join the crew, including gambler Philip Faraday, scout Jude, cowboy Logan Reinhardt and saddlery owner Karl Dietrich. Two horses and a crew of men hauled the heavy hand pump fire engine into place. As they began pumping water from the cistern, Clementine remembered an argument she overheard between three men at the Eight Balls Hotel the night before, and she remembered with dismay that she had taken a candle to her own room.


The fire engine, a hand tub design, required twelve men to operate -- six men on each side of the engine to push the pump arms up and down -- and they could only stand the extreme effort in shifts of ten minutes. Each crew put forth superhuman effort; then, exhausted, they staggered away for a rest break while another crew took over. The crews did their best, but the huge fire continued to relentlessly consume the wooden structure of the Eight Balls. The owner of the hotel, an attractive but irascible woman named Betty JoJo, watched the fire in dismay and chastised her desk clerk, Emmett, for his failure to retrieve the cash box and guest ledger.

The local doctor was treating several fire victims who were overcome by smoke. Logan and Karl were concerned that there might still be people trapped in the hotel. They took it upon themselves to go inside the burning hotel, and made a daring rescue of three people just as the roof of the building caved in.

Meanwhile, brothel owner Odette DuPont had organized a relief station in the schoolhouse, recruiting her girls to serve food, water and coffee to the firefighters and other people working at the scene of the fire. Sarah Jane Stanton and her coworker Jenny had a conversation about Betty JoJo while taking a break outside the schoolhouse. Jenny told Sarah the lurid story of Betty JoJo, who was known locally as a "black widow" because she had outlived four husbands. Jenny also explained why Betty JoJo named her shabby hotel the Eight Balls.

By the next morning, the fire was out, but the Eight Balls Hotel had been completely destroyed. Sheriff Bart had made an investigation, and called a meeting of a group of business owners, including Betty JoJo, to tell them his conclusions. The meeting took place in the Wild Card Saloon; Clementine was there, beginning her saloon girl training, and she eavesdropped on the conversation.

Sheriff Bart said he believed the fire was started by a cigar and oil lamp, which were left unattended during the night, and ignited black powder samples and bullets left in the hotel bar by a drunken cartridge salesman. Clementine, overhearing this, nearly fainted with relief that it was not she who had caused the fire with her candle. At first Betty JoJo wanted to sue the salesman's employer as well as charge all her now-homeless guests for their last night and half-day in the hotel, but Sheriff Bart calmed her down and got her to agree to forget about all that and just make a claim on the fire with her insurance company. The other
men at the meeting had a good laugh, watching the young Sheriff Bart sweet-talking the middle-aged Betty JoJo.

Meanwhile, out in the wilderness, Augusta Hardwicke was traveling towards Red Bluff, where she planned to participate in the shooting competition. She was accompanied by her Appaloosa horse Severus and her
pack mule Hermione. She marveled at the primitive beauty of the wild Blunthorn Gorge as she made her way through it. Having seen tracks of shod horses on the trail, Augusta was on her guard. During a rest break she took at a creek, she found a bag of U.S. Double Eagle gold coins that someone obviously dropped by accident. Then she heard gunfire; but as it appeared to be several miles away, she did not feel
threatened.

Later, having prepared her campsite for the night, Augusta heard someone stealthily approaching, and held her gun ready as she hid in the forest shadows. It was a strange man on foot; Augusta held him at gunpoint until she was satisfied that he meant her no harm. His name was Cyrus Stubbs, and he related a tale of being ambushed and having his horse run away. He came to her campfire because he was hungry. After dealing with a second mysterious intruder at the camp, Augusta offered Cyrus food and drink. He told her
more about himself and said his nickname was Cookie, since he had often worked as a trail cook.

Cyrus asked Augusta how she became so skilled at using a bullwhip, having just seen her use it in a very precise way to flick his gun out of reach. She replied that it was a long story, and began telling him the tale of how she ran away from her home in England as a teenager and made her way to Australia. (Augusta's story began in Chapter 11, The Stateroom and the Room of Guns.) Augusta disguised herself as a young man, and was hired to work at the cattle station of Ciaran Hamilton, who became her friend during the long voyage. The young Augusta was delighted with the exotic landscape and unfamiliar ways of Australia. She took to her new life with gusto.

In another part of the Arizona Territory wilderness,  two young women were also traveling to Red Bluff. Annie Travis, a sharpshooter, and Nell Fossett, a ranch woman, met in the town of Blunthorn and decided to travel together for safety. While riding on the isolated Shindagger Trail, they told each other about their backgrounds and reasons for going to Red Bluff. Dark-haired, striking Annie, the only girl in a large family of male sharpshooters, was well trained by her brothers and wanted to try her luck at the Red Bluff shooting competition. Nell, a blonde woman of considerable beauty, was trying to recover the estate of her late aunt. She believed that the aunt's husband, Elbert Jaeger (the manager of Sidewinder Stagecoach Lines, Clementine's adversary in court), had forged a will leaving the aunt's property to himself instead of her sister, Nell's mother. She will be seeking a lawyer in Red Bluff. Annie was cheerful, but Nell was wary and watchful; she told Annie a story about Indians abducting her grandmother, who was never seen again, and Annie agreed that it would be best to keep an eye out for trouble on the trail.

That same day, outlaws John Wesley and Jake Curtis were out in the wilderness stalking cowboy Rusty Tibbetts. They had not forgotten how Rusty and Logan Reinhardt resisted John and Jake during the Sidewinder Stagecoach robbery, during which Rusty shot and wounded John'sgirlfriend, outlaw Phoebe Maddox.  (See Chapter 7, On the Stagecoach Trail: Outlaws and Can-Can Girls.)  John was still bent on revenge against the two men. He had already tried and failed toambush Logan once, and now that he knew Rusty was out alone hunting in the desert; he saw his chance. When they located Rusty, John and Jake aimed their guns.

Rusty had bagged an antelope and was walking along a dry stream bed, glancing down among the pebbles for signs of gold, since gold had been found in that
area years before. He came to an abrupt stop when a large gila monster lizard suddenly appeared. He observed the beautiful, venomous reptile with interest, but when it moved towards him he backed away quickly, knowing its bite would be extremely painful. Just as he moved, gunshots whizzed past his head.

Rusty, realizing somebody was after him, threw himself down on the ground and crawled behind the cover of a creosote bush. He waited there for a while, and when he heard no more gunshots, he carefully crawled away until he reached his horse and could make his escape.

John, disgusted with himself and Jake for missing the shot when Rusty moved out of range so suddenly, decided to leave. He and Jake rode up onto a forested hill. John idly looked around the area with his spyglass. He became alert when he saw two attractive women in the distance. They were watering their horses at a creek on the Shindagger Trail. John, an opportunist, immediately decided to pursue the vulnerable women. He and Jake planned to take the women by force, although they decided they would try to get the women to agree to it first.

Nell, standing by her horse, looked up and saw two men approaching. She was frightened, and called Annie. Annie tried to reassure her that the men might be just ordinary travelers who only wanted to water their horses too. Indeed, at first John and Jake acted polite, though they both looked scruffy and menacing. They tried to flirt with Annie and Nell, John with direct bluntness and Jake with some finesse. When the women resisted, John and Jake attacked them.

The men quickly overpowered the two women, preventing them from getting to their guns, and the situation looked hopeless. But then something strange and unexpected happened; it distracted John and Jake momentarily. Annie and Nell were able to
take advantage of the distraction and wrest themselves loose from the men. They dashed to their horses, mounted up and took off running. John and Jake pursued them, and a running gun battle ensued.

John and Jake gave up the chase after a short time, when they saw that Annie was a good enough shot to hit both of them from horseback. John was furious and said he will go into Red Bluff, find those two women and teach them a lesson. Jake, a calmer man, talked him out of it. Jake said the women didn't really harm them, and that they had better things to do anyway. The fiery-tempered John reluctantly agreed, but insisted that if he ever saw those two women again, he was going to get even with them.


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