The next morning, when Lily woke up, she had a new ghost!

  She said a quick prayer of thanks to the God of Death, Lord Hades, who was seemingly always looking out for her!

  Well… He had been super helpful so far…

  Anyway, Lily asked her new ghost for his name!

  “I’m Marion M Morrison, but you can call me Duke,” he said.

  And then, he said he was an actor!

  Uh…

  Lily tilted her head.

  “Why did Lord Hades send an actor ghost?” she asked. “I’m looking for the dastardly villains, Connie and Blyde…”

  Now the ghost tilted his head!

  “Connie and Blyde? Don’t you mean Bonnie and Clyde?”

  Up in heaven, the God of Literature groaned!

  “Nope, not them, I’m looking for Connie and Blyde! They’re cattle rustlers!”

  Duke sighed and looked around. “I’m too dead for this, this early in the morning.”

  “Rich, Mac, Ray, can you tell Duke about Lilyburgers? I gotta get going!”

  Mr. Cat had been sleeping in the bed with Lily, but now he was stretching and waking up!

  He was too cute!

  He spread his little toe beans as he stretched, and then he twisted himself into a sitting position and yawned, showing off his sharp white kitty fangs!

  “Mraowww…”

  Lily petted him, and he purred!

  Then, he finished waking up.

  “French Fries!” he said, perking up, and then his ears and head drooped.

  “Oh, right… we’re in the Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas… They don’t have french fries…”

  Lily pet Mr. Cat consolingly.

  “Don’t worry Mr. Cat, we’ll get you more cream.”

  “Mew…”

  Also sleeping in the room was Lily’s Mama, Sally!

  Now she woke up as well.

  It was dawn!

  The beds had been super comfy, so she slept really well!

  At first, she woke up with a start, thinking she had to hurry and take care of her husband, Bill.

  But he was doing much better these days!

  And then she realized she wasn’t at home!

  She didn’t have to do any of that, today.

  It was basically a vacation trip!

  Well, she had Lily to watch over.

  But Lily was (legally) an adult (actually eight years old)…

  So it was mostly a vacation.

  Oh, and they were after no-good villain cattle rustlers…

  For business reasons, mainly…

  Sally rubbed her eyes and yawned.

  “Mama! Good morning!”

  “Good morning, Lily,” Sally replied sleepily.

  “Mama, I want to get cowgirl clothes! I want to get a big hat!”

  Lily’s eyes sparkled!

  “Okay, okay… Let’s just tell Dale where we’re going, and find Annie Elmly…”

  “Mama, are you sure I can’t get a gun?”

  “Yes, you can’t!”

  “Meow…”

  The trio headed downstairs, followed by four invisible ghosts!

  “Eh? Isn’t that just McDonalds?”

  “Well, yes, but this is a work of fiction…”

  “Didn’t Lord Hades explain this to you?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention. Okay, so where’s the script?”

  “There, uh, isn’t one.”

  “Wait, so how are we gonna find these cattle rustlers?”

  “We were hoping you would know how to do that…”

  Lily ignored the shop talk behind her!

  Ghosts could figure out ghost business!

  Lily had to focus on Lily business!

  And the Lily business of the morning was shopping!

  Clothes shopping!

  It was her first clothes shopping trip!

  Back in her village, her Mama had made her clothes, and adjusted the sizes for her!

  She was gonna learn how to do that, too, someday!

  But now she was in the Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas!

  Her cute little blue dress couldn’t be adjusted into cowgirl clothes!

  Lily and her Mama quickly found Annie, sitting broodingly in a dark corner of the barroom, and they found a table amid all the card players.

  It was dawn, and they were all playing cards already!

  Or was it still…

  They all had brown liquid in cups they were sipping…

  What was it?

  “Lily, you’re too young for those drinks,” her Mama said.

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  “Okay, Mama!” Lily said obediently.

  Lily was a good girl!

  They had their breakfast of steak and eggs, although it was more eggs and bacon and sausage than steak…

  It was just a little sliver of steak!

  That was fine for Lily and her Mama, but Annie complained!

  (Of course, Mr. Cat was complaining too, as he lapped up his saucer of creamy milk.)

  “I swear, every day the steak gets smaller and smaller. The cooks are padding things out with pork, but how can we get enough protein without steak? We’re gonna waste away out here…”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Annie! We’re gonna catch those no-good cattle rustling Connie and Blyde villains!” Lily reassured the older woman.

  Of course, for Lily and her Mama, they didn’t really feel the need to eat so much steak…

  The bartender, overhearing them, sighed. “I’d offer y’all visitors some pancakes, too, but with wheat the way it is, I had to prioritize buying up whatever steak I could…”

  Everyone was suffering because of those dirty rotten villains!

  But first…

  Lily finished eating, and then put down her fork and knife.

  “Mama, shopping time!”

  “Alright, alright…”

  Annie Elmly rubbed her nose and grinned smugly. “I’ll take y’all to the best place for clothes shopping in all of the Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas.”

  They went to a shopping mall!

  They left the bar slash motel, and walked down the dusty dirt main street. A tumbleweed blew by, and horses were tied up to a post, and they nickered hello!

  “Good morning, horsies!”

  “Brrr neigh!”

  The buildings were made of wood, and raised a bit above the ground, so there was a crawlspace underneath and you had to walk up a few steps to get onto the wraparound porch each had.

  And on each porch there were rocking chairs, and old men and women hanging out!

  And, at the end of the road…

  Was a ginormous building!

  “That’s our shopping mall!” Annie said proudly. “You can buy anything there, and they have all the latest fashions!”

  They walked inside, and the first store they saw was a gun store!

  “Oh no, get back here!”

  Lily’s Mama grabbed Mr. Cat by the scruff of his neck!

  “Lemme go! I want a shotgun! Mrow!” he screamed!

  “Mr. Cat, no! No more french fries when we get home if you keep being bad!”

  And with that, Mr. Cat gave up on the shotgun.

  The gun store owner, who had seen all this, chuckled.

  “Heheheh, kitties can’t resist me shotguns. They’re all the rage among cats these days.”

  “We’re going clothes shopping!” Lily declared.

  “Oh, I see, well keep going, there’s a big Cowboys Emporium at the far end of the mall.”

  “Thanks, Mister! Gods bless!”

  “Oooh, how polite. Gods bless to you, too, little lady. Stay free!”

  “Stay free!” Lily parroted, and Sally smiled awkwardly, and Mr. Cat sullenly followed, and Annie led the way through the mall past all kinds of stores!

  Gun stores, horse stores, horse-gear stores, donkey stores, barrel stores, a shop selling wildly overpriced cookies, even with the higher price of wheat, and finally…

  Cowboys Emporium!

  Boots! Vests! Six shooter holsters! And big cowboy hats!

  And there was a ladies section as well!

  Fine western dresses!

  Big hats with big feathers in them!

  Dainty white gloves to drop as a clue!

  Really cute but rather impractical shoes with a decent heel!

  And…

  This was where Lord Hades’ wisdom proved itself!

  It turned out, Duke knew a lot about costumes!

  He helped them pick out some nice clothes!

  “Mama, try this dress on!”

  It was a patterned prairie-style dress, with elbow-length sleeves and a hem that fully covered her ankles, with a cinched waist! The pattern was cute little red roses on white, and it had lace at the end of the sleeves and on the neckline.

  It was cute and classy!

  Annie nodded approvingly. “Very nice. You’ll have to ride side-saddle, but that’s alright.”

  Sally wasn’t sure about the sound of that, but she was on vacation!

  She could try new things!

  “Do you want a dress, too?” Annie asked Lily.

  “No, I wanna be a cowgirl!” Lily declared loudly.

  Lily got some blue jeans, cowgirl boots, leather chaps, a belt with a huge buckle on the front with a horsey-head, and a button-up white cotton shirt. Over that she put on a leather vest, and got a bright red bandanna to wear around her neck, and lastly…

  She got a big cowgirl hat!

  Duke nodded his approval.

  “Those are some mighty fine costumes,” he said.

  They even found a little cowboy hat for Mr. Cat, and a little bandanna collar!

  It was super cute!

  Now that they were all dressed up, they paid for their clothes and stepped back out into the bright Western sun.

  “Okay!” Lily said. “Now it’s time to find Connie and Blyde!”

  Duke smacked his forehead, invisibly.

  “Girl, you can’t just go announcing you’re looking for the bad guys!”

  Lily tilted her head and appeared to look up into empty space.

  “Huh? Why not?”

  While Duke explained something called ‘tropes’ to the little girl he found himself haunting, Sally and Annie shared a look of concern.

  “Uh, does your daughter often talk to herself like that?”

  “More often as of late…”

  “Mrow, don’t worry about it.” Mr. Cat sat and licked his paw. “She’s talking to ghosts.”

  “Now I’m more concerned!” Sally protested.

  “Well, they’re good ghosts.”

  “Miss Annie, can we look at a map?” Lily said, changing the subject.

  “Sure, there’s a big map mural drawn on the side of the mall.”

  That’s a thing out West in the Great and Everlasting Free State of Texas!

  They walked over and looked up at the map, showing the capital city, Dustin, where they were, and the surrounding landscape.

  Duke looked at the map carefully.

  Annie pointed out everywhere she had looked so far.

  “Well, I looked everywhere they would go! The ghost town, Bandit’s Hideaway, Secret Watering Hole, Horse Thieves Thicket, Treacherous Pass…”

  “Why is everywhere named like that?” Sally asked.

  Annie Elmly shrugged. “People just like the names, I reckon.”

  “There,” Duke said, pointing. Lily and Mr. Cat looked up.

  “The Gorge?” Lily said.

  “Yep, that’s where they’d be in any of my movies.”

  There was a narrow valley between some hills, with a decent sized river running through it and a bunch of trees and scrub at the bottom.

  “The Gorge?” Annie repeated. “Nobody goes there, the name is too boring, and there’s nothing there.”

  Lily’s newest ghost rolled his eyes. “Duh, bad guys hide out where nobody will look for them. They’d have to be real stupid to hide somewhere named ‘Bandit’s Hideaway.’”

  Lily pointed this out to Annie.

  Annie Elmly was stunned!

  “What, but, huh?”

  She had never thought of it like that!

  Sure, the capital being named Dustin was kind of boring, but it was the capital, so it was pretty interesting!

  And the trading post named Bandit’s Hideaway had some really cool caves nearby!

  Of course, they were mostly open for tourism…

  Come to think of it, even though there was a lot of caves there, there wasn’t really anywhere to hide…

  “Those dastardly villains are too smart!” Annie declared.

  Duke sighed, and turned to his fellow ghosts.

  “You sure the strongest thing we’ve got is ghost coffee?”

  “Yep.”

  Duke threw back a shot of espresso and turned to Lily, the Cowgirl.

  “Alright, Pilgrim. Listen up, here’s what you do…”

  Lily listened, and then turned to her Mama.

  “Mama, I gotta get deputized! We need to visit the Sheriff!”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea!” Annie said.

  Sally put a hand on her cheek. “Do you really need to do that, Lily? The reward poster said anyone could do it…”

  “It’s part of the script!” Lily said.

  Duke was taking the reins!

  He had plotted out how this was gonna go!

  He was in director mode now!

  He had a set.

  He had actors.

  He had costumes.

  All that had been missing was a plot, and a script to follow!

  He wasn’t a real cowboy, but he sure knew enough about Westerns!

  They were gonna catch some cattle rustlers!