The party returns to Tombstone, split in two. The presence of the cavalry and James's delirium from his serious wound prevent any sort of rescue attempt during the trip. Once they arrive in Tombstone, the prisoner half of the party is thrown in the pokey, and the free half of the party is forced by a telegram from their evil master to dig up a buried cache of silver and exchange it with Old Man Clanton for his coin, which takes an entire day. By the time they've finished this task, the prisoners have just been freed.
Despite the fact that a Bayou Vermilion lawyer has arrived in town, the prisoners find themselves being freed under the authority of a one-eyed man. He takes them to the back room at the Crystal Palace, where they are joined by those who stayed free the whole time. The man is Ranger Hank Ketchum, and he wants them to give him a report on what actually happened, which they give without much protest. He then informs them that the official story, which they will stick to, is rabid Chinese workers rioting. Hank then suggests to them that they might want to get out of town, preferably to the west where the railroad will have trouble reaching. Just because he sprung them doesn't mean that there won't be regulators gunning for them soon. If they decide to head to the Maze, he has a courier job he needs done.
They leave and deliberate a bit, checking their pendulum. It points west rather than to Doc Holliday (unless Holliday has gone west). They think that Holliday might have done something with his coin, but that it would be foolish to find out what. Returning to Ranger Ketchum, they accept his job. He arranges for their passage in a mule-train with a reliable guide for a discount - even so it comes to several hundred dollars for the group. They load up on supplies and head out the next day with a leather-wrapped packet to deliver to one John McCray in Lost Angels.
They share the trip with a half-dozen men looking for their fortune, one of whom is eaten along the way by a desert thing (sort of a tentacled hole-in-the-ground that eats people), a Jewish rabbi looking for Jews who need him in the Maze, and Molly Irving, who has finally caught up to them. Molly spends a lot of her time pumping them for stories, and quickly finds that Robert can't help but answer her. Usually, though, his stories sound false despite his sincere delivery, while Cady and Bart have somewhat more believable stories. It's unclear what she ends up thinking. Along the way they pass through Arizona, where the party is unmolested by Apaches, Yuma, and the Mojave desert. They take a meandering route to avoid the rattlers, with great success.
Until one day late in the trip when they are moving along a rocky ridge and spot several wagons in the dunes below under attack by a large rattler. It's huge, as big as a train! While others are debating whether the people can be saved, Bart whoops and gallops off to the rescue. Everyone else follows, and the guide reluctantly lets them take the "bait mule" - an unfortunate creature loaded with dynamite whose job is to be eaten by rattlers.
Those under attack include women and children. They have a few horses, but not enough for everyone, and have slung the children on them, making for a crescent shaped rocky ridge about half a mile away. Bart rides through and tries to distract the creature with his horse, but has no success (and loses his horse in the process). Something nags at Bart about the situation, but he isn't sure what. Robert and James are next on horseback, and start sweeping up women and children and taking them away from the worm.
Following behind them are Cady, Tobey, and Joseph, along with the bait mule and the Rabbi. Joseph realizes as they try to distract the worm that it's herding everyone towards the crescent, and that it will be hard to climb the steep ridge from inside. Through some maneuvering they end up leading the worm away from the people... leaving the heroes as the ones being herded. As they enter the crescent, a low sand mound at the base of the ridge shudders and reveals itself to be another rattler, this one larger but wounded.
There follows a combat in which the rattlers prove distressingly intelligent. The bait mule is lit by Tobey, but the rattlers don't go for it, though the blast knocks even them down for a moment. They end up getting ahold of Tobey and eating her horse, and getting ahold of Joseph as well. Elder Tanner is shot free*, but then hang on to Tobey and don't eat her... instead they dangle her at the party like an angler lures a fish. Tobey yells at everyone to leave, but no one will, and they manage to get Tobey free by severing another tentacle. They all retreat, and the rattlers seem to decide (after making noises like a kettle drum concert at each other) that these are too annoying to pursue.
Back up on the safe ridge, the rescued pilgrims (they are traveling to Lost Angels to join the church) are very grateful. One of them loans Tobey a Winchester '73 as a replacement for the one she lost, and never bothers to get it back when they make it to the city.