Our story opens in southeastern Colorado, on the Black River rail line. James Crowell has been drawn to the crows circling over a rail and stagecoach depot. Tobey Irwin also arrives to see what is going on. Scouting around, they find the two men who man the station inside and dead from many tiny wounds. They also find the station's supply of flour broken open, and many bird tracks in it. The spare horses in the stable are spooked, and one has been killed by whatever it was that killed the men.
A train pulls up and stops, and the staff begins to look around. Apparently they're supposed to meet a man named Jim Larner, who runs a chicken ranch northwest of here, and ship his eggs to Denver. They're pretty surprised to see everyone dead. The young missionary Elder Joseph Tanner decides to get off and see if there's anyone to be helped. Cady Hearst and Bartholomew Chase decide this is a great place to get off as well.
"I thought when you raised your eyebrow it meant fold!" - Bartholomew to Cady
James and Joseph take the time to bury the two men, and during that time another man, Robert Sumner, rides up to see what's going in. Joseph says a few words over them as well, and everyone takes their hat off. Then they decide that they should head to the chicken ranch, since it seems like the men could have been killed by hundreds of tiny beaks. On the road there, they encounter another man in an empty wagon, also pecked to death. The wagon is painted on the side "Jim Larner's Chicken Ranch".
At the ranch itself they find four huge chicken houses in a wire enclosure, a big barn, and the ranch house itself - two stories, with glass windows, so you know Jim has been doing okay. Tobey finds hundreds of chicken tracks leading in the front door, so they decide to make sure the chickens have come out before going in. She finds tracks out at the back, and also an axe and chopping block totally befouled with chicken droppings. Inside the house, they find the corpse of a woman in the kitchen, and looking around further a frightened child barricaded in the closet under the stairs.
They determine the girl is named Minnie, and that she's about eight. Elder Tanner gives her some water and cheese, which she takes, and tries to find out what's been going on. James Crowell leaves him with the child after bluntly informing her that her parents are dead.
The group checks out the barn next. Opening the big doors a crack, they don't see anything in the gloom... until Cady thinks to look up, and sees hundreds of chickens, clinging to the rafters like bats. They close the door and try to bar it with a shotgun. There's a giant rooster crow, and chickens start battering at the door. Running around the barn, they find a human size side door pointed towards the house, and a similarly large back door.
Inside the house, Minnie screams, "The chickens are coming!" and ducks back into the closet. Elder Tanner and Robert come out to help, and something huge begins to batter against the side door. It breaks open before it can be reinforced, and chickens start boiling out and attacking everyone.
There follows a confusing fight in which it's quickly determined that there are too many chickens. There's also the big thing, which Cady tells everyone is a cockatrice. No one knows what that is. It is immune to gunfire however - the Undertaker's best shots only slow it down. Robert goes and grabs the axe, but by the time he's returned the others have battered it with gunshots and some sort of arcane energy from Cady, and Tobey has cut its head off with her knives.
They rest for a moment, but Tobey is becoming paralyzed after the blood splashed on her, and James got pecked and is similarly impaired. Joseph tries to cure it, but only succeeds in paralyzing himself, and Bartholomew has fainted. As everyone frets about this, someone noticed that the thing is growing a head again!
More confusion follows, in which the cockatrice attacks whoever is carrying the axe. Unfortunately for the group, it's fast and only has to hit once, and soon they are all paralyzed, including Bart who wakes up only in time to be put down. It drags them all into the barn.
That night, a man arrives and using silvery blasts from his hands slays the chickens in a giant sizzle. He gets the axe and uses it to separate the cockatrice's head from its body, causing it to dissolve in a puddle of goo. Then he chortles a bit and drags everyone out into the yard, where he commences to draw a giant pentagram in the dirt around them.
He does some ritual and tattoos each one on their left arm with a complex blue tattoo. Elder Tanner puts up some sort of fight despite being paralyzed, and the man has to put a silver coin under his tongue to be able to tattoo the preacher. Afterwards, as the paralysis is dissipating, the man tells them what's going on.
His name is Jacob Nicodemus. He apparently set up this hero trap in order to get a good set of people to go after some coins for him - he's looking for 25 silver coins, much like the five he has already. The tattoos will force the group to do this for him, but he doesn't care how they do it. If they want to go heroing about he doesn't care, he just wants the coins. If they won't help him, he'll force them, or he'll find some minions who aren't so heroic. Crowell tries to shoot Nicodemus, but finds that he cannot, though he can point the gun at him. Elder Tanner again puts up some fight, but gets Nicodemus to promise that no innocents will be harmed in pursuit of this. Nicodemus also tells them that all he wants is to be immortal, not to rule the world or anything silly like that. He doesn't appear to be lying. Finally, he gives Chase one of the coins on a silver chain, as a dowsing pendulum to find the other coins, before leaving in his wagon.