The posse decides to take Dixie Rails out to Roswell, and the trip is mostly uneventful until they are about an hour out of Roswell itself. It is already dark out, and some of the group have nodded off, when a ghost, or something like one, appears from Dr. Vorpwhistle' s pack. It makes its escape towards the next car back in the train, and most of the posse go to deal with it while Tobey goes forward to make sure that things are all right there. Cady unfortunately receives more information than she can handle trying to cast Achilles's Heel on the ghost, and is down for a while babbling about exorcism rituals.
In the next car back, the ghost possesses a young woman, and has to be chased out again by Robert, who then stabs it with an enchanted dagger. Vorpwhistle's spirit saw turns out to be non-functional due to lack of fuel... and Tobey is already learning why - the ghost rock in the train's fuel bin has been replaced by a writhing mass of ghosts. A little examination discovers that the posse's ghost rock has also become inert. Apparently ghost rock isn't just named for the noise it makes burning, or maybe it's that that noise isn't just a coincidence.
They decide to go deal with the engine, and Dr. Vorpwhistle gets possessed by one of the ghosts that are coming out of the fuel bin, before Cady manages to come round and use one of the tricks she just got to remove it. They decide they need to cut the cars free from the engine, and after chopping through the metal connectors they discover that the ghosts create a sort of ghostly cable and hang on to the cars. Even the auras of protection that various members have up by now can only bend the cables away. They decide they need to chop through those quickly, which involves lowering Tobey into a better cutting position, when someone shoots at them from the back of the car.
A brief scuffle ensues as the new arrivals try to damage the posse - it's a group consisting of a gunslinging woman, a Chinese kid, a big strong-man, and an Irish priest. The priest in particular declares that our heroes stink of evil. By refusing to really fight and yelling loudly about what's actually going on, the posse manages to stop the fight before it really gets going.
Father Duncan and Tobey go forward to plant dynamite on the engine, so that it will be destroyed rather than running in to Roswell, while the others eye each other edgily. It comes out that the posse is in fact the Black River Gang, which makes the woman - Fast Sue - annoyed, though Duncan seems to be the leader so she doesn't start anything. The dynamite party returns and they are able to cut the cars loose.
Unfortunately while the blast stops the engine and the cars are slowing down, the engine remains on the track and the cars hit it. By then everyone is clustered in the last passenger car, so things aren't as bad as they could be, but everyone is knocked about. In the horse car, Lucky (Robert's horse) is the only animal to escape unmaimed. Dr. Vorpwhistle gets shot with his own bad luck shotgun during the crash.
Which is probably why he gets bitten by a badger immediately upon exiting a train, and when he decides to just eat it raw it freaks out Sue again, who tries to shoot him. The others shoot the guns from her hands in a display of restraint (Vorpwhistle shoots some brush with his lightning gun) and the posse decides that they should just leave the scene before being forced to fight what seems like another group of heroes. Meanwhile, Robert has been rounding up the remaining ghosts on Lucky, and striking them down with his magic knife, so things seem mostly cleaned up. They head out into the brush.