Our heroes are still in El Paso, and they decide to resupply, thinking that their next step is West, where everything gets more expensive by the mile. Horses are procured, as well as the typical supplies. Two bullets are made for the evil pistol - it takes normal balls and powder, rather than cartridges, but of an unusual caliber. They then go out to the Bayou Vermilion slaughterhouse operation to look at the tanks of minty liquid they remember from the last time here, but there are a lot of cows around and Dr. Vorpwhistle is forced to retreat.

Back at their hotel, they hear about how a man exploded at the big funeral today (many people died the day before, from self-inflicted wounds). Apparently, he just walked in to the funeral and burst, spraying brown dust on everyone. Vorpwhistle takes a sample of the dust off the clothes of the tale-teller, and eats it. They decide to find out what happened, and go off to the cemetery. The reverend who presided is discreetly getting drunk, and sorta-kinda gives his permission for them to dig up the exploded guy.

When they do, they find that he has a top half and a bottom half and no middle, and seems dessicated. The tale-teller said he looked poorly, but not like a mummy. Vorpwhistle questions the corpse, and finds out that it's Big Tim from the Circle B ranch, and he was beaten to death with a branding iron near there. The corpse does have breaks and bruises consistent with being beaten. As they are reburying a deputy comes by and asks them what they are doing, but is routed surprisingly quickly with the explanation that they're scientists and anyway the reverend said they could.

When they head back for dinner, Ginger is extra leery of Vorpwhistle for some reason that cannot be determined. They decide to sneak out to steal some of the minty liquid for themselves, and manage to do so with some fuss. Someone is in fact filling a bucket when they get there, and then a shuffling figure takes the full bucket and leaves an empty. They steal some of the liquid then, and no one seems to notice them in the dark. Vorpwhistle nearly gives it all away when he steps in a cow pie, though.

Back at the hotel, they find Marshal Stoudenmire, who they have met before, waiting for them, ready to arrest the Black River Gang. They put up no resistance and are taken to the El Paso jail once again (except for Cady, whose whereabouts are unknown). They spend the next day in jail, extracting a pledge from a guard to tell the Texas Rangers where they are. It seems likely that they will be shipped back East for trial if nothing happens. They do impress the guard with how nonchalant they are about the whole thing.

The next night, they are awakened by zombies coming into the cell area, accompanied by a bokkor who introduces himself as Jerome LeMedie, a short bald black man who turns out to be not physically there, instead projecting an image from a safe location. He tries to tell them that his associates are lepers, but they let him know they know about zombies. The zombies make short work of the cell doors. Meanwhile, Vorpwhistle has awoken with many tiny roots anchoring him to the dirt floor of the cell. He pulls free, but these are very much like mushroom roots... maybe something to do with the dust? Could it have been spores?

Jerome is busting them out because the enemy of Black River must be a friend of Bayou Vermilion. They recover their stuff from the evidence safe (Tobey's evil machete cuts it open from the inside) and strangely while they are doing it a man comes in and bursts just like the one at the funeral, getting dust all over everyone.

Not having time to investigate that, the posse goes with the bokkor to an out-building at the slaughterhouse where they are put in a hidden room to let things die down a bit. LeMedie is sending a message to New Orleans, because he's sure the Baron would love to meet them... they are left to their own devices to consider what the hell to do.

MM- Elder Tanner to the sheriff "We trust you because we've had dealings with you before." Sheriff "It's not mutual."

MM- The four jailed posse members realized after impressing the jailer that they really aren't afraid of hanging. Two of them because hanging from the neck until dead isn't a big change, and two of them because hanging doesn't put too much stress on magical armor.

MM- The posse was concerned that staying in jail too long would mean giving the "family heirloom" back to Mina Devlin. So they decided Tobey should ask God when they should break from jail. Tobey got the answer "A little bit 'tonight' and a little bit 'something else'". Tobey correctly interpreted this to mean "Tonight, when the shit hits the fan".

MM- Elder Tanner left a note for the jailers, along the lines of "Sorry, we had somewhere else we need to be."

TG- The PCs did have the presence of mind to cover their faces when the man came in, so hopefully they didn't ingest any spores...