"Oh yes, dead things definitely carry diseases." - Dr. Vorpwhistle

Cady, having obfuscated herself right out of her own perception when the Marshall showed up to arrest the posse, finally comes back to herself in time to see them broken out of jail and taken to an out building at the slaughterhouse. She uses obfuscation again in order to sneak in and talk to them, and finds out the whole story. There's some what to do debate, and Cady is then sent out to buy a microscope and find out what's going on.

There is of course no microscope, though she does buy some more horses (can't have too many), a telescope, and the Assay-O-Matic, which has some sort of magnifying lens in it. Then she listens in to the rumor mill, which tells her that the Black River Gang ripped the jail to shreds and escaped last night, that they hacked open the safe, and that someone heard that the Mormon grew his arm back somehow. Cady encourages several of these rumors and heads to the graveyard to see what there is to see there.

She finds the graves from a few days before dug up again, though not cleanly. The only one not dug up is the one that has the man who exploded in it. Going in to talk to the preacher, she finds him convinced that the dead have risen and that the end times are here, and thus there's no point to preaching (it's Sunday) since the righteous have already gone to Heaven and look who's left. Cady pulls out some spurious Bible knowledge and gets him back on his feet - maybe these are the end times, but if there hasn't been a rain of fire yet, there's still time to reform and get to Heaven! He delivers a very passionate sermon that pulls in a packed audience, all of them excited by it but mostly confused. Hey, there's no television yet, this is entertainment!

Heading back to the trapped posse (Vorpwhistle resting up on some crates to prevent him rooting again) she finds that the out building is now surrounded by armed guards, and they've stacked heavy crates beside the hidden inner door. She uses obfuscation again and passes notes in though a hole to the posse, who formulate an escape plan whereby Cady gets the horses ready, distracts the guards, and then they make a break for it.

The plan works in typical posse fashion - Cady gets the horses ready, and then opens some of the cattle pens, but the damn things aren't interested in moving, so she gets a cattle prod... which misfires into a fence pole, breaking her spell. Some of the slaughterhouse workers notice and start yelling at her trying to find out what she's doing, followed by a guard talking to her. He finally remembers that "if something strange happens, go get Jerome" and is going to do so when the posse hears the arguing and breaks out.

They make short work of the guards (and a couple of the slaughterhouse workers are injured as well), who aren't really prepared for this, and escape on horseback. They circle wide to the North of the city, and no one catches up with them, perhaps because they get somewhat lost. It should be noted that one of the poor guards got beheaded, and Vorpwhistle, never one to let an opportunity be wasted, took the head.

The next day, they continue to circle to the west, and find the Circle B ranch at dusk. It's deserted. Elder Tanner is granted a vision of what happened here - several men shambled in a few days ago and were greeted as friends... but they attacked the ranch and killed everyone with various blunt objects, and were impervious to gunshots. Then the attackers stacked up the bodies, and one of the attackers exploded into spores. They then left, taking the halves of their companion with them.

Two days later, the bodies got up and shuffled off.

More on microscopes:19th Century American Microscopes