Tobey and Elder Tanner go to talk to Holliday in an attempt to persuade him not to use the evil coin bullet. He is in a black mood when they arrive, and dubs them "the stupid half of the Black River Gang". No headway is made. He even refuses Tobey's offer to try to heal his consumption, on the grounds that he doesn't want to owe God any favors before he goes out to kill a man in cold blood.
To round out the day, the posse buys some more dynamite, and nearly buys a dynamite launcher but decides it just doesn't suit their needs. Whatever those are. Various plans are discussed and discarded to stop the duel, or steal the bullet, or steal Ringo's talisman, or both, but nothing comes of any of it. Dr. Vorpwhistle tires himself out trying to make it thunder, and so the rain breaks.
The next day everyone in town knows the duel will happen, and the PCs and most everyone else is on the main street by 10 AM. Cady places some bets on Doc Holliday (odds are running 2:1 for Holliday). Then they wait.
Just before noon, Ringo emerges from the Cowboy's favorite bar at one end of the street. Robert's sharp eyes note a old wizened native in a wolf-hide cloak also coming through the crowd at that end of the street... a man who the crowd parts around instinctively. A man accompanied by two more shadows than a man should have. He points this out to the others as Doc Holliday emerges from the Oriental at the other end of the street and the two begin to slowly walk towards each other.
Cady uses her vision spell and it goes awry - she can see giant wolves over the shadows, and one is looking right at her! Once again she is scared out of her body, though Tobey is able to snap her back into it. The posse begins to move through the crowd towards the shaman, encountering little resistance as everyone is afraid of them. They meet him as Ringo and Holliday stop about thirty feet from each other on the street.
He asks them if they're the ones going to see Grimme, and Robert says they are. He says he can't let them do that. The church bell rings for noon, and the duel starts.
Holliday is faster by far and shoots at Ringo twice before the other can return fire, but Ringo dodges crazily and is only grazed. Ringos shots, when he clears his gun, fail to hit Holliday for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, Elder Tanner blurts out that they're not going to help Grimme, but to defeat him, and the wolf shaman says that either way it pisses off Raven something fierce.
This removes any doubt about what to do from the posse, and Elder Tanner opens fire on the shaman at almost point-blank range. The old man dodges, but is too fast - he has dodged back by the time Tanner actually fires, shooting him through the heart. Surprised, he falls forward on his face. He did have time before he died to blast Robert with some sort of biting spell, stripping Robert's turtle-shell favor but not doing more than bloodying him a little.
Cady soul blasts a shadow, but it jumps aside. Tobey then tries to dispel the shadows, and succeeds in dispelling the invisibility of the two giant slavering wolves that are making the shadows - though the shadow that jumped aside isn't attached to its wolf any more! This is too much for Cady again, and she once again drops her body on the sidewalk. People begin to react and stream away from this chaos.
Holliday fires for a fourth time and his gun explodes in his hand, causing him to drop to his knees. Ringo begins to walk forward slowly, intent on executing his foe.
Meanwhile the wolves jump for the posse. One rips into Elder Tanner, crushing his chest in its freakishly huge jaws. Its shadow also jumps for him, but is turned away by his protections. The other wolf jumps for El Escorpion, who has pushed forward pistol at the ready, and it clamps his entire head in its mighty jaws and crushes it like an egg. Its shadow leaps for Cady's disembodied spirit, and bites her on the shoulder.
Robert then shoots the jaw off the wolf savaging Elder Tanner and leaps forward to call Buffalo for healing, restoring the poor priest's savaged side and stemming the fountain of arterial blood. Tobey flings her machete at the other wolf and takes its head off, which causes the shadow attacking Cady to also vanish.
The jaw-shot wolf then shoulder-checks Robert through the wall of the building they are fighting next to, taking him out of the fight for the moment. Cady soul blasts Ringo in the back as he stands over Holliday, causing him to collapse to the ground with a confused expression as he dies. Hucksterism seems to work without a body, though it is perhaps more dangerous to mess up.
Tobey finishes the other wolf, taking its head off as well, and the other shadow vanishes. The shaman appears as a spirit that only Cady can see, but taller and more muscular, with blackened hands, and tries to take her body. Her soul blast rips him to shreds, and combat is over.
Tobey and Robert bandage Holliday and stop his bleeding, and Robert takes the coin-bullet, which is wedged in the remains of his pistol, apparently having jammed there. Holliday is rueful and doesn't resist. They also take Ringo's talisman, and a similar talisman they find on the shaman.
Tobey tries to heal Holliday's consumption as a consolation prize, but it doesn't work and he's not pleased by her attempt, but without his gun hand he does nothing about it except stalk unsteadily off. Hank Ketchum turns up to see what the fuss was and they tell him about the shaman. His response is pretty much, "Huh."
Cady arranges with an undertaker for El Escorpion's burial. His tombstone is to read:
MM: I thought Tobey said "I just want to note that we're not going to shoot him with the evil gun." or somesuch.
MM: good quote from Ketchum "My grandmother always said 'if you find a couple of dead giant wolves they probably needed killing.'"