Warning: if you're reading this log and you want to some day play in the published adventure "Canyon O' Doom", don't. It's not like I'm playing it just like it is in the book, so you'd just jump when you oughta ducked.

Our heroes show little resistance as they are taken up the creek to the actual camp of the Laughing Men. Chuckles interrogates them a bit about what they're doing in the canyon, chiding them when they attempt to claim that they don't have any boats and are just on a walking trip. He offers that if they take him back to the boats and turn over all their stuff, he won't kill them. They are left to think that over.

While they think, a raven lands in their midst. "Woman!" "Ask!" "Afraid!" Honor!" They decide that the bird is telling them they can goad Chuckles into a fight if they harp on his being afraid of a woman. Putting their heads together, they choose Sophie as the designated fighter, assuming they can rope him into a knife fight.

The goading goes reasonably well - the bandit leader does seem to have a weak spot about being afraid of a woman - except that Chuckles refuses to have anything but a shootout. He and Sophie stand about thirty yards apart, waiting for a big log in the campfire to burn through.

When it does, Sophie is first on the draw, with a sensation almost of deja vu as the log breaks. She misses her first shot, and wings him as he draws, but misses her next shot. Charles shoots off the top of her ear and severs her gun-belt, but isn't able to actually kill him. Finally Sophie places a bullet through his neck with almost supernatural accuracy. The Laughing Men are stunned, and the posse makes good their escape. The raven returns out of the darkness to peck at the eyes of the corpse.

When they get back to the boats, the group spends several hours in the dark portaging their equipment around the next rapids and getting a few miles down river. Everyone gets bruised pretty much everywhere it is possible to bruise. Summer Rains denies sending the raven, so its provenance remains a mystery.

After that they spend two days on the river uneventfully, observing the wildlife and the scenery and stopping once for some fossil hunting. The third day, as they approach some serious rapids, they begin to hear the droning sound of a beetle swarm. There is, however, no place to get off the river, and they prepare for some serious insect bites. But the droning gets louder until it's almost deafening, and the source hoves into view - six beetles, each the size of a great dane!

Some of the posse keeps rowing while others go for their guns. Tobey, amazingly, does both, uncoiling her hair from her head in a long tentacle and picking up her rifle with it. The guide on that boat nearly faints, and has to be snapped out of it before they end up on the rocks.

In the fight that ensues, Cady ends up killing four of the beetles with her soul blast - it doesn't suffer from the bucking of the boats, and the bugs are strangely resistant to firearms. Robert and Tobey each kill one - while shooting them through the head doesn't kill them instantly, it tends to result in them flying into the canyon walls. Elder Tanner ends up tangled with one on the bottom of his boat until it's killed by a blast from Cady. Finally Sophie and one of the guides (and Tobey, going after them) and up going for a swim, as Edgar knocks them out of the boat with a clumsy swing of a paddle (and loses the paddle in the process). Edgar is the only one badly wounded, a beetle having put its scythe-like arm through his leg, but it's a clean puncture wound.

After they find a place to put in and retrieve the swimmers, there are two beetle corpses left unscathed (Cady's blasts having kept them intact and in the boats). After Dr. Haskins is bandaged, he and Dr. Vorpwhistle examine the beasts. They quickly prove to be like no insects ever seen before, even without considering their size. For one thing, they have eight limbs - six clustered at their hind end, and two scythe-like arms. As well as wings, of course. They smell strangely like chlorine, which is unnatural, and the insides of one which is dissected prove to be like a Jello mold. The other one is carefully wrapped up and saved for later.

The next day brings them close to their side trip up Havasu Canyon, but not quite there. They check out a major waterfall along the way, but it isn't the one that Robert has seen in his visions - it seems likely that that one is up the side canyon. At the end of the day, the good campsite they choose is already occupied by nervous Apaches, who jump them - but when Cady mentions that they had helped the Apache against zombies, it prompts one of them to recognize the posse.

So a potentially bad situation turns into a chummy camp-out. The Apache (though they never say) are clearly carrying guns from north of the canyon to their southern homelands - an operation that's definitely not legal, and explains their jumpiness. The most interesting piece of news they have is that the group of Guardian Angels is traveling along the north rim of the canyon, and that there are still thirteen of the Angels left. They also trade some of their native style provisions for some of the posse's hardtack and fatback.

Thanks to Jan Maessen and Andrea Humez for guest-starring as Edgar and Sophie.

GM - Edgar's leg wound is fully healed by some sort of shamanistic corn magic from Summer Rains.