The posse hangs around in Denver for a few days mostly staying out of trouble with a single notable exception. Tobey has healed (or whatever it's called when the undead get better) to the point where she can get around, although she's still quite stiff and creaky. Everyone else has fully recovered from their ordeal in the House of the Old One.
Cady is issued an invitation from Mr. Johnson of the Pinkertons to come have lunch and get paid for the story of the expedition. After talking it over with the group, she ends up giving the full story with the exception of the sacrifice portal to the hunting grounds, which is left out. Johnson doesn't seem to notice that, and asks lots of questions about the supernatural parts, especially what worked on them and what didn't. In exchange, he tells Cady that the Pinkertons know that Nicodemus went through Dodge on his way to Memphis, and they think from there went deeper into the Confederacy. Cady asks some other questions about what's up with Grimme and Lost Angels, and Johnson answers readily enough - Grimme's forces have attacked Bayou Vermillion's rail line, and Grimme seems to be readying for some move... Johnson thinks he is going to declare Lost Angels independent. The tall, gaunt Mr. Johnson continues to remind Cady of someone, but again she cannot quite figure out who.
Meanwhile, Dr. Vorpwhistle has gotten a bug to see everything, and to learn more about the manitous inspiring science. To that end, he tries to invent a ghost-rock vapor infuser, but it's too difficult. Once in Denver, he does think of a little invention, the ghost-rock vapor lighter. Neither he nor Cady can catch sight (or other sense) of the manitou that might have inspired him, however. The only problem with the lighter is that it requires a whisker from a pure black cat as the wick. Which is where the notable exception to the trouble-free nature of Denver comes from.
Everyone else has been occupying themselves spending some of their funds, and learning the news - Colorado is a state now, in both the USA and CSA. The presidential campaigns are starting in earnest, with Lee drafted against Davis in the south, and Tilden, a peace candidate, running against Grant in the north. The coin, once checked, pulls towards Dodge.
After paying an urchin to retrieve a black cat for him (no luck catching it himself) Dr. Vorpwhistle takes the cat in bag back to his room, where it quickly shoots under the bed after trying to claw his eyes out (the doctor wore one of the gas masks, thwarting the beast). Bart, hearing the yowls, comes to help, but only manages to get his face raked and then puts himself and Dr. Vorpwhistle to sleep trying to use his story on the cat.
Hearing the sudden silence, Cady uses her spell to look through the door and seems them slumped on the floor. She calls in Elder Tanner - maybe they're dead! - and opens the door. The cat leaps for her face, its eyes glowing red, and claws her severely. Tobey emerges from her room then and the cat is chopped in half, and the two halves keep twitching for a full minute afterwards. After getting treated for her wounds, Cady claims to have recognized an evil spirit in the cat that she just sensed while casting her spell. Robert thinks the cat might have been just pumped up with fear, but several people saw its glowing red eyes and heard it continue to yowl after being chopped in half. They decide to leave Denver and ride to Dodge before they get into any further trouble. This proves ineffective, but it takes a few days of travel for that to become apparent.
For two nights on the trail they hear a far-off stampede at dusk. It's louder the second day, and more rattling, though it doesn't get louder or softer while it occurs. The third day (the fifth of their trip) they come to the junction between Black River and the Denver Pacific around noon, and after asking around subtly trying to find out if anyone has noticed any strange stampedes (no one has) they decide to stay in the hotel there that night rather than go out on the trail again. At dusk, the noise begins again, louder, loud enough to make some of them (Bart, Cady, and Robert) climb to the roof of the hotel. Tobey also goes up there, trying to get them down, and almost succeeds, when the noise grows even louder, and then the demonic longhorns appear.
There are three of them. One of them lands one the roof suddenly, having jumped from who knows where. The other two are down at ground level, accompanied by a ghost herd of cattle. These longhorns are huge, black in color, and have a six foot spread of horns, with extra barbs and prongs. Bouncing a bullet off the one on the roof, Robert determines that they're armored (though not bulletproof, as is proved later). Robert then calls upon the shell of the turtle, which is just as well because he is then butted from the roof by the bull and thrown to the ground below.
Meanwhile, one of the longhorns below leads the ghost herd into the hotel and out the back, breaking it up, panicking everyone inside, and trampling a few. The other throws the preacher to the ground with a hook of its horns, and then tramples him, breaking his leg. Amusingly, it would also have pulped his left arm, had he one. Tobey then proves that these bulls can be slaughtered, taking the head off the one on the roof with a sweeping blow of her machete. It dies like any cow would, its head dropping to the ground below.
Unfortunately, then the bull leading the ghost herd gathers itself and leaps onto the roof, bringing the ghost herd with it. Cady is trampled, her legs and hips shattered, and is dying. Bart is thrown from the roof by the bull itself, gored through some of his internal organs (eh, not so important) and then flung onto the railroad tracks, which breaks his neck (again, not fatal, but disturbing to have your head flop about like that). Tobey is left alone on the roof with the bull, the ghost herd continuing along off the roof to destroy a stable across the tracks.
Dr. Vorpwhistle has some success using his EKG on the longhorn below, stunning it for a time, but it then throws him hard against the side of a train on a siding about twenty feet away, and he falls broken to the ground. That bull then starts taunting Elder Tanner, doing a mocking little cow-dance. On the roof, the other gores Tobey in the head, puncturing her skull but not shattering it, and then hooks out her right eye and tears up her face in the process. Finally, it kicks her off the roof and into the water tank for the trains, which she cuts her way out of with the machete eventually.
Leaping down, it joins its brother and they advance on Elder Tanner, breathing brimstone breath on him as he recites from the Book of Mormon. They don't kill him, though, and a shot from Robert makes both of them turn and charge the shaman instead. He narrowly avoids them, and they continue on to destroy the general store behind him. Calling his horse Lucky, Robert rides over to Joseph and hoists him up.
Bart then takes charge, and when the bulls emerge from the wreckage of the store, he taunts them and shoots one through the heart with an armor piercing bullet, dropping it stone dead. The other gathers the ghost herd and chases him, but Bart is inhumanly fast and stays ahead of it for a while, running down the tracks and hoping for a train (which never does come). After determining that Vorpwhistle is in fact dead, Robert carries Elder Tanner on his back up to the roof to help Cady, and calling on the power of God, the preacher is able to take Cady's wounds and heal them, bringing her back from the brink of death.
Meanwhile, the herd finally catches up with Bart and tramples him (though not before he is shot through the arm by Tobey's fumbled attempt to hit the bull). Tobey and the last bull then run at each other, but just before they meet, as Tobey is bracing for impact, Robert lays the beast low with a shot to the head.
The posse then regroups. Tobey gathers up Bart in a blanket, and he is able to help her bandage her head to look less frightening. Elder Tanner goes among the wounded and heals them with his grace, winning much confused but very grateful thanks. Robert smokes his pipe and goes into the spirit world to help Dr. Vorpwhistle find his way up the tree. Meanwhile, Cady calls upon the Flayed Dog to help her make Dr. Vorpwhistle undead like Bart and Tobey! The dog does in fact appear, and says that many spirits are interested in them. It names a particular one that is close by that Cady can call to the doctor, and she does. The spirit's name, strangely enough, turns out to be Bessy Willoughby.
In the hunting grounds, Robert finds Dr. Vorpwhistle happily examining the tree and starts trying to guide him up when a wispy woman spirit appears and names itself as Bessy Willoughby. She starts trying to persuade Dr. Vorpwhistle to come back and share his body with her. She does admit to being evil when he asks, strangely enough. Robert of course argues the other side, and finally exasperated calls upon Eagle. Bessy desperately tells Vorpwhistle to take her hand, and in the end he does, unsatisfied with the quality of answers in the spirit world (which stems from not being able to take "because" for an answer, really). Eagle arrives just a bit too late and frustratedly gashes the ground with its beak, Dr. Vorpwhistle and Bessy having vanished.
LB: There is much bitter recrimination on the way home, and later, over Cady trying to bring Dr. Vorpwhistle back. To attempt to synopsize, nobody but Cady thinks she should have done it, but nobody except maybe Robert is inclined to kill the undead Dr. Vorpwhistle immediately upon his getting back up.
Some of the arguments against are: That's Not Right. Being possessed by an evil spirit is likely to lead to more innocents dying. Dr. Vorpwhistle hasn't really been a sterling Force for Good so far, he just trails after us and gives us money. Joseph has seen no evidence of selflessness. He'll probably try and do experiments on possession which will lead to him being taken over. It was his Time, and you don't mess with that. Trucking with evil spirits is bad.
Some of the arguments for are: He may not be good, but he's done good. He fights evil stuff with us, he doesn't just stand there and take notes - the reason he was killed by the cow was that he stunned it when it was about to kill Joseph. He's likely to be pretty harmless if possessed if he doesn't have his EKG. Tobey and Bart have both done good works (and God even sent Tobey back) since dying. He's specifically said he would have wanted to have an evil spirit and not die. If he's still following us and paying us, that's because Cady wants the money. Cady has seen little more selflessness in Joseph than in Dr. Vorpwhistle.
GM: to be fair to the late Dr. Vorpwhistle, after he got the cat whiskers he built excellent lighters for several party members - these babies work in a gale, underwater, wherever you might need a fingernail-sized flame.
MM: Happily Elder Tanner's broken leg also heals when he heals Cady's wounds.
MM: Tobey will admit that she doesn't blame Cady for bringing Vorpwhistle back; it is what he wanted. She isn't happy about Vorpwhistle being back, however. And she's at a loss for what to do about it.
