After considering which way Nicodemus might have gone and gotten "washed down river with other scum" from Tobey's oracular powers, they decide to follow the river south (or southwest, from Memphis). Around about 9 in the morning someone catches up with them, but not quite - Robert hears a fast horse suddenly stopping. Cady goes back to investigate, and sees a woman with three good horses watching the posse as they go off the road. The woman then gestures, and turns invisible!
Cady comes back to report, and they debate a bit what to do. They decide they should find and terminate this obvious scout, and Robert invokes the eyes of the eagle to do so. Of course, the invisible woman hiding nearby doesn't want to be found, and shoots at Robert. There's a short exchange of gunfire, in which she nearly kills Robert, and then Vorpwhistle, deducing her position from her previous motions (visible because of the smoke from her pistol) shoots her dead with the EKG. Robert finally gets a shot in and shoots her as well, since he could see her but wasn't as fast as she was.
The corpse is mostly crisped, but they claim the horses and ride on. Not far from the Mississippi border, more riders catch up with them - two Wichita Witches and ten gunmen. Our heroes try to get off the road, but they are spotted by one of the women. The heroes take cover in the trees, and their pursuers take cover behind a low wall along the road. One of the witches survives being shot in the face, and after the other one is soul blasted to death, the survivor regains consciousness and fireballs the woods! Vorpwhistle is the hero of the fight, stunning opponents by shooting lightning into their cover (including the second witch) and killing at least one by grisly electrocution. After their two leaders are dead, they mostly break and run. In the course of the battle, Cady has nearly died from the fireball but been saved by the blessings of Buffalo (and Robert) and Tobey has had her hip shattered.
Questioning one of the men too wounded to retreat and not wounded enough to be dead, they learn that these were Black River thugs. They also find on one of the witches a list of their names. The stunned witch survivor is executed, but they let the wounded man live.
The next few days find them riding through back trails and woods in northern Mississippi, avoiding all contact, and successfully staying out of trouble. They finally get on the Mississippi Central Railroad on November 4, deciding they're far enough out of trouble. One of the few riders is from Memphis, and recognizes them from the Memphis paper, which on the 3rd published sketches of the "Black River Bandits". He tries to tell the conductor, but a spell from Cady makes him seem unbelievable. Still, he gets off at the next stop rather than stay on the train with bandits.
Taking his newspaper, they learn that they apparently stole a half-million in bonds and other currency in addition to "Devlin family heirlooms". The reward on them is a thousand dollars a head alive, half that dead. They're armed and dangerous. They also learn that the sixth battle of Mannasses has started with an assault by armored union steam-wagons of some kind, who have temporarily taken the field. Union air carriages (blimps) have also bombed Richmond for two nights running.
Early morning of the fifth finds them in Jackson, Mississippi, off the train and lightly disguised (though not enough to fool a keen observer). Hopefully the war will provide people with other things to think about than Black River's bounty.