So, while the rest of the party was doing the spirit walk thing, Slim was forced out by critically missing a Vigor roll.  While he waited, he spotted a scene down the mountain towards town.  He saw 3 people on horseback shoot someone on foot and then ride towards town.  He tried to call out to the others but they were currently out of their heads.  So Slim went down to investigate by himself.  Perhaps the wounded man could be helped.  When he got down to where he thought it happened, he found nothing.  No body, no tracks that he could read and most perplexing, no blood.  He searched around but when he came up with nothing, he went back up the mountain.  About that time, the others regained consciousness.  The Indian, the camp, and the cave were gone.  They compared notes while Slim described what he saw.  While describing it, he spotted someone crawling towards town.  This time everyone went down and eventually caught up to it.  It turned out to be a walking dead man (crawling really) that turned the stomach on any who missed a Guts check.  After some discussion, Phoebe Ann, who had it in her sights, put it out of its misery.  The chronicler had to step away but somehow the players became convinced that more of these could be heading into town.  So, the urgent trip to the trapped earth spirit was put on hold and we headed back into town.

We entered at the northeast corner and could see several walking dead trying to claw their way into buildings.  We could tell the terror level in town was up a notch.  We proceeded in initiative order, blasting away at any that we could see.  Everyone but Slim and Thomas headed south along the east side of town.  Dan arrived late and Brian placed him in the bar, further into town.  There were several of them in there along with plenty of townsfolk including the mayor.  So Big John finally got a chance to use his hand to hand skills.  Despite their gang-up bonuses, he managed to stay up and beat on them.  The rest headed down to help him but movement is slow without double moves and the town was big.  Of note, Phoebe Ann jammed her rifle with a critical failure.  Virgil gave her his, and she critical failed with it as well, this time hitting Buster who was engaged with one.  She managed to do it again, jamming that rifle, a few rounds later.  For the most part, they were just blasting away, taking them out as they could.  A couple popped out of buildings to cause trouble.  They were tough but at least they didn’t need a headshot to drop.

Meanwhile Slim and Thomas headed across the town with the intent of coming south on the west side.  The action seemed to be at the bar but they didn’t know if there were any on that side.  It seemed a waste of time when the Archer gang rode into town at the northwest corner.  Slim acted at a joker and fired two warning shots at them while calling out for the marshal and his guys to come out to help.  (They did not.)  He then took cover behind the barn at the stables.  Unfortunately, Thomas went last so he had to just stand there while all 10 of them went before him.  But since Slim shot at them, they shot at him.  But with the cover of the barn, the medium-range and being on horseback, only the last one managed to hit him which he soaked with a fate chip.  When Thomas went, he ran behind the well and plugged the leader who was in the front of the pack.  He soaked it away too.  The next round Slim hit the leader and then stepped into the barn for better cover.  He was feeling pretty invincible and Brian was rolling pretty poorly.  Thomas also hit the leader and dropped him.  On Slim’s next action, he killed the guy trying to bandage the leader guy.  Thomas fell back to the trees, trying to maintain his rifle versus pistol range advantage, and trying to get closer to the rest of the group so they could hear him.  He figured the bandits would ride towards him but instead most dismounted and came into the barn, looking for Slim.

So initially Slim managed to avoid getting hit but eventually his luck ran out.  (As did their minuses to hit.)  He got hit with exploding damaging (is there any other kind?) and rolled poorly on his soak.  That used up the rest of his fate chips.  The next hit did 3 wounds and he had to just take it.  That left him 1 wound from dead, bleeding out, shaken, etc.  (He also lost one permanent die of Vigor from the serious gut shot wound.)  Brian said that they’d ignore him, laying in a pool of blood and go after Thomas.  However, Dave pointed out that he wasn’t down.  Staying in character, he leaned against the wall and hurled insults at them.  Thomas burned some chips to get closer to the barn but he couldn’t get there in time.  Brian gave Dave one more chance to live like a possum but he elected to die like a mean SOB.  (Turns out these guys were “bloodthirsty” so any parley attempts would have been tough.)  One of them went and finished Slim off.  The next round, Dave got a Joker which gave him a fate chip.  He used it for one final shot as he fell.  He hit but didn’t kill the bandit.  Thomas went next, leaped into the barn, and finished him off.  At that point, the bandits had gotten back on their horses and left town.  Slim and Thomas had managed to kill over half of them but they killed half of us.

The rest was storyboarding.  Buster used his new tale-telling edge to tell the heroic story of Slim’s last stand.  He used a card that guaranteed his success.  Phoebe Ann assisted and with a teamwork card from Thomas got double the normal bonus.  All that reduced the fear level in the town a couple of points.  Evidently, we were at a 5 and at 6 it becomes a piece of Hell, beyond redemption.  We also parleyed that into getting the marshal to forgive Virgil for his crimes.  (I suspect the Preacher, if we ever find him, won’t be so forgiving.)  Slim was buried in the local cemetery.  When asked where he’d like to be put, Dave suggested he be placed on the edge of the path so that people might trip on his tombstone on their way by.  Mean to the last.  I believe is tombstone read “Meanest SOB to ever grace Colorado.”  We stopped there since it was midnight.  Dave was given a ton of suggestions on a new character.  Unfortunately, Slim was the cornerstone of the whole adventure so it might be nice if his new guy was also a railroad guy but I suspect he’ll go in a different direction.  We’ll work it out.  Someone from the town? Someone on the train? Someone that happens to wander by? We shall see.  It’s a lethal system and we made it to game 5 before the first death.  Rest well, Slim.