When we left the party, they’d rescued Goyan and her family and killed one of the varmints, with another high-tailing it from the scene of the crime.

Mounting their horses, the race was on…

The Chase

Winston had eyes like a hawk, but really needed some help from others to make sense of the trail left by the lone rider. It was obvious the rider was covering his tracks at each junction and turn. Despite some doubling back, they were sure they were close, but night was falling.

Danny spotted a cave, up on the cliffs of the valley they had entered and as night fell, they led their horses up to the entrance and settled down for a rest, each of them taking turns to keep a lookout.

Early in the morning, Danny spotted a cloud of dust far below on the valley floor. Without packing up, they gave chase, throwing caution to the wind as they pushed their horses to the limit, initially gaining on the front man, who initially seemed oblivious to their presence.

But as they closed, their quarry turned and fired, hitting Winston and spooking his horse. Winston got the horse under control, avoiding a nasty fall.

It was clear the man ahead was the more experienced rider; he led them across streams and through cactus patches, all the time increasing his lead as the rest of the horses started to tire.

Just as he seemed to be disappearing down the valley, Dutch aimed, missing the rider, but hitting the horse, which bucked, throwing the rider into the dirt.

The posse closed in on the rider, who scrabbled for his gun, then, as a shadow of the group passed over him, raised his hands in surrender.

The Interrogation

As Diago twirled his knife, the others quizzed the man, his name, Charley and boy was he scared. He gave up everything, explaining he worked for Ellis Rockcliffe and that he’d been sent to the ranch to “clear things up”. The other man he was with really knew the deal, but Charley thought it was probably some kind of criminal activity; that’s what they did, that’s what you paid them for. Charley finished his tale and tried to offer up details of a legendary gold stash, but Diago stepped forward, his knife glinting in the midday sun…

As they stripped the body and searched the man, they found a strange cattle branding on his back, a crown. But, with the man dealt with and more information making things a bit clearer (or not), it was time to head back to the road and get to Silver City. Winston suffered from heat exhaustion, so they stopped off at the cave and spent the day and evening waiting for him to recover.

Silver City

A day later, they arrived in Silver City, heading straight to McLeary’s Undertaking Emporium. Gus McLeary greeted them and seemed pleased when they showed the letter from Rockcliffe. “Bin waiting on youse, that box is starting to hum something awful, cmon I’ll show yer.”

They were led into the back of the building and then asked McLeary to give them a few moments. They searched the box, Thomas Vane lay inside it, along with his fine pearl-handled .45 Colts and a saddle bag across his chest.

Winston pulled out some legal documents from the bag and handed them to Dutch and Danny. It seemed to be a claim for land north of Steaming Rock, land that was currently Apache tribal grounds. Dutch had done his fair share of looking over land claims for his own property, and it seemed that this claim was both illegal and fake, but maybe it could be used with the right enforcement and with the right judge. Also, it had no name against it; all one had to do was to write in their own name and the land, if others could be convinced, would be theirs.

They started to leave, telling McLeary they would return in the morning to claim the corpse and transport it home. McLeary was not too pleased, wanting rid of the stinking box, but he eventually agreed. He then mentioned Quinlivan, a businessman staying in town. Quinlivan has asked that anyone dealing with the body of Thomas Vance come see him at the Crossroad Hotel. There was seemingly the chance of a business deal to be had, though McLeary had no details.

The group decided to ignore the invite and asked McLeary to keep quiet about their business. They’d be back first thing and on their way before many of the townsfolk were out of bed.

GM Thoughts

Chases

Another excellent session, where we ticked off some of the players’ “Wishes” by taking part in a horse chase. Chases can be problematic and go on too long if the dice don’t play ball, but this was the perfect length and ending. Already, you can see that other things can be added to the chase, perhaps similar to Blade Runner, where objects are strewn in the path, or the leader takes a shortcut. The players chose the options of flat-out running to get more dice, versus a more leisurely pace to allow further actions. A player slapped their forehead when they realised a lasso would have been handy at that point.

Killing in cold blood

Another outlaw was captured, and our preacher, Diago, killed them in cold blood, after failing his Docity roll. They now had zero Docity and were broken. I could, if I adhered to the rules, allow them to refresh their docity, as it says it only needs a 10-20 minute rest. But working with the player, it seemed more natural that Diago should be brought low by this act, and we resolved to only replace the Docity once a symbolic act and a few days had passed, hence he’s currently a shell of a man, off to find the nearest church in Silver City and pray for forgiveness.

Back to the Campaign

It was nice to have these improvised events on the way down to Silver City. I’ve learnt a lot from preparing and running them, and it made the journey feel real. I managed to add in a few hooks and clues to the main campaign, but it was also good to end up back on the main campaign, figuring out the various machinations of the main characters and for the players to write their own place in the story.

Future Player Wishes for Next Session

• “I need to visit a church for my personal salvation.”

• “I want to lasso something!”

• “Let’s get back to the plot, and another shoot-out with Howard Ross.”

• “Let’s dig into the politics and the investigation.”

• “I want Dutch to become more self-assured. More interactions with NPCs. Let’s get deeper into the plot.”