When Deputy Young (one of the PCs) decided that he was going to quit working as a lawman because there was no money in it, the entire adventure got derailed from the get-go as Miller (another PC) set of on a one man crusade to force a pay increase on the Deputy so he'd stick around.
He crusaded with everyone of importance in town, getting his may-december girlfriend, the Widow McKnee to call together the Dodge City Anti-Chinese League to march down Front Street and demand Deputy Young be given a pay raise. He went to the fat corrupt Marshall Deger, who didn't give a flying crap. He went all the way up to Mayor Beatty, and eventually working together he arranged to double the Deputy's salary!
Of course, it might have been better if he'd asked the Deputy if he really wanted that first. In any case, the deputy decided it was enough to keep him on. It turns out that the whole process uncovered the real reason Mayor Beatty hired on Wyatt Earp at such an incredible wage: he desperately wants to shut out Larry Deger's political ambitions; come November, he figures Deger will run for Ford County Sheriff (Sheriff Bassett can't run for a third term, due to term limits), and if Wyatt Earp runs against Deger, he'll beat him by a landslide. Beatty is in essence bribing Earp to run for the Sheriff's office.
Meanwhile Miller and his partner Smith (another PC) kept trying to get their struggling "Fort Bar" running at a profit. To complicate matters, Texas Pete, the owner of the Texas Star saloon next door, decided he wanted a fight with the newcomers. Again, the PCs discovered that Texans are not to be messed with in a bar brawl.
The PCs also learned that Rutherford B. Hayes was finally sworn in, under the "compromise of '77", as their new President; resolving the biggest electoral crisis between then and the "hanging chads of 2000".
And finally, a wealthy grieving widow put a $1000 price on sheriff Charlie Bassett's head, after he'd killed her husband in a (fair) gunfight. Nothing would move the widow from her dark desire for revenge, until Bassett's girlfriend Miss Jenny took matters into her own hands.
Everyone was a bit worried Miss Jenny would use her derringer on the old hag, but instead she showed the widow the body of a man who'd tried to face Bassett in a fight to win her $1000. Even this wasn't enough to move her, but then Deputy Young got the idea of bringing the dead man's wife, and showing the widow that her lust for revenge was causing other women the very grief Bassett had caused her.
Oh, and Wyatt Earp got back in town, and to everyone's surprise brought his new wife Mattie Blaylock!
She had all the appearance of a simple country girl, but Miss Jenny saw through the facade and guessed that Mattie had worked as a prostitute for some time.
Anyways, a lot of stuff happened this session! Mainly, the PCs learned that you do not mess with the women of the wild west. And that politics is complicated.
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