Weird West: Definitive Edition

Just as a warning, Essex Mast can die (as can any NPC) and he won't be available during this point in Chapter 4. I have NO CLUE where he died during my playthrough, but I do not get the "Optional: speak to Essex about your brand" during this section of the story, so obviously I can not pick up the side-quest or complete the achievement. I'll likely just speed-run the entire game, but I think you may need to help him on more than one occasion prior to this, or it's possible he just died from something else. Really can't figure out where it went wrong, because I prepared quite extensively before starting the game.

In my playthrough Essex Mast was first a dead body surrounded by plague zombies at a random treasure map location. I reloaded an older save, did not find him at Absolution Hall after rescuing Leila and again found him at the same location as before but this time he was a plague zombie.

This may tie into the certain news reports where you hear of plague befalling certain settlements, etc. In only one case did I actually venture to the town in question and clear out the zombies. Perhaps this is a required step to keep the continuity in the game and keep certain NPC's from dying; that is, if you see a news story about a lingering problem, you should go deal with it ASAP.