What was that crazy bitch doing? Was she damaged in some way? Granted, Rowan admired her gumption, but charging Vaas head-on was a one way ticket to fucked. Rowan had followed the sound of the motorcade to the beach where he'd planned to ambush Vaas and try to find out where Paul was being held. When the bastard brought twenty men with him, Rowan had backed off and hid in the bushes. It was then that he'd spotted the redhead hiding almost directly below the cliff he was perched on.
Rowan checked his gun. He had six shots in the revolver's cylinder and only five extras. Even if his aim was perfect, he couldn't hope to take all of them. He had the knife he stole from the passed-out pirate he'd encountered last night, but he'd need to be incredibly stealthy and incredibly batshit in order to take out enough of them that would let him make use of the revolver. And a crazed jungle Batman, Rowan was not.
He was about to try and shove the stalled car on the road down the cliff to cause a distraction, but then all hell broke loose. When Vaas had started breaking shit, Rowan had assumed that the owner would have the good sense to stay put. Guess not. The woman had leapt on Vaas like an angry tiger and hit him with a glorious left hook. His men looked torn between opening fire and bursting out laughing. He recovered quickly and knocked her out cold.
Rowan sighed. There was nothing he could do for her at this point. Vaas hauled her into a Jeep and screamed at a few of his men to burn what was left if the woman's things. The others hopped into their cars to follow him back to camp. Four men stayed behind and began gathering the woman's things into a pile. Four, he could deal with.
Rowan unsheathed his knife and slid down the hillside into the foliage surrounding the beach. By a stroke of dumb luck, one of the pirates staggered off to take a leak and stopped three feet from where Rowan crouched. No one saw him die. With the body hidden in the bushes, Rowan darted out of the shrubs and hid behind the woman's makeshift shelter. He crept around a corner to find himself face to face with the largest of the men. The man seemed shocked to see him, and Rowan took advantage if his hesitation. He slammed his knife into the brute's throat and clamped a hand over his mouth. He managed to drag the body behind the shelter, but the other two had noticed their companion's disappearance. Rowan heard shouting as they drew closer and pulle his revolver free.
Rowan wheeled around the corner with a blood-curdling cry and caught the first man by surprise. Before he could fire his gun, the man's face was mangled and wrent by a .44 round. The other man lunged with a machete, but Rowan's training had taught him to count this. He jumped back out of the blade's reach and fired into the man's chest. He staggered and choked as he fell, desperately trying to grasp his weapon. Rowan rushed forward and slammed his knee into the man's face, knocking him backwards into the sand. A few thrusts of the knife silenced his gargles curses.
Rowan picked through the wreckage of the campsite, finding little of use outside of a first aid kit and a jungle-grade machete, obviously never used, in a nylon friction sheath. As he exited the ramshackle hut, he heard something crush under his feet. He looked down and found the broken pieces of a rather expensive looking digital camera. He picked it up and examined it. Completely irreparable, but upon closer inspection, he saw the memory card was still intact. He slipped it into a plastic bag and put it in his pack. If Vaas was taking the woman to his camp, he could probably find Paul there, too. He strapped the machete across his back and reloaded his gun. Looks like he was on the warpath.
He took a last look around and saw a trunk with a lable scrawled on it in marker:
"Property of Thelma Dukes."
Thelma. So now he knew her name.