He had not seen Hosea and Bessie in some time now, they had been talking about going back on the straight and narrow. For now he was left with the young Mr. Morgan who was now about eighteen or so, Susan Grimshaw; his current squeeze although he was becoming disinterested in her by the day, Arthur's sweetheart Mary, and their faithful companion Copper.
"Dutch, we're thinking about heading into town tomorrow." Susan came and sat on his lap and he wrapped an arm around her as he and Morgan played three card stud.
"I suppose you'll be wanting spending money, then." He looked at his cards and folded his hand, tossing the cards away. Mary squeezed in next to Arthur and wrapped herself around his arm.
"I told you he'd growl about it, wanting to go buy fancy clothes. What would a whore need with fancy clothes anyway, it's not like the boys take us on their little schemes." Mary snorted and Susan shot her a mean look.
"I may be an ex-whore, but at least I'm civilized. I've got more manners in my little finger than you've got in your body, you little tramp." Susan growled and Dutch and Arthur exchanged a look.
"See? See what happens when you bring women into camp." Dutch gestured to both girls who shot him a mean look, prompting him to shuffle the deck and tap it gently on the table.
"Mary, don't go antagonizing Ms. Grimshaw. We talked about this." Arthur grumbled, wrestling his arm out of his sweetheart's grasp. Mary folded her arms and snorted defiantly.
"I don't like you and I don't trust you. You may think you've got the boys fooled, but not me!" Susan snarled at the young woman who nudged her boyfriend and gave him a look that said 'see, I'm innocent'.
"Susan, enough. I won't have discord in my ranks. If Arthur says Mary is trustworthy, then she's trustworthy." Dutch muttered as he and Arthur looked at their hands and then each other. They folded at the same time and Dutch went to reshuffle again.
"She brings nothing to camp. No money, no food, does her chores around here half assed. I won't be pulling my weight and hers, Dutch. That's not fair to me." Susan folded her arms angrily and Dutch sighed, setting the deck down and rubbing the bridge of his nose. The constant bickering between the two women were becoming more and more of a frequent occurrence. He wasn't sure if it was jealousy, with Susan being afraid that one day she might find him writhing around on top of Arthur's young beau or what.
"Bullshit! Last week I did all the camp dishes, mended the boys clothes, and cooked! While you and Van der Linde were out rolling around in the grass like a couple cats going at each other. You think I don't know you're yowling at the top of your lungs on purpose, Ms. Grimshaw? All of Saint Denis can hear you moaning and carrying on!" Mary bristled, biting her lip angrily as Susan brushed off Dutch's arm and leaned across the table.
"God damn it. Here we go…" Arthur buried his head in his hands and Dutch rolled his eyes, unbuttoning his sleeves and rolling them up past his forearms. Both men knew they were about to have to pull the women apart, again.
"I pull my weight around–" Susan began but Dutch had stood up and put a hand on her shoulder, his brown eyes burning holes through her.
"Enough, Miss Grimshaw. Go wait for me in my quarters." He gestured to his canvas tent and Susan pushed him away from her angrily, prompting him to grab her by the wrist and spin her around, pinning her to the table with a thud. He seethed, chewing at his cheek as he debated whether or not to put a hand around her throat. The sass, that's what he hated most, it reminded him of a girl he used to know and it infuriated him every time Susan showed even the slightest pushback.
"Dutch…" Arthur stood up and tossed his hat on the table as Mary hopped away, hiding behind the young man. She had seen the ringleader's moody disposition before and it wasn't the first time he had put hands on the whore when he got irritated.
"Go wait for me." He hissed, letting her go and practically panting through gritted teeth. Susan slowly pushed herself up, tears in her eyes as she stomped past them and towards the canvas tent bitterly.
"I'm going to bed." Mary whispered to Arthur who nodded and retrieved his hat from the table.
"That's a good idea." The young man growled, still staring at his older companion who was folding his hands behind his head, still seething.
"Goodnight Miss Gillis." Dutch murmured causing the young woman to shiver in disgust as she made her way towards the tent she shared with Arthur.
"It ain't right to hit a woman, Dutch." Arthur snatched the deck from where the man had been sitting.
"I didn't hit her." Dutch growled back, glaring at Arthur a moment before he sat back down at the table.
"You know what I mean. Last week you pinned her to this very table and put a hand on her throat cuz she set you off. You may not strike her, but it's cruel the way you treat her sometimes. I thought we was 'noble', like Robin Hood. Would Mr. Hood treat his sweetheart the way you treat Miss Grimshaw?" Arthur tossed a couple cards at Dutch who refused to make eye contact with him now.
"I know, I just…I'm a man, Arthur. I get angry, I get upset, and I know I've got a temper. Heh, I get that from my mother. I'll apologize to Susan later." He lifted the cards as Arthur flipped over three of them on the table and both men studied their hands carefully for a while.
"Dutch, your temper has been an issue since Hosea and Bessie took off. That woman adores you, she's like a mother to me, and the next time you pull a stunt like that I'll knock your teeth in." Arthur set his hand down and tossed a couple chips between them.
"Arthur, you have my word I will be gentler in my anger with the lady. No need to threaten me." Dutch snorted and called Arthur's bet with his own chips.
"I ain't threatenin' you. I'm tellin' you." Arthur flipped his cards over revealing two jacks and Dutch tossed his hand down in a playful fit of anger.
"We'll take the girls out tomorrow and spoil 'em. Maybe sniff around for a lead or two." He stood up from the table and slipped his suspenders off his shoulders, turning around and eying his tent in the distance.
"Dutch, have her bite down on something or at least try to keep quiet this time. If I gotta hear more impressions of her…in the heat of passion…I'm gonna be sick."
"I'll try my best, Mr. Morgan." Dutch smirked and winked at the young man as he sauntered away in the fading light of the campfire.
—-
"What a strange street performer." Mary swayed a bit on the sidewalk as she turned to watch the odd man in a formal suit and top hat swallow a sword to gasps and applause.
"Chicanery." Susan snorted, tightly latched to Dutch's arm as the two couples strolled the streets of Saint Denis.
"How do you think he does it?" Arthur asked, turning to Dutch who watched as the man in the top hat seemed to choke on the large object he had halfway down his throat.
"I think he might have actually cut himself, the fool." Dutch rubbed his stubbled chin as the man grasped at his throat, choking to the horror of the people watching him on the street.
"Shouldn't we help him?" Mary looked up at Arthur who scratched his head.
"Oh, I think he'll be just fine, Miss Gillis." Dutch chuckled as the man sneezed and the sword seemed to vanish and he began pulling a long knotted chord of pieces of cloth from his mouth.
"Okay, how the hell did he do that?" Arthur laughed.
"I'm telling you, it's nothing but cheap tricks. If he weren't such an odd duck who stood out like a sore thumb, he'd make a decent pickpocket." Susan shook her head and Mary tugged at Arthur, gesturing that she wanted to go check out the silly performer.
"Can we?" She looked up at him pleadingly and the young man sighed, tipping his hat at Dutch and Miss Grimshaw.
"Catch you back at camp?"
"Of course." Dutch nodded and the couples parted from one another, with Arthur and Mary heading towards the odd man and his wagon while Dutch and Miss Grimshaw went back towards downtown.
"About the other night–" Susan began but Dutch gently padded her arm and shook his head.
"We're here to have fun, Susan. I apologize for my uncultured behavior last night, I had a little bit too much to drink and I temporarily lost control. It won't happen again. You have my word." Dutch bit his lip a moment as Susan nodded, too busy looking out at the color and lively city around her to notice that her partner was mulling it over in his head.
After the incident a few years ago with the young rich robber baron's daughter, both Arthur and Hosea had started to call him out when he snapped. He hated it, being scolded like some misbehaved little boy by men he considered his friends. He furrowed his brow as he thought of what Miss McLean might be up to now. She had stolen the money he was going to use to buy a tract of land, build a little hideaway for him and the boys to slink away to. His own Sherwood Forest, somewhere far away from the nonsense they called "the real free world".
"Pardon me," a man reading a paper folded it down as they started to walk by, "are you the one they call Dutch Van der Linde?"
Dutch froze, instinctively putting a hand on his gun as Susan clung tighter to his arm, her eyes glaring at the man in black. He smirked, a bounty hunter, of course.
"Depends on who's asking." Dutch replied teasingly only to feel cold steel through the back of his shirt, the hammer clicking back and he scowled, raising his hand off his revolver.
"You got a bounty on you boy, five hundred dollars if you get taken alive. You're worth half that dead, Mr. Van der Linde, and I don't like halfing my profits." The man folded his paper and nodded to the men that had gotten behind Dutch and Susan and began to separate them from one another. He lifted his other hand, turning his head to his woman and nodding. She stepped back, nodding back as the man who had been seated stood up and gestured down the road.
"Do you know if they allow conjugal visits?" Dutch sneered as the man behind him pushed him forward.
"Ma'am, you may want to say goodbye to your sweetheart. Cuz the next time you two see each other will be when he's swinging from the end of a rope." The man chuckled and Susan glared back, folding her arms and scoffing.
"At least let me give the little lady a kiss goodbye, fellas. You could at least let me taste my beloved one last time, couldn't you?" Dutch raised his eyebrows and the stranger sneered.
"Walk, Van der Linde."
—-
Susan rushed through the crowded streets trying to catch sight of Arthur and Mary. It had only been about an hour since Dutch had been taken from her but the street performer and the youths seemed to have vanished after they took him. She raced, holding her dress as she panted, looking for any sign of a familiar face when she ran into someone.
"I'm sorry!" Susan stumbled back as the woman she had bumped seemed unmoved and unphased. She was tall for a woman, though Susan wondered if perhaps under the woman's bright blue dress if she was wearing heels to appear taller than she was. The young woman chuckled, twirling her powder blue parasol a moment as her dark brown curls lifted in the gentle humid breeze.
"Quite alright, I am unharmed. You seem frantic, honey. Is everything alright?" Her soft hazel brown eyes stared sweetly at the exhausted Susan.
"I'm looking for some friends of mine. Did you happen to see a young couple? Maybe eighteen or so? The young man has a brown hat, short light brown hair and stark blue eyes? Clean shaven. Wearing a bandana around his neck with a white shirt? His companion is a blonde woman in a red dress." Susan wiped her hands on her dress, trying to hide her sweating palms from the young woman in front of her.
"You know, that sounds a lot like an old friend of mine I ran into earlier. Is his surname Morgan by any chance?" The woman raised a dark eyebrow and Susan's eyes nearly bulged out of her skull in shock.
"You know Mr. Morgan? Where is he! I need to find him and quickly if you don't mind!" Susan panted, brushing her blonde hair away from her eyes as the rich woman continued to twirl her parasol.
"He and his sweetheart are over at the saloon just on the other side of town. Though, it's quite a walk from here, in the heat. I could send a man to fetch them for you?" She turned towards a couple of men standing nearby, nodding to them and gesturing with her gloved fingertips to come to them.
"I just need to be pointed in the right direction is all." Susan shifted nervously as two men approached them and bowed their heads to the young woman.
"Nonsense, any friend of Mr. Morgans is a friend of mine. I'm Annabelle," she extended her hand to Susan but the woman didn't take it and she chuckled, "you don't trust me, do you?"
"I just met you. I may be an ex-whore but I wasn't born yesterday." Susan growled and Annabelle sighed, twirling her parasol again before turning to her associates.
"Fetch Mr. Morgan and Miss Mary for the lady, if you would." The men nodded and started off in the direction that Susan had come from.
"I can get them myself." Susan went to turn around but the woman placed her white gloved hand on her shoulder gently.
"I ran with the Van der Linde gang once upon a time, albeit very briefly. We are like sisters, you and I. Nothing happens in this town that I don't know about, I know they've captured the Prince of Sherwood forest, and that they're arranging his execution in a couple days. So, my sweet sister, do you want to save your knight in shining armor or not?" Annabelle stopped twirling her parasol and raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly.
"He told me all about you." Susan spat, shaking the woman's arm off and Annabelle pouted a bit. Feigning hurt feelings and placing her hand over her heart and gasping.
"Ah he was fit to be tied, no pun intended, that I robbed him. 'I'll kill you Annabelle', called me all kinds of cruel and callous names. I was in love with him, but that quickly faded away when he tried to brush me off like some sort of fly. Does he still have a misogynistic attitude? Or have you soothed the savage animal that lurks underneath that disguise of a man?" She raised an eyebrow and Susan snarled, trying to slap the woman who stepped back out of the way and sighed dejectedly again.
"Miss Grimshaw, was it? Do you want to save your boyfriend or not? Blowing a hole in the wall with dynamite is going to get you killed. Trying to sneak in and seduce the guard, is going to leave your parts sore with nothing to show for it. Though, it might be fun to be a fly on the wall when your paramour has to watch you get ridden by the entirety of the police force. Trying to fight your way in and out, is going to get all four of you killed." She twirled her parasol again as Susan huffed, shaking a bit with rage in the middle of the cobblestone street.
"We don't need your help, you cunt." Susan turned away and stormed off in the direction that Annabelle's men had gone, leaving the young woman still twirling away at her parasol in the street.
"You've got a soft spot for your old lover." A man in a top hat sneered as he slunk out of the shadows and reached out his arm for the young woman to take.
"Mr. Trelawny, don't be ridiculous. We need the Van der Linde gang if we're going to pull off robbing Atkinson." She patted her cousin in law's arm as he took a hold of her parasol.
"You think Robin Hood will trust you again after what you did to him, my dear?" Trelawney and her began to walk towards where they lived, arm in arm.
"If there's one thing that fool loves more than himself, it's the redistribution of wealth. I'll go spring the idiot. Return to me when you're done wining and dining the crew, better that we separate for now. When the bastard and his mouthy little bitch have cooled off, we'll be in touch." She let go of his arm and opened the small gate and climbed up the steps. He tipped his hat to her and closed her parasol, tucking it under his arm.
"Try not to get bitten, cousin."
-—
She bowed her head as the officer by the door scrambled to open the door for her. She smiled sweetly, curtsying to him while resting two bottles in her left arm and stepped into the Saint Denis jail. Her heels clicking against the marble floor as she made her way to the front desk and set a bottle on it, resting her white gloved fingers on top of the wax sealed cork of one and winking at the man behind the desk.
"Hello Charlie." She inhaled sharply and slowly blinked, resting her elbow on the desk and looking bashfully down at him.
"M-miss Annabelle! What a pleasant surprise. How's your sister?" Charlie straightened his hat and tried to appear casual despite the fact the girl had caught him off guard.
"My cousin would be delighted to hear you say that. I heard the bounty hunters brought you a real beast." She began to slowly remove her white gloves, pulling at the fingers with her teeth and giggling.
"Sorry son of a bitch is wanted in four states. I heard he…uh…oh well I…" Charlie's voice seemed to trail off as he realized Miss McLean had probably been brutalized at the hands of the scum locked away behind him. Wild rumors had circulated about her time in the company of Mr. Van der Linde. That she had been raped by him and the other gang members for weeks, starved, stripped naked and brutally tortured and beaten. Of course, Annabelle never bothered correcting the rumors even when she did arrive in nothing but a see thru underdress and his shirt, bawling when she reached the city. She smirked a moment but quickly let the smile fade as she realized it was better to let them make a monster of Dutch Van der Linde.
"Annabelle." She heard Dutch growl from his cell, he had covered his face with his hands but she could see those menacing eyes peeking through his finger tips.
"Robin Hood." She slid her fingers over the wax again before looking back at Charlie, "I thought I might come down and reward you boys for removing such disgusting filth from the fine streets of Saint Denis."
"Charlie, was it? Please do me the courtesy of removing this blood sucking leech from this noble palace of Justice. I'm liable to turn my sheets into a noose and hand myself, and we wouldn't want a sweet, innocent, and fragile woman like Miss Annabelle here to have to witness that. Right?" Dutch groaned and put the pillow over his face as though he was going to smother himself with it.
"It's nice to see you too, Mr. Van der Linde," Annabelle chuckled, still teasing the bottle with her fingers as she leaned closer to Charlie, "he's too much of a coward to actually go through with it, I promise you."
"I heard that." Dutch hissed under the pillow.
"Charlie, be a dear and open these would you?" She turned to the rest of the officers sitting at their desks and gestured for them to gather round as she took a seat on a desk closest to Dutch's cell. "A toast, to the finest and noblest of men in the United States!"