Author's Note: Shorter than I anticipated but I only wanted to do 10 chapters anyway. I've been working on my own independent (non Fan Fiction related) creative writing lately, so I've had a hard time feeling "inspired" lately. But the final chapter will be soon. I can promise you that. Thanks for reading.
It'll be dark soon, Trelawny mused as he and the boy picked their way through the snow on foot, eying the gray clouds that had slowly drifted in with great numbers as the wind picked up. Compacting together and creating a thick blanket above them, he held out a gloved hand as he trudged along as though the half expected snow to begin floating down upon them.
"Will you be warm enough, young Marston? It looks like it may snow a bit tonight." He asked, rubbing his gloved fingers together for a moment before turning back to watch the boy stomp along the path he had made in the snow.
"I shoulda gone too. I know how to use a weapon, Mr. Trelawny, I ain't a kid anymore." Jack replied bitterly, his teeth chattering for a moment as he folded his arms tightly to his jacket and shivered slightly as the wind whooshed past.
"And get yourself killed in the process, no doubt. Mrs. Adler would have my head on a spike for your mother if you fell in a shootout." The Englishman mumbled in an annoyed tone briefly before heaving a sigh and continuing. "Why must you glorify the sort of life your mother tried so desperately to pull you away from? Did your good pal, Uncle Dutch, put ideas in your head when you spent time together alone?"
"He didn't. He told me I ought to give those ideas up for good, the way…my Pa did. Well, 'cept I don't think he's put it behind him either. We left him once on account of him getting involved in 'old habits', but the men in the gang…they were men of honor, right? Uncle Arthur, Uncle Hosea, Uncle Dutch, and my Pa were honorable men not like that O'Driscoll feller or the Braithwaites. We lived by a code. So why am I the only one who believes we still could?" Jack replied as they shuffled along in the snow together towards a flat part near the top of a hill.
"Mr. Morgan, Mr. Matthews, and the Senior Marston perhaps. But Dutch? There's a man with no redeeming qualities as far as I'm concerned. The code meant nothing to him. We lived by it but he was exempt from having to do so." Trelawny turned to look behind him and paused for a moment.
"I think you're bein' too hard on him, Mr. Trelawny. You and Mrs. Adler both. If you hate him so much, why'd you threaten those savages–"
"Natives, Mr. Marston, not savages. That's about the only thing left that I have in common with Mr. Van der Linde, is a shared distaste for that particular verbiage." He clicked his tongue and folded his arms disapprovingly and the boy half shrugged, earning him another stern look.
"Sorry." The boy grumbled, kicking at the snow in front of him until he was only a few feet from Trelawny who closed his eyes briefly and ran his hands through his hair.
"At one point, he had enthusiasm when it came to the kind of world he wanted to create, that's what drew her to him to begin with. When the code meant something to him. There were times he seemed to try, wandering into a town or some backwater village to redistribute his scores amongst the unfortunate. That's why Annabelle always chose to go back to him time and time again. It was what she found irresistible about him, believing there was a heart buried in that bastard somewhere." Josiah turned back to the path now and kept climbing up the steep hill as Jack followed along.
"Maybe she knew him better than you think." Came the boy's response and Josiah smirked.
"She certainly did. I chose to act how I did in Cochinay for the same reason. I admit, his choice surprised me, even after all these years, and I have seen a lot of things in my travels, young Marston. Especially considering he left Mr. Morgan and your father for dead on numerous occasions towards the end."
"Why'd he do it, you think? Why'd he push us all away?" Jack looked up from the snow briefly as Trelawny rubbed his chin and eventually closed his eyes and shrugged.
"I don't think even he knows the answer to that. He had a bad temper long before he became a man cloaked in despair and grief. Frankly, I believe it's because of that guilt and grief that he's completely lost it. Tragedy, comedy, romance, and what have you…are all part of the great work of performance art known as life. Some people handle the scene transition better than others. I stick around these days, not because I would like to…" His voice trailed off as he turned back and began heading up the trail again. "But because that's what's expected of me since she isn't here to save that man from himself. It's foolish, but that's why I've stayed in contact, since he is technically 'family'."
"Is it really his fault that those that fell–" Jack began when Trelawny turned again and wagged his gloved finger at the boy.
"Death always keeps immaculate accounting, young Marston. And Death certainly has shadowed that man's career and life."
—-
Sadie shifted her weight in the snow, the young man beside her nearly blended in perfectly with the shadows and snowpack, having dusted himself in the ashes of the campfire from head to toe. It was strange to her, seeing this youth who could've been no older than sixteen having disrobed almost completely save for dark leather he wore to cover himself, being absolutely still despite the freezing temperatures.
"Ain't you cold?" She asked, glancing over at her unenthusiastic partner for this rescue operation. He had used charcoal to paint across his eyes, giving him a rather sinister look as he turned his attention to her now with a frown.
"No. Now if you don't keep quiet, we're never going to get the jump on our enemy." He gestured with his eyes to the two men lurking about below them at the base of the hill and then back to her, putting his finger to his lips. He looked away from her again, his eyes scanning the rest of the surrounding trees as he flattened out again in the powder.
She reached for her binoculars now, lifting them just a bit to try to spot the rest of the boys who had surrounded the fort and similarly to her partner, had gotten down to damn near nothing. Painting themselves white and black to blend into the snowy landscape, hell, if she didn't know where they were she would've never been able to spot them herself. Guess that's why you're so fond of 'em, she thought, they can hide in plain sight.
Fox and the one called Kino had slowly followed the encroaching shadow of nightfall across the frozen ground, blending into the landscape seamlessly to the point that the two men below at the western gate had no idea they were there.
"Come on." Her partner whispered, indicating they would use the ridge to scurry around and climb the wall as Dutch had the night before. But as they both turned to do so, the alarm bell inside the fort sounded and everyone froze in their positions.
"Shit." Sadie and her companion hit the deck as the two guards immediately turned back to the closed and called out to the one above to open it. "What do we do now?"
"We are going to make sure that gate stays open, Mrs. Adler." The young man replied quietly and slithered on his belly towards the part of the ridge that backed up to the fort naturally. Sadie expediently followed, though she found herself wanting to be far more cautionary than Dutch's Army was. After all, despite their requests for her to engage in the same sort of camouflage technique, she had refused but had been given a white wolf pelt to wear over her buckskin jacket and forced to cover her clothing in white ash and charcoal as well.
Fox and Kino attacked swiftly, having gotten close enough to sink their knives into both guards who weren't paying attention as the gate opened in front of them. Quickly they chose opposite sides of the gate, allowing the bodies of the men to fall into the snow and causing panic to the man waiting on the other side for his companions.
"CLOSE THE FUCKING GATE! WE'RE UNDER ATTAC–" But before he could finish, an arrow caught him through the throat and Kino and Fox pushed their way inside, whooping and shouting as the other boys began their attacks now.
"Come on!" The young man lifted off the snow and bolted for the wall with a war cry of his own, only for Sadie to watch him immediately get cut down by a man guarding the wall. The young man crumpled to the ground having been shot through the head, his cry cut short as he crashed to the ground just in front of the wall.
"You bastard!" She stood up, turning her repeater from her shoulder and picking off the man almost as quickly. She was wild, that old ferocity that still lingered in her after all these years poured out of her as she began shooting every man she could as quickly as she could. She no longer cared for cover, her own life, or why she was doing this in the first place. "He was just a boy!"
Men fired back at her, but every time they popped from cover she picked another one off.
"MOVE SADIE!" She heard someone call out to her, she did as commanded and began sprinting for the security of the wall, trying to take cover in the corner of it.
"Damn it!" She opened the repeater and went to feed it more ammunition while keeping out of the way of fire, having to dance a bit between one part of the wall and the other. She didn't have a clear line of fire here, she would need to make a run for the gate that was slowly beginning to close in front of her. Those boys will die if I don't make it, she slammed the last of the repeater ammo in and stepped back, bolting with all her might towards the gate as it went to rattle shut.
A man cried out as he was pushed from the top of the fort now, crashing into the snow below with what looked like a bowie knife sticking out of the side of his neck directly in front of her. She hopped back just in the knick of time as the body thumped and she put a round in the corpse just to be certain the man was dead.
"Nice of you to join the party, Mrs. Adler!" A familiar voice called out from above her and she looked up to see John and Dutch back to back, shooting at whoever remained on the walkway above her.
"You alright Marston!" Sadie called back as she ran and slid next to the gate which had stopped closing for the moment. Shooting wildly through the opening at anything that moved.
"Little beat up! But I'm fine! The boy with you?" John yelled as he and Dutch slipped down the stairway on the other side to cover her, she clutched her rifle and sprinted inside when Dutch grabbed her by the fringe of her jacket and threw her down with them behind some crates. She pulled her pistol in response and placed it snugly under his chin, causing him to put both hands on either side of himself in surprise as John reloaded.
"I oughta put you down!" She snarled, pushing it against the fleshy underside.
"Nice to see you too, Mrs. Adler. But, we ain't got time for this shit right now!" He gestured with his eyes over to the remaining men who were fleeing into the interior.
"Oh I certainly have the time, Dutch!" She shoved herself at him, knocking him to the ground and wrestling herself on top of him to put the barrel against his forehead.
"So do it, then!" He snarled back, still keeping his hands on either side of him and choosing not to fight back, though deep down he knew he could easily buck her off.
"Sadie," John finished reloading, "leave that old fool be. Let's get the hell outta here!"
"And you!" She took her eyes off Dutch and snarled at John now, spitting a bit as she spoke. "Letting that boy hang around this asshole! What were you thinking!"
"That boy would've been goddamn bear shit by now if it hadn't been for me, Mrs. Adler. You think I wanted to see either of you again after we finished our business with Micah Bell? Now either kill me or get the fuck off me!" Dutch hissed, prompting Sadie to smack him in the face as hard as she could muster. "YOU GODDAMN BITCH!"
They tousled now in the snow, frantically clawing at each other behind cover as Dutch tried for her pistol and she tried to wriggle out of his grasp. He was beyond pissed at this point, feeling the throbbing where his nose had been broken earlier and reminded of it by Mrs. Adler's fury.
"Enough!" John fired a round into the ground nearby causing both of them to stop briefly and give him a dirty look. "We ain't got time for this shit!"
But this was enough of a distraction for Sadie that Dutch managed to get a hold of her pistol and wrap her up again, burying it in her long blonde hair against her temple and putting her in a rear choke hold. He panted a bit, there was a part of him that wanted to squeeze the trigger tight and put an end to her.
"Don't." John turned his revolver at him now, having locked the hammer back.
"Or what, John? You'll kill me?" His voice came out as a desperate whisper, the previously confident cadence becoming uneven and almost wild. John knew this vocal crack all too well, along with the menacing gleam in Dutch's eyes too, yet John withdrew his weapon and decocked it.
"I'd like to, just like I wanted to the first time I saw you like this, Dutch. But I don't think your woman would forgive me if I did. You were like this in Blackwater too, remember? To that girl–"
"She's dead, John. Stop being so sentimental, son. I did what I had to do so we could survive. Ungrateful bastard." He continued to pant a bit but Sadie had stopped fighting, looking pleadingly at John now.
"Marston…" She grunted, "do something!"
"Let her go, Dutch and we'll get outta here before you kill another one of the only friends we have left." John turned his bloodied face back and Dutch snarled briefly, closing his eyes for a moment and exhaling loudly before letting Sadie go and rolling away from them both.
"You go," he replied, shifting onto his knees now and tossing Sadie's pistol away from them both, "I have unfinished business with the asshole inside."
"Cornwall," John replied solemnly and shook his head, "for what reason, exact–"
"I want him DEAD, John!" He screamed back, his voice echoing a little as the four remaining natives made their way towards them now. The shooting had stopped temporarily, for now, as the rest of Ephraim Cornwall's hired guns hid inside the security of the interior.
"WHY! For what REASON, Dutch! Give me one goddamn good reason!" John snapped back as Sadie shifted her back against a crate beside John and stared angrily at Dutch.
"I don't need a reason! I am a man, John, a free man! When I'm hungry, I eat! When I'm tired, I rest! When I–" He shouted back when Marston interrupted him with a snarl.
"'When you want a warm body in your bed, you'll find one!' Spare me the goddamn lecture, man! We need to leave, Dutch! You want this to turn into the Blackwater Ferry all over again? Is that what you want? Answer me!"
"SURVIVAL! AND MAYBE I'D APPRECIATE DYIN' ON WHATEVER GODDAMN TERMS I WANT, JOHN! I'M NOTHING TO YOU! I AM NO ONE TO YOU! YOU LEFT ME, SON! SO GO! FUCKING ABANDON ME AGAIN, YOU GODDAMN COWARD!" Despite the vocal cracks in the cadence of his voice as he screamed back, John shook his head and reupholstered his revolver indignantly, chewing on his bottom lip a moment as a tense silence filled the air.
"I never abandoned you. You're a goddamn fool if you really think you meant nothing to me. That's more bullshit, Dutch and you know it." John finally said solemnly after a while as Dutch's breathing became ragged and uneven, but Martson wouldn't look at him when he said it and the older man beamed widely.
"No, John. My woman meant something to you, Arthur meant something to you, Hosea, hell even Susan. You think…you think you can just forget about what happened between us, son? I told that woman…" He began to laugh a little and Sadie and John exchanged glances, it was obvious that Mrs. Adler wanted to leave now but John signaled to her to stay put.
"That I was gonna be the death of you, I know, Dutch. And maybe someday I will. And maybe I won't. But let's get one thing straight here, old man, you left me. You left all of us. Do you wanna 'live free' Dutch, or 'die like a dog'?" He gestured to the native boys who had gathered into cover with them. "Cuz if you go barreling in there with just those four, I'm going to be dragging your corpse back to your woman. Is that what you really want?"
There was a tense silence as the wind picked up and rustled the branches of the trees and disturbed the bridles and bits of the horses hanging nearby.
Yes, son. I would very much like to see them all again.
'Don't. Not like this, darling.' Her voice again, giving him a brief moment of pause as he struggled to control his breathing and shrug off his emotions.
It isn't up to you this time, sweetheart. He thought back to her, flexing his cold exposed fingers and looking back over at the garrison the men had holed themselves up in. Charging in there would mean death, maybe for some of them, maybe for all of them.
"What do you care, John? If I live or die? You all left me like the goddamn cowards you really were in the end. So go ahead, leave and be done with all this bullshit." He said finally, sighing a little in relief at the thought of the ordeal that had been his life finally coming to a close. He stretched a bit, pulling his arms behind his head and arching his back a little before shifting his head side to side.
"Come on, Sadie." John shifted his weight, sighing with disgust as he looked away and peered out over the top of their cover. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve and looked at Kino and Fox who seemed to have survived the initial attack.
"You're gonna get these fellas killed right along with you." She muttered, slowly creeping up behind John as the pair of them took off into the last fading rays of sunset.
It took several moments of awkward silence for Dutch to gather his thoughts, he pulled himself up into a seated position and leaned against a crate, running his hands through his shaggy mess of graying hair.
"What are we going to do?" Kino asked nervously, shifting on his heels in his crouched position and shivering a little briefly from the frigid wind that was picking up now.
"Burn it to the goddamn ground." He smirked, gesturing to one of the buildings that he and John had gone past earlier that day. There was certainly plenty of gunpowder and fuel around to enclose the staff quarters and possibly even any route of escape that Cornwall and his men might have tried for.
It was a pity though, to lay waste to all those luxuries that Cornwall had in his room, when Dutch easily could've enjoyed them himself. It didn't matter though, there would always be some other smug and rich bastard with nicer things that he could pilfer from.
He needed to do this quickly though, after all, the first two men he had killed while wandering around here in his stupid desire to free Marston had mentioned the Pinkerton's were coming to collect them. He needed to be gone before then.
"Well," he lowered his hands away from his face and motioned in the direction of the empty buildings to his men, "what are you waiting for?"