Disclaimer: I own none of the characters presented in this story. Red Dead Redemption and all associated with said property belong to Rockstar Games.

Disclaimer: Strong depictions of violence, murder, and other such heinous and repugnant acts, very harsh language used throughout, and some taboo and offensive material occasionally presented.

Part Eight: Karen

11:28 AM, July 20th, 1899

"Well, I'm off."

"Hmm. Okay then," Karen said, holding the spoon to Abigail's mouth, having to maneuver it carefully so it didn't spill all over the broken woman; she'd already pissed herself yesterday, and Karen was not looking to repeat history.

"Probably won't be back for a few days at least. If I come back at all, that is."

"Hmm. Give my regards to Trelawny."

"Oh, admit it, ya stubborn mare: you'll miss me," Sean said, a bright snarky smile embroidered on his face.

"You still here?" She asked, taking extra precautions not to look at him, not to feed the bastard's ego with her slight, yet highly evident, smirk. She wished she had a tall bottle of beer to hide behind.

"Pride's a sin, milady!" he said, bending down so he was of equal height with her sitting in a chair by the bed, his hot breath entering her ear. "You say nothin', you get nothin'. On the other hand…" he touched her shoulder gently, his grip growing tighter as it reached down to her hand until their fingers were perfectly intertwined. "... you say a little, just a little, you get a whole lot."

She had to clear her throat and wage violent war with her rebellious smile before responding: "I think you'll be late if you stall any more… ya moron." She yanked her fingers from his, instantly missing the warmth. All the same, she turned back to Abigail, signaling she was done talking and he got the message, rising upwards, moving to the door.

"Y'know, there'll be saloons and whorehouses aplenty at Van Horn. Maybe I'll get me a woman there, one who puts out more than icy stares," he droned, before giving a dramatic spin to study her reaction, which of course was an icy stare. It spoke in a formal, parental warning: don't you even think about it, mister.

Sean put his hands up in mock defeat, when in fact they both knew he'd won: she cared.

"Well, I'm off, milady. I'll be thinking of you."

"Hmm," she muttered, turning back to Abigail, yet in truth keeping her focused fully on the man in her doorway.

"Probably thinking 'bout you in ways that'd be too impolite to utter aloud, so I'll just go."

"Hmm."

She finally took a nervous exhale when she heard his feet on the stairwell heading down outside. She wasn't sure what it was about this cockroach of a man that put her on edge so much. He was such a silly ass. She'd thought fucking his brains out all those years ago would at last end his romantic pursuit, but it had only empowered it. Not that she minded, of course, not at all. He was such a silly—

And Karen went running to the window, setting Abigail's mostly full soup by the mostly empty dresser (with what happened in Saint Denis two nights ago, she'd had a feeling their sojourn would be very brief). She looked out, catching a glimpse of Trelawny (who for some reason was wearing Arthur's spare beige jacket and jeans in lieu of his typical fancypants suit) and Sean riding out together up north, looking for a boat. Dutch was still formulating his new draft of the plan with Micah and Hosea—the latter two surprisingly at common ground in standing against Dutch's insistence on hitting the Lemoyne Bank. Regardless of whatever job they pulled, they'd need an escape route, hence the boat. Karen wondered where they'd be going after this; Dutch had said Tahiti, an island paradise out well away from the Peeping Tom eyes of the law. We'll retire out there, he had said, in his classic charismatic Dutch way, buy some land, hang up them guns, become farmers. Live simply and surely. Wherever it was, Karen hoped they wouldn't be fucking farmers.

Part of her hoped they'd go the simpler route: Mexico. They knew a little bit of Spanish from Javier, and while it wasn't as far from the Pinks as Australia, it was still foreign—no way they'd actually track the gang down there. The bonus was the war they had going down there.

God, life would be so boring as a fucking farmer. Maybe Dutch had dreams of living a full, prosperous life, but not Karen. She was privy to what everyone else knew: with the way she drank, she'd be lucky to see five years. Might as well live like you got nothing to lose. It didn't need to be fighting some random war down south, but she hoped it would be something. Not picking mangoes.

"How's she doing?" the sweet, familiar voice rang out from behind her, and Karen instinctively smiled at the source before turning around.

"Well, she could be doing better, I guess. Tried to get her to eat"—she motioned towards the soup, still warm but no longer did it adorn a crown of steam—"but she wouldn't have it."

"God, poor Abigail," Mary-Beth said, trotting over to her and resting her hand on the practically comatose woman's cheek.

"So… has John come back yet," Karen inquired, knowing the answer already. Mary-Beth tendered the expected syllable of no. "Prick. Leaving her again, now of all times. And what was that about? 'I don't believe you.' How the hell did he think that was the right thing to say to the woman after she found out something like that?"

"Think he'll be back?" Mary-Beth asked, her vibrant viridescent eyes glimmering with hope.

"Who knows," Karen responded, her hand feeling empty without a bottle; she needed another. "Maybe in another year."

"'Then shalt thou give me the right to deal him another, the respite of a year and a day shall he have'," Mary-Beth recited, a proud smile festering on her face.

"Huh?"

She gave a happy chuckle in return."Oh, nothing… just a silly book." Her face turned hard then, as she glanced at the supine Abigail. "You think she'll ever get better? Losing a son… and Jack of all… He was such a good kid…"

Karen pressed a hand on Mary-Beth's tense shoulder, comforting her. The dimple on the girl's left cheek rose a mite with her weak smile. Karen requited with a coy smile, discovering a topic she knew would invoke a blush. "So… hear you have been teaching that O'Driscoll to read a bit. How's that going?"

Mary-Beth redirected her gaze demurely away, trying to shield her face similarly to how Karen had shielded hers from Sean. "Good," she mumbled, but even the low volume couldn't mask the delight present.

"Hmm. He's good, you say?"

"Oh, shut up."

"Y'know, if you liked Irishmen, you coulda gone for Sean. Woulda gotten him off my back."

"Oh, you'da died!" Mary-Beth teased, a healthy laugh pouring outta her.

"Yeah…" Karen started, realizing someone was missing. "Hey, you seen Tilly anywhere?"

"No, not since this morning. I think she mighta gone scavenging for mint—Grimshaw had been asking for it. On account of Pearson's stew tasting both flavorless and disgusting at the same tim—"

Mary-Beth didn't finish that request, as she felt the hand on her clavicle shake like a leaf in a storm, and she worriedly looked up to her friend, thinking she was sick or shot or something before Karen's bloodthirsty eyes and dry parted lips revealed she was feeling something else.

"I'm… gonna get a drink. Be right back. Want one?"

"Oh, no, thank you," Mary-Beth said. "You can go, you watched her long enough; I'll take it from here." God, don't you ever take this girl, Karen thought, keeping her eyes locked on the purple-dighted figure through the ugly window Bill had fixed in the wall with his shotgun as she moved toward the stairs. If there's a heaven, it's made for sweet things like her. Girls like me are more bred for the hotter region.

Karen hurried down the stairs, passing Sadie on the way—Mrs. Adler had made a routine of checking on Abigail every few hours. She wouldn't stay too long, she wasn't much of a talker, but the gesture was still sincere and noble and frankly more than half of the other clowns dwelling here were doing.

Finally, Karen was outside, covering her eyes with her hand to block out the big fireball in the sky. She rushed to Mr. Pearson's caravan in excited steps, frantically searching for the crate of beers that was usually stationed by the rest of the provisions in large stacks by the ass of the chuckwagon, finding naught at all by the slim quota of canned strawberries, by the meager head count of brown potatoes, and by the paltry sum of red apples, each spotted with a rotted brown dot.

Empty-handed, she marched ninety degrees around the wagon, facing the round-bellied former navy man who was skinning the fat off a gaunt deer's thigh; the action was straightforward and unexacting, especially with how haggard the meat was, yet his pudgy face was still slick with sweat.

"Pearson," she asked him as he lowered his carving knife, pushing his long middle-parted hair out of his eyes, giving her his full attention.

"Ms. Jones. What can I do for you on this fine, fine day?" he greeted with a bright smile.

"What the hell is so fine 'bout it?" she asked, genuinely forgetting why she was there for a moment, so caught on the hop by his gaiety.

"Sun's out, roofs over our heads, friends all around. Tough to complain about, you ask me," he answered.

" Sure… living the dream," she said, swatting two flies nibbling on her neck. "Where's the beer?"—she adds an edit at the tail of her sentence; politeness should breed politeness, after all—"Please?"

"Sorry, Ms. Jones," Pearson said, regret actually visible in his tired hazel eyes, "we're out. Hell, if you hadn't noticed from looking around the wagon, we're out of most everything."—he looked sad suddenly, like a boy who'd forgotten to do his chores—"I'm sorry."

"I-it's okay," she said, pity forcing the words out from her stomach against her will.

"Camp cook who can't even cook," he muttered. "Seaman who didn't even… Anyway, Charles is out hunting. Hopefully, he'll bring us back some game or I don't know what we'll do."—he gazed around camp, before leaning in the tell her something—"Don't go starting nothing, but Uncle's got his paws on the last bottle of beer. He's hanging with Strauss near the cottage by the dock."

Karen gave him a jolly smile, rewarding his present; it was a challenge considering how pissed she was. Uncle! Lazy fool don't do nothing, but best believe he'll help himself to whatever he damn well pleases! She stormed over thither to the small tumbledown hut by the lakeside, spotting the two snakes, exactly where they were promised to be, Uncle drinking on the porch while Strauss sat at a chair and spool table, recounting the funds out of that familiar cherry-red box. She saw the former groan upon sight of her, while the latter only dispassionately stared at her with his cold, distant eyes as she approached.

"Working hard, gentlemen?" she said, tone damp with frustration.

"As a matter of fact, yeah," he began, on the defensive. " I was just helping good ol' Strauss count the good ol' green bills. It's a tedious process, if you could count, you'd know."

"Oh, I can count juuuuust fine. I did, in fact, count just fine when I actually put money in that box," she rebuttalled, a victorious smile on her face until it melted away when he laughed.

"Oh, really? When?" Uncle asked, laughing as though it was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.

"Valentine Bank," she said, teeth gritted.

"That weren't you. Was Arthur and Lenny and… someone else."

"I found out about the job—"

"Oh, you found out a bank has money—!"

"—scouted it out, and helped out with actual robbery."

"What? By dressing up as a harlot? Dearie, if I had tits I coulda done that!"

Karen began shaking with what she thought was rage before she recognized it as thirst. He took another sip while ridiculing her and she exploded, pushing the fat piles of bones over and twisting the heaven-filled cylinder out of his hands before bringing it to her lips.

Drip. Drip. It was shot.

"You goddamn bastard. You fat, idling, goddamn bastard!" She finished by clobbering the hollowed-out glass against the josser's head, cracking—but regretfully not shattering—it.

"Ow!" he cried out, clutching his shiny, naked head.

"That was uncalled for," Strauss noted.

"You… you two. Damn parasites. All you do is take, take, take," she said stomping her feet. "You ain't never given nothing to this gang."

"Well, I don't know if that's true—" Strauss started.

"Oh, I got you now, shitheads," she said, a petty idea for penance consuming her. "Imma go back to the big house right now, have me a talk with Dutch and Hosea!"—she clapped her hands like baby Jack used to—"Tell 'em everything! I don't care how long it takes to convince 'em. If I gotta jerk their chains until winter, that's what I gotta do! But I swear, you're gone! Both of you are gone!"

She turned, arms angrily thrust at her sides, taking large steps away.

"Think you're so much better than us, eh?" Uncle called out. "You're just like us!"

That stopped her dead in her tracks. "Pardon?"

"Least we got an excuse: we old men. What 'bout you? Why ain't you helping out more?" he asked, standing and closing the space between them in short steady strides. "You can shoot, hell and you're so good at robbing banks apparently. But what you doing right about now? Fishing about for some juice." He looked deep into her eyes, now, maintaining the same dumb smirk he always kept, yet this time it seemed to have some bite to it. "You're dead weight. Just like me. And Strauss. And Molly. Mary-Beth. Swanson. Tilly. Abigail, now. All of us."—gave her a hard slap on the back—"Hey, cheer up! Ain't nothing wrong with it. If there was, Dutch woulda given us the boot a while back. Oh, and if you're still looking for some juice, you could take a drink outta this!"

He pointed to the large bulge in his pants, doing that classic mule laugh he was so renowned for. At least he did, until Karen kneed him in the groin, reducing that laugh to a whispery groan as he collapsed to the floor, clutching his member for dear life.

"Ahhh… coulda… just… said… no thanks," he wheezed out as she walked away.

She didn't know she was going to the docks until she was already there, looking deep into the water, painted a brilliant golden hue from the sun's reflection. It made her sick. I ain't dead weight. I ain't like Molly. Am I? she pondered, horrified at the prospect. I mean, I drink too much, but I pull my weight. Don't I? Counterfactual thinking is ringworm, and it was burrowed deep inside of her now. She was pretty good with a gun, average at least. Maybe if she had been at Rhodes instead of drunk back at Clemens, Arthur wouldn't…

Her throat was blistering; she needed a drink. Yeah, I need to drink until I drop, that'll solve everything… Maybe if I had kept watch instead of being some inebriate, I would've seen them Braithwaite's. Jack woulda never gotten nabbed.

Her heart and head pounded furiously, a booming dum, dum. Dum, dum. Like that guy who banged on her door back in Hucksville. Let me in, you stupid bitch! Dum, dum. Dum, dum. One drink, one drink to ease her nerves. All she needed. Karen gyrated around, sweat smothering her body like it was a second layer of wet skin. She glimpsed upwards and saw Swanson isolated in the small gazebo a few meters away like some princess locked in a far-off tower; he looked outwards toward the gilded skyline, a giddy, stupefied expression on his face—it sagged down like watercolor dripping down a parchment. At last, he took notice of her peering at him like he had eight legs and administered the Christain salutation—or at least the version a man intoxicated on opium would make:

"Heeey, Maryy-Bethh!"

"I-it's Karen, Reverend," Karen stammered, unsure if she should even respond.

"Oh, yeahhh. If ya… happen to see Margaret, could ya t-tell her where I'm at?"

"S-sure Reverend, sure," she answered, wanting to leave, yet finding her feet rooted to the swampy ground. Her eyes, likewise were also rooted to the autumn-haired man in front of her, her glare becoming greasy, distorted. Just… one… drink.

She was looking at a mirror.

And then she was running as fast as she could, looking for someone, anyone. She needed to get out of here, to do something. Anything besides drinking and being useless.

"Bill! Bill!" she called out, intercepting the brawny man just as he was trotting Brown Jack outta camp. "What ya doing?"

"Nothin'! I ain't doing nothin' wrong!" he replied aggressively.

"I-I didn't say you was," Karen reassured with a smile, trying her best not to let his tiny ego annoy her. "I was just wondering: what ya doing?"

"I'm… collecting debts for Strauss," he said suspiciously. "Without Arthur, someone's gotta do it, and he had some fish on the line, so—"

"Great. Good. Can I come with?" Karen asked, her body language delivering two emotions: respectfulness (via her polite smile) and desperation (via the antsy bounce in her step).

"Why?" he queried, confusion clearly communicated in both his wide eyes and words.

Karen maintained her good-girl smile, although she could sense its death was soon to pass. "Just feel like getting out. C'mon! I won't be a point of any trouble for you."

"I don't know…"

"C'mon! Two guns are better than one!" she persisted.

"You have a gun?"

"N-no. But I can borrow one of yours!"

He scoffed, opening his mouth with a disapproving look in his visage.

"Please!" she cut him off. "Dutch… he, uh, said it'd be good for me."

"Dutch said so?" Bill asked, his attention finally grabbed.

"Yes," she fibbed.

Bill sighed, considering for a moment, before coming to the conclusion she had him between a rock and a hard place with that one magic word. "Alright, hop on."

She didn't push her luck with any stray phrases of thanks or giggles of glee, instead climbing silently aboard Bill's brown stallion, keeping her hands tight on the man's back. Brown Jack tore hell for leather, and Shady Belle disappeared from view in a matter of moments.

"So, uh, where we going?" she eventually was able to cough out as they darted across grassy, overgrown trails southward, kicking up clumps of dirt as they went.

"Catfish Jacksons. Fella down there, drunkard,"— great. My kind of man—"Strauss said his time's up."

"Strauss… gave money to a drunkard? How the hell was that a reliable investment?" she asked.

"I dunno," Bill said, vehement genius ladening every syllable, all three.

"And didn't we just get down south? How much time did this guy really have to pay it off?"

"I dunno," Bill said, vehement genius ladening every syllable, all three.

"Christ. A few days and a few hundred percent interest. Dirty, dirty business this is," she said.

"Yeah, my business is surely a dirty one. Thank you. Not like it feeds you or nothing," Bill began peevishly, spurring Brown Jack hard in the ribs, harder than he needed to.

"Oh, Bill—"

"Just couldn't help yourself, could ya? Had to get one over on dumb ol' Bill?"

"Don't be such a crybaby. I didn't mean it that way," she said, divesting her eyes away towards the gorgeous humid southern country, expecting the conversation to be over. It wasn't.

"Dutch never wanted you out, did he?" Bill asked.

Karen froze, never expecting him to investigate further than Dutch said so. She mustered up some confidence before answering: "'Course he did."

"No, he didn't," Bill said with complete certainty. "Think you're so clever, huh? Think that'd shoot right over Bill's dumb bald head? All of you are the same." He finished with a growl so barbaric, Karen felt a shadow of fear pass over her, dark and foreboding. She looked to his holster, tempted to take one of his revolvers. Just for self-defense, of course. Just one drink, of course."We're here," Bill stated, pointing to the small one-story homestead they drew on. The glare from the sun momentarily blinded her, making it impossible to make out, but then the finer details of the property came into focus as a tree stood tall against the sun. Karen had no doubt it was once an exceptionally lovely home: once there had been pink walls instilling a sense of joy, a spacious yet cozy-looking front porch, and windows so polished they were like diamonds—Karen had actually seen diamonds once during an incredulous story involving three chinamen, a tax collector whose wife was suffering from fits of sleepwalking, a duplicitous nun, and a lovestruck horsebreaker. But now, the place looked like it had been rotted from the inside out. The bright, excited pink had faded yellow and brown in several places, the front porch was in shambles, wood splintered and bearing tumors of black decay, and the windows were so thick with dust she couldn't see through them.

Even so, she'd have still taken it in a heartbeat over Shady Belle. They hitched their horse by the rustic gray shed, which also had tattered roofing—there were many obvious holes or crevices, one as big as Swanson's hollowed-out bible.

"There he is," Bill said as he unmounted, pointing toward the chin-curtained middle-aged black man sleeping underneath a fallen tree by the shoreline where the land connected to Flat Iron Lake.

"I need a gun."

"No," Bill insisted.

"Then what can I do?"

"You can, uh, go right on, and… shut up," Bill said, in his best imitation of classic Morgan zinger.

"Oh, real clever. Shakespeare would do good not to go pound for pound with you," Karen said, snorting in anger as she felt calamitous mud and gray sand splashing and clinging to her knees with every step, surpassing her ten-inch boots.

"Hey, Mr. Davison!" Bill called out as they reached the felled tree with the humanoid tick leaning atop it—they saw clearly now that he had the company of a mostly conquered bottle of whiskey, and Bill repeated himself louder.

"Hey!" the man—Mr. Davison— called back, stumbling onto his feet, his words disjointed and slurred. "You better have a damn good reason for being on my property, mister!"

"Remember that loan you took up, Mr. Davidson? Time's long since up, I'm here to collect," Bill announced.

"Ah, I shoulda known. You goddamn bludgeon men are all the same." Davison spit out, walking past them uphill towards his home. "Sure, sure, I got your money. Every stinkin' cent. It's in the house."

Karen followed Bill and Davison, still perplexed. The man was passed out drunk at noon; he clearly didn't have a steady line of work. Did he do one-time jobs, like a hitman? Why else would Strauss have thought he'd be ready to pay up?

"Hell, I'll even offer you a drink. We can toast to never layin' eyes on each other again," Davison finished, grunting as his shoe was consumed by a large puddle as they neared his abode.

"I'll drink to that," Bill said.

"What is it you do, Mr. Davison? For a living, I mean," Karen asked.

"Oh, I own a bank. A few actually, 'round the state."

"Don't get smart," Bill warned.

"I ain't the one bringing whores in on business," Davison countered.

"I ain't no whore—"

"Not my call," Bill justified, just as they reached sturdy and well-kept white stairs leading up the back door of the house.

"Davison, are you employed in any capacity whatso-fucking-ever?" Karen asked, lifting her foot onto the first stair.

"I can only waste my breath on one daddyfucker at a time, little lady. So shut the fuck up," he said, missing a step and almost trampling the whole way down before poising himself. He opened the back door and the triune passed through.

"You back so soon, Pa?" a squeaky, boyish voice hollered. Karen had held onto some hope the inside would be nicer. Like Mary-Beth had read her from a book: My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove. She was tragically disappointed upon glancing to her right to see the living room, sadly embellished with the echoes of colorful furniture—including a coral couch that matched the crestfallen walls of the exterior, an azure and white rug, now stained Stygian with ash and mud, and a once yellow wingback chair that was now closer to a brown shitstain. The rest of the once lovely home was filled with gloomy rotten boards of umber wood and snot-shaded (and possibly covered) wallpaper that was chipped and stripped in most places.

"Someone's here boy," Davison called back, leading them to the kitchen on the right past the living room.

"Pa?" Karen finally locked eyes with the apparition she'd heard, disheartened to find it was a boy. We're taking money from an innocent boy's stupid father. He was desperately sweeping the disgusting floors that were drowning in beer bottles, rats and flies picking at scraps of food, and crumpled newspapers—Karen could make out one headline reading: 'Help Needed in Saint Denis'. He had a meek line of stubble under his nose, posing as a mustache; it was even less than Karen had when she forgot to shave.

"Wait, what's going on?" the boy asked, setting his broom down, leaning it against the small one-seated kitchen table.

"Don't just stand there, go fix us a drink," Davison ordered, opening the cabinet below the sink and sticking his head inside it.

"Another one, Pa?" the young'un questioned, dispiritedness clearly dressing his words.

"Don't give me no talk, boy, just do it!" Algie barked, not bothering to look at his son, knowing the boy was already pouring a cup.

"W-we only got one," he said, motioning to the tin he was filling with whiskey. Karen felt an inescapable swell of pity for the poor boy, wanting to tell him to throw it away, to throw all the booze away so his father couldn't drink it. She wanted to scream at the man, to tell him he was better than this, that spirits hadn't ever paid him back with any kindness for all he sacrificed to it. But her tongue was still dry, and she found herself instead saying: "Big man'll take the cup, I'll take the bottle."

"Savings? Under the sink?" Bill asked Davison, keeping focused on him.

"Best place for 'em. Now where's them drinks, boy?"

Bill couldn't resist turning his head—he too was very partial to a good drink. His father as well.

"Drinks' ready. It's right here, mister." —he turned to face the designated whore—"Yours too, ma'am." It was instinctual for the boozeheads to spin to the kitchen table and reach for the bottle and cup respectively, leaving Algie Davison and the knife he grabbed from under the sink completely unsupervised. Bill especially would come to surely regret that decision—one Micah would mock him endlessly for—when the knife was plunged into his left shoulder, inciting a massive whelp of agony from him.

Davison then twirled Bill around with his knife, the pain compelling the big guy to move, before delivering a punch so strong, it sent Bill's hat flying and brought the man himself crashing through the rusty but sturdy kitchen table. Karen (naturally) grabbed the whiskey bottle, raising it to swing against this weasly bastard's head, but was interrupted by the ill-moustached boy who ran between both of them to get to his room. By the time he had passed, Davison had already wound up another punch and was currently dispatching it right to her face, knocking her to the floor in a swift motion, drawing blood from her nose. For a drunkard, this sonofabitch has got some teeth, she thought.

"Boy, fetch my gun!" Davison called out, before grabbing a white plate off the sink and smashing it against Karen's face as she struggled to her knees. It shattered into a hundred pieces (that Karen thought looked like snowflakes—round, unique, and intricately crafted—although her vision got pretty giddy upon the plate making impact with her forehead, so it could've been that) and she slumped back onto her back, her vision going black.

Luckily, Bill was also recovering, pushing himself onto his knees before charging at their opposition, slamming the man into the wall, splitting the opaque (from the cloud of dust stuck to it) window. The men shoved against each other, all their weight working in opposite direction; Bill was stronger and Davison gave out, going slack abut the side of the house, between the window and kitchen sink, allowing Bill to snag a good punch at his ribs. Bill kept one hand on Davison, keeping him still, while charging the other, bringing it in line with his ear. Of course, debtors don't play fair, as he groped for the knife in Bill's shoulder, tugging the handle up and down, letting the dull blade tear through more flesh. Bill yelped in torment, losing his grip and reaching both hands for his shoulder, trying to get the blade out. Davison grabbed another plate from the sink and smashed it atop Bill's bald, exposed head, before giving him a lofty push, where he landed next to Karen by the kitchen table which was now split in twain.

The three of them groaned, each in their own pain in their own place. After a few seconds of awkward grunting, they all prepared: Karen scooped up the bottle of whiskey again, using it as a makeshift mallet, Bill finally tore his hands away from the knife in his shoulder, realizing he couldn't reach it, and grabbed the wall for balance as he pulled himself to his feet, and Davison looked around for more plates and found one, holding it above his head with both hands like a viking would hold an atgeir.

"Pa, I got it!" the fluff-lipped child cried, rushing in, holding a rusted carbine repeater; it was in terrible shape, but it would still shoot just fine. He stood in the hallway, gun aimed at them, out of touch.

"Shoot, boy!" Davison pronounced triumphantly. Bill and Karen exchanged glances and immediately came up with the same plan, rushing Davison and clinging to his skinny body.

"Shoot 'em! Shoot 'em, boy!" Davison screamed repeatedly, Karen and Bill latching onto him like ticks, so close he couldn't wind up the plate for a proper hit, and instead restored to slapping Bill like he was patting him on the back with a glass disk in hand.

"I don't have a shot, Pa!"

The pair then turned the tippler they were leeching onto around so his back faced his son, and shoved him in unison, colliding him with his child, dropping them both to the ground, the grizzled repeater abandoning the young man's shaky hold. Davison scattered up, crawling for his gun…

And in satisfied fulfillment, Karen smashed her mallet asunder on his head, knocking him out cold. "No!" Davison's son cried, mirroring his father's motion of a disheveled crawl for the carbine as Bill scooped him up onto his feet by the baggy collar of his shirt, feting him with a firm punch to the gut, making the boy go limp from the impact, before yanking his weight back and posting it forward with a mighty toss…

And the boy went crashing through the rotten boards making up the narrow wall straight through into the living room, his head hitting that hoary blue and white rug!

Bill scowled and yoinked the repeater off the filth floors just as Davison groaned, his eyes reluctantly beginning to tear open. Williamson gave a hard stomp on the man's torso, making sure he wasn't going anywhere, pointing the long barrel right up to Davison's fat nose.

"Wait! Wait!" Whiskers called— God, he was infuriating. Like them orange monkeys Hosea told her about. Hang on their parents' backs at birth, only this one refused to let go—even when his monkey-daddy swung into a bottle and never came out. "Don't hurt him! I'll do whatever you want."

"Money, boy!" Karen spat, finally dropping the surviving knob of a bottle she held. "We want what we was promised! What we're rightly owed!"

"Yeah!" Bill shouted in agreement.

"I-I got some. Stashed away so he don't get to it."

"Well pick up them dainty feet and get a goddamn move on!" Karen barked.

"Hell yeah. O-or… or I'll put one right in your old man's face!" said Bill.

"Yeah!" agreed Karen.

"Yeah!" was Bill's agreement with her agreement of his agreement.

The monkey-boy darted out to his room, and Karen heard him ruffling under his bed—the sound was of paper crumbling, not a spare gun being cocked, so she was relaxed. She searched the sink for a spare vessel of whiskey, instead finding a squarish bottle of moonshine. She found a tin cup for Bill and he handed her a wooden bowl, small enough to hold like a glass; she stuffed both until they were fat with the precious juice, and handed one to Bill.

"To gettin' shit fucking done," she toasted.

"Hell yeah."

The clear moonshine was warm and elating to both parties involved, and Karen refilled both, ready to pass Bill his over before getting interrupted by the fourth horseman present in the house.

"Here you go!" the drunk's son said, handing them the money.

"Thirty bucks?" Karen said, her voice trailing off from rage. All this for thirty bucks—we robbed a bank in Valentine for a hundred times that.

"You owe us forty, you little bastard," Bill said, looking up from Algie's, bruised, tired eyes.

"All we got. I swear that's the last of the savings." He looked at them with pathetic, pleading doll eyes. "Please, let him go."

"Ya think you can just waste our time, not pay the full sum, stab me in the back—"

"—fucking literally!" Karen added.

"Fucking literally! And just go off, scot-free. Your drunken, loser of a father"—he looked to Karen as though he wanted approval—"is through."

"Hell yeah!" Karen confirmed.

"Hell yeah!" Bill said, clarity in his eyes…

Bang! Algie Davison was dead in an instant.

" No!" Orphan Davison said, charging Bill like a bull, as though he could seriously overtake him. He couldn't, of course, BiIl knocking him out with a stern whack from the butt of the carbine. Silently, the duo stood inside Jove and shared another drink.

A few moments later, the back door opened and the two stepped out as though they were never inside, walking over to the shed where Brown Jack was kept.

"Thirty dollars, our financial troubles are over," Karen breathed with hopeless sarcasm.

"Dutch'll figure something out. He always does."—he gave a long pause before continuing—"Hey… you did good there."

"Thanks," Karen said earnestly, accompanied by the strongest smile she'd worn in a while. That smile slowly fell into a nervous frown as the horrid inklings consumed her.

"Well, you did do most of the work," she whispered with complete certainty. I didn't do nothing. I can't do nothing.

"I guess, but you—"

"Bill? Am I dead weight?"

"Huh?" he asked, wholeheartedly lost.

"Me, Uncle, and the others. We dead weight?"

"What are you talking about?" he asked, still bewildered.

"I mean… w-we don't do as much as you… I don't, I mean… I-I shoulda been there… with Arthur… But, I-I ain't like Molly, right? I pull my weight?"

"Uh, yeah," Bill spoke, "I mean, it's… uh, it's like workin' on a boat… I think. I mean… y'know… everyone's got something to do, but sometimes the work's different, but… y'know… everyone's still workin'… I think."—he looked to her, hoping she'd be able to make some sense of this drivel—"Y'know what I'm saying?"

And Karen smiled, this one even fuller than the last. "Yeah, Bill. I know exactly what you're saying." They reached the shed and neared the brown horse, preparing to ride off back home. Bill got on first, helping lift Karen astride his tall steed.

"This was fun. Wanna do this again some time?" Bill asked timidly, looking down. Yet Karen still made out a childlike glitter of excitement in his eyes.

"Hell yeah—" she began.

"Hell yeah!" he finished impatiently, before clearing his throat and shyly looking away again. Karen giggled; maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

"But lets us get that shoulder wound fixed first, okay?"

"Sure."

And they rode off, the yellow noon sun at their backs, returning to camp.

Not a pairing you probably expected to see, right?

Thought the buddy cop duo of Karen and Bill would be a nice change of pace from how bleak the rest's been so far.

Uncle once again speaks in harsh truths; a pattern that'll be reoccurring. I really do think he's one of the most intelligent and self-aware characters in the game.

Make some predictions in the comments if you can, although I seriously doubt you can guess what's to come...