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 Eleven: Trelawny

9:31 PM, July 20th, 1899

When it came to a clash of clamors, Josiah Trelawny never found himself outmatched. Hosea and Dutch might be formidable on a good day, but even then, his tenacity for gab was at a sphere they could never hope to even catch a glimpse of. He could spin a yarn as gracefully and dexterously as a spider spun a web—and not one of those penny-sized house spiders, but a proper one. Hell, not even a proper one, but a colossal one, an enormous one; he was the great Arachne herself.

Having said that, the Irishman had him by the throat. The ride to Van Horn had killed most of the day, the lonely sentinel of the port town's lighthouse was just coming into view as the sun had about finished up its descent, and Sean's vexing accent hadn't relented the whole way through. Granted, Josiah had extended the journey by insisting they stop by Rhodes to buy him a new suit, but that was hardly his choice (imprudent Mr. Summers!). Mr. Morgan's unkempt blue pants and bedraggled sand-colored jacket were far too… stylishly simplistic for a man of his particular tastes, so he'd been forced to spend an extra hour with the beguiling redhead…

"... so Arthur was like 'I'll make sure this bitch slooooows' and—I shit ya not—the bastard climbed the oil rig, and just starred the fucking train down till it stopped mere fucking feet from his head! I swear it was fucking Moses shit. What about you, what's the craziest thing you've seen?"

"I—"

"Oh! Another time, me and Dutch were scouting out this tip in a shithole called Red Gap, which I thought at first was cuz they had so many Indian strumpets—"

"Oh look at that, we're here!" Josiah spit out, relieved to make out the tumbledown shacks of Van Horn approaching them. The place was just as much of a cesspool as he remembered; every building was tightly snitched to the rest like a pack of wolves, the streets were soggy with piss and rotgut whiskey, and when the wind flew in their direction, it imparted the thick stench of coal burning into the pair's nostrils.

"There's… three ships lodging here right now," Josiah said, pointing to the shabby docks that led out into open waters from about the center of town, well past the lighthouse, on the right of the saloon and all the other stores and apartments where three boats of similar statues were parked.

"No… I spot four."

"Okay… that means there—"

"Nope. You're right, three. My fault."

Josiah was seriously regretting saving him from Ike Skelding's boys. "No problem," he struggled mannerly, "so I think we should try to ascertain the captain's whereabouts in the saloon."

"Won't get no argument from me on that one," Sean said as they trailed along the rock-laden, bumpy road.

"Please, I do ask most sincerely, let me do the talking," Josiah insisted.

"No problem, boss."

9:39 PM, July 20th, 1899

Sean took the first punch exceedingly well, barely budging from the force inflicted by the brute. He gave a well-endowed jab to the ogre of a man he was dancing with, which might as well have been a mosquito bite. The second punch hit him square in the face and the little man spun like a mazurka dancer—Josiah would know, Mira had begged him to learn (come to think of it, it might have been Martha)—collapsing onto a scuffed wooden table. Josiah winced thinking how many splinters had probably dug into his acquaintance's face as his body spread across the table, knocking a triumvirate of corn-yellow beers over, angering the company of hardened men who sat there. Josiah considered prancing over to explain the situation to those gentlemen—he could contort the truth like falling off a log—but decided against it. Why should both of us lose our teeth? It was four against one, with the three pissed-off customers standing up with very unfriendly intent present in the way they cracked their knuckles. Sean grabbed a beer bottle off the table and turned back, smashing it like a mallet upwards at his deformed opponent, knocking him onto the ground with a heavy thud. He went for the three beerless men then, making his thoughts on them vividly clear.

"Fucking wankers! Littleboyfuckers!" He gave the one with the bulldogger hat a good right hook to the jawline and he caved into someone else—a Mexican just minding his business at another table—who then punched Bulldogger, posting him right onto some brunette whore's lap, which set off the Frenchman attempting to court her, and he slapped her in retaliation, pissing off some yellow-teethed miner who had his eye on her and he went at the Frenchie with a shattered whiskey bottle, and as a result, the remaining hive of scum in Old Light Saloon started fighting for whatever reason—the only one Josiah could discern was that apish barbarity was contagious for those of lowly intelligence.

The whole place was engaged in a civil war now, battle cries and howls of pain drowning out the barkeep who begged them to stop. Josiah perched himself out of reach of this carnage, before he locked eyes with Sean, who was being held by two men (they weren't even the same two whose beer he spilled; just two random fucking guys beating him up without cause—although Josiah trowed the cause might've been they could smell how much of a asshole he was, in which case their targeting of him was actually a noble crusade) while another clouted him with his fat fist. Josiah sighed, allowing Sean to receive three more before intervening, jumping atop the L-shaped bar and moving to where the perpendicular pieces connected—close enough to the center of the saloon for all visitors to see him.

"Gentlemen!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs, so raspy and loud it ended with a coughing fit. The pub was silent now, and all eyes were on him, from the white-bearded prospector with his fingers around an Asian whore's throat to the Mexican hunter with his knife in Bulldogger's leg.

"I…" Josiah began, feeling naked in his bowler hat instead of his top hat and his red dress tie instead of the navy puff tie he was partial to (curse that bleeding Mr. Summers!). "...think I speak for everyone when I say I was having a good time a few minutes ago!"

He was answered with many murmurs of agreement, save one with a heavy southern accent coming from the back. "I weren't. Damn wife cut my balls off last night. Just found out an hour ago."

"Okay… well then I think we're all in agreement that our time in this lovely establishment, prior to the current situation, at the very least, didn't accentuate any negative feelings?"

He was again answered with many murmurs of agreement, with no objections following.

"Some unseemly catalyst has clearly driven us all off our rockers and is engaged in an appalling conspiracy to tarnish this fine night. We can't allow ourselves to be ensnared by such a malicious trap, can we?"

"He's talking with big words, so it must be true!" one of the whores declared.

"Yeah!" the rest of the bar erupted.

"So…" Josiah began, "I propose we denigrate the catalyst instead of simply eviscerating everything in our paths. Then we can continue onwards and deem what madness has just transpired as a foul stain on an otherwise splendid evening!"

"Yeah!"

"You an Englishman?" Bulldogger asked, hobbling over to where Josiah stood over the bar, knife still in his leg. "I hate Englishmen."

"No sir. Icelandic. Similar accents," Josiah lied. It came as naturally as proverbs. Lazy People Take the Most Pains.

"Good. I hate Englishmen," Bulldogger stressed, limping back and taking a seat next to the Mexican.

"So who started this mess anyhow?" the eunuch (courtesy of his wife) asked.

"Well, he stabbed me—"

"He punched me—"

"She cut off my toe—"

"Can we get back to the goddamn English now—"

"It was him!" came a voice loud enough to break through all the others. She stood up on the bar next to Josiah, pointing out Sean in the crowd, who was struggling to pop a cork off a bottle of rum.

"Uh-huh, sure," the Irishman's crafty rebuttal came as he pushed both thumbs against the stubborn cork. "Just give me one second…"

"He viscously assaulted my angel," the woman decried, and Josiah flattered her with a glance; she had corn-blonde hair, a white blouse, and a cute little black bow tie. "My poor sweet little angel who weren't doing nothing at all!"

The arena of drunkards seemed to celebrate her words, her animosity towards Sean, bestowing her with yeah! At least until they saw the "angel" in question…

"Bertram just wanted sherry!" bellowed the thing. He was huge, taller than any man Josiah had ever seen. He was bald, save the ponytail atop his head like a kippah, and had large saggy lips. He was simple—that much was apparent. "Mean man gave Bertram a whoopsie!"

Pop! The cork shot off the rum flask. "See what I was dealin' with?" Sean defended to the whole saloon. "Ya see that behind you, ya don't stop to talk things out."

"That's your excuse for hurtin' my precious baby?" Bow Tie Lady shrieked, her hands shaking with fury.

"Ma'am," Josiah stepped in, wanting this over as soon as possible, "I am sorry. Truly, terribly sorry. But I don't think any significant damage was done on either party involved."

"Speak for yerself," Sean started. "That thing's gonna be haunting me dreams for a long while yet."

"Oh! You awful, awful man!" she said, hopping down onto the creaking wooden floors, looking about for something. A switch, Josiah trowed. Not finding one, she removed her flat boot and slapped it hard against her arm, making sure it would be painful enough. She smiled with a twisted satisfaction—yes it would. Josiah cut her off, grabbing her arm in a manner that was demanding yet still gentle.

"Miss," said he, "my friend is a masochist; please, you'd only be giving him what he wants. Let me buy you and your beautiful boy a drink. I think he said he wanted a sherry—"

"No!" she screamed, knowing the hell that would follow.

"Bertram like sherry!" the thing exclaimed, rising higher than Josiah thought any man could, taking the British conman by his shoulders and shaking him like a Sheriff's Office sign in the wind. "Bertram want sherry now! Where is sherry?!"

"Sean!" Josiah called out desperately, feeling his brain in his stomach. "Get this beast some goddamn sherry, posthaste!"

"Sherry, sherry, sherry!"

"Bertrum, you let go of this snotty man right this instant!" his "mother" kept calling out, to no avail.

Sean polished off his rum, making sure to push his chair completely into the table (because he was now pious in basic manners, apparently), and patiently walked over to the barkeep—bear in mind, Josiah is still being shaken like a summer leaf, going green in the gills—asking for an intensive description of all the types of sherry's they served, which was only two. Even so, it still took about a minute for him to decide before he paid for the glass and walked over to the wobbling chain—Bertram shaking Josiah by the shoulders, and the lady shaking Bertram by his. Rather than simply announcing his possession of sherry, he stood around, waiting for Bertram to finally take notice—which he did once Josiah finally hurled all over his yellow shirt and white suspenders.

"Yay! Sherry!" he proclaimed triumphantly, not minding he was blanketed with a most noxious compound. He dropped Josiah, who went down like a domino and reached for the glass of precious, precious sherry. He became a connoisseur, taking slow, judgmental sips, savoring the drink that was probably diluted with deer piss—it was Van Horn after all.

"You took your time!" Josiah said in his most gentlemanly scream. Sean shrugged.

"I'm a prick. You'll get used to it," he justified.

"God, you're worse than Mr. Bell."

"Ooooh. You don't mean that, do you?" Sean asked, suffering clear in his voice.

"Well!" Mommy said, clapping her hands so the whole pub paid heed to her. "Even though we didn't really do anything wrong,"—she concluded this with an awkward chuckle—"we'll be getting outta your hair now." She turned to the barkeep. "Pete—I mean Frank! Uh, feel free to put any charges on the tab… and… we'll just be going now." She took her "son" (yuck) by the arm—this time, he'd barely finished the top layer of his glass— and began leading him out the door.

"'Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"'" Bertram called out randomly, staring deep at Josiah and Sean, seeming to see more than their flesh, down into their very souls.

"Uh, 'And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting…'" recited Josiah, befuddled.

"He said you'd come," Bertram said grimly. "You will be dead soon."

And then he was gone, whisked out the door. All was silent, not a step, a fart, a breath. The words echoed around the room until Sean interjected them.

"Fuckin' whackjob."

"Unsound, that goes without saying," Josiah agreed, adjusting his inadequate tie. He turned back to the crowd of fellow lowlifes and scum; they vainly looked away, trying to pretend they weren't just standing there while he was getting shaken up like a psychotic girl might do to her doll.

"Gentlemen," he announced to the room, wedging as much etiquette as he could summon into his unkempt voice, "now that we've removed the catalyst—no thanks to you I might add—"

"You sure you're not British?" Bulldogger asked again. "You're speaking with lots of snide passive-aggression, which is practically their language."

"Ice-landic," Josiah stressed, growing irritated by all these uneducated nincompoops. Although in truth he could hardly blame them—if a dog's ass had a tongue and mouth, he imagined it would probably want to use them. "Now… my friend and I require a boat captain's services and are willing to pay. Is anyone here the captain of one of those three feeder ships outside?"

"I am," came Bulldogger.

"Is anyone else here a captain?" He was met with no reply. "Anyone? I'll settle for a third mate…? A landlubber…?" Josiah relented, sighing and muttering some very unsavory words before straining to look up at his sole volunteer. "Terrific. To the docks?"

"Sure," Bulldogger said, trudging to the door with one game leg, the knife still choil-deep inside him.

"You okay?" Sean asked in lieu of Josiah, who was too repulsed to speak.

"Yeah, happens all the time."

"Sorry I slugged ya."

"Forget it. Happens all the time."

The walk to the boat was as unpleasant as it was gradual. Thereupon finally arriving, Bulldogger introduced himself as Oliver Smith—the most fucking British name Josiah had ever heard, but he kept that to himself—and his ship, The Woman's Mane, ennobled so by the white letters that spanned against the brown hull. The steamship was around two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide; a very small freight ship. It was a mess as all could be, but then again they all were—it was Van Horn after all. The boat's frame was rusted in many places, leaving reddish freckles among the bronze hull; the twin smokestacks were blemished from the black smog that would exit from them; the deck itself was unsurprisingly filthy—probably not been swabbed in years.

"I meant her to be The Women Slain," bemoaned Mr. Oliver Smith, "a tribute to all the women I've pleasured over the years, but the damn painter didn't have enough English to understand. I'm thinking about covering up the 'w and o'; what you think of that idea?"

"It's quite awful," Josiah remarked without hesitation, "so is this boat."

"What's this job anyway?" Oliver asked, spitting into the water. It missed and splattered against the hide of the ship. "Smuggling something?"

"Smuggling some people," Sean clarified. "About twenty, to be precise."

"Twenty! Why the hell do you need that many people smuggled out? Are you goddamn slavers?!"

"No. You'll see when they get here, they're performers," Josiah lied. Came like proverbs. A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed. "I'm a ringmaster,"—he took a dramatic with his bowler hat, wishing it was a top hat, they always wore top hats (curse that bleeding Mr. Summers!)—"and… well long story short, I've fallen helplessly in love with my newest star: the illustriously beautiful Madame Lionel—the greatest juggler the world has ever seen!"

"Juggling?" asked Oliver, taken aback.

"Yes. Tragically, she is the daughter of powerful moneybag Leviticus Cornwall! Let's just say he's less than thrilled with her career choices and wants her to return home… to England."

"No…"

"Yes," Josiah emphasized. Those who Live in Glasshouses Shouldn't Throw Stones. "And he plays poker with every railroad tycoon in the country! So we need to leave by boat. Subtly."

"Jesuuuus…"

"Yes, it's quite a story," Josiah laughed, before morphing completely stern. "So, twenty people?"

"Twenty people…"

"It can be done can't it?" Josiah inquired. "Boat looks big enough."

"I mean…" Oliver began, "I got a crew too, most of 'em are just out guarding the shipment going into Annesburg—you know how it is 'round here. But they'll be back, so that's another dozen on board." He gave them a look that said it was impossible before he began to ponder further, spitting once more, hitting his mark in the water this time. "But… she'll be empty. No cargo. No nothing. It's only about two days out. If some of y'all don't mind sleeping out on deck… yeah… yeah. She can swing that."

"Marvelous!" Josiah sang.

"You wouldn't happen to be headed to Tahiti, would ya? Sean asked, his expression pathetically donning hope.

"The hell's that?"

"Near Australia," Josiah explained.

"The hell's that?"

"Out of country."

"Well, why the hell would ya want that?" Oliver queried. "Can't do much better than this country, in my experience."

"Have you ever been out of country?" Josiah questioned.

"Why the hell would I want that? Can't do much better than this country."

"Well, where are ya going?" Sean asked.

"New Orleans, boy. New Orleans," Twist, no, Smith said, a proud smile on his face. "Can't beat it. I'd live there myself if I could afford to live anywhere for more than a few nights. My employer's up there. Fine lady. Fine company. Well, maybe not so fine if she's paying for this ship in this cesspool and not one of them proper boats and docks down in Saint Denis. Although I hear the Italian big bug down south has pretty costly taxes for newcomers, so maybe—"

"I'd like to draft an agreement," Josiah started, clapping his hands together. "Answer our questions in three sentences or less or grant us fair warning ahead of time so we can prepare to shut our brains off."

At this insult, Oliver Smith only smirked. "Of course, there'll be the matter of greenbacks. And since I don't like you,"—he directed an accusatory finger at Josiah (he naturally looked behind him, assuming there was no way it could be referring to him)—"price's gonna be hefty."

"How much?" Sean asked.

"Five hundred dollars a head," Smith said smugly, folding his arms.

"Five hundred dollars a head?!" Josiah finally exploded. "Are you out—"

"Wait," Sean said, reassuringly placing a hand on Josiah. "So, total…?"

"One… thousand… dollars," Oliver boasted.

And Josiah silently thanked his mother's ghost for forcing him to attend school as a child.

"Alrightthatsoundsfairwearemorethanwillingtoobligeyourpricehoweversteep," Josiah spat out.

"When are you depart?" Sean investigated, hiding his smile with his hand like he'd seen Karen do.

"Wednesday. So when's that? Next month?"

"Three days."

"Oh," he said, looking down at his leg. "I think the knife is getting to me. Anyway, after a day or two on the sea, I'll be in New Orleans for two weeks, then back here for another two weeks."

"Great!" Josiah celebrated. "We'd buy you a drink, but I think you can afford plenty of liquor with that one thousand dollars…" He trailed off, staring at Oliver, wanting to make sure he had that figure right.

"Y-yeah," Oliver confirmed.

"... that we will gladly pay you when we return with our twenty associates!"—he grabbed Sean, wanting to get off the rotted dock; never press a good situation too hard—"Good day, Mr. Smith! Hope the leg recovers."

"Oh, it'll recover," he insisted.

"I am envious of your confidence, sir!"

And then they were sprinting back to their horses, mounting as fast they could, and getting the hell outta Van Horn before their luck turned.

"What a goddamn moron!" Sean screamed. Josiah didn't care about anyone hearing it; they were too far gone. "I almost feel bad…"

"Don't," Josiah stressed. Exchange is No Robbery. That had always been his favorite. Especially in his line of work.

"Hey, you don't really think I'm worse than Micah, do you?"

"It's close."

"But I ain't worse?!"

"... I guess not."

"Yah!"

"Oh, quiet up now! Alright, let's stop down in… oh dear! We've got to go back. There's no other decent settlements between here and Shady Belle."

"So? We'll camp out under the stars."

"What, like some mongrel beast? No, thank you! I'll be going back now."

"Lily-livered bastard."

"Okay, I've changed my mind. You are worse than Micah."

"Oh, come on. Ya don't mean that!"

And the two rode back in pursuit of the most accommodating hotel that the shithole that was Van Horn had to offer.

When I outlined the script, Oliver Smith was just "the boat captain" and now he's one of my favorite characters. Hope you all enjoyed. I wanted to take the funny, lighthearted buddy cop duo from Karen's chapter and really double-down on it. Promise though: we'll get back to the unspeakable horrors really soon.

New Orleans made the most sense to me, since there was no chance of them finding a boat that could take them out of country in Van Horn of all places. I always thought RDR 2's map took place at the edge of where Texas met with Louisiana by the Gulf of Mexico, so heading to New Orleans from there isn't too far a stretch at all.

As always, thanks for reading!