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 Forty-Five: Milton

6:49 AM, August 26th, 1899

A raven sat on a black telephone line, head crooked, staring at Andrew through the carriage window as it rode into Annesburg. The town was positively hellish; gray fog obscured the sky and sea, blowing so low that everything was as blurry as a dream. Or a nightmare. The sun's silhouette couldn't even be made out from the thick veil of clouds, and without it, all the crestfallen locals slumped heads were masked with shadows. It was as if all the color had been bled out of the settlement, making it just shy of monochromatic.

The townsfolk were still out of a job, yet Jameson forced the stock rent and utilities on them, knowing they had no way to pay him. Andrew thought he was just trying to pry the last of their savings from their poor hands—hands that had labored in his mine and made him a rich man. Of course, Andrew didn't know Jameson was working (as always) on Cornwall's behalf. The big-hearted bigwig was so kind as to offer loans in these arduous times—at criminally high rates, naturally. Many had fled, but most stayed behind, demanding the town's benefactor do something.

"'Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"'" said a voice across from Andrew in their stagecoach.

"What?" Andrew asked nervously, turning to his crippled friend.

"Nothin'," Edgar answered, twirling his bear head cane anxiously. "Just a poem I read with my wife last I saw her… Jesus, that was months ago."

"Poetry?" Milton chuckled, but it was a weak chuckle. The sort emitted when one wanted to forget he was walking into the lion's den. "Didn't figure you for that rubbish."

Ross shrugged. "No other choice. I hate my wife, y'see, never more than when she's blabbering, and the feeling's mutual. When we were young it didn't matter cuz we were makin' love all the time, but now she's old and uncomely—" He mumbled the next part: "—and with this damned leg I don't know if I can no more." He glanced out the window, hiding his scorn, before looking back at his partner. "And she ain't pissed out any kids despite all that, so reading's all we can do to keep from tearing each other apart." He shrugged again. "So… poetry."

Andrew smiled; he wasn't the kind of smiler to show his—mostly—white teeth, but it didn't mean it wasn't a genuine one. "What's that one about? The raven?"

Edgar's eyes turned pale then. He licked his lips.

Andrew followed his gaze out the window to see it: the boat was a hulking brute; two decks tall, two normal boats long. A dozen smokestacks coughed black gas that stood in stark contrast to the white-gray fog. The whole ship did, really, as it was painted head to toe in black—black decks, black pilot house, black paddlebox, and a black jackstaff that stood as high as the smokestacks and made Andrew's own jackstaff shrink into his legs.

The stagecoach stopped suddenly, and Edgar held the door open for his acquaintance. Andrew was tempted to shout for their driver that this wasn't their stop and get the hell out of there, ride on—if Edgar wanted to come or not he didn't care—until he was far far away from that terrible ghost ship. Instead, he exhaled and straightened his tie. His hands shook and he wasn't sure if it stemmed from nerves or a reduction in his excessive consumption of alcohol; he couldn't have the scent of liquor on his breath today, and that was killing him.

Andrew felt a bit better as the pair hopped down and he nodded to a fellow Pinkerton. That's… Robert, I believe, he thought. Nearly three weeks ago, Andrew had been forced to divert two dozen of his men to Annesburg and in that time they had quenched two small riots, luckily before they blossomed into a tempest of revolt. They passed more angels with bowler hats as they walked by the slum dwellings and sheriff's office.

A scream rang out and Andrew glanced upward to see the caved-in mine. It was being hacked at by dozens of miners, who tried to crack the chokepoint open again so work could resume. Everyone was hopeful the large coal deposits weren't too damaged in the explosion; if so, hell would break loose, riots too large to control. People needed the work and Jameson had sure as hell tied them to the land with all the debt.

And right now, a miner had just been trampled by a boulder that had toppled loose from the mine. In the distance, through the lumber hut and clotheslines, Andrew saw men taking him by his arms, trying to yank his leg out from under the boulder. Instead, it popped off at the knee. Blood sprayed like an oil well's blowout.

Andrew felt scared as they turned and kept walking to the docks. Ross was groping his bad leg, clearly wondering what it would be like to be in that poor miner's shoes, whereas Andrew, for whatever reason, couldn't take his hands off his neck.

"Don't worry about it," Andrew told Edgar. "We had a reason to do what we did. He'll see that, he's a reasonable man." Neither was convinced.

A large crew of Pinkertons stood in front of the titan of a boat. They're your men, Milton thought. Stay calm, you're still in control. Along with the agents stood a white man, and white he was, dressed in an all-white suit—white jacket, shirt, dress tie, barrel cuffs, the works. It was funny seeing him there with the Pinkertons because of the contrast of their appearance—whereas they were greasy and tired from the graveyard shifts they'd been pulling all week, the officious white man wore a spotless suit and perfectly gelled back hair. Andrew liked him already. The agents were holding back another rounder, shorter man from boarding; he wore a clayish-colored suit, and with his orange hair and sunken eyes, he looked like an orangutan. "I demand to see him!" he said vainly. "I called him the other night and he agreed to meet me last night—"

"He gets a lot of calls," the officious white man said, not looking at the orange monkey, instead locked onto a note he was jotting down in a tiny black notebook. The pen was worth more than Andrew's weekly wages and he gulped. "He'll get back to you as soon as he can—be patient."

The orange monkey's jaw slacked agape. "But I've been patient! I can't keep enforcing the rent this way—there's gonna be hell to pay, I tell you."

"Yes…" the white-gloved (did I mention the white leopard skin gloves) man mumbled, paying Archibald Jameson only a quarter-mind, and to him that was most charitable, "... you have, and I have taken that under advisement and will let him know as soon as I am—" He noticed Andrew and Edgar then. "Ah! There you are, lovely timing." The ebony notebook shut quickly and he pointed it to the ship's sea stairs, directing them aboard. "He only has another eight minutes before he gets a call he can't miss, so move. C'mon! On the double!"

As they scampered on the black sea stairs onto the main deck of the boat, Andrew noticed an imprint on the side of the hull, some letters that the opaque black paint of the ship wouldn't allow him to read.

For the vessel's immaculate size, it wasn't crowded. They ascended the exterior stairwell onto the second deck and passed through a game room boasting a red velvet pool table with a miscolored white eight-ball before reaching a mint-green oak door, and they hadn't met a single new face on the way.

"This is his office," the officious white man said, gingerly placing his hand on the doorknob as though it had teeth. "He's very particular about his possessions, so please don't touch anything."

When the door gradually opened without a single creak, Andrew was in awe. He'd never traveled before, yet he now felt as though he had.

There was no natural light in the room, nor need for any, because a gargantuan chandelier swung at the painted ceiling, with forty arms branching out from its core, illuminating the office with fervent white light; on the opposite side of the room, in both corners, stood tall two pale brown Siberian spruce dressers adorned with vivid orange butterflies—one was cracked ajar and Andrew made out a dozen suits tailored and framed in a style few non-British companies catered to; in obsidian frames lining the walls were contracts—oil, property, fishing, railroad, you name it—finished with signatures in languages Andrew didn't speak or even knew existed; and a giant map of the world hung at the back wall—the sea was a gorgeous ultramarine, and the landmasses were colored with gold; resting on a circular Banyan tree coffee table—embedded with ivory feet—were two scarlet dragons with small emeralds for eyes breathed wavy metal that spiraled into lampheads emitting brilliant yellow light, and encrusted on those lamps were Eastern symbols that intimidated the pair of Pinkertons; and there was a polished Brazilwood desk that was shiny and covered with telegrams and telegraphs, the wires reaching out like strings to the two black manservants scrubbing the marble-tiled floor, bulging with jade veins that zigzagged across. And behind that desk, sitting on a throne, an actual throne, was Leviticus Cornwall.

His suit was a European cut, his hair was wispy and white, and he ate from a plate of three sunny-side eggs, six pieces of bacon, two cylinders of sausage, a block of cornbread, four inches of paper-thin flapjacks topped with maple syrup imported from Canada, and a towering glass of milk.

He was reading a newspaper and it took him a moment to register the two agents standing directly in front of him. When he did, he exhaled deeply, swallowing a mouthful of fluffy golden bread. "Sit." The room carried an echo and his words hit Andrew intensely. He and Edgar plopped down on the twin guest chairs waiting for them. Despite everything else in the office, they were cheap and firm and bruised Andrew's ass. "Coffee?" Cornwall offered.

Immediately, another manservant, this one just as black and worn as the other two washing the floors, had a tray with two China cups and a silver percolator waving in the agents' faces. "N-no thanks," Andrew said for both of them.

"Drink it," Cornwall ordered, jamming his golden fork into a sausage. "It's Columbian."

"Um… well…" Andrew extended his hand to accept the courtesy when Cornwall spoke:

"Actually, never mind." Instantly the servant yanked the reflective platter away. "Assets get coffee. Albatrosses get crushed under my boot." He fell silent to read the paper, but when Andrew opened his mouth, he sensed it and told him to shut up. Finally, when he was done, he folded it and shoved it off to the side. "I heard a funny rumor," he said, "that you allied yourselves with bounty hunters."

Andrew jumped in hastily. He had rehearsed this speech a hundred times, but he suddenly found it fleeing from his memory and he spat it out as fast as he could before it left him. "We had no choice. Van der Linde's been kickin' up storms everywhere he's turned: Saint Denis, the Heartlands, right here in Annesburg—"

"I was told that was the work of O'Driscolls," Cornwall interrupted, a chunk of egg dangling over his chin.

"We have an informant that says otherwise—"

"Do you?"

"Yes sir. Anyway, we've been having to disperse our manpower and resources in order to properly put out these fires Van der Linde's been startin' all over the damn country—specifically to protect your investments—"

"Like in Saint Denis with that mob war?"

Andrew's eyes lit up. "Exactly, sir! If we pulled out now without first establishing complete control over the criminal element there, what would happen if another war broke out? Trade is crippled for a second time and that means you are losing money. So—"

"So—" Cornwall paused to take a long swig of milk. "—the fact that the city government's got you guys on a federal contract to help reinforce their police while the army's busy with the Indians is immaterial?" The hope in Andrew's eyes was extinguished. "So… if I said 'fuck Saint Denis,' you could have your men regroup and attack Van der Linde in full force? Cuz I'll say it, just you watch, I'll say it." Andrew slunk his shoulders back, defeated. Cornwall smirked angrily. "That's what I thought. Now—"

"Sorry sir," the officious white man interjected, holding a piece of paper. "You have a telegram from the senator of South Carolina—"

"Tell the senator to wait," Cornwall snapped, pointing his gilded butter knife at the man. "You interrupt me again and you're fired, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir." Andrew almost giggled wondering if that white suit had ever turned yellow at the bottom half.

Cornwall stuffed a shard of bacon down his throat and swallowed with a sip of milk. "Please," he told Andrew and Edgar, "continue."

"We have an informant," Andrew explained, letting that word simmer before starting up again. "He gave us a tip about a boat in Van Horn and we set a trap. Problem was they sent a scouting team to check up on it, and…" He sighed. "The boat captain we raked in let the secret slide to the kid. We had to arrest him on the spot." He leaned closer, staring deep into Cornwall's hazelnut eyes, searching for humanity, sympathy. "I know Dutch. I knew he'd hit us with everything he had to get that boy back. We didn't have enough time to get all of my men outta there—the ones left… he woulda killed them all and the hostage would've been freed. Even with the home-team advantage, we didn't have the numbers to adequately fight back, so… I only saw one option—"

"—and it was my idea," Edgar added, "so if you want to put someone personally at fault, sir, look no further."

Andrew gave him a glare to shut up. "No, no, that's not true—"

"It is—"

"Jesus!" Cornwall barked. Andrew jerked back in his chair; with all the rage in his voice, he thought the old man would leap over the desk and stab him with his golden, greasy fork. But he wasn't talking to Andrew. "Eddy!"

"Yes, sir?" the officious white man asked, bursting through the mint-green doors and Andrew realized for the first time he'd left.

Cornwall dug his fingers into a chewed and spat glob of white egg and dramatically showcased something so small Andrew couldn't see it. "An eggshell." He said it with such loathing you'd think he was poisoned. "Find the cook. If she's white, beat her and toss her off my ship, if she's Mexican, I want her deported, if she's black, bring her to me, and if it's a man… uh… give him a warning." He glanced at Andrew and clarified. "Men don't belong in the kitchen, mistakes are only natural."
"Yes, sir, right away, sir." Andrew felt wind on his cheek and that mint-green door closed and Eddy was gone.

"Now, I'd like you to skip the filler," Cornwall said as a servant restocked his glass of milk, "and get to the part where you hired bounty hunters."

Andrew cleared his throat, wincing from a splinter. This fuckin' chair… "Well, sir, like I said, the Van der Linde Gang was comin' for us and we couldn't stop 'em. So… I… I put the word out, sir."

"You put the word out?"

"To James Langton, sir," Edgar stepped in. "He backed us and with his assisted manpower we were able to repel the gang successfully."

Cornwall said nothing for a moment, simply allowed his eyes to drift back and forth between the men. "So… let me see if I got this right… I'm hiring you at a fortune's cost to kill one man—and you've failed, mind you—and now I find you're hiring outsiders who work for free because the job is too much for you. Do I have that right?"

"Sir—"

"Y'know what I smell? I smell the worst kind of men in the world, worse than all the sinners and devils combined. I smell… middlemen. And you know what I do to middlemen?"

Andrew raised his index finger."That is not the case, sir. This was one isolated incident, sir, and it was only done when all other options were expired."

Milk was dripping from Cornwall's white beard. Drip. Drip. Drip. "Fine. One isolated incident. So why is Van der Linde still alive?"

"We—"

"Better question: where is that boy's body? He's dead, right?"

Andrew licked his lips and looked down. "We-we let them have him. For payment. I believe his body is with the state now—"

"AND WHAT IF I WANTED HIS BODY?!" Cornwall roared, standing from his throne, slamming his fists on the Brazilwood table. "WHAT IF I WANTED THAT NEGRO BOY'S HEAD MOUNTED ON MY WALL?!" The room wasn't large and again the words echoed and echoed. Cornwall's servants bent away—one shook and sported a black eye and Andrew wondered if the old man had done it himself. "Seems to me," he finally said, slumping back into his throne, "these bounty hunters have a better track record than you fools do in terms of killin' outlaws…"

"Oh come on!" Andrew objected, listing names one per finger. "Sean Macguire, Josiah Trelawny, Charles Smith—"

"And how much did that cost me?" Cornwall asked. "Those bounty hunters work only for the state's bounty reward whereas you idiots won't be pleased until you gouge every cent I got to my name outta me."

"We weren't playin' goddamn golf with your money," Andrew continued, surprising everyone with his candidness, "we were buying weapons, payin' transportation costs of moving our boys here and there, shall I keep going?"

"I've been married six times," Cornwall said abruptly, "and I've only had one woman cheat on me. What do you think I did?"

"Divorce?" guessed Andrew.

"Kill?" guessed Edgar.

Cornwall laughed as he drank, coughing milk on his plate of partially chewed eggs and flapjacks slick with spit. Drip. Drip. Drip. "I didn't divorce her, and Jesus, no, I didn't kill her. This is a civilized age now. What I did was fuck her so rough, so brutal, she never went back to another man. He smiled gleefully and for a moment the milk in his beard was red as blood. Drip. Drip. Drip. "Some with my wrinkled old cock, some with a finger, some with a broken beer bottle. Most with a broken beer bottle. Then I divorced her." He wiped his chin at last with a handkerchief. "Back to turkey: why shouldn't I just take a fraction of what I'm paying you and double the bounty on Van der Linde? Then the bounty hunters would have double the incentive to take care of my problems. And hey, if they're doing this well before that boost, then…"

"Just wait a little damn longer!" Andrew cried insistently, losing his manners. "We have a wolf in their ranks—he'll tell us where they are soon enough and then we'll blast 'em to hell! We—" His enraged passion that was holding Cornwall's attention faded as the next words formed in his mind before he said them weakly. "—we just need a few more men to launch the assault."

Cornwall snickered. "Like when you had a few more men in Lakay and a damn Maxim gun?" Andrew nearly gasped comically. How the shit did he know about that? Cornwall sighed, unfolding the newspaper, donning his business persona again. The fun was over. "Besides, I don't have any more men to give you. Your guys are stuck in Saint Denis, and I need the ones here in case the riots get outta hand."

"Y-you could buy more. From the agency."

"Heh, so you can keep failing me?" What's your name?"

He straightened up. "Andrew Milton."

"Huh, thought it'd be Dora." His hazelnut eyes gave them a brief glance from the newspaper. "That was the wife that cheated on me."

"Please sir—"

Eddy entered then, his hand coiled firmly around a woman's hand. She was young, black, and bore brown eyes so tired and pallid they were nearly amber. She wore a tattered gray dress that was too large for her gaunt frame. Heh, she was a cook and was probably still going hungry—Cornwall eyed that pantry closely, no one slipped any canned peaches up their sleeves if you catch my drift. "I found her, sir."

Andrew shivered at Cornwall's broad, twisted smile. "Good…" He rose and walked around his desk. When he pinched her cheek, murky white milk stained it. "Yes… she'll do." He smirked at Eddy. "You know what to do."

"Right away, sir," Eddy said politely, departing swiftly with the woman, who started to cry. Should I—Should I… do something? Andrew's mind raced, and then he pushed his buttocks off of the chair's tiny wooden spears and moved to stop Eddy…

… and the mint-green door slammed in his face. He could still hear her weeping down the hall and moved his hand to the knob, but the wooden green frame staring at him reminded him that they needed Cornwall. His purse, specifically.

And Andrew felt his fingers slip from the round doorknob. Then he couldn't hear her sobbing anymore. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Cornwall was sitting on his throne again, tapping his glass to suck the last droplets of milk out. "Thanks for coming, gentlemen, but I'm going with the bounty hunters. You're fired. I was gonna direct you to the door, but it seems Dora here beat me to the punch." He waved his greasy palm at them. "Bye-bye."

Andrew walked over, laying his hand on the dragon lamp, oblivious to the tremendous heat cooking his fingers. "Please—"

Cornwall picked up a telephone, placing the receiver in his ear and twirling the dial with his fat fingers. "I need to be on a call now. Don't make me call your own boys in to kick you out."

He pointed to the door and Andrew found himself following it. No, he thought. No, Dutch can't win! He can't get away with all he's done! Fuckin' Cornwall! Just as goddamn bad! I ought to arrest him alongside Dutch! But still, his feet moved in coordinated steps, one after the other. Towards the green door.

"You're right," he said to Cornwall, but it wasn't Andrew. It was Edgar. "We messed up. We played by the book and we failed." He doffed his bowler hat and tossed it on his splintery seat as he stood up for the first time that meeting.

What is he doing? Andrew wondered.

"But…" Edgar continued, staring down at Cornwall on his throne. He never blinked. "... if you give us one more chance, we'll burn the book. We'll get in the mud, get dirty, get mean. We'll fight fire with fire and burn everyone and everything until Van der Linde roasts like the animal he is!" His tone was manic. He sounded mad!

"Y-your agency has made me promises before," Cornwall stammered.

"I haven't!" Edgar hissed. "And I'm not my agency. So you can believe me when I tell you this: I won't stop at some negro's head. You'll have Dutch's. And Hosea's. And Bill's. And John's."

"Edgar—" Andrew tried, but the spark caught. The fire was blazing and it wouldn't be snuffed.

"And the women's!" He began bashing his hands on the Brazilwood desk so hard the adornments bounced from the shockwaves. "And all their horses' too! And the little boy, little Jack, I'll take his with my bare hands like snapping a toothpick! I'll kill them! I'll kill them dead if I have to put a gun to the head of every man in America and pull the trigger until I shoot the right one!"

For the first time since they walked in, Andrew saw a glimmer of fear in Cornwall's eyes. And the man loved it. "Two weeks," the old man whispered. "But if you fail… I'll bring your whole agency down."

"We won't," Edgar growled. And when he finally turned around so Andrew could see his face he nearly yelped with horror. Because Ross' brown eyes were now black as night and the silver eyes of his cane glowed with a flame that smelled of a thousand charred corpses.

Hope this clears up any confusion I set up earlier regarding the agents and bounty hunters.

Slight retcon with Cornwall's boat being totally different than in the game-sorry if Cornwall's boat was your favorite character. I'm not perfect.

Made Cornwall into more of a villain than he was in the game, let me know if that's working like it should.

The irony here is one of my favorite parts: Dutch's plan of diluting the agents was actually working, and Abigail and the others gave him hell for it. One of the many advantages of showing so many different POVs.