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 Fourteen: Javier

6:44 PM, July 21st, 1899

He smoked a skinny cigarette on the balcony of Shady Belle; it did nothing for him. It wasn't that he was relaxed, it's that he was dispassionate. Lenny had returned with some brilliant plan, something about breaking onto a ship, he didn't care. A boat. A bank. What's the difference? he thought. ¡Dios mío! How many banks or boats or trains had they robbed in the last four years? Javier spat the tobacco needle out and looked to the shrubbery of trees out yonder past the front yard of this dump, trying to stay focused and keep watch. It was a struggle. He missed Arthur. And Jenny, Mac, Davey. So many lost. He thought of John next, his long raven hair, the jagged, imprecise scars etched onto the left half of his face, from his nose to his bottom lip, and his steely, dogged determination—bastard was more stubborn than Dutch when he put himself on something. That's what doesn't add up. John was cooler than an icebox under pressure; he wouldn't have just started blasting cops the second things went awry. There's something Micah wasn't spitting out…

"Javier," greeted the figure entering the balcony behind the Mexican; he didn't need to turn around to know who it was, but of course he did, tipping his bowler hat earthward.

"Hey, Dutch."

"Hope ya don't mind me joining you up here," he said, plopping down at the head of the quant ivory table that rested a few feet away. "Sometimes I gotta get away from them, y'know?"

"Yeah. Molly?"

"No, as unruly as it sounds, it is not Molly," Dutch sighed, doffing his hat and fanning his slick face with it. The sweat made Dutch's wrinkles stick out like a sore thumb; he looked older, weaker. "It's none of them… or all of them, I don't know. It's…"—he desperately scrubbed off the pools of sweat collecting on his face—"it's just a lot, y'know? When the stocks are down, and no one's got a clue what to do, they all come runnin' to good ol' Dutch for the answers." He cleared his throat and gave his best imitation of Bill, which Javier couldn't resist tittering at. "'Dutch, Dutch, what do we do, Dutch? We are ready and willing, yessiree, just tell us what to do Dutch'. Questions, questions, questions, questions,"—he snapped his thumb to his four fingers in a nattering jaw motion—"but… lo and behold: when the stocks are high, everything goes turncoat! It's all 'Dutch, you can't go deciding everything for us, we have voices too, Dutch. Ya ain't always right, Dutch.' I mean, I appreciate what Lenny did, don't get me wrong, but would it really have killed the kid to check in with me first?" His right leg began twitching with erratic energy, shaking Dutch, hammering against the rotten floorboards. Creak, creak. "Or Sadie. Why didn't she tell me before she was looking for Jack? Did she not trust me? Did she really think I'd say no?"

"I'm sure it ain't like that Dutch," Javier coaxed, "They just know you've got a lot on your shoulders."

"Huh," Dutch murmured, considering. "Javier… if you got something you're thinking 'bout doing, please tell me. Don't go worrying about my shoulders, son, I'm goddamn Atlas. I don't want secrets, I hate 'em; this gang needs to be an open book. One team. One vision. Just for now. Ya hear?"

"Y-yeah, Dutch," He was pretty sure it was the only response he was allowed to give. This was confirmed when the creak, creak ceased.

"Good, good. Thank you, son."

"'Course, Dutch."

"You alright?" Dutch asked, replacing his hat and standing up. "Ya seem quiet, today. Well, for the last few days, really. Penny… uh,"—he searched his pockets on his black pants and vest, unearthing only lint. He tried again, tugging the red cloth out of his breast pocket—"uh, pocket square… for your thoughts?"

Javier chuckled, dramaturgically—summoning his memories of Hosea to do so—accepting the token and using it to wipe the perspiration off his face before returning it to its master.

"Oh… great…" mumbled Dutch, as he quickly hid the damp cloth in his pocket. "So?"

"I don't know," Javier admitted. "I guess, I've been thinking…"

"Yeah?"

"I miss the old ways, Dutch."

"Oh, that makes two of us," Dutch lamented. "I remember the West, back when she was but a naked virgin. You could drop down anywhere in Arizona and there weren't nothing but wide-open space." He gestured with his hands, hovering them around empty air. "Think'a that, that freedom; that's what they promised us, those asses, those curly wolves East—freedom. 'Course it weren't freedom, just a bigger cage." He pointed to the black smog covering the waning sun like an illness, choking it, drowning it, pulling the red ball down so it couldn't swim to the fresh air above. Naturally, this smog came from Saint Denis. "We was their experiment, their gorillas, and now that we've brought peace to this hard country, they want us monkeys back behind bars. But they can't just prod us with their switches no more, no, this land, ya see, it's tough, and it's made us tougher, tougher than all them carpetbaggers combined! So they're subtle; they disguise the cages with brightly lit whorehouse signs and funny picture shows and buying on credit. Y'know what it is? It's a cage of yellow wallpaper—did ya read that book?"

"No," Javier groaned, realizing he was trapped in a Dutch monologue.

"Well, it's a cage of yellow wallpaper, and it's so pretty, ya don't even notice you're—"

"Dutch," he cut off respectfully, "I meant I miss robbin' the way we used to."

"Oh. Well, what do you mean? We still rob folks as need robbin'. Well, 'cept maybe for Strauss, but—"

"No. I miss… remember when we used to give it back? Redistribute the money where it belonged: among the innocent, working-class folk who were deserving of it. We ain't pledged a cent of what we've stolen for years now."

"W-well…" Dutch started, taken a little aback. "It ain't like we've had a surplus of wealth to donate. Besides, we've been helping. Took in Sadie, Lenny, Charles, Micah,"—Javier blenched at his name—"in the last few months; they probably woulda died without us, Sadie most definitely."

"I know," Javier exhaled profoundly. "I just… I don't know." He spun to the balustrade of the balcony, laying his elbows on the railing, and letting his arms hang loose over it. He could feel Dutch loom over him like a shadow, struggling to scrounge up the correct words—or rather, what he thought Javier wanted to hear.

"America is dead." He stepped forward, mirrored Javier's positioning, hanging his forearm past the railing. "I tried to save it, but the Cornwall's of this world… they're-they're indomitable." He sneered and shook his fist, as if to God or some higher power. "People… they don't listen when you talk, only when you shoot. 'Cept now, Cornwall's got his fireworks going off all throughout the country so ya can't hear nothing he don't want." He turned to his companion, heartbreak reflected in his usually elated eyes. "What I'm trying to say is this: we can't get nothing done here. Not no more. Forget America, it ain't even your country. But Tahiti?" He raised a finger questioningly, as his famous optimism swelled in his eyes. "There we got a damn more than a fair chance. But I ain't forgotten, don't you dare think I have. We are going to change the world, Javier. Together." As the words slid out, the world seemed to wake up around them; the smog had relinquished its grip on the sun, and it glowed a wee parcel brighter. Dutch patted his friend on the back, a kind, fatherly act and Javier shot him a satisfied smile. Dutch is right. I just need to have faith a little longer. Just a little more—

"O'Driscoll's! They're comin'!" imported the distressed wailing of Micah. He darted back to the house from the open fields, with Mary-Beth, Strauss, and Karen tailing him like railroad cars.

"Shit!" Dutch and Javier said in unison, ducking below the rails of the balcony, drawing and loading their guns, ready for whatever came next.

As it would turn out, they were not fucking ready.

O'Driscoll's poured out of the forest, too many green-dighted men on horseback to count; they blew faster than the wind, and shot faster, too. The whole of Shady Belle was consumed by tumultuous gunfire and the already dilapidated house was battered further—windows shattered, the wooden base shed splinters like tiny brown tears. Javier shot three off their stallions in brief succession with his Schofield, barely moving the needle—Christ, they are so many of 'em!

"Shit!" cried Dutch, firing his dual pistols over the balcony. "Look!" He pointed with his right gun's barrel down to the cylindrical gazebo next to the manor. In that cylindrical gazebo, crouched into a little ball, was Swanson, simultaneously crying his eyes out and rendering a prayer.

"Get him out!" he barked at Javier, who left without question, charging into the house, down the rickety tan stairs, wiping his greasy black hair behind his ears so they wouldn't obscure his line of sight. He met Tilly and Mary-Beth at the bottom, who looked up at him like scared children—which, he figured, wasn't too off the mark.

"Get to Abigail, make sure she's safe!" Javier ordered, running between them to the mildewy front double doors of the mansion, catching his breath. He stood between the rest of the gang: Bill, Hosea, and Grimshaw on his left, and Karen, Lenny, and Micah on the other, firing out the fractured sets of windows. Shit. This couldn't have possibly happened at a worse time. He was right: there was practically a skeleton crew operating at Shady Belle, with six of its members scattered about Lemoyne on a different errand, and its two best gunslingers out of commission. Fuck it, he thought, Greeks had an army half the size of the Persians and still kicked their asses out of Marathon.

"Hosea!" he called over the obstreperous bangs and booms, waiting until the elder gunslinger announced his attentiveness:

"Yeah?!"

Bang! Bang!

"Swanson's in the gazebo!"

"What?!"

Bang! Bang!

"Swanson! Is in! The gazebo!"

Bang! Bang! Glass sprayed onto Hosea's pale hair.

"Shit! Okay… uh…"—he turned to Lenny and Grimshaw, keeping loud so they could hear him—"Lenny! On me! Grimshaw! Cover us!"

The two joined Javier by the door and Hosea relayed the same instructions to Bill and Micah, beseeching Karen to provide the covering fire. The five men huddled closely by the door; they'd need to rush to the columns supporting the house for protection from the onslaught—for those precious moments, they'd be completely exposed.

"Uh, you go right on ahead," Micah said, "I ain't sticking my neck out for some waste'a space boozehead."

"Micah!" Lenny chastised.

"What?" he asked with a blend of anger and confusion.

"It's okay, Lenny," Hosea insisted. "If Micah wants to hang back with the women, he's free to do so. Us men will take it from here."

"Oh, that's bullshit, old man." Micah groaned, realizing they had his frail ego in a box. "Fine… fine. Let it never be said that Micah Bell the Third is yellow as a dandelion… But I sure as shit ain't goin' first."

"No one asked you to," Hosea said, kicking the doors opening and springing with the others on his tail; they branched out in a V-shape from the door, each man hiding behind one of the four pillars supporting the roof (Bill and Lenny doubled up on the farthest one on the right, and were none too happy about it). Javier was at the second post, Hosea at the first on the leftmost post, and Swanson was holed up just past both of them. And the O'Driscoll's were off their steeds now (most anyway), engirdling that ancient slime-teeming obelisk (the fountain, not Grimshaw) that stood beyond the front steps of the ramshackle cube of cockroach shit and baby spiders they called Shady Belle. Heinous volleys of bullets outlined the wooden columns the men ducked behind for dear life; Javier knew that if he leaned his head two feet to the left, the entire upper portion of his skull would be blasted off in an instant, leaving only his blood-soaked mouth.

"Javier!" shouted Hosea, to no avail.

"What?"

Bang! Bang!

"I said… Get! Over! Here!"

Javier scurried over as the rest of his retinue supplied cover fire, hopefully taking a few O'Driscoll's out in the process. He squeezed beside Prospero, who nodded his head toward the hostage. "Go! I'll—" Hosea descended into a string of coughs then, and even over the peal of booming gunfire, Javier could have sworn it sounded like the squeaky whimper from the golden eagles he used to watch for in Puebla. Aaack-ack! Aaack-ack! "... I'll cover you!"

Javier nodded, feeling the adrenaline in his legs; he was ready. He bent his knees, leaned forward, and kept his eyes trained on his about-the-furthest-thing-from-sober target; Hosea gave the signal and the gunslingers on the front porch distracted—and in some cases killed—the O'Driscoll's with a mask of returning fire, holding until Javier got back with Swanson.

He never made it four feet.

"What the hell are you doing?!" demanded Hosea as Javier ducked back behind the baluster.

"I came down with an idea," Javier said coyly, a childish smile imprinted on his face. He ran across to the other side of the porch like a bat out of hell, reaching the rightmost post without a hole in him—although some lead streaks might have trimmed some shiny black hairs.

"Whatcha doin'?!" questioned Bill angrily, not pleased to have two men practically snuggling tightly against him while bullets went all around them—or maybe he was too pleased.

"Lenny," Javier ordered, ignoring Bill. "Cover us. Bill, come with me."

With cover fire blocking the O'Driscoll's from getting any fatal shots off, Bill and Javier rushed off to the side of the house, past Pearson's unmanned chuckwagon, the spool table with the unfinished game of dominoes (Tilly was ahead), to the metal wagon that stood out like a black sheep amongst the gang's other carts—its cargo was a parting gift left by the Lemoyne Raiders: a hundredweight of red crates marked with one word. Explosives.

"Help me push," said Javier, shoving all his weight into the back of the wagon, barely getting the worn wheels to spin a fraction. Bill joined him, bludgeoning himself abut the wagon, and it finally started to roll. The gunfire continued, but Javier could hardly hear it over his own heart hyperventilating like it was being strangled. Still, he pushed with all his might, watching the eight spokes on the hub turn like a clock—slow, methodical. They began to spin faster, as the wagon started to snowball.

"Just a bit further…" he promised Bill. A shallow promise, as the back right wheel popped off one moment later. Then came the repugnant cry of Hosea screaming—he'd been shot. Javier froze, fear making him a statue, making him the Monument to Cuauhtemoc.

"What do we do?" came Bill's voice in the distance, but it was too foggy for Javier to make sense of. Bill said something else Javier didn't catch, but he did notice his finger pointing to a lone rider emerging from the woods on a black colt, halting well out of range of anything the Dutch Van der Linde gang could fire at him. He shot the wind with his cattleman revolver, a wordless command to his subordinates to cease fire, which they did promptly and obediently.

"Been a while, Dutch!" came the mysterious equestrian, although the smugness in his tone killed the mystery for Javier—he knew before Dutch said anything.

"It certainly has, Colm," responded their patriarch, looking down at Colm O'Driscoll, yet Javier doubted the angle made him feel any more superior. "Last time we saw you, you was talking'a peace. Shift in priorities."

"No, just a flash in the pan," even across here, Javier could feel the yellow smirk as he said: "I hear our Mr. Morgan ain't doin' too good."

"Javier!" the fog—smog cleared and Javier heard him frankly. "What do we do?"

"Uh… relocate the wheel!" They crouched to their knees, Bill lifting the wagon as much as he could while Javier tried to jam the burly wheel in.

"I," recheated Dutch's typical stoic voice, although laced heavily with anger and sorrow Javier alone could make out, "will kill you, Colm. Like you did my Annabelle."

"That strumpet?" laughed Colm, a grating, weaselly laugh. "That whore?"

Dutch stayed silent—yeah, don't do it Dutch. Don't give him the satisfaction, thought Javier as the wheel slid back into its socket.

Colm switched strategies: "I want you to know something, Dutch… deep down, in my wee black Irish heart, Imma be sad to see ya go."

Javier pondered—as he felt certain Dutch was—as to the intention of such a statement as he pushed the wagon alongside his packhorse of a friend. We're getting closer.

"Now, don't get me wrong: I hate you, as much as a drunkard hates Adam's ale. But still… world'll be a dimmer place without your charisma or unattainable aspirations. But the Pinkertons want it dimmer, I suppose. Get more traction out of Mr. Edison's lightbulb patent that way." Strange, Javier thought, he seems almost… upset. "It's you or me. And Darwin's law prevails, Dutch, Darwin's law prevails…"—he addressed his men next—"no mercy. Kill 'em all."

And Javier and Bill sent the wagon a-rolling towards the flock of green sheep hanging about the fountain… and Dutch shot it.

The sound that emerged was too monumentally colossal to be put into words, so let's just explain its impact: in Rhodes, Robbie Laidlaw and Slink Winkler enter a duel, both dropping down to their knees, certain they've been hit, before seeing neither has drawn their gun; in Valentine, a tabby cat skittishly wakes from its nap; boisterous thunderstorms blush blue in shame; and Alfred Nobel's hands burst from the ground in applause at his marvelous work.

Chunks of the exfluncticated fountain litter the grounds where it was planted, amongst the nearly evaporated corpses of O'Driscolls—nearly every last one was blown to smithereens, save a few lucky bastards out of range of the blast, and of course, the spear's head, their precious leader; he'd strode off from whence he came, not looking back at his fallen comrades (whom he knew the names for perhaps two, maybe three) for even a second.

Javier looked around to see camp was stunned speechless, even Hosea, clutching his bleeding shoulder showed no signs of pain. Javier scuttled over to the old chiseler but was beaten by Mary-Beth and Tilly, who already had him up on his feet, walking to their poor excuse of an infirmary.

"Hosea, are you—"

"I'm fine," he answered, "nothin' I won't heal from. You did good today, Javier." He finished with a smile before it disappeared inside Shady Belle as he was rushed to a bed, and replaced with Dutch's fuming frown as he marched outside.

"Mount up, men, we're not done yet."

"Where're we going?" Lenny asked, searching over his shoulder for Hosea.

The closest they got to a direct answer was: "Hunting."

11:39 PM, July 21st, 1899

They had him now; the chase had been long and grueling, but they had Colm now, despite his admirable riding, blockaded inside some orchard house in Bayou Nwa.

He had led the six riders—Sadie had hesitantly joined their posse—hither and thither throughout the great state of Lemoyne in what we'll call The Night of Colm's Three Tricks.

For his first trick, he had tried to pull an army out of a hat.

The Dutch Van der Linde gang had shadowed him and his three devout acolytes along the Lannahechee River up to the remains of Caliga Hall and seeing as how he couldn't lose them, the gray-stubbled bastard had one of his guys go knocking on doors looking for any leftover Gray's to round up, while he rode the gang in spirals for twenty minutes in a pathetic attempt to stall. Eventually, Lenny got suspicious and broke off from the others, finding the O'Driscoll wandering Scarlett Meadows decidedly bereft of a militia of pissed-off Gray's (they found out later they were all distracted hounding that Gray, whatever his name was, who was sweet on that Braithwaite, whatever her name was. They had hoped to elope at the train station, which Javier imagined, wasn't very agreeable for their families). He'd shot him of course, and Colm's first plot was foiled.

For his next trick, he did something pretty guileful: making two men disappear.

Doing this required three simple components: a disposable spearman, a sniper rifle, and an old Civil War battlefield. What he did was lead the gang to Bolger Glade, where he had another expendable minuteman of his stay behind while the other two ventured onward. This remaining O'Driscoll, who Javier called "Asshole" on account of how much of an asshole he found him to be, got into sniping position on the completely flat and barren fields as the gang rode closer, attempting to let fly at them till they were cold as a wagon tire, very nearly succeeding, instead only managing to hit Sadie's horse, killing Bob and sending her plummeting into the hard, grimy dirt. The remaining troop drove their horses in a zig-zag motion, not dissimilar to how they rode against alligators, getting close enough to Asshole to put a bullet in his head. Dutch took her by the hand then and scooped her onto The Count. She was peppered with black humus and had a broken nose where she'd landed face-first—she wrapped it with Javier/Dutch's pocket square, staining it a darker hue of red. And she was mad as hell over Bob, and they journeyed on.

For Colm's final trick, he truly intended to deliver the unfathomable. He—on my honor, he did this—cut a man into two pieces!

After finishing up with Asshole, the gang burned the breeze, cantering as fast as possible after the last two O'Driscolls. They split up into three groups, searching far and wide, refusing to accept they'd gotten away. Javier made it as far down as Ringneck Creek without so much as a glint of green capturing his attention, when he heard the bang bang of gunfire, drawing him back south, where he saw the figure of Colm O'Driscoll, garbed with a black vest, white shirt, and green dress tie. He then saw the yellow-brown figure of Sadie, (more brown than yellow with all the dirt still smothering her) riding bestride Dutch's horse, get a clean shot off, nailing the O'Driscoll leader in the shoulder and propelling him off his black horse. The rest of the gang appeared shortly thereafter, all dismounting and strolling over to the groaning body with excited gait. We got him! thought Javier ecstatically. We finally got him!

Of course, they didn't. It was the last of his three acolytes, dressed in Colm's clothing. Apparently, while the gang was busy dealing with Asshole, Colm and his sole subservient hastened into a patch of concealed woods and took the time to switch outfits. An outlandish, yet brilliant plan, as Colm was lost to sextet now, and could have presumably stayed that way forever if not for Dutch riding The Count unknowingly onto a small round stone, causing the horse's left foot to stumble before course-correcting, jerking Sadie's arm up a half-inch when she fired, missing her target of "Colm's" face, instead hitting his shoulder—a nonfatal injury. After patching his wounds, the gang spent the next few hours torturing the poor O'Driscoll for Colm's whereabouts. He was pretty young as well, I should add, maybe five years older than Kieran; cried for his mommy repeatedly, in that whiny, pouty way you do when you want something you know is impossible.

He gave it up in the end: Hagen Orchards. That's where they were now scouting it out from a distance in the swampy bog, deciding the best way to play their hand. The place was dark and quiet, only lit by a single faint lantern in the center of the house, emitting a narrow orange flicker. Dutch beamed with anticipation at the squinting sight of four O'Driscolls keeping guard on the front porch in the night—the boy wasn't lying, Colm was here.

"Only a few of 'em. I say we sneak real close, then charge in guns a-blazing," Sadie recommended, twitching with anticipation.

"What if there's another dozen guys in there?" Lenny warned.

Micah scoffed. "There ain't enough room in that tiny shack of a house for five more men, let alone twelve." Javier regretfully agreed, the one-story house didn't look like it had more than one bedroom.

"We don't know that. Let's play it safe. Watch the outhouse; eventually, he'll come out to do his business, then… bang."

"Shooting a man with his pants down. Bill, I think you'd better take the lead on this; you got the most experience."

"Shut up, Micah."

"We don't have time for that," Dutch grunted. "The ferry job is tomorrow, we can't be playing chicken with a hypothetical army. He dies, tonight."

"I… thought we didn't do revenge, Dutch," Lenny whispered, looking downright scared when Dutch whipped his head over to glare at him.

"Maybe you ain't as smart as I gave you credit for. Bill,"—he turned to address him—"what happens to a snake when you cut off its head?"

"It… uh…"

"Not a trick question, Bill."

"It… dies?"

"See Lenny?" Dutch asked, returning his glance back to the boy he'd groomed so thoroughly a few hours ago. "Even Bill got it." He looked back to the cabin, the soft orange light reflecting in his eyes like a wildfire. "Mrs. Adler had it just about right. She, Bill, Lenny, and Javier will prowl close to the front. Make sure you got a clear shot on the guards before making your move. Micah and I will cover the back so that eel doesn't make a break for it."

Javier felt a needle of envy prick him before he could stop it; Micah? Why does Dutch trust Micah so much? And why does he get to wear Arthur's hat? It shoulda gone to Jack or Charles or Lenny, people he actually liked. And… if Dutch was just passing it around, why give it to Micah? Why not someone else… I mean, there are other folk who have been with him a lot longer… who have been a lot more loyal too…

He tried to push these thoughts away as the gang dispersed, he with Bill, Lenny, and Sadie crouching down, keeping low and moving slow across the damp, muddy street to the gap in the fence that outlined the whole orchard in an impressive display of handiwork—Javier shuddered, realizing the man who planted this fence was probably dead, his wife and children too. Goddamn O'Driscolls.

They continued sneaking until they rammed into the short side of the house, the front porch just around the corner; the O'Driscolls were at a distance where Javier could hear the humming of their gabbing, but couldn't make out the exact words if we put a gun to his head. The four horsemen (save Sadie who neither had a horse nor was a man) cocked the hammers on their guns quietly and Javier nodded for them to follow his lead.

He didn't run, didn't make a scene, but calmly approached the porch at a brisk pace until the four guards were in range, and squeezed his Scholfield's rough trigger, his companions following suit. They didn't speak a word, just fired—it was the only sound that could be heard at these endnotes of capricious Monday night (even the guards uttered only a light uuh as they dropped dead).

Javier heard the sound of a door splintering open and a gunshot; his heart sank. Dutch? Tailed by the others, he bolted into the house, emerging in the living room—it was nice. Jolly yellow walls, a piano on the left side, a fireplace on the right, a homey-looking green couch, and a blood-stained yellow carpet embroidered with brown hearts. Javier exhaled heartily upon seeing it was not Dutch, but just another O'Driscoll whose insides flooded the carpet. His eyes floated up gratefully to see Dutch was still alive, he and Micah engaged in a standoff with the last O'Driscoll left in the room. Colm was standing by the empty fireplace, his shape scarcely made out by the lantern sitting on the coffee table by the couch. He had shed his black vest, white shirt, and green dress tie for his comrade's baggy gray overcoat, yellow-striped red shirt, and wide maroon drifter hat. In his left hand was his cattleman revolver aimed haphazardly at Dutch, in his left was a thick silver hunting knife tattooed with a four-leafed clover on the wooden grip.

And at the end of his knife was Simon Pearson. He was in a chokehold, hiding most to all of Colm's features with his plump stature. He was bruised and bleeding at his face, his left eye swollen so badly he couldn't see out of the purple bulge. They had been torturing him.

"No…" Lenny whispered. He couldn't believe it; must be a trick of the light, happens to the best of us.

"Let him go, Colm!" Dutch barked.

"No problem," he replied with a smirk.

"I didn't say nothin'!" Pearson shouted. "I swear, I didn't snitch, Dutch!"

"I know. Just stay calm, Pearson. We're gonna get you outta this."

"No one needs to die, today, Dutch," Colm said, hobbling Pearson to the left, closer to the front door, to his escape. "He's yours. All you gotta do is cut me loose. Huh? Sounds fair. You've spilled enough O'Driscoll blood I'd say."

"Never enough O'Driscoll blood to spill," Micah argued.

Javier scanned the room, looking, hoping for something. Shooting the lantern wouldn't help; Colm didn't need to see his hostage to slit his throat. Am I fast enough to rush him? Separate the knife from him in the dark? No… I'm not.

Everyone in the room looked to Dutch for some clue; what should they do? He just stared his old rival down, the expressions on his face shifting and folding into new ones every second, smugness, fear, grief, excitement,—it was like he was broken.

"Colm… release him… or else…"

"Or else?!" He laughed, a maniacal laugh that filled the room even thicker than the shadows. Lenny screamed as he nicked Pearon's fat neck, allowing a current of blood to drip down, staining the collar of Pearson's white shirt."I am in control here!" He moved closer to the door, but no one stopped him. No one knew what to do.

"Dutch…?" Pearson croaked, his voice wet from the blood building up in his mouth. "I… I ain't no seaman. Only sailed with 'em for six months. Got… got kicked out cuz I ate the captain's… the captain's raspberry tarts…!" He began to cry, a behemoth of a sob that cut everyone deep; Javier realized he'd never heard Pearson cry before. Never.

Fuck! What do I do?! The blade was at his throat; shoot the knife out of Colm's hands, you shoot Pearson's throat—same with the gun. Javier's mind was racing, there had to be some way to save him!

"What's it gonna be, Dutch?" Colm asked, still inching closer to the door, knowing what answer would be given.

"You… you asked earlier about Arthur," Dutch said, his hands shaking, his voice trembling. "He's dead." His demeanor became hard, stern. His hands stopped shaking. "Because of you."

"Huh?"

"You kidnapped him, remember? Tortured him? You hurt him; made him weak. He was distracted, not minding his surroundings. And they bushwhacked him. And now my boy is dead."

Colm stopped waddling to the door as a terrifying apprehension formed in his stomach, heavy as a brick.

"You… will take from me… no longer."

Bang! The sound hovered over the room like a foul scent. Colm glanced down to the hole in his chest, wearing a look of unimaginable horror. And something else too; shock surely, but something more…

And with a Devil's strength, he twists that four-leafed clover…

And two cold bodies fall to the floor.

Thanks for reading!

I do read them, so be sure to comment if you have any suggestions.

Dutch's first major mental dip. Wonder if we'll see more of those...

RIP Bob.