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-Six: Uncle

3:25 PM, August 25th, 1899

The second best way to wake up in the morning is with a beautiful woman beside you. The first is with the smell of stew. Uncle grinned, eyes fluttering with drowsiness as he rose from his nap, tipping his hat back, eyes fluttering again from the bright glare. The scent of hearty thick stew strutted into his nostrils and he exhaled deeply. He was very happy.

Tilly was not as Uncle met her by the cauldron cooking over the scout campfire. "Good to see you still doin' nothing." She stirred the carrots, venison shoulder, potatoes, and leaves of mint that swam in golden broth. "World would surely stop spinnin' if you did."

He said nothing, just licked his lips lecherously and offered an empty bowl. She straightened and stared him down, not blinking. She raised her chin in a way that said you ain't gettin' shit today, old man. Then she actually said it.

Oh poor Tilly, she committed one of the oldest blunders known to man: never invade Russia in the winter, and don't you dare try to bulldoze a hungry dog.

After standing there for an excessive amount of time, she yielded and sighed. Uncle whistled as he walked with a hot bowl of stew, filled to the brim.

"Found any quarters up your ass, Strauss?" he asked as he passed the Austrian recounted the funds in the retired red dynamite box. He was sitting next to the reverend, who was drinking—as unruly as it sounds—water, and looking healthier than he had in years.

"No, Mr. Uncle," Strauss answered, not rewarding him with a glance.

Uncle strolled along camp, passing Mary-Beth and Micah as they strung wet rags on a clothesline, the former habitually peeping over her shoulder, expecting Grimshaw to be there with a cold comment. "You women are doin' a real good job with the laundry! Keep it up!" Micah scowled but kept quiet.

The old mutt arrived at the spool table in the center of camp just as Grimshaw left it. Abigail sat there, with Jack on her lap, and Grimshaw wasn't pulling her punches. "You just gonna sit there and play with the baby all day?" she said before Uncle got there. "We got folks fighting and dying for us out there, and what are you doin' girl?"

Uncle would've slapped the crone on the rump as a tease but he was holding his stew with both hands—too risky.

"Bitch," Abigail muttered as Uncle pulled up a chair with three legs.

"What's a bitch?" Jack asked curiously as he played with two pinewood soldiers Hosea carved.

"Nothin'," Abigail said quickly. "Don't you go throwing that word around."

"A bitch," Uncle explained through a full mouth, "is a woman whose every action is utterly repellant, uh, and whose personality makes one want to eat a bullet—ah… how to clarify this in a way you'll understand…? Eh, just think of Molly, oh, or your mom, three-quarters of the time."

Abigail's bleached blue eyes were cold as ice. "Strike one, old man. Watch it."

Uncle chuckled, scooping a potato sodden with heavenly juices down his throat. "So Jack… ain't you gonna give your daddy a kiss?" He leaned his cheek forward to the boy, and Abigail flipped his bowl onto his lap, slathering the hot contents over his favorite body part. He shrieked but warped it into a holler of joy so Abigail wouldn't have the satisfaction.

"Strike three." She covered the boy's ears as though he couldn't read the room. "And if you ever say that again, I'll take a rock and bash your ugly teeth in."

Uncle tittered, meandering—nearly limping, that stew was boiling—back over for round two. Tilly sensed him, or more likely smelled him (he didn't believe in showering, besides sleeping in the rain), and turned with her arms folded before he even arrived. You ain't gettin' shit today, old man.

The second it was in a clean bowl, he slurped it down greedily, forgoing the spoon. Tilly leered at him, shaking her head in disapproval.

"This is a first for me, Tilly Jackson," Uncle said, yellow droplets dripping from his gray beard, "but I'm tired of women. They ain't agreeable company this morning—"

"It's past three—"

"Where's all the men?"

"Kieran's still sleeping off his injuries, and the others are performing in a dark sadistic art known as work. That's work with an 'o,' not 'e.'"

"Well, what about our favorite perpetually half-smirking widow?"

Tilly snorted. "Who cares? Bitch."

"Ah, the word of the day." Uncle slurped the rest of the stew until a few chunky venison strips sat sadly at the bottom of the bowl. He plucked them with his pudgy, dirty fingers. "So, you know where she is? Checkin' for Hosea in the saloons again? Heh, with the way things are lookin', she'll be joinin' him soon—"

"Nah," Tilly said, trying to swipe the empty bowl out of his hands, missing, "Hanging Dog, I think. Heard something 'bout the rest a' the O'Driscoll loyalists squatting there."

"Hmm." Uncle reflected as he licked the tin clean. "So, the closest thing we got to a drunk hobbled outta here and is ridin' down to where at least a dozen men are gonna be at?"

"That's about the size of it," Tilly concurred.

"Hmm. When did she leave?"

"She left when you was sleepin'," she snorted.

"Could you narrow that window?"

"An hour ago, I guess. Don't matter. She ain't gonna be back for a while. Dutch told her to wait on him."
That grabbed his attention. "Dutch? Only Dutch?" Tilly nodded. Damn… Uncle scratched his tongue along his decaying teeth and grunted. Daaaamn… He tossed the metal bowl down and looked at the chef. "I'm an old man, I don't eat enough, I don't sleep enough, I got more scars than a dog's got hair, I got lumbago, and I think I just got Lyme disease, but I'm gonna go shoot some O'Driscolls." There was a meaty droplet on his fat thumb and he sucked it. "I better not hear a word about my stew intake ever again."

He mounted Branwen, the only horse left since Charles returned. Uncle didn't practice reminiscing, but he did miss his horse; they'd been through a great deal together and his death couldn't presage any good future for the licentious goat. It had been a while since he was on a horse that wasn't Nell II—that crock was short and rode slowly because his old bones couldn't take anything else. Branwen, however, was fast, and before Uncle could check his pockets for whiskey (a shame since it was a long ride), they were barging through the forest like an arrow.

The country would've been a fine sight but for the clouds that crept out to strangle the sun, killing the golden light that had radiated camp when he woke. Now, it was as though night had come early. Gray overcast stretched for miles in every direction and the grass shined with darkness, looking like black wires protruding from the earth. Uncle crossed the border into Ambarino where a vulture loomed above him, gliding, never flapping its wings, never moving. He shot it. Missed, but the bird absconded, disappearing in the dull clouds, and Uncle figured that was close enough. He looped around O'Creagh's Run just as a harsh wind set in; it struck mercilessly, clouting him with cold beatings. Mist from the lake laced the gale, and by the time his shadow pulled off the Three Sisters, he was coated in a layer of wetness, and not the kind he enjoyed. Fuckin' Sadie, he thought, I should just turn back if the bitch is gonna make it this hard. Still, he rode on, taking the long way with Bacchus Bridge blown to hell, trailing along the Dakota River until Little Creek erected perpendicularly to it, at which point, he followed the narrow blue line (heh, a very apt description of his penis presently) until he saw it through a pair of greasy binoculars, just abut a plantation of purple lilacs.

Hanging Dog Ranch was a cozy spot, fitted with a spacious paddock and roomy stables for the O'Driscolls' horses (the sight made Branwen drool), large living quarters on the right, two stories high, windows glowing with warm flickers from the fireplace, a windmill at eleven o'clock rotating hypnotically, three wagons and twice as many carts with dozen of multicolored fruits, cans, and candies in their maws (the sight made Uncle drool), and a massive barn, stretching nearly as tall as the windmill, resting in the center. The whole place was outlined with a freshly buffed wooden fence and sign welcoming visitors.

The only nitpick Uncle had was the army of O'Driscolls, a dozen strong at least, meandering about, a repeater and revolver to every man. And of course, he didn't care for the man in the barn's window, scanning for intruders, hands eager on a forty-two-inch maxim gun—

Shit! He dismounted Branwen and whipped him away with a hard slap; he crouched in the field of tall purple flowers covering his mouth vainly, praying they hadn't spotted him. His heart punching against his ribcage was the only sound he heard until…

… he farted. It slipped out like hot shit and sent the flowers swaying against the foul breeze. Plugging his nose, he crawled out of the field in retreat, cupping his binoculars to his brow, sweeping along the perimeter of the ranch until he found her.

She was lying flat behind a scant hillock, staring through a long scope.. The bump in the land hid her from the O'Driscoll's sightline, which was good because in her vivid yellow shirt, she stood out like a bishop in a brothel.

Uncle kept low as he waddled over to her. She wore the same tight pants she'd bought in Rhodes months back and in it, her ass was perky and shapely and stared him down as he approached behind her stealthily. Uncle giggled, unable to resist.

"Yik!" she cried from his pinch, whipping her sniper around until it bent the tip of his nose. "The fuck?!"

"Sorry," he chuckled lewdly, "I got a toothache."

"What are you—"

"Ooooh take a pound of butter made in May," he sang, "clap it to her arse on a summer's day. And ever as it melts then lick it clean away, tis a medicine for the toothache the old wives say." He chuckled again. "What? Y'know back in the day, some women woulda paid me for that."

"Oh, I'll pay you back, alright," she growled, lowering the barrel to his cock. It began quivering. "What do you say I do some good today? The women of the world would be chanting my name in the streets."

He forced a nervous giggle and pulled away from the gun. "If you treat your friends that way, I'd hate to see what you do to that Tom Dalton."

"We ain't—"

"By the way," he interjected, keen on changing the subject, "Dutch ain't comin'. Got held up with the Indians, ain't gonna be back for a day or two at least." He slowly lowered himself until he was flat on his back beside her. The gun shadowed him. "So… I'm all ya got."

He lay silently for a moment, the barrel at his ear. Uncle fought with everything he had to keep the fart from popping out. Finally, Sadie snorted and turned the weapon back to Hanging Dog. "Greaaaaat."

Uncle sighed with relief before his nature compelled him to jibe: "Oh, I forgot to bring whiskey, but I knew you wouldn't be caught dead without it, so I didn't worry."

"Shut up," Sadie said before she pulled her eye off the scope and saw his hand outstretched to her. She rolled her eyes and tore the fat flask off her belt, hucking it at his forehead. A small bruise swelled.

"What are we doin' here, anyhow?" he asked, taking a healthy swig.

"Killing the last of the O'Driscolls," was her answer, and she swiped the tin and downed an even healthier swig before tossing it back. Uncle caught it this time.

"Sure, but why? They're a state away, and they were pushed out by the Pinks. I doubt they comin' back any time so—"

"Shut up," she said calmly, with a fiery rage simmering below, threatening to burn him if he didn't button his trap.

"So… uh, what's the plan? Wait for nightfall so we can take 'em while they can't see us."

"No," she answered simply, grabbing the flask again and hooking it back on her belt.

"I'm still thirsty…" he complained weakly.

"The only reason I ain't taken the whole damn place yet is that clown." She pointed to the barn and Uncle didn't bother equipping his binoculars. He knew what forty-two inches her finger was indicating. "But lucky—for me—you showed up at the right time. I can't get a bead on him with that gumshield blockin' his head from every angle, so you're gonna head down there and draw the feller out enough for me to get off a clean shot. Then you can do what you do best—nothing—and I'll do what I do best—killing folk."

Uncle snickered until he saw she was deadly serious. "Y-you're gonna take out all them guys? I counted like twelve."

"Fifteen." Her scar smirked across her face. "Not counting whoever's hidden in the barn and house. It'll be a fair fight that way." She drew a revolver and planted it against his patchy beard. "Now… get your fat ass moving."

As he rose, brooding, he relaxed his muscles and left her a smelly surprise on his way to the ranch's entrance.

5:19 PM, August 25th, 1899

"Hey, hey, no trespassers, old man!" A green-hatted man told him as he arrived at the front of Hanging Dog.

"Yeah, get lost!" Another chimed in, cocking his shotgun with a satisfying chik-chik.

"So sorry, gentleman," Uncle said, looking around as though he was lost. "I'm searchin' for my closest pal, Arthur Kilgore. Have you seen him?"

"No," Green Hat told him, "we ain't seen nobody. Now clear out!"

"You sure?" Uncle asked. "He's a sick man, drunk, fancies opium and morphine a tad too much… I'm real worried!" He glanced up foxily. The gunner hadn't moved. Shit. "Could I just pop in and ask around? What about that guy in the barn? He's got the high ground, maybe he's seen—"

Blam! A volley of shotgun pellets shaved the earth, revealing the dark humus underneath. The O'Driscoll, the one with the double-barrel shotgun, the furry bastard with the broad shoulders and full frame, spoke coarsely: "I won't say it again! Piss off!"

The twin barrels were a few feet from his belly, and they were soon to be a dime a dozen. The other O'Driscolls were taking notice of all this commotion and were studying him now, hands on their guns, not raising them just yet. Damn… what do I do? Damn you Sadie.

"Okay," Uncle said, hands reaching the sky as he took small careful steps back. "Okay… I didn't mean… oh… oh…" He clutched his stomach in agony, leaning over so his head aimed down and his hat fell off. "Oh… oh God…"

Green Hat glanced at his friend, confused, before taking a few steps into the line of fire. "Hey, old-timer, are you—" It wasn't like the other two. This fart was thunderous, tumultuous, ear-bleeding. The earth trembled before its power and the grass that swallowed Uncle's boots shriveled and shrunk until a glade formed around his feet. Green Hat screamed in pain and pinched his nose as hard as he could; it was too late. "Shit, man, what the fuck?!"

The other O'Driscolls got to laughing, but still, the gunner stayed comfortable behind his forty-two-inch killing machine. Uncle kept groaning and limped into Hanging Dog—the O'Driscolls were chortling too passionately to stop him at the gate. He stopped in front of the barn, surrounded by wagons, carts, and a crowd of green-dighted outlaws. "Uhhhh… I need toilet paper! NOW!" They roared even more boisterously with titters. "This ain't a laughin' matter, I need toilet paper! Or rags, paper, corncobs, seashells, shit"—while keeping his hands to guide the mess away, he nodded his head to one of the wagons—"gimme one a' them apples! I just need something, anything!" He began dancing that familiar funny dance while the horde howled and howled. "Oh God, it's startin'! Please, God almighty, I beg of you!" He peeped up to the gunner. "Please, sir, some hay from that barn? Anything, I'm on my hands and knees here."

Giggling, the gunner waved his hands to indicate he was on the job. He stepped away from that gunshield…

Bang! … and Sadie blew off everything above the nose in one shot!

Uncle heard a thud next and looked to the apple wagon to see a Red Delicious that was a tad too skinny and he darted to the outhouse between the stables and paddock. The dynamite exploded, repelling the O'Driscolls who were still alive on their backs. Bang! Bang! Bang! She wouldn't stop, wouldn't let up.

Uncle's heart was racing behind the wooden shithouse. He heard the men screaming, firing back, but then there would be another boom and he knew they were failing. He poked his head out, watching that yellow flurry as it moved like greased lightning. Her motions were seamless, hopping the fence and diving to cover behind a cart, then popping up with fast, precise snaps of her pistol, seldom missing.

An iron hand claimed Uncle by the back of his neck then and orbited him until his head slammed into the outhouse's firm wall and he was face-to-face with his attacker. It was the furry-faced shotgun-wielding burly bastard. His thick fingers tightened on Uncle's throat. "Tell her to stand down, now, or you're dead." He leaned back so he could fit his hefty double-barrel in the gap between his hand and Uncle's mostly bald skull.

"I-I don't even know her!" Uncle protested dramatically. "How about instead, you—"

He pushed the shotgun one inch away from his face, holding it there with one hand while he clocked his bushy brown beard with the other. He never reloaded. He's only got one shell left. Uncle erected two fingers and dug them into the O'Driscoll's eyes so he finally let go of the old goat's throat. Gasping for air, Uncle delivered a right hook to his enemy's ribs. Then another, and another. Uncle's knuckles were the only ones hurt by this.

The old man wheezed in pain from the fist to his face. The bruise Sadie gave him was gobbled up by another set, plump and long as a mountain range. Then he felt a hand wrapping around the back of his coat, thrusting him forward…

… until he smashed through the outhouse's moon-carved door, landing on the bench. His hand sunk into the brown hole. He groped the squishy substance and gagged.

"Got ya now, you gaffer." Uncle turned and saw him standing at the doorway, the backlight illuminating his silhouette. His shotgun was locked right on Uncle's chest. "See ya, wouldn't wanna—"

Uncle embraced his monkey brain and hurled the glob of wet shit in his hand at the O'Driscoll's face—to great success. The man shrieked and twirled, firing his last shell one foot to the left of Uncle.

The man wiped it with his sleeve, starting with the mouth and working up to the brow, spitting liberally—but to little effect. It was caught in his black forest of a beard and—

"Wouldn't wanna be ya," Uncle said and the O'Driscoll turned to see he was holding a revolver in the outhouse. Bang! That man hit the floor dead with shit in his mustache (giving me a bit of a fright, this is; maybe I'll shave mine).

Uncle exited the loo, squeezing the mountains on his cheek; they curved upward and he couldn't help but chuckle dryly. Me and Sadie—peas and carrots. Just then, another skinny red apple flew over him, landing by the stables. Seems even O'Driscoll horses were sinners, according to Sadie. They neighed and jockeyed with the plank doors, and perhaps it was Nell II, but Uncle found himself rushing to save them.

He kicked up dirt as he raced to grope for the stick of dynamite. He missed twice before raising it in his shaking hands—the fuse was practically gone. He licked his fingers to put out the spark when he heard it:

Bangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbang!

Those forty-two dangerous inches were being manned by another Irish bastard. It was blasting down, six hundred rounds a minute, tearing the wagon a certain yellow ray of sunshine was squatting behind to smithereens. Uncle felt the heat of the lit fuse and lowered his wet fingers, taking aim and hurling it at the barn window.

Boom! Forty-two inches crashed in flinders, alongside the O'Driscoll gunner.

Uncle pulled the hammer down and took aim, only to find there were no O'Driscolls left—standing anyway. They all lay in flat stacks on the floor, the blood forming puddles on the arid land. Only one was left, rising from a cart of canned sardines to kill Sadie, but she disarmed him with a single quick shot, blowing a hole in his hand. She cocked the gun instantly to finish him off but was interrupted by Uncle's revolver rechanting in triumph.

"You're welcome," he said, blowing the pale smoke from his gun's barrel as the last O'Driscoll knocked a tower of sardines over on his way face-down.

Sadie turned to him and fired, and Uncle felt his chest for the bullet. Did that bitch really just shoot him? Then he heard the thud. An O'Driscoll from the barn had snuck up on the old geezer and tried to put one through his skull, but Uncle was looking down at his corpse. "Shit," Sadie mumbled, loud enough for him to hear, "I missed."

Uncle chuckled and holstered his weapon. "We good now?"

"Not yet," she said, "put that gun back in your hands. Dalton wasn't here. That means he's in the house." He followed her finger to the two-story house on their right.

"It's gonna be locked," he told her as they reached the front porch.

All the same, she tried the handle, grabbing it roughly and turning it with all her might. Nothing happened. Grunting, she leaned her weight on it and gave it another go. Uncle tried not to simper at the results.

"Not a word," she warned, anger darkening her face.

"I didn't say nothin'," he said with a white (eh, yellow-white) smile.

She shot the lock off and kicked the door ajar. Immediately, they were met with incoming fire from two on the stairway. Sadie flitted behind the kitchen table while Uncle moved in more of a stumble, landing on her lap. She smelled so strongly of whiskey that he pulled away, scared all the gunpowder would light her ablaze. Sadie took a sharp breath and hopped to her feet, calmly putting two rounds in each man before allowing an inhale. All was silent, aside from Uncle's panting until the unmistakable moan of weary floorboards echoed from upstairs. Sadie's eyes widened, a cat finding a mouse. "He's here…" she said gruffly, not seeming to believe it. "I finally found him… C'mon!"

"Wait…" Uncle wheezed, a slow shadow as she dashed to the stairs, "all this action's reakin' havoc on my lumbago. My back's burning…"

"Clap some butter on it," the woman riposted.

The old man reached the top of the stairs a few seconds behind her, nearly running into her because she stopped so abruptly at the top, staring at him.

Tom Dalton sat on the twin-sized bed at the end of the room. He was fat, but he looked like a boy then, small and frail. Quick as a hare, he reached for his gun, flipping it from his holster at inhuman speed. It flew from his hand as Sadie fired.

"Shit!" Dalton cried, hugging his bleeding hand. "Damn you!"

"Remember me?" Sadie growled, smoke from her gun cutting across her face as she walked over to him in titanic strides. Boom, boom. Boom, boom.

"Yeah," he said dryly, "you're Van der Linde's whore, right? The drunk with—wait, no. No, shit, she had bigger tits than you. A mole too." His eyes narrowed as he studied her closer. "What, did I rape you? Shit, did Calissa send you?" Boom, boom. Sadie's yellow chemise was peppered with soot and ash like she was a seething yellow fire, fingers deathly black with smoke. Her grim scowl was flooding with bubbly saliva that dripped to the floor. She didn't seem real. Uncle formed a pinch with his outermost fingers in remembrance and suddenly was very scared he was next. "I'll pay you anything, I've got gold, just—"

"You don't even know me?" she roared incredulously. "You took my life away and you don't even remember me?" She stood before him now, leering with dark, lifeless eyes. Her hair likewise, was soaked in soot but resembled less of a raging fire and more of brittle yellow pages rotting into dark dust. "You remember a man named Jake Adler, a man you tortured and killed?" Her pistol was drilling into his Adam's apple, shivering with fury.

Dalton licked his lips, breathing roughly. "Please… I-I can make this right. I—he's alive! Yeah, yeah, I didn't have the staunch to do him in, so I told him to play dead and hide in a cart outside and he's probably missin' you, so you ought—"

The gun slipped from her hand. She took her outstretched fingers and coiled them around Dalton's throat. She tornadoed him onto the floor and put a foot on his struggling hands. She whipped out a thin carving knife that shone brilliantly for a moment before the ruddy sun sunk behind them, ushering in a horde of shadows that covered Sadie and her prey. Through squinted eyes, Uncle saw her tracing along his rotund bearded face, fashioning a red line from his lips to ear—a Glasgow smile. And he heard the screams plenty, felt them too as they crashed into him so hard he nearly collapsed.

Even when the screaming had long since stopped, she was still carving away, shaving his round gut, piercing his cold eyes, letting no part go to waste. Downstairs, waterfalls of blood poured from the sodden planks. It was the most horrific butchering Uncle had ever witnessed.

At last, she stood, delivering a few more bitter kicks to the heavy body, grunting wails of anger.

"Jesus," Uncle denounced, pointing to her mess, "will that be all? Are ya done yet? Fuckin' psycho."

"I don't…" Her voice was wet with blood and her face beet-red (heh, and not from exertion). She swooned onto Dalton's slim bed. "I don't feel any better. He killed Jake… I'm supposed to feel better." Her mouth curled into a twist and her shoulders began twitching—although the pools of blood masked her tears, Uncle knew she was crying. "I need to feel better."

He gyrated, searching for someone else, anyone else. Where the hell's Mary-Beth and her famous feminine compassion when you need it? "I-I'm sorry?" he tried, stepping over to her before he noticed the lake of blood between them and stopped. These are my only pair of boots, I ain't gonna wash a gallon a' blood off of them.

"They turned me into a monster," she whispered.

"You ain't a monster," Uncle dissuaded, "grouchy as a bear with a toothache, but no kinda monster."

"I am."

"No—"

"I am!" She tugged her hair, charcoal, gold, and now, scarlet, pulling it so mercilessly Uncle feared they'd both share his bald head soon enough.

"Why?" he asked. "Cuz you kill folk? If that's the case, we shouldn't be frightening our kids with bedtime stories of the Boogeyman and Night Folk, but of constipation and the clap—"
"I left Jack," she said softly. "I left him to die so I could get revenge on Colm. I promised Abigail I'd save her little boy and I left." She looked up to Uncle with large, youthful eyes. She had just bore her soul to him.

He laughed hysterically. "That's what this is about?" He tapped his sole against the corpse as he crossed to Sadie. "That's why you been houndin' this idiot like he shits gold? Why you been drinking yourself to death?" He chuckled. "Sadie… the boy didn't even die."

She glanced away, lips quivering. "But Meredith did. And Jake. I—everything I touch fuckin' dies, Uncle."

"Everything you touch fuckin' dies? Damn, girl, don't be so dramatic. Here, scoot, scoot." He motioned for her to move and he plopped down beside her. "Sadie, you actin' like you's different. Like you're a sinner. Hey, remember when you asked me on the wagon why I didn't try to save Jack? Well, I'll tell you why: I couldn't be fuckin' bothered. I was tired and didn't feel like risking my life to save that little shit. Heh, don't ya see, I'm just as responsible for 'killing him' as you? Sadie, look…" he swung an arm over her shoulder, "you fucked up with Jack, sure. And maybe ya fucked up with the other two ya mentioned, I don't know, but I hear this—life's learning. I'm old as heaven and earth and I'm still learnin'. Next time, you'll save the boy."

"No, I won't," she murmured sadly. "I'm too rotten. It's my nature."

"Oh, nature, smature," he groaned, waving his hand dismissively. "Did you feel any better 'bout yourself killin' Tom or Colm?"

"No."

He snickered and smirked. "Uh-oh, you might want to take that back—too late! You just lost. Ya proved my point exactly. If you felt guilty about not savin' Jack and didn't get anything by choosing not to save him, the negatives overwhelm the positives. So, next time you'll definitely choose to help him cuz the trade-off cost is shit—it's simple math." He let his simper fall, scooting closer to her, dragging his bloody boots on the floor. He leaned his head so her thick hair swallowed his bald crown. It was cozy, like a pillow. "Sadie… you ain't a rotten woman. I didn't mean what I said before, you ain't nothing like Arthur or John." He wrapped his other arm around her shoulder, pulling her into an awkward parallel hug. "You got a good heart; I don't know nothing but I know that." Sadie closed her eyes and rested her head on his.

They remained frozen that way until the end of the hour. Sadie sniffled a few times before rising, sauntering to Dalton's cadaver. Uncle eyed her, wary of what she'd do next. "C'mon, you old bastard," she said. "It's time to head back. And don't you think a' feeding me any a' that lumbago bullshit."

"It ain't bullshit," he said, following her down the stairs. "It's a serious medical condition, ask anyone. Sadie?"

She stopped halfway down the stairway to face him. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry. I really am."

She nodded, wiping the blood and tears from her face, giving him two smiles—one branded to her skin, one slight but genuine. "There anyone you ever cared about?"

"Heh, no, but that don't mean I'm available. You'll have to get in line."

They kept walking, nearing the door. "No. Seriously."

He sighed, scratching his beard uncomfortably. "Seriously? No, not really. Had parents I remembered lovin', but honestly, I don't remember what they looked like. You kids have it good, photographs were a luxury when I was young. Had a few wives, but they all found out about the other one which effectively shut that down. But… I did…" He opened his mouth again and found it dry as a desert. He swallowed, holding it together. He could do this. "I did have an uncle once, 'course he wasn't mine by blood, everyone just called him that." They exited the house and he was amazed to find the moon in the sun's stead. The sky was a dim blue and only a cap of light stuck out from the horizon. He could barely make out all the O'Driscolls they massacred, which was good—it was better left forgotten. Like Uncle Jeb. Uncle Jeb and his whorehouses and whiskey. Uncle Jeb and his bony, spidery hands crawling all over, wrestling with his brass belt buckle. Uncle remembered how it felt, it was etched to his damned soul. The grass was soft and Old Uncle Jeb was so very, very strong. It was better to just let it happen, Uncle Jeb wouldn't be cross that way. The grass was cushy as a bed of duck feathers and Uncle told himself all men are tried. That misery was an unavoidable part of the human experience and at least he was getting it banged out early. Then Uncle Jeb would whisper in his ear and the tears would slip out. "He loved me good and true, but… I was too young to really appreciate it."

"Ain't we all?" Sadie mused, oblivious.

Uncle noticed something moving in the distance—a fleet of them actually—and was relieved for the distraction. "Hey, wanna round up some of them O'Driscoll horses from the stables, we running low back at camp." Sadie stopped suddenly. Dread began to stir his bowels."What?"

"I just realized," she said, gradually bringing her head over her shoulder. "You weren't at Shady Belle when Jack was taken—you were doin' that thing with Kieran. You were in damn Rhodes."

"Huh. Musta slipped my mind."

Her smile mushroomed into a broad grin, retaining every ounce of authenticity. "Thanks, Uncle. You pretty good with words when you ain't taking outta your dick and ass."

"Speaking of which," he groaned, realizing it wasn't dread shaking his bowels like a cup of dice, "I gotta shit. Be right back."

The outhouse was unoccupied, but after his last sojourn there, he opted for the woods instead, hopping the Hanging Dog's fence and retreating into the solace of nature. After he finished polluting the forest with his string of shit (he'd never been a man who believed in cleaning up after himself) he found Sadie leading the O'Driscoll horses, six in all, to Branwen and The Count who had returned to Hanging Dog. Or rather, I should say, lead, by the figure atop the black Mustang between them. It was Dutch, astride The Duke.

"Dutch," Uncle greeted when approached the exit of the ranch, "how are you?"

"Great, thanks. Sorry it took me so long to get here, Indian business dragged out." He smiled venomously. "Though, I guess you would say I'm here quite early, right? That's what Sadie said. That I was supposed be gone a few nights."

"Huh." Uncle fidgeted anxiously. "Darnedest thing."

"Yeah…" Dutch's smile didn't waver, "weird." Luckily, Sadie reached them at that moment to shift the man's focus. "Oh, let me help you with those horses, Ms. Adler."

"Missus."

"What?" Dutch asked.

"Missus," Uncle repeated. "Mrs. Adler."

"I know. That's what I said." After they each mounted up and took hold of two of the O'Driscoll horses to pony back to camp, they set off.

7:02 PM, August 25th, 1899

When they returned to Beaver's Hollow, it was the dark of the night. Shadows so thick Uncle couldn't see three feet ahead of Dutch's lantern. The wind was cold and even the trees shivered in it, shedding pine needles. They berated the back of Uncle's neck so fiercely blood was drawn. They parked the horses by the others, hitching them to a deeply rooted post and surrounding trees. Camp was strangely dead, Uncle saw. No Javier strumming his guitar by the fire, keeping everyone from sleep, no Mary-Beth reading by matchlight. Only Grimshaw, giving the place a fifth round of investigation for untidiness. Uncle felt peculiarly isolated—like he was trapped on an island.

"I'm proud of you, Sadie," Dutch said, dropping from the Mustang, "you did good today."

"I ain't so sure about that," Uncle muttered.
"What was that?"

"Nothin'."

Dutch chortled. "Heh, didn't believe Tilly when she said you stopped eating and sleeping to help out around here. That lumbago terminal?"

"He was a big help," Sadie insisted, ferrying the horses to their new stables.

"Heh, of course," Uncle said nervously, "I'm the One-Shot Kid for God's sake."

"Are you?" Dutch looped an arm over Uncle's shoulder and patted him on the chest with it. His smile was as colossal and white as the crescent moon above. "You always had a funny way a' looking at the world."

Uncle giggled. "Not as funny as yours."

Sadie, sleep-deprived and weary, began retreating to her tent. "See y'all tomorrow."

"Yeah," Dutch said. "I'd like that. Oh, Sadie, don't go nowhere cuz I might head into town tomorrow. We may have a buyer for those state bonds and we don't have the facilities to house all them O'Driscoll horses, so it wouldn't hurt to have a spare pair of hands to take 'em down with me. Should be able to huck 'em for a couple of bucks."

"Sounds good," she yawned, too drained, physically and mentally to see the signs. And when she was gone, Uncle felt Dutch's friendly hold on him constrict.

"A word?" he asked, herding Uncle away from the orange lanternlight of camp, into the shadow green forest. Uncle scanned Dutch's face, trying to figure him out. The jovial grin appeared real, and Uncle could sniff a bullshitter from a mile away, but his eyes were cold as death. They walked down the hill, past the city of towering trees until they reached a glade by the murky river below camp. "You're doubtin' me, old man." Uncle realized then that if he screamed, he wasn't sure if anyone would hear him. He opened his mouth, but Dutch interjected. "And that's fine. I'm okay with you doubting me, Uncle, as long as you keep it to yourself." The moon in his mouth glowed ever brighter. "You can't go around indoctrinating everyone else."

Maybe Sadie's right about nature, Uncle thought, because he couldn't help himself from laughing. "Indoctrinate? You don't want to fight that battle, cuz you'll lose."

"Please, Uncle," Dutch asked politely, but his voice was strained with rage. "I took you in when everyone else begged me to kick you to the curb, remember? You owe me this—"

"I don't owe you a damn thing," Uncle said, growing louder. "That's the problem with you, Dutch. Everything is a favor, nothing is done outta your big heart."

Crickets chirped quietly, but it was still the noisiest word going around. Dutch was silent as the grave, until, at last, he said, a grin plastered to his face: "Are you on my side?" He let that hang over them before continuing. "There's so much chaos in the world now, Uncle. Even you can't deny that. We don't need more; the camp can't be divided now. It needs one vision, just for now—"

"And of course that vision is yours?" Uncle spoke boisterously, contrasted to Dutch who was soft-spoken, faint as could be.

"You on my side?" he repeated. "Cuz… I been thinking… how are the Pinks always one step ahead of us?" His smile bent and keeled into a frown. "Lakay, Van Horn, Blackwater. Why is that, you think? You think… no… you think it might be… a rat?" Dutch tilted his head slightly, not blinking, never blinking. "I wonder who? Maybe… just maybe… the man who can be bought for a couple bottles of liquor? Was that their price, Uncle, do you think?"

Uncle groped his holster and realized his gun was in Dutch's hand. He raised it aloft so it shimmered in the moonlight. Dutch's pallid teeth were no longer illuminating, but his eyes were. They shone with the mark of a man who'd lost his mind.

Uncle began to laugh. "Heh, heh, I was—I was just joking!" Dutch began to giggle too, hysterically. "Of course I trust you! I'll always trust you, you know that. Hey…" he leaned forward to whisper although no one was around to hear, "... sorry I lied to Sadie, but how could I not? Sweet piece of ass like that, it was compulsory!"

"You always had a weakness for women," Dutch said merrily, "though, to be frank, I suppose most of us do. Why else would I still be with Molly?" Their titters were high-pitched, and the crickets soon found themselves too spooked to sing.

"Heh, yeah, and-and the Pinks couldn't be payin' me off with booze, cuz I'd be spittin' every drop in their faces!" Uncle laughed like there was nothing funnier; Dutch fell silent.

"Good," he remarked sternly in the dark, "good. But remember… a wild, insubordinate dog is just as harmful a pest as a greasy rat. And what do we do with pests, Uncle?" Dutch took a step closer…

"We-we exterminate them," he stammered, sinking down to his knees in the river. Tide was rising.

Dutch smiled, but Uncle could no longer tell if it was real or fake. "Good boy."

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