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 Thirty-Six: Uncle

11:42 AM, August 13th, 1899

Life was beautiful. His back was against the soggy soft bark of the tree and it was better than all the silken feathered pillows in the world. The sun was a warm blanket but the hat draping over his face kept it dark as night. If death had wanted Uncle, he'd have done well to take him then and there; the old man had never been quite so cozy in all his life—if his leg was chopped off he would've had trouble forcing himself awake.

So it was the greatest American tragedy since Lincoln's assassination when she grabbed him by the hem of his tattered brown coat and forced him onto his feet.

"C'mon, old man," she growled. "We're blowin' Dutch's bridge." He could taste the whiskey on her breath and it was so foul it watered his eyes and impaled in him a twinge of sympathy toward the slobbering, mangy boozers of the world. Present company was most definitely included. She looked worse than when they'd found her, with black crescents coalescing around her hazel eyes, and a putrid, unnaturally potent masculine odor that clung to her like a leech. The tips of her blonde locks were bleached with gray strands and that scar that worked halfway across her face wasn't doing her any favors. Shit, Uncle thought, studying her Glasgow smile, that looks even worse than John's. Least he was ugly beforehand.

"I was actually rather content to my dreamin'."

"I know."

"You smirkin'? Can't tell with the beauty mark."

Sadie pinched his ear and dragged him the rest of the way to the wagon he and Charles had delivered to camp last week. She didn't lead him in a straight line if you catch my drift.

Uncle made sure to mock her for it. "Been spendin' a lot a' quality time with Karen, I see."

"Shut up," she slurred. "I'm f-fine."

It took her three tries before she hooked her boot on the wagon's toeboard and swung atop the driver's seat. Uncle took his time, gathering Old Belle (Karen sure as shooting wasn't going to use it after all, hell, she couldn't even walk to her horse) and attaching her to the wagon's reins. After all, a wagon does need a horse in order to drive—it's a sad but immutable fact of our reality.

By the time Uncle was on his own third try hoisting his legs aside Sadie's (lumbago was his cross to bear, and it was inarguably heavier than a few dozen bottles of beer) another figure approached them. She smiled sweetly, but her eyes were pregnant with anxiousness. Hmm, her left breast is still flatter than the other, Uncle noted, I hoped it would reinflate by this point.

"M-Mrs. Adler," Grimshaw started, "maybe you should climb down and let someone else take this one. You've got a lot on your plate." No, she didn't, besides hunting down the remaining O'Driscolls for Fat Tom, but with Dutch's stunt, they were mostly keeping quiet. But that wasn't the point and even dull Uncle picked it up. A drunken woman and a cart full of explosives were not an agreeable mix. "Here, sweetie, I think Javier is about someplace, I'll just call hi—"

"Shut up," Sadie groaned again, rubbing her eyes from the sun. "I'm—I'm fine."

"I know, but…" Grimshaw froze for a moment before finishing. "I don't want you gettin' hurt."

"You… don't want me… gettin' hurt?" Sadie said it lifelessly, as though Grimshaw was speaking Portuguese.

"'Course," the old bag smiled. "You're one of my girls now, ain't ya?"

The glare Sadie paid her was sharp as a razor. "What the hell happened to you? Balls ain't supposed to drop that far."

"Sadie—"

"Haven't ya noticed that things have gone to hell!" Sadie screamed suddenly. "Look where we're at!" She pointed around the place; over a week in and Jack was still finding decaying earlobes in the lilac bushes. "Get your damn balls back now, Grimshaw, place is fallin' apart without 'em!"

She whipped Old Belle into a trot and they left Grimshaw behind as she shrunk and shriveled into herself.

Methodically, Uncle's features curved into a smirk as his eyes rolled from the tall trees to his companion.

"What?" Sadie hissed.

"Nothin'. Was gonna criticize your social skills, but it's a gorgeous day, I'd rather compliment your self-awareness. Livin' in the mountains, far away from all signs of intelligent life, probably added a decade to your life. Though I am curious as to how ya landed yourself a husband—"

"Watch it…"

"Oh! I got it, you walked down the aisle holdin' a shotgun, that explains—" Their wagon jumped in the air as they worked down the charcoal-black trail. Uncle had to gyrate a hundred and eighty degrees and desperately grope the explosive red crates to keep them from sliding off. "Jesus! Can you even drive?!"

"I'm fine," She answered again, oblivious to the definition of insanity.

Uncle pointed to a large tree molded in the shape of a cactus (it caught his eye because of two burls whose curves met on the trunk and looked vaguely like a woman's ass to the licentious goat). "Do you see one tree there or three?"

"Shut up."

He groaned. "Oh God, if the dictionary was the Bible, you'd be burned for heresy, y'know that? What's the matter? Too busy slurpin' in to spit anything out?"

"Don't talk to me about being busy," she countered and Uncle was already hot under the collar. "You don't do nothing."

"I got other uses," he defended weakly. Uncle was a good bullshitter, but even he could feel the noose around his neck on this one.

"Sleepin', you mean?"

"I-I… console… folks. A-and I help make sure things run smoothly. I keep the mood light, I recounted Strauss' red box when he had it—God rest its soul—and I—"

"—And you check up plenty on the stew."

"Absolutely I do! Do you understand how weak the modern American's immune system is? A bug bite can kill ya! A squirrel shits in the stew when Tilly's back is turned and the whole camp drops dead! But I risk my life every day, performin' harakiri's for y'all, and this is the thanks I get in return?" He scoffed loudly. "No more justice in this country for the elderly, I tell you that much."

Sadie laughed as they continued down the green, winding path, and began to speak before that turned into a pained hiccup.

Uncle chortled back in retaliation, repeating what he had said before, knowing how much it would get under her skin. "You been spendin' way too much time with Karen, I see." She gave him that razor-sharp leer she'd paid Grimshaw, possibly sharper. Not that it mattered. Uncle's beard was thick and gray and he hadn't shaved in years—the hair just sorta fell out when it branched too far out. Because of this, he didn't think there was anything that could cut him. The time his ex-wife tried stabbing him with a butcher's knife only confirmed this. "Why we blowin' this bridge up, anyway?"

She snickered. "Ya don't remember? Ah, yeah… you were asleep." She let this sink in as though it would cut deep (but we know of course that it couldn't). "Dutch's is spendin' the next night with them natives, but he told me before he left to blow Bacchus Bridge today."

"Dutch told you to blow the bridge? When you can hardly drive straight?"

"Shut up," they said in unison, although Uncle spoke in a horrifying high-pitched impression of her.

"I can handle it," she continued forcefully. "It's what I do. It's all I'm good for. I ain't a wife or a mother, just a cold-hearted outlaw." She began blinking at a rapid pace and turned her head away. Her Glasgow smile stood in stark contrast to her shivering lip. Suddenly, Uncle reminisced on his younger days. On working at Palisades Country Store in New York.

Old Uncle Jeb (he wasn't his real uncle, but everyone always called him that) had spun quite a few yarns getting him that job—the owner, Mr. McGrady, hated anyone he didn't know and it took some convincing. Like always, Uncle had been partial to a good drink, but the trouble was he spent all his money on gambling and whoring and rent, the poor man. Now, listen up, here's where it gets good: Mr. McGrady kept a stock of short, plump golden gin bottles—can you see where this is going?—and happened to have a brother who lived with him. This brother, Dr. McGrady (he wasn't a real doctor, but everyone always called him that), was in the Ambulance Corps in the Civil War. He was also a raging boozehead, a fact that did not appease Mr. McGrady, who never let his brother leave the house and never gave him two nickels to rub together and always triple-checked their alcoholic stock to make sure nothing was vanishing off the shelves. But clever Dr. McGrady still clung to the army-issued hypodermic syringe he'd used to administer morphine. So what he would do was stab the gin bottle through the cork and suck up a small amount of it, too small to be noticed. He'd done it for years, at least that's what he told Uncle when the boy (yes, he'd actually been a boy once) had caught him in the middle of the night when he forgot his hat. They shared many a toast from that night onward, keeping quiet so as not to wake Mr. McGrady and his large-eared orange cat, Lion. Then came that awful morning when Dr. McGrady had been too thirsty the night before and left an empty bottle for the red-faced, livid twins of Lion and Mr. Mcgrady to find. Uncle had fessed up and been promptly beaten and thrown down the front porch (he'd actually been pretty lucky; he found out later that Mr. McGrady's gambling friends had riled him up one night and he rounded up a posse to hunt Uncle down, but by then he'd been long gone). Good Uncle Jeb had been a great sport about the whole thing—didn't mind one fig quitting his job at the lumber yard and skipping town with the boy. God, Uncle loved that man. And hated him beyond belief.

Uncle looked back at Sadie. Right now, for reasons he didn't get, that image kept solidifying inside his—mostly vacant—mind. An empty yellow husk of gin sucked dry one sip at a time. He reached a hand to her shoulder.

"Sadie…"

When the wagon jumped for the second time this trip, after Sadie swerved away from the collapsing tree, the old man was thrown off of it.

"Sonofabitch…" he mumbled with a mouthful of black dirt. He lay flat on his face like a snow angel that was raped, murdered, and turned over. He was seeing three and chuckled at the irony of it.

Up on the hills, men began to pour out of the dark, coming into view in blurry, foggy images. For a moment Uncle thought one of them was shirtless until he saw they were all, in fact, shirtless. Like human rats: big yellow teeth, furry brown pants, and wide animalistic eyes.

"No one steps on Murfree land and lives!" one of them hollered and they all began to rain fire. Seven guns glimmered a murderous orange.

Sadie shoved him forward, behind that tree the Murfrees had chopped down—it was now their shield. "Fire back, old man!" she yelled over the bang bang of gunfire. She raised herself and shot back at the Murfrees—most were hiding behind trees but she was patient and a good shot, the two best qualities of any gunslinger. Uncle breathed slowly to taper his shaking hands as he loaded his revolver and let it loose. He missed most shots on his first round, firing all six as quickly as possible so he had an excuse to duck back away and reload gradually while Sadie took them on. His lips were dry, he was so very thirsty. Fuck you, he told himself as the last bullet slid in and he did it properly this time. Took his time, got his man in his sights and fired. The Murfree dropped dead. He shot twice more and another Murfree rolled down the mossy hill, leaving a trail of scarlet. Uncle turned to smirk braggingly to Sadie, but she was gone, running up the hill and he scurried to give her cover fire as she brazenly, stupidly hied on.

She shot two of the four left with ease; the third was trouble. He cowered against a tree that branched into a strange U-shape, and she unloaded most of her ammunition trying to put one in his barely exposed heel, and burned the rest shooting his screaming face while he whined on the ground. The last one was executed in a brutal fashion. Out of bullets and with no time to reload with the last rat popping out and shooting at her, she tossed her revolver at his head, stunning him until she pounced. On top of him, she drew her knife and stabbed him in the eye. Then the other. Then his throat.

By the time Uncle raced over, the body barely resembled a human anymore; those yellow teeth were stained red and the other features gushed with so many indentations his face looked more like a crossed letter.

"Jesus…" he muttered.

She shrugged. "Killing's what I'm best at. Everyone knows that."

As she whistled for Old Belle to come back with their ride, Uncle couldn't help but note one distinct scar on the Murfree's cheek. It was a Glasgow smile.

12:21 PM, August 13th, 1899

The bridge was massive, stretching from one cliffside to another, wide enough for two horses to ride abreast across. Bacchus Station sat lonely nearby, but luckily it was empty. Heh, Uncle thought, imagining a fellow waiting at the station for the train, only to watch the bridge explode in front of him. He'd go home to his wife and tell her his trip was canceled. You wouldn't believe the day I've had. And she'd whip him up something good for supper, not crappy stew but steak—no, pot roast and mashed potatoes. The meat would be tender and pink and melt in his mouth and the potatoes would be fluffy and yellow as butter and he'd have some dark beer to wash it all down and then he'd grab seconds and eat until his hairy pale belly swelled like he was pregnant—

"Uncle!" Sadie interrupted. "You ready?"

"With what?" Annoyed—at least he thought she was, with that permanent half-smile it was sometimes hard to tell—she raised a moist red finger to the stacks and stacks of dynamite on the back of the wagon. "Oh, heh, I would most certainly, if that was possible. Y'see, those crates look pretty hefty, and currently in the battle of my life—lumbago—so I ought to stay back and offer… moral support instead of the kind involving squatting and slouching."

He gave her a friendly smile, already knowing he was on the losing side of history. "Help me move them," she said calmly, "or I'll shoot you in the head." The gun was silver and shined in the sunlight—as yellow as her outfit, but far brighter.

He didn't know what else to do but giggle. "You wouldn't do that… to poor ol' Uncle?" She cocked the gun. "Fuck me!" he screamed, pulling his arms up as though the bullet would be a left hook. "Jesus Christ, okay, you nutjob!" She holstered her weapon.

There were over half a dozen large rectangular crates, and several smaller square ones as well. Sadie was trying to torture him because the one she chose must have been the heaviest, by at least three times the weight. It must have been. His hands hung at his knees and his spine had reached its maximum elasticity—any more and… snap!

"Couldn't… we just… park the… whole damn thing… on the bridge?" he wheezed out, looking over her shoulder to steer them near the ladder leading to the bridge's lower levels, under the deck where they'd rig the charges to the piers, columns, and support beams. "And… just… shoot it."

"Needs… to be… more precise," she grunted as they arrived. Sadie shimmied down the ladder and Uncle girdled a rope around the box. He lowered it down for her, snaking his hands through the fat beige yarn. Just six or so more to go… he thought crestfallenly. His hands shook.

"C'mon," she called, the cargo at least two feet above her outstretched arms. "Lower!"

And lower it he did. Because his hands gave out and the rope slipped from his hands, leaving a burning kiss behind. It was worse for Sadie; the crate landed on her foremost right toes. "FUCK!" she howled in pain, her face shifting its hue to match the cherry-red chest and her two murdered toes. While they would heal, Sadie would never recall a pain worse than the one Uncle inflicted on her today; her Glasgow smile even hurt less—though it left its mark in other ways. "I'll kill you! You're dead!" They had barely moved it together, but now a superhuman strength took her and she flipped the crate over as easily as a sheet of paper. She climbed back up the ladder, breathing like a bear.

Uncle remembered what she did to that Murfree and suddenly was terrified of her razor-edged eyes. I ain't immune to sharp things. That's nonsense. My ex-wife just missed me with her butcher's knife cuz she was farsighted. Her hot, angry breath was on his nose and Uncle thought she was going to kill him. To toss him off the bridge, say he got caught in the explosion. Instead, she just exhaled viciously and marched back to the wagon. He followed in her shadow, not quite sure if he should say anything.

Sadie hopped onto the wagon and jerked the vessel forward so briskly that a small box, about the size of Jack's Penny Dreadfuls stacked one on the other, fell off the back. After driving to the center of the bridge, she unhooked Old Belle and rode her back to Bacchus Station where Uncle waited.

She drew her gun and fired.

"Let there be light," Uncle said. And there most certainly was. The center of the bridge went up in a yellow puff, tearing the rest down with it. The duo glared at the now massive gap between both landmasses opposite the Dakota River for at least a minute before Uncle finally worked up the nerve to say "That was a brilliant plan on your part. How do you do it?"

"Shut up," was her answer.

Uncle made sure to pick up that small red box that had fallen off before they departed on Old Belle.

The ride back on Old Belle was cramped and awkward. Normally, Uncle would have relished this opportunity; Sadie was driving and he needed to hold onto her somehow. Just to keep from falling off, you understand. It was a free pass, and there was nothing better. But something about Sadie filled him with anti-lust and he kept his hands firmly planted—respectfully (aren't humans just remarkable?)—on the sides of her stomach that were both fit and limpsy at once. And no matter how hard he focused on other things, that film of the gin bottle slowly draining kept playing again and again in his head.

He cleared his throat. "I know I'm gonna regret asking, but… what's—what's eatin' you, Sadie?"

Not one inch of her frame so much as twitched. She kept her gaze fully ahead, leading them back into the dark, foliated forest back to camp. "Nothin'. I'm an outlaw. I drink too much and care too little. Nothing's eatin' me, 'cept for you." She said it so robotically you would have thought she was Strauss' daughter (doubtful but I'll make a note to check).

Uncle groaned at her reticence. "That's the worst, y'know. You're just like Arthur and John—talking in one-word sentences. I'll get better conversation outta Jack."

That last word certainly got her twitching. He felt her fidget as though recoiling from a right cross from a three-hundred-pound gorilla. "Why…" Her voice gave out and she started again. "Why didn't you help Tilly break Jack out?" she asked abruptly. "You're clearly not a bad shot, I've seen it."

"Eh," he answered, a bit confused, "probably not good enough."

"You could've at least tried!" she said forcefully. "His life was on the line! Why didn't you at least try?!"
"Why didn't you?" he countered. That shut her up.

Passing that fell tree where they were ambushed, along with all the corpses that probably needed to be gathered and burned later, they finally arrived back at camp. The first to greet them, clad still in her purple and black dress, was Grimshaw. "How did it go?"

"Without a hitch," Uncle said, groaning as he plopped off the horse. I'll let Sadie explain the Murfrees, he thought. Grimshaw sighed, probably worried Sadie drove the cart off a cliff. He tossed the small dynamite crate at the older woman, which provoked a shriek as she read the words explosive.

"Jesus! Is—!"

"It's empty," he assured her. "Relax. Just thought Strauss would want a new red box. Seemed pretty heartbroken 'bout the other one."

"Oh," Grimshaw smiled at him. "That was awfully kind of you." He frowned. It was still weird seeing her like this. "I'll tell him."

"Make sure to mention Ms. Adler, too," he said, winking at the half-smiling woman (it was an artificial smile, of course).

"Missus," she mumbled. "It's Mrs. Adler."

"Speaking of which—thanks for reminding me—there's someone else who 'missus' me." He pointed to his special tree, tipped his hat to the ladies, and lay back down, cradling his head against the soft bark, feeling comforting sleep leek into his (below-average) brain. Uncle smiled and went back to ignorantly enjoying this lovely day.

Hope you enjoyed this partnership, it was a lot of fun to write.

I like using Uncle as a vehicle to force characters to reflect on their flaws since he doesn't sugar-coat anything, he speaks his mind, mostly brutishly.

Sadie's guilt is making her depressed. Will she recover? We'll see.

A good day: bridge is blown, Uncle is napping, Strauss got his red funds box back, everything's going great... except for the Murfrees, bounty hunters, Pinks, and instability and treachery in the gang.