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: Sadie

12:34 PM, July 30th, 1899

Even though she was a woman, Sadie prided herself on her massive elephant balls. Living in the freezing cold, alone and disconnected from the rest of the world, with only the screaming winds and her husband to keep her company? That had been a vacation. In a rotting house getting shot to hell every day? Exciting, she said. A swamp adjacent to a forest of rumored demons and savages who like nailing people to trees? As long as I got a loaded gun.

With that in mind, three months ago you couldn't have dragged her into Murfree Country…

She remembered the horrible stories Jake told her about his brother. He'd been a courier (a deliveryman was probably more apt, but I'll grant the dead fancy-sounding positions), ferrying all manner of crops and goods down south, mainly to Saint Denis—before seapower exploded worldwide and shipping stuff in from another state was cheaper than a few leagues north. Another courier had died of a dominating constipation—actually, let's honor the dead again: he died saving a child from a burning hotel—and Jake's brother, Dick, was charged by the employer to complete his delivery, for a fee three times what he usually made. Here's the rub: time was the word of the day for the employer and poor Dick needed to get there faster than his precious old filly Nellie could do—he loved that horse, had since childhood, but she was slow as a snail. So he did what any reasonable person would have advised him not to do. Took a shortcut. Through… you guessed it.

The details of his apprehension are irrelevant, so let's just skip to the horrible tortures they inflicted on him (I'll dress it up as best I can). Firstly, they… relieved him of his burdensome clothing and… insistently requested that he… I give up—they forced him to rape Nellie, his old Morgan. As you can imagine, being buffaloed into fucking your horse was not something he surrendered to lying down—they prodded him with a branding iron, tattooing his right buttcheek with an M. During the coitus, one of the shirtless inbred jackals had the brilliant idea of recycling the still-hot brand on the horse, which caused poor Dick to receive a sharp kick to the ribs from ol' Nellie. With most of his ribcage shattered, breathing, let alone moving became practically impossible, but tragically, he was still awake. One of them pinched his erect pecker, keeping it stiff and alive while another lined up his machete with the shivering pink mast… (I'm going to stop there, I believe you get the picture, and despite popular opinion, I am not a sadist.) The reason this story is known to anyone is because his body was delivered to Saint Denis with a letter detailing the acts sewn into his chest to act as a deterrent for anyone else trying to encroach on their lands—to give them credit, it sure as hell worked.

And now Sadie was riding right for them, Bill Williamson of all people at her side. What a life, she marveled.

"Ya think there'll be a lotta guys to kill?" Bill asked her, cantering on Brown Jack, trying to match The Count's speed.

"Don't know." (To clarify, that was Sadie, not Charles)

"I wonder if it'll be a lot."

"Not sure." She found his attempt at small talk distressing. When had Bill Willamson even gotten down on his knees and prayed for more chit-chat in life? Hell, when had he never not prayed for the opposite?

Then he opened his mount again, and everything became clear. "Hey, Sadie… would you… could you… uh, would you mind talkin' to Karen for me?"

Sadie braced herself, terrified she'd only feel a squirt or a drop of pity, that she wouldn't care, that she'd tell the man to fuck himself. But, to her great relief, she felt the swelling river rising up from her stomach—that nauseating sensation had never felt better. Because I am a good person, she thought, I ain't cold and selfish. She shook her head, warding off the thoughts and splashing her golden locks to and fro. No, I ain't. I'm not.

"Bill, I can certainly try… but, I don't know, I don't know her all that well—if Mary-Beth and Tilly couldn't pull her outta that hole she'd dug for herself, why me? You ought to talk to her."

Bill fiddled his thumbs on the dark-brown reins and didn't look at her."I don't—I don't think she likes me…"

"Why you talkin' 'bout? You been out collecting debts together, spendin' lots a' time together. You don't do that with someone ya don't like, Bill. You know that."

"You—you think so?" The question was done in the same style as a child asking his father what happens when one dies.

"I know so. Just be patient. She's still reeling from the loss of Sean, and she's bound to say things she don't mean…" Just like Abigail and Tilly. They didn't mean what they said, things'll be back to normal soon enough with Jack back. They'll forgive me…

"I will," Bill said confidently, puffing out his chest. "You—you really think I'm her friend?"

"Yeah, Bill, I do."

He smiled at this before clearing his throat. "Hey… any signs of Hosea?"

She squirmed with the discomfort of the thought. She'd hit Valentine, Rhodes, and Van Horn in the past six days. Not a trace of the old man. When she'd taken Strauss down to Emerald Ranch to pick up a few more debts, she'd even confirmed the pub there was empty—they'd been returning when they ran into Bill at the split in the roads in Bluewater Marsh by pure chance, bastard thought they were still in Valentine; they rode Strauss back to camp first before making their way up to their imminent dooms, seemed the Christian thing to spare a meek old man a five-mile hike.

But there'd been no Hosea. Dutch, John, Grimshaw, and a few others seemed insistent that he hadn't been murdered, but Sadie doubted that meant he was still alive. It was a hard world out there, and a million bad things could happen to you on a daily basis. Bastard could've cut himself on a rusty nail and gotten an infection, or been mauled by an alligator, or rode his horse off the edge of a cliff (drunk men can do many incredible things, but flying is not one of them). This is a hard land, and the worst of it is, it don't even matter if you're just as hard. At one point or another, it takes us all… like Jake…

Still, despite her morose inclination, she relayed a sanguine disposition.

"Not yet. Soon, though, I hope."

The rest of the ride was as disagreeable as you can imagine; the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but those intentions don't make the ride any smoother, and today it sure as hell wasn't.

The terrain was rocky and bumpy and never settled. The Count and Brown Jack whinnied from the tiny grey valueless diamonds being lodged into the nearly imperceptible cracks in their shoes by Mother Earth. No, no, this wasn't Mother Earth, she seemed too afeared to dwell here. Proof of this piled up when the full healthy sun disappeared behind pillars and pillars of tall dark trees until it seemed to be night. The environs were a thicket; trees and branches and twigs were bound so tightly together that Sadie had to hold onto her hat to keep it from falling off when she collided through ten feet of thorny nature. Sadie tried to hold onto that sanguineness she'd given to Bill moments earlier. If it's this hard gettin' in, it'll be hard for the Pinks too. An anxiety took hold then. How did they find us so quickly last time? Is that all we'll get again? Six days before all hell breaks loose again.

Still, she galloped on, loathing the warm wind that whispered screams, trying to scare her, coax her into frightful fancies. This was just the adrenaline, of course. The Murfrees have not made a pact with the Devil that would allow the wind to mutter such things. Not yet anyway, the closest ones were too busy flaying a pregnant woman.

Then, crossing the rough trail and vanquishing that desire to turn as yellow as her clothing and run away, Sadie and Bill arrived at Beaver's Hollow.

It was from a distance first that they set their eyes on it: it was thankfully unremarkable, the land belonged to monsters, but it was just as green as any other place Sadie had seen. The trees hid predators and madmen, but the sound they made in the wind was just as pretty as any Sadie had heard—like a musical rattlesnake. The land was flat but rested on something akin to one of God's staircases; above it sat a small plateau that stood flat a dozen feet higher from where stood flat on Beaver's Hollow, and below it was something similar, a hill that flattened out twenty feet shorter so that the Hollow was the middle child of the three elevations.

At the end, where the rising plateau met with Beaver's Hollow sat the location's namesake: a large opaque cave.

"That's where they hidin'," Sadie said to Bill, passing her binoculars because he'd forgotten his.

"Jesus," he groaned at the cave's primary decoration: body parts skewered on a pike, arranged in a crab-like shape. The human crustacean was pink as a snow crab, even sporting black eyes on the head and shining red fingers. "How do you know? Maybe they cleared out? Left that thing as a warning not to intrude while they're out?"

She snickered, double-checking that her dual Schofield pistols were fully loaded. "If I could describe these guys in one word, the priests would be tying soap to my tongue. If I could describe them in one word that wouldn't make a clergyman blush, I'd say 'territorial.' Plus, take a gander outside the cave." He looked where she'd instructed, seeing tattered but still heavily used tents and half-full crates of beer and… women's clothes? Scattered all over the ground, nearly blocking out all the bright green grass. Outside the cave was a stripped stagecoach. They robbed someone, some wagon passing by. Oh, God, the luggage… a woman passing by. Sadie felt herself tingeing green with nausea imagining what they'd done to her, then felt herself tingeing red with anger imagining what they'd done to her. "They ain't gonna give this land up without a fight."

"Then a fight we'll give 'em," Bill said, cocking his double-barrel shotgun.

1:05 PM, July 30th, 1899

They heard music as they neared the cave. It was faint but was one of those noises that was immune to distance, it remained just as grating regardless of how far away its source rested. Sadie stepped over a white dress, blackened by soot and other manual labor—it was torn and ripped to shreds. They'd ripped it to shreds. Sadie gritted her teeth, tightening her grip on her pistols as they got closer, stepping over more dresses, all worn and darkened with soot and stains. This lady ain't even rich. And they still took her and robbed her. And murdered whoever was with her in the most vile of ways. The most—wait, was the driver, the crab, her husband? Oh, Jake…

The cycle of green and red flowed through Sadie, more potent than before. If they'd had dynamite, she would've just used it to scare the rats out of the tunnel, or if Bill was even semi-fluent in the ways of stealth they could've picked them off silently, but instead they were opting for the most minimalistic plan—walking in and shooting every damn shirtless yokel dead.

Presently, they stood at the threshold of the cave, staring into the inky abyss. Bill gave her a nod and they moved in.

Bones dressed the muddy dank ground, some animal, some human. The passageway was narrow, a hilarious juxtaposition to when they emerged at the cave's heart; it was wide and spacious, more of a cavern really, stretching and leaking into other crevices and caves that flowed out into the fresh air.

Sadie and Bill stayed hidden, crouching and running behind a boulder. They were closer and could make out the music now—at least a dozen voices were singing She'll be Coming Round The Mountain When She Comes. The cavern slopped downward slightly, then into two different directions, both marked with putrid, unnaturally yellow lanternlight that led in a dotted line down both paths. And of course, both lanes were blocked by two shirtless, sunburnt members of the Murfree Brood.

"I'll go left, you go right," she whispered.

Another nod was all she needed and she sprung into action, racing down and shooting both guards, one at close range in the back, the other a headshot from further away. The singing stopped instantly as the bang bounced and bounced around the grotto.

Taking the left, she saw three more hogs appear, one with a gun, two with hatchets. After they locked eyes with her, they only made it three steps, the one with the shrunken pig head attached to his belt fell last. Sadie felt no fear, only adrenaline and agitation. Bastards, bastards, bastards!

Her heart pounded relentlessly as she passed two more wagons—stolen obviously—stripped and battered. Then, from behind the second wagon, the horse and buggy, another mongrel jumped out at her, brandishing a long machete that he swung widely in the air. Sadie dodged the first two swings and brought her guns together, shooting, shooting in every direction, and random until he dropped dead, leaking out onto the already sodden cave grounds. Sadie looped in a snake pattern, shooting two more Murfrees until she reached the eye of the cavern, a massive ring that spun around the cave, connecting the two pathways—Sadie could already spot Bill coming out (heh) on the opposite side, gunning down a fat Murfree with one shot, putting the other in one with a banjo.

Four men were left in Sadie's vicinity and that notion offended her. She shot the smart one who ran for the pile of guns near the campfire first, then took her time with the three that rushed her with knives and axes, making sure not to miss.

Bang! One fell.

Bang! Another fell.

"HELP!" The scream was shrill and miserable; the voice was distorted from pain, sobbing loudly as she spoke. "HELP ME!"

Green consumed Sadie and she felt dizzy, her hat spun with her head as she struggled for balance. Her concentration had waned too far and when she fired she missed.

His knife was short, thank God—if it'd been a machete, he would've split her head clean in half, symmetrically through the nose. Instead, he lept at her, thrusting the fubsy blade to her chest, but she dropped her gun and caught his hand as her weapon twirled in the air. But he jumped at her with so much force that he propelled her down onto her back and then he slapped her remaining gun away and aimed his knife to her eye and placed his whole body weight on top of it, driving it closer and closer, despite her grunting struggles.

His legs bordered her chest and their waists met and like the others he was shirtless and Sadie realized this was the closest she'd been with a man since her husband died and she felt aroused and disgusted and for the first time tonight, scared as it inched nearer and nearer…

"Ya shouldn't have come here, little lady…" his breath tasted of raw meat and beer and it was so foul it came out like a mustard cloud from his mouth, "this is Murfree property! Now you're gonna die!"

The knife was so close to her eye it became blurry and Sadie tried to push it up, but gravity fought against her. Her arms shook and her hair was in her jaw but she couldn't taste it, could only taste raw meat and beer. But then, like Christmas, that red rage inside her bulldozed her green disgust and salvia poured out of her mouth as she strained, guiding the dagger downward away from her eye.

To her cheek.

And the Murfree pushed with all his might, striking true, stabbing the side of her face before dragging it to the side of her mouth. Blood poured out, washing away the foamy solution in her mouth and replacing it with a sharp metallic flavor that brought tears to her eyes. She thought of Jack and Jake and watched her strength fade as the blade retreated to her moist orbs and in one motion—

Bang! The Murfree rolled off of her. Bill stood there, a smoking revolver in his hand that he'd looted from another savage.

"You okay, Sadie?" he asked, offering his hand, which she took.

"Yheh…" she croaked through a river of blood before spitting, covered her boots in it—luckily, they were black or that would've been a travesty.

"God, I seen them Indians, and even they ain't this bad."

"Yeah…" Sadie scrambled over, searching her lover's corpse until she found his knife. In the roaring orange campfire light, she saw it in the reflection. She was frowning, and yet an enormous Glasgow smile greeted her, stretching to the top of her right cheekbone. Green returned and won this round—she hurled, spewing out her mostly empty stomach. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

She jumped up and started kicking the man who had done this to her, drawing a nice windup, and driving the tip of her foot into his smug, smiling, uneducated, white trash face. She wished she'd hurled on him, that Bill hadn't killed him, that she could do it herself, make it long and slow, last weeks and—

"Help me…" a whisper rang out weakly, and Sadie looked to see what the source was.

A woman, the woman most likely, the one whose stagecoach was outside, whose husband or little boy was defiled into a lobster. She was in an iron cage like a circus animal, no bed, no food, no water. Her dress was white, yet like all the other clothes, darkened by soot and hard work. And it was drenched in fresh scarlet blood.

"Help meeeeee…" she whispered once more before she collapsed, her face smacking the floor bars. The sound it made was akin to a windchime. The girl was barefoot, naked except for that nightdress she wore, and bereft of more than a few curves, if you catch on…

"Damn," Bill groaned. "Poor girl. If we'd have gotten here a few hours ago, she might'a still had a shot."

Although Sadie didn't hear him, she was too focused on the women. She was a woman, Sadie believed, but not by much. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. Sadie touched the bars, feeling she and the woman were closer in more ways than the physical space that separated them. She wondered if that man outside really was her husband or not. If this girl had a mother who was worried about her, who was asleep right now. Who wouldn't wake up until her daughter was back.

You broke your promise.

And then she shot the lock off the cage and rushed to the little woman, picking her up like a baby.

"What are you doin'?" Bill asked.

"Hold down the fort till I'm back," was the only answer he got as Sadie dashed back along the cave's path, bursting from the darkness into the sunlight like a newborn coming into this world. That was how she felt. Reborn, revitalized.

I'm gonna make it all right, she swore.

"You ain't gonna die," she vowed to the little woman as she pulled her onto The Count. "Imma get you home." She was too weak to hold onto Sadie's back as they rode and too raw to leave stowed to the back like a bounty, so Sadie scooted back to the edge of her Sadie (which was not comfortable, mind you) and positioned the little woman in her spot, holding her from falling off with one hand while steering the horse into a sprint with the other.

"Where you from?" Sadie asked. The little woman only moaned softly in response. "I know you're in pain and Imma get you home, back to your folks, but first, I need to know where to take you."

"A-Annesssbb—"

"Okay, okay, that's enough, you rest now. Annesburg, I got it." She charged through the thick green foliage, still not feeling the heat of the sun, when the little woman finally muttered again.

"T-they… oh God… they…" her hand moved to the source of the bleeding high on her newly flattened chest. "... cut 'em… they cut 'em… off."

"Ssssh. You'll be fine, I promise," Sadie said encouragingly, "Men don't got 'em and they do just fine—"

"D-do-don't… wanna… be… man…" she mumbled, even weaker than before.

"You'll be fine," Sadie said again, panicking, not knowing what else to say. Of course, she was saying this more for herself than for the dead girl anyway. "I know you will. Hey, hey, my name's Sadie. What's yours?"

"M-Mer-Mere…d-dith…"

"Meredith? That's a pretty name. Meredith, I want you to know somethin': I went through somethin' like what you gone through. My husband was taken from me, my home, everything. I was sad 'bout it for a while… even thought 'bout… it, y'know. But I didn't and I was right. All this pain, it's gone and made me stronger—that's what's good 'bout pain. You been hurt, I know, but you ain't gonna die, you're gonna take that pain and become stronger, stronger than you ever was before. Like Jack. He didn't hurt much, but even if he did, it's gonna make him stronger. Hell, it already has. He reads twice as much and—I mean, I know it weren't exactly a favor, but it worked out in the end, it was okay I left—"

"Do-don't… want… to be… strong-er… I wa-wanna… be… how I… w-w-w-was…" And then she spoke one more time. "Mama?"

She went limp in Sadie's hands, then.

An eight-year-old Edwin Dickinson was visiting family in Annesburg and would see this mangled image riding into town of a pale titless woman being clutched by a frowning grunting woman with a Glasgow smile in happy yellow garbs as they rode on a tall white steed, and art would forever be the better for it.

Poor Meredith Buckley would not, however. She died on that horse, cold just as Sadie barged into the doctor's office.

1:39 PM, July 30th, 1899

My hands are bleeding, was all Sadie could think as she stumbled onto the main street of Annesburg, almost walking into a speeding train. My hands are bleeding and I'm a liar.

But her hands weren't bleeding, they were just covered with Meredith's blood.

My hands is covered with a lotta folks' blood, Sadie thought as she hobbled over to the docks, needing a reprieve from the stench of smog and sweat that inhabited the town. The pier was long and seemed to stretch on forever, each step she took must've pushed her two steps back. He coulda been raped or worse, but I left him. And for what? Her breath grew fast and shaky, her head hurt so bad she wondered if a baby was crowning out of it (heh, what a mother she'd be). For vengeance. Heh, weren't even vengeance. Colm hadn't even been there when Jake…

Eventually, after about six months of walking, she made it. The waters were clear and reflective and beautiful, like a million sapphires shimmering in the sun. Worth more than all the green bills in the world combined. They were reflective in more than one way, too. Because as soon as she soaked up the sight, Sadie knew the truth.

I let him die cuz I'm a rotten woman. She laughed bitterly. I'd do it again, too. If the choice came up, if I had a shot at the fat man or Jack, I know exactly who I'd pick without a second thought. The pain ain't made me stronger, not at all, just colder, meaner.

She bent down and thrust her hands into the cool water, letting the blood dissolve into red clouds. But she knew it would never truly wash out, not in any way that mattered. It never did.

The thought of it came back to her then, hell be damned. Stronger than it had ever been before (I guess pain does make some things more potent). It festered inside of her, trying to take root, like trying to hook a slippery work onto a fishing hook, and Sadie felt the urge to jump into the perfectly ultramarine waters, to let it take her. My guilt will weigh me clean down to the bottom.

Then she heard the sound of a match striking and turned her head. A woman, a strumpet, based on her shameless and immodest attire (I would have used the words 'comely' and 'tantalizing' if not for her being too old and clapped out to be either of these things) walked out beside, marinating in the gorgeous sight and the relaxing smoke from her cigarette.

"Want one?" She offered after finally paying Sadie a glance.

"Yeah," she answered, rising, taking a proper stare at the woman. She was old, that much apparent, with white streaks running across her brown hair; her face was scabby and bruised, probably from a previous customer; her saggy arms were exposed for all to see, along with her shoulder tip and neck; she wore a loose white shirt and corduroy skirt. "Thanks."

The prostitute nodded, not smiling—how could she?—and enjoyed her own fag for a moment before Sadie's Glasgow smile piqued her interest. "You look like you're having a bad time if you don't mind my saying so."

Sadie laughed, a prelude to her confession. "Yeah, I would say so, ma'am. Lost my husband, home, good side a' my face. Lost my Meredith, couldn't save her. Couldn't save any of 'em." She exhaled so deeply a quarter of her cigarette burned away.

"I… I know how you feel," the whore said reluctantly. "Lost my husband and house too, along with most a' my money. Probably lose my boy soon, with how much he works in them mines."

Sadie chuckled and jokingly asked, "I'll give you some advice on how to handle your crappy life if you give me some on mine first?"

The strumpet looked at her with heavy eyes that told the stories of a lost happiness. Those eyes seemed to be reaching out, to be begging for help. The swell of pity came back to Sadie and like with Bill and Meredith, she felt a call to action.

"I…"

"Yeah…?"

The woman coughed on some smoke and turned away. She stared at the water some more before tossing her cigarette into it. "Never mind," she said, walking back up the docks, up to go find another gross bastard who fit in her right for a few bucks.

"Wait!" Sadie called out. "I can help, you sure you—"

"Oh, step off, girl!" Those heavy, hazel eyes were red with fury now—I guess they skipped over green. "Ain't nothing that can be done 'bout nothing! I'm just a dumb whore and you're just an ugly widow. So just let it be!"

And then she was gone. Sadie would later read that a woman fitting her description by the name of Edith Downes was killed that very night. Another person Sadie Alder failed to save.

Sadie's got a Glasgow smile now... yay... If anyone is curious about how that looks here, google Tommy Flanagan.

That's a running trend I'm trying to throughout this series: give characters deformities that represent an aspect about themself. Sadie is getting depressed and losing the will to live, so she gets a half smile; Grimshaw is obsessed with being attractive and holding onto those days when she was youthful, so she gets shot in her left breast; Molly's legs are bruised because she keeps hurting herself when she's unhappy. In the future, a character is going to suffer a very major wound in battle that will change the story...

Hope you like how I'm choosing to approach Sadie here. I always thought the game let her off a little easy; a major theme of Red Dead is the consequence of violence, so Sadie lost everything, and then took everything from the people who'd wronged her. This cycle then requires something is taken again from her and on and on the cycle goes. Yet she is able to kill a lot of O'Driscolls with no serious lasting consequences, most of whom weren't even responsible for what happened to her, which I always thought was kinda weird.

As you've probably noticed, there's a lot cooking under the surface, so stay tuned to see what'll happen!