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 Fifty-Three: Javier

11:53 AM, October 30th, 1899

Javier was not used to being molested, and Swanson was not used to riding. He itched and repositioned himself on the saddle and when he did, his hands groped, released, and groped along a new part of Javier's chest as the pair rode to Emerald Station alongside Captain Monroe.

"How long do you think this will take, captain?" he asked, blenching when Swanson's grip fell to his armpit. He slowed down so the clergyman could readjust himself and keep from falling off The Duke.

"Can't say," Monroe answered bluntly. "As I've told you fellers before, things at Washington move at a snail's pace." Javier thought that was all until a faint whisper shot from his lips. "I can't believe he's dead."

Dutch had said the captain was a sanguine man, bright and full of vigor; he was torn, but it was a good tear, the kind that said you'd been caught in some bad business and walked out the other side. That man didn't ride beside them. Monroe was pale as a ghost, his features were sharp and gaunt; it seemed he hadn't eaten in days. His eyes were filmy and abstruse, and he spoke in the weak rasp of a dying man.

"If Dutch said it needed doing," Javier downplayed, "it needed doing. Besides, you can't say that asshole didn't have it comin'."

"He… he was a stupid man…" Monroe stammered, "but… but… I really thought I could change his mind, change how things were 'round here." He whispered again, but this time it was too low for Javier to make out.

The hearing in his right ear still hadn't come back, and it occasionally throbbed and ached, but he hadn't told anyone. He was finally getting back into Dutch's good graces, it wouldn't do good to cast any more shade on him. Abigail had lost her rocker over Molly, and that wasn't more than a few bruises, really. Imagine what she'd say to a gammy ear. "Your first mistake," he told the captain. "No one ever changes."

Emerald Station was just as far from an emerald as ever as they arrived at the shabby hut forming the ticket office. A father and son sat at a short tabletop, the former teaching the latter how to play dominoes. Despite the youth of the boy, they were both dressed in suits and wore identical glasses and black flat caps—spitting images of one another.

Javier sighed as Swanson finally let go of him and hopped off The Duke. The Mexican joined him on the ground soon after, hitching his steed to the arch-shaped stands behind the train station. They passed over the iron train tracks onto the station's platform, underneath the white and tan sign proudly bearing "Emerald Station." Monroe and Swanson's heads shaved against both "A's," on the sign, and Javier's went between both words, in the empty white space.

There was only one other gentleman in the station, a regal, handsome man in an all-black suit and hat. He sat alone in the second of four unoccupied benches stretching from the domino table at the end of the line to the ticket booth where an officious young man with a strained smile, navy suit, and flat cap stood at attention.

"How are you?" he asked excruciatingly, grinding his teeth together with his grin.

"Good," Swanson said, handing him two crumbled singles he'd gotten from Strauss. "Two tickets on the 12:10 to Blackwater. And how are you?"

The attendant snatched the bills with tight, twitching hands. "Well… my wife told me the other night that our son isn't mine."

"Oh…" the three men mumbled in unison.

The register chimed as he opened it. "Yeah… apparently I've been shootin' blanks so she stole the baby from some gypsies in Tumbleweed and now the law is accusing us a' kidnapping or somethin' and on top of that, my fuckin' boss won't give me a fuckin' raise and says we're probably gonna go out of fuckin' business with the new train stations they're building 'round here and now folks are scared stiff to board with us because some crazy bitch blew this town to hell and back a few days ago hunting some O'Driscolls—and didn't pay for her fuckin' ticket mind you—and on top of it, I just heard my fuckin' mother-in-law is comin' down and—" He stopped suddenly, fingering two tickets in one hand and a quarter and nickel in the other. "Okay, so your change is thirty cents, or, as I'm sure you understand, tips are greatly appreciated." He started normally and ended in a shy whisper.

That was a mistake because Javier's bad ear thought he mumbled something about upgrading seats and instinctively simpered and told him, "No, that's all right."

"Assholes," the clerk muttered, tossing the coins and papers at them through the barred divider. Javier picked them up, wondering what the hell his problem was. Gruñón chupatinta.

Javier plopped down on the bench opposite the elegant, well-dressed (most certainly well-endowed) black-suited man, followed shortly after by Swanson, who'd collected his things from where they'd hung off The Duke's saddle. It was nothing much, one moderately sized briefcase filled with a sodden canteen, a penny dreadful Jack had snuck in there when his back was turned, and a spare change of clothing he'd bought recently. Until then he'd mostly slept in the same filthy rotten clothing for years—until recently he'd never wanted anything else, hell, maybe he'd enjoyed it. It certainly helped with the self-loathing. Besides that, he also had a small knapsack, carrying the same buff, sagging copy of the Bible he'd carried for just shy of twenty years as well as some money Dutch insisted he take—he wasn't cheap that day and Strauss was going to need to work overtime to compensate.

Monroe passed by with misty eyes as he led his horse down the road into Emerald Ranch. He didn't have much need for a horse on a train, so he figured he might as well huck it and make a few bucks. The ten dollars he'd make wasn't going to make the animal's absence any less painful.

When he was out of sight, Javier turned to Swanson. "So, you following him up to Washington?"

"No, going mostly in the exact opposite direction. To New York." His mustache was a vivid orange and when he smiled Javier saw his teeth were recovering from sallow to dirty-white. Teetotaling had done him good. "Think I'll try becoming a reverend again. And what place needs God more than that cesspool?"

"Not here, that's for sure." He chuckled. "I'll miss you, though, Swanson." He slapped the priest on the back jovially.

Swanson tittered a bit too. Then his curved lips dropped. "Y'know, Javier… if you'll miss me so much… you don't have to see me off." His visage was firm and definite; he wasn't joking.

"No," Javier said simply. "I can't leave."

"Why?"

"You…" he soughed softly, "you wouldn't understand, I don't think. You didn't join for the same reasons the rest of us did."

"No, I think I was brought in in the exact same way the rest of you were. I was an outcast; I had nothing to pull me away, I could devote myself completely to the gang—"

"If you coulda plucked the needle outta your arm for five minutes." Javier giggled, but it was a cold giggle. Yet Swanson didn't freeze.

"Yeah… yeah… that was a problem. But, c'mon, Javier, you don't see the connection? I stay with you lot cuz my head's too clogged with drugs, liquor, and regret to see straight, but now that I'm sober, I'm duckin' out? You have to see the writing on the wall here…"

"Dutch has gotten us out of worse before."

"Don't get me started on Dutch…" Swanson leaned closer and the bench moaned creaaaak. "You saw what he did to Molly—"

"She provoked him," Javier defended. "If I got in your face"—he did—"and grabbed your throat,"—his knuckles whitened from the pressure—"and said your dear precious Margaret was a fuckin' whore, what would you do?"

"I wouldn't beat the shit out of a girl half my weight, size, and age," the reverend managed through a tight windpipe, "and I wouldn't blow up a cave in a populated area."

"No one got hurt!"

"No one was caught in the explosion, but people are outta work, they can't feed their children. There's gonna be riots—"

"Then why aren't you there? Hmm? Mr. High and Mighty? If you're so damn blue 'bout them, why aren't you there, reading 'em a sermon?" Javier pulled his fingers away roughly, turning away, assuming that final dig won him the battle.

"Why do you stand behind him so rigidly, Javier?" Swanson brushed over his neck, where red marks were perched. He scooted closer and again the seat screamed. Creaaaak! "Tilly and John I get. He raised them. Bill's too dumb to do otherwise. Grimshaw's smitten. Uncle needs a meal ticket. But you… you don't owe him a thing." He murmured that last part in his good ear.

Javier gawped with disdain. He's supposed to be the mouth of God, so why is he tempting me like the devil? "Why are you doing this?"

"Do you hate yourself, Javier?" His voice was quiet, his umber eyes shined with wisdom that jockeyed against his wild, unruly hair that couldn't decide between hoar and auburn.

"What?"

"I hated myself for a long, long time, and I spent that time slowly committing suicide—with drugs, drinks, whores, you name it, I did it." Creaaaaaaaak! Javier felt the puffy fox hair against his forehead. Orville gently patted his hand. "Is that why you stay? Are you punishing yourself?"

"I'm not—"

"Don't. Because God loves you, my child. He has great plans for you, and you're squandering them for a madman. Come with me. Build a church. You told Dutch you missed the days when we used to give money back, so cut out the middleman. You don't have to kill people anymore…"

"I stay…" Javier began, pulling away, "because I believe in Dutch. I believe in America. I believe in a land of freedom and hope, and I do not believe we are done yet!"

"You believe in America, yet you're working to leave it," Swanson scoffed. "You don't want the American Dream anymore, Javier—he's weaned you off of it—you want Dutch's dream. But his dream is everyone else's goddamn nightmare."

Javier held his gaze, refusing to blink, raising his chin high. "I won't stop believing."

"Belief is one thing. This is ignorance."

They stared in silence, each one refusing to yield until the shadow swept over them.

"I got a Jackson." Monroe flapped the money effortlessly, wondering if the horse would have a better home now.

"Hmm. Nice." It was all Javier could think to say.

"I miss anything interesting?"

"Nah…" Swanson drawled. "I was talking quite a bit, but I'm afraid…" he plugged Javier's left ear with his finger, but he read the lips, "it fell on deaf ears."

He removed it then, and no sooner than he had, a thundering mechanical wail rang through Javier's eardrum. He glanced over his shoulder and saw it: big as day it was, cowcatcher sticking up like an arrow waiting to be fired, spitting black smoke in towering streaks.

The train pulled into the station with an ear-piercing screech. The passenger cart was maroon with golden veins bulging from top to bottom. It was also completely empty, as Javier saw through the many windows; Monroe was the first man besides the rotund conductor. He had no suitcase or luggage—this whole excursion was a visit, after all, and from what Javier had heard, a last-minute one at that. Yet, strangely it seemed Monroe was being deported moreso than returning home.

The captain turned back and delivered a polite smile before vanishing inside the car. Javier never saw him again.

Swanson took longer, hobbling unevenly with the weight of his suitcase on his right. He climbed the first grated obsidian step of the train. Then the second. On the third he looked back to Javier, sighing and shaking his head. "I told Kieran I don't believe the past is all good or bad, but I'll tell you this: there ain't no gray world after this. The good folk go to heaven, the bad to hell. God is real, and he has many things to say about you. Make a change, Javier Escuella, and make it fast."

Then he too disappeared into the iron horse's red flesh, and when that fast old girl got to running with an ear-piercing screech, nothing in the world could catch her. Within the minute she was totally out of sight, gone with the wind.

Javier was left standing at the station of emeralds, where the only real stones were the sad, paltry ones between his legs, contemplating Swanson's words.

He's wrong. People don't change. Like Dutch. He's the same as he ever was. But the memory of that night was still lurid and potent; a knife at Pearson's throat as he cried. And Dutch let him die. And what about what Uncle said? Did he let Lenny die too? Shit…

He threw himself back down onto the bench. A splinter burrowed into his ass, but he didn't notice. He was too lost in thought. So much so that he didn't see the figure come up behind him, only felt the wind blowing his long bangs into his eyes. Javier turned to see the man, that handsome gentleman in the black suit and top hat.

And I looked right back at him.

"Hard times?" I asked, dusting a hair from my primly pressed jacket.

"Yeah," he responded, "you could say that. And you?"

"I can always whine, but I hate whining alone." A small circle of copper appeared in my hand and I brandished it to him. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Javier chuckled and pinched it from my hands. "Sure, I need the money." He tucked it away and bit his tongue, searching for the words that wouldn't incriminate him. "Have you ever felt stuck in one spot? Like-like a cobra's cornered you at the end of a cliff; you take a step forward and you're dead, take a step back and you're dead? I… I don't know, maybe that doesn't make any sense—" If I didn't already know everything about him, then perhaps that would be true. "—but I feel like everyone wants me to either step forward or backward, but I just want to stay where I am. I want things to be like they were."

His leg began quivering with anxiety so I cupped my hands and a cigarette was there. I offered it to him. He mumbled thanks, fiddling in his pockets for a light before he heard the hiss of a match in front of his face. Again he mumbled in gratitude and raised the fag into the fire, savoring the pallid fumes.

"A lot of folk feel that way, I reckon." I tossed the burnt-out match at the train tracks and it was gone. "I'm blessed to say I'm not one of them. Hope you figure things out." But I knew he wouldn't; deep down, I think he shared that hypothesis. I rubbed the pink and black crescents around my eyes. "I have to say, my problem seems tame by comparison. Still… would you mind?"

Javier shrugged. "You fed me a cigarette, seems only sportin' I return the favor."

"Thank you." My slick black mustache curved into a child's smile. "You see, friend, I'm… something of an author in my spare time."

"I'm afraid I can't help you much there, amigo. Aside from a few political theory papers, I've never touched a tome in my life."

"Oh, I disagree heartily." I removed the book from my large interior jacket pocket—yes, this very book you read a copy of now (that is if I ever decide to publish it). In its original form, its cover was brown with brooks of green—this rotted coloration seemed befitting of this tale when I first bought it. "After all, Javier, you're my protagonist."

The Mexican spat the cigarette out and prodded his pistol against my chest (If I could, I would have killed him for it—the gunpowder smudged my white shirt). "How do you my name?" he roared. "Are you a bounty hunter? A Pink? Are there any more of you around here? Talk!" The hammer clicked and I rolled my eyes involuntarily.

"I'm a few pay grades above—or below in your case—Langton or the Pinkertons."

"Who are you?" He growled, breathing hot air on my cold face.

"The most dangerous man you've ever met, but more importantly, someone with a terrible case of writer's block. The others are so easy you see: John's torn between his wife and father, Charles misses his mommy and wants a new family that looks just like her,—"

"How do you—"

"—Strauss scorns emotion so he doesn't have to feel sad about his little sister, Micah hates too much to ever have real love, it's all very fascinating. But you, Javier? You bore me. You're not like Kieran who's too naive to see which earthly direction things are going. You have all the facts—you saw Pearson die, you saw Micah shoot the whore on that boat, and you should be smart enough to know that everything Dutch said to you on that river was bullshit. Still, you stay with the lot of them, after everything… I'm tempted to simply remove you from the world, from my story altogether; after all, it's never harder to write than when you're bored, and you, in your bones, Javier, are a boring man. Like Arthur Morgan. Thank God I whispered in that Gray's ear and got him to kill the wrong man, this book is coming along so much nicer with Morgan dead, don't you think?"

Javier gasped and pulled the trigger, but, of course, there was no gun. His finger was pressed on one of my specially-sewn black buttons, and he suddenly found he couldn't move it—couldn't move a muscle for that matter. "Wut iz thizzz?" he choked out, eyes nearly bulging from his skull.

I giggled, turning open my book. The pages were yellow and soggy (I'd like to say from all the spilled blood notated inside of it, but truthfully I am a sweater). "There's no place for boring in here, Javier. But I'm a reasonable man, I'll give you one last chance to pique my interest. Would you like that?"

His tears were brackish with red. "Y-y-yezzz…"

"Excellent." I rested my hand on his shoulder and a gust of heavy wind plowed into us, sweeping the domino tiles away, along with the father and son using them. Up went the ticket agent with his navy cap, and up went the station, the roof and platform shattering into a million pieces as it twirled up into a swirling vortex of speed and air. We were caught in its thralls too, thrown like ragdolls, spinning in the sky, feeling the atmosphere bend and cut into us. And all throughout, my top hat stayed firmly planted on my head.

When it stopped, we landed on a great yellow hill overlooking a small village. I fell flat on my feet, and he blundered over on all fours, retching up green remnants of stew and bread. The village was small and not just from our angle; the huts were scrabbily constructed, mostly cheap hay and untreated wood rotting in a dozen different places. The sun was blazing and the land reflected that—it was dry as a bone. The only vegetation was brittlebushes, agaves, and cacti, scattered loosely across the arid expanse.

"Welcome home, Javier," I said.

When he lifted his head up from his mess, he shook like a dog, cheeks vibrating. "N-nononono, this-this—"

3:49 PM, May 5th, 1876

"—is Mexico," I finished. "Nuevo Paraíso, to be precise. Eighteen hundred and seventy-six."

"Dios mío…"

"No. I'm a few pay grades above—or below in your case—Him." I grabbed him by the coattails of his jacket and hoisted him to his feet. "Oooh, look there, Javier! Do you see—look!"

His gaze focused on where I pointed—by the sole palm tree on a knoll. It was the highest point in town and a small crowd of dots formed around it.

He blinked and suddenly we were among those dots. They had dark caramel skin, smelled of sweat and hard physical labor, and they whispered when they spoke. Javier shook one, to prove it wasn't a dream, and felt rigid, very much real, flesh. He shook harder, yet the man didn't turn. He was too busy staring beside the palm tree, where five men stood, bedecked in bruises, pants dangling at their knees. Mexican soldiers—of course, they were more of personal hitmen than anything else—bound the men's arms behind their backs painfully.

"That's Allende given' the speech, right?" I murmured to Javier, directing him to the well-dressed man speaking boisterously to the crowd. Unlike all the other peasants, who were as slender as scarecrows, he was as corpulent as a cow.

"Que esto sea una lección…" Allende said, making sure the mob absorbed every word.

"Wonder what happens next." I grinned, taking Javier by his scalp and rotating his head to all of the five men. The first was wearing a vaguely yellow shirt; he whimpered horribly. The second resembled a white baby—pink and pudgy cheeks from the horrible beatings he'd gotten earlier this morning.

Despite his lack of beatings, Javier seemed white too. White as a ghost. "Please… no…"

"... a los que creen saber lo que es mejor…" Allende continued.

The third man had two waterfalls of drool distending from his mouth; his eyes were aimed in different directions. The fourth man muttered softly, prayers mostly, he didn't dare curse his assailants, not again.

I felt Javier shudder in my hands and smiled. The story material was accumulating… "I know what happens."

The fifth man stood with a grimace, head twitching lightly, eyes murky but he wouldn't cry, wouldn't wail. He would die like a man. His nose was broken, swollen so much that it pushed his upper lip into a recession so he bore a faint underbite. His eyes were hard and umber. As umber as Javier's.

"... ¡Ahora!" Allende finished, and the soldiers brought their machetes down, slashing the men's genitalia off. The fifth man tried not to, but even he screamed with the others, jowls quivering in agony. The soldiers held the men from toppling over, waiting until all the blood had drained out the bottom of them. The second man fell first, cold and still. Then the fourth man, then the first, then the third. Finally, the fifth man collapsed, staring blankly at the horde of people. And Javier watched for the second time as his uncle died in front of him.

"No!" he screamed, searching his holster for his gun—it wasn't there so he went for his knife. By the time it was drawn, we were inside one of those small, rotting huts.

7:45 PM, September 16th, 1876

The dinner table was less busy than it normally was. Javier's older brother left to fight in the revolution and was executed in a prison camp. His grandfather had passed away because food grew scarce in the dry seasons and the old man wouldn't have Javier's mother feeding him instead of Javier or his little sister. His uncle was, heh, you know… And they found his sister's body two days ago, covered in blood and semen. She was six years old.

The sun had long since evanesced, and the room was dark save for a small candle flickering at the middle of the table. At the table sat a seven-year-old Javier, his grandmother, his mother, and his father. And us, standing in the dark corner, masked with shadows.

No one spoke a word. They glowered at their plates glumly; each white dish had one tortilla with two shriveled pieces of beef, as well as a web of cracks cutting into the china. They couldn't afford anything else. Javier's mother had to excuse herself and walk to the other side of the table. She rolled up the sad taco and tried forcing it into Abuela's mouth. With her husband gone, she no longer wished to live, but her daughter-in-law wouldn't shoot her and she couldn't bring herself to ask her son or grandson. Javier's father muttered indistinctly, shaking from head to toe in ninety-degree heat. He could only buy one bottle of whiskey a day and his body hated him for that. The human body is roughly sixty percent water, and Padre had made it his personal mission to convert that figure to his alcohol blood content. Little Javier didn't move a muscle, simply ogled hazily at his food.

"Were you thinking about your uncle?" I asked the adult man himself. I didn't whisper; I didn't need to. They wouldn't hear us.

Javier hadn't cried, not that it mattered, he'd sweated enough to compensate. His face was moist with salt, and already pimples were sprouting at his wet chin. "I'm always thinking about him," he said, letting the knife clatter on the floor.

"Did you blame Allende for his death?"

He clenched his fists. "Not as much as I blame myself."

"For what? Not saving him?"

"Not getting revenge. They kept the family gun underneath their bed. My father's a deep sleeper, my mother has a weak bladder, I could have stolen it. Could've found Allende, pretended to be a beggar—"

"Weren't you seven?" I snickered.

"And she was six," he snapped back.

"¡Perra!" Javier's madre bemoaned. His abuela had heaved her food back out. His mother went on a rampage, cursing wildly about how disrespectful the old hag was. Javier's father chewed his taco slowly, hiding behind the tortilla. Seven-year-old Javier didn't even blink.

"Do you blame your father for what happened?" I asked him. His old man rested his weary head on his fist, and soon enough he was slumped over on the table, asleep.

"Yes," Javier said, struggling. "It should have been him, the coward, the fuckin' borracho. My uncle fought for us, for better wages, better medicine. But him?" He snorted. "As long as he had a bottle in his hand, he didn't give a shit. I asked him once, y'know. I walked up to him and asked him dead to his face: 'Papa, why are you like this?'" Javier turned to me with a scowl. "He didn't say nothin'. Just went back to pouring that shit down his throat."

The candle pulsated in the young boy's eyes as he watched his mother and grandmother bicker, but silent he stayed.

"I asked Abuelita later," he continued, and I dug around my suit for a pen and paper, finally finding something interesting. "Asked her what happened to her son to make him this way. Did he lose a brother? Old lover? Father? Uncle? Y'know what she said?"

My smile was white and gleeful. "No, Javier, tell me what she said."

"She said: 'Nothing. He was always like this. And he always will be. He'll—"

"—never change?" I completed.

"Yeah."

"Javier," I said, jotting everything down, "you don't believe people can change, do you?"

"No." He spoke, but he was as cold and distant as his younger counterpart. The candle danced at an unforeseen wind and the light in the room shifted.

"You love Dutch, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Because he's everything your father isn't. Strong. Brave. Willing to take action."

"Yes."

"And you believe he's all that still? That he hasn't changed."

"Yes."

My fingers ached against the pen. I prefer typewriters. "Because people don't change, right?"

"Only governments."

I nodded in agreement. "Only governments."

The windows shattered at once; a shard of glass flew into Javier's young eye. But he didn't flinch. The walls caved in and his grandmother was sucked into the whirlwind outside, along with his mother and father. Tortillas flopped comically on their way out the wall.

"Congratulations," I told him loudly over the roaring wind. "I believe this excursion has given me enough reason to keep you in my story!"

"Great," he muttered apathetically.

"Sorry if this has brought back some uncomely memories, but if it makes you feel better, you won't remember any of this when you wake up!"

"Wait…" he started, realization quavering in his voice. "Don't you know all this already?"

"Yes, but I needed to see it with you, Javier! Needed to feel it!" I clung to my top hat—this wind was harsher than the last. "When you've been around as long as I have, experience is the only thing that matters!" The floor gave out beneath us and slanted to the side and we followed it, leaning up from our bottoms, staring at the storm that awaited us. Green lightning flashed in the distance. "I've seen things you can't imagine, Javier! Felt power you can't even—there are other worlds, Javier! Other times, universes, realities! Trillions of souls! Trillions of readers! And together we're going to give them the best damn novel!"

The candle died and we flew into the hurricane of power and energy. Our flesh distorted like images in a pond.

10:15 PM, April 14th, 1865

Lincoln is shot.

3:42 AM, June 7th, 476

Rome is fallen.

11:13, May 1st, 527 BCE

Buddhism is born.

2:45 PM, September 1st, 1939

Poland is invaded.

12:11 PM, October 30th, 1899

Javier's eyes snapped awake. Damn… musta dozed off. His head throbbed slightly; he was sleeping against the wooden backrest, no wonder. The wind was soft yet cold and he found a shiver crawling up to his chin hairs. He stood abruptly, searching his pockets, finding thirty cents missing from his coat pocket. He glanced to the attendant behind the ticket booth but decided against pursuing any action. They had enough heat on them without getting into fights over two coins. He strolled down the platform and walked to his horse, looping the long way around the station to stretch his legs. He passed the father and son. The boy seemed to be getting a handle on the game, as his smug expression showed. He climbed atop The Duke and spurred him into a gallop. Javier vaguely recalled some very weird dreams and tried to resurrect them to memory, but he wasn't able to. All he remembered was one hell of a storm and a very, very peculiar man.

Very… strange.

Hope you liked that twist: the Strange Man is this fanfic's narrator! And he killed Arthur!
I'm excited to know what you think; I've been building to that for a while.
If this got too weird for you, don't worry, I may occasionally dip my toes into the supernatural again, but never this painfully explicitly.
Hope this backstory I gave explains a little more why Javier is so dependent on Dutch despite all he knows.
Next chapter: a calm and reasonable person.