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 Sixty-One: Mary-Beth

8:32 AM, November 14th, 1899

Mary-Beth tried to keep her slick hands steady as she removed the bullet. Teetonka was a lean, handsome young man who loved chess and was screaming in agony as the pliers stretched the hole in his shoulder. Aleshanee and two other natives were holding him down as she groped around aimlessly for the lead cap inside of him. At last, she pinched it and it went tink in her tin bucket, filled with three dozen other bullets and nearly a pint of blood. She'd been doing this since the assault.

"C'mon, man, c'mon," Aleshanee whispered, wincing as his friend flailed in pain. He mumbled something in Wapiti before saying, "One more bullet. Just one more."

Mary-Beth got to work fast, cutting his pants along the hip joint so she could see the second would more clearly. It was lodged in his thigh, a black spot where thick red lines reticulated out and down his leg.

Shaking, she inched her cheap, unsterilized tool to the throbbing laceration. Her fingers were brushed with blood and it almost slipped from her hands. She entered him. Tink. The bullet fell gracefully.

She bandaged the wounds with alcohol, but that only made the pain worse. Aleshanee slipped chewing tobacco into his friend's mouth, however he spat it back out with a scream.

Mary-Beth moved on to the next one. It was a woman this time, a girl really. No more than sixteen. Jesus…

She'd given the last of Molly's morphine on the first patient to soothe the torment. Then she'd used liquor, even if they coughed most of it out. Now they were nearly out of alcohol, and what little was left was rubbed against bleeding gashes to reduce the chance of an infection.

There was nothing to calm this poor girl down; she cried and wailed for her mother and father, who were probably on a cot somewhere else in camp.

It had been a massacre, twenty-five dead at least, three dozen more wounded, perhaps fatally so. There were a few others gifted enough with medicine to assist her and Abigail, but it was only a few.

"Yo-you k-know S-S-Strauss, right?" the girl asked as Mary-Beth cut her shirt off below her breasts—the blood pooled just above her belly button.

"I-I-I-I…" was the most intelligent response she could give as she dumped her blushing rag in a pail of scarlet water, squeezing until the dark fluids floated off in dim clouds. She soaked up the blood on the girl's chest until the damage was visible. She wasn't as much an expert as Abigail, yet Mary-Beth knew it was severe.

"T-tell him…" the girl continued, "I-I changed my m-mind… I don't w-w-wanna leave… I w-wanna… s-stay… with m-my m-om and d-d-da…" Sweetgum Tree closed her eyes, breathing hoarsely.

Mary-Beth quickly brought the dripping tongs to the corrupted black hole, freezing at the entrance. Her hands were shaking wildly now. She exhaled deeply.

She readjusted her grip and the lathered tool slithered out of her grasp, disappearing in the tall, crimson-dewed grass. She hopped to her knees, finding it briskly, jumping back up, yet by then the voice was already behind her, spittle dampening her neck.

"You worthless, good-for-nothin' bookworm," Grimshaw cursed, swiping the metal pliers from her. A burning cigarette was perched between her pale lips, a rare sight for Mary-Beth. "I'm takin' over, cuz you're gonna get this poor woman murdered." Her eyes were cold and dark. "Get out of my sight, go make yourself useful diggin' holes. Did ya hear me? Get lost!"

Mary-Beth scuttled away, head down, barely seeing through all her teary blinks. It won't matter, she thought, that buckshot burrowed straight into her liver. She won't make it an hour, bullet or no.

She sat on a stump at the gang's crescent of the reservation. Micah and Charles were dragging army corpses into shallow graves shoveled by Sadie and Javier. She remembered Dutch laughing at that before he'd gone with Tilly and Kieran. "Cornwall'll be dead," he said, "but I like to imagine what'll happen when whatever other gluttonous oil tycoon takes his place finds the bodies. Who knows how many weeks that'll stall development."

They'd left before daybreak, hell, before it was even the next day. To Annesburg.

"Charles," Dutch had asked him, "Tilly said you had a contact in that mining town. Saved your life after Van Horn." He grinned with that phony smile he'd given her in the forest when he pulled up her skirt…

She scratched her arm roughly, painting four red streaks with her moist fingertips. Shame and anger boiled inside her and she couldn't tell which one was stronger.

"What for?" Charles had asked warily.

"Oh, just want to speak with them about somethin'," Dutch said, glee hidden behind his flat eyes.

"What?" Charles inquired between gritted teeth, letting him know he wasn't getting the information without a fight.

Dutch tossed his hands up innocently. "Jesus, man, I just want to talk to them. What do you think I want to do, hold them hostage?"

"You never talk to folks unless you have somethin' to gain."

No! Mary-Beth had agreed internally. No, he doesn't. Like all the times he read to me, or backed me up against Grimshaw. Since I was a girl, and he only ever wanted one thing from me…

Dutch had lost patience then and turned to Tilly. "He told you where they live, right?"

Tilly fingered a gash in her blouse. "I… I don't remember…"

Mary-Beth's heart went out for her friend. She hated when Dutch put people in these positions: Tilly was either betraying the man who raised her or a man who'd been nothing but decent to her and practically everyone else.

"You don't remember…" Dutch drawled. He slipped a hand onto her shoulder and curled his lips upward. "Dear… I'm on my knees here. I appreciate your loyalty to this man you've only known a few months, but I'm not goin' to get anyone killed. Please, where do they live?"

"You don't need to tell him anything," Mary-Beth had found herself saying, pushing forward from her hiding spot behind one of the tarps.

"Yes," Dutch bit back, stepping closer to Tilly, however staring at Mary-Beth, "she does."

Tilly's head jerked back and forth between the two men, Dutch with his hands pressed together and Charles standing there still as a statue. At last she groaned. "They're in one of the slum houses. I don't think any are labeled with an address or number, but I'm pretty sure he said it was the one directly across from the post office."

Charles' chin slumped with him toward the hard rock-strewn ground, speckled with scarlet streams. Dutch smiled, slinging an arm around the young woman. "Terrific! Come with us, Tilly, I want to get you outta camp. You been cooped up here for far too long."

With them, Mary-Beth finished his incomplete thought.

Kieran mounted Branwen as they rode out, with Dutch and Tilly borrowing John's Ardennes. Because Dutch just assumed it was his now, with John out of commission, because he couldn't even be bothered to walk over to wherever he hitched his damn horse and—

Presently, as Mary-Beth sat on the stump at the outskirts, fiddling with a stick while Micah was laboring to bury one of Favours' men, realization hit her.

The Count is dead. Her heart began throbbing sadly then, pumping sad blood all along her sad body. That horse had been with them before her; brute would seldom let anyone besides Dutch mount him. She remembered a pleasant time, years back when they'd been in New Mexico—she matched the memory to the place because she recalled thinking the dark outline of a cactus in the wide yellow desert had been that of a man, raider or otherwise, and had jumped to her feet, crying wolf here and there until Arthur calmed her down, speaking in that low growl she loved so much. She remembered The Count one night and an inebriated Arthur trying to ride him on a bet. Then she remembered Arthur, steady, strong, reliable old Arthur getting a fat red bruise where his face crashed against the arid earth.

"Nice try, son!" Dutch had cheered, laughing along with everyone else. "But that feller is more loyal than you, and if you can believe it, more stubborn too."

"Stubborn? When the hell have I ever been stubborn?" Arthur asked as he clasped the horse's saddle and tried again, falling just as quickly.

He had been loyal, Mary-Beth reflected. They both had. And they both died. She felt a twinge of sympathy for Dutch, a kind of wet burn in her frowning lips that sizzled away when her frown turned hateful. He sent Kieran to be tortured, he good as killed Pearson, good as bullied Hosea away, pardoned Bill, and he pinned me against that tree and…

She darted up and raced away from the stump, as if trying to escape the nightmare that haunted her every time she slept: Dutch, fangs long as Dracula's, biting, whispering, and kissing at her neck with a beard moist pink with saliva and blood that complimented his pocket square. In the dream, the moon had ushered in her cycle and she felt the blood flowing from between her legs even as she attempted to force it back. (The downside of an overactive imagination, I suppose.)

She took a deep breath as she arrived at her tent, scribbling some ideas in her notebook. Writing relaxed her. She reread what she wrote. It was tommyrot—literary trash about some Frenchwoman outlaw courting the lawman arresting her—but her pulse calmed as she sucked in every word.

She was particularly fond of one exchange (this is not plagiarism as she never published this chunk of text nor even presented it to anyone beyond Kieran—it's shit anyway, don't you dare call me a thief if you want to keep breathing):

"Killian," purred Ms. Dupont, "I have a favor to ask."

"Oh Christ," Mr. Gaskill murmured, wishing it wasn't so damn cold. If the climate had been more forgiving, he could extinguish the fire he'd lit between them, close his eyes, and be off to dreamland. Instead, he was on his knees, prodding the flames with dry grass and twigs to keep it alive. Even so, he shuddered miserably.

"I'm not soliciting for a lot here," she promised before he cut her off.

"Soliciting?"

"Yeah. Means 'ask'."

"Then why didn't you just say 'ask'? Even if I did know what you were talkin' about, why use four syllables when you can just as well use one? I'd think a woman who lives every day like it's her last should be using every minute sparingly."

"Maybe I know you can't resist arguing when I talk like that," she said, voice thick with honey. "Maybe I like to hear your voice…"

He glanced at her for a moment, only a moment, and that was too long. The orange blaze made her features glow; her silky brown hair, her fierce green eyes, her pretty freckles that dotted her face like spots on a ladybug. "Then I'm sorry to deprive you," he declared, returning his gaze to the fire, which he found surprisingly less bright than her shimmering eyes.

She hummed a tune, then whistled, and when he still refused to perk up, she clanged her iron chains so they screamed a loud ditty, which any animal within a mile would've heard if there was a single sign of life on top of Morgan's Mountain.

"What?" he barked, annoyed.

She smirked. "I have a favor to solicit, remember?"

"What?" he repeated.

"These things are vexing me," she commented, the metal bonds tying her to the tree clanging again as she raised her hands as high as they could reach.

"How do you think I feel?" he grunted. "And again with the fancy words. 'Vexing'? What did the letters 'i', 'r', 'r', 'i', 't', 'a', 't', and 'e' do to you? Y'know my favorite writer? God, cuz he didn't dance around with any flowery words—he got straight to the point. 'Honor thy father and thy mother'. Simple, clear, concise, beautiful, no one needs—"

He halted suddenly, realizing he was giving her exactly what she wanted. She was probably trying to keep him up all night talking so he'd be exhausted when morning mushroomed in.

"Why did you stop?" she solicited. "You were just about to convince me."

In the cold, Killian Gaskill's neck grew warm. It was a familiar feeling; he got it whenever she mocked him or teased him, her two favorite pastimes. "Can you please quiet up now?"

She pouted in consideration, before grinning broadly. "Sure! You only needed to solici—oh, sorry, ask me. But… heh, well you know me. I don't do a thing for free." The iron chains clinged and clanged again. "Untie me, and I'll be happy to tie up my mouth."

Mr. Gaskill rolled his eyes with a smug smile. "How dumb do you think I am?" His smile faded when a clump of snow broke from a branch above and crawled up his coat.

"Just one hand," she insisted, "so I don't need to hear them bashing together. It's rank."

"I-i-if y-you think," he stammered through the chill and ice turning rigid on his spine, "I-I'm g-gonna—"

"One hand," she said again, leaning forward so the light from the crackling embers fully enveloped her face. "C'mon, my Killian, you don't think I'd fly away from you now, do you?" The words were sweet as sugar, and Killian found himself rising to his feet, marching over through thick puddles of snow to her. The flakes on his back melted and dripped down his shirt. He knew it was a mistake, but his hands were searching his pockets for the key. One hand won't hurt, he told himself. She can't slip away with one hand bound to a tree, it's as good as two. He wondered for a moment as he was holding the lead key out if he wanted her to snatch it from him. If he wanted her to escape, so he could keep on chasing her, to the edge of the world and back if need be. The key was right at the lock… and he pulled away.

Mary-Beth wasn't sure why she added that last line. He wasn't supposed to pull away, he was supposed to unbind her, she was supposed to tug him into a kiss as a thank you, pinching the key while he was unawares, unlocking her other hand and slipping it back into his hand. He was supposed to wake up, find her gone, and spend however many pages her notebook had left hunting her down in that frozen wasteland. She'd gotten the idea from a section in Frankenstein—who's the sham writer now?

Yet for whatever reason, it hadn't felt right, him setting her free, her escaping into the wintry expanse, laughing all the while, him on her shadow.

She took a deep breath, closed her book, checked that her hands were no longer vibrating, and returned to work.

Eight men died in her arms before three hours had eclipsed, all crying for their mothers or wives or brothers. She was on a boy now, one of the boys Kieran had tried to teach to read. She'd been so proud of him, oh she'd been so happy…

She dumped a bucket of murky ruddy water onto the grass and strolled to the springs down the hill outside the reservation to refill it. Two horses passed her as she descended the incline of land. Flower of the Prairie had spat on the medical prowess offered by the village elders (Grimshaw included, heh) as well as Mary-Beth and Abigail and opted to ride for the nearest doctor to heal her dying husband. No one had blamed her. And no one had followed.

And as the woman returned, salt in her eyes, and an empty horse across from her, Mary-Beth was reminded of why. No doctors would take them. They weren't particularly popular in this state to begin with and after that business with Fort Wallace and Favours dying, she doubted that anyone would help if she proffered all forty thousand dollars of the take at their feet.

After refilling the pail with clean water, she diluted the bloody tools and rags among it—it barely aided in washing away the noxious red juices.

Later, when many more refills were finished, she scrubbed the ruby rivulets and black morsels of flesh until the pliers, scalpels, washcloths, and other tools were as clean as they would ever get. That is to say: not that much.

There had been seventy-nine Wapitis before the invasion, now only forty-three remained. Just shy of half of their people, massacred.

The Dutch Van der Linde Gang had sixteen criminals, killers, and scum of the earth and after the assault, all sixteen remained, though John had been taken by a minor fever that could blossom into something significant, even if Mary-Beth wouldn't wager on it.

She turned her head. Sadie and Javier had finished digging holes for the army and were now working with the natives to plow more graves on their side of the reservation. Bouquets of feathers were bound and poised in stiff cold hands. Bodies were engirdled with colored cloth before being gently lowered into the shallow tombs. Many sang as they stood above the blanketed cadavers, many more cried. It was impossible to discern who was doing which because they all had oceans in their eyes.

All except one.

Rains Fall hovered over where he'd buried his son. Where other fathers were carving large pikes from tree branches, decorating them with animal hide, bones, claws, and feathers to leave a mark of remembrance for their offspring, all that left any indication that Eagle Flies existed was a slight elevation of dirt—so small a baby could crawl over it and not realize it had gone up and down—and an arrow, finished with eagle feathers above the nock, head buried in the black soil.

Mary-Beth hadn't noticed she was walking over to him until she felt her dank socks—once white, no longer—squish against her blistered feet. She was alone with the old man; his hair was just as dark and oily, yet a lack of white hair was the only thing contradicting his age. He seemed a hundred years older than last night. His visage bore many cracks and folds before but now more lines ran through his face than on a raisin. The flesh on his hand hung loose, Mary-Beth noticed as her shoulders touched parallel to his. The veins bulged from his filmy skin.

After nearly a minute of silence, he turned over to her with dry lips and eyes so narrow he looked as though the Murfrees had cut them out, leaving only saggy eyelids in their place.

"I… I know you," he said distantly, "don't I?"

She cleared her throat, answering demurely. "Yes sir. I'm one of the… y'know the gang."

"What gang?" he asked. She thought he was being facetious for a moment, but when she lifted her stare up from her shoes, she saw he was genuinely confused.

"Uh… D-Dutch's gang? Y'know… Dutch?"

His lips pursed in consideration before recognition hit him. "Oh, yeah… him." He shoved a bony finger in his ear and twisted, plucking out a buff gob. "I was gonna kill him, y'know. Turn his body over to the law, place all the blame for Favours' death on you people. I told your friend, what was it—Bob?"

Bill, Mary-Beth thought, but didn't dare interrupt.

"I told him I thought the army would cross me. I told him I reckoned having more guns defending this place was more advantageous than making another enemy. That was pretty good of me, wasn't it?" He chuckled and Mary-beth chimed in, nervously. She wasn't sure what else to do. "To be honest, I don't think I gave any of that much thought before we arrived at the mountain, me and Bob. I… I think the real reason why I let you folks stay… was that…" He trailed off, suddenly spitting—a long, waterfall of clear sticky mucus—down on his black boots. It made them shine. "Do you… do you believe a man can change?"

Mary-Beth stuttered, searching for the right words. When she couldn't find them, she defaulted to the truth. "No. I used to think so, but now I… I think people just show more of who they are underneath."

"My sentiments exactly," Rains Fall giggled, actually giggled. It was like a hiccup and gag fucked and shat out an infant. "I'm like that too. That's why I couldn't turn you away. Same reason why I couldn't fight back all them years ago. I'm weak." He laughed, pointing at the half-buried arrow. "My son, now there was a man. Strong, brave, noble, fierce. Had just enough ego not to let anyone look down on him and just enough sense to see when he was being a fool. He was made for us. He should be me and I should be him. He should've been our chief, and I should've been the boy, dancing and picking daisies—"

The floodgates opened then and tears cascaded down his sharp cheeks in rivers. "Oh God," he wailed, collapsing to his knees, "I should've died a long time ago."

She bent down to him, wrapping him in a hug, resting her chin on his pointed shoulder as it bounced with hysterical sobs. He was so frail…

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so so sorry…"

She rocked with him as he cried, feeling his tears trickle down her chin when she nuzzled her head on his. Injustice bubbled inside her, a flaring itch. This isn't right, not at all. Why does Dutch keep doing this? She gave a silent prayer that he'd never return, though she knew that wouldn't fix what'd been done.

"I don't know what to do," he confessed between ear-piercing moans.

"I… I don't know what to tell you. I wish I did but I don't." The salty drops dripping down to her knees were no longer his. "I'm weak too. When I read a book that scares me, I close it. It's a fuckin' book, and I close it cuz I get too fuckin' scared. Of a fuckin' book. I had the knife in my hand, y'know, but when he was groping me and touching me against that tree, I couldn't—"

She was interjected by the sudden sound of wood splintering and a dozen voices cooing gasps and whispers. Mary-Beth peeled away from the chief to investigate, looking back at him once more before she disappeared into the huddle of a newly formed crowd. He was on all-fours, whimpering in the flawless imitation of a broken man.

When she cleared through the wall of curious eyes, all staring at the skirmish they encircled, Mary-Beth saw a man, she thought it was Tail of the Fox, however it could have been Yellow Rabbit—or, let's be frank, anyone, she was still learning names. He stood on his tippy-toes, while a bull held him by the baggy collar of his shirt.

"Back away, Redskins!" the bull screamed at the crowd. "This ain't got nothin' to do with any of you." He turned his attention toward Songaa (that was the Wapiti's name, Mary-Beth doesn't know the difference between a spotted leopard and a pile of cowshit—did I mention that excerpt I recited was half-copied from one of Jack's three-year-old dime novels, so don't you dare be accusing me of plagiarism). "Time's long up, pal."

"Bill!" Charles called, working his way through the horde. "Let him go."

Williamson scowled at the man opposite him. "You ain't one of us no more Charles, you can't order me to do shit."

"It isn't an order, it's a fact: you don't let him go and I'll drop you on your ass faster than you can say oops."

"Well, I think that's more of a threat or ultimatum than fact," Strauss' funny accent objected as he tried weaseling its way through the mob. Only when Flower of the Prairie helped clear a path did he manage to the center of the commotion. The red funds box contrasted his achromatic black and gray suit.

"This don't concern you," Bill argued again, enunciating each word gingerly, as though his reasoning spoke for itself.

"Actually," said a voice, "it does." Aleshanee's bowstring stretched to its zenith, his arrow trained at Bill's head. "Drop our man, and get the hell outta here."

Bill was the center of a watch, Mary-Beth noticed, with Charles as the big hand pointed nine o'clock, Strauss the little hand pointed at midnight, and Aleshanee the sweep-second hand, fluttering back and forth, deciding which angle would do best to avoid hitting the hostage.

"I… I am in the right here," Bill insisted.

Aleshanee just shook his head. "You've had your eye on us the minute you got here. We all knew it would come to this." His fingers danced along the bow's handle under the arrow, ready to release.

"If I could get a word in," Strauss interceded, taking a small step forward, "I believe I can clarify a few thing—"

Bill's hollers cut him off. Charles had snuck up behind him while he was facing Aleshanee's bow with the human shield and swept him off his feet (heh) with a firm kick to the knee joint. Whereas the bull crashed to the stone-laden humus, Songaa crashed to his feet and bolted away, leaving the four men surrounded by an angry herd of wild Indians.

"Shoot him, Aleshanee!"

"Fuck him! Fuck all of them!"

"KILL HIM!"

Mary-Beth became acutely aware that camp, along with Sadie, Javier, Micah, and the rest were on the other side of this confrontation, and her pulse began to accelerate. She breathed out cold air. Calm down, she thought, they might be mad, but they won't kill you. Bill maybe. She couldn't say that thought didn't instill her with a ghost of satisfaction. Fuckin' karma, you fuckin' animal. For Karen. For that little boy and his mother you killed for no fuckin' reason.

"If I could get a word in…" Strauss intoned once more, louder than Mary-Beth had ever heard him speak before. Still, no one else made it out among the growling clamors of 'kill' and 'do it,' until Flower of the Prairie blew out a whistle that pierced through the noise, leaving behind only silence. She motioned to the Austrian.

"Thank you," Strauss said. He gyrated, walking in the prim, pretentious manner he swore by, arriving by Bill's side. "While my colleague's methods were undoubtedly out of place," he announced, "I fear I must agree with his conclusion of the situation; he is in the right."

"What are you talkin' about?" Aleshanee asked, bowstring taut as ever.

"Well, you see, sir…" Strauss checked his notebook, laying it over the red crate he held. "Songaa has signed into a gentlemen's pact with me—the papers might not be official, but I have his signature in ink. 'October sixteenth, fifty-eight dollars to Songaa of the Wapiti Indian Reservation, first installment to be paid by October thirtieth.' He couldn't make that payment so I extended his line of credit an additional two weeks for an additional surcharge, so now it's… let me look… eighty-four dollars he owes. I sent Mr. Williamson here to politely yet firmly inquire about his progress. I see now me and he share different perspectives on that phrase. I accept full responsibility, and… Songaa, was it?"

"Y-yes sir," the man answered, chest thudding up and down rapidly.

"The interest compounded due to your tardiness regarding the first payment has been revoked in light of this embarrassing misunderstanding. Let's just say that come another two weeks you owe us the agreed-upon amount of seventy dollars, which should cover our costs of lending it to you. Do you think you can have it back to us by then?"

Mary-Beth thought she saw Bill toss a scowl Songaa's way, yet she couldn't be sure.

"Y-yes sir. No trouble at all sir."

"Perfection." Strauss smiled, closing his notebook with a snap. "I apologize for my ruffian's behavior, but killing him is not necessary. He will return with me to our side of camp and I will see to it he doesn't stray from it. Fair?"

Aleshanee's arrow snuck back into his quiver as he shrugged in agreement with most of the surrounding Wapitis.

"Perfection," the funny accent repeated, grabbing Bill's arm and leading him away. That would've been the end of it if she hadn't spoken out.

"Wait… Strauss… you've been… you've been collectin' debts?" Mary-Beth stepped out, no longer another head in the herd. She was someone important now, someone with the weight of sixty eyes on her. "On today? Of all goddamn days?"

"You coward," Charles spat. "After all that's happened?"

The Austrian adjusted his glasses as he faced him. "Yes. You knew. I told you."

Charles exhaled a few times, calming himself until he was able to speak clearly. "No… I didn't."

"Oh. Must've slipped my mind." He tried to clasp Bill's wrist and flee back to his wagon, no doubt to recount the camp's funds from that infernal red box he wouldn't let out of his sight. But Charles caught him by the shoulder.

"You're not leavin'!" he roared, losing his cool for the first time Mary-Beth had ever seen.

"Charles," Aleshanee interrupted. "You're frightening people."

His rage passed like a fleeting shadow and he spoke sententiously again: "You know what he's been doin'?"

"'Course I do. I have a deal with him myself."

Charles gawked. "What?"

Strauss checked his gray notebook. "Yes. We loaned the fine lady thirty-three dollars to the penny."

Aleshanee just shrugged. "I need money, man. Can't exactly go to a bank. Especially not now, after all the hell we raised."

Charles took his words in, considering them carefully. "Okay, okay, that's fair, but Strauss—"

"Yes, I'll be on my way now," he tried again, yanking uselessly against Charles' grip.

"You're not leavin', Strauss, until you agree to cut him loose."

The accent was perplexed. "Cut… loose? Heh… uh, Mr. Smith, I commemorate your character, and I am sympathetic to the carnage that occurred last night, but what you are suggesting is charity work, which is a mite outside my areas of expertise, I'm afraid. If I let one man forgo his debt to us, then it'll be expected that everyone can forgo their debts to us. We can't have that, can we? Last night was a tragedy, but we can't let it become an excus—"

"I want you to forfeit all the debts. Let the money you've distributed to the Wapitis go out, and let that be that."

The crowd clamored. Strauss' shiny glasses filled with steam as they jounced from one side to the other anxiously. "That's just not possible. Deals are a holy vow, Mr. Smith. You couldn't simply ask God to cut a man loose from his day of reckoning, now can—"

"Strauss," Charles said coldly, squeezing tighter on his lanky forearm, "don't act like we need the money."

"W-what are you talkin' about?" Songaa asked, eyes widening with intrigue.

"Don't say it," Bill warned, resting a hand on his holster. "Don't you even think about it."

The Wapitis stared at Charles waiting for an answer. Mary-Beth glanced down at her feet. The scarlet cuff of her previously white sock protruded from her boot. So much blood… so many people dead. All for one of Dutch's stupid plans. Like Annesburg. He put a whole town outta business and tortured Kieran in the process. He nearly killed Molly. He keeps doin' it, and we keep lettin' him get away with it. And he was doing it again, she knew, returning to Annesburg to rope that poor family into another death sentence. She remembered the look on Kieran's face when Dutch asked him to tag along, how his eyes had lit up, so eager, so so stupid… How many people will he hurt, will he exploit? He used these people for protection, got almost half of 'em killed, and is siphoning the last of their savings when we already got more than enough to fuckin' live off of?! Her nightmare popped back into her head, Dutch with his fangs in her neck, whispering in her ear that same word again and again. Give me all of it, oh, yessss, every last drop!

And the words blurted out. "We got forty thousand dollars we nabbed from a train heist!"

The second they hit her ears she knew it was a mistake. Idiot, idiot, idiot…

"You do?" Songaa drawled, his face reanimating with greed.

The remaining Wapitis joined in too, stepping forward, shrinking the circle more and more. The voices came in overlapping strings of thunder.

"Forty thousand dollars? Did I hear that right?"
"Where did you rustle together that kind of scratch?"

"Your Russian's been bleedin' me out over twelve bucks and you guys have forty thousand dollars?"

"N-no," Mary-Beth said weakly, however it was too late. Pandora's box was open. Idiot, idiot, idiot…

"Calm down," Strauss insisted. He spoke as softly as ever, yet this time, folk quieted down instantly when he uttered the words. "She means, of course, forty thousand pesos, or roughly two thousand American dollars."

The hungry mob lost its appetite in a hurry. Two thousand dollars was still a lot of money, but enough to rush a gang of heavily armed wanted killers? That dog wouldn't hunt. Folks settled down from their frenzy, resuming mostly uninterested stances.

Mary-Beth exhaled with relief. Oh bless that man's ability to bullshit.

"What's the ruckus about?" Rains Fall inquired, stomping through the crowd. He'd finally decided to resume his post as chief of the Wapitis and investigate the jeering and fighting. The tears were still wet on his cheeks and though he strained to make his voice large and intimidating, he only sounded like a tired old man.

"Nothing," Strauss answered, "Bill, take a walk." He gave his best imitation of a shove—the bull didn't budge, but instead walked freely back to their campsite. "And Charles? Come with me, I want to continue our debate in private. Oh, and Songaa?"

"Y-yes sir?"

"Two weeks."

"Y-yes sir."

The crowd sluggishly dispersed, the circle breaking away into a six-sided star, people filtering in every direction, still whispering about money.

Idiot, idiot, idiot…

Strauss was leading Charles away, down the hill, off into the woods ahead of the reservation. Mary-Beth glanced back to her bedroll, in sight from all this way, a book propped open for her. Pride and Prejudice, one of her favorites. Still, something in her, perhaps pride, perhaps prejudice, perhaps something worse, compelled her head to the right, and without warning, she was dashing after the two men. She had been a pickpocket long enough to know how to evade notice. She stalled far enough behind them as they entered the thick forest so the crunching of orange and yellow leaves from her boots didn't attract any attention as she followed.

The woods weren't unscathed by the assault either. Waves of riders on horseback had etched dark slashes into the grass, even cracking and fragmenting the stone into tiny pellets that blew into a gray powder when the sharp wind took over. Mary-Beth clutched her sides with her frail arms, wishing she'd stolen Molly's shawl or that she'd still had her own

Eventually, she halted abruptly as the pair of men ceased their stroll. They corned a stout tree base so she lost sight of them, but the sounds of their voices didn't shrink, so she knew they weren't retreating further away from her.

"I understand your frustration over Mr. Williamson's actions, and I'll be the first to say they were regrettable—"

"Regrettable? If I don't put him on his ass, Aleshanee takes the shot and there's a good chance Songaa would've been impaled."

Mary-Beth made out a faint snicker as she inched closer, stripping off her boots so the twigs and leaves under her had a lesser chance of roaring and alerting her presence. "I do feel compelled to say if that were the case, the blame would rest entirely on Aleshanee there."

"Don't get smart with me, you knew he was unhinged."

"Unbalanced is the word I would use."

"Use whatever word you want."

The muffled banter between the two grew crisper and cleaner as she drew nearer.

"Listen," said a voice that she recognized as Strauss', "He didn't pull that at my request. He's been… different since Karen. And he's always had problems with the natives—'a good shake and a hard scowl,' that's what I told him to do, I swear."

"Don't strawman me, friend," Charles said cooly, though there was a certain sharpness in his tone that couldn't be avoided. "Bill's done and forgotten. I want to talk about the other thing."

"Oh… that."

Mary-Beth bent low and slowly crawled her head out until Charles and Strauss slithered into view. The former was pressed between the tree and the latter. The native was wearing a gray undershirt and blue navy jacket that mirrored his navy boots; the Austrian wore muted colors, save for the red box swinging at his side and his rosy cheeks and nose that were blushing from the cold gale. The wind was mushrooming in strength now, sweeping Mary-Beth's braided hair into her face, as it did with Charles.

"You're right, Mr. Smith, I'm not too shy to say it. The natives have been very helpful and they do deserve our full aid in this terrible crisis they've endured… however, we must maintain appearances. Two thousand dollars is a lot of money, but divided fifteen ways… If we don't play the part like we need more cash, they'll begin to realize we're holding out on them and they'll come after us like a pack of wolves. Stupid Ms. Gaskill certainly reinforced that notion." He patted Charles on the chest, which forced his back against the tree. His spine dug into a burl and he groaned.

"Furthermore," he continued, "it does good to keep someone like Bill busy. Doldrums are the devil, just look at Molly for reference. A—if you'll pardon my vulgar tongue—fucking ne'er-do-well. But, now, think long on this, is she a ne'er-do-well because she doesn't work or does she not work because she'd a ne'er-do-well? To me the answer is clear. Please… let's keep the debts going, we'll deflect any possible suspicion about harboring more money and distract poor Bill in the meantime. Give him something to make him feel important."

"Gives you something too, don't it?" Charles said icily. "A purpose. A reason to be in the gang. I wonder, would we need you around if there were no more debts to squirrel up? To me the answer is clear: no."

A shadow fell over the world. Mary-Beth gazed up. The sun was shrouded by dark gray clouds. When she glanced back from where she lay in the tall grass, she saw a mirror shining over the forest because Charles was now the one holding Strauss at the end of the tree, aiming a finger at the accountant.

"Is that a veiled threat, Mr. Smith? If so, I'll ask you to refrain, it's uncomely." He slapped the sepia finger out of his way.

"No threats. Just facts."

"Mr. Smith," he sighed, "what I do is perfectly legal work. Times are tough, and therefore must also be my interest rates. I've explained the situation as candidly as I can. If you can't accept that, I don't know what to tell you."

He took a step forward, one step, and then his back was thrown back against the tree. The wind blew a needly blade of grass at Mary-Beth's eye, and still she didn't squint.

"Just answer me this, Strauss," Charles demanded, pinning the Austrian abut the hard bark of the tree. "Just this, then you can go. Do you not feel the tiniest bit guilty for what's happened? Their people have died because of us, women and children too. Because of what we did. And you, you're gouging 'em dry, after all that. Don't you have any sympathy for these people?"

"Of course not, Mr. Smith. Every second someone dies a horrifying death. What, am I supposed to weep like La Llorona every time a stranger I've never met dies in the fucking Balkans?" He slapped Charles' hand off his chest. "Are we finished? I've stated my position—if you can't accept that, talk to Dutch when he returns. If he tells me to do as much as tossing every dollar in the air and letting the breeze carry it away, I will."

"Javier told me that's what you used to do," Charles bellowed. "Not tossing it all up in the air and letting the breeze carry it away, but, y'know, charity work. He said y'all used to give the money back to the needy, Robin Hood style. What the hell happened to you, people? When did you become like this?"

"I don't know. That was before my time here," Strauss answered. Heh, wonder if there's a correlation…

"Of course it was" Charles stared fiercely, clenching his fists. Mary-Beth was certain he was going to punch him, yet his arms stayed fixed at his sides.

Strauss tipped his chin up proudly, as though he'd won this exchange, and gyrated, walking in Mary-Beth's direction back to camp. She lowered herself deeper into the grass, then sighed, knowing it was useless. He'd have to be blind not to spy out her pink and red dress among a field of green, and he was wearing his glasses. Whatever, they won't get too cross, I don't—

"Hey," Charles called lowly. The accent stopped dead in his tracks, sighing deeply.

"What…?"

"I… I did something I probably shouldn't have. It was a while back, when I first joined the gang."

"Well, we all have sins, Mr. Smith. Try confessional." The leaves crackled under his foot as he continued his departure, then stopped when Charles hollered the three magic words guaranteed to catch anyone's attention: it's about you.

Strauss spun cautiously. He was like a cat, wary and calculating but he shared the pitfall of the creature too—curiosity. "What's about me?"

Charles outstretched his hand to the padding in Strauss' coat pocket. "I read through your journal."

The lenses on Strauss' circular glasses were about the size of a silver half-dollar, and at that instance, his eyes seemed to fill them completely. "You… you probed through my-my private—"

"I wasn't sure if I could trust the gang yet. Mary-Beth's diary only had bad poems and Arthur kept his too close."

Mary-Beth felt an irresistible cringe quiver up her body. Shit, he read all those? Oh God…

"I read about her," he whispered, his hazel eyes refusing to blink. "I know they stole Anna away from you, Strauss." Leaves screamed as he sauntered closer.

"W-what are you doing?"

"Your little sister. And they took her into bonded labor."

The Austrian bit his lips until they were purple. "It… it was a long time ago. I don't really think about her anymore."

"Yes, you do." Charles pinched his glasses and puffed on them, wiping the grease stains clean with his shirt. "I saw you talking to Sweetgum Tree. Her cousin was one of the girls Favours' men kidnapped and raped off the road. Y'know what they did after?"

"I know."

"Tell me."

"No."

Charles gently returned the glasses to their perch. "They stole her away, to an Indian Boarding School in Connecticut, where she will be shown the proper Christian ways of civilized folk. It's the same as Anna—"

"It's not the same at all."

"It is."

"It's not."

"It is."

"It's not!"

Charles clasped him by the cheeks, pulling him close, almost enough for a kiss. "How can you not care?! You have to! Goddammit, it can't be just me! Why don't you care?"

Spittle landed on Strauss' hairless chin. His eyes were narrow and beady. "Because, when I look in Sweetgum Tree's pudgy face," he said cold as ice, "I don't see Anna. What I see is a stupid, empty-headed, Godless injun."

Then the punch came, and Strauss flew for a moment before slamming against the dirt. It looked cushy on the surface, but the soft leaves were only the shell for the hard naked bedrock beneath. He moaned, struggling to sit up. The back of his head was bleeding where a stone had pierced it. He wiped it with a finger, then searched his pockets for a rag to soak up the blood.

I could offer him my socks, Mary-Beth considered ironically. Part of her wanted to intercede, coax Charles back to reason. But the part of her that controlled her legs made her stay put. One punch is the least that bastard deserves.

Charles brought the red box down on Strauss' oily receding hairline, sending flinders of redwood everywhere. The breeze began to float all the green bills away in awkward somersaults.

"Pick it up," Charles ordered.

"S-stop…" Strauss whimpered, purple lips shaking. Mary-beth wondered if he'd ever been struck in all his life. "I'll-I'll cut Songaa a discount—"

"Pick it up!"

He rolled to his hands, crawling doggishly over the leaves, wincing a few times as red splinters drove inside his kneecap. He scrounged as many loose folds of jade paper as he could, though Strauss had counted and knew it wasn't nearly all that had been there a moment ago.

"That's seed money," Charles explained, forcing him to his feet by his fat ear. "You are gonna take that money and get the hell outta here! Bacchus Station is a few miles south, you get moving now, you can be there before sundown. You buy a pony with this money and get as far as you can from here! Do not stay in the state, they'll be looking for you."

"Wh—this is a joke?"

"Go. Now!" Charles rifled through his jacket before tossing him in the right direction. "Get lost!"

"I… I-I see your p-point, Mr. Smith," Strauss stammered. "I'll-I'll cancel the debt on Songaa."

"Strauss…"

"On all of them! I swear!"
"That's done already," Charles claimed, holding up the gray notebook. It was three hundred pages thick and he ripped it clean in half, letting the pieces crunch against the autumn leaves.

"You-you can't do this!" he cried, blinking briskly, and for a sad strange second, Mary-Beth felt empathy for him. Then she remembered Bill murdering that mother and her child. Londonderry, I think… All for a couple of dollars…

She said nothing as Strauss continued to protest. "Dutch will hear about this! I'll tell him and he'll kill you! You think you mean more to him than me?"

"No, I don't. But he won't hear about it. If you ever show your face at the reservation again, you're dead, y'hear? You're fuckin' dead! And I'm doin' you a favor. Remember: stay the fuck outta the state."

"Fuck you!" Strauss shrieked, his accent devolving into incoherent wails. "Fuck all of you, you fucking motherfucker, fuck you and fuck your dead daddy and your dead siste—fuck you!"

Strauss swiveled until she could only make out the red stain on the back of his skull, and then he disappeared into the jungle of barren trees. Eventually, the sound of his cries faded away.

When Mary-beth finally rose from her trench of grass, Charles was gone, marching back to camp.

Shit, she summarized, he's gone. Strauss is fuckin' gone. She shook her head, scarcely believing it. And Karen's gone, and Hosea's gone, and Swanson's gone… She nibbled on her slender finger. Shit, we should've gone with him. Swanson fuckin' offered, we should've gone.

It'll be okay, he had said. We're so close. Dutch says we're so close. And… and he called me his son.

Silly ass! She thought. Stupid, silly—

She stomped her frustration on the field, pouncing around until it was all flat under her bloody socks. She remembered her story, the handsome lawman following the striking outlaw wherever she went, even if it was into the heart of winter itself.

She chuckled at herself. She'd been thinking that man and woman would be her and Kieran, but maybe she was the one dumbly shadowing him, or better yet, maybe it was Kieran and Dutch, maybe she was just the tick dug into the lawman's patchy beard as he chased after his one true love.

She wouldn't soon forget how Kieran's eyes lit up when Dutch asked for him. Even after the last time led to him getting tortured. He called me his son.

She wiggled her boots back on and began strolling back to the reservation, walking quickly—the adrenaline helped clear the fog in her head.

You're being silly, Mary-Beth. Like Mama used to say: 'That imagination a' yours is gonna cross country faster than a train if you don't keep it on a tight leash.' Relax.

And she did, taking deep breaths until the reservation came into sight. This ain't a dime novel—isn't a dime novel, this is the real world. Things move slowly here. We'll spend weeks probably traveling between the train and whatever hike we gotta make in Canada. That's more than enough time. Kieran'll see Dutch for who he is and when he does, I'll be ready with my bags packed. Maybe we'll find someone to publish one of my books—that is when I actually write something worth a damn. How much would a book go for? Do they measure it by how much it's sold for or the quality? Oh, well that's a stupid question, Mary-Beth, of course, it's how many sold—oh, wait, though, some books are bigger than others, how do they account for—

Suddenly, she felt hands wrap around her. Not soft like Kieran's, no these were hard and coarse, like Dutch's. The gag came next, tightly woven and knotted over her head. Then the blindfold, plunging her into darkness. Then the rod or the stick or whatever knocked her out. Then the nightmares of a vampire.

Strauss has been ejected...

Mary-Beth spilled the beans, and now she's been kidnapped. By who, I wonder?

Tune in later to see Dutch's next brilliant plan in Annesburg.