Disclaimer: I own none of the characters presented in this story. Red Dead Redemption and all associated with said property belong to Rockstar Games.

Disclaimer: Strong depictions of violence, murder, and other such heinous and repugnant acts, very harsh language used throughout, and some taboo and offensive material occasionally presented.

Part Forty-Four: Sadie

10:57 AM, August 25th, 1899

Sadie found a cigarette card when she climbed to the top platform of the yellow windmill. The caption read Chicago and it showed dozens of fat buildings stretching up to the blue sky, trying to touch it, so, so close to touching it…

On the street, there were hundreds of little dots representing people; they hurried, busy as bees, to do whatever it was folks did in the big city. Sadie couldn't relate to that lifestyle—she preferred silence and isolation. She did how they did, however: keeping busy as a bee.

She'd ridden down to Rhodes on Branwen—she hadn't bothered asking because she knew Kieran was an O'Driscoll rat (despite the evidence to the contrary) and as such, he wasn't entitled steady transportation—which wasn't too much of a chore since she hadn't been involved in that debacle with the Grays and Braithwaites and no one was looking for her (which was good, because in her sunshine yellow garbing, she would've been spotted a mile away by anyone without cataracts). Questioning and polls from civilians directed her to the parlour house where she found what she was searching for. No, no, not booze (trust me, she hadn't been skimping). Bruce Jacobs, a drunken Lemoyne Raider whose brother was rumored to be in deep with the O'Driscolls.

It just took a few beatings to get the information that led her atop a giant ceiling fan facing the wrong direction: Mr. Jacob's brother was leading a few of the O'Driscolls (the ones that were left anyway—Dutch's move in Annesburg meant the Pinks were hounding them just as mercilessly as they were hounding the Van der Linde Gang) into Emerald Ranch to collect some cattle. They weren't paying of course, who do you think they—well, actually, pardon my slander, they were paying, albeit with bullets and blood instead of cash or credit.

And so now, she sat, waiting. With luck, Tom Dalton would be there, or at least someone who knew where he was lying doggo. She thought about the fat bastard and her finger twitched on the trigger of her sniper. She took deep breaths to keep from shaking as the memories flooded back inside her scarred face. She recalled the way the floorboards creaked when he strolled around her house like it was his, his laughter as he beat her Jake, her precious Jake, into a whimpering mess, and the bang when he pulled the trigger… when he ruined her life forever…

He's gonna die… she swore. Painfully.

The sun glared in her eyes and she tilted the brim of her hat to compensate. And when she did, she saw them, riding in from the south, right where she wanted them. There were five in their confederacy, all equally tattered and grotty.

Her eye was magnified under the scope; the gun was firm in her hands and she felt powerful. When they came to the mountains, she'd been hiding in the cellar for three days while they tortured Jake. For three days, she listened to the cloutings and drunken japes at his expense and longed to caress her hand over the trick door underneath the brown and white elk skin rug of her home and reveal herself. And for three days, her hand shook with fear and she pulled away, covering her ears while her husband, the love of her life, was slowly murdered in cold blood.

But now, her hand was firm on the gun. She'd been powerless then and it was never happening again. Tom Dalton will die. She was thankful for how the county borders lined up; the nearest sheriff was in Valentine, and by the time word reached his ear, she'd be long gone. She winced as they came clear into sight. Tom Dalton wasn't one of them; not a single guy was over two hundred pounds.

Finally, when they galloped into town, past Seamus's red barn—now owned by his cousin-by-marriage on account of his death a few weeks ago by a certain white cat—closer and closer to her trap, Sadie took aim, locking onto an uneven patch of dirt between the windmill and Seamus's (cousin-by-marriage's) barnyard. And when those five O'Driscoll horses ambled over that speck of land, she fired.

The explosion blew a puff of clayish brown smoke around the O'Driscolls and when it cleared, they lay supine, groaning in the dirt while their horses whispered their last whinny, limbs contorted and in a few instances, blown clean off.

Despite the mess of townfolk screaming and horse blood scrabbling the white hide on the sheep grazing four meters away, Sadie couldn't help a smile (a real one, not her Glasgow branded variation). Dynamite was a good idea, she thought, before cocking her gun and firing two warning shots in the air.

"Listen up, O'Driscolls!" She bellowed, loud enough to be heard from her position on high. "I want to know where Tom Dalton is! Whoever tells me his current whereabouts first gets to live!" The five men stumbled to their feet, taking her threat as seriously as a ghat bite. Only two actually paid her a glance—the others just stared off blankly, twirling a finger in their ears. And the two who acknowledged her didn't answer, they just stared like confused dogs. "Did I stutter?!" She barked, letting off a third warning shot near their feet. "Dalton! Now, or else you're all dead!"

"What?!" One of the O'Driscolls called out, but not out of offense or shock. He was genuinely befuddled. Sadie closed her left eye, letting the smudgy lens on the gun swallow her vision. The outlaws' eyes were wide, their mouths agape, and they wouldn't stop rubbing their damn ears. Shit, Sadie realized, the blast fuckin' deafened 'em.

And, unable to understand her ultimatum, they went for their guns, wanting to fend off the lady looking down on them with a sniper rifle. Sadie was flat on a thin wooden platform that branched out from the windmill's main stalk—there was no cover. No choice.

She shot two of the five within a second of each other before she needed to reload. In that time, the other three vanished, scattering throughout the town. Sadie grumbled and set her rifle aside, drawing her Schofield revolver. She climbed down the windmill, moving one step at a time until she reached the green grass waiting for her. Dammit. I got to find 'em befor—

As luck would have it, she wouldn't need to wait long because a ruffian took her from behind, strangling her arms so she dropped her gun before slipping her into a half-nelson. He was good too, and she felt her world going black against his rugged, hairy arm as he constricted violently.

Feeling her world fading to black, she dropped her hand from vainly clawing at his immutable arm to groping blindly at her belt for something she could use. She found her hunting knife and it glittered in the sunlight until it was covered with blood when she impaled him right in the neck. His grip on her throat loosened immediately and he dropped to the grass, dead.

Breathing roughly, she saw another—though he was emigrating away from her and growing smaller with every second—and scrabbled for her Schofield revolver. Bang, bang! In the distance, a clayish spec stopped moving and fell.

Shit! She realized, slapping her head with the cylinder of her gun, cracking a small fissure on her forehead. I need to interrogate these assholes! What the fuck am I doing! Again she pounded the gun into her face; she growled and cursed, but afterward, a nearly pleasureful sensation stretched along her body. The pain didn't feel good, but it felt right.

There was only one O'Driscoll left, racing up by the closed-down saloon and the strange skullshop beside it. Sadie heard a train whistle and panicked. No! Now?! Of all goddamn times?!

She bolted up the street, racing for the train station, her blood boiling. That cocksucker does not get away!

She couldn't learn a lot about the man from his back a hundred feet ahead, but she could discern he was a lanky little bastard. She watched his skinny long legs soar all the way to the Emerald Station, where he quickly tossed a crumbled dollar bill at the clerk—it bounced off of the barred divided separating them—and jumped up on the train cart above the caboose just as the iron horse squealed and started moving.

No, no, no! She closed her eyes and pumped her arms as hard as she could, burning all the oil in her veins to make it to the train as its walk transitioned into a jog. She lept, striking the rail guards sharply in her ribs as she hit the oily black steps of the caboose. She made it. Her boot was sticking over the edge and the drag sent it flying from her foot as the train accelerated.

Groaning, she stumbled to her (semi-naked) feet and scrabbled for the train car's door before it was opened for her.

"The hell do you think you're doin', boy?" the train guard asked, before he noticed her dirty yellow braid swaying over her shoulders, camouflage against her yellow shirt. He was red-haired, boasting a girthy handlebar mustache that curved up in a U-shape. Heh, Sadie might've felt at home—another person with a second smile etched on his face. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out except short raspy breaths. I'm so tired, she thought, when was the last time I slept? (I don't know that, but if the question ended with with someone else? I can tell you it would've been a damn while).

The guard took her by the wrist, dragging her through the caboose, which was stuffed with desks and cooking appliances, into the next cart. "Can you produce a ticket?" he asked, gripping her tightly.

"I can't produce nothin'," she mumbled, not looking at his hazel eyes.

He groaned, studying her up and down. "They're like a dollar fifty… c'mon, we ain't doin' so good as is." She followed his hand to the cart. It was empty—it was no cargo train either, this was a passenger train—aside from maybe six heads Sadie made out among a sea of train pews. Her slender friend wasn't here either… Smiling Train Man sighed. "Look… normally I would force you down in a chair and toss you off this rig once the next stop rolled around, but we need the business. Can you just give me five bucks for the trouble and we'll call it even? You got that, don't you?"

Sadie shrugged, grumpily searching her pants for the funds. She'd taken a couple dollars from Strauss before setting out, but she wasn't sure how much—

"Oh," she murmured, finding a crisp green bill. "Here."
He flashed her a double smile with his facial hair and lips, letting go of her arm. "Just head up front and deliver that to the train's conductor. He's a chubby fellow, fascist too—but don't let that bother you, he's actually a pretty nice guy." When she didn't move, he spoke again. "Go on, I trust you."

Meredith trusted me too, she thought as she crossed to the next cart in a daze, her chaperone on her tail, and I let her die. Just like Lenny and Jack. And Jake.

The next cart was identical, albeit with three fewer heads, and then there was the lounge. It was slightly more populated and embellished, with gold paint decorating the walls and patterned white and blue curtains stretching over the windows, making the watered-down gin seem more chic. There were six white tablecloth tables snaking around the car in a gun shape. Heh, how apt. A husband and wife were the only two occupants of the round tables and chattered loudly. The barkeep was a middle-aged brunette woman who gave her a polite smile despite the black crescents under her eyes that said I was working overnight last night. She slid a beer to her only customer at the bar's counter: the last O'Driscoll.

He was shaky, easing his nerves with the foamy orange drink. Then he saw her and coughed it out onto his lap.

"Can I see your ticket?" a pudgy, vaguely Italian man asked her, popping out from nowhere. He wore a primly pressed uniform fitted with a flat black cap that read: Conductor.

"Yeah, no ticket, Giovanni," the train guard said. "She forgot to buy one so I was thinking…"

Sadie ignored him, strolling closer to the bar, resting a hand on her pistol. The O'Driscoll shot his hands up so furiously, he took the beer glass with him and it flung onto the ground, shattering into a million shards.

"Where is Danton?" she asked, raising the gun to the O'Driscoll's pimply nose. The barkeep's polite smile died and she took a step back. The wife at the spiraled white table took notice and quit her idle prattle with her husband immediately. They stared at Sadie with fear. "Where?"

The O'Driscoll shook with terror. His mouth moved, but nothing came out. He was too scared.

She felt the air of the guard behind her. "What are you doin'?"

"Where?!" Bang! She put a warning shot at the bar's counter where the napkin supporting his beer had been. It disappeared with the smoke. "Where?!"
Then the Smiling Train Man tackled her, flipping her over, and jockeyed with her for the gun, squeezing his lean fingers over the gun's barrel. "C'mon… stop!"

The conductor started up then. "This is the problem with this country. You tell everyone they can go around shootin' people—"

"Let go!" She screamed, blindly tugging the gun in every direction.

"—and you best believe they'll do it. What we need is less choice, a greater specialization of labor and—"

Bang! Sadie shot the man clean through the chest and he slumped down limply on her, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. She felt his smiling hairs tickling her neck. You idiot… Sadie laughed as she pushed the large corpse off of her. You fuckin' stupid idiot… She brought the gun to her head again, hitting the same crack repeatedly until the pain numbed the self-loathing.

Click. She turned to see the O'Driscoll, armed with a Cattleman revolver aimed directly at her blood-stained stomach. He stood pathetically, shaking like a leaf in a storm, but Sadie saw his finger pinching around the trigger…

Some have told me that when they feel death breathing down their necks, an unimaginably bitter breeze shivers through them. All the blood in their body freezes and they turn rigid as an icicle. Horror drills in and out of their heads, before the bullet, quick as greased lightning, followed by a wave of sadness too fast for tears to form, concluded by pleasant, happy memories to warm them right before the cold, the eternal cold.

But Sadie was already cold, as ice. And she was sick of it, sick of being cold, sick of being an idiot, sick of hurting people. Of being without her husband. She missed warm things, like snuggling by the fire, coffee cakes, kisses, Jake, and oh God she let that poor boy die…

The man pulled the trigger. And missed.

He fired five more times, all close range, all at a still target. And all missed.

She laughed louder, unable to contain herself. She thought of a picture show she'd seen a year or so ago… with Jake… There had been a cute anthropomorphic cartoon apple who'd sauntered around a lovely black-and-white forest, whistling as he walked. Everything in that damned forest must've been starving, because everything was taking a bite out of him, giant worms, deer, foxes, you name it, it ate him. At the end, he plopped down on a road of dirt, nibbled down to the core, his frown dragging along the ground. He closed his eyes weakly and dozed off… and viola! In the morning, sure as shooting, the seeds bursting out of him had sprouted into a fine apple tree! And he grinned broadly, whistling a catchy tune, and the film ended.

No matter what happened to that smiling golden apple, he couldn't be taken out of his misery…

The O'Driscoll gyrated and ran from the lounge car, trailed by the married couple and barkeep—the conductor was on his knees, checking his friend's pulse (he was disappointed by what he found). The next cart was locked and the herd of terrified folk banged on it for dear life as Sadie slowly approached, taking her time, there was nowhere for them to go.

They kept pounding on the door, screaming for anyone behind it to save them; the train's route wasn't a busy one; there wasn't a single soul in that next car to open it for them. They were all alone.

The sun didn't warm her icy bones at all when she stepped outside. The five of them now stood between the two train cars, on the narrow platforms opposite the bony iron couplers connecting the two together. There were a lot of options for handling this, I'm sure you can imagine. So what did Sadie do?

She grappled him off of the speeding train onto the soft grass, made hard by the rapidness of their descent. She landed on him before bouncing off and he shrieked in agony. He bore most of her fall, but still, she grunted as she got up, feeling the wet dew on her bare foot. She grabbed him by his baggy shirt, holding him up as he hopped on one foot. "Y-you b-broke my f-f-foot!"

"I will kill you," she growled, "where is Danton?!"

"P-p-p-p-piss o-o-off!"

"You ain't the first stammering O'Driscoll I've met," she said with an evil smirk, kicking in his one good foot, sending him down hard. She took her lasso and wrapped his wrists in a square knot. "He talked too, y'know. Just too a few weeks tied to a damn post."

"F-f-fuck y-you!"

"Get up." She lifted the now-fettered captive, dragging him along as he limped. The walk back to Emerald Ranch wasn't short, but a slap to the back of the head with the but of her gun made the trip as she liked: silent. During the spring, she imagined this land must've been beautiful, with the fervent orange sun casting a halo around every bright green blade of grass and the only blemish on the clear blue sky being the doves that flew overhead, singing for all lovers of the world. Presently, however, a painting of the environs would be more Tenebrist than Impressionist. The sun was pale, as though obscured by linen, an overcast was creeping across the sky, and the halos that surrounded the grass were black, not golden.

They entered Emerald Ranch by the train station and strolled south to where Sadie left Branwen by the water tower. It had been longer than she'd wanted, but luckily, no sheriff was anywhere in sight—must have been busy. Just gotta get my horse and get out before any trouble shows up.

Too late. Just as she and her guest reached Seamus's cousin-by-marriage's barnyard, they galloped into view. Clippity-clippity clop. Six men circled around her on horseback like vultures. Clippity-clippity clop. They weren't wearing bowler hats or deputy stars, so Sadie wasn't sure what they wanted. Posse? Clippity-clippity clo—

They came to a halt suddenly, eyeing Sadie in a way she didn't like. The lead rider pulled up slightly, telegraphing his importance to her. He brandished quite a few pounds, but they were pounds of a boxer, pounds that would cushion any punches from a fist and cover any organs from a knife. He wore a blue suit with an orange tie, complimenting his eggshell white hat, also finished with an orange band above the brim. His mustache was far thicker than the train guard's and had been flowing in the opposite direction. If the latter's had looked like a second auburn smile, the former's was a second black grimace.

Somehow, deep inside, Sadie knew who he was before he said it. "Hello, ma'am. My name is James Langton."

Shit. "Hello, sir. It's, uh, good to meet ya."

He chuckled. "It's, uh, good to meet ya," he croaked in a high-pitched imitation of her voice. "I tell ya my name is James fuckin' Langton, and that's all you got to say in response?" She tried to speak, but he cut her off. "I got to say, ma'am, you either as ignorant as a baby, or you hide your fear better than gettin' called on an ace-high. So… which is it?"

The other horses formed a line behind him, blocking the path to Branwen. I can't make it. "S-sir?"

"Anyone ever tell you you look like a duck with all that damn yellow?"

"No sir."

"Well, duck, which is it? Are you so damn dense that you don't know who I am, or are you lyin' through your teeth?"

Sadie straightened her back. Politeness ain't doin' it. "It ain't that I don't know," she growled, "it's that I don't care. I'm busy here, so kindly get the fuck outta my way."

Langton's eyes smirked, falling on her hostage. "Who you got there?"

Sadie inched along the white barnyard fence, trying to gradually work around the men in front of her. "No one you need to worry about."

"Help," the O'Driscoll said abruptly. "She's crazy! Laughed whe—"

"Shut it." Sadie gave his game leg her boot and he yelped. She did it again and he bit his tongue silently. "He's wanted and I'm bringin' him in. Don't you even think 'bout clawing it outta my hands—have some damn professional courtesy, Langton."

The bounty hunter clicked his tongue, pointing a finger at the sky. "So you do know who I am."

"Sure," she said, still crawling away from him. "I know."

"Then you know I run the largest cohort of bounty hunters in the state. Seventy men strong—"

"I heard sixty."

His finger clenched into a fist at that. "Seventy. I'd know best."

"Right…" Branwen was in sight now, hitched to an iron pole. She just needed to cross the street…

"I'm glad you know me," he boomed, "at least by reputation—"

"Hey… wait… yeah, yeah, isn't Ike Skelding's crew the largest team of bounty hunters in the state?" Branwen eyed her from a few feet away… Just stall him a bit longer…

"No." He squeezed his blood-maroon Kentucky Saddler's reins tight and she wailed. "He's number two. Anyway… where was I?"

"You were leavin' me alone?" She lifted her hand to reach her ride…

"No, no. I was sayin' I'm glad you know who I am. Keeps us even."

She froze, locking her gaze on the dangling curb rein. He can't know me… he can't! I ain't done nothin' yet! I mean, I killed a few Lemoyne Raiders, but he ain't in with them—or is he? Is it Settimo? No, he's dead. Is—

When she pulled her eyes from the hypnotizing leather strap, she was staring into the flaring black nostrils of Langton's horse. They puffed with ivory smoke. The horse hissed at her and she wobbled back with surprise until he back struck the white fence again.

The six horses crept closer, in a crescent shape, aimed towards her. She realized for the first time they were all colored after Langton's: red, blood-red. The riders drew their guns.

For the first time, Langton smiled. "Kill the duck!"

They fired and she clung tight to her hostage; he was now her best friend. The bullets struck the O'Driscoll in the chest as she hopped over the fence with him, splattering blood all over her (not untainted) outfit. Seamus' cousin-by-marriage's barn doors were black and heavy and Sadie struggled to pry them open while keeping her friend from falling limply from her arms.

She barricaded the door with a (regrettably convenient) hoe, keeping low as bullet holes punctured the door. Even more regrettably, the hoe's wooden stick was thick and firm instead of the factory-issued ones that were quite common in Emerald Ranch. If it had been one of those cheap shoestring sticks, the doors would've been blasted open by the six men as they smashed their shoulders against it like a battering ram and they would've gunned her down and there would be one less sinner in the world.

But those ebony doors held and Sadie yanked the O'Driscoll to his feet. Blood trickled down his body in a complex overlapping root system, stemming from the gushing nine holes in his chest. His flesh was ghostly and prickly with goosebumps.

"Where is Danton?" she asked urgently. She was on the clock, in more ways than one. She slapped him with a bloody hand (heh, no, no, it wasn't hers), staining his face with a red palm like facepaint. "Where is he?!" she screamed, drilling her finger into one of the nine holes, thrashing and squeezing. It didn't hurt him; he'd ascended to a state of feeling beyond human.

"Hanging Dog," he said casually. Then he gradually slanted and dropped onto the hay-strewn floor, dead as a doornail.

BOOM!

Dynamite ate through the door as easily as paper. Sadie was blown back, missing the regrettably convenient stack of hay that would've broken her fall. Instead, her head slapped against an oily metal buggy.

Stunned, she climbed on top of the buggy, then onto a crippled burgundy-wheeled phaeton carriage, and onto the wooden ladder leading to the second story inside the barn. As the gray smoke cleared, a dark figure emerged from outside. Crouching from the high ground, Sadie tore its head off with a split-point bullet. The rest weren't so easy.

Bang! Bang! Two burst from the dissipating cloud of smoke, rushing underneath the mezzanine she stood under before she could shoot them. Then the bullets began lurching from the very ground she stood on. They whizzed by, forming bars of death around in every direction and she hopped and skipped ridiculously to avoid them as she fired blindly down, hoping to clip them luckily. That was a mistake because two more bounty hunters poured inside the barn taking shots at her now that she was no longer crouching out of sight. Shit, she wheezed internally as a spiral of lead shaved her arm at the joint, hitting a vein, sending one thought through her mind: pain, pain, pain.

She ran forward and lept off of the interior balcony, shooting one of the pair by the back entrance. Her knees landed on the iron buggy and screamed in agony. She rolled off, hiding behind it for cover before stumbling on her strained legs and crashing through the front barn doors. Her knees gave out and she tripped onto the dry grass before darting away, not looking over her shoulders, hoping to God she wasn't in range.

A man was riding into Emerald Ranch on a Turkoman and she jumped ahead of him on the beaten path, hoisting the gun at his head and screaming for him to get off—at least she hoped it was loud. The dynamite was still ringing in her ears and she couldn't hear much else.

When the equestrian dropped down and skedaddled, she mounted the Turkoman and bolted out of Emerald Ranch as fast as she could. She didn't hear the gunshots but felt the wind on them. They missed.

She charged until she was certain no stray bullets would stab her in the back before hooting a chant of celebration. Even though it didn't sound like much to her, she half-smiled as she escaped away from Emerald Ranch.

Then the Turkoman's blood squirted into her open mouth. She felt the breeze as she flew off her horse's corpse as it collapsed face-first and braced for the impact of the dirt.

It was Sadie's lucky day indeed, because it wasn't dirt she hit; it was mud, just off the road. It wasn't one of those shallow puddles either, no, this was a proper mud pit—she smacked it in a star shape and sunk to the end of her jawbone where the brown sludge bubbled in her ears. And, luckily again, when the mud dripped from her earlobe, her hearing was back, in shipshape. (Heh, if she'd had mud for the O'Driscolls, that misunderstanding wouldn't have happened.) Fuckin'... idiot… she thought as she weakly pulled her head up for air, gasping even weaker. I shot one… and four more were inside that barn… of course they sent one around to cover the back…

And as luck would have it—again Sadie's lucky day was paying dividends—that one was James Langton. He settled his horse, stationing in front of her; he seemed larger than life; he was no more than a few inches from her yet it was as though he looked down on her from miles up, bending away like she was leering at him through a glass bottle. "You almost had me there, duck." He released a snicker so vexingly smug Sadie knew he must've been related to Molly. "Didn't figure you for so keen a rider."

She glanced down as he spoke, finding her pistol; it was painted in mud and there was no more glare shining off of it, but it still had one bullet hiding in the chamber. Slowly, she began to stretch her hand out for it…

"That's on you, I guess," she said. "As will be the charges of assault and battery, once I report you for attacking a licensed bounty hunter. Ya killed my man—that was a hundred alive, forty dead."

Bang! He shot the gun, tearing the cylinder asunder and twisting the trigger until it couldn't be fired. The impact shoved it into the mud, where it disappeared in the slimy darkness. Langton snickered again, blowing the mist off his revolver dramatically.

Dammit, Sadie thought, but there was no more anger to it; apathy almost always follows hopelessness, and Sadie Adler was most certainly hopeless. Langton's men, atop their red steeds, joined them then; the sun lit them from the back so Sadie couldn't make out any details of their faces, only seeing a vivid dark blur under their hats.

"Still stickin' with this bounty hunter story, are we?" Langton asked her sardonically. "Why bother—we both know who you are… don't we?"

Sadie closed her eyes, ready for the bullet…

"Uh, boss," one of Langton's men said. He turned his head and Sadie noticed a lobster tattoo on it, elongating from his chin to collarbone, a large inky claw reaching for his Adam's apple. "I, uh, don't think that's her."

Langton jerked like he'd been punched. "W-what? Of course it is!"

"N-no, boss," another added. "I didn't want to start nothin', but it ain't."

"No…" Langton tucked a hand in his pocket, ripping out a wrinkled yellow paper. The sun outlined the print so even from the other side, Sadie could see it was a bounty poster. "No… yeah, that's definitely Karen Jones, as I live and breathe."

Sadie's mouth curved into a disbelieving square. "Are you fuckin'—"

"That ain't her, boss," Lobster said.

"Boss, I'm telling you, it ain't," another added. Then another, all disagreeing.

Langton was aghast. "No, no, she's a blonde gunslinger that reeks a' booze, that's Karen Jones."

"Ma'am?" Lobster asked politely. "Would you mind wiping that mud from your face so we can see it better?"

Sadie's head bounced back to each of the men, waiting for someone to start laughing. "This is a joke, right?"

"Do it," Langton ordered, cocking his revolver and aiming it at her. Bemused, she scrubbed the mud from her face—she did it with the inside of her shirt because her hands were just as bad. Langton studied her closely. Then the poster. Then, at last, he sighed. "Now that I have properly compared the two images… it is possible… it is seeming possible that I have been… misled."

"No problem, boss," a bounty hunter said.

"Yeah, happens to the best of us," added another.

Langton shot them both an ugly sneer that said he didn't want pity, he just wanted everyone to forget about this. He looked down at Sadie, not so well pleased anymore. "Despite the horrible things you've said to me, on top, of course, what you did to my men, I am going to let you go. But like anything honest in this world, there's a catch: you're through. Your bounty hunting days are over, whoever your hundred-dollar man was, forget him—and tell anyone else in our field you know to do the same. Tell 'em James Langton said so. I'm sure you know you won't need to elaborate on that." He holstered his gun and spoke softer, but more menacingly: "And know that you were lucky today. I'm huntin' quarry, and you had best not get in my way ever again." He turned his head and addressed his men. "Guess it was good we had this little run-in. She's gonna go tell her bounty-huntin' friends to get lost so there'll be no more competition over the Van der Linde Gang. I'd say that's far more productive than killing one drunk."

"Absolutely, boss."

"Damn, you're good, boss."

He sneered again. The line between insubordination and ass-kissing was clearly very narrow to him. "Let's go."

They gyrated and drove off, kicking clumps of chunky dirt at Sadie—to thicken the soupy mud. When they were finally out of earshot, she found the strength to curse them.

"Fuck you!" she bellowed. "Fuck you, you goddamn idiots!"

James Langton. Fuckin' James Langton. If I never see that prick again, it'll be too soon.

Thought it would be fun to start the rivalry they had in the game off early, hope you enjoyed.

Sorry for all the Sadie fans to keep kicking her while she's down. I always find tragedy reveals the most about characters, hence why this fanfic has so many damn tragic elements. Even though Sadie's arc is different from the game significantly, I hope there's enough for y'all to like. I thought the idea of taking Sadie's journey into the next Arthur and making it into more of a dark devolution for her character was pretty interesting since that's what happened to Arthur. He was a pretty bright, optimistic guy who got railroaded by Dutch into becoming a heartless, grumpy killer.

Next chapter is from a POV I don't think anyone will expect...