NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY: RDR2

43. SURE TO COME TO GRIEF

"The moral is, it hardly need be shown,

All those who try to go it sole alone,

Too proud to be beholden for relief,

Are absolutely sure to come to grief."

—Robert Frost

TW: There is discussions about previous sexual trauma in this chapter.  

A few days had passed since the meeting with Colonel Favours had fallen in chaos, I took each passing day that the army had not descended upon us as a victory. I'd filled my time by hunting around the local areas, managing to snag a few last-minute pelts before the sale. Sadie had agreed to sell with me, she joined the gang after the failed Blackwater job, and as a result the law wouldn't be looking for her. I was keen to spend some time with her away from camp, where I could ask her about her about her plans. It was clear to me that Sadie knew that the gang was ending, that they couldn't stay hidden for much longer, yet it was equally as clear that Sadie could not return to a life like she had before she met them. She had been irreversibly changed by the events that led her into the arms of the gang, she was bitter, she was angry. Her rage so often mixing with her newfound bloodlust. There was no straight and narrow for her any longer, no settling down quietly.

I had lived comfortably once, as Sadie had, but I was a child. My world was always going to change in some way or another, and I'd known that from the start. I imagined I would move out eventually and have to find my own way in life, I hadn't in my wildest nightmares imagined the circumstances under which I would do so, but that change had always been foreseen. Sadie had already grown up, she'd already found her feet, she'd found her partner. She had built a home, an income, she'd settled into what she thought would be the rest of her life. And it had been taken from her in a prolonged act of cruelty. We were both a little lost now, but I was ready to stand still, and she was ready to run.

I waited for her to arrive, watching Cripps carve another small figure from a small bit of scrap wood. From where I was sat I couldn't tell what it was, but he seemed to be making quite a few of them these days.

"Who's that one for?" I asked, peering over.

"Miss Fike." He said, a small smile on his lips. "She's asked me to visit her at the end of the week, said we've got somethin' to discuss."

My eyebrows shot up, it was unlike Maggie Fike to invite anyone down to speak with her, let alone Cripps.

"Any idea's what it might be?"

"Plenty of ideas." He replied, laughing. "But they are just the daydreams of an old man."

"Reckon all the time you've spent in camp, not gazing at her from the other end of the bar, has finally made her miss you?" I ask, a sly smile creeping onto my face.

"Don't you go feedin' my ego now, she'll only crush it." He said, shaking his head in amusement.

I was only half joking. Maggie Fike would likely never give Cripps the time of day, and if she ever did, she would surely break him down within seconds. But I couldn't help but hold out hope for the old man, I wanted him to be happy. It's something I had spent very little time considering before finding it myself, I'd never imagined that Cripps would do anything other than spend the rest of his life camping with me. But that wasn't his only option, he had life to live in him yet.

Sadie arrived as the morning sun had risen to the afternoon, baring down upon the glistening waves of frosty hills that were merely weeks away from being covered in snow. She had brought a rifle and a shotgun, which was unexpected choice.