The Angel Butcher of Rio Bravo: An RDR2 Story

xxvii. "Who's waiting for you"

Arthur.

After so long without him, Arthur was glad to be atop Buster's back, riding out toward the eastern coast in the hopes of springing John. Dutch rode beside him, looking equally at ease in the saddle of his longtime mount.

"We have to protect our family, Arthur, our own," Dutch called, over the wind whipping their faces. "The ones who've been there since the beginning."

Arthur wrinkled his nose. "Charles's been with us less than a year, he's been protectin' just about everyone this whole time."

Dutch nodded solemnly, looking over to Arthur. "Charles is a good man. But the others..." He trailed off, looked away.

"Who d'you mean?"

"The new folks I just ain't sure about. Molly, Miss Nilsen-"

"Women?" Arthur interrupted, failing to keep the grit from his voice.

"Nothing to do with women, my boy; Annabel-"

"-was an angel that would spite the saints, yeah, I know." It was something Hosea often said about his Bessie, and it twisted Arthur's heart to say, discovering again within its recesses that the man was gone. They rode on in silence, Arthur rankled despite their doing what he most wanted, to find John. He supposed Dutch's offhand comment about Tine's disloyalty had irked him, too.

They passed out of the swamps and onto the scrubby grasses on the Lemoyne-New Hanover border, when Dutch held out his hand as a signal to stop, the smoke of a lone fire near their intended launch point barely visible in the bright day. "Guns out," he whispered, climbing off of The Count's back.

Arthur nodded minutely, his brows furrowing in concentration. His finger curled around the trigger of his revolver, freed from its holster, ready to fire at a moment's notice. The two crept together toward the skeleton of an old fisherman's hut, avoiding the broken glass - and odd rattlesnake, curled among it - scattered about the ground. There were signs of a camp long pitched; a tent stood just beside the former hut, the fire before it, a makeshift clothesline with a pair of pants and a denim shirt hanging. A little brown Morgan horse snorted at their arrival, their scent on the breeze.

The tent's flap flew open and Dutch and Arthur raised their guns, Dutch's menacing "hands up" greeting the newcomer. Arthur took a few hasty steps toward the figure, blonde hair backlit and illuminated by the rising sun, then caught himself, stopped.

"Tee- Tine." He broke off the nickname, too intimate for this reunion, their circumstances.

"Boys," she smiled at them both, lowering her hands. Arthur noticed, to his left, that Dutch took a beat longer to lower his gun.

"You been here all this time?" Arthur asked.

"Yes," Dutch appended, before she could answer, "why didn't you come back to camp?"

Tine sucked in her lips to bite on them, something Arthur knew she did when she didn't want to admit to something. "Pinkertons," she said finally. "Picked me up outside of Shady Belle. I didn't say anything," she added suddenly, her eyes aflame, body straightening to face down Dutch. "Not a thing. But I was afraid to lead them back to the others without you all there to defend the camp. So I've been watching for John."

"Do we even know if he's still there?" Arthur asked, scratching at his neck. Beside him, he could feel the tension rolling off Dutch in waves, dissatisfied with her explanation.

"He's there, I've seen him," Tine reported, gesturing to a wide-bottomed canoe. "I just couldn't find a way to get in and out without getting killed. Hard to row with any kind of speed." Arthur noted her one arm was still crooked, bent and held to her waist.