Ella Matthews - A RDR2 Fanfiction

Chapter Ten: Redemption

My journal is almost full with mundane little entries, lists and drawings. There are five pages left.

If we go to Tahiti, it'll be a new chapter. A new life.

If the gang is over, which is looking more and more likely with each passing day, it'll be a new life.

Either way, whatever happens, I have to fit it in to five pages.

That's okay.

Well, it's not really.

Either way, I'm about to leave a life behind.

I'm full of nervous energy about this.

I'm scared. Dreading sundown today because by then I will know.

I will know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.

Be an outlaw or... not, I guess.

Camp is empty. Uncle, Karen, Pearson and Mary-Beth have all run off. They're the only ones here with common sense.

Rest of us?

We're loyal fools. Blinded for what we took as love but was merely manipulation all along.

Everyone, save a few, sit at a campfire.

Dutch and Arthur are having another strained conversation.

That's pretty much the norm by now.

"Come along, my friends, we have work to do!" Dutch calls, striding across camp. "We are gonna borrow a little money from old Uncle Sam and be out of his hair, once and for all,"

I grab my Lancaster Repeater and mount Isabella. "We've got a big score set up today, girl," I whisper. "I need you to do your best, okay?"

We ride in tense silence until Dutch breaks it.

"Okay, let's pick up the pace. The train is due in Saint Denis in an hour," Dutch says.

"We're robbing a train in the middle of a city?" Arthur asks.

"No! It's going to stop there, take on mail and water, let off some boys heading home on leave, and then it heads out," Dutch replies.

"They know the bridge is gone, black lung," Micah taunts. I would shoot him if that didn't mean death for me. He's genuinely awful but he's so awful he's not worth dying for.

"There'll be a patrol past Annesburg waiting down by the river to collect the money," Micah says.

"We sneak on quietly and then we got a short time to stop the train before it reaches the patrol," Dutch says.

"John, you go get that dynamite, we'll meet up outside Saint Denis," Dutch says.

"I'll go with him," Arthur says. He looks at me and his eyes ask if I'm ready to leave. I give a slight nod. I realise why Arthur volunteered to go with John: John needs to leave but he's not convinced this is over. Arthur has to help him get out.

I haven't been able to help anyone.

That's a lie.

I asked why Mary-Beth wasn't reading yesterday. She came up with an awful excuse. I said that I knew she was going and gave her and whoever went with her my blessing. Even if it isn't Dutch's, it's got to count for something, right?

We ride the rest of the way to Saint Denis in silence.

Eventually, Arthur and John meet up with us.

"There you are. Got everything?" Dutch asks.

"Yeah," Arthur answers.

"Then off we go," Dutch says.

"Off we go indeed," Arthur mutters.