The Angel Butcher of Rio Bravo: An RDR2 Story

xviii. Friendships, new and old

John had the good sense to stop Tine and untether his reins from her horse before they pulled up on the leafy park that sat across from Bronte's mansion. He'd sobered up some on the ride over, lain on his stomach on Old Boy's broad back, his head lolling against the side of his horse's neck.

Sober enough that he could sit upright in his saddle, greet Dutch and Arthur with a tip of his hat. Dutch smiled at him from where he had assumed all of the trappings of a man of leisure; sprawled comfortably on the broad stone steps of the park, a cigar poised between his fingers. Arthur, much more conspicuous in the wealthy suburb, leant against the wrought-iron fence but stood up to pitch the end of his cigarette into the greenery, cocking an eyebrow at Tine.

"Weren't expecting you," he said, bypassing John to meet her, descending from her saddle.

"John asked me along," she said casually, tying Darling's reins to the decorative hitching post by the entrance to the park.

"This is delicate as it is, Teeny," John heard Arthur hiss, saw Tine's small smile at his seriousness, "you wait outside."

"Fine by me," she said. Tine stopped to pick up a fallen branch and, unsheathing her knife, began to strip it of bark, her face one of utter, placid contentment.

John couldn't ask her to come in, now. He skulked by Old Boy's flank, peering out at the armed men surrounding the house from under the brim of his hat. He felt a warm, broad hand on the flat of his back.

"It's going to be just fine, son," came Dutch's soothing baritone, the hand leaving and returning to his back a few times, thumping his whole body. "Just follow my lead."

Of course, Dutch's lead was one laced with bravado and designed as much to fuel the man's ego as it was to retrieve the boy, and John felt a low, simmering anger start to build within him; the same he'd felt on their ride to the Braithwaites. Dutch's grandstanding had gotten his boy kidnapped, after all, and just now, an escort-at-gunpoint into the house, to be presented before Angelo Bronte and his guards like the spoils of a particularly lucrative hunt.

He felt a pang of guilt at his momentary ill-will toward the man who'd raised him, supposing Dutch didn't know another way. All the same, he wished it were just he and Arthur, or better, he and Arthur and Tine. He admired Arthur's tendency to quiet, all of the man's words deliberately chosen, carefully delivered. And Tine... well, her confidence mirrored Dutch, but she was just as likely to laugh when insulted, as opposed to drawing iron.

But John needn't have worried, because just then, before him, Bronte was clapping Dutch on the back, laughing raucously. "Oh, my cowboys, dispense of your seriousness, and have a drink with me, hey? To new friendships."

A crystal shotglass was placed into John's fingers and he stared at it, bewildered, before looking into the clever, dark eyes of the crime boss before him.

"New friendships!" Dutch boomed happily, raising the glass to the air and then bringing it to his lips.

"'Friendships," John mumbled along, downing the drink. The clear liquor burned through his nostrils but went down smoothly after that.

"Grappa," Bronte said, grinning at John's expression, and Arthur's beside him. He settled down onto his chaise and motioned for the men to sit opposite him, which they did, crowded onto a small sofa. The crystal glass in John's fingers was of a part of the opulence all around him; brocade curtains and throw pillows, a large oil painting hung on the wall in a gilt frame, dark, exotic wood furnishings.

"So, uh, as I was saying," Dutch said, slightly awkward from his place, squished in next to Arthur. "Can my friend here-" he paused, reached his hand forth "-have his son back?"