The Angel Butcher of Rio Bravo: An RDR2 Story

xxxii. Between steel and ice

John had only a moment to try and decode Tine's placid expression when Arthur approached them, returned from Colm O'Driscoll's hanging.

He told them about the Adler widow needing help and Tine had signed them up without hesitation; so John found himself shouted down about a bear lurking around right when he was preparing for another long stretch away. He forced himself to place a hand he hoped was reassuring on Abigail's shoulder, held forth a rifle.

"I know you know how to use one of these, darlin'," he said quietly, pressing the rifle's smooth-worn barrel into Abigail's hand. "This one's loud enough to scare off most things, and powerful enough to kill the rest. I'll hunt that bear down soon as I'm back." He bent to retrieve his gunbelt and affix it around his hips, and found Abigail's arms encircling his neck, the gun abandoned, a soft brush of her lips to his scarred cheek.

"Be careful," she whispered.

"Will do," he replied, granting himself a stroke of her dark, silken hair before making for his horse to trail Arthur and Tine back west.

*

After several days' ride southwest, John, Arthur, and Tine met with Sadie Adler in a small birch forest on the fringe of Hanging Dog Ranch, her modest camp already packed up.

"Really appreciate y'all comin' over here," Sadie said, almost bashfully, after informing them of her plan to launch an assault on the ranch, the residence of the last remaining O'Driscolls still living. The widow was certainly dressed for it; twin bandoliers crossing her chest, a long duster coat concealing all manner of weapons she'd armed herself with, blonde hair squared away in a long braid. "You sure you'll be all right, Miss Nilsen?"

John, and Arthur next to him, turned to look at their companion. John reckoned he could sense why Sadie'd asked: Tine did not look the formidable Butcher she'd once been. Her bad arm curled into her chest would have provoked him to pity, if he hadn't seen - now more than once - what she could still do with the other one.

"While I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Adler," Tine smiled, drawing her knife and making a show of examining the blade. "It's a question better suited to our O'Driscoll friends over yonder."

Sadie grinned wickedly, and John and Arthur traded uneasy looks; two deadly women in their midst. "Onwards, then."

The four of them fanned out, Arthur and John on each the far left and right; Sadie and Tine up the middle. There were two men stationed at the entrance to the ranch, but a firebottle thrown in a graceful, flaming arc landed between them; Sadie's bellow heard over the explosion. "Remember me, you bastards?" She shouted, her voice hoarse, the pain in it clutching at John's heart. Arthur and Tine had told him of the scene they'd come upon in the Adler ranch on their way, and whatever doubt he'd had about following them to Hanging Dog had evaporated. This was the good that Dutch always claimed they were doing.

The four made quick work of the men littering the ranch grounds. Arthur and Tine rushed the barn; a sharpshooter in the hayloft abruptly killed by a sneaking Tine's knife in his back. John followed Sadie into the house. He was impressed by her fast, uncompromising gunslinging just as her increasingly desperate screaming dragged on his spirit. Why hadn't he gone after the bear, listened to Abigail? Hugged Jack before he'd left? Here was someone who'd lost their love, with the evidence of what it'd done to her. Her quarry, Tommy, was gasping for breath under her choking grasp, in Hanging Dog's dusty attic. John didn't know if he had the temerity in him to do the same - go to the ends of the earth for the people he loved - and was afraid to examine himself for the lack.

The large man in Sadie's grip stopped kicking, his face blue and bloated. Her hands sprang open and she fell back into a wooden chair with an exhale that knocked from her lungs, half her face buried into her palm. Sadie didn't stir when there were footsteps on the stairs, but John did, raising, and then lowering his gun when Arthur and Tine revealed themselves. They took in the dead man and Sadie sat across from him, quietly weeping, her shoulders shaking, with sombre expressions.

Sadie stirred herself, looking between the three. "Don't know why I'm cryin'," she said, an embarrassed grimace on her face, "Truth of it is, I feel hardly anything at all."

Tine stepped forward, sheathing her knife and taking Sadie into a one-armed hug, unusually tender. She held the woman until her quiet crying turned into loud, gasping sobs, until Sadie's own arms encircled Tine and clung to her. Arthur looked out the window, his discomfort clear on his face, so only John witnessed Tine's whisper into Sadie's ear, the woman's eyes opening wide in response, her expression dark.

"That ain't no way to live," she said, and Tine smiled ruefully, releasing Sadie and stepping backward.

"Suit yourself," she said in reply, a tug on Arthur's sleeve prompting him to follow her down to the ranch grounds and pick over the bodies they'd made.

John shuffled his feet, watching Sadie wipe at her eyes with a kerchief, staring in disbelief at the dead man across from her.

"What did she say to you?" He asked quietly, startling Sadie to his presence; she'd forgotten.

"Oh!" She dropped her kerchief, hastened to pick it up. "Sorry, Mr. Marston, I'd forgotten you was standin' there."

"That's fine," he said dismissively, "But, Tine, what did she say just now?"

Sadie looked again to the man, Tommy, then to the ground. "Ain't my place to say."

"It's important that I know," John said, the words bold and - he quickly realized - that they wouldn't hold up to any scrutiny.

A small smile graced Sadie's face; she looked instantly more beautiful. John realized she couldn't have been very old at all; a newlywed, even. "I know what she means to you."

"Who, Tine?" He was incredulous; how could this stranger know anything at all?

"The way you took her down from my horse, down in Lemoyne; she's like a treasure to you," her smile grew broader and she offered, "I know love when I see it."

A lump rose in John's throat, killing the protests that were weakly mounting there.

She's an old friend, that's it.

I'm with another.

I'm a father.

I would have done it for anyone.

None made it past his lips and he repeated instead, hoarsely, "What did she say?"

Sadie sighed, looking at the kerchief between her hands and then fixing John with a steady gaze, her blue eyes falling somewhere between Abigail's steel and Tine's ice. It was unnerving, as if he were facing down the two of them at once.

"She said-" Sadie faltered, the kerchief returning to her eye. "The emptiness is your armour."

John vaguely recalled wishing the widow well, descending the stairs, picking over the bodies with his companions, and riding away. He joked with Arthur and Tine as he always had by their shared fire that night, passed a bottle of whiskey between them, counted and recounted their spoils from the O'Driscolls they'd killed.

But Tine's words remained a thorn stuck in his side, as did Sadie's. It was hard enough to take that Tine might have been as unfeeling as he'd always suspected. Worse yet, and despite all of the promises he'd made, he loved her all the same.