Better Not Look Down - Red Dead Redemption II

Part 4 - I don't know, I just woke up here. I got lucky?

His eyes opened slowly, the pain in his shoulder immediately rearing its ugly head upon the slightest of movement. Javi smelt whiskey and sweat on the cot he was lying face down on. He thought: Am I in a jailhouse?

He then shot up from the cot and looked around in a panic. He didn't see any metal bars or chains. Now knelt, he reflexively reached for his gun, only to find he had been stripped of his gun belt.
"I figured you try that," an unknown woman said from behind him. Javi glanced back at her, she was an older woman, looked mean, and her makeup was all sorts of smeared onto her wrinkled skin. Her hands also looked primed for slapping someone.
He asked, "Where am I? Who are you?"
"Is he up?" Another female voice inquired, though from a distance. The voice rang a bell, then a cluster of bells when Javi laid eyes on the woman the words came from.

"My god! Sadie?!" he gasped, standing up and hugging her, "I thought you died in that awful fire."
"Nope, I'm still kickin' alright. How's it goin' little cousin? Or, not so little cousin. You're a man now ain't ya?" she smiled, her eyes scanning the young man studiously. He was far from the sixteen-year-old she last knew of.
"I uh, I guess so. But if I'm honest?—not my best day. Or year actually, can you maybe start tellin' me what exactly happened? Where am I?"

Sadie was not a fan of family, especially not after what happened to her husband. But, she always had a soft spot for Javi. Mostly because she saw a lot of herself in him, that sort of spark and toughness she knew of.
"Hosea brought you in, this is my camp," she explained.
"Where's your man? Jake, was it?"

"He died. That fire, these folk here saved me. They're a loud bunch, and a good few of them are miserable pissants: But a lot of them are just alright. They won't bite unless you make 'em."
"Alright. I erm... thank you—?" Javi motioned to the older woman, who looked a bit annoyed at something unknown. Maybe it was knowing they had a new mouth to feed.
"I'm Ms. Grimshaw. And you're welcome, don't mess with that stitching though, boy. Don't loiter either, this ain't a charity."

The camp was actually quite nice—for a gang hideout—while Sadie had not said those words exactly, it was quite clear what this congregation had that bonded them. But, they seemed less than all that bad.

It was a collection of tents and wagons in a clearing of a forest. Well, the majority of it, the far end of the camp was on a cliff. There were campfires. Cots. Bedrolls. Horses. Provisions and medicines. A chicken ran past Javi's feet, disappearing behind a wagon. It seemed as peaceful as you could get as an outlaw, quiet too. Secluded and away from the prying eyes of the law. Javi wandered around a bit, pulling up his jeans as they sagged. His clothes weren't ill-fitted, but he must have tossed and turned something fierce in his sleep.

A gaggle of girls were sat under a tree gossiping about something unimportant, likely men and whatnot. There was a man who was either dead or passed out with a bottle of bourbon on the ground, and a red-haired old man with his pale ass out in his union suit, Javi wondered how the hell they came to join a gang.

A few men were at a table playing dominoes, Ms. Grimshaw was talking to a little boy who couldn't be any older than six about something that made him smile, a woman behind him. Likely his Mama. From what Javi had seen of gang camps, this was unprecedented in its character. Nobody reeked, no prisoners, no dead bodies, no fighting or rape, murder—well, yet anyhow. Though, Sadie would not have joined a gang that pillaged.

Nobody caught his eye. They were just a collection of wildly different people brought together under what were likely unfortunate circumstances. There were a couple of colored folks, it was nice to see how they seemed to be treated equally to the white folk. For the most part.

A man was sitting against a rock, he was in the shadow, Javi missed him at first. The stranger was napping, his hat tilted down enough to cover his forehead. He was quite handsome. His blonde hair, thick brows, scruffy beard, broad shoulders, and full lips intrigued him. For the first time in a long while, Javi felt attracted to someone.