We rode back into camp where Dutch was waiting. It had already started to get dark.
"Come on, we're celebrating your recovery," he said, helping me down.
"There's really no need," I said sheepishly, allowing him to walk me to the campfire.
"No need?" John laughed, "Ann, you've saved our asses more than any of us care to admit. I think it's fair to celebrate the fact you're not dead."
"Really, I don't want any fuss," I argued, the pain in my back still reminding me of what happened, a feeling I would have rathered forget.
"Well, too bad," Charles said, moving to allow me to sit down at the campfire, "Most of us wouldn't be here without you, so we're allowed to celebrate you however we like."
We spent the rest of the night drinking, sharing stories and singing songs. I laughed and smiled along with them, but I couldn't keep my mind off my conversation with Hosea and Arthur. If even Hosea was doubting Dutch, things were bad.
"Did Dutch not suspect something had happened?" I eventually asked Charles when we were getting some fresh air away from the heat of the fire.
"No, Micah said you must have left when you saw them leaving, that you'd be back as usual after you'd gone off on your own little mission," Charles sighed, "But Dutch has been funny ever since he came back from that meeting. He's been talking to Micah in secret, they're scheming."
I looked down and sighed.
"We agreed to meet at the crossroads afterwards, no matter what happened," I said, "I was the one who said to do that. Why would I decide to just ignore my own suggestion, they knew something had happened."
"So why didn't he rescue you? He was clearly concerned when you returned, if he knew before that..." Charles stopped.
"You know exactly why," John was stood behind us as we whipped around, "The man is unravelling before our eyes yet no-one else sees it! He knew you were bait, and he wasn't willing to risk his neck for someone he claims is his daughter."
"Maybe... maybe he just didn't want to admit that I was in trouble, and that it was his fault," I said slowly, "Maybe he was trying to convince himself that I was alright, more than anyone else. If he admitted I was in trouble, that I wasn't just off hunting or something, that would also be admitting he was wrong, and he had failed me."
None of us spoke for a few seconds before I finally broke the silence.
"My... uh... my back is killing me now, so I might head off early," I said quietly, digesting John's words. Dutch was unravelling before our eyes? No, he was wrong.
"Think about what I said," John said, a dark look on his face, before he returned to the party with Charles.
I knew Dutch would have come and saved me. There's no way he wouldn't have, he was just waiting for the opportunity. I trusted him, he was the man who had raised me, a man who preached faith and loyalty at every given opportunity. He wouldn't sit there and contradict himself, I knew he would have come for me.
"Ann... if you feel up to it, Bill's got something cooking with the Gray boys in Rhodes," Dutch walked up to me the next morning, "Sean and Micah are in. I'd like for you to be there too."
"Sure," I nodded, turning to head for Roach.
"And, darling..." he sighed, "I'm sorry. I feel like a fool."
"I'm alive," I said with a shrug, I had long since forgiven Dutch for anything I could have blamed it for, he wasn't to know what would happen.
"Yeah, well... it seemed like a good opportunity... Micah and I both feel like idiots," he said with sincerity.
YOU ARE READING
RDR2: Faithless
Fanfiction"Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens." Ann Wright was only a few months old when she was found outside Saint Denis, discarded and forgotten. The ones who found her? Dutch van der Linde and Hosea Matthews, alongside their adoptive...
