RDR: No Regrets - Chapter 283: The Last Resort (Patreon)

After riding hard for an entire day, Stephen and Hosea finally reached Clemens Point the following morning.

To their shock, however, the camp was practically deserted.

Aside from Kieran and Juan, who were sitting by a campfire chatting, everyone else was gone.

Only the two of them remained, along with a huge pile of scattered belongings.

“Boss, you’re back!”

Hearing hoofbeats rapidly approaching, Juan and Kieran turned around just in time to see Stephen and Hosea ride straight into camp.

Stephen struggled to dismount. A full day had passed, but he was still in pretty rough shape.

After all, he wasn’t some smartass who could talk to the readers, nor that smartass’s favorite little steel wolf. His body healed quickly, but not to such an absurd degree.

Still, thanks to good medicine and plenty of food, by the time he reached Clemens Point, at least none of his wounds, large or small, were bleeding anymore.

“Why are you two the only ones here? Where is everyone?”

Stephen stared at the empty camp in confusion. If he hadn’t seen Kieran and Juan, he might have thought they had come to the wrong place.

Hosea was even more anxious.

“What the hell happened here? Where is everyone?”

Countless possibilities flashed through his mind in an instant, but seeing Kieran and Juan standing there safe and sound, he quickly forced those thoughts back down.

“Today’s the day Boss Dutch becomes mayor. The inauguration ceremony should be starting pretty soon.”

Kieran pulled out the new pocket watch he had bought in Saint Denis and checked the time.

“Oh, it’s already seven thirty. The inauguration is at nine sharp, so we’ve still got about two hours. If we leave now, we should still make it!”

Juan and Kieran were clearly in excellent spirits.

Stephen and Hosea, on the other hand, were anything but.

Why did Dutch have to become mayor now of all times, right when the Pinkertons had shown up?

They had only just dealt with the Lemoyne Raiders and the Church of the Holy Lord, and the Braithwaite family had simply given up?

They hadn’t just paid them off. They had practically handed the entire town over to Dutch.

Stephen didn’t buy it.

Not for a second.

If there wasn’t some kind of scheme behind all this, he’d rip out his own eyeballs and stomp on them.

Hosea looked close to breaking down. He grabbed his head, paced in two tight circles, then shouted again.

“Where are they? Where is everyone else?”

Seeing Stephen’s helpless expression and Hosea on the verge of panic, Juan and Kieran still had no idea what was happening.

Kieran glanced at Hosea, then at Stephen’s grim face, and suddenly lost the courage to speak.

He quickly nudged Juan in the side from behind, signaling for him to do it instead.

“They... they all went into town.”

Juan looked at the two of them and forced himself to continue.

“Dutch took everyone with him yesterday afternoon.”

“We figured you might come back and not know where we’d gone, so we stayed here to wait for you.”

“Besides, someone had to keep an eye on all this stuff...”

As he spoke, Juan pointed toward the enormous pile of belongings in the middle of camp.

It wasn’t hard to understand why those two had stayed behind.

Neither Kieran nor Juan had ever really considered himself a member of the Van der Linde Gang.

Juan was only here because of Stephen. He worked for Stephen, not Dutch.

And Kieran, given the chance, might still happily put two bullets into Bill...

Besides, Dutch wasn’t about to hand either of them some official position as a reward, so there was no real reason for them to join in the celebration.

“It’s over. It’s all over.”

After hearing Juan’s explanation, Hosea seemed to lose all his strength. He collapsed onto the ground and kept muttering to himself.

“It’s over... it’s over...”

Stephen suddenly felt exhausted as well.

Physically and mentally.

He dropped down beneath a nearby tree, leaned back against the trunk, and breathed heavily.

Traveling this far while so badly injured had pushed him hard enough already.

Worse, even after rushing back as fast as they could, they were still too late.

“Boss... what exactly happened?”

Juan stared at the two of them in confusion.

“Dutch becoming mayor is a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Sure. Great news. Wonderful for the whole damn family.”

Stephen answered irritably, then ignored both of them, holding his head as he tried to think of a way out.

When Stephen refused to respond any further, Juan and Kieran could only turn to Hosea.

Hosea briefly explained what had happened over the past few days.

The two of them were stunned.

“Th-this... Boss, what are we supposed to do?”

Juan immediately panicked. He crouched in front of Stephen.

“Everyone’s in Rhodes right now. If... if the Pinkertons show up now...”

He didn’t dare finish the sentence.

He didn’t need to.

All four of them knew exactly how that would end.

Combined with the sudden appearance of the Pinkertons, Stephen was now almost certain that this so-called inauguration ceremony was a trap.

A trap aimed directly at the Van der Linde Gang.

When was a person most likely to fail?

Not when they were at their lowest.

People were often at their toughest then. After enduring enough setbacks, they learned how to survive failure.

Nor was it when they had already reached the top.

By then, success had already given them confidence and courage.

The most dangerous moment was right before success.

Right before they reached the top.

That was when people became anxious and obsessed with what they stood to gain or lose. Problems they would normally notice immediately could suddenly slip right past them.

By that point, they had also invested too much to willingly step back. They couldn’t accept retreat, much less failure.

Stephen could already picture what was happening in Rhodes.

At a celebration like this, almost everyone in the Van der Linde Gang would be drinking, dancing, and laughing.

Many of them probably wouldn’t even be carrying weapons.

Some might already be drunk enough to barely stand.

Dutch would happily step onto the podium, excited and nervous as he began telling the crowd how he intended to govern the town.

Outlaws who had spent years hiding and running would suddenly become important people in a respectable town.

The women would get to live like the fine ladies they had once dreamed of becoming.

And right then, when everyone had finally lowered their guard...

The Pinkertons would appear and tear the whole illusion apart.

Stephen didn’t know who had come up with this plan.

But whoever it was, they were good.

Very good.

They understood exactly how people thought.

“What... what do we do?”

Hosea’s voice was close to breaking.

He looked at Stephen with tears in his eyes, as if Stephen were the only hope he had left.

“Save them... Stephen, you have to save them.”

All of Hosea’s usual sharpness and wisdom had disappeared.

Right now, he looked no different from any ordinary old man terrified for his children.

Stephen looked into Hosea’s pleading eyes, shook his head, then braced himself against the tree and forced himself to stand.

He looked at Hosea, then at Juan and Kieran.

“We still have one last option.”