Ambarino, Coulter Village.

The Van der Linde Gang has been living here for half a month, maybe it's time to run, maybe it's man-made, compared to the stretch of the first arrival, now this big family of twenty-two people is finally living a more or less decent life in this place. It can't be compared to the old days, but at least everyone can keep warm in the bitter cold, eat delicious meat, and at least everyone is still alive and well now—ah, the hapless John doesn't count—at least no one is gone. The smiles finally appeared on everyone's faces, and although they still endured the suffering, at least they could see the hope shining ahead.

Except for one person.

In the early morning, just after dawn, Sadie Adler woke up from a nightmare with tears still in the corners of her eyes.

She didn't get up immediately, just lay on her back on the hard, waist-wide bed board, stunned, waiting for her tears to dry naturally.

This is not the first time she has been awakened by a nightmare, in fact, she has been tormented by the same nightmare for the past half a month. She dreamed of working with her beloved husband, hunting together, living in a warm house on a cold and snowy night, telling stories, gossiping, and sometimes singing; Then they came, slammed the door violently, and hurled her in vicious insults, and the husband put her into the cellar half-forced, half-persuasive, to protect her; Then there was darkness, and only the ears could hear begging, insulting, and strife; Finally the whole world was silent, only a dull tick, and she followed the sound and saw only a puddle of scarlet liquid, her forehead was wet, and she wiped it indiscriminately, and her palms were stained red with the rusty liquid. So the whole world was swept by the scarlet wave, and she looked at the rippling crimson sky, sinking, and sinking.

She reminisced about the resounding familiarity of the dream, which made her even more painful, and the pain brought new tears. She thought her tears should have dried up a long time ago, but strangely, the tears shed for him seemed to be endless.

She wanted to lie down like this, like her husband lying forever in a carriage in the snow and ice.

"Maybe we'll see him again." She couldn't stop the stupid thought.

It wasn't until Abigail's face appeared in her field of vision that she knew she was going to get out of her hysteria for a while.

"Are you okay? Shadie? Abigail asked with concern.

"It's okay, I just had a bad dream." Sadie subconsciously wiped the corners of her eyes and sat up straight.

Abigail's hand rested gently on Sadie's shoulder, hoping to give her strength in this way, "Everything will be fine." Abigail said.

Sadie didn't speak, just stared at the ice flowers condensed on the windowpane in a daze, a little distracted.

Such a conversation, almost every day at this time, repeats itself.

People who live in the wilderness seldom live according to the time of the clock, and the same is true of the Van der Linde Gang, which works at sunrise and rests at sun, quite ancient. Of course, it is not ruled out that the current conditions are poor and there is no way to play around, otherwise these idle rough old men may continue to make noise until midnight.

In fact, apart from sewing and repairing and helping the cook, Sadie didn't find any other work that the women in the gang had done, and of course, it could have been the result of overprotection by the big men in the gang. Pearson, for example, for the camp kitchen was open-air, and the old fat man would not even let the ladies come and help with the kitchen, if it weren't for the fact that there was sometimes too much work in the kitchen, and the men who never put the effort into housekeeping could not count on it.

The other ladies in the camp were actually quite comfortable with this overprotection, and although they inevitably complained about it because they were so idle, they actually cherished this rare time that was completely their own. The word "completely" is emphasized because under normal circumstances, the slightest slack or busyness of the ladies would invite a lecture from Susan Grimshaw, and now that even Grimshaw herself has begun to do nothing, what position does she have to say that the girls do not do their business?

Only Sadie does have some problem with this rather machismo overprotection. In the past, when she was with her husband, whether it was work or daily life, she and her husband had always been on an equal footing, and the patriarchal inferiority that has always existed in this world did not exist in their small family. Now that she had been forced out of her comfort zone and into another group, she felt the unnaturalness of this unequal relationship, and she inevitably felt a little resentment in her heart, although the current overprotection was more out of gentlemanly demeanor and chivalry.

As for the warbler Yanyan in the gang, to be honest, she doesn't quite fit into this circle. After all, she has always been a woman from a good family, and most of the women in the gang have grown up in dirty places such as gangs and brothels, and they are proper bad young women, except for Abigail, a woman who has become a mother, she can talk about a few words, and she really doesn't know how to join in other people's topics. How can a woman who has been a woman of a good family for more than 20 years join the topic of theft, fraud, robbery, and the skin business?

There was a faint sound of gunfire in her ears, and it was a little noisy, and she had to stop the needlework she was doing because she was really bored. The women in the gang didn't make any changes because of this, I don't know if they were used to the sound of gunfire, or they could recognize friend and foe from the sound of gunfire, of course, it is not ruled out that Sadie is more sensitive than all of them, after all, Sadie has practiced marksmanship.

Out of curiosity, and out of a desire to escape from the conversations, Sadie put on a heavy shawl and walked out of the house. It didn't take her a few steps before she found the source of the gunshots.

In the open space in the middle of the camp, Brandi and Lenny were practicing their marksmanship, while their teacher, Arthur, was leisurely smoking a cigar on the sidelines, completely undressed as a teacher.

Seeing Sadie walk out of the house, Arthur politely lifted the brim of his hat and greeted, "Good morning, Lady Adler." ”

"Good morning, Mr. Morgan," Sadie nodded in return, "they're practicing marksmanship, aren't they?" Why don't you point out? ”

"I've taught them everything they need to teach," said Arthur leisurely, "and all that's left is practice and practice, practice makes perfect, and I'm here to prevent these two boys from accidentally hitting each other's ass." With that, Arthur laughed.

Sadie didn't laugh, but turned her attention to the two who were practicing their guns.

The shooting method of the two is not an ordinary flat lift, but a quick waist shot that is spread among the western cowboys. This type of shooting is actually very dangerous, because no matter how much you practice, the shooting accuracy of rapid hip fire cannot be compared with normal shooting methods, but in one-to-many battles or complex gunfight scenes, this shooting method can easily reverse the disadvantage and play fire suppression.

Brandi and Lenny's targets were two wine bottles placed ten meters away from them, which could have been easily hit by either Brandi or Lenny if they had been shot in a normal way, but now, the two of them had almost finished firing two bullets, but they hadn't even touched the edge of the bottle.

"Waist shot looks very handsome, why is it so difficult to use." Lenny grumbled as he loaded the revolver's slots.

Brandi faced his target and fired three shots with "pop papa", both in terms of action and speed, he has the style of a fast gunner, if there is any gap between him and the real fast gunner, it is only accuracy. He looked at the unscathed wine bottle in front of him, and also felt helpless: "Ensuring accuracy is indeed the most difficult part of hip shooting, even Arthur, using hip shooting can't guarantee a gun headshot." ”

"Gun headshot?" Lenny loaded the bullet and fired again, but unsurprisingly, in vain, "Let's deal with this bottle first." ”

Brandi loaded his bullets as well, put the gun back in his holster, and once again unleashed a rapid hip-fire shot, but this time it was not in vain, and a bottle of wine shattered into slag with a "snap".

Lenny was not happy now: "Hey, I'll go, you hit your own bottle, what's the matter if you hit my bottle?" ”

"You think I want to, I can't control me." Brandi was a little helpless.

"Hey! Blondie! Arthur suddenly shouted, "Come here!" ”

When Brandi heard Arthur's voice, he stopped arguing with Lenny, ran to Arthur, saw Sadie on the side, and politely held the brim of his hat: "Good morning, Lady Adler." Arthur, what's the matter? ”

"How does it feel? Got the hang of it? Arthur asked with a smile.

Brandi scratched his head and said, "Although the speed of drawing the gun has kept up, the head is still not good, I always feel that something is missing, but I don't know what it is." ”

Arthur nodded and said, "It's good to feel this way, after all, you've only been practicing for less than half a day, by the way, Mrs. Adler seems to have something to find you, you can talk to her, I'll go see Lenny, don't look at this kid who is good at reading and writing, and he is much dumber than you in terms of gunnership." ”