Micah Bell

Origins

Rockstar Games' official presentation of the Van der Linde gang describes Micah Bell in two sentences: "A career criminal and hitman. Wild and unpredictable but he lives for the action." His full name is Micah Bell III. His grandfather, Micah Bell Sr., and his father, Micah Bell Jr., were both outlaws. Talking about his past, Micah calls the two men a "pair of wild horses" and says his father was once "wanted for murder in five counties". He repeats his father's sayings, among them that sympathy is for the weak. He also has a brother, Amos, whom he calls a fool and a coward, and whom his father, by Micah's account, nearly killed one day.

A newspaper clipping dated 1877, found in 1899 at Micah's camp at Monto's Rest, near Strawberry, reports the murder of Roscoe and Jean Briggs, a rancher couple in Crawford County, Ohio, found hanged in their barn with their throats cut. The suspects it names are "one Micah Bell, age 38, and his son, also Micah Bell, age 17", who had been working at the ranch for a few days. The sheriff put a 10-dollar bounty on them, dead or alive. By this clipping, Micah was born around 1860. The same camp holds a second clipping, about the Blackwater ferry robbery, and a torn wanted poster for Dutch van der Linde offering a 1,000-dollar reward.

Amos later settled in California with his wife and daughters. In chapter 4, a letter from him to Micah can be read at the gang's camp. Amos answers a letter Micah had sent him: he loves his brother, he writes, but he is now a family man. He has made a vow to God, asking the Lord's help to repent in return: "I swore to the Lord Almighty that I would protect my daughters from all that is evil and wrong in this world, if only he would help me repent of all that I done when we was running together." Repenting, he adds, means washing his hands of Micah. He forbids Micah to visit, to write again or to claim to know him, and warns that he will kill him if he comes within fifty miles. Micah, in camp, has nothing but contempt for Amos and his wife. The couple live by the sea, a choice that in Micah's view only a man ruled by his wife would accept.

Before joining the Van der Linde gang, Micah worked with other criminals. In camp he says he rode with Cleet and Joe a long time ago; the two men reappear at his side in 1899. He also took part in a bank robbery in the South with a man named Norman, which went badly. Around December 1898, five months before the start of the game according to the official guide, Micah met Dutch van der Linde. As a camp story tells it, Dutch had arranged the sale of stolen gold in a bar at Crenshaw Hills; the deal ended in a shootout, and Micah got him out alive. Dutch took him into the gang and grew fond of him. He was the only one: according to Arthur's journal, Arthur Morgan, John Marston and Hosea Matthews found the newcomer argumentative, reckless and hotheaded.

In the spring of 1899 the gang settled near Blackwater, a port town in West Elizabeth. Arthur and Hosea were preparing a swindle of their own. Micah brought Dutch another target: a ferry carrying bank money, put at 150,000 dollars by the newspapers. Dutch chose the ferry. The robbery, in April 1899, turned into a shootout with Pinkerton agents and local lawmen. During it Dutch killed a young woman, Heidi McCourt; John later says at a campfire that Micah encouraged the killing. Jenny Kirk died, Davey Callander was mortally wounded, Mac Callander was captured and killed by the Pinkertons, Sean MacGuire was taken by bounty hunters, and the survivors fled north into a blizzard in the mountains of Ambarino, leaving the money hidden in Blackwater. Hosea later sums it up for Dutch: "then Micah got you all excited about that ferry and here we are." When Hosea blames Micah for the deaths of Jenny, Mac and Davey, Micah dismisses them as "part of the game".

Red Dead Redemption 2 (1899)

Chapter 1: Colter

During the flight, Dutch sends Micah and John Marston ahead to scout. The gang shelters in Colter, an abandoned mining town, and in "Outlaws from the West" Dutch and Arthur ride out into the storm to find one of the two scouts. Micah comes out of the snow carrying a lantern. He has found a homestead further on, "blazing with light and noise", where it sounds like a party. On the way he asks about Davey, and Dutch tells him that Davey and Jenny did not survive. Micah says Davey "was a real fighter", like both Callander brothers. He has not seen John since the storm came in. Alone with Arthur, he complains that the gang has too many mouths to feed and insists that he earns his share.

At the homestead, Dutch has Micah hide behind a wagon and Arthur behind a shed while he goes to the door alone. Micah lifts the sheet on the wagon and finds a corpse: "Arthur, we got a problem." The men inside are O'Driscolls; one of them recognises Dutch, and either Arthur or Micah fires the first shot. The three outlaws kill the gang members in the house. Dutch then sends Micah to search the cabin again. Micah finds a woman hiding in the cellar and chases her: "Oh, look what I found in the cellar! Wild thing, ain't ya?!" She throws a bottle at him, then grabs a knife from the table. Micah claims she is an O'Driscoll; Dutch answers: "No, she ain't, Micah. Look at her." Micah flips the table, a lantern falls and the house catches fire. Dutch pushes him back and Arthur shoves him aside. The woman is Sadie Adler.

Back at Colter, Micah learns that Arthur has a room to himself while he shares a bunk room with Bill Williamson and others, and protests with a racial slur aimed at his bunkmates; Hosea sends him to bed. Micah is also ordered to ride back to the Adler homestead and bury him. In "Old Friends", Micah mocks Bill and Lenny Summers for their long faces. Lenny answers that there will be a party when Micah falls, Bill laughs, and Micah punches him in the face. Arthur, Javier Escuella and Lenny pull the two apart before Dutch comes in and takes the men out to raid the O'Driscoll camp at Ewing Basin. After the attack, Micah hands Dutch a roll of papers found on one of the dead men: the plans for a train robbery.

The train belongs to Leviticus Cornwall. In "Who the Hell is Leviticus Cornwall?", Dutch pairs Micah with Arthur for the private car at the rear. On the ride, Micah keeps asking whether they will go back to Blackwater for the money afterwards; Arthur asks how many times he will ask the same question, and Micah replies that it is too much money to leave sitting. Once the train is stopped, Micah, Arthur and Lenny search Cornwall's car. Micah orders Lenny to pour him a brandy, opens the safe and finds only papers. Hearing that Cornwall has ordered a new boat from Europe, he laughs: "I am not robbing another boat as long as I live..." Arthur finds the railroad bonds elsewhere in the car.

Chapter 2: Horseshoe Overlook

In "Eastward Bound", as the wagons leave the snow for Big Valley, Dutch sends Micah and Lenny to ride ahead and check for trouble. Micah objects to being paired with "the boy", then tells Lenny he can buy him a whisky. The gang settles at Horseshoe Overlook, near Valentine. There Hosea tells Dutch that he and Arthur were on to something big in Blackwater before Micah pushed for the ferry. A little later Susan Grimshaw sends Micah and Lenny out scouting again; in "Exit Pursued by a Bruised Ego", Arthur and Hosea wonder why they are not back yet.

The two scouts reach Strawberry, where Micah looks up Norman, his former partner from the failed robbery in the South. They play Five Finger Fillet with other men. Micah, drunk, gets into a fight that leaves two men dead. He is jailed in a cell he shares with an O'Driscoll, and Sheriff Hanley plans to hang him. Norman takes Micah's revolvers. Lenny escapes and brings the news back to camp in "A Quiet Time". Dutch tells Arthur to deal with Micah later and to take Lenny into Valentine for a drink first.

In "Blessed are the Meek?", Arthur visits Hanley posing as a bounty hunter, but the sheriff refuses to release Micah. From his cell window Micah urges him: "You gotta do something, Arthur..." Arthur tears the bars out of the wall with a steam donkey and hands Micah a revolver. Micah immediately shoots his O'Driscoll cellmate in the head, and the shootout that follows leaves most of the town's lawmen dead, Hanley included, killed by Arthur or Micah. Arthur wants to leave, but Micah refuses to go without his guns. He walks to Norman's house at the edge of town, shoots Norman as he opens the door, then goes inside and kills his wife, Maddy, before recovering his revolvers.

The two men fight their way out of Strawberry. Once they are clear, Micah gives Arthur a second holster as thanks. Arthur is angry: a detour for a pair of revolvers has cost the lives of most of the town's lawmen. Micah tells him that "Ain't much I care about more than those guns", then answers that the two of them are "sons of Dutch", which makes them brothers, and that brothers sometimes make mistakes. He later tells Dutch that it was "an old thing" with a man he used to know and that his emotions got the better of him. Unwilling to return to the gang empty-handed, he stays in Big Valley and asks Arthur to meet him there. A newspaper later calls the jailbreak the Strawberry massacre.

In "An American Pastoral Scene", Arthur finds Micah at his camp near Strawberry. Micah proposes robbing a banking coach bound for the town, a job he heard an O'Driscoll talk about while in jail, as a way of repaying Arthur. He explains his trip to Strawberry as settling "loose ends". The two men ambush the coach and kill its guards; Micah takes the reins and hands Arthur a Lancaster Repeater, saying it is more his style. Near the Dakota River, O'Driscolls cut down a tree to block the road, and a stick of dynamite blows up the coach, throwing both men into the river. Micah and Arthur kill or drive off the attackers, Arthur shoots open the lockbox, and they split the take. In "A Strange Kindness", Dutch tells Arthur that Micah told him about Dewberry Creek as a place to lie low; Arthur and Charles Smith find the spot unsuitable and the gang settles at Clemens Point instead.

Chapter 3: Clemens Point

At Clemens Point, near Rhodes, Dutch decides to exploit the feud between two local families, the Grays and the Braithwaites. In "Advertising, The New American Art", Dutch and Micah lay the plan out together for Arthur: set the families against each other and get at their money. In "Blessed are the Peacemakers", Simon Pearson reports that O'Driscolls he met on the road want a parley between Dutch and Colm O'Driscoll. Hosea calls it a trap. Micah grants it: "Well of course, it's probably a trap... but what have we got to lose finding out." Arthur, he says, will cover them with his rifle and shoot everyone if it is one. Dutch agrees to go, with Micah and with Arthur protecting them.

On the ride, Micah calls Arthur a "Doubting Thomas" and argues that the gang cannot fight the Pinkertons, Cornwall's private army, the local families and the O'Driscolls all at once; Dutch answers that there is wisdom in that. Micah then admits that he may have pushed too hard and that he dreams too big, "Caring too much, that's my problem". Arthur calls it "horse shit" from both of them. Micah sends Arthur to a position above the meeting place. During the parley the O'Driscolls capture Arthur, while Dutch and Micah ride back to camp unharmed. When Arthur returns, wounded, after escaping, Micah apologises to him.

Bill then arranges what is presented as a security job for the Grays. In "A Short Walk in a Pretty Town", Micah, Arthur, Bill and Sean MacGuire meet in Rhodes. It is an ambush: Sean is shot dead, and Sheriff Leigh Gray captures Bill. Micah takes the front of the gunsmith's and sends Arthur round the back, and the two clear the street. They demand Bill at the sheriff's office. Gray comes out holding a gun to Bill's head, with Archibald MacGregor, Jock Gray and another lawman; Arthur and Micah kill all four in Dead Eye. Arthur blames Bill and Micah for their carelessness. Arthur tells Bill to give Sean a proper burial, and Micah retorts that Arthur can fight but cannot think, and Arthur answers that he can do neither. Arthur closes the exchange: "Micah... best you and I don't speak for a moment."

Back at camp, Jack Marston has disappeared, and the gang concludes that the Braithwaites have taken him. In "Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern", Dutch leads most of his gunmen to Braithwaite Manor and leaves Micah and Kieran Duffy behind to guard Clemens Point. The gang then moves to Shady Belle, an abandoned plantation near Saint Denis. From this chapter on, Arthur can play Five Finger Fillet against Micah at camp.

Chapter 4: Saint Denis

At Shady Belle, Micah keeps working his own leads. In a companion activity available after "Angelo Bronte, A Man of Honor", Micah and Bill plan an ambush on a Boles Overland banking coach in the swamps of Bayou Nwa and invite Arthur to join them. Micah lays dynamite on the road and Arthur shoots it as the coach passes over it; the three men then kill the remaining guards and loot the coach. On the way, Micah says that his ideal gang is a tight crew of five or six good gunmen. Amos's letter can be found at the camp during this chapter. In "Horsemen, Apocalypses", Dutch and Arthur plan the trolley station job. Arthur proposes Lenny as the third man; Dutch asks why not Micah, and Arthur answers that Micah is too reckless. The talk is cut short when Kieran's horse carries his body into camp: the O'Driscolls have killed and mutilated him. Micah does not appear in the mission. Micah later suggests that Kieran had tried to sell the gang out to the O'Driscolls.

Micah is part of the crew in "Banking, The Old American Art", the robbery of the Lemoyne National Bank in Saint Denis, for which he wears a white suit with a red vest. The Pinkertons surround the bank. Hosea is killed in the street, John is arrested and Lenny dies on the rooftops during the escape. Micah, Dutch, Arthur, Bill, Javier and Charles hide in an empty apartment until nightfall. Arthur says there that the Pinkertons knew they were coming, as in Blackwater, and Micah angrily denies any resemblance. At the docks, Charles draws the guards away so that the other five can board a ship, the Antenor.

Chapter 5: Guarma

In "Lost and Not Quite Found", a storm wrecks the ship. Micah, Dutch, Bill and Javier reach a lifeboat; Arthur, cut off by falling crates, arrives on deck too late and jumps into the sea. In "Welcome to the New World", Arthur finds the four men around a fire on a beach of Guarma, a sugar island. Soldiers led by Levi Simon, who runs the plantation for Colonel Alberto Fussar, chain the five castaways together. Rebels attack the column, Arthur frees the group, and the rebel leader Hercule Fontaine leads them away; Javier is shot in the leg and captured. Micah is the only one of the five to still carry his usual revolvers on the island. He spends time at the rebel outpost of La Capilla.

In "Hell Hath No Fury", soldiers land at the fort of Cinco Torres. Micah and Bill guard the cannon on the roof while Arthur, Dutch and Hercule hold the walls, and Arthur and Hercule sink the warship. Micah then goes to see the captain of the boat that is to take them home. In "Paradise Mercifully Departed", while Bill stays with the recovering Javier, Micah, Arthur, Dutch and Hercule destroy the coastal gun batteries that would block their departure, then attack Aguasdulces, where Arthur kills Fussar. Micah speaks admiringly of Fussar's brutality during this mission. The five men sail back to America.

In "Fleeting Joy", Micah and Javier reach the gang's new camp at Lakay, in the bayou, after Arthur and before Dutch and Bill. Agent Andrew Milton's Pinkertons attack the camp soon afterwards and are driven off. Micah can be seen at the end of the mission finishing off a wounded Pinkerton agent with a knife. Agent Milton later tells Arthur that the Pinkertons picked Micah up when the gang came back from the Caribbean.

Chapter 6: Beaver Hollow

After Lakay, the gang retreats to Beaver Hollow, a cave hideout in Roanoke Ridge. Micah becomes Dutch's closest adviser and his right-hand man. Dutch grows more suspicious of the others, and Micah encourages his doubts about John's loyalty; Bill and Javier come to share them. When Arthur and Sadie free John from Sisika Penitentiary against Dutch's wishes, Micah, like Dutch, is unhappy about it. "Just a Social Call" takes place in Annesburg, where Dutch has summoned Arthur. The meeting starts badly. Micah seizes Arthur and asks if anyone followed him; Arthur pushes him back, then starts coughing, and Micah observes that he looks unwell. After Arthur falls ill, Micah calls him by the nickname "Black Lung". Dutch gives the reason for Micah's nerves: Micah believes someone is informing, because the Pinkertons tracked the gang down so soon after Guarma. Arthur disagrees. In his view the gang has been on the run, and leaving a trail, ever since the Blackwater job that Dutch and Micah botched.

From the harbour, the three men watch Leviticus Cornwall step off his yacht with Agents Milton and Edgar Ross. Dutch sends Micah after Cornwall's secretary, Janson, who is to send a telegram to New York. Dutch then confronts Cornwall and shoots him dead. Arthur and Dutch fight their way past the guards and Pinkertons, find Micah knocking Janson out, and escape into the forest on stolen horses. Micah shows the papers he took from the secretary: Cornwall's company is moving dynamite from Annesburg to Saint Denis under a contract with the Army. Dutch tells Micah and Arthur to look into it with Bill, then takes Micah aside to talk about the plan.

"The Delights of Van Horn" opens at an old house in Roanoke Ridge. Micah gives Arthur and Bill the job of stealing the dynamite and says he will stay behind, "planning". Arthur challenges him over his rise to Dutch's right hand; Micah replies with jibes about Arthur's sickness, and Bill intervenes to make him stop. Arthur and Bill take the dynamite and deliver the wagon to Micah and John near Beaver Hollow. Micah has John drive the load on to Bacchus Bridge. Once Bill has ridden off, Micah tries to win Arthur over: he calls himself "a survivor", not the "bad guy" Arthur sees in him. "There's a big picture here, Arthur. Trust me." He then sends Arthur after John to help blow up the bridge, the subject of "The Bridge to Nowhere".

Micah brings two of his former associates, Cleet and Joe, into the camp, and Dutch accepts them. In "My Last Boy", Arthur complains to Dutch about the two newcomers and asks what is happening to him; Micah tells Arthur to show Dutch some respect. Eagle Flies then rides in with a war party and asks the gang to fight the Army at the Heartland Oil Fields. Arthur, Charles, Dutch and the rest of the gang follow him; Micah, Cleet and Joe stay at camp. Micah organizes the next job: the robbery of a train carrying Army payroll. He needles John before the robbery: "Ah, Saint Denis, it's good to be back... happy memories, huh, John?" In "Our Best Selves", John greets him with "Don't talk to me, you son of a bitch." The train does not stop where expected, and the gang boards it at full speed.

During the robbery John is shot in the shoulder and falls from the train. Dutch says he will go back for him and rides off with Micah, Javier and Joe, while Arthur, Bill, Sadie and Cleet hold off the soldiers. The four men leave John where he fell. When they rejoin the others after the robbery, Dutch and Micah tell Arthur that John "didn't make it". On the way back, the gang meets Tilly Jackson and Jack in the opening of "Red Dead Redemption": Milton has taken Abigail Marston to Van Horn to be tried for murder. Micah argues for leaving her: "We gotta let her go. John's a... well... sorry, son. Without John, she's just bait." He breaks off before saying that John is dead and apologises to Jack instead. When Arthur asks whether they will let the boy be made an orphan, Micah answers: "I wanna live, cowpoke... I still got the choice." Dutch sides with him: "Micah... it pains me to say it, Arthur... but he is right."

Arthur and Sadie ride to Van Horn alone. There, before Abigail shoots him, Milton tells Arthur that Molly O'Shea never talked, unlike Micah: "Micah Bell... we picked him up... when you boys came back from the Caribbean... and he's been a good boy ever since." At Beaver Hollow, Micah is hurrying Susan Grimshaw and the others to pack when Arthur rides in. Micah greets him with "Black Lung, you're back. Hooray." Arthur tells Dutch that Abigail is safe and that Micah was close to Milton. Micah calls it "a goddamn lie", then urges Dutch to "think of the future" and to "be practical". Dutch glares at Micah without a word. Micah and Arthur draw and aim at each other.

John then walks into camp, wounded, and accuses Dutch of leaving him to die. Arthur tells everyone to pick a side, asking Dutch whether all those years were "for this snake"; Micah laughs and tells him he lives in the clouds. Susan aims a shotgun at Micah: "No. You be quiet, Mr. Bell... and put down your gun." Javier shouts that Pinkertons are coming, Susan looks away, and Micah shoots her. Dutch draws both revolvers and demands to know who is with him and who is betraying him. Bill, Javier, Cleet, Joe and the others line up behind Dutch and Micah, guns on Arthur and John. Agent Ross's men open fire on the camp before anyone else shoots. Micah tells Dutch they have to go and leaves Arthur and John to the agents: "They're all yours, Morgan."

Arthur and John escape through the caves under the camp. On the way, Arthur tells John that Micah was the rat and that Milton told him; John answers: "We should've killed him months ago." As the two ride away from Beaver Hollow, Micah, Dutch, Cleet and Joe fire on them from horseback. Micah shouts "You're both dead men!" and then "You're goddamn traitors, the pair of you!" The Pinkertons in the woods cut the chase short, and Arthur and John lose their horses. Arthur then chooses whether to help John escape or go back for the gang's money hidden in the caves. Each choice has two outcomes depending on Arthur's honor; Micah plays a part in all four.

If Arthur helps John escape, he stays behind to hold off the Pinkertons. Micah seizes him from behind: "I got ya now, Black Lung!" When Arthur calls him a rat, Micah answers: "I'm a... survivor, Black Lung... a survivor! That's all there is... living and dying." The two fall from a ledge and fight with their fists. Micah says he has long wanted to do this, and threatens to kill John once he has finished with Arthur. Pinned against the rock, Arthur strikes Micah with his revolver but loses it, and crawls towards it while Micah tells him he has lost. Arthur answers: "In the end, Micah... despite my best efforts to the contrary... it turns out I've won. Goddamn you." Dutch steps on the gun. Arthur tells him Micah is a rat; Micah says Arthur is sick, dying and talking crazy, and urges Dutch to leave with him: "We made it. We won." Dutch walks away from both men, and Micah shouts after him in vain.

• Helping John, high honor: Micah growls and leaves without touching Arthur. Arthur dies alone, watching the sunrise.
• Helping John, low honor: Micah picks up the revolver and aims it at Arthur's head: "You're not better than me, Morgan." Arthur answers "Whatever you say, you fool", then "Damn us both!" Micah shoots him in the forehead, laughs, spits on the body and leaves.

If Arthur goes back for the money, he fights his way to the cave, takes the sack of money from Dutch's chest and walks out. Micah is waiting. He grabs Arthur and stabs him in the side with Arthur's own knife: "You should have left with your friend, Marston. Let the money be..." Arthur pulls the blade out, Micah draws his own knife, and they fight. When Arthur calls him a snake, Micah answers that Arthur is a vulture, robbing Dutch after all he has done for him, and says he has waited a long time to kill him. In a clinch he repeats: "I'm a survivor. That's all there is. Living and dying," and adds that Arthur is dying.

• Going back for the money, high honor: Arthur slashes Micah's left eye. Micah tackles him and tries to stab him, but Arthur bites his hand and punches him off. Dutch arrives and orders them to stop. Micah claims Arthur has turned and came back to rob them. Arthur tells him to repeat to Dutch what he told Agent Milton; Micah calls it "nonsense". Micah says "You're dying, Black Lung", and Arthur answers "And you're dead. Inside you're dead." Micah urges Dutch to take the money and leave. Dutch walks away; Micah takes the sack of money and goes. Arthur dies at sunrise.
• Going back for the money, low honor: Arthur loses his balance, and Micah tackles him: "Get greedy did you, Black Lung?" Micah stabs him in the chest. Arthur answers that he did not lose: he stopped Micah and told everyone he was a rat. Dutch arrives as Micah pushes the knife in; Micah tells him Arthur came back to rob them, "Like I said he would". Arthur begs Dutch to kill Micah. Dutch walks away. As Arthur crawls off, Micah says "it's been a lotta fun" and stabs him in the back.

Between 1899 and 1907

After Beaver Hollow, Micah forms a gang of his own, with Cleet and Joe among its members. At Copperhead Landing, Sadie and John agree to kill him if they ever find him. Newspapers read in 1907 trace his years on the run. "Notorious Bad Man Alive" lists him among the Van der Linde gang members still at large and reports persistent rumours that he went back for the money from the Blackwater robbery. "'We Are Helpless'" calls him the leader of outlaw gangs terrorising the region and reports that the reward on him and his men has been raised. It says his crimes rival those of Van der Linde himself, names him as a longtime suspect in the Blackwater robbery and the Strawberry massacre of 1899, and links him to train robberies that ended in the death or dismemberment of passengers.

A third article, "Micah Bell Killed", published after his death in 1907 in the Blackwater Ledger (no. 75), the New Hanover Gazette (no. 40) and the Saint Denis Times (no. 56), says that he was believed to be hiding in the Grizzlies and credits him with two dozen killings. It reports that a sheriff, Brackston Hefner, once jailed him; Micah was tried and sentenced to hang, but broke out of jail two days before the execution. In 1907, Cleet tells John that he fell out with Micah when he tried to stop him from murdering a little girl, and that Micah then tried to kill him. In "A Really Big Bastard", Sadie says she has been tracking Micah since he came back to West Elizabeth. By then Micah has joined forces again with Dutch, and he keeps most of the Blackwater money at his hideout on Mount Hagen, in Grizzlies West, Ambarino. The game does not show when or how the two men reunited.

Red Dead Redemption 2: the epilogue (1907)

Epilogue II: Beecher's Hope

In "American Venom", Sadie arrives at Beecher's Hope with a lead: Cleet, wanted for murdering a woman, has been seen drinking in Strawberry. John, Sadie and Charles catch him there and put him on the town gallows until he talks. Cleet tells them that Micah is up at Mount Hagen with "a whole gang" of "bad men... doing bad things", and that the two fell out over the little girl. Cleet dies on the gallows or is shot by Sadie, depending on the player's choice. On the mountain, a sniper wounds Charles in the shoulder, and one of Micah's men stabs Sadie. John climbs on alone and kills Joe and two other gang members on the way, calling out for Micah by name.

Micah walks out of his camp to meet him: "Hello, Scarface. Did you miss me?" He asks after Abigail with an insult and says he may pay her and the boy a call once this is over. They exchange fire and neither can gain the upper hand. Micah tells John he has more men coming and that he should run, promising he would not shoot him in the back. He then offers to make John rich: he has "all the money from Blackwater", or most of it. If Arthur went back for the money in 1899, Micah tells John that Arthur wanted the cash too; if Arthur helped John escape, Micah says Arthur could have had it. If Arthur slashed his eye, Micah carries the scar and calls it Arthur's doing.

Sadie, wounded, comes up behind Micah and holds him at gunpoint: "Come on out, Micah. At least die like a man." Micah laughs that it is "just like old times", raises his hands and holsters his guns. Dutch then steps out of the cabin with both revolvers drawn. Micah uses the distraction to overpower Sadie and holds her hostage with a gun to her head. He tells John that he and Dutch are "teaming up once more" and have "money" and "dreams", and invites him to join them. John asks him to let Sadie go; Micah refuses and says he does not want to kill John. When John says Arthur saved his life more than once, Micah answers: "Arthur's been dead a long time... this, is a new century..."

John turns to Dutch and pleads that they all did their best for him. Micah shouts at John to put down his gun. Dutch answers John: "I ain't got too much to say no more..." and shoots Micah in the chest, freeing Sadie. Micah laughs: "You shot me. You shot me pretty good." He raises his revolvers towards both men, and John shoots him several times. Micah staggers, shrugs and falls face down in the snow, dead. Sadie does not kill him. Dutch walks away without answering John's thanks and leaves the money behind; John finds it, with gold bars, in a chest in the cabin. During the credits, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham reach Mount Hagen, where Micah's body lies face down; Fordham searches the cabin and shrugs. The two agents then question people across the region and end up watching John's ranch. The "Micah Bell Killed" article reports that he was taken by surprise by former gang members who had long accused him of treachery. John can later return to the body and take one of Micah's revolvers.

Rockstar's character description reads: "A career criminal and hitman. Wild and unpredictable but he lives for the action." In the gang, only Dutch takes to him; Arthur tells Dutch he is too reckless for a job. Micah argues from the first chapter that the group is too big. In the Colter blizzard he says the others are waiting "for daddy to put food on the table". At camp he calls Uncle a parasite and names Molly and Swanson among those who should be cut loose. He is just as blunt about religion: he says he does not believe in God, tells Swanson that men of the cloth are parasites, and says that if hell exists he would like to see it. He also says at camp that he does not believe in right and wrong, and that if damnation were real he would "feel right at home there". "I believe there's winners and losers... and nothing else besides", he says at camp.

He tells Hosea that the Blackwater losses were part of the game, says on Guarma that Hosea "was dying anyway", and is the only one to speak ill of Kieran after his death. Of the Callander brothers, lost after Blackwater, he says they were real fighters. He insults Charles, Lenny and Javier over their origins; Javier answers with a punch. He teases Jack and kicks the dog Cain; he calls dogs parasites. He also makes advances to Abigail, who rebuffs him. With Dutch he is deferential: he calls him "Boss" and, after Strawberry, apologises for letting his emotions get the better of him. After Guarma he becomes Dutch's right-hand man and mocks Arthur's illness.

The game never shows Micah eating, and seldom shows him asleep. At Beaver Hollow he sometimes dozes in a chair with his boots up on the table. The only time he lies down is at the start of "Fleeting Joy", in a hammock next to Uncle. In one night scene he drinks with Javier until he nods off, slumped over the table. If Arthur greets him at night and says he never sees him sleep, Micah replies that sleep is overrated.

Names and nicknames

Micah calls Arthur "cowpoke", then, once Arthur starts coughing after Guarma, "Black Lung", the common name of the lung disease of coal miners. He also calls him "Doubting Thomas", "Coughing Billy" and "Misery-guts Morgan". John is "Scarface", Pearson "fat man" and Hosea "the old man". Arthur calls him a rat and a snake, Sadie "a goddamn sickness" and Sean an "oily turd". Susan, facing him at Beaver Hollow, calls him "Mr. Bell". Blind Man Cassidy calls him "The One with the Forked Tongue". His full name is Micah Bell III, after his father and grandfather.

Appearance

In 1899 Micah is recognisable by his white hat, blond hair falling to his shoulders and two gold teeth at the front of his upper jaw. His mustache, in a horseshoe shape, runs into his side-whiskers. On Guarma it gives way to a full beard. By 1907 he has lost weight and colour. His hair is cut shorter and is now mostly grey, and the lines on his face have deepened. If Arthur cut his left eye during their last fight, a scar marks it.

Gunfighting

Micah fights with a revolver in each hand. In the gang's account, he earned his place by saving Dutch's life in a shootout at Crenshaw Hills. In "Blessed are the Meek?" he and Arthur kill most of Strawberry's lawmen, Sheriff Hanley included. In "A Short Walk in a Pretty Town" he and Arthur clear Rhodes of the Grays' men and free Bill. He plans and leads coach robberies: one in Big Valley with Arthur, another in Bayou Nwa with Arthur and Bill, stopped with dynamite. On Guarma he sets the charges on Fussar's coastal batteries. On Mount Hagen he holds John to a stalemate. In the final part of "American Venom" he is the only character in the Red Dead series on whom the slow motion of Dead Eye has no effect. It works again once Dutch's shot has wounded him, and a single mark is then enough for John to finish him.

Weapons

His weapons are a pair of custom Double-Action Revolvers with blackened steel frames and red and black skull grips; the barrel is etched "Vengeance is hereby mine". In game terms, Micah's Revolver hits as hard as a Cattleman Revolver and is slightly more accurate than the standard model. It cannot be customized, and the player's inventory holds only one. He also carries a hunting knife on his gun belt.

Arthur hands him a Cattleman Revolver for the Strawberry jailbreak, but Micah goes back for the pair, killing his former associate Norman and his wife Maddy to recover them, and tells Arthur afterwards that there isn't much he cares about more. He is the only castaway to keep his own guns on Guarma, and is often seen cleaning them at camp. Long guns are rare in his hands: he fires a Carbine Repeater at the train car in "Who the Hell is Leviticus Cornwall?" and holds one while on guard on Guarma. In "An American Pastoral Scene" he hands Arthur a Lancaster Repeater as "more your style". After "American Venom", John can take one of the two revolvers from his body.

Horses

His horse in 1899 is Baylock, a Missouri Fox Trotter with a black coat, a bald face marking and blue eyes. Micah rides him from the Colter blizzard, where he leads Dutch and Arthur to the Adler ranch, through the Strawberry escape, after which Baylock rears at a thunderclap and Micah pays it no mind, and on his coach robberies. Baylock is not ridden on Guarma but is back at camp afterwards. When carrying hay, Micah can ask Arthur to make sure Baylock gets some. In "Red Dead Redemption" Micah flees the Pinkerton raid on Beaver Hollow on Baylock, and the horse is not seen again.

If Baylock dies, Micah reacts with shock and anger. After the Bayou Nwa coach robbery the horse can be killed without failing the mission: Arthur loses honor, and Micah heads back to camp on foot, unharmed by anything except being trampled. In the beta, Baylock had the same markings as the Dark Horse of Red Dead Redemption; the final design gives him blue eyes and an asymmetrical face pattern.

Micah appears in 24 story missions of Red Dead Redemption 2, plus two companion activities. The table below lists them in story order. Micah is never playable. He gives five of these missions himself, from "Blessed are the Meek?" in chapter 2 to "The Delights of Van Horn" in chapter 6, and he is the final target of the game in "American Venom".

Notable people Micah kills

His killings fall into two groups: storyline killings, which always happen, and determinant ones, which depend on how the player plays a mission or on the ending chosen. The table covers every named victim in both groups, plus two killings shown during missions: his O'Driscoll cellmate in Strawberry and a wounded Pinkerton at Lakay. Unnamed enemies killed in the gunfights (lawmen, O'Driscolls, Pinkertons, Guarma soldiers) are not listed.

Several killings are attributed to Micah without being shown. An 1877 newspaper clipping names him and his father as suspects in the murder of the Briggs couple in Ohio (see the biography). In chapter 2, Susan sends Micah and Lenny out scouting from Horseshoe Overlook. In "A Quiet Time", Lenny comes back alone: Micah has been jailed in Strawberry after a drunken brawl in which he killed two men. In 1907, the newspaper article "Micah Bell Killed" credits him with two dozen killings. Cleet's account of an attack on a family is given in his entry under Relationships.

The lines below are given as spoken in the game, in the original English, with the mission and the person addressed.

Red Dead Redemption 2, chapters 1 to 3

• Huddled around a fire waiting for daddy to put food on the table. I've said it before, we've got too many mouths to feed.

  Outlaws from the West (RDR2, chapter 1), to Arthur, who tells him the rest of the gang is at the mining camp

• Oh, look what I found in the cellar! Wild thing, ain't ya?!

  Outlaws from the West (RDR2, chapter 1), at Adler Ranch: the first sentence to Dutch and Arthur as they come into the house, the second to Sadie Adler

• I am not robbing another boat as long as I live...

  Who the Hell is Leviticus Cornwall? (RDR2, chapter 1), to Lenny, who has found papers about a boat Cornwall ordered from Europe

• Come on, kid. You can buy me a whisky.

  Eastward Bound (RDR2, chapter 1), to Lenny, as Dutch sends them ahead of the wagons

• Sons of Dutch, makes us brothers...and sometimes brothers make mistakes.

  Blessed are the Meek? (RDR2, chapter 2), to Arthur, who berates him after the escape from Strawberry

• You hit like you dress...all feminine.

  Camp at Horseshoe Overlook (RDR2, chapter 2), to Javier, who has just punched him

• Oh, I'll wipe that smile off your face one day. Believe me.

  Camp at Horseshoe Overlook (RDR2, chapter 2), to Arthur, who laughs after Javier's punch

• Well that's because, cowpoke... you are a man of profoundly limited intelligence.

  Blessed are the Peacemakers (RDR2, chapter 3), to Arthur, at the Clemens Point camp at the start of the mission

• Well of course, it's probably a trap... but what have we got to lose finding out.

  Blessed are the Peacemakers (RDR2, chapter 3), to Hosea and Dutch, about Colm O'Driscoll's offer of a parley

• Here he goes... Doubting Thomas... is there any plan you ain't sour on?

  Blessed are the Peacemakers (RDR2, chapter 3), to Arthur, on the ride to the parley

• Sit down, my dearest friend, and show me just what you got.

  Five Finger Fillet, companion activity (RDR2, chapter 3), to Arthur

Red Dead Redemption 2, chapters 4 to 6 and the endings

• There's a big picture here, Arthur. Trust me.

  The Delights of Van Horn (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, about the plan to blow up Bacchus Bridge; Arthur recalls the line on his last ride with low honor

• I wanna live, cowpoke... I still got the choice. Dutch, it's just a girl...

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), after Abigail's capture: to Arthur, who has asked whether they will let the boy be made an orphan, then to Dutch

• Black Lung, you're back. Hooray.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, on his return to Beaver Hollow

• Oh, be quiet, cowpoke. Be quiet. You live in the clouds.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, who tells the gang to choose a side

• I'm a... survivor, Black Lung... a survivor! That's all there is...living and dying.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, during their fistfight (ending in which Arthur helps John escape)

• Oh, Black Lung... you ain't gonna reach that gun. You ain't. You lost, my sick friend. You lost.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, crawling toward his revolver (ending in which Arthur helps John escape)

• He's sick... he's dying... he's talking crazy.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Dutch, after Arthur calls him the rat (ending in which Arthur helps John escape)

• You're not better than me, Morgan.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, before shooting him (low honor, Arthur helps John escape)

• Snake? Okay, then you're a vulture. Robbing Dutch after all he's done for you.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, during the knife fight (ending in which Arthur goes back for the money)

• Get greedy did you, Black Lung? I knew you wanted the money as much as any of us...

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, after he loses his footing (low honor, going back for the money)

• Oh, you got me pretty good, Black Lung.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, who has just slashed his left eye (high honor, going back for the money)

• I never... DUTCH!

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), as Dutch walks away from him and Arthur (low honor, going back for the money)

• Well... I must say, Arthur... it's been a lotta fun.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Arthur, before stabbing him in the back (low honor, going back for the money)

Red Dead Redemption 2, epilogue (1907)

• Hello, Scarface. Did you miss me?

  American Venom (RDR2, epilogue), to John, on Mount Hagen

• Dutch and I are teaming up once more... we got money... we got dreams... Join us, John, join us...

  American Venom (RDR2, epilogue), to John, during the standoff on Mount Hagen

• Hellfire... it's just like old times.

  American Venom (RDR2, epilogue), to Sadie, who has come up behind him with her gun drawn

• Arthur's been dead a long time... this, is a new century...

  American Venom (RDR2, epilogue), to John, who says Arthur saved his life more than once

• You shot me...you shot me pretty good...

  American Venom (RDR2, epilogue), to Dutch, who has just shot him in the chest; his last words

Camp lines

• How about you and me go and redistribute some property?

  Camp (RDR2), to Arthur

• I make the money, not wash the clothes.

  Camp (RDR2), complaining about his chores

Casting

Micah Bell is played by Peter Blomquist, an American actor and writer based in New York. He provided both the voice and the performance capture of the character. Blomquist had already worked with Rockstar Games: he voiced Dr. Harlan Fontaine, the psychiatrist and main antagonist of L.A. Noire (2011). Fontaine wears a white suit with a red turtleneck; for the Saint Denis bank robbery, Micah wears a white suit with a red vest. No source says whether the resemblance is deliberate. The official guide published with the game states that Micah joined the gang about five months before the story begins, after saving Dutch's life during a deal that went wrong.

Building the character

In an interview with GameZone published on 18 March 2019, Blomquist described Micah as "such a slimy opportunist with an incredible knack for making people angry." He said he built the role without a model: "Developing the character was pretty much done from scratch." He added that great villains came to mind at times, "but I certainly didn't model Micah on any of them." To get into the part, he said he only had to picture himself stepping out of a swamp before each scene. He also said that Rockstar let him test the limits of the character's personality, and that he relied on Rod Edge, director of performance capture, to either hold him back or push Micah's quirks further.

Blomquist came back to this in a round table with Roger Clark, Rob Wiethoff, Alex McKenna and Benjamin Byron Davis, published by Shacknews on 1 February 2019. Asked whether playing "the villain of the villains" was liberating, he answered: "Absolutely." He said he had played "a handful of not-so-nice guys" before, and that this one topped the list. He enjoyed the role so much that he "would need to be reined in fairly frequently", because he tends to push things too far. He credited the team and the direction with giving him the confidence to explore the character. On the physical side, he said the hardest part was not his voice but his legs, because of the running and crouching required in the gunfight scenes.

In the same interview, Blomquist said he shot many of his scenes with Roger Clark (Arthur) and could always trust him as an actor. He named Micah's last moments with Arthur as "particularly intense", and said that watching Clark handle that intensity was "absolutely thrilling". He also said he had played most of Rockstar's games before, while not considering himself a hardcore gamer.

Reaction from players

Shacknews asked Blomquist whether he had expected the hostility the character drew from players. "I did not anticipate it", he answered. He said he knew Micah was "a pretty terrible human being", but not the volume of responses he would receive on social media. "I take pretty much all of it as complimentary. I feel like I did my job then." He attributed the effect to the rest of the cast, naming Clark, Davis and McKenna: "A bad guy doesn't just exist in a vacuum." He ended: "Honestly, all of the so-called hate/love that I've been getting on social media, I'll take it. I deserve it."

Rockstar on the mission order

In an interview with VentureBeat published on 5 December 2018, journalist Dean Takahashi said that Rockstar's press office had explained to him why Arthur goes out drinking before rescuing Micah from jail in Strawberry: Arthur never really liked Micah. Rob Nelson, co-head of Rockstar North, confirmed that missions had been moved around. He said the night out was placed there to show a lighter side of Arthur, "and we put it there to make sure he wasn't rushing out to get somebody that he didn't really care about."

Cut content

Files left in the game contain unused material for Micah. They include an eyepatch, a vest, a shirt, a hairstyle, two fringes, two beards and a robbery outfit that do not appear in the final game. His corpse exists in two versions, with and without the left eye; the one with the eye is never used. The files also list an unused item request from Micah, labelled "bk". In the beta, his revolvers were iron-plated, with blackened steel cylinders and longer barrels. Norman, the former associate he kills in Strawberry, was first called Nelson: the scene's file is named "micah_confronts_nelson".

A cut mission, named "ind2" in the files, would have sent Arthur, Micah, Hosea and Abigail to test the response time of the law in Saint Denis before "Banking, The Old American Art": Arthur plants dynamite under the Cornwall Freight and Commodities building, and the sequence ends with Arthur and Micah jumping from a train just before it crashes.

Several camp conversations were also recorded and left unused. In one, Micah asks Charles whether he has ever scalped anyone, and Charles threatens to scalp him. In another, he tells Reverend Swanson that God is dead. A third shows Trelawny making a coral snake fall out of Micah's hat after Micah calls him a rat. In a cut exchange with Lenny, Micah calls him "boy" and then uses a racial slur, and Lenny walks away. At Horseshoe Overlook, a cut line has Micah inviting Abigail to sit with a "real man"; she answers that she will send one over when she finds one. After release, the day one patch changed the physics of several NPC clothes and hairstyles, Micah's hair among them.

Reviews

Several reviews published at launch named Micah. In GameSpot's review of 25 October 2018, Kallie Plagge noted that Arthur reacts badly to the hot-headed, vicious members of the gang, and wrote: "The most rotten of them is Micah, who's so easy to hate that it's hard not to follow Arthur's lead and take the higher road." The same day, Mike Williams of USgamer described a cast he found enjoyable, adding: "Even the ones I hate, including loose cannons like Micah Bell and Bill Williamson, still somewhat prove themselves as worthwhile members."

Not every critic was positive about the writing. In a Polygon piece on the game's story published on 22 November 2018, Colin Campbell called several characters clichés. He wrote that "a lank-haired, long-faced racist villain with a drawling accent is about as imaginative as a cottonwood tree", and that Rockstar's only concession to the cliché of Micah Bell was giving him a white hat instead of a black one. In its interview with the cast of 18 March 2019, GameZone took the opposite view: "He's wildly unlikable, he's despicable, he's gross… but he's a great villain."

Rankings

Micah regularly comes last in press rankings of the gang, and appears in lists of the most disliked characters in video games. TheGamer also singled out the actor. In an article of 4 August 2019, Jerrad Wyche compared Blomquist's work to Jack Gleeson's as Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones: actors who make audiences hate a character written to provoke disgust, he wrote, do not get enough credit.

• Game Informer, 27 December 2018: 24th and last in the staff ranking of all the members of the Van der Linde gang, described as "a vile, bigoted bully".
• TheGamer, 10 August 2019: 10th and last of the ten most prominent members of the gang, in a ranking by Jerrad Wyche, who calls him "the rat of the Van Der Linde gang".
• Gamepressure, 19 March 2021: included by Darius Matusiak among the 12 most-hated video game characters, alongside Frank Tenpenny (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) and Abby Anderson (The Last of Us Part II).

Marketing

Micah appears with Arthur in the third trailer, released on May 2, 2018, and in the gameplay trailer of August 9, 2018. Official artwork shows him holding two Schofield Revolvers, while in the game he uses custom Double-Action Revolvers. On September 6, 2018, seven weeks before release, Rockstar posted the portraits of the 23 members of the gang on Twitter, Micah among them. His tweet gave only his name and his portrait; the accompanying description is the one quoted under Personality. The Hollywood Reporter reproduced the series the next day. The group composite places him in the back row, between Lenny and Arthur.

Red Dead Redemption 2: The Complete Official Guide, published by Piggyback on October 26, 2018, gives him a profile on page 363. It is the source of the account of his arrival in the gang given under Development and performance.

Reputation

Micah quickly became one of the most disliked characters of the game among players. Peter Blomquist's own reaction, given to Shacknews and GameZone in 2019, is covered under Development and performance. On February 26, 2021, GTABase ran a feature by Joseph Poulos titled "Why Micah Bell Is STILL The Most Hated Antagonist Of All Time". Press rankings that list him among the most hated characters are given under Reception.

Appearances

Blomquist took part, with Roger Clark, Rob Wiethoff, Alex McKenna, Curzon Dobell and Steve J. Palmer among others, in the Red Dead Redemption II cast panel at SacAnime Summer 2019 in Sacramento, on June 8, 2019. On January 22, 2020, he discussed the role on episode 19 of the ComiCulture podcast. He explains there that he auditioned with a monologue unrelated to the period, waited four or five months for an answer, and learned only late in production that Micah was one of the main antagonists.

Story and characters

• Micah's suggestion started the chain of events of the game. In "Eastward Bound", Hosea reminds Dutch that he and Arthur were about to do well in Blackwater until Micah got Dutch excited about the ferry. The failed ferry robbery forced the gang into the mountains at the start of chapter 1.
• His death also leads to the events of Red Dead Redemption. In the end credits, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham find his body on Mount Hagen, then question witnesses, and finally trace his killer to John at Beecher's Hope.
• After "An American Pastoral Scene", Micah's temporary camp at Monto's Rest, near Strawberry, holds a torn wanted poster offering 1,000 dollars for Dutch van der Linde and two newspaper clippings. One is the 1877 report on the Briggs murder (see the biography). The other covers the Blackwater ferry robbery and says the 150,000 dollars taken are still missing.
• In a camp conversation, Micah tells Arthur he slept with Jenny Kirk when the gang was camped near Blackwater, and asks him whether he knew. Arthur, irritated, tells him not to repeat it to Lenny.
• Micah is almost always seen in a white hat, while Arthur wears a black one.
• A small match is tucked into the band of his hat.
• In camp he often snorts, clears his throat and coughs.
• After getting his revolvers back in "Blessed are the Meek?", he draws them by hooking his fingers in the trigger guards and spinning them in the air, a variation of the road agent's spin made popular by Western films.
• He calls the gang his family and Arthur his brother on several occasions (see Quotes).
• Micah's end anticipates Bill Williamson's in Red Dead Redemption: both men leave Dutch, take charge of their own band and are hunted down by John. The motive differs. John goes after Micah by choice, to avenge Arthur; he goes after Bill because Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham are holding his family.
• Micah, in 1907, is the first of his former companions that John is shown tracking down and killing, four years before Red Dead Redemption (1911). He is also the only one of the four whose death the player cannot avoid. In Red Dead Redemption, Javier can be taken alive, Bill's death can be left to Abraham Reyes, and Dutch lets himself fall from a cliff. In his journal after "American Venom", John writes that he wanted to kill Dutch as well, but did not.
• Micah's hideout on Mount Hagen can already be seen in the distance in chapter 1, as the gang rides to the train tracks in "Who the Hell is Leviticus Cornwall?". It appears on the map only after "American Venom".

Gameplay

• During the final showdown, the player can shoot Micah's hat off.
• Arthur can provoke Micah at camp without any loss of honor. Pushed far enough, Micah shoves him, a reaction he shares with Dutch.
• Once "Blessed are the Meek?" is available, and until Micah is freed, the player can no longer surrender to lawmen or bounty hunters when wanted in West Elizabeth. After "A Quiet Time", his model waits in the cell, cowering by the window, until the player frees him.
• In "Blessed are the Meek?", the bars of his cell can be pulled out with the steam donkey, blown up with dynamite, or bypassed by killing the lawmen inside and taking the cell keys. Before recovering his own guns, he fights with two Cattleman Revolvers, although Arthur hands him only one. Once safe, he gives Arthur a second holster, which allows dual wielding.
• In "An American Pastoral Scene", Micah drives the stolen coach slowly, and he shoots the lockbox open himself, with a complaint, if the player takes too long.
• At the end of "A Short Walk in a Pretty Town", Arthur only needs to shoot Sheriff Gray: Micah kills the deputies before they can fire.
• Micah's Revolver (described under Weapons) is normally looted from his body on Mount Hagen after "American Venom"; the body disappears once the gun has been collected. It can also be obtained early: in "Old Friends" or "An American Pastoral Scene", by leading a disarmed enemy to Micah so that the man knocks the gun from his hand, or before "Blessed are the Meek?", by shooting a fire arrow near his foot in the cell so that he drops it.
• On Mount Hagen, the game names Micah's corpse "Stranger". The body does not match the cutscene: Micah falls face down, but the corpse lies face up, with light brown hair instead of grey. Bullets and blows have no effect on it; fire does.
• Micah is one of two gang members, with Javier, who can be played at Five Finger Fillet in chapter 3. Before a game he mentions that the last time he played was with "Skinny", his name for Norman, and some other men in Strawberry.
• On the coach robbery in Bayou Nwa, Micah says his ideal gang is a tight crew of five or six strong gunmen.

Red Dead Online

• Micah never appears in Red Dead Online, set in 1898. He is only mentioned: when the player first meets Joe, the stranger asks whether the player knows Micah, Cleet or Samson Finch.
• Sheriff Hanley, who sentenced Micah to hang in the story, runs the Strawberry bounty board in Red Dead Online.

Name and references

• His full name is Micah Bell III. His father, Micah Bell Jr., and his grandfather, Micah Bell Sr., were both outlaws; Micah says his father was once wanted for murder in five counties.
• Micah and his brother Amos share their names with two of the twelve minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Micah contains the verse "a man's enemies are the men of his own house" (Micah 7:6, King James Version).
• Micah begins to recite "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called..." at the start of the mission of that name. It is one of the few missions whose title is spoken by a character. The title of "Blessed are the Meek?" also comes from the Beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew.
• The ship that carries Micah and the others from Saint Denis, the Antenor, bears the name of a Trojan elder who, in several versions of the myth, betrays Troy to the Greeks. In Dante's Inferno, the region of hell reserved for traitors to their homeland is named Antenora after him.