The Ties That Bind Us is a Stranger mission in Red Dead Redemption 2. The quest becomes available during Chapter 4.
Story[]
Two escaped, bickering convicts, Sampson Black and Wendell White, have been surviving in the woods just outside Rhodes for a few days with little to no supplies. They ask the player for help, requesting that he remove their wanted posters.
There are 5 posters total, one in the train station, one outside the sheriff's office and one on a pole by a yard. The 2 other posters are harder to get to as one is behind a citizen who will refuse to move and the other one is taken by a bounty hunter who refuses to hand it over. Both of these must be hogtied, knocked out, or killed to get the poster.
After collecting all 5 posters the player can return to Black and White. After this the player has the choice to either burn the bounty posters and leave them be or turn them in for $40.
If the two escapees are allowed to go free, they can be encountered a second time at a camp overlooking Dewberry Creek, not far from Old Greenbank Mill. They have replaced their prison uniforms with old, worn-out clothes, and complain of stomach pain due to having eaten some wild mushrooms. They ask the player for medicine, which immediately clears up their ailment. The player suggests they split up to have a better chance of continuing to elude the law.
Later, the pair can be encountered for a third and final time at Stilt Shack in Big Valley. They are still surviving together, but have much nicer clothes and appear to be living in relative comfort. The player tells them they should have traveled further away to be on the safe side, but they claim that nobody ever passes through the area. The player wishes them well and departs.
Wanted Poster Locations[]
Trivia[]
- Mr. White and Mr. Black's predicament is very similar to the premise of the 1958 film The Defiant Ones, which features two escapees chained together, one black and one white, who must surpass racist prejudices about each other in order to survive.
- An argument can be heard in Rhodes between two people discussing whether or not they are innocent during the first phase of the mission. One insists that the criminals' alleged victims died of natural causes or were killed in self-defense, and that the judge presiding over their trial was bribed to fix the verdict against them.
- The player can ask Alden Carruthers whether or not he thinks they are innocent.
- If Arthur turns the pair in for their bounties, John can later encounter them again in Rhodes. This likely is either an oversight or they attempted escape again and ended up back in Rhodes in 1907.
- Between part III and IV, if the player doesn't give the requested health cure right away and waits for too long, both Mr. White and Mr. Black will be found dead right where they were laying next to their tent, which ends this stranger mission prematurely.
Video Walkthrough[]
Bugs[]
- There's a bug in a second encounter when protagonist is asked for a medicine. If you have a full stack of medicine already with you, when you interact with Mr. Black there will be a cutscene camera but nothing more happens and the game gets in a softlock state. To fix this you have to empty your medicine stack by selling it or throwing away and then get one medicine item.
- Sometimes after completing this mission as Arthur, you can repeat it again with John.
Trophies/Achievements[]
Completing this Stranger mission strand is associated with these trophies/achievements:
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10
 Bronze
 Reach maximum or minimum Honor level.
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30
Bronze
Complete 10 Stranger mission strands.
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100
Gold
 Attain 100% Completion.
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