Water and Honesty

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Red Dead Redemption
Stranger Side-mission
Red Dead Redemption
Stranger Side-mission
Water and Honesty

"Say, what's that stick you got there?"

Start

On the road from MacFarlane's Ranch to Armadillo

End

Same as start location

Given by

Andrew McAllister

Location

Pleasance House

Rewards

+ $15, or $20 profit (- $200, + $220)
+ Fame

Progression
Unlocked by	Unlocks
Leigh Johnson mission strand: "Political Realities in Armadillo"	None

Location Map

Click to enlarge.

“People act funny around strange men with sticks.”

–John Marston to Andrew McAllister

Water and Honesty is a Stranger side-mission featured in Red Dead Redemption.

Story

John notices a campsite out on the trail and decides to ask the occupant for a short rest from his travels. He meets a man named Andrew McAllister, who welcomes John to his camp. After a small conversation, McAllister tells John about how he is searching for a rich source of water for drilling.

McAllister then explains how he used a dowsing stick, and has found out that there is water underneath Pleasance House and wants to purchase the land. To get it, he needs the deed to the land and offers John a good reward if he goes out and retrieves it.

But unfortunately for John, Clyde Evans, the owner of Pleasance House, is not about to just hand it over.

Walkthrough

Mission Prerequisites

Before this Stranger will appear on the world map, the player must complete:

Leigh Johnson mission: "Political Realities in Armadillo"

Mission Objectives

After locating Andrew McAllister, the player must:

Talk with him and learn of Clyde Evans and the water allegedly beneath Pleasance House.
Ride to Pleasance House and obtain the deed to the property from Clyde Evans.
Return the deed to McAllister and obtain your reward.

Mission Details

The mission starts in a camp on the road from MacFarlane's Ranch to Armadillo. A man using a dowsing stick remarks that he doesn't have the irrigation tools like the city folk do and explains to John Marston that underneath the Pleasance House there is a stockpile of water that he wants. The only way to get it is if he has the deed to the property. The owner of Pleasance House does not want to leave though. John Marston agrees to get the deed.

Travel to Pleasance House just north of Armadillo and talk to the owner. He demands $200 for the deed, says he'll buy a house in Blackwater (although he doesn't like the people there). John Marston has the choice to either pay $200 for the deed, kill the owner and take the deed or hogtie the owner (-100 honor) into giving the deed over.

Either way, you have the deed to Pleasance House and can now use it as a normal property (save your game and change your outfit, etc.).

Head back to the man at the campsite and hand over the deed. He then pays you $15 if you retrieved the deed by force, citing that he didn't want anyone to die, and that the owner has a son in Blackwater and John should keep quiet about the deal. Alternatively he pays $220 if you simply bought the deed, thanking you for using your own money to procure it.

After giving him the deed and completing the mission, he can be killed (-30 honor or -0 honor if you wear your bandana, random low end loot) and you can loot his corpse to re-obtain the deed to the house.

Glitches

Main article: Glitches in Red Dead Redemption

There is a glitch where McAllister notices blood on the deed, even if the player paid Evans the $200 and did not kill him, causing McAllister to act as though the player killed Evans and pay them less.
If the player purchases the deed from Evans, then changes outfits before returning to McAllister, the game may freeze during the final cut-scene.
If you rob him but don't kill him, there will still be blood on the deed. If you pay him and then aim at him while he's walking away - but don't kill him - there is a chance there will be blood on the deed. If this happens, instead of gaining money by doing the quest, you will lose money by doing the quest.
If you pay Evans, let him walk away, and then kill him, it is possible for there to be no blood on the deed.

Trivia

Even if the player does not kill Evans but hogties him instead, the game will treat it as though the player killed Evans.
This mission can also be completed after the final gameplay mission "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed"; doing so after this point will cause MacAllister to ask "Is you the man Marston sent with the deed?".
After completing this mission, the player may encounter Evans' son in Blackwater when he challenges the player to a duel for murdering Clyde.
The title of this mission most likely refers to how Marston can choose to take the "honest" route and pay $200 for the deed, and receive reimbursement later as well as a $20 reward, or choose to acquire the deed violently and dishonestly, only to receive less of a profit ($15) in the end. In truth, Rockstar conceivably could have given Marston a more ethically ascendant choice beyond the current two choices, both necessarily dishonesty-begrimed perforce, if honesty indeed is what the side-mission has its preoccupation.
Like in "Eva in Peril" you get your money back, and more, at the end of the mission (If you pay Clyde Evans).
You can pay for the deed and then kill Clyde to get your money back, resulting in loss of 50 honor, but doing this will cause McAllister to notice blood on the deed.
After you give the deed to McAllister and the mission has been completed, you can kill him and get the deed back, and It will not result In a failure of the mission. If you choose to do this it Is recommended that you wear a bandana. Another admittedly barbarous option here is to lay down bait immediately after completion of the task and let the local deadly wildlife (usually snakes, coyotes, wolves and/or cougars) do the dirty work for the player - surely evil, but, if bloodlessly, unabashedly larcenously swindling an old man - whose life was brutalized by the gangs of the territory, already, to deepen the enormity of things - and taking advantage of his lack of knowledge of the revenue potential of his own property, at bottom, is as Machiavellian in a difference of degree and not essence; for Marston to dehumanize and rapaciously mistreat McAllister, is only giving McAllister his own medicine or karma (the logic of exploitative cynical predation) in a simply more vulgar display of amoral power. Whether via stealth murder and robbery or "creative", premeditated manslaughter of whatever method, Marston in this case keeps Pleasance House and its deed as a Safehouse to sleep and save game permanently.