Charles Smith is a major character featured in Red Dead Redemption 2. Born to an African American father and a Native American mother, Charles Smith became one of the most recent additions to the Van der Linde gang , joining roughly months before the events of the game. Army drove them away. His mother was captured by soldiers a couple years later and was never seen again, whilst his father fell into a depression and became an alcoholic.
At the age of 13, Charles ran away and wandered the country alone. After the failed ferry robbery in Blackwater , Charles regroups with the gang in the mountains after finding their horses and lends his horse, Taima , to Arthur, while giving Dutch his own.
Although Charles says that he can stay outside and do more, Dutch tells him to go inside with the others and rest his burnt hand, an injury he likely sustained during the robbery. A few days later, Arthur talks to Pearson about food, who informs them that they won't be able to live on their current supplies.
Charles offers to take Arthur hunting for deer in the wilderness, where Charles teaches Arthur how to use the bow, due to his hand injury. Arthur successfully hunts down two deer, allowing him and Charles to bring them back to Pearson.
Charles is also put in charge of the horses and keeping watch over captured O'Driscoll member Kieran Duffy. He later takes part in the robbery of the Leviticus Cornwall train. On the way down from the mountains, Charles, Arthur Morgan and Hosea Matthews stay behind from the main caravan to fix the wagon. During the repair, Hosea points out the Native Americans atop a nearby cliff and proceeds to tell Arthur and Charles their history. Following up on the discussion, Charles states that he doesn't know if he even has a tribe and ran away at the age of thirteen when his father became an alcoholic, and wandered the country before eventually falling in with the gang.
