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When he had come across Albert with yet another bag of meat, Arthur felt compelled to aid him in a way he didn’t usually feel inclined to. Sure, he tossed the war vets a buck or two in town and helped out a few folks, but going out of his way to help some genteel photographer from getting eaten by his own subjects wasn’t a habit. Felt like it was becoming one, though. Albert had stood there, still shaking a bit. Apparently man-eating beasts didn’t scare him overmuch besides the immediate danger, but the gunfire did. Before Arthur knew it, he was opening his fool mouth.
“Might be there are some other wolves about,” he said gruffly. This seemed highly unlikely, especially due to the fact that he had quickly finished the skinning and disposal business, but Albert wouldn’t know that. He startled, and looked at Arthur intently.
“Good heavens!” “Even after all this carnage?” Arthur felt suddenly conscious of the blood caking on his boots and the way his heart was still pounding in his ears, quieting some now that the danger had passed.
“Yeah,” he said. “So’s best if I stick near for a while, maybe set up over there or...” he trailed off.
“Oh!” Albert broke in. “Yes, please, sir, if it’s not too much trouble!” He fumbled in his bag and pulled out a shining volcanic pistol. “I recently acquired this in Valentine and have thankfully not had the necessity of operating it.” He waved the pistol as he spoke. Arthur flinched, then searched for words.
“Why don’t you put that away and tomorrow I’ll teach you how to use it proper?”
“I would greatly appreciate that,” Albert said with a quick, graceful smile. “Where shall we camp?”
It turned out Albert wasn’t entirely hopeless in the wild. He set up his tent easy enough and helped get the fire going. Soon they were sitting by a crackling campfire, close enough to bask in its radiant heat, but not so close that errant sparks would singe Arthur’s new jeans. Sure, they were patched, and already muddy, and in a general state of fresh disrepair, but upon seeing them Albert had clucked his tongue and shoved Arthur away to a safer seat. His own pants were indelibly imprinted with the vegetation he spent his days kneeling in. Upon pointing this out, Albert had rolled his eyes and said, “but yours are new, Mr. Morgan.” Though Arthur often prided himself on what he imagined to be the famous Morgan stubbornness, on this occasion, he decided to yield. He found himself in the uncomfortable position of feeling reluctantly charmed, and so assented, but not without the requisite grumbling.
The fare was less pedestrian than usual, owing to Arthur’s serendipitous discovery of some oregano plants a day prior. Though he usually tended to sell excess ingredients when venturing into town, this time he had not had the chance before stumbling upon Albert once again. He roasted some venison and chewed it slowly, feeling odd. His heart was still pounding and every action felt as if it was being wrenched from deep inside him as surely and abruptly as he had wrenched those bars from Micah Bell’s cell in Strawberry. Arthur was not in the habit of feeling ill at ease, and it unsettled him. He studied Albert’s face in the firelight, not sure what he was searching for. Albert felt Arthur’s eyes on him and gave him another smile.
“Tell me a story. You must have all manner of capers to talk about, being so used to the wild as you are.”
“’Bout what?” Arthur asked warily. He reflected on how Albert probably knew who he was. His poster was up in every station and office from here to New Austin, after all. However, Albert didn’t seem inclined to turn him in, likely due to his professed belief that Arthur was a gentleman. He thought back for a suitable-enough story to tell. Unbidden, the memory of the pig farm rose to his mind.
“You know Lemoyne?” he asked. Albert nodded eagerly and began to rhapsodize at length about the various species of gators to be found there. Arthur listened for a few minutes and then cleared his throat gently. Albert interrupted himself with a guilty look and finished with “Ah, well, that’s a matter for a later time,” and gestured expansively at Arthur.
“Well,” Arthur said, stretching his legs a bit and settling into a more comfortable position. “A few weeks back I came across what looked to be a pig farm. I decided to go up to it to uh, see if they might be interested in some friendly trade.”
Albert’s eyes glittered at him across the fire. It was impossible to tell whether he knew it for a lie.
“A gentleman in some overalls called out to me and asked if I might join him and his wife for supper.”
“I find it difficult to imagine you so readily agreeing,” Albert mused.
“Ah, well,” Arthur said lamely. “I was hungry. Anyway, he bade me sit down and then to fetch his wife from upstairs where she had gone off to, you know, do her toilette.”
Albert nodded encouragingly.
“I went upstairs, feeling none too awkward with the whole situation, and came across her in some, uh, indignity.”
“Oh!” Albert chortled. A sly smile appeared, with a hint of something else. “And was she very beautiful?” he asked, with that wicked grin curling up one side of his mouth. Arthur resolved not to get lost in that curve, and quickly returned to staring at the flames.
“I guess,” he said noncommittally. “She then, uh, told me weren’t no harm in looking. Which I wasn’t, so I left the room and went down. Finally, we sat down to eat.”
“And how was the food?” Albert asked, looking enthralled.
“Well,” Arthur said, “they started to feed each other from their forks and sit on laps and suchlike, which made me feel a bit out of place. So I asked them a question about how did they come to own such a fine place. Map I had labeled it a pig farm, but wasn’t a pig in sight. The man and his wife start telling me a tale about their ma and pa.”
“Wait….no!” Albert grasped the meaning instantly. “What on earth did you say to that? Heavens!”
“I didn’t know rightly what to say. So I took a drink. Then another. Maybe a third. I got to wondering where their ma and pa went. Then I woke up in a grave.”
“No!” Albert’s face was alight now, shock dancing on that open face. Arthur took a long sip from his canteen, savoring his audience. He hadn’t shared this story with the Van der Linde gang, owing to no small amount of embarrassment at how easily he had been caught unawares. This was his first time recounting the sordid tale, and he basked in Albert’s sympathy and horror on his behalf.
“Had-had they hurt you?” Albert asked. His eyes roamed over Arthur, as if checking for unhealed wounds or extant injuries.
“Just my pride,” Arthur admitted. “It was cold and pouring rain, and I was about two hundred dollars lighter than when I sat down to dinner. Worst of all,” he paused for effect as Albert’s eyes widened expectantly, “worst of all was the skeleton I had landed on top of. Now I’ve seen some things, and done others,” he said, forgetting himself in the interest of keeping that delightful expression on Albert’s face, “but it still gave me half a fright.”
Albert shuddered agreeably. “So whatever did you do?”
“Well, my first priority was getting hold of my horse again,” he nodded in the direction of his horse, “and my second was getting my money back. I figured out where they had put me and set off back to the farm. Sure enough, this old boy was still hitched outside. I pulled off my shotgun and crept back in. Woman came at me first and I--” he cut himself off. “Dispatched her. Her brother came at me then with a shotgun of his own and I took care of him, too. Then I set to investigating the house.”
Albert’s eyebrows had crept higher and higher. He stared at Arthur without blinking.
“They robbed me and left me for dead,” Arthur added defensively. This is the world I live in, he wanted to say. Albert stared at him intently for a moment, then inclined his head minutely in mute acknowledgment.
Arthur spoke louder, feeling self-conscious, feeling Albert weighing his actions. “At first, I couldn’t figure out where they put it. I found a skull in a cabinet, and some family photographs with ma and pa’s eyes scratched out. Finally, in my frustration, I started moving stuff around. Behind a painting of a lady was a small safe, with all my money and then some. I took it and high-tailed out. Didn’t stop until I reached West Elizabeth.”
Albert was still staring at him wordlessly.
“You asked for a story,” Arthur said, too loud, too aggressively.
“So I did,” Albert murmured. His eyes were fixed on Arthur like he was photographing him. Arthur felt pinned in place.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said, earnest once more. “Sounds damned frightening.”
Arthur shrugged, uncomfortable with the passive, implied acceptance. “Taught me not to eat with strangers, I suppose.” Albert’s eyes flicked down to their abandoned meals.
“Well, you ain’t a stranger,” Arthur said.
“And what am I, Mr. Morgan?” Albert asked. The question seemed to hang in the air long after he finished voicing it. It felt like a trick. Arthur didn’t like tricks.
“A friend, I reckon,” he bit out. The smile Albert gifted him made it worth it. Arthur found himself entranced once more by the arch of Albert’s mouth. God damn it, what was wrong with him? He shook his head, attempting to break the spell. It didn’t completely work, so he ventured to change the subject instead.
“Guess we should turn in.”
“Of course,” Albert agreed, after darting a curious glance at him. He seemed more reserved than usual. “Thank you for the wonderful meal, sir.”
Arthur lingered before entering his tent. “Sleep well,” he said finally, and turned to open the flaps. He felt a hand clasp his shoulder, and turned to face Albert, who was standing too close. Arthur could see every hair on his face and the lines around his eyes from smiling. Their eyes met.
He had once seen some sort of traveling exhibit with Dutch where a lady put her hand on a sphere that crackled with the contact and rose her hair in an unearthly fashion. He felt that same charge now. Hair on his neck standing up. A weird potential in the air.
“Thank you for aiding me once more,” Albert said, eyes not leaving his. “I still owe you.”
The words sent a strange frisson down his spine.
“I suppose you do,” Arthur mumbled. There was a hungry look on Albert’s face that Arthur didn’t understand. He felt trapped. He didn’t much like it. He scrambled for familiar ground. “Suppose you could teach me how to use my camera,” he offered, in place of surrender. Albert’s hand tightened almost imperceptibly, then relaxed, then dropped. He smiled at Arthur again, eyes a little different. Arthur couldn’t even begin to comprehend what for.
“Sounds marvelous,” Albert said, and stiffly turned to busy himself with his own tent. “Goodnight, Mr. Morgan,” he called once inside.
Arthur said goodnight in return and settled into his bedroll. It was a cold night. His breath fogged in front of him. He wished desperately for something to keep him warm, or maybe someone. Picturing Mary Gillis in this situation was even more of an incongruity than Albert Mason, though, and something at him squirmed at the comparison.
Arthur had left a small gap in the flap of his tent, to keep an eye out. Through it, he imagined that he could see Albert’s silhouette, thrown into dark relief by the remnants of their fire. Arthur fell asleep with a peculiar tug in his chest that he labeled indigestion and pretended wasn’t want.