Chapter Text
John almost didn't realize that Arthur was sneaking up on him.
Not that Arthur probably intended to sneak, but the man never seemed to make any goddamned noise unless he was bulling up to someone or in an out-and-out charge. No, for the most part, he prowled around the camp quiet as a cat, and John hardly noticed he was there until a rough voice was mocking his scars or his takes or giving him shit about staying back from the water.
Or, as today, until Sean ran up behind him, and said, "Hey, Arthur."
Fourteen years of practice meant John didn't drop his coffee. Didn't even jostle the cup; barely even startled, before he turned to see what was happening. And as soon as he turned — caught Arthur saying, "Sean," in that way that also said, I already don't have time for this — Sean caught his eye, and said, "You too, scar-face. Consider this a thank-you for pulling me in on the train."
John's eyes cut across to Arthur. Arthur was looking at Sean with just about as much skepticism as he could fit on his face.
"Consider what a thank-you?" John asked, and Sean leaned in.
"Got a tip," he said. "Good one. Some of O'Driscoll's boys are fixing a move on some sort of hidden treasure, old Plantation savings stashed in a manor, something like that. Something to do with those Lemoyne Raiders pissing all over Scarlett Meadows. Just the sort of Confederate gold we're out here looking for, isn't it?"
He was fishing, that were clear. And Arthur, either because he was wise to it or because he just didn't care about what Sean thought he ought to care about, didn't take the bait. "The hell are the O'Driscolls doing out here?" Arthur demanded.
"The hell do they ever do anywhere?" Sean asked. "Get into mischief. Same as we do."
"Not quite the same," John muttered.
Sean ignored him. "And it's not the whole rough company, from how I hears it," Sean said. "Just a handful of fuckers, camped out somewhere north of Ringneck. Could clear 'em out, but what's the harm? Might as well steal a score or two off them first. Think the two of you could wrap it up, easy."
John had just caught the implication there when Arthur cast a look at him, went incredulous as quick as a dog getting its back up at a snake, and said, "Now, how'd it become the two of us?"
"Well I can't go, can I?" Sean asked. "Dutch has got me on this thing. And you know what they say about the boss's breakfast."
John cast his own look over at Arthur. "No," he said. "I don't."
"The point is," Sean said, "who better to tweak the nose of the O'Driscolls than Dutch's two best boys, eh? Just nip over there, kill a few of the fuckers, back in time for Sunday dinner with a nice pot of gold. Right easy."
Arthur had that look on his face like he was about to put a bullet in the idea just because it wasn't his. John spoke faster. "What's the take?"
Sean grinned at him. That was a troublemaker's grin, there. "Good, from what I hear it," he said. "Man I met was bragging fit to make a robber baron blush. Bring an extra pack horse, boys, you'll need it."
Arthur grimaced, and dug a pack of cigarettes out from one of his jacket pockets. John eyed him, wondered if he could risk it, decided he probably could, and held out a hand; Arthur cast him half a glance and slapped a cigarette into it.
It helped to know people. Hosea banged that drum loud enough: know people, and if you don't think you're good at knowing them off the cuff, at least know a few good things about them. Pieces you could watch for, and test, and get used to.
John, for his part, never felt much like he knew people at all. Just like he couldn't tell what a lake was thinking, or what a storm felt about its day. But he'd been with the gang long enough that he could watch folk, and see the patterns. Sean talked loud, bragged until he was blue, and thought better of himself than anyone else did, but he brought solid leads. His jobs were better than his aim, or his good sense.
And Arthur would knock anything and anyone down a few pegs if he thought they were getting too cocky, up to and including Dutch himself. And he'd complain until he was blue, but it didn't take too much to get him on the line. And once he'd been hooked, he'd get real cooperative, in some ways. He'd always been a good man to work with, if you had a thick skin. There was a reason half the people in camp angled to get him in on the jobs they planned.
And he also had good taste in tobacco.
"I expect," Arthur said, striking a match against his holster. "You'll want a cut for your information." He lit his cigarette cradled the flame to protect it from the breeze. Not that much of a breeze stirred the soupy air; might have been more tolerable if it did.
John didn't press his luck. Pulled his own match. Sean shrugged. "Only fair, isn't it?"
"While we're doing all the work," John said. Falling in to back Arthur up, because he knew how this game was played.
"All the work, they says," Sean scoffed. "Neither of you had to go drinking with those assholes."
"For you, that ain't a hardship," Arthur said. "Any of these drinking buddies of yours survive the night?"
"Oh, the night, sure," Sean said. "We was up 'til daybreak. Then they might have suffered an... unfortunate accident."
"We could throw him a quarter-share," John suggested, and Sean feigned affront — or was actually affronted; John couldn't quite be sure — but Arthur's expression got sharp around the eyes, and they fell to haggling in earnest.
John was never quite sure if Arthur even realized when he agreed to these things. But he did agree at some point, or all of them just started acting like he'd agreed, and he started going along with it, and by the time they'd talked Sean into a half-share and extracted his information and geared up and gotten on the road he seemed as focused on the job as though this had come down from Dutch or Hosea. And so long as they were riding out together, well, he might still have the same sharp tongue and the same long memory, but at least there was a job to focus on, now.
It was an easy enough ride out to the north side of Ringneck Creek, and an easy enough approach to the old plantation house the O'Driscolls were apparently raiding. Raiding, or claiming — there were tents set up outside the main building, and if John had to guess, he'd say it'd make a fine place for a gang to set up in. Conspicuous, sure, but four walls and a roof were a kind of luxury in their line of work.
At least, the main house was still standing. There were a cluster of smaller buildings set off to the side, mostly falling in on themselves; cheap construction, small and huddled together, unlike the rambling lawn they bordered. John frowned at them long enough that Arthur grunted and said, "Those'd be the slave quarters, then," which made John grimace.
"Jesus," he said. "You forget how different it is, down here."
"Yeah, well, spend ten minutes around Dutch," Arthur said. "He'll remind you."
They left their horses behind one of the dilapidated buildings. The things might be made of little more than mouldering wood and remembered misery, but they stood tall enough to provide cover.
Just as Sean had said, there was a little splinter of O'Driscolls wandering around up by the main house; laughing loud and probably drunk. Colm didn't impose much discipline on his people, and what little he did impose went to hell when he wasn't there; they didn't even have a guard set.
John and Arthur didn't even need to discuss a plan, as they checked their weapons and snuck forward. We finish this like we know how.
It was always a rush, taking on a whole slew of armed bastards. And always a rush, seeing how much damn better Dutch's people were than anyone else; didn't matter if it was O'Driscolls or Pinkertons or local law; Dutch taught his people well. Had more than a few people calling his boys demons. They earned every cent of the bounties on their heads.
They cleared the yard, and cleared the house, and holstered their weapons, and took in the sheer size of the old plantation house. "You know," Arthur said, "Sean really needs to start asking those drinking buddies of his where the goods are stashed."
"I'll check upstairs, you check downstairs?" John offered.
"Who hides their hoard of gold upstairs?" Arthur asked. "I'll check downstairs, you look for a trap door or something."
"Or something," John said, and started searching.
He'd covered most of the ground floor, and moved just about all the furniture still in the place, when he heard Arthur calling out, "Trouble."
He found the man in some little side parlor or something, one that opened out onto a shaded porch, frowning off at the distance. Where quite a few men were coming, on horseback.
Quite a few.
And not nearly so far away as John would prefer.
"That don't look like one of Colm's little splinters," Arthur said. His voice was dark and quiet, with that well, we're in it now tone he only got when things had well and truly gone to hell.
"Jesus," John muttered. "Is Colm bringing his whole damn gang out to camp here?"
Sure looks that way," Arthur said. He cast a look back at the house, and John could practically see the calculation he was making: how much a chance they had of holding this ground; how much a chance they had of finding this supposed treasure.
Looked like he came up with the same answers John did, which were: not much.
"Right," Arthur said. "We get back to them slave houses. Keep low and quiet. Any luck, we can get out of here before they see that mess we left."
"Right," John said, and the two of them moved.
The slave houses were across the lawn. They took that at a run, which was probably a mistake; maybe smart money would have been to saunter their way over, look like O'Driscolls themselves from a distance. Then again, it wouldn't take too much looking to see the bodies on the grass, so maybe it would have been shot, either way.
Either way, there were shouts from the approaching riders, and the first riders were making their way into the lawn by the time they got to the ruins.
John grabbed Arthur's elbow; dragged him into the largest of the crumbling buildings before they could be caught out in the relative open. It wasn't much of a hiding place, that was for damn sure, but it bought them a few seconds. "We shoot, we hide, or we run?" he hissed.
Shooting — well, even the two of them would be hard-pressed to shoot their way out of this many people. Hiding; the O'Driscolls knew they were somewhere, and it'd take not much time to find out where. But running had its own problems, too.
For one thing, it was a good bet that the O'Driscolls were very shortly going to have this place surrounded.
"I'm going to kill Sean," Arthur muttered. He took stock of the building they were in, and John did too, looking for any advantage.
This place wasn't going to give them any. It'd been cleaned out of anything of value, and was now barely more than an empty shell, perhaps twelve feet deep and twenty wide, with walls that had gaps in places exposing cross-beams, and a roof that was sagging down to one corner. The floor was wood slats, and looked a cigarette or a lightning strike away from going up in flames, or a wet spring away from mouldering to nothing.
"We fighting?" John asked. If nothing else, he'd rather go out fighting than hiding in some... whatever this place had been.
"If we have to," Arthur said, and glanced out the door. "Maybe... maybe I make a commotion here, and you get us a back door." He waved at one of the holes in the far wall. "Call the horses over. When they're near, we duck out and run."
They'd have better luck on horseback. Though John wasn't sure how far he was trusting luck, just now. "Right. Sure." At least some idea was better than nothing.
He headed for the back wall.
Hadn't made it halfway across the room before he put his foot down, and the old wood gave way beneath him.
He had half a second for his stomach to lurch, for panic to shoot through him — then his boot hit something, barely a foot down, that rolled under his weight, and his ankle rolled as the unseen object shifted, and he fell—
And the pain in his ankle vanished entirely as a much rougher pain shot through his leg.
Didn't even feel hitting the ground, his leg roared so loud. He tried to yank his leg out of the hole it was in; it caught harder on the edge of a wood board, and hurt so bad that he almost threw up. And the whole thing must have made some unfortunate noise; Arthur had already turned back, had snapped "Marston!" with half concern and half reprimand.
John got his hands under him. Almost put a hand through the rotting floorboard, but managed to push himself up — though his leg punished him for it. Got a good look at the new hole he'd carved in the floor, and what was under it—
Oh.
That was a skull, there. And a neck bone that had rolled under his foot.
He would have been happier not knowing that.
Goddamn this place, and whatever history it had. Slaveowner's gold and slaveowners' sins, and Sean could rot. Arthur was cursing, rushing toward him, the floorboards were groaning ominously under his weight, and John could see the outline of a disaster forming.
"Just — get out of here!" Outside, he could hear an O'Driscoll yelling: "They're in this one, boys!" He was halfway to coming up with some mad plan of pulling up a floorboard and crawling in there — there was a goddamn skeleton down there; had to be enough of a crawlspace to hide a body — but Arthur was already grabbing him by the arms.
"Sure," he growled. "Because Dutch'll just love me for that—" and then the world went abruptly disorienting, and the hard curve of Arthur's shoulder was digging into John's gut, and at least this was a familiar enough kind of indignity that he didn't need to think about grabbing onto the back of Arthur's belt to steady himself, and jamming his other elbow back around Arthur's neck for the added stability there.
At least this time, he wasn't half-frozen, half-starved, and bleeding. And there were no wolves.
Though given the racket he could hear from the O'Driscolls, John wasn't sure he wouldn't prefer the wolves.
Arthur went for the back wall, testing the floor at each step. Too goddamn slow. Got to the hole and kicked out the wall slat, and then had to pound at another to make a hole large enough for the both of them to fit through. Too much damn time — they stepped out into the open air and there was an O'Driscoll already coming around the corner. Arthur's revolver was already in his hand, but between John on his shoulder and the awkward stoop that'd brought them through the wall, between the O'Driscoll already so close with his weapon was already raised—
John heard the loud clap of a gunshot.
And then the world tumbled again, and he hit the ground, and he didn't even know if he'd been hit or Arthur had been hit or anything; he didn't know anything, because the pain of his leg roared up and knocked him into darkness.
He came to in a haze of confusion and pain.
There was light shining, and someone's voice, low and venomous, and sound — like a fight, but a one-sided fight; Arthur cursing, then the light retreated. Footsteps on stairs. A door closing.
Darkness.
It didn't seem quite real.
He rested for a time, uneasily sure that he'd wake more fully soon, and the world would make sense again. Made to roll over, and his body wouldn't roll; he wasn't on a bedroll in his tent, wasn't anywhere familiar, and his leg blazed—
John jerked upright, and his leg put paid to moving any more; tried to check his leg, and his hands caught against something hard. He tried to sit up, tried to look around, but he was in the kind of inky darkness that suggested a hole or a cellar, more than just the dark of night; he was lying half-crumpled with his shoulder against a dirt wall and his hands up at an awkward angle. Manacles on his wrists; when he tugged at them, he heard the rattle of chains.
A dry chuckle answered the sound, from somewhere else in the darkness. "So. You're awake."
Arthur. Of course. He shook his head, and sense came flooding back to him. "How the hell did we make this much a mess of things?"
"Colm showed up," Arthur said, like that was the long and short of it. "You all right?"
"Sure," John said, and yanked at the manacles. Below the rattle of chains, he thought he could hear wood groan. "Leg's busted again, but aside from that."
"Well, good for you," Arthur said. "Get some excuse to lie in bed another few weeks. Have folk bring you soup."
"Don't start." He leaned back, scowling up into the darkness. He... could see something, he thought. A vague shape, like a beam. "What about you?"
"They took my hat," Arthur said.
John gave another tug against the manacles. Something felt like it might give, up above. "Who gives a damn about your hat?"
"Well," Arthur said. "I'd like to think Dutch might."
"...what?"
"John, think." Another tug ended with a cascade of something raining down on John's head; whatever it was, it got in his eyes and up his nose and smelled like dust, and made him sneeze, and something in it skittered off across his cheek in a way that made him flinch.
At least nothing bit him.
And while he was thinking about that, and about what Arthur meant, he was also noticing that Arthur didn't... sound quite right. Not his speaking, and not the breathing in the dark.
"...Colm's going to send a message back to Dutch," John said.
Arthur made a noise. "Sure. Wouldn't you?"
With all the bad blood between him and Dutch, John was surprised Colm hadn't just killed both of them and sent their bodies back. But then, if he'd done that, there'd be no one to—
To rescue. "And Dutch is going to round up the rest of the gang and come out after us."
Arthur made a quiet, pained noise. One he probably didn't know he was making. "Right. And the last Sean knew, there was only about half a dozen of them here."
Not the full force of Colm's ragtag army, ready and waiting and with traps aplenty. Shit. "Are you all right?"
Arthur's voice was bloody. "Peachy," he said. "I'm chained up in the dark in some goddamn plantation slave house, I just had a nice chat with Colm O'Driscoll..."
John winced. "You okay?"
Arthur ignored that. "You chained up?"
John gave another tug. "Yeah," he said. "But you know what? I don't think the O'Driscolls brought their own chains."
Arthur was quiet for a moment. His breathing sounded loud, in the darkness. "...oh?"
They felt rusted. Not enough to snap, but if they were creaky with rust, the whole setup might be rotten.
He got himself twisted around. There was give — not in the chains or the manacles, but in whatever they were attached to up above—
His leg was burning with pain. A red-ember heat that meant either he'd cracked a bone or skinned his shin to hell, or both, and he could feel his heart beating all the way down in his ankle.
No matter. He still had one good leg; all he had to do was grit his teeth and deal with it.
He braced his good foot against the wall, twisted his hands to get the chain wrapped around them, and pulled down as hard as he could.
There was give. A little bit more, and a little bit more — and finally, with a splintering crash, whatever the chains were bolted to gave way, and John shot back and hit the ground. Saw stars, for an instant, and the chain whipped down across his chest, but it was loose, now.
He took a moment to catch his breath. "Hope nobody heard that."
"What did you do?" Arthur demanded. That strange tightness was playing around his voice again.
"We're not in the main house," John said. "We're somewhere in the slave village. You saw how it all looked; it's all falling apart."
"Oh," Arthur said.
At least now John could look around. There was a thin pale spot, up above, crossed with bars; a bit of a window, he supposed. Most of what he could see outside was just... night. he couldn't get a sense of how big the room was, but he could gather up the length of chain and roll onto his manacled hands and crawl toward Arthur's voice, dragging his leg and hissing under his breath.
Darkness and pain made the distance longer than it was. He finally came close enough that he could reach out; found Arthur's leg, found the hem of his jacket. At least that was enough to let his eyes pick out the man's outline; now that he knew what he was looking for, he could just about see him.
The chains on Arthur's manacles were shorter. His arms were up above his head, and he was half-leaned against the wall in an awkward sort of half-standing slump; wasn't enough slack in the chains to to let him sit all the way. Probably not much leverage, if he was lucky enough to have a beam that was half-rotted through, too.
"Great," John muttered, mostly to himself.
"Well, that's one of us loose, at least," Arthur said. "...how's your leg?"
John grimaced. "It's not broken through." Which was about all he could say for it. "Ankle's no good."
"Great," Arthur said, after him.
John considered the situation. "Tell me you've got your lock-breaker."
There was silence for a moment, and Arthur said, "...should. Hidden pocket in the jacket. Right at the seam." There was a sound; a rustle of clothing, a quiet, indrawn breath. "Left side," Arthur said.
"Okay," John said, and reached up.
And knew something was wrong when his hand peeled back the jacket from Arthur's side, and he hissed.
John froze. Most of what he could smell was still the dust and must of the cellar, but now, underlying it like the throb of pain in his leg and ankle underlay everything, he could pick out something else.
Blood.
And there was something lukewarm and tacky on his fingers.
Fragments of their attempted escape rained back on him. "Did you get shot?"
That's what that tightness in his voice was, John realized, before Arthur could say anything. This was how Arthur sounded when he was either very, very angry, and trying not to show it — or hurting, and trying not to show it.
Or both.
"Just goddamn birdshot," Arthur snarled, and if he was sounding that angry, odds were he was trying to hide something else. "Just — hurry up."
Well, it wasn't as though there was much he could do.
Just had to ignore the way blood stuck to his fingers, or flaked around them, as he hunted through the inside of Arthur's jacket. Found the sheath for a small knife, though the O'Driscolls had found and taken the knife itself; found something that felt like some small animal's paw, its little claws blunt and futile and its fur matted down, which the O'Driscolls probably had seen and hadn't bothered with.
Finally, found a small hard object, like a folded-over coin.
Pulled on it, and out came a long, thin metal file. Close enough against the seam that it must have vanished in it.
"Right," John said, and glanced over his shoulder. The staircase — what he assumed was the staircase — was mostly visible as a darker spot in the darkness, but at least it was dark, and no crack had opened to admit light. If light came down, probably Colm or some other bastard would be coming, too. "How do you use this thing?"
"What... seriously?" Whatever had happened, apparently it hadn't knocked the sarcasm out of Arthur. "Have you never broken a lock before?"
"Usually, I just shoot them." He couldn't see Arthur's incredulous look in the darkness, but he sure as hell could feel it in the silence. "Come on. You know this isn't my style."
"God," Arthur muttered. Took a deep breath, and John twitched; maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he heard the slight gurgle of blood in it.
He hoped it was his imagination.
"Just... put the breaker in the lock," Arthur said. "Wriggle it around a little until you feel it catch. Then jam it down, sharp."
Sounded easy enough. Except for the fact that John had one good leg to stand on. "You're going to have to help me up."
Arthur rattled his manacles. "Right. You let me know how I can do that."
"...right." Well, this night were going to be short on dignity for the both of them. John crawled around to Arthur's other side — the hopefully un-injured one, leaned against the dirt wall — and reached up, hooked his hands onto Arthur's elbow, and hauled himself upright.
And almost sent them both tumbling. Arthur's feet skidded; he pushed back and braced himself so hard he almost knocked John away, and snapped, "Ah, Jesus, Marston! Some warning!" Voice a low hiss.
"Sorry," John said. Had to stop and lean against Arthur, letting his bulk steady them both; he could feel the tremor in Arthur's arms that said he was hanging on to something, probably the chains, and yes, John probably could have told him to get a grip so all that weight didn't go straight onto his wrists at once. He'd have to remember that. For now, though, the sudden standing was making his own ears ring, and the world seemed to swim; his leg blazed with pain, and he was beginning to suspect it wasn't the extent of his problems.
A second passed.
Arthur shifted, and John took the hint. Got his good leg under him, at least, though more of his balance was relying on Arthur than he cared to admit. He followed the line of Arthur's arm up to find the manacles — found the edges already slick with something, and he was close enough there was no way for Arthur to hide the hiss when his fingers encountered skin — and found the keyhole, and after a minute of fumbling and cursing, got the lock-breaker into the keyhole, and started digging around in it.
Goddamn, but he wished he'd had an introduction to lock-breaking that wasn't being half-collapsed on a bleeding Arthur Morgan, in near-total darkness, with his hands bound together and one leg out useless, with O'Driscolls running around above them like rats in a rats' nest.
He hardly knew he'd gotten it until the breaker seemed to jam, and he froze, in fear of undoing whatever it was he'd done. "Okay," he said. "Um... down, you said?"
"Just break the goddamn thing," Arthur snarled. Half-listening. John knew the tone of This hurts and I can't keep it up for long when he heard it.
Shit. Right. Only one thing for it.
He took the lock-breaker in hand — as good a two-handed grip as his own manacles would allow — and wrenched it across and downward, hard.
He heard something snap. And then there was a sickening jolt downward as the manacles came open and both their weight was suddenly on Arthur's grip on the chain — and then a more sickening jolt, much further downward, as he lost his grip and both of them fell to the ground.
John was almost glad not to hear whatever noise Arthur made. Almost, but not quite; all his senses were knocked out of his head for a moment by the wash of pain his leg shot up.
And the instant that cleared, John could hear a, "...what the fuck was that?" in a thick Irish brogue.
Too much to expect that they'd do this quietly, then.
"Arthur," he whispered. Got his limbs working mostly enough to roll off him; give him a little room to breathe, anyway. He had no guns, no knife, no rope, no nothing, and there were footsteps up above.
"Ah... give me a minute." A crack of light fell across the stairs, and widened. Rolled into the rest of the cellar like dawn creeping through fog; John could see Arthur curling over his injured side, getting a palm down on the ground beneath him.
He could see, not the color of Arthur's jacket by his left arm, but the darkness of it. Stood out clear against the pale buckskin.
Birdshot, he'd said.
No time to ask now. Someone — American, this one — up above called out, "Colm doesn't want anyone poking their heads down there." And the other man, the Irish one, answered, "You must have heard that!"
The door at the top of the stairs swung wide, and lanternlight spilled down. The American called out, "Well, on your head be it," and Arthur got enough of his limbs under him to make a kind of shuffling scramble to the wall. Pressed himself against it, just beside the base of the stairs, and waved vaguely at John in a well, hide somewhere gesture. John bit back the urge to ask, where?
No time, anyway. The O'Driscoll got to the bottom of the stairs, raised his lantern, saw John lying there, and said "How in hell—"
And then he wasn't saying anything.
John had definitely seen more elegant kills. Arthur usually had some finesse to it.
Though... he had to admit, grabbing the man's head and wrenching his neck so hard they both fell over did have a certain kind of unwholesome efficiency to it. Always was easier to knife or strangle someone than to break their neck, but Arthur's entire falling body weight would do it.
John just tried not to think of any of his own bones producing that sound.
Arthur was breathing harder than he should have been from that little exercise. Took him a few seconds too long, too, to push himself up and grab the lantern and right it and search the corpse, but at least it ended with a pistol, three throwing knifes, and an ammunition belt being thrown John's way.
John scrambled forward and grabbed them, and saw Arthur lean heavily back against the wall. In the lanternlight, there was far more red on his jacket than John wanted to see.
"Arthur..." This was a goddamn mess. And they had a single revolver and three knives, and god knew how many O'Driscolls up above them? "I don't think I'm walking out of here."
"Well," Arthur said, in a perfectly reasonable tone, "I ain't shooting my way out, so I guess I walk, and you shoot." He waved his hand. "Get over here."
This was by far the worst plan John had ever encountered. Probably because it wasn't even a plan. But Colm wanted them for a trap, and Arthur would kill every O'Driscoll in the country or die himself before letting Dutch and the rest of the gang ride straight into a trap on his behalf, and John was here, which meant he was along for the ride.
Right. Well, he'd take any option other than either or both of them dying.
John got his hands under him, and dragged himself against the floor. His leg jounced across the dirt, and every jostle sent pain roaring up it. By the time he reached the base of the stairs his eyes were watering, and his jaw was clenched so tight he had to remind himself how to un-clench it.
"So how are we doing this?"
Arthur crouched down; got the lockbreaker into John's manacles, and had them snapped in a matter of seconds. Another moment and John was being hauled upright, his arm slung over Arthur's shoulders; another moment while both of them had to catch their breath, and John had to wait for his vision to clear.
That moment went on a bit too long for anyone's comfort.
Finally, Arthur said, "...I guess we stick our noses up there. See how things lie."
What John would give for a splint. Or a bottle of whiskey. Then again, shooting drunk never ended all that well, and the little cellar seemed long on dust and chains and spiders and short on convenient slats of wood. "Lead the way."
Going up the stairs hurt. Well; he'd expected it to. Especially as his right leg was on the outside, not braced against nothing, both to keep his gun hand free and so he wasn't leaning right up against that shotgun blast Arthur had apparently taken to his side.
Which — he didn't want to ask how this little adventure was going for Arthur. His breath was uneven, and his support was shaky. John tried to keep one hand out on the stairs wall, though the knives made that difficult.
"So what's our plan?"
"I reckon we get clear, then whistle for the horses," Arthur said. "By the time they know we're out of the cellar, we're on the road."
John considered taking a horse anywhere, at any speed, with his leg the way it was. Then he considered the O'Driscolls finding them skulking around here after they'd already been chained up once, and decided he knew which he'd prefer. "Right."
At least when they got up to the cellar door, some sort of luck was with them.
This house wasn't at the edge of the little slave village. Those folk, back then, hadn't wanted to chain anyone up where they might sneak away, it seemed. But the O'Driscolls — they'd come to this place as an afterthought, and thrown Arthur and John in the cellar because there were chains there, and no more to it. But they weren't living in the dilapidated cabins. No, Colm had probably taken the plantation house for himself, and whoever was in favor with him. And the rest of his boys had mostly spread out in the lawn between the house and the village. The prison — and their prisoners — was an afterthought.
At the corner of one of the nearby houses, a man was lounging. Probably the one who'd been chatting with their dead friend, earlier. His back was to them; he was keeping an eye out on the world, probably watching for the first signs of Dutch and the gang, though he was relaxed enough that it seemed no one expected them for a while.
Good. Maybe they could get out, and get back, before Colm's taunt was even delivered.
Arthur's grip shifted. He gave a significant jerk of his chin toward the man, and John considered if he really wanted to explain that he'd never gotten the trick of throwing knives. He shook his head, leaned toward one of the other paths, heard Arthur start to make a remark, then reconsider. He did mutter something under his breath, the sound little more than a soft rumble, and snuck the opposite way.
The O'Driscoll didn't notice.
John was wincing with every step. Sitting still, he could get used to the throb in his leg; moving, every little motion cast sparks of pain like a dynamite fuse; made him think the leg was going to break clean through, any moment. And he wasn't helping Arthur much, either; every time he tried to move his good leg, it felt like either he was going to trip over Arthur's ankle, or step on some twig or dead leaf or something that would make noise.
Thank god for Arthur's unnatural stealth, he supposed.
They rounded the far corner of the building and paused. John reminded himself to look up, look around; somewhere in there, he'd dropped his head, and winced his eyes so hard they'd closed. But there was no one in eyesight, and Arthur case a glance at him. Whispered, voice low and dangerous, "Marston—"
"Fewer corpses, less attention," John said. Just as quiet. Hopefully if he couldn't turn around and see them, anything the O'Driscoll heard would pass as the muttering of the wind.
"Fewer O'Driscolls, fewer problems," Arthur murmured back.
Well, there was that. "Better with guns than knives," John whispered. "Pistol's too much noise."
Arthur made an annoyed sound. Then crouched, got John around the waist, and hefted him over his shoulder.
No warning. John bit back a curse, knocked his elbow into Arthur's spine, and said, "You really—"
"Shut up," Arthur said.
And then they were moving.
Seemed like this year, he'd been slung over Arthur's shoulder more times than was really necessary. Enough times that, disturbingly, he could tell that the man's gait was shaky. And for all that he mostly had a face full of Arthur's jacket, underneath the smell of neatsfoot oil and leather and sweat, and the old, bitter tang of dried blood, he could smell the fresh copper-and-iron of fresh bleeding. Whatever wounds had closed up in the cellar, either Colm had opened them again, or this jaunt had.
But they were going a lot faster than they had been as one three-legged shambling mess, at least.
John waited until they'd cleared the edge of the houses before he muttered, "We're going to have to make up a better story for this escape."
"Anyone asks," Arthur said, "we killed fifty of 'em."
It wasn't easy. But between the two of them and the pain, they put some distance between themselves and the O'Driscoll camp. Slowed as they went, but there was a stand of trees to greet them before either of them fell over. Better than nothing.
Arthur let go of John. Left him leaning against a tree, and stepped back to brace his own hand against the bark. "Right. That's that done. You going to be ready to ride?"
No. "A lot more ready than I am to wait around here." He looked Arthur up and down. The man's left arm was clamped against his side, in a tuck that was probably supposed to look casual, and didn't. His breathing was a little too rapid. "You?"
"I'm fine," Arthur lied. "Well. ...let's do this."
John nodded, and two whistles pierced the air.
Silence, for a moment. "What happens if they stop the horses?"
"I'm hoping they're too drunk, already," Arthur said.
"Or hitched them?"
"They never hitch their horses," Arthur said. "What, you weren't around when Kieran was coughing up everything he knew?"
"Not really," John said, but now the clop of hoofbeats was audible, and John could pick out their shapes against the not-as-distant-as-he'd-like firelight of the O'Driscolls' camp.
And he could hear, from the direction of the camp, someone calling "Hey! Where those horses going?"
"Shit," Arthur hissed. He whistled twice more, soft and urgent, and his horse picked up its pace; Old Boy followed. John shoved away from the tree, grabbed Old Boy's reigns, and was halfway to figuring out how to hoist himself up with one leg when Arthur solved the problem by grabbing him and heaving him up across the saddle himself.
This time, John couldn't bite back a snarl of pain. More concerning, neither could Arthur.
"Hey!" one of the O'Driscolls called. "Who's out there?" And another one yelled out, "Fuckin' hell, is that Dutch's boys—?"
"Arthur," John said.
"Yeah, just — come on—" Arthur grabbed the heel of his broken leg and shoved his foot into the stirrup, and that was when a rifle shot cracked the air beside them.
Old Boy reared. John caught the reins, and the hurt from his leg knocked the breath out of him. By the time he could breathe again he saw Arthur on the ground, knocked there by the horse or the gunshot or both, but he was already scrambling up, and smacked Old Boy's rump hard enough that the horse took off like a shot.
"Arthur—!"
Goddamnit. Goddamnit. He'd be lucky if he had a leg left, after this. More gunshots were joining the first, behind him, and everything was taking too damn long — too long to get his breath back, to catch the reins, to get control of his horse, at least enough that he could fight down the nausea and turn and see, thank god, Arthur was at least in his saddle, at least on the move; John fired a few shots back at the faint shapes of O'Driscolls, probably didn't hit a damn one of them, but caught their attention, at least. Gave Arthur a chance to put that first burst of speed on, and then they were both racing through the dark, the horses hoofbeats frantic beneath them.
Arthur's thoroughbread was faster than Old Boy, but the instant he caught up, he waved a hand forward and called, "Take the lead!" Which, given that now John was biting on the leather reins to keep himself from screaming, and that Arthur was better than he was at picking a trail to shake off pursuit, and the fact that John was the one with the gun, who should by rights be in the rear, covering them...
Not good.
No time to argue. Arthur was more hunched over his saddlehorn than he should have been, but there was no time to ask after that, either, and nothing John could do until they were both far from this place.
He took the lead.
The two of them vanished into the rushing night.
The ride that had been easy on the way out was torturous on the way back. John didn't know which he wrestled with, more — Old Boy under him, none too happy about taking the dark paths at a gallop; the world around him, all shadowy game trails and open plains that could have concealed any manner of rough drops or prairie dog holes; or the howling pain in his leg, which he imagined to be getting worse at every stride. The couple times he dared to glance back, he saw Arthur half-collapsed over his saddlehorn, hanging on grimly.
Nothing to be done for either one of them.
They were a mile outside of Clemens Point, just about, when John heard other hoofbeats begin to drown out their own. He pulled back on Old Boy's reins — spat the ends out of his mouth, where they'd just about been bitten through — and Arthur's horse took it on its own head to slow down with him. Arthur picked up his head when they slowed, but like a watch that hadn't been wound; a few seconds late, and not all the way.
There were only so many people who'd have that many riders out on the road, this late. It was either Dutch and the rest, or it was Lemoyne Raiders. John swallowed, took a chance, and took a breath.
"Hey there!" he called. "Y'all looking for us, by any chance?"
Well, the hoofbeats fell into disorder, anyway. And a second later, Dutch's voice called back, faint with distance, "John! That you?"
Something that might have been relief stirred between John's lungs. Might have been, but it seemed more wrung-out and beaten than relief should have been. "It's us," he called back.
Somewhere down the road, someone lit a lantern. Held it up high; now John could see the figures coming toward them. He almost flinched. Yeah, Dutch had roused the entire camp, all right; looked like the two of them had gone and started a war.
"You got Arthur's hat?" he called out.
Another lantern sprung to life. They were approaching each other at an easy trot, now, not that John was willing to call anything about this night easy. "We did," Dutch called back. "Don't worry. The little rat who delivered it is lying at the bottom of the lake."
John wondered how the O'Driscolls had picked whoever-it-was for that little delivery mission. Had the man been cocky, thought he could get away with it, or had he been some unfortunate whipping boy like Kieran? Didn't much matter now.
He looked over at Arthur again. Arthur was staring out toward the approaching gang with a strangely haunted expression on his face, like he was trying to make sense of something. For a moment, the fear that moved through John's chest beat louder than the throbbing in his leg.
"Arthur?"
Arthur blinked, and called out, "Dutch?"
John steered Old Boy over; caught the reins of Arthur's horse. They were close enough now that he could look over and see Dutch's expression; see it change when he caught sight of Arthur, and the edge of his lanternlight caught the stain on his coat.
"Arthur, my boy," he said. Brought the Count up, and swung down off of him. "Are you all right?"
Arthur blinked at him, brow furrowed, like he'd turned around a corner and found Strauss lecturing him in German. "He—" John started.
"Need help," Arthur said. Like he was waking up drunk, and just now remembering something important. "We — John's leg's hurt pretty bad."
Then he slumped forward, slid from his horse, and nearly crashed into Dutch on the way down.
John stared. For a moment, he couldn't even be worried; all he could think was, Really?
Wasn't sure if this was Arthur's way of looking out for him, or Arthur's way of taking a dig at him.
"Oh, and Arthur's been shot," he said. It came out a bit higher than he'd intended it. No matter. No one here was going to hold it against him.
Hosea, riding up with the rest of the cavalry, spoke faster than anyone. "Let's get you boys back to camp," he said — the only sensible one among them, apparently. "Charles—"
Charles was already dismounting; his feet hit the ground as Hosea said his name. He moved around Dutch — all but shouldered his way past, really — and hefted Arthur across his shoulder, so at least John wasn't the only person being treated like a sack of flour today.
Dutch looked up at John. "Can you ride?"
"Have this far," John said.
"Good." Dutch cast a look at Charles, then hauled himself back atop the Count. Cast another look at Charles, like he didn't quite believe what had just happened, either.
Then he wheeled the Count, the whole party folded John and Old Boy into its center, and the whole rough lot of them headed back to Clemens Point.
The last mile was the hardest. Not just because now John was holding himself up in front of everyone, or because Charles rode in front of him, which gave John a good view of Arthur, limp and still and draped over Taima's haunches.
Though, neither of those things helped.
By the time they got into camp, John's eyes were screwed closed, and he certainly thought he was gritting his teeth. At least, he thought so until they started pulling him from the saddle, and all the pain that had settled into a familiar, ignorable ache woke up in his body and screamed.
He narrowly avoided screaming, himself.
Bit down on a cry so hard it felt like his teeth might shatter. Should have kept the reins in his mouth, though if he had, he'd never hear the end of it.
He might have envied Arthur for being unconscious for all of this, already. But whatever strangled noises he was making, at least it got Bill pressing a bottle of whiskey into his hand, and it didn't take much after that before no pain and no fear were hounding him at all.