Archive of Our Own

Prologue

~~~

Tacit

I’m not using that silly name. If someone who cares sees me dropping off this letter, they damn well know who it’s for.

Arthur,

I fear you have already come across our humble homestead and the empty graves that lay in front. If so, I sincerely apologize for the grief it has no doubt caused you. You more than deserve to know that Isaac and I are alive, and we are safe. By the time you read this letter, however, we are likely very far away. Our association with you has put our lives in danger for far too long, perhaps without any of us truly realizing it.

Those O’Driscoll men came to our house and threatened me, and threatened Isaac. I have never seen men threaten a child in such a way. No doubt through harming us, they hoped to get to you, and through you, get to Dutch. This is exactly the type of life I refused to let Isaac have a part in when I refused your offer to let us stay with you all so many years ago. It appears despite my best attempts, perhaps despite yours as well, your life has caught up with us.

I truly appreciate the effort you’ve made to be a part of our lives, Arthur. It would have been difficult for me and Isaac to get by without all the work you put forth to support us. However, your indecision, your straddling of these opposing lifestyles has put our son’s life in danger, and it can no longer stand. I fear you will have to choose between your two lives now. I know Dutch and Hosea have been like fathers to you for near half your life, if not more. I know your connection to me and Isaac is only the result of a brief encounter near a decade ago and your continued decency to maintain contact and be some kind of father. I will understand if the gang is the life you choose to stay with. But if we matter more to you than I think we do, then you will have to cut your ties and end your days of robbing trains and holding up banks.

Isaac and I will be traveling far east, hopefully far from the eyes and guns of the O’Driscolls. If fatherhood is the life you choose, my friend Charles has agreed to stay in Saint Louis until the end of the month. If you find him, he will tell you where we went.

For our son’s sake, I hope when we last spoke wasn’t the final goodbye. If it was- then I wish you best of luck with the rest of your life.

Yours    Best,

Eliza Callahan

~~~

The dim light of dusk made the contents of the letter difficult to decipher. The scrawl of the handwriting added another layer of difficulty to reading the letter; this was written by a woman that was in a rush, or nervous, or both. Dutch did not make a habit of reading Arthur’s mail, and even if he did, he didn’t suspect Eliza and Arthur corresponded through writing very often. So when Dutch picked up a letter addressed to Arthur from a sender “E.C.,” a week after Arthur had supposedly found the grave of a woman with the same initials, he was intrigued. And when he returned to camp and found Arthur asleep, unbothered by Dutch’s return from Topeka, he found it impossible to resist satiating his curiosity.  

The letter was brief, but spoke volumes. For one, as the initials on the sealed envelope would have implied, Eliza and Isaac Callahan were alive and ostensibly safe, for now at least. No doubt this would spark some joy in Arthur once he found out; he had been depressed, almost unbearably so, since finding the graves of Eliza and their son just over a week ago. With his age and maturity some of his boisterousness and exuberance had died down since Dutch first took him in near twenty years ago, but now… Anything that had been left was completely dead. As someone he considered like his son, it was hard to see. Hosea was handling Arthur’s despair almost as poorly as Arthur himself was handling it. Finding out that all is well, that all this pain and suffering was just a misunderstanding to be forgotten in just a few months or years, would bring things back to normal. Arthur needed normal. Dutch needed normal.

Normal.

The truth was, Arthur had not been normal for the past ten years, ever since he got that girl pregnant. Something in him changed, and Hosea was only encouraging it, if Dutch was being honest. He was taking more trips to visit that boy. His visits were lasting longer. He was being more cautious. And, worst of all, he was beginning to question Dutch. Never outright, never explicitly. But where once Arthur would carry out his wishes and follow through with every plan… now, periodically, Arthur would utter a “why?” or “are you sure about this?” He had always trusted Dutch, never questioned him. It always seemed worse during the first few days he returned to camp from his visits to his son. That woman was poisoning his mind. Dutch had seen it before.

When Eliza and Isaac died, supposedly, Arthur had begun to latch on to the gang just as strong as before. Hosea was offering him comfort and warmth, it seemed; Dutch offered him security. He assured him that, just as before, he and Hosea and everyone else were his family. They always would be. And despite his grief, he was loyal again. He was unquestioning again.

This letter would ruin that. With the way Arthur had been changing over the course of the past ten years, Dutch knew how he would respond to Eliza’s ultimatum, and he knew it wouldn’t be in a way that would make him happy. Having a son changed a man; losing a son would often bring him back to something resembling what he once was.

“Evening, Dutch.”

Dutch turned around to find Susan Grimshaw approaching him, carrying a basket of damp linens to be hung to dry. He stood to his feet, brushing imaginary dust from the lap of his pants. “How quickly can you get us packed up and ready to go?”

“I… What?” Susan sputtered, off-guard. “I mean… tomorrow afternoon at the worst, but why? Are we in trouble again? Is this about that letter you were reading?”

“What, this? This ain’t nothing important,” Dutch responded to Susan. He crumpled the letter and tossed it into the flames. “Just junk.”

“Where are we going?”

Dutch pondered a moment. He turned his face towards the far end of camp and saw Arthur still sound asleep in his tent. Unaware of the way his life would not be changing.

“West,” he replied. “We’ll head out west.”

Part I

Familiar warm winds passed through the streets of Saint Denis as Eliza made her way to town square. The sticky heat had not gotten any easier in the past year of living in the southern city, and the heavy skirts of recent fashions had her desperately missing the light trousers of ranch life. Isaac had not adjusted well to the city life either; he had grown comfortable with solitary life and passing his time with outdoor work. But the O’Driscolls, the very men they had uprooted their lives to escape, had made their way farther east over the past year. Eliza knew that, despite the disgusting smoky air and daily petty crimes that occurred in Saint Denis, the pair of them would be safer in a large city than isolated far out on the range. They had gotten lucky the last time they were targeted with Charles auspiciously returning from a hunt just down the road. She knew they wouldn’t be so lucky again, and if they were to be attacked, she wanted her cries for help to attract assistance in time to at least save Isaac. Living in the city was miserable, but they would be able to return to rural comfort again someday.

And, as luck would have it, it seemed that day would be coming soon.

Newspapers the past few weeks told of the infamous Colm O’Driscoll, leader of the O’Driscoll gang and deviser of Eliza’s failed execution, having been apprehended and scheduled for hanging. The town was not abuzz of the situation as they would be if they were out west, back in West Elizabeth or Kansas. But transporting him over that way was certainly not the risk of his men formulating a plan to break him out on the way. Even so, Eliza had no doubt that some trouble was going to brew up at this hanging, and she hoped the law was ready to handle an uprising of shitty gunslinger-wannabes attempting to bring to a halt the justice Colm undoubtedly deserved. She decided to go anyway, ready to spring into action and find her way to safety if things went south. If, against all odds, everything was to go as planned, she needed to watch the son of a bitch take his last breaths with her own two eyes.

It was difficult convincing Isaac to stay at home. He surely wanted to make sure this man was dead as well; she could tell he still worried about someone coming for him in the night. Not to mention Colm was at least partially to blame for Isaac having no father in his life the past five years. Of course, the rest of the blame laid on Arthur for deciding his own son was less important than lying and stealing and killing, but Isaac never felt that way. He was convinced something went wrong, and that if Arthur knew their deaths were not real he would be with them now. Eliza wasn’t so sure.

None of that mattered today. Today Colm was hanging, and Eliza could finally close the book on an ugly chapter of her life. God willing, she could begin a new one soon.

A crowd had already formed by the time she reached town square. Colm was standing at the gallows, alert but unphased. Eliza scanned the crowd. As she suspected, a pair of rough men that looked as though they hadn’t had a proper bath in weeks were standing a dozen or so feet ahead and to the left of her, and they were wearing the colors of O’Driscoll boys. How bold of them, and how unobservant of the law, for these men to be flashing their forest green as if they were bragging about it, saying “We’re going to get Colm out of this, and it’s going to be messy, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.” She almost wanted to go up and restrain them herself. But she was just one woman, weighed down by heavy skirts and with only a small knife in her boot, and they were two strong men with likely two revolvers apiece and friends nearby to back them up. All Eliza could do was watch and hope Colm didn’t have a few of the officers monitoring this event in his pocket.

Out of the corner of her eye, Eliza spotted a movement of deep blue and sunflower yellow. She turned her head to look, back towards the O’Driscolls, and found them apparently apprehended by an officer and a woman accompanying him. The woman Eliza did not recognize, though she caught her attention a bit with her straw blond hair and tired but pretty face. But the officer… The officer looked strikingly like Dutch van der Linde. She had heard rumors of the “Sons of Dutch” causing trouble in Lemoyne the past few weeks, Pinkertons prowling about after some trouble back in Blackwater, though the details were hazy since Eliza deliberately skimmed over those sections in the newspaper for reasons she wasn’t quite willing to admit. But the pair had the two O’Driscoll boys in their grasp, and though Eliza’s view was obscured because their backs were to her, it appeared as though they were threatening the men with some kind of weapon. Too open for guns, for sure. Knives, perhaps.

No one else was paying the four any mind. Everyone else in the crowd had their eyes trained on Colm, who had worried eyes trained up to the sky, as if silently saying his final prayers. But Colm certainly did not strike Eliza as a god-fearing or heaven-believing man that would seek forgiveness for his sins in his final moments. He was looking at something else.

Wanting to reduce the risk of drawing attention to herself by turning full around, Eliza turned her neck to see if she could find what appeared to strike such desperation in such a heartless man. As she did, she was met with the sight of a distant silhouette that made her heart skip a beat. She knew the man’s posture and knew his form, perhaps better than anyone else on God’s good earth ever knew. Perhaps even more than Mary Gillis.

Before she could move her lips to even mouth his name to herself, Eliza was interrupted by the loud thud of the gallows floor dropping, the low snap of a rope pulling taut, and then silence.

Silence.

And then a scream.

“You ruined my LIFE!”

Driven by instinct, or perhaps by pure luck, Eliza was the first in the crowd to spring to action. Officers appeared to respond in slow motion as Eliza sprinted and ducked behind a nearby tree. The woman in yellow was screaming woefully, shooting wildly, ushered to safety by Dutch from the responding gunfire. O’Driscoll boys were dropping like flies as Arthur, his presence now evident by Dutch’s pleas to an invisible “Mr. Morgan” to shoot their opponents, sniped from the rooftop Eliza had spotted him on earlier. Time was moving dreadfully quickly yet also painfully slowly as bullets whizzed just feet away from Eliza’s meager cover. As Dutch and the woman retreated, drawing the fire of the O’Driscolls and responding officers away from Eliza’s position, she slipped away from the town square and into a nearby alley where she knew she would be safe.

She was glad she left Isaac back home.

From her vantage point Eliza could no longer see Arthur, but she watched as Dutch and the woman slipped from cover to cover, taking down O’Driscolls as they moved. Eventually they made their way to a wagon, abandoned by now-dead O’Driscolls, and boarded. Dutch waved up, no doubt urging Arthur to leave his position from the roof only a few dozen feet above Eliza before the law could get on his tail, and he and the woman in yellow were off.

They were gone, leaving Eliza to wonder how quickly she could get a hold of a horse and tail them before she lost their trail. She certainly wouldn’t let herself follow them close enough or far enough for them to realize she was tracking them, nor for her to pinpoint the location of their camp. But she could try to at least get a general idea of where they were going. She had some experience with finding outlaw camps hidden in the middle of the woods, after all. And she knew Arthur would be returning to regroup with the gang soon.

He always did.

Part II

“It ain’t much farther now, is it Ma?”

Isaac rode beside his mother, his pony dwarfed by Eliza’s silver Shire. He was not familiar with this area at all, and only had the vaguest idea that they were east of Annesburg. Eliza seemed very on edge; she emphasized to him as they approached Roanoke Ridge that he was to remain close to her, and if anything were to happen, he was not to try to run to safety. Her right hand had not left the grip of her pistol in the past hour. Her nervousness set him on edge as well, and with that in combination with what possibly waited for them at their destination, Isaac was eager for their trip to be over.

“I gather we’re probably close now. It was about here I stopped following.” Eliza paused a moment, and sighed. “Isaac, I know I’ve already said this a dozen times, but I really don’t want you to-“

“Get my hopes up, I know, Ma.” Isaac tightened his grip on the reins and urged his horse forward, pulling slightly ahead of Eliza. “I still don’t think he got your letter. He loved me, he wouldn’t just leave us like that. I know it.”

“Your father…” Eliza stopped speaking. Isaac looked up at her to see if something had got her attention, but only found her chewing on her bottom lip, brow furrowed. “Your father weren’t exactly a saint. He was never around much, you remember. He probably decided he had other… priorities.”

“You mean robbing people and slinging guns?”

Eliza’s head snapped towards him, eyes wide, and Isaac scoffed. “Ma, I can read. I been reading the newspapers for years. I know he was doing all that even before I was born. And he kept doing it while he was gone.” He looked up to Eliza, the corner of his mouth pulled up into an uncertain smile. “Why would it suddenly change, unless someone told him we was dead and he believed it?”

Eliza turned her face back towards the road ahead of them, but her eyes were fixed hard on her horse’s neck. “I just don’t want you feeling hurt, son.”

“I know, Ma.”

They rode a few minutes more in silence. Suddenly, Eliza muttered a “hold up,” and pulled back on the reins to bring her horse to a stop. Isaac followed suit, and once his pony had been brought to a halt next to the Shire, Eliza subtly nodded her head towards the east.

“See that?” she asked, her voice down to a whisper just loud enough to hear above the sounds of the forest surrounding them. “A break in the trees, and a light. Probably from a fire. That might be it.”

Isaac’s heart skipped a beat.

“Or it could be Murfrees,” she continued. “So stay quiet. And stay close to me. Don’t run away from me, no matter what.”

Isaac nodded, then urged his horse forward as Eliza began moving towards the break she pointed out. He didn’t know what or who a Murfree was. Judging by the way Eliza lowered her voice and tightened her grip on her pistol, he imagined he didn’t want to find out. So he stayed quiet. And he stayed close.

“Hey, you shouldn’t come down this way, ma’am.” A rough woman’s voice called from somewhere in the foliage. “This here’s a private camp.”

Isaac looked towards the source of the voice, and saw a rough-looking blonde woman about the same age as his mother holding a rifle loosely in her hands. It wasn’t aimed towards them, and her finger wasn’t on the trigger, so he doubted she was one of these “Murfrees” Eliza mentioned. He looked up towards his mother and saw she wasn’t tense, putting himself more at ease.

“You were at Colm’s hanging,” Eliza responded.

Isaac gathered this must have been one of the people Eliza had followed to get an idea of where this camp could be, and the woman seemed to gather as much as well. She tightened her grip on the rifle and inched her finger closer to the trigger. Isaac instinctively flinched, making the horse underneath him begin to tap its front hooves nervously.

“You law?” the woman asked.

“No. But I have reason to believe you’re running with Arthur Morgan. He here?”

The woman shifted her gaze to Isaac and pondered him a second. The hand on the grip of her rifle didn’t move. “Who’s asking?”

“Eliza Callahan.” Eliza moved her hand away from her pistol and waved it towards Isaac. “And this is my boy, Isaac.”

As Eliza released her grip from her gun, the woman seemed to relax the grip on her own in turn. But hearing their names didn’t seem to get a reaction from the woman. Isaac felt his heart drop; if she did know Arthur, he hadn’t told her about them.

This entire time the woman had been staring at Isaac, but now her gaze shifted up to Eliza. “I ain’t seen him leave today, so he’s probably still in camp. I’ll let you in, you get whatever business you have done, and then I send you out with an escort. I don’t want to be responsible for a woman and child getting bushwacked by Murfrees.”

“We shouldn’t take long,” Eliza replied, nodding her head once. “Thank you, Miss…?” Her voice trailed off, raising in inquiry for the woman’s name.

“Missus,” the woman corrected. “Mrs. Adler. Sadie. Go on now.” Sadie nudged her rifle in the direction of the path leading through the break in the trees. As Eliza and Isaac passed through, she continued. “Probably don’t wanna take too long, Miss Eliza, Isaac. I don’t know if Arthur is in a state to be entertaining visitors today.”

Isaac was unsure what that last statement was supposed to mean. Was his father injured? In a poor mood? Or, perhaps, simply busy? He rode in towards the campsite behind Eliza, and pulled up by her side as her horse slowed to a near stop. Looking up at her, he saw that she was heavily considering something, maybe scanning the camp for Arthur, though he couldn’t be sure. He reflected her consideration of the camp, taking a moment to notice how completely… quiet everything was. He doubted outlaw camps were as they were always described in dime novels or by overly creative journalists, with constant shooting, heist planning, and ambushes by rival gangs. But he also didn’t expect them to look to be so full of apparent sadness. He noticed a guitar over by one of the tents, untouched. The sun was not yet at its highest point in the sky, and he already noticed at least two individuals sitting alone, drinking quietly by themselves. The atmosphere very much reminded him of the feeling between himself and his mother after an argument, hesitant to speak to each other or apologize until the tension naturally dissipated. Except obviously on a larger scale, both in the number of people involved and the degree of tension that could be felt even by him.

“Who the hell did you let into our camp, Mrs. Adler?”

The voice rang out as Eliza and Isaac pulled their horses to a stop. From her side, Isaac could see Eliza roll her eyes somewhat dramatically, accompanied by a quiet sigh. She dismounted her horse, but Isaac elected to stay put until she invited him down as well. He knew no one in this camp.

“Hello Dutch,” Eliza said, turning to face the man that was rapidly approaching them. Her polite greeting was dripping with the tone that he had previously heard her use with men coming to their doorstop trying to sell her something she didn’t need, asking where the man of the household was. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

The man stopped in his tracks as Eliza spoke. He stared at her a moment, then looked up to Isaac, his mouth slightly agape. “My word,” he said. “Back from the dead, are you? Is this your boy? I don’t think we’d ever had the pleasure of meeting before you… well.” Dutch smiled, holding his arms out in a dramatic gesture. “I guess before you didn’t die. You are a spitting image of your father, you know.”

In the ten years Isaac had contact with his father before he and his mother went into hiding, he had never once met any of Arthur’s friends. Other than one older man, when he was very young… Hosea, or Isaiah maybe, but it had been a long time and he had almost been too young to remember. All he could remember was that Eliza did seem to like him, which was more than could be said about this “Dutch” that was facing them now. Isaac didn’t know much about him either, other than that Eliza wished Arthur hadn’t been so influenced by him. That she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. And although his mother was larger and stronger than most women he had met, he doubted she could throw a fully-grown man very far.

“I know,” Isaac replied to his comment concerning his resemblance to Arthur. He paused a second, nearly forgetting his manners. “…Sir.”

Eliza turned her head slightly, the corner of her mouth facing him upturned in a scowl that told him that’s not necessary. She turned back to Dutch. “Is Arthur here?” she asked.

“Sure, sure! He hasn’t gone out yet to do Lord knows what outside of the work I tell him to do.” Dutch pointed farther back in the camp, towards some frightening-looking caves. “Just follow the sound of the plague. You’ll find him.”

As Eliza and Dutch spoke, Isaac continued to survey the camp to see if he could catch a glimpse of Arthur. He noted a few women standing around talking, a small child playing quietly with a stick in the mud, a man working on cleaning his gun… And sitting over by a small campfire, a large, dark-haired man that Isaac instantly recognized as his mother’s good friend Charles. It had been years since he saw Charles, and he never saw him often, but he did like him. And if it wasn’t for him, he and Eliza might not have survived the pair of men that broke into their home five years ago.

As if on cue, as Isaac made the connection of who he was looking at, Charles looked up and locked eyes with him. His posture perked up as his face dropped, and although he was too far away to hear, Isaac saw his mouth forming the words “oh my God.” As he muttered this, he tapped the knee of the man sitting across from him that had been facing away from Isaac. As the man turned his head to look at what Charles was pointing at, as he said just loud enough to hear “what the hell?”, as he stood to his feet and turned fully, Isaac was already jumping off his horse to make his way over. His foot nearly got caught in the stirrup in his rush and he stumbled, but he quickly caught himself before he could properly fall over and make a fool of himself.

“Pa!”

He barely had enough time to yell this word before he had corrected his gait and ran towards Arthur at a full sprint. The camp was smaller than it looked when a thirteen-year-old boy was running as fast as he could, and neither Arthur nor Eliza, who hadn’t yet noticed Charles or Arthur only a few dozen feet away, had time to properly react before Isaac’s arms were wrapped tightly around his father’s torso and his cheek pressed firmly into his father’s chest. He felt Arthur’s arms move somewhat hesitantly to return his embrace. Before he could tighten his arms around him, Isaac felt Arthur’s chest suddenly quake, and then Isaac was being pushed gently away.

Isaac stepped back. Arthur turned halfway away, doubling over a bit as a fit of a painful-sounding cough took over him. Isaac looked over and saw Charles move to step towards Arthur, but Arthur waved him away dismissively.

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice breathy and hoarse. “I’m fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me.” He turned his face farther from Isaac, spat, and took a few moments to catch his breath. Still hunched over, he turned back towards Isaac, and whispered “…Isaac?”

Isaac could only grin in response.

“Is this a dream?”

Isaac felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to find Eliza had made her way over towards them. Her expression was one that Isaac could only describe as shock and sadness, and he suspected she was beginning to doubt her own previous assertions that Arthur had willfully ignored her letter.

“Not a dream, Arthur,” she muttered. “We’re alright.”

Arthur straightened his posture and contemplated the pair a few moments more. Then Isaac no longer felt the pressure of his mother’s hand on his shoulder, as he was pulled into his father’s embrace. And Arthur’s chest was quaking again, as he held Isaac tighter and tighter, but this time it was not from a fit of coughing; he shook with the intensity of barely-restrained tears for a son lost for five years.

Part III

Nothing these past few weeks felt real. Hosea was dead, then the whole mess with Guarma happened. Arthur was dying. Dutch was sticking his nose into business that wasn’t his, causing harm to others despite Arthur’s protests. And most recently, Colm was dead. Mary was officially done with Arthur. And just as Arthur had accepted that any glimmer of happiness had died before his own time had come, now, his own family had all but risen from their graves and made their way back to him.

The brief moment of hope this recent development caused was quickly dashed by the realization that Arthur wouldn’t be around to enjoy it. Or to make things right. His life as of late was no dream, or nightmare. It was some strange preface to death only to remind him that bad men don’t get good things, and they don’t get a resolution for the wrongs they’d done in life.

After the initial commotion, Eliza and Isaac’s arrival left the camp with a quiet buzzing energy. Many didn’t even know Arthur had once had a family. Javier and Bill joined after Eliza and Isaac’s alleged death, and thus Arthur never mentioned them. Abigail may have remembered hearing about them briefly, though she never met the two. Micah sure as hell didn’t know about them. Arthur almost dreaded the nastiness that would be coming out of his mouth about this revelation.

John certainly remembered them. He was young and skeptical when they had left Arthur’s life, and had seemed annoyed at the way that had affected Arthur. Now that he was trying to be a good husband and father himself… Arthur wasn’t sure how he was reacting to this development. He would have to speak to him later. Susan was, of course, over the moon; she had always acted somewhat motherly to Eliza, and had even assisted with Isaac’s birth thirteen years ago. She spent what felt like ages speaking to them, catching up with them, fawning over how much Isaac had grown since Eliza removed him from the camp’s influence only two years after his birth. And Dutch… Well, Dutch and Eliza never got along. Arthur had the impression that Dutch saw Eliza and Isaac as competition for Arthur’s attention and loyalty, and Eliza often vocalized her worry that Dutch didn’t have the best intentions at heart.

She was always so god damn perceptive, and he never listened.

That excited energy had wound down now. Arthur and Eliza sat on his bed, watching quietly for a few moments Isaac playing with Jack. This much was definitely good; there was no doubt that interaction with another, normal child was good for Jack, and he had taken to Isaac very, very quickly. Eliza had been surprised to find out John now had a son, though she didn’t say it out loud, but Arthur could tell by the lift in her expression. John was only a boy not much older than Isaac was now when Eliza last saw him in person.

How quickly time flies, how quickly people grow, when you’re not around to watch it happen.

Isaac had been eight years old when Arthur last saw him. The past five years led to a lot of growth, as it does for any boy at that age. If twenty minutes ago someone had asked Arthur what he had looked like as a young teenager, he would have been at a loss. Now, he could just point the theoretical question-asker in Isaac’s direction. The only difference Arthur could see between the boy in front of him now and the boy that looked back at him through the mirror over twenty years ago was that Isaac had inherited his mother’s dark, wavy hair. He had not taken on her gray eyes, though, instead sharing Arthur’s…. blue? Green? He himself could never decide, but whatever it was, his son shared it. He was lanky, and already only half a head shorter than Eliza. He was going to be tall and, if he worked at it, very strong as he continued to grow.

That imagining of his future appearance didn’t really matter, Arthur reckoned. But… it was all he had. All he would ever have.

“He talks about you all the time,” came Eliza’s voice from next to him.

Arthur tensed, turning his head away from her. He remembered Isaac looking forward to his sporadic visits, and his pleading for Arthur to stay a little longer, just one more day, just a few more hours. For now, Isaac was blissfully unaware that his mother chose the worst time to bring Arthur back into his life.

Eliza remained silent after her comment. Arthur returned her silence for a few moments, then turned towards her and spoke.

“What happened?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know wh-“ Arthur sighed, pushing his anger away. “I just… I got to your house, and you were gone. Everything was just… abandoned. And I saw… I saw your graves. Both of them. And this whole time…?” He straightened his back and looked in her face. Despite his efforts to give her the benefit of the doubt, that anger was rising. “This whole time you were alive? You just left and didn’t even tell me?”

Eliza looked back at him, unphased, but did not answer. Their gaze held for an eternity, then she finally sighed and broke by looking away. “I did. Or… I tried at least. I left you a letter.”

“A letter?”

“Yeah. Isaac insisted that you didn’t get it, because you wouldn’t leave like that. I had my doubts, I guess, I… I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t try hard enough.” She brushed her hands against the lap of her trousers nervously, then hunched over. “I’m sorry, Arthur. I really, really am. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean to take him away from you.”

If Eliza was still the woman he knew, which he had no doubt of, Arthur knew that she was not one to apologize for something she didn’t consider herself at fault. “Ah,” he grimaced, “I understand, I guess. But why?”

“We were being targeted, I thought. Strange folk visiting the ranch I worked at. Giving me weird looks, approaching Isaac when they thought I wasn’t looking. And one day we were just… attacked. In our home. If Charles hadn’t been nearby, I don’t know if both of us would have gotten out. And now that Colm is dead…”

“It was the O’Driscolls?” Arthur’s voice dropped to a whisper, wanting to avoid drawing any attention to this turn in the conversation. Obviously Colm and Dutch had a serious disagreement, and by extension, Arthur and Colm did not get along. But what would have been the reason for Colm going after Arthur’s family? Unless they thought to get to Dutch by hurting Arthur, but if Dutch’s efforts to help when Arthur was abducted from the parley were any indication, that plan was a failure from the start.

“Yeah, I’m certain of it,” Eliza replied. “So we had to let them think they won, and hide. I think it was best for all of us.”

“Yeah.” Arthur thought about the grief he had felt for the past five years, and how that would have changed if her grand plan had worked and he had learned they were safe. Gone, but safe. “Yeah, I think it would have been.”

Eliza seemed to catch his meaning. “I don’t know if anything would have really changed, Arthur. I should have tried harder to tell you, I realize that now. But in my letter I… gave you this ultimatum. Us or the gang.” She looked into his eyes again. “Would anything have changed?”

Arthur broke the eye contact almost immediately. “I don’t know.”

That was a lie. As much as he refused to admit it to Dutch, he was beginning to have his doubts years ago. And if he had known Eliza and Isaac were alive all this time, he probably would have resolved to choose them after what happened at Blackwater, if he hadn’t chosen them as soon as he found out they were alive.

“It isn’t too late, Arthur.”

Arthur sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’m afraid it is.”

“It ain’t!” Eliza’s voice had risen for only a second, but she paused and brought it back down as she spoke again. “I’ve been here all of thirty minutes and even I can see everything’s gone to shit, Arthur. Times are changed, I can tell you all are tense with each other, and I know you’re in trouble. You could come with us, up north or something, change your name a few years, work a decent job, be a proper father-“

“Eliza.” Arthur moved to place a hand on hers, but stopped himself. His hand hovered above hers for only a second, only long enough for her to just notice, and he set it back down on his own leg. “It is too late. For me, at least. I…” He hesitated, trying to decide how to word what he would say next. He leaned slightly closer, his voice barely above a mutter. “I ain’t well, Eliza.”

Her face dropped. “What?”

“I ain’t getting better.”

“What you mean?”

Arthur didn’t answer. Eliza’s father had died of tuberculosis shortly after she became pregnant with Isaac. He would save her the pain of elaborating further.

“Arthur, Isaac has been waiting for this fo-“

“I know. So have I, Eliza, more than you could even believe. But I’m afraid you found the worst time to find me.”

Eliza moved to stand, but Arthur’s hand finally found its way to her thigh and pressed lightly to encourage her to remain down. A few dozen feet away, Isaac giggled as Jack waved a stick disapprovingly in his face, completely oblivious to the conversation between his parents. Eliza turned to look in the same direction as Arthur, and upon seeing the same sight, relaxed her posture and returned to her seat.

“I…” she began. She shook her head and looked directly at Arthur. Her eyes were soft and sad, and Arthur felt his heart sink. “He’ll be heartbroken, Arthur. What should we do?”

“You gotta go, Eliza.” There was little hesitation in his answer. “You gotta… I don’t know. Tell him I said… tell him I don’t…”

Eliza scoffed. “You can’t even say it Arthur. He’s been refusing to accept that you want nothing to do with him for the past five years without a peep from you. The sight of him brought you to tears not even an hour ago. You expect he’ll believe it for a fucking second?”

Arthur sighed and hid his face in his hands. “There ain’t no easy way to tell a child you’re dying. Especially not one you been missing for five years.”

“Then I’ll tell him.”

“No, no, Eliza, he don’t need to know I’m dying. Not at this very second. I just…” He thought for a second. “Go home. Go home, I’ll tell him I’ll see him soon, and then in a few weeks just… I don’t know. Tell him I got shot. Tell him I’m in jail. Give me some dirty, terrible outlaw’s death. Tell him I loved him but it’s my fault and he should never live the life I lived.”

“Arthur…”

His hands found their way to her shoulders. Her eyes widened and she looked directly at him. She looked into him, just like the way she used to do all those years ago. He wondered if she was thinking of the glaze over his eyes, the droop in his pallid skin. Or if she was thinking of all the years of a normal life lost from her neglect to reach him, and his neglect to look further into their deaths. They were so close. He was so close to that dream he always wanted but could never quite admit. And, through fault of his and hers both, it slipped through their fingers.

He lost the words he was going to say to her. But she seemed to catch what he was trying to tell her, as she dropped her head and sighed with the shakiness of restrained tears.

“I’ll think of something,” she said, barely above a whisper. “But you gotta at least give him a proper goodbye. He deserves that much.”

That much was easier said than done. Eliza and Isaac remained in camp for a few more hours, and during that time Isaac caught Arthur up on many of the happenings of his life in the past five years. After running off, he and Eliza floated around as ranch hands for a while before settling in Saint Denis not too long ago. He was in school, he already knew more math than Arthur knew and more science than Arthur could ever hope to know. He was learning some Spanish. In addition to telling Arthur these generalities he tried to teach Arthur the basics of some of what he had been learning, citing his lack of any formal education. Arthur could barely hope to keep up but continued to humor Isaac, who insisted Arthur was very smart and would pick up on it soon enough. He insisted that if Arthur stayed with them, he could keep teaching him everything he learned in school. He was so bright, and the last thing Arthur wanted to do was break his heart.

As the day came to an end, Eliza informed Isaac that it was time to go back home. Arthur helped lift him up onto his pony, although he certainly didn’t need the help, if only to have the excuse to embrace him one last time.

Once he was in his saddle, Isaac didn’t immediately release his grip on Arthur’s arms. “I will see you again, right, Pa?” he asked.

Arthur looked up at him in silence for a moment, then let a small smile grace his face. “I’ll do my best,” he lied, with a nod. “But I’ll be going somewhere else soon.”

“Where?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw Eliza, from atop her Shire, look down at him intently.

“I ain’t too sure yet.”

A few minutes later, Arthur watched as the pair of them left the camp with Sadie acting as their escort through Murfree territory. As they rode away, Isaac turned to look back at Arthur one last time, his face saddened with apparent uncertainty. A moment later he looked away, and the sight of him and Eliza was lost through the thickness of the trees. Once they were gone, as if fate had to prove a point, Arthur found himself caught in a small fit of coughing, and led himself back to the seat near the campfire that he had been at before Eliza and Isaac had found him. A hand found his shoulder as he caught his breath with a shaky sigh, and a moment later Charles wordlessly took his seat across from Arthur.

Arthur took his journal and pencil out from his satchel.

I thought for sure that when I died, my last breath would be spent reflecting on my greatest regret, he wrote. Now it seems that ain’t so.

Part IV

It’s happened again. Their association with Arthur, although so brief, had gotten Eliza and Isaac in trouble again.

Eliza had only been gone a few moments, it felt like. All she did was leave to get some food from the store. She couldn’t have been gone longer than an hour, maybe an hour and a half. And yet that was enough time for Pinkerton agents to find their home, enter it, and take her child. They took her child.

She hadn’t the slightest idea where to begin looking for them. But she had a good idea of who to ask.

He had her pistol, she had her rifle, and she was now speeding towards the gang’s camp near Annesberg. As she neared the site of the camp, she saw off in the distance a large group of people on horseback riding towards the camp. Closer to Eliza was a young woman she recognized from the camp a few days earlier, also on horseback and riding towards the large group, and with Jack in tow. Eliza yanked on her reins, forcing her horse into a sliding stop, and she dug her heels into her sides to urge her back into a gallop towards the gang.

As she drew closer, she heard the young woman desperately crying to the group that the Pinkertons had taken Abigail. They were taking her to Van Horn, and she would be tried for murder. What would they do to Isaac? What could they do to a child?

Eliza rode harder.

“Arthur!” she cried out. She was still some distance away, but she knew she had their attention. Her horse skidded to a stop, now side by side with the main group and only a few feet away from Arthur. “Arthur, they got Isaac too. Arthur, they took Isaac.” Now, saying it out loud, she felt her eyes begin to sting with realization that her son’s life was truly in danger. And judging by the little color in Arthur’s face draining away, he realized it too.

“Miss Callahan, Tilly,” Dutch started, “I am sorry to hear that-“

He did not look at her as he spoke, but Eliza’s eyes burned into his head. The tone of his voice told her he would say something that would make her very, very unhappy.

“We have to let them go, Dutch.” Came the voice of a man she did not recognize. He continued, implying the death of John Marston, and expressing artificial sympathy to Jack for the death of his father. “Without John, Abigail is just bait.”

“They-“ Arthur spoke up.

“And by taking Black Lung’s boy,” he interrupted, “well… I guess they don’t realize he’ll just be bait too by the time anyone got to him.” He looked at Arthur, a slimy smirk crossing his face.

Eliza moved one hand away from the reins, setting it on her hip where it was separated from her pistol only by a thin jacket. “You shut the hell up, you snake,” she hissed.

The blond man continued, ignoring her warning. Arthur watched incredulously as he spoke. “We got money, Dutch. Me and the boys know, we gotta keep riding, get outta here. It’s just a girl and a kid, Dutch.”

There wasn’t even the courtesy of a pause of false consideration before Dutch responded. “You’re right,” he said.

“You son of a bitch,” Eliza snarled, shifting her hand to tuck beneath her jacket and grab the grip of her pistol. She leaned forward, but from her side Sadie’s arm stretched out to stop her.

Before Eliza could ignore Sadie’s discouragement and shoot Dutch herself, Arthur was dismounting his horse. He quickly was at Dutch’s side, postured as if he was to grab the leg of his trousers, as if he could kneel on the ground and kiss his shoe and beg for his sympathy that his son and the mother of his best friend’s child were in danger. But his pleading clearly fell on deaf ears, and before her vision cleared from the curtain of red that had fallen over her eyes, most of the gang was gone. All that was left was herself, Sadie, and the young woman with Jack still on their horses, and Arthur left standing in the dust, doubled over in a fit of coughing, his eyes angrier than Eliza had ever seen them in the ten years they knew each other.

“I guess that’s that then,” he said, his hoarse voice made even more gravelly with rage. “All them god damn years.”

“We’ll go get them Arthur,” said Sadie from Eliza’s side. She finally lowered her arm from its position as a lazy attempt to restrain her. “You and me is all we need.”

“I’m coming too,” Eliza stated.

“No.” Arthur turned, pointing a finger at her. “No, absolutely not.” He was briefly interrupted by a small cough. “Isaac ain’t gonna be left an orphan.”

“But-“ Eliza protested.

“But nothing, Eliza. You go with Jack and Tilly-“ She finally knew the young woman’s name- “to Copperhead Landing, wait for Sadie and Abigail, and help get them out of here. They’re gonna need help learning how to live on their own. Can you do that?”

“Arthur-“

“Please, Eliza. I promised John I’d get them out of here, and I already failed him. I can’t fail Abigail and Jack too. And I won’t have Isaac lose you too.” His expression softened. “Can you do that?” he repeated.

Eliza frowned and bit her lip, her brow furrowing. Each moment that passed was another moment that Isaac’s life was in danger, and also another moment closer to her true final goodbye with Arthur. Once she agreed to his request and parted ways, waiting for Sadie to show up with Abigail and Isaac… that was it.

“I can do that.”

-

She didn’t do that.

Eliza had ridden quietly behind Tilly and Jack for some time, testing her ability to drift further and further back. Eventually she was far enough away that she could slip away undetected, and once she was certain that Tilly would have no way of knowing which way she ran off to, Eliza dug her heels into the sides of her horse and took off at a gallop north towards Van Horn Trading Post.

Arthur and Sadie would do their damndest to bring Isaac and Abigail to safety, that much Eliza knew. But she also knew they were just two people, one reaching out to knock on death’s door, and they were up against a full regiment of armed officers and detectives. If Isaac and Abigail’s rescue was doomed to fail, Eliza had to know that she did everything within her power to make sure the Pinkertons didn’t take them easy.

She rode hard, hoping to reach Van Horn before Arthur and Sadie wreaked havoc on the town and shit fell to pieces. By the time she arrived, however, the muddy street and docks were littered with bodies wearing uniforms and suits. Off in the distance, there was brief gunfire, and Eliza looked to the far end of the docks to find Arthur unopposed and prepared to burst into a small building. He kicked the door down, masterfully fired his gun twice in quick succession, and allowed the door to shut behind him as he walked through.

A few moments of uneasy silence followed. Eliza rode in closer before dismounting and tying off her horse to some random post. She retrieved her rifle and slung it over her shoulder, then proceeded to approach the building Arthur had just entered, careful to step around and over the scattered agents’ corpses. Once she reached the door, she leaned against the wall and held her breath, waiting for any indication of a cue for her entry.

There was the unmistakable sound of a struggle, and then an muffled unpleasant voice through the door saying, “You’re losing your strength, Mr. Morgan.”

Yes, there was her cue.

Eliza removed her rifle from her shoulder and gripped it in both hands, then pivoted on her left foot to position herself to kick the door in. The door gave way easily. Eliza was met with the sight of the back of a suited man clearly overpowering Arthur. She did not give him time to react to the slam of the door bursting open before she pulled the trigger and fired a shot into the dead center of his back. He staggered, releasing his hold on Arthur, then toppled over as a second shot rung through the small room.

That shot did not come from Eliza’s rifle.

Eliza turned her head and took in the rest of the room. Sadie was on the floor, bound. Abigail was tied securely to a chair. Clearly, Arthur did not have time to free them before this agent had gotten the better of him.

However, it did appear that Arthur had time to free Isaac from his bindings. The boy stood statue still, trembling and pale, with a pistol in his hands aimed at the agent he had just shot in the head.

Eliza dropped her rifle to the ground and bound over to him, taking him in her arms. He only continued to shake, his breaths rapid and uneven.

“Why didn’t you tell me Pa was dying?”

Eliza pulled away, her hands still tight on Isaac’s shoulders, and looked into his face. Tears spilled out of his eyes and over his cheeks. Eliza turned her head down towards Arthur sitting on the ground, his breathing raspy and labored. He looked back up at her for only a moment before shaking his head and looking down at the ground in defeat.

Eliza spotted Arthur’s knife stuck in the ground just a few feet away from him. She looked at Isaac one more time, who immediately turned his eyes away from her, before releasing her hold and retrieving Arthur’s knife from the floor. She stepped towards him and handed it to him, gesturing towards Abigail still in the chair.

“I’ll get Sadie,” she said flatly, avoiding eye contact. She moved towards Sadie and removed her own knife from her belt. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

It took only a moment for Eliza to free Sadie from her bindings. She took Sadie’s hand and pulled her up to her feet. Eliza patted Sadie’s shoulder gently once she had her footing, then turned around to check on Arthur’s progress freeing Abigail. He had already completed his task and Abigail was on her feet. Arthur, though, was standing in front of Isaac, his hand on Isaac’s shoulder. Isaac was looking down at his feet and lifted a hand to wipe the tears from his face. From his other hand, Arthur gently took the pistol out of his grasp, then moved his hand from his shoulder and placed it on his back to pull him into a gentle hug. Isaac sniffled, shaking in Arthur’s loose embrace, but no longer appeared to be crying.

His comfort came with the naturalness of a father that had cared for his son every day since birth. Or, that of a father that knew this was his last chance to get it right, if only just once.

From outside came the sound of galloping and several people quickly approaching. Sadie nudged Eliza towards the door, saying “we gotta go, now.” Sadie brushed past, Eliza followed, and behind her she heard Arthur, Isaac, and Abigail follow suit.

Eliza rushed forward and took Isaac’s hand in her own. She lead him towards her horse and lifted him up into the saddle.

“You hold on tight,” she ordered, “and don’t let go. No matter what.” She mounted up behind him and prepared her rifle, which she had picked up from the ground on her way out of the small building. “I’m gonna need you to steer, can you handle that?”

“Yes Ma,” Isaac replied, nodding confidently. The reins shook in his hands.

Abigail was atop Sadie’s horse. Arthur mounted up behind Sadie on his horse, fighting back a fit of coughing, and once he was settled in the five of them were quickly running off.

With Eliza, Abigail, and Arthur all shooting, it didn’t take long to dispatch their pursuers. Once they suspected they were no longer being followed, they rode just a bit farther before Arthur urged them all to stop a moment.

He struggled to catch his breath even just dismounting his horse. Sadie got down as well as Arthur approached Abigail and reached up to offer to help her down. She didn’t immediately accept; she asked what happened to John instead.

Eliza looked to him, and in front of her, Isaac mirrored her action. Arthur looked back at her, then to Sadie. No one spoke, leaving the responsibility of imparting the bad news to Abigail for him alone.

She didn’t handle it well.

“Listen, we got Jack. He’s safe. Eliza and Mrs. Adler will take you to him,” Arthur muttered softly. This news did not seem to comfort her much. He leaned in closer. “He loved you and Jack, he did. He wasn’t perfect, but…” He stole a glance at Eliza and Isaac, but only for a second. “He did.”

The exchange continued on. Eliza and Isaac remained on their horse, waiting patiently as Arthur tried to conclude his business with Sadie and Abigail. They were uneasy, and saddened; Abigail was still in tears over the news of John’s death that only worsened with Arthur’s insistence that he was only going to get sicker, and Eliza even noticed an expression of holding back tears on Sadie’s face that she had not seen before. Isaac tensed in front of her as Arthur acknowledged that they all knew he wasn’t getting better. He didn’t say it outright, but Eliza sensed he had the feeling he wouldn’t make it to see tomorrow. She had her own doubts as well.

Abigail took something from her neck and passed it to Arthur. He accepted it with a smile and a nod, and said something that sounded like an attempt at a goodbye. Admittedly, Eliza was not listening too closely to their conversation. She simply dreaded what she knew was coming next.

What was coming next was Arthur turning away from Sadie and Abigail to make his way over to Eliza and Isaac. This would be it.

“You’ll help them, right?” he asked Eliza as he reached her horse’s side. “Help them learn how to… how to live a normal life?”

“Of course.” Eliza nodded slightly, straightening her posture to help steady her voice. It only helped so much.

Arthur nodded in return. “Good.” He turned his body to the side and coughed for a few moments, then turned back. “Isaac.”

“Yes, Pa.”

“Isaac, I want you to promise me something.” Arthur stepped forward and took Isaac’s hands from the reins, holding them in his own in silence for a second or two. His eyes glistened. “Isaac, promise me you’ll be a better man than I ever was. Than I ever could be.”

Isaac interjected. “Pa-“

Arthur did not let him continue his interruption. “I want you to grow up, keep doing good, keep being smart, and be a good man. Promise me, Isaac.”

Eliza heard Isaac’s breath hitch. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and saw his hands tighten around Arthur’s. “I promise,” he replied.

“Good.”

Arthur tried to pull away, but Isaac gripped his hands yet tighter. His shoulders heaved, but only once. “I love you, Pa,” he said, his voice breaking.

Arthur didn’t respond for a few seconds. His wheezing breath filled the otherwise silent space. Then, the smallest and saddest of smiles graced his lips.

“I love you too, Isaac,” he barely whispered. “I love you too.”

In those four words, Eliza heard the yearning for the loss of a life Arthur always dreamed of. A family, and stability, and freedom from all that was wrong and all that was going wrong in the world. She was taken back to when they knew each other, to the young man that wooed her and laughed with her and loved her as no man ever would again. With a sudden force, Eliza longed to jump down from her mount and wrap her arms around Arthur’s neck again, have him spin her around again, and know the taste of his lips again. Their love was strange, even back then. It was never passionate, or fiery. But it was pure, and true, as one could only love a person that melded into them so perfectly. As one could only love someone who created life with them. As one could love a man who lived and died to protect everything that meant anything to him.

All these thoughts rose to her lips, but by the time her vision cleared from the curtain of tears that had fallen over her eyes, he had ridden off.

And that was the last time Eliza Callahan ever saw Arthur Morgan alive.

Epilogue

The sun had not yet risen, and a cold breeze nipped at Isaac’s skin. It was late spring, but here at the base of a mountain he could still almost taste the last trails of winter. It would be warmer later in the day. But Isaac had a long journey ahead of him, and he wanted to set off when the day was young. So he chose to conduct his business before the day had truly started. He hoped it wouldn’t set his journey starting on too somber of a note.

His mother was off who knows where, doing who knows what, and he had not seen her for a few weeks. She had promised to meet him at his destination, though, and she always kept good on those kinds of promises. It was his reassurance that she was keeping herself safe. But she didn’t know that Isaac intended to travel to New Hanover, the opposite direction from Blackwater, before heading on back to Kansas. Maybe she would have met him in Annesburg, or Valentine. Maybe she would have joined him. But he couldn’t write to her in time, and he kind of wanted to do this alone, anyhow. So he got a map from John, and a description of the spot he was looking for, and set off.

The climb up to the cliff’s ledge was a bit steep for Isaac’s comfort on horseback. He led his mustang to a tree at the base of the cliff and tied her off.

“I’ll be right back girl,” he said, patting her neck. Rosie nickered in response. “This won’t take too long.”

The climb was not as daunting as it seemed from a distance, and a worn trail made the path even that much easier. But there were a few cliff ledges, and a lot of rocks, and Isaac found himself turning back and forth for a few minutes in search of one particular cliff ledge and one particular rock. And then there it was; a lone wooden cross, overlooking the eastern horizon, decorated with wildflowers.

Isaac made his way over, and as he drew closer, he made note of the words carved in the wood.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Isaac almost had to crack a smile at that. How would Arthur feel being described as “righteous,” he wondered? There was no denying he didn’t live as a saint. But there also was no denying he really worked to turn everything around in the end, from what Isaac had heard from John. He hungered to make up for his wrongdoings. He thirsted for redemption.

Isaac stopped before the grave. He couldn’t stop himself from contemplating what part of his father he stood upon. He couldn’t stop himself from wondering what remained under his feet.

The notion of nothing but Arthur’s bones beneath the ground chilled Isaac to his core. He pushed the thought from his mind.

Isaac reached up and removed the hat from his head. Arthur’s hat, that had been gifted to Isaac as a boy. Arthur’s hat, that the man wore for five years in remembrance of the son he thought he had lost. Arthur’s hat, coming full circle back to Isaac when John, alive, met them at Copperhead Landing eight years ago.

“Hi Pa.” Isaac held the hat close to his chest. What would he say? Should he apologize for taking all this time to finally visit him? Should he scream and cry that it isn’t fair he’s gone? Or should he pretend as if nothing was strange, that Arthur was standing before him and he wasn’t speaking to nothing but the air before him?

Isaac remained silent for a few moments as he considered why he came all this way. Birds began to stir in the trees, singing with the coming of a new day.

“Ma’s doing well enough,” Isaac said, trying to think of how he would speak to his father as if he was just writing him a letter. “She took up bounty hunting, been working with Sadie. They’ve gotten close.” Isaac smiled. “That’s one good thing that came out of us finding you all those years ago, I guess. Them finding each other.

“I, um…” He looked down, toeing the ground. He didn’t mean to imply that finding Arthur all those years ago was a bad thing. He hoped Arthur wouldn’t take offense. “I’m going to school soon. To be a doctor. They just started a school of medicine not too long ago, back in Kansas. John gave me money to do it. Said he owed you that much.” He looked back up, then continued. “I remember what I promised you, Pa. To be a good man. I think a doctor is about as good as it can get, right?”

He didn’t say that he was driven by Arthur’s ailment. That he wanted to prevent more sons from losing their fathers to illness, if he could. Or that he hoped he could let Arthur have a legacy of good, by having a son that helped undo deaths caused by the type of men Arthur used to be. If Arthur were before him, Isaac knew he would understand the words that did not yet escape from his heart. Even in their limited time together, Isaac could tell his father had that skill, to read the minds of men. But could the souls of those no longer on this earth still understand what was left unspoken? Could the dead hear his thoughts all the way from heaven?

“I miss you, Pa,” Isaac finally confessed. He was no longer able to prevent his voice from cracking, nor restrain the tears that had been threatening to break their dam, and now freely flowed. “Every damn day. Momma does too, though she has a hard time admitting it, I think. I think she pretends to have some grudge against you for up and dying on us as soon as we got you back. She doesn’t mean it, though. I think she’s just still hurting.” Isaac lifted his arm to his face and wiped his eyes, as if he were a child. His sleeve came away damp. “She loved you, always did. I did too.”

Isaac stopped speaking, though silence did not quite fill the air. Birds sang, and the wind whistled through the trees, and the grass, and the flowers that overran his father’s gravesite.

“I can’t make no promises, Pa,” he muttered. But his next statement came louder. “But I’ll try. I wanna do right by you.”

Nearby, a twig snapped, and Isaac saw a subtle movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and his hand shot to the holster of his pistol at its hiding spot underneath his long jacket.

A pair of eyes met his, but they were not human. From just a few dozen feet away, a stag stared back at Isaac, his posture confident and proud. The two considered each other a few moments, and the deer did not waver at the sustained gaze from a human. Instead, he dipped his head slightly, almost as if a nod of approval, before fully lowering his face to the ground to graze at the meager offering of grass on the cliffside.

It was strange, Isaac thought as he eased his guard. Why would a deer come all the way up to this ledge just to graze, when a whole world of meadow stretched out below him?

Isaac continued to stare at the buck as he ate. The animal provided some kind of calming feeling to Isaac, despite the strangeness of his presence. Isaac turned back to the gravesite of his father, then wordlessly placed the hat back on his head. The cracking light of dawn was a promise to welcome the return of summer.

Isaac tipped his hat in lieu of a goodbye, a mirror of the man that laid in the ground at his feet. Then he turned on his heel and walked away, towards the rest of his life that laid before him.