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Chapter Text

He watched his daddy hang.

A part of him hoped the old man would end with some kind of pride. Show some spine. Jut his chin at the sky and meet his maker like a man. But the bastard was whimpering by the end. Snot and tears all running down his face. Eyes wide and white. Begging the sheriff not to throw the lever. Promising all sorts. Making up all kinds of nonsense to try to save his sorry hide. Didn’t even look down at the crowd to see Arthur there. Probably would have tried to barter off his own son in exchange for his life if he had.

Arthur figured maybe that’s when you really saw what a person was made of - what stuffing they had inside of ‘em – right at the end, with nowhere to run. And, at eleven years old, an angry, choking lump in his throat, he made a promise that he would never go out like this. He’d keep himself a little dignity, keep a little fight in him to greet the reaper with. 

He watched his daddy hang, and it was no different from any other hanging, except the man’s neck didn’t break right away and there was that awful long minute of struggling with the crowd holding its breath all together, waiting for the eyes to bulge and the tongue to turn black and the legs to stop kicking.

Arthur didn’t cry. He might’ve, if that corpse had suddenly taken breath again; got up and gone back to being his shit of a father. But to see the man’s glassy eyes staring up at the sky was like a good riddance; like an exhale. This world was a better place without Lyle Morgan in it.

The boy should have felt free. Should have felt something. But he still wore a patchwork of bruises from the dead man’s fists and they wouldn’t fade for another week or two, as if the old bastard was still taunting him from the grave. He could still hear that low voice, full of gravel and spite, even as he turned his back on the scaffold. Calling him out. Cursing his name for a coward and a traitor and a murderer:

You ran, boy. You saw them comin’ and you let ‘em take me. Ran like a dog. You’re the reason I got the rope. You’re the one who killed me.

Maybe it was true. Arthur couldn’t tell which way up anything was any more. If there was that much difference between right and wrong. If stealing counted if you were starving. If it was possible to still feel a primal kind of love for someone even while you hated ‘em with all your being. If killing someone and simply letting ‘em die amounted to the same thing.

There was water in his eyes, now, even though he tried to scrub it away. Behind him, he could hear the lawmen loading up his daddy’s body into a barrow and the thump of lifeless flesh sent a rush of bile up into his throat. He coughed, almost choked on it, and spit up into the dirt, bent double, hands braced on his knees. The crowd broke up around the boy, giving him a wide, distasteful berth. He knew he must look a mess and stink worse. Told himself he didn’t give two shits what anyone thought but still, it was a naked feeling. Being watched. Judged.

He looked up, feeling the crawl of eyes on him, and right into the face of a man on a tall black mare. Arthur readied himself to scramble out the way, expecting the whip, or a kick, or a harsh shout telling him to get the hell out of the thoroughfare. But the man just sat there, staring at him with a mild, curious kind of look.

“You alright there, son?”

The boy scowled and spat again, waiting for the churn of his stomach to calm. Ain’t nobody’s son no more.

“Don’t look the type to get queasy over a hanging,” the man observed. His gaze tracked thoughtfully across Arthur’s black eye, the dried blood caked on his collar, the swollen split where his lip had busted against his teeth; the last beating his daddy would ever give him – still fresh from a few nights before – and all because they’d run out of tobacco.

The boy didn’t reply. Gave his head a single shake, afraid to meet eyes with the soft-spoken horseman. There was a danger about the stranger, for all his finery – the tailored waistcoat, the silver pocket watch, the neatly-trimmed moustache – something of the wilderness in that unbroken stare, the way a wolf watches its prey. A lawman, maybe. Or a bounty hunter. Maybe something worse.

Arthur braced himself to run. He should never have come to see the hanging. Should’ve cut loose the moment the law had grabbed his daddy, kept on running, left him all the way behind and never looked back. But he had to know it was really over. Had to see them put the man in the ground, deep down, where he couldn’t hurt nobody ever again.

“You knew him,” the man decided quietly, glancing over at the body in the barrow. It wasn’t a question.

The boy forced himself not to look, too. “No, Sir,” he managed.

“No? Well…” The stranger gave a lazy kind of sigh, “I did.”

And Arthur found himself fixed in place with fear, not sure if he were about to piss his pants or pass out right there in the street. It was all he could do to try to keep breathing, short and fast, in and out, like a coney twitching in the grass, hoping it might turn invisible if it stayed still enough.

The man leaned forward over the pommel with a creak of leather, pointing over Arthur’s shoulder. “That there dear departed soul was one Lyle Morgan,” he said, pretending not to notice when the boy flinched at the name, “Knew him a long time back. Going on a decade, in fact. Had himself a pretty wife. A little infant child. Was savin’ up for a patch of land…”  

A brief, sorrowful expression passed over the man’s face. Deepened when he looked back down at the boy. “Seems like he got himself in a whole heap of trouble since then, huh?”

The boy still couldn’t move. He kept his eyes on the ground, on the horse’s shuffling hooves. He knew when to stay quiet. When to listen. Some men just enjoyed the sound of their own voice. His daddy had been that way, too, except mostly he liked to shout. This one didn’t need to – he commanded attention like a preacher, with a deep, smooth baritone that you felt in your chest more than heard it.

“Always was a hot-headed bastard,” the man continued, “A little too heavy on the drink. Little too short on temper. Quick to use his fists...” His eyes flicked over the boy once more – a cool, disapproving appraisal – his voice slow and careful. “Some say that’s how he lost his wife. Or maybe it was a fever. I don’t rightly recall now.”

Arthur bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood.

The horseman gave another sigh. “Either way, a loss like that? Well, it’ll change a man. Turn him cold, if he’s not careful. Make him weak.”

He practically spat the last word, which made the gentleness of what he said next all the more startling: “You know, it takes strength to stay upright when this world beats you down, son. To keep looking for beauty when all you’re shown is dirt.”

A heavy silence followed, as if the man was waiting for an answer. The words were so pretty but they somehow hurt, too.

“Yessir,” the boy whispered. His heartbeat flapped in his chest like a fish out of water.

“You know what they got him for?” the man asked, all conversational-like, as if he hadn’t just told the boy the story of his own life.

“Nossir,” he lied.

“Grand larceny,” the stranger proclaimed with a scathing laugh, “As if that son-of-a-bitch was ever anything more than a petty thief. Heard he got so drunk after hitting the Baxter payroll the posse could hear him singing The Streets of Laredo from a mile away.”

Arthur swallowed the lump in his throat. He couldn’t tell what kind of man this was, jumping between cruelty and kindness from one word to another. Didn’t know what the joke was – if there was a joke – or if maybe Arthur was the joke.

The man’s voice dropped conspiratorially, “But you know… They’re saying he must’ve had an accomplice…”

At this, the boy’s head snapped up, eyes wide with panic. And that must have been the punchline, because the stranger smiled wide, with his teeth, and Arthur tried to bolt, only to discover a firm hand holding onto a fistful of his collar, locking him in place. He knew struggling would only get him into deeper trouble, catch too many other eyes, so he fought the instinct to fight. Went stark stiff in the man’s grip, his face almost pressed into the flank of the mare, breathing in its musty scent, and the stranger leant right down to talk soft in the boy’s ear, nice and easy, the way you’d calm a spooked horse.

“Now then, son, no need to go makin’ a spectacle of ourselves. Why don’t you climb on up here and we’ll have ourselves a little talk someplace a little less… public?”

The boy had no choice in the matter. The man hauled him up in front of the saddle, caging him in with his arms, and nudged the mare forward faster than Arthur could gather his balance.

Outside of town, the hills looked down over the cluster of buildings; the scaffold at the far end of main street, empty now; the winding path that led to a little shack-church with its yard peppered with crosses. Even from here, the boy could see the freshly-dug grave, waiting like an open mouth for his father’s corpse.

The stranger stopped to let his horse graze for a moment, far enough away that the figures in the town looked like tiny tin soldiers. No chance of prying eyes or ears out here. No one to witness if he chose to let out that wolf behind his smile. But the man’s voice stayed soft and calm – almost apologetic. “I know you wanted to say goodbye. But it’s best you stay clear of there for a while…”

The stranger put a finger to the boy’s chin and lifted it an inch. “All them colourful bruises on your face… Well, they might raise a few questions if you stick around. You understand me?”

The boy nodded dumbly.

“Good boy. I could tell you was a smart one the moment I saw you,” the stranger said, and even though Arthur thought he might be poking fun at him, a blush warmed his chest.

With a tug of the reins, the man set his horse back on the track away from town and they fell into a comfortable trot.

“Now then, son,” the man said, in that same smooth voice that made compliance so easy, “Why don’t you tell me what you remember about the night your pappy stole the Baxter payroll?”

He remembered the afterwards. Remembered his daddy singing too loud, all buoyed up with his own self-importance, and the sound echoing all around. Remembered crouching by a pitiful fire in a copse up near the railroad, wood smoke in his eyes, wishing they’d bought a little food instead of moonshine. Wishing he’d thought to check the tobacco pouch before his daddy found it empty and got his blood all fired up.  

Wishing he’d seen the torches on the road sooner.

By the time he noticed it was already too late. His father was deep in his cups – too far gone to get on the horse, but not so far gone he couldn’t lash out with an open fist when the boy tried to pull on his arm. He knocked the child down for the second time that evening and roared out another verse. Never even saw the posse crest the hill behind him until there was a rifle barrel pressed into the back of his neck.

And the boy had run. Like hell. Like the coward his father told him he was. Slipped into the darkness beyond the trees and run blind with tears and terror, ears ringing with snatches of a song that turned into a yell so furious, so full of betrayal, that he expected the earth to crack and swallow him up for his sins…

But that wasn’t what the stranger wanted to know.

And Arthur wasn’t stupid enough to think the man was acting purely out of kindness, no matter how sweetly he spoke.

The stranger wanted to know if there was any money left; anything that hadn’t been collected by the posse; some secret stash hidden somewhere – in the hollow of an old tree, under a fence post, inside a chimney. But there was never anything left. The boy’s father was not a man who knew how to save for a rainy day. For Lyle Morgan, it was always raining, even when the sun shone, and better to spend it while you have it. Better to drink tonight than worry about tomorrow.

The boy didn’t know what the horseman would do when he found out there was no profit to be had. He felt like a ragdoll in the saddle, his bones rattling inside him as they rode on.

But the stranger didn’t seem to be bothered by his silence. He fed the boy simple questions, gently nudging the facts out of him, piece by piece.

“Just the two of you, then?”

The boy nodded.

“Held ‘em up at the bridge, that right?”

Another nod.

“They see you? Or just your pop?”

A shake of his head. He’d been waiting in the woods with the horse, a grimy old cattleman revolver in his hands, wishing and praying to a god he already knew didn’t exist that it would be his daddy come crashing through the undergrowth and not the payroll guards. He’d only ever shot at birds before, and mostly missed them.

“Well, that’s something,” the man sighed. He sounded impatient. The boy cringed smaller in the saddle.

“And the posse caught up before you could hide the money?” One last hopeful interrogation.

The boy nodded miserably. There was a long silence, punctuated by the muted thudding of the horse’s hooves on the dirt road.

“Shame,” the man said at last, and he didn’t sound bitter, or angry – just regretful. “Haul like that – could’ve been a fresh start.”

The boy didn’t know what that meant. Or where they were going or why he was on the man’s horse. How far he might get if he tried to run. How quick the stranger could draw that ornate pistol on his hip. If he’d be joining his daddy in the ground before the day was out.

He jolted as the man lay a warm hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. About your father. Sorry for what he did to you.”

And Arthur didn’t know which part brought on the lump in his throat. Or why he couldn’t stop tears from burning his eyes. Why he cared at all about a father who had clearly cared so little about his own son. Why this stranger had shown him more compassion than anyone he could remember since his mother.

He realised he didn’t even know the man’s name. Tried to ask, but his voice was stuck, and the stranger took it for a sob, squeezed his shoulder and made it all worse with that calming tone of his. “Easy now. You’ll be alright.”

The boy let the tears dry on his face. Too ashamed to brush them away. Too exhausted to do much else but lean into the stranger’s hand as they rode on. He threaded his own fingers into the horse’s mane, teasing out the tangles and burrs, smoothing it down over the mare’s fine neck. It was a peaceful silence, and for a moment he let himself believe the man’s words. For a moment he wished they could just keep on riding – right on into the horizon, off the edge of the land – and the world might never catch up.

But it was only a moment. And moments pass. And the world is always at your back.

The boy hadn’t been paying any attention to where they were headed and he flinched when the squeal of a steam engine split the air. The railroad stretched out before them like a ladder as the stranger steered the horse towards a squat shack of a station at the bottom of the valley.

It was an empty shell of a place – a nowhere place, halfway between here and there – a place for the train to fill up on water and coal and a few scattered passengers. Smoke in the distance and another piercing shriek of steam announced an incoming locomotive.

A man waited by the hitching post, watching them approach – sandy-haired and serious-looking. His eyebrows raised in query when he saw the boy.

“You took your time, Dutch” he said in a dry voice, like cracking twigs. “What on earth you got there?”

The horseman – Dutch, he called him, though he didn’t look or sound like a foreigner – swung himself off the horse and gestured for the boy to follow. Arthur slid down after him, reluctant to leave the warmth of the animal’s back. He ran a hand down the mare’s nose and she gave him an appreciative nudge.

“Lyle’s boy,” Dutch said, in an emphatic undertone that made the other man’s eyes flit over the kid uncertainly.

“They got him then?”

A meaningful nod from Dutch, who was busying himself digging in the other man’s saddlebags.

“And what happened to you?” the other man asked the boy, wincing a little as he took in the marks of violence, the red-rimmed eyes, the sullen lip.

Arthur still couldn’t find his voice. It was buried somewhere in his chest now, and it ached there.

The man called Dutch saved him from answering, pressed a parcel of bread and cheese into his hands and sat him down on the station deck.

“Now you just set there for a spell. Get some food in you, alright, boy?”

The boy ate mechanically at first, then with increasing urgency, in case it might be taken away from him at any moment. The sandy-haired man was still staring at him, and continued to do so, even when Dutch grabbed him by the arm and pulled him a ways away to mutter in low tones they thought the boy couldn’t hear.

“Hosea, listen-”

The other man shook his head wearily. “Don’t have time for this, Dutch. Morgan might’ve distracted them for a while but they’re still on our trail.”

“They’d’ve taken him too, if I’d left him there.”

“Looks like a simpleton to me. Does he speak?”

“He’s had a shock. A hard life.”

“Well, ain’t we all?”

The man named Hosea gave a sigh but his eyes turned a touch softer as he looked back at the boy. “What’s your name, son?” he asked.

The boy swallowed a chunk of bread and it seemed to clear the lump in his throat enough for him to reply, albeit hesitantly: “Arthur?” as if he wasn’t sure himself.

Hosea nodded. “You got any other family, Arthur? Someplace to go?”

The boy shrugged, shrinking into his shoulders. His mother was years in the ground, his only memory of her locked away in a photograph he kept in his satchel. It’d been just him and his daddy for a long while, and even then they’d never had a place of their own – always moving on, always running. And now there was no one and nothing. The enormity of it was too much to comprehend. The boy’s hands tightened around the parcel of food, as if it was all he had left to cling to.

Dutch stepped past the other man and dropped down to one knee to put himself on eye level with the kid. “Your daddy ever run with anyone? A group?”

There had been times Arthur’s father had worked with other outlaws – not quite a gang, more a handful of desperate men who happened to find themselves together – but they were one-off jobs. No one wanted a child dragging behind them, slowing them down. Not even his daddy, it seemed. He shook his head.

Dutch straightened up and turned back to Hosea, palms spread wide in a gesture of helplessness.

Hosea rolled his eyes to the heavens. “We’re not a charity, Dutch,” he said, not even trying to keep his voice low now. “Can’t be hauling a kid around. We need to get the hell out of this damn state. And it’s certainly not fair to drag him right back into a life he just got free of…”

The boy stared at his feet. The sound of the approaching train was building into a thunder. He could feel it through the ground, smell the choking smog in the air. He let the bread and cheese drop into the dirt. They could beat him for it, he didn’t care. They meant to leave him here, anyway.

The two men were muttering together now, most of what they were saying lost under the unholy noise of the engine powering into the station. The one called Dutch looked frustrated. Angry, even. The one called Hosea was calm as a lake but kept one eye on the road, one eye on the boy, like he expected trouble at any minute.

The train rolled in and hissed itself to a stop, cutting off any further discussion, but it seemed something had been decided as Dutch pulled the boy to his feet and began piling things into his arms – a blanket, a waterskin, a couple of tins that’d lost their labels, a pouch of coins. Hosea added the stub of a train ticket to the pile and retrieved the food the boy had dropped, dusting it off carefully and wrapping it back up again without a word.

Dutch took the boy by the shoulders, fixing him to the earth with a stern look. “Now, you listen to me, Arthur. Here’s what you’re gonna do. Three stops down the line, you’ll find a little town called Westbury,” he said, pointing along the train track. “There’s a saloon there. A… ‘house of pleasure’. You know what that is?”

The boy blinked back at him. He’d always been made to sit outside whenever his daddy visited a place like that, but he got the general gist. He nodded. Saw Hosea hide a smirk.

“Ask for Grimshaw,” Dutch continued, “She’ll give you a hot meal. A bath. Somewhere to sleep. Tell her Dutch sent you and she’s to take care of you ‘til you get back on your feet.”

The boy looked from one face to the other. At the stack of gifts in his arms. He didn’t want to start crying again. He wanted to scream himself hoarse. Wanted to drop it all to the ground, stamp it into the dust and beg for them to take him with them. But he was too slow and too dumb and it was too late to say all the things that were bubbling up into his throat.

“You’ll be alright, son,” Dutch said, as he herded him up onto the nearest carriage, but it sounded as if the man was trying to convince himself as much as the boy, “You just need to have a little faith.”

The words rang in the boy’s head like a bell. How? And faith in what? he wanted to ask. Faith in who?

And he’d never needed an answer to a question so bad in his life. Never would stop seeking it from this moment on.

He tried to grip hold of Dutch’s sleeve as the man made to turn away, but the train whistle sliced through the air once more and the boy let go, startled.

A smile crossed the stranger’s face and he touched a finger to his hat. “Safe travels, Arthur Morgan." 

The great monstrous machine beneath the boy’s feet juddered forward, and it was all he could do to clutch onto his ticket with cold fingers and watch as the landscape shifted sideways and the two figures shrank into nothingness.

And he realised he hadn't even thanked the man. Realised he didn't even know the name of the town his daddy was buried in. Realised then that no good would ever come from looking backward.

Chapter Text

Later – years later – Arthur would understand why Dutch put him on that train. Why he looked into the eyes of a lost boy who needed to be found and sent him out into the wilderness. Later, he’d know how to measure one danger against another. But his eleven-year-old self couldn’t tell the difference.

Still. He did as he was told. Didn’t have many other options. He counted three stops, biting the insides of his cheeks to stop the stinging of his eyes from overspilling once more, and watched the horizon roll by through blurry vision.

He hadn’t thought about what he’d do next. Hadn’t thought of anything much beyond the hanging. As if everything ended right there. He reckoned his father must be in the ground by now, and that was a small comfort, even though he wished he’d stayed to see it - he would dream of that corpse digging itself out and coming to claim him for years...

It was getting dark by the time the train pulled in at Westbury, another nothing town in an expanse of red dusty earth, shutting itself down for the evening. But the lamplight at the end of main street drew him forward – you could always rely on a saloon to light the way - but the closer he got, the more his nerves gnawed at him.

He wasn’t stupid enough to go in the front. He carried his bundle of second-hand belongings up to the back step and stood there for a moment, listening to the sounds of drunken men and laughing women inside. His heart was pattering again. What if Grimshaw wasn’t there? What if there was no Grimshaw at all? What if Dutch had made up the name to get rid of him? Or what if she was real but turned him away? He didn’t know if he had it in him to find out. 

He took a step backwards, looked out beyond the packed dirt yard behind the saloon to the tree line beyond. Westbury was bordered by a hilly forest on one side and a deep canyon gorge on the other. Plenty of places for a boy to find a place to hide. He had a blanket and a little food and water. He’d never owned much more than that in his life, anyways. And slept in far worse places than the woods. He was pretty sure he still had a knife and a couple dry matches in his satchel, too, and that’s really all a person needed to survive, wasn't it?

He took another step away from the saloon. Glared at the rising, mocking moon. He didn’t need no whorehouse charity. Didn’t need no Dutch or Hosea or dead father to take care of him. Didn’t need no Grimshaw, whatever she was. Grimshaw sounded like the name of some witch from a campfire story; some gnarled old lady who wanted to boil you up for soup. And he didn't need any more nightmares in his life.

He almost made it to the back fence before he paused. The dark grasslands spread out before him like an ocean. The screech of coyotes echoed down the hills like a jeer.

Maybe he was being a little hasty. He’d feel safer with a lantern, at least. And two tins of food and a bit of cheese wasn't gonna last him long - he couldn't very well hunt without a gun or a bow. And one blanket wasn’t going to be enough to keep out the chill once the temperature dropped. And the night really was coming on now – a crisp one at that – and the trees looked a good hour’s walk away, through wet grass that would soak his feet within a few steps. And the darkness seemed much deeper than it ought to be, all of a sudden, and–

“Jesus H. Christ, what you doin’, sneakin’ around out here?”

The boy whirled at the voice. A bearded man in grubby overalls stood silhouetted in the doorway. He held a bucket of food scraps in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and peered down at Arthur with a suspicious grimace.

“What you want, boy?”

The smell of cooking and tobacco and sawdust and sweat came flooding out of the open door, along with a wash of warm yellow light. The woods seemed an awful long way away now, and Arthur found himself edging towards the back step once more.

He swallowed his pride. Might as well ask, at least. “Grimshaw?” he said, praying it wasn’t all a joke, that he hadn’t somehow imagined the whole thing.

The man stared a moment longer, rolled his eyes, and flicked his cigarette in a high sparking arc over Arthur’s head.

“Here,” he grunted, thrusting the bucket of slop into the boy’s arms, forcing him to drop everything else. “Go throw this to the pigs. I’ll see if she’s… indisposed.”

Arthur hugged the bucket to his chest, nodding fiercely, as the man headed back inside yelling, “Susan!” at the top of his lungs.

The door swung shut behind him and the night turned blue and cold once more. Arthur blinked into the dark, looking around for any sign of livestock in the yard, and eventually followed his nose around the side of the building to a sty full of snoring piglets, all snuggled up against a gigantic sow.

He deposited the contents of the bucket in their pen and stood for a minute, watching the animals bustle for a place at the trough, thinking Grimshaw would make a good name for the huge, lumbering mama hog. Maybe the real Grimshaw was just like her, all ruddy and round and grouchy – the saloon cook, perhaps. Or maybe she was the opposite, some skinny old hag holding court over all the saloon girls, all pinched and mean… Either way, what on earth would she make of a filthy orphan at her door? She would surely send him away, soon as look at him.

He let the bucket drop at his feet. Whatever Dutch had said, this was a wholly foolish idea. Even climbing into the pigsty for the night looked a better option than have another person stare at him like he was shit on their shoe – or have them laugh in his face for thinking he might be owed some common kindness.

He would brave the woods. He couldn’t let himself be afraid no more. He had to be a man, now that he was all alone. And a man didn’t go begging at back doors.

Except… he’d left all his things back there, around the corner. All Dutch’s things. And although his pride was ready to send him running off into the dark in nothing but his shirtsleeves, he wasn’t so much of an idiot that he’d leave behind the means to survive the night. So back he crept, hoping the bearded man had given up trying to find this Grimshaw, or that she’d already looked out and found the yard empty. But he’d barely poked his head around the corner before a scathing voice froze him in place.

“Huh. Charlie said there was a stray out here.”

A woman stood leaning against the door frame, one arm crossed over her belly, the other elbow perched on top, a thin cheroot pinched between her fingers. She wasn’t a wicked witch, or a fat cook, or an old hag – she was a fine-figured woman not much older than Dutch, in a fine-tailored dress, with a fine mane of hair carefully piled into what looked like a bushel atop her head. She jerked her chin at him.

“Come on over here.”

She had the kind of voice you didn’t think twice about obeying – not harsh, as such, just… non-negotiable. And the boy did as she said, coming just close enough to scoop up his belongings, sticking to the shadows outside the reach of the light from the doorway.

She tilted her head like a curious bird. “How’d you know my name?”

Now that he was nearer, he could see that her face seemed a little kinder than her tone, and the boy found his tongue with only a slight stutter. “Dutch. Dutch sent me.”

She allowed only a brief expression of surprise cross her face before settling her features back into a mask of neutrality. “Why would he do that?”

Arthur hesitated. She didn’t seem all that happy to hear Dutch’s name. In fact, she seemed to be tamping down some kind of fury beneath the thin line of her lips.

“He send you with a message?” she prompted, impatient with his silence.

He shook his head and his voice shrank even smaller. “Just me.”

Her mouth twisted into a wry smile that had very little humour in it. “A gift from Dutch. How thoughtful that man is. And what, exactly, am I supposed to do with you?”

A hot meal. A bath. Somewhere to sleep. She’s to take care of you until you get back on your feet.

It sounded mighty presumptuous, all of a sudden. The hurried promise of an outlaw, plucked out of thin air.

He fumbled for a way to say it without setting a touch paper to that sarcastic tone of hers. “Dutch said–”

“Dutch says a lot of shit,” she snapped, taking a sharp drag of her cigar, “You can’t trust a word that comes out of that man’s mouth.”

The boy’s face fell. It had all been a lie, then.

He backed away once more with a whispered: “Never mind. Sorry, Miss,” but her anger fizzled out as quickly as it had flared and she gave a grating sigh, dropping her arms to her sides.

“Well, you’re here now. Spit it out.”

He mustered up a deep breath and forced himself to look her in the eye. “Dutch said… Said you’d help me.”

She paused then. Considered him properly. Beckoned him closer, into the light, and frowned deep when she saw the marks on his face. “He do this to you? If he did, I’ll–”

“No,” Arthur cut in quickly, darting back, “Not him.” 

“Then who?” she demanded, grabbing hold of his arm, fast as a snake, “And don’t try to tell me you fell on your damn face. Seen my share of bruises.”

He flinched at the sudden contact. “Don’t matter!” he shrieked, shaking her off and tripping backwards onto his ass in the mud. “One who did it’s dead now anyways,” he added quietly. “So it don’t matter.” 

A heavy quietness fell, and her eyes betrayed her – there was a sadness there that didn’t quite match her stern expression.

“Well. Seems like you’ve had a time of it,” she said, setting her hands on her hips, “I s’pose you’ll be hungry.”

He nodded slowly – it seemed to be the answer she was expecting but he didn’t want to get it wrong again. He dug in his pocket for the money pouch Dutch had given him to make sure, “I can pay.”

“Oh, put that away,” she tutted, and hauled him to his feet. “Dutch can owe me, next time he comes around.”

Arthur was about to say that it was Dutch’s money anyways, but she was already bustling him up the back steps and into the saloon kitchen.

The man who’d sent him to feed the pigs was busy at the stove, stirring a pot of stew that smelled better than anything the boy had eaten in weeks. He looked over his shoulder at them but didn’t comment – Grimshaw’s glare was enough to quell any questions – just passed the boy a bowl and a hunk of bread and nodded to a stool in the corner.

The stew was thick and hearty, the bread was fresh, and the boy finished the lot in the space of minutes, washed down with a glass of watery beer. The woman watched him with mild amusement as he licked the bowl clean.

“Well,” she said, “I guess we’ll figure out what to do with you in the mornin’.” Her steely eye looked him over with distaste, “But you ain’t comin’ in like that. Stink like the back end of a hog. Get up those back stairs, we’ll see if there’s any water left.”

Arthur caught the bearded cook shooting Grimshaw an uncertain look and the boy shuffled nervously on his stool, not entirely thrilled about the prospect of a wash, and getting the distinct feeling he wasn’t even allowed to be here in the first place.

“Jackson’s not gonna like this,” the cook muttered, but she shushed him with a flap of her hand.

“Jackson’s not gonna know about it.” Then, to Arthur, “What are you waiting for? Git.”

The boy jumped to attention, half expecting her to take him by the ear, and headed to the stairs at the back of the room before she could try. She followed after, pausing to jab a finger at the cook with a look like thunder. “Charlie, if you breathe a word, I swear–”

But the man was no fool. “I ain’t seen nothing or no one...” he drawled, turning back to his stew with a shrug. 

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s right, you ain’t.” And Arthur wondered if anyone had ever won an argument against the woman.

He certainly wasn’t going to test the theory, and let her gesture him up the stairs, onto a red-wallpapered landing, along a corridor alive with the sounds of amorous couples, and into a perfumed bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a glowing fire.

The boy hung back against the wall while she fussed over a pile of soggy towels left on the floor and tested the water temperature. “Already had a couple of bodies in it, but warm enough,” she concluded, turning her eye on him with an expectant look.

He didn’t move. Surely she didn’t expect him to get in there right now? He’d already washed his face once that week and, well, this was a place for… for… women. Naked women, by the looks of the pictures on the wall.

“Well, let’s get ‘em off,” she said, nodding at his filthy shirt and breeches.

Arthur balked. Stammered something even he couldn’t understand. But she was already rolling up her sleeves with a dreadful inevitability. “Jesus, boy, ain’t nothing I haven’t seen before. And I’m not risking you bringin’ lice in here. Now gimme those clothes, get in the tub, and scrub.”

There was no escape.

She stood there, face set like a mountain, arms outstretched to receive his grime-engrained clothing as he stripped down to his smalls, desperately avoiding her eye. He paused then, and waited, shivering, until she finally afforded him a little privacy and turned her back until she heard the splosh of him climbing into the water.

He hoped that might be the end of it – that she’d leave him to it and go and boil his clothes – but she didn’t seem to trust his ability to use a sponge and took matters into her own hands while he sat there in a huddle, knees up to his chest, miserable and humiliated and wincing as she attacked his matted hair with the soap.

“Goddamn Dutch…” she grumbled under her breath, “Some girls get flowers and jewels. I get a street rat covered in fleas.”

He decided it was better to just sit and take it, let her work out her frustrations with a scrubbing brush and an endless stream of complaints and grudges – about Jackson, the saloon owner, who takes too much commission and treats his staff like dirt; about the other girls, all of ‘em lazy or stupid or both; about Charlie, who always overcooks the morning eggs and underbakes the biscuits; about the whole damn town of Westbury, far too sleepy and dull and backward for her tastes; about goddamn Dutch, high-tailing off and leaving her here; about how she’s getting out of this place one day - with or without him - going to the city, gonna show ‘em all...

“Where’s he headed to, anyway?” she asked the boy, who had to take a second to realise she was talking to him and not herself.

He blinked the suds out of his eyes. “Who?”

“Dutch,” she said, as if it was obvious.

“Said they had to get out of state,” he shrugged.

She humphed. Tore a tangle of hair out at the roots like it was his fault. Worked her fingers into his scalp like she was trying to dig more information out of his brain. He tried not to flinch, and waited until a pause in her ministrations to ask a halting question.

“You think… he’s coming back?”

She let out a long breath and sat back on her heels. “Not if he has any sense. Which I don’t think he has.”

Arthur didn’t know if that meant yes or no, but was too afraid to ask which.

“Just leavin’ me to clear up his messes, as usual…” Grimshaw muttered, finally finished with his hair, and unceremoniously upended a jug of water over his head.

She eased off a little when it came to his bruised eye and split lip, and stopped altogether when she removed the top layer of dirt from his back and saw the faded cross-hatched lash marks that lay beneath, drawing in a hissing breath.

These ones were older than the bruises on his face and ribs, but he still felt a wave of shame wash over him as she pressed a finger into the ridge of scar tissue on his left shoulder – the ghostly reminder of a saddle-strap buckle that had split the skin deep and left him howling.

She didn’t comment, and neither did he, and the room fell to quietness aside from the dull sloshing of the water and the crackle of the fire. She worked gentle circles with the sponge and he watched the bathwater turn grey as his skin pinked and pruned.

“I had a husband once,” she said, out of nowhere, in a voice much softer than he’d heard so far. “Used to get in such a temper. Liked to use his belt for a thrashing. But he only used the metal end once...”

Her scrubbing slowed to a stop and she rested her arms on the edge of the tub, fingers trailing in the water, staring sightlessly down into the murk.

“What happened to him?” the boy whispered, a shiver passing over his skin, despite the warmth of the room.

Her eyes snapped up to his, and for a moment she looked much older than her years.

“A shotgun happened to him,” she said flatly.

He didn’t look away, and an infinitesimal nod of understanding passed between them.

She took his chin in her hand and turned his face to the firelight. “You said he was dead – the one who did this to you.”

He nodded as much as he was able within her iron grip. 

“Good.” Her eyes narrowed again. “Dutch kill him?”

“No.”

One eyebrow arched upward. “You?”

He began to answer with another ‘no’ but it got stuck in his throat. Maybe he had killed him, in a way. It’s what his daddy surely died believing. It’s what his nightmares would tell him, night after night, for months. Years. And even though he didn’t believe in heaven he was still afraid there might be a hell, and that one day he’d meet his father there.

He squeezed his eyes shut at the thought, chest heaving in a panic, hands clawing at the sides of the tub as he had a sudden vision of being sucked down under the water, down into the earth, into the fire. Water sluiced across the floor as he tried to climb out, and he slipped, landing heavily on his side, still scrabbling like a fallen deer, barely even seeing the room around him. But then he felt the calm, cool pressure of a palm against his cheek; a towel settling across his shoulders; her arms wrapping around him, like she had no intention of letting him go. And it was as if all his strength just melted out of him. He let her pull his head into her shoulder, let it rest there, even though his wet hair was soaking through her shirt.

She didn’t tell him it would all be alright. She didn’t hush him or rock him or sing to him, or do much else but hold him; let him cry; let him talk when he was ready. About his daddy. About running. About the rope. The grave. Everything.

They sat like that until the fire turned to embers in the hearth. He was yawning every other word by the end of it – the weight of the past few days finally coming to rest – and somewhere between blinks he found himself curled up in a bed wearing a clean nightshirt, the muted sounds of a piano seeping up through the floorboards. And just before his dreams pulled him under - before he slipped into the heaviness of exhausted sleep - a passing thought made the ghost of a smile cross his lips. And later - much later - when he was grown and only a little afraid of her still, he would tell her what he'd reckoned that night: that Grimshaw was a name far better suited to a warrior than a witch.

Chapter Text

He woke to shouting and the slamming of doors, jolting into consciousness with no idea whose bed he was in or why or even where. He tangled himself in the bedsheets trying to escape the remnants of heavy, ominous dreams he couldn’t quite remember, and landed on the bare floorboards with a jarring thud.

Reality hit him just as solidly. A cold, hollow feeling burrowed into his chest as the events of the previous day tumbled down like heavy stone dominos. The shock and adrenaline of it all had worn off into a kind of dull daze. He huddled into a tight ball of bedclothes and blinked the room into focus, flinching at the sound of raised voices downstairs. He recognised Miss Grimshaw’s warning tones, almost daring someone to cross her – yelling something about ‘morning clothes’, whatever that meant. Something about a wagon. Something else he couldn’t catch but was pretty sure it ended in a cuss.  

He wasn’t used to sleeping indoors – certainly not in a bed all his own – and the closeness of the room suddenly felt like a prison cell. The only way out was through the door – in the direction of the increasingly high-pitched shouts – or through the second storey window. Neither was an attractive option, so he found himself scooting backwards until he was under the bed as the voices grew nearer, up the stairs now, in the corridor right outside his door.

“Goddamnit, if that bonnet isn’t in my hands within the next minute I’m gonna start tanning hides…”

The door was shoved open and Grimshaw appeared, clothed all in black, hair pinned up tight, looking like a thunderstorm. Arthur caught a glimpse of a couple of half-dressed figures dashing past the doorway, clearly eager to be out of the warpath. He didn’t understand what she was so angry about but he curled tighter, willing himself invisible, assuming without any shred of doubt that whatever it was, it must be his fault and he would soon be paying for it.

She paused for a moment, temporarily confused by the seemingly empty room, before giving a heavy sigh and bending down to peer under the bed. The tiniest of smiles curved her lip but she did her best to quell it with a scowl.

“Mr Morgan, are you a chamber pot?” she asked mildly.

He stared back at her, open mouthed, and dumbly shook his head.

“Then you’ve got no business being under the bed. C’mon now, get out from there.”

When he didn’t move immediately, she tilted her head ever so slightly and he quickly came to realise that a person did what Miss Grimshaw told them to without question.

He scrambled out and they stood there for a moment, considering one another – him barefoot in a borrowed nightshirt and her… all trussed up for a funeral it looked like. He was about to ask why when one of the girls came hurrying in carrying a black, lace-trimmed bonnet which she passed to Miss Grimshaw with a kind of guilty reverence.

Grimshaw snatched it out of her hands and shot the girl a deadly glare, “Just turned up, did it? Funny how that happens…”

The girl attempted a sheepish smile but fast decided it was better to just get the hell out of there and scurried back out the door. Arthur had half a mind to follow after her but Miss Grimshaw was already turning her attention on him, fussing over his bedhead with a disapproving purse of her lips.

“You’d better get yourself dressed,” she said, turning to the mirror in the corner and carefully pinning the bonnet into her hair. “I’ve got some business to take care of but I’ll be back this afternoon. Charlie’ll give you some work to do in the meantime. Just don’t let Jackson see you.”

He opened his mouth in an attempt to ask one of the thousand questions he had cluttering up his head, but she turned and fixed him with a sharply pointed finger to the chest. “And don’t go nowhere, y’hear me? At least ‘til we’ve figured out what we’re gonna do with you.”

He nodded again. He didn’t know where he would possibly go, even if he had the balls to defy her. There was nowhere and no one on this earth that wanted him.

She countered his despondency with a tut of her tongue and pressed a stack of freshly-laundered clothes into his hands. They were his own, but unrecognisable – clean and mended and smelling of sharp lye soap.

“I’ll be back later,” she said, more gently this time, making a few final adjustments to her bonnet. “Just mind yourself ‘til then, all right?”

He got the feeling that she wasn’t going to leave without an answer, so he mumbled a: “Yes, Ma’am,” and she gave him one final nod before sweeping out the door, looking more like a grand duchess than a whorehouse Madame.

The rest of the house seemed to be just waking up, even though it must have been late morning, and the sounds of cooking and chatter drifted up from downstairs. In the warm haze of the evening before, the bedroom had seemed warm and safe, but now it just felt like one more place he didn’t belong, stinking of other people’s sweat and stale beer. He considered the window again but it was far too high to jump, and as much as his every instinct was telling him to flee – to rabbit up into the woods like he’d planned – he was firmly under Grimshaw’s spell and knew he had to do as she said.

He dressed quickly, more to keep out the chill than anything, and found his clothes felt strange without their usual grime – the well-worn softness replaced by stiff, rough fabric that scratched at the back of his neck and underarms. He pouted at the sour-faced boy in the mirror; winced at the sickly brown and yellow bruising around his eye; picked at the scab on his lip and set it to bleeding again. He licked it clean, felt his belly rumble at the cheap trick, and figured if nothing else he should see if he could scavenge up another plate from the kitchen.

Downstairs, the smell of coffee warmed the air, bolstered by grits and bacon, and the boy let his stomach take the lead, sending him creeping into the kitchen where the cook maintained his position at the stove, as if he’d never left it. Arthur was loitering at the bottom of the stairs, summoning up the gumption to pull at the man’s sleeve to get his attention, when a crowd of saloon girls in various states of undress suddenly appeared at the common room doorway, staring and giggling at him like he was some kind of circus animal.

“Here he is, Grimshaw’s pet!”

“Oh, just look at him. Wanna come sit with us, sweetie?”

“Charlie, get him something to eat. Poor thing’s rag ‘n’ bone.”

Arthur froze, eyes wide, face reddening as the girls whispered something between them and dissolved into laughter. Charlie let out a tired sigh and swept the boy behind him with one thick arm, not even pausing in his rhythmic stirring of the pot.

“Ah, leave him alone, won’t ya?” the cook grumbled, perhaps prompted by some sort of male solidarity, what with the pair of them being so severely outnumbered by the women. He piled up a breakfast plate for the boy and sent him to sit on the stoop out back as the girls carried on their teasing from a distance, peppering Charlie with questions about the new arrival that he answered with a series of non-committal shrugs.

Arthur pretended he couldn’t hear them. All the attention made his ears hot and the back of his neck prickle, and he put all his focus into his food in an attempt to try to block out the bickering of the adults behind him. It was an easy distraction – he’d eaten more by the charity of strangers the past few days than his father had fed him in a week. And if there was one useful thing his daddy had taught him, it was to never pass up the opportunity for a free meal. Because you never knew when you’d be on the run again.

That habitual restlessness was ingrained in him, it seemed. An uncertainty that made settling a struggle. Every time the girls laughed a little too sharply, or Charlie brought down his chopping knife a little too loudly, or a door slammed, or a dog barked, or a train whistled, or a goddamn cockerel squawked, the boy would jolt, his spoon clattering against his plate. He didn’t really understand why these people were helping him and feeding him and cleaning his clothes and letting him sleep in a real bed all to himself, and the part of him that had been poisoned by his father’s blood couldn’t help but wonder when it was going to end. Or what they might be expecting in return.

His wondering was answered soon enough. He’d barely finished his food when Charlie came clomping out, still chased by the voices of catcalling women, and whisked the empty plate out of his hands, replacing it with a stiff-bristled brush and a dirty cloth.

“Grimshaw said put you to work,” the man said gruffly, jerking his chin at the pile of pots and bowls stacked in the sink behind him.

Arthur followed his gesture and was relieved to see that the girls were beginning to drift back upstairs, yawning, bored of their little game.

He nodded. Grateful for the simple transaction. Grateful of the chance to prove his usefulness; hoping that maybe, if he did a good job, they’d at least let him stay until the next meal. Grimshaw’d said she’d be back by the afternoon – if he could just stay out of trouble ‘til then…

Then what? his father’s voice sneered inside his head. They’ll take you on as a kitchen boy? A whorehouse mascot? They don’t want you hanging around any more’n I did.

The boy scowled at his own brain for conjuring up the words it knew would torture him. Scowled because he knew it was right. He’d seen it in Miss Grimshaw’s eyes the night before – a weariness he’d mistaken for sympathy. The warning look that’d passed between her and the cook when they’d taken him in. He wasn’t meant to be here. The saloon owner, Jackson, whoever he was, wasn’t meant to know he even existed. Arthur didn’t know what kind of man this Jackson was, or what might happen if he discovered a random orphan in his kitchen, but he could see Charlie keeping one uneasy eye on the common room as they cooked and scrubbed, side by side.

He wished Grimshaw were here. Charlie seemed to be begrudgingly tolerant of the boy, but Arthur doubted the cook would stand up for him if his job was on the line.

“Where’d she go?” the boy asked, breaking the silence and eliciting another grunt from the cook. “Miss Grimshaw, I mean.”

“Don’t know and don’t wanna know,” Charlie mumbled, with a shrug of his wide shoulders. “She does what she wants. Ain’t no business of mine.”

So that’s how it was. Arthur didn’t pursue it. Tried not to worry. Told himself she’d be back. She wouldn’t have just upped and left. Dutch had promised she’d help. He just hoped he wasn’t getting them all into trouble by sticking around.

As the morning wore on, they fell into a quiet, companionable sort of rhythm. Arthur was used to this kind of menial work – his father had always made sure he’d earned his keep – and there was something calming about it, distracting him from all the worries buzzing in his skull. Scrub. Rinse. Dry. Repeat. This, at least, he couldn’t screw up.

Once the dishes were done, Charlie sent him out to feed the hogs and showed him how to sweep the ashes out of the big kitchen fireplace before setting him on the stool in the corner with a sack of potatoes and a peeling knife.

Around the same time the cook slipped out into the yard for a smoke, the girls made a grand appearance on the stairs once more – only this time they were made up for the working day after dozing through most of the morning, descending in a cloud of perfume and chatter and petticoats. They filled the kitchen with colour and noise, trapping the boy firmly in the corner, and this time there was no Charlie to save him.

“That lazy son-of-a-bitch makin’ you do all his chores?” one of them said, her peach-pink dress almost the exact same tone as her rouged cheeks.

“Got you working like a dog, poor baby,” said another with a theatrical downturn of her lip, snatching the knife out of his hands and sticking it point-down into the sideboard so it quivered. “How’d you like to earn a nickel?”

Arthur looked desperately out of the window for the cook, but the man was pointedly ignoring the situation, having seemingly reached his limit of responsibility for the boy and unwilling to challenge the she-wolves surrounding him.

“Charlie! We’re borrowing your boy!” the one in the peach-coloured dress hollered, and the rest of them hooted and snorted when the cook’s old familiar grunt came back in reply.

Arthur, apparently, didn’t get a say in any of this. They dragged him off the stool and herded him into the common room where they talked all at once, a mile a minute, tasking him with a list of errands he could barely keep track of – mailing a scented letter to a sweetheart across town; picking up parcels from the post office; retrieving a lost earring from beneath the front step; buying cigarettes and treats from the general store – each of them insisting that their job was more important than the others, promising him pennies and candy and even kisses as a reward.

Arthur eventually extricated himself, trying his best to remember all the different orders and requests as he stumbled out of the saloon, desperately relieved to be out in the open air for a while. His pockets jangled with coins – the girls had given him more than enough to pay for all their errands – and he felt a little dizzy at the prospect of having so much money at his fingertips. A calculating part of him – that Lyle Morgan blood again – said: There’s far more here than they’re promising to pay you... Enough for another train ticket and then some. He could be gone before they even realised what had happened. Not that he knew where he might go, or what he’d do when he got there. A handful of small change wasn’t going to get him very far... And another part of him – an unfamiliar part that left an ache in his chest when it caught him thinking like his daddy – said: Why is your first thought to cross these people when all they’ve shown you is kindness?

The girls had trusted him with their money. Grimshaw had trusted him to stay put. They didn’t even know him and they’d put more faith in him than his father had ever done.

He pulled his hands out of his pockets like he’d been burned, making fists at his sides. His cheeks flushed hot, as if the word THIEF was emblazoned on his forehead for everyone to see.

His eyes darted about the thoroughfare but no one was paying any attention to a scruffy boy with a frown as deep as a canyon. No one could read his mind and see what was written there: the long list of crimes he’d be committing if his daddy were here right now.

It came all too naturally to him, as if temptation waited on every corner. Unattended saddlebags slung over a hitching post. The pockets of distracted card players in the saloon. Windows open just wide enough for a small boy to slip through… Arthur’s eyes were trained to spot an opportunity; his fingers trained for thievery, for pickpocketing, for sleight of hand; his brain trained to almost crave the rush of risk and fear, for the cold thrill of getting away clean - the only time his father had ever seemed pleased with him.

Lyle’s favourite ruse – and Arthur’s most hated – was a little performance he liked to call ‘the lost lamb’, in which the boy would wander into a store or down the street, weeping and wailing, all forlorn, pretending to be looking for his papa. While the boy accumulated a crowd of kind-hearted souls, his daddy would capitalise on the distraction, cutting purses, picking locks, or emptying cash registers. It was an effective set-up, and Lyle employed it as often as he could, trying to make the most of his son’s temporary misery - “before you get too old and ugly for anyone to care about your whining.”

It was Arthur’s least favourite trick for several reasons. Firstly, to make it more realistic, his father would pinch and slap him to set him off crying, leaving his cheeks red and his upper arms covered in bruises. The boy was no actor but he didn’t have to try hard to seem miserable and lost after such a thorough preparation. Secondly, people seemed to genuinely want to help him – women especially – and their misplaced sympathy made his stomach twist with guilt, as if his conscience lived in his belly, knowing that he didn’t deserve any of their concern.

That old familiar ache sat there in his guts now; it followed him all around the town as he worked through his list of chores, even though he had no intention of double-crossing the saloon girls. He hadn’t had much of what you’d call a religious education but he figured it was what sin must feel like. A weight you never got rid of, no matter how much you tried to balance it out. A blemish you could never quite hide. A stain you couldn’t scrub away. And sooner or later, people were bound to discover it.

By the time Arthur got back to the saloon it was getting on for mid-afternoon and the bar was already filling up, though there was still no sign of Miss Grimshaw. He made sure to come in the back way, wary of the bustling common room, and the girls met him in the kitchen with a flurry of rustling skirts and delighted exclamations. Charlie made gruff, unimpressed noises at having so many people cluttering up his territory but the girls ignored his grumbling, making a grand fuss over Arthur, ruffling his hair and kissing his cheeks and plying him with liquorice and pennies. He didn’t feel as if he really deserved all the praise – certainly not for some simple fetching and carrying – and for a moment he wondered if they weren’t just making fun of him, but all he could was stand there, blinking dumbly, until they whisked out of the kitchen just as fast as they’d appeared.

Charlie glanced over his shoulder at the boy with a squinting eye and just the barest hint of a smile. “You’ll be after my job next, I expect.”

It took Arthur a moment to realise it was a joke and not a threat, but by then he’d already blurted out a panicked ‘nossir’ that made the cook snort with amusement.

The boy stared at the tiled floor, feeling stupid. The sweets the girls had given him were starting to melt in his hot hands, leaving his palms sticky and his mouth full of saliva.

Charlie gave another little husky laugh. “Well, ain't got no more work for you tonight. Best go enjoy the fruits of your labour,” he said, nodding to the little alcove beneath the Y-shaped staircase in the common room. Just the right size for a small boy with a pocket full of candy to sit and watch the comings and goings of the saloon without being seen.

For a moment, Arthur’s throat seemed to close up with an overwhelming mix of feelings he couldn’t untangle. He shoved a handful of liquorice into his mouth to try to unblock it, and to save him from having to say anything more. The cook gave him an understanding kind of nod and turned back to his stove, and Arthur scuttled off to hide beneath the stairs, chewing furiously and blinking away the tears that threatened to spill. It had been the most confusing few days and he felt as if he’d been picked up by one ankle and shaken all about.

The liquorice was sweet and sickly and a little bitter and it made his teeth hurt, but it had been a long time since he’d had any kind of candy and he planned on eating the whole lot in one go, bellyache be damned. He found himself a comfy spot, leaning against the underside of the stairs, and felt, for just a moment, a kind of contentment.

As the sun dipped towards the horizon, the bar slowly came to life and Arthur watched, unseen from his hiding place as the room filled with men who came to drink away the day’s frustrations; to gamble and argue and laugh and fight and posture and pretend the girls took them upstairs for anything other than payment. He watched the working girls transform from boredom to charm in an instant, defusing disagreements with a well-placed word or touch, raising unspoken red flags between one another when they encountered a man who needed a little encouragement to find someplace else to spend his time, courtesy of Charlie’s sudden looming presence. The boy suspected that had Grimshaw been here, her sharp tongue would’ve done the job just as well.

He couldn’t help but keep one eye on the door – half expecting her to come marching in at any moment, and half hoping to see Dutch and Hosea appear, still dusty from the road, eyes searching him out, eager to admit their mistake in sending him away. Arthur was old enough to know it was a foolish thought, but still young enough to hope – to imagine the scene playing out like an exaggerated pantomime. Dutch would grin and clap him on the back and say he was glad the boy had waited for them. Hosea would offer a quiet smile and a nod, and ask him how he was getting on. And outside, there would be a third horse waiting for Arthur, and a whole wide world to run through. Maybe Miss Grimshaw could come too, perched side-saddle on the back of Dutch’s mare, and that tight, restrained smile of hers might widen into a laugh. Arthur was pretty sure she didn’t hate the man as much as she made out. In fact, he thought it might be the opposite, though he was too afraid to ask.

But it didn’t matter anyhow. It was just a fool’s dream. And no matter how hard the boy stared at the doorway, it wouldn’t make Dutch appear. The clientele was mostly townsfolk, passing travellers, or labourers from nearby ranchers looking for a brief respite. Tired, dull, rundown men. Angry men. Dissatisfied men. Men like his father. And no fairy tale ending was suddenly going to whisk the boy away.

By the time he’d finished his liquorice, the low lull of conversation and the heavy warmth of the evening almost had him nodding off, chin dropping down onto his chest, slow blinks threatening to close his eyes completely – until the sudden mention of his name made him jolt upright, knocking the back of his head against the underside of a stair. Panic gripped him as he looked around for whoever had spoken, and for a moment he wondered if he’d dreamt it until it rang out again, loud and clear and unmistakable: Morgan.

Except it wasn’t his name. It was his father’s – and the man who’d said it spat it out like a mouthful of ditch water. Arthur recognised him immediately, like a shock of icy water down his collar – one of the men from the posse: tall and skinny with a pock-marked face and a scrubby beard, eyes glazed with drink, grinning smugly as he regaled a small, bored audience with the tale of his latest bounty.

A sickening kind of shame replaced the cold flush in Arthur’s chest as he watched the pock-faced man brag about how pathetic a prize Lyle Morgan had been; how easy he’d been to track and take in; barely worth the cost of printing a wanted poster. It was the truth, no matter how hard it was to hear, and Arthur was forced to acknowledge a feeling about his father he’d shoved down deep and hidden for many years: embarrassment. The betrayal of it disgusted him. He’d never have admitted it while the man was alive – wouldn’t have dared to, not even in his own head – but now his daddy was dead, the truth seemed stark and cruel and sort of pitiful. A boy was meant to look up to his father, and not simply for fear of a beating, but Lyle had been hard to admire. Difficult to love. He’d never done anything to be proud of, or aspire to, besides somehow convincing Arthur’s mother to marry him. And even then, Arthur wondered if she’d had much of a choice.

The boy’s memories of his mama were faded and soft at the edges, like the old photograph he kept in his satchel. He’d only been seven when she’d passed, and the parts of her he still remembered were vague and abstract: falling asleep to her gentle fingers stroking his forehead; her sweet but tuneless humming as she hung clothes on a line, white shirts flapping in the wind; her lilting accent, sometimes peppered with unfamiliar words from a different land that he could quite never get his tongue around; lying in her lap, curled up like a cat, as their wagon rattled through a woodland trail; the sharpness of her whisper telling him to hide out back when his father’s yelling reached a dangerous peak; a flower in a jar beside his bed: “to remind us of home,” she’d said, though he was far too young to remember anywhere other than the road.

They’d been travellers for as long as Arthur had known, chased by some debt that tracked his father like a wolf. They’d come to America to cash in on a promise of prosperity but the reality had been harsh and unforgiving. His father’s failure was a shadow that seemed to cast the man in disillusionment, snatching away every chance of happiness and dousing him in paranoia and mistrust. To Lyle Morgan’s mind, all his misfortunes were someone else’s fault, and no matter where he went, bad luck followed him. They never settled anywhere for long before Lyle’s ‘bad luck’ would inevitably raise its ugly head once more – usually prompted by a coincidental bout of drinking or fighting or stealing – and they’d be on the run once more.

The man’s talent for rubbing people up the wrong way was incomparable, except when it came to Beatrice. Arthur’s mother never argued. Never raised her voice. Never questioned her husband’s actions. Never answered back. She was about as different from Lyle Morgan as a person could be – and Arthur had never been able to comprehend how or why she put up with him. Perhaps it was fear. Or a way of protecting Arthur from the worst of his father’s rage. Or perhaps she still held some kind of love for the man her husband had once been. It didn’t matter. It didn’t save her. Eventually, Lyle Morgan’s ‘bad luck’ came for her too, and this time it was fatal.

She was gone in an instant. Arthur never really knew how or why – only that his father had been deep in his drink well before sundown, furious and fuming at his failed attempt at finding work. Ranting about how the odds were stacked against him. How none of those uppity town folk knew what a hard day’s work looked like anyhow. How he was twice the man any of them were. How no one appreciated what he did for this damn family. How they ought to respect him, instead of staring at him like that.

Arthur had known what was coming next. Soon his father would run out of words and start using his hands, or his belt. But his mother had been faster, bundling the boy to his feet and sending him off foraging for berries with a hushed whisper and a strained smile. And he’d let her, knowing that she'd be taking the brunt of his daddy's anger. He’d been happy to escape, to wander down by the stream and watch the waterfowl bicker and preen and tip their tails in the air as they rooted in the weeds. By the time he wandered back into their camp the shouting had stopped, but a strange silence had taken its place. His daddy sat staring into the fire as if he’d seen the very devil in the flames. His mama lay in the back of the wagon, still and quiet and horribly pale, and no matter how much Arthur shook her, he couldn’t wake her up.

He didn’t remember much after that – as if a dust storm swept in and turned everything into a walking haze. He didn’t know where she was buried, or if they’d even held a funeral. He didn’t remember crying – though he’d done plenty since – just his father’s cold fingers on the back of his neck; his father’s dull, bloodshot eyes, boring into his own; his father’s voice, flat and toneless, telling him she’d gotten sick, all of a sudden. That nothing could be done about it. That it was just the two of them now. That she was gone.

His daddy rarely spoke of her afterwards, even though her absence loomed over the both of them like a great black cloud blocking out the sun. Lyle’s grief – or guilt, or both – seemed to hollow him out, ‘til he was more poison than man. And, like his mother before him, Arthur learned it was safer to stay quiet, to take the blame, to keep the peace. He got used to being cold and hungry and tired and afraid, until he couldn’t remember any different.

Even so, the boy found it hard to hate his father. He disliked him plenty, most days. Was afraid of him, almost always. But then there were rare, fleeting moments of kindness that flashed like lightning in the dark. A gentleness that didn’t come natural, but was made all the more precious for it. A hint of regret, sometimes. A gruff apology. A brief, stilted show of affection for his son. A vulnerability that seemed to terrify them both whenever it reared its head, and was quickly quenched by drink or anger or violence, or all three.

Arthur knew it didn’t make sense. That a man could be a monster and something pathetic at the same time. That he could pity him, just as he feared him. He’d never understand that one, not as long as he lived. But at eleven years old, with his father’s loss fresh and raw like an open wound, it didn’t matter. He missed the son-of-a-bitch. His useless, drunken, hate-filled father was all the boy’d had left in the world and he’d been taken from him by a smug, pock-faced idiot who sat there laughing about sending his daddy to the gallows like he wasn’t worth the shit on his shoe.

And all that rage and frustration and shame and confusion came rushing out of him like a flood. He found himself on his feet, fists tight at his sides, heart thudding. He didn’t know exactly what he was about to do, but he could feel something of his daddy’s temper firing in his chest as he made a straight line towards the posseman’s table. The men broke off their conversation when they saw him, at first curious, then perturbed, then laughing uneasily at this silent statue of a boy, standing there with eyes like cut glass.

“You want something, boy?” the pock-faced man said, with that same amused sneer he’d had on his face as he’d shit-talked about his bounty.

What Arthur wanted was his knife, but it was back in the kitchen with his bundle of belongings. What he wanted was to jam the blade right into the man’s throat and watch him choke. What he wanted was his father back, and his mother too, and for things to go back to when he was small enough to be carried on his daddy’s shoulders, or his mama’s hip, and there were hot meals every day and a warm wagon to sleep in with his parents breathing softly either side of him.

But he couldn’t have any of that. He couldn’t even find his own voice to call the man a coward. All he could do was stare, unblinking, feeling the fury peel off his skin like heat, until the posseman’s grin faltered a little.

“You deaf, dumb, stupid, or all three?” the man muttered, shoving the boy back a step, “Go on, get out of here.”

It was like lighting a fuse. Something primal that had lain coiled in the boy’s belly unleashed itself with a monstrous roar and he threw himself at the man, all claws and flailing fists and blind vengeance. The posseman’s chair tipped backwards and the two of them crashed to the floor, upsetting the table and sending glasses and bottles and cards raining down all around. Arthur was vaguely aware of shouting voices and shuffling feet and a crowd closing in on their struggle, but all his attention was on the man beneath him. In a contest of strength, the pock-faced man outmatched the boy twice over, but Arthur had the element of utter surprise on his side, and he sat on the man’s chest and pummelled wildly at every part of him he could reach. It was all the posseman could do to try to cover his face with his arms, and for a moment Arthur saw himself from a distance – a wild, scratching, screaming beast, trying to tear its prey to pieces.

And then he was being lifted upwards, half throttled as someone grabbed hold of the back of his shirt and yanked backwards. He stumbled and was caught by rough hands that held him fast and slapped him hard across the face when he tried to scramble back into the fray. The strike snapped his head to the side and re-opened the cut on his lip, filling his head with white cotton.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man holding him demanded, but Arthur’s ears were still buzzing and his vision was blurry, and there was no logical or reasonable answer to give anyhow. It didn’t much seem like his captor cared to know, either. The man was stocky and red-faced, dressed in a fine navy-blue suit, and he looked down at the boy with perplexed disdain. “Who let this little shit in here?”

Mutterings of denial rippled around the room – all eyes on the boy. Arthur saw Charlie at the kitchen doorway, brow furrowed with concern, but the cook didn’t speak up. A trio of girls stood on the stairs, clutching at the handrail, watching the scene with shocked dismay, but not one of them said a word either.

Of course they wouldn’t. Not for a half-crazed boy who they’d barely known a day. They’d given him the benefit of the doubt and he’d ruined it all in an instant. His father’s son indeed.

The boy looked back at the posseman, still lying on the floor, half-propped up on his elbows, one hand stemming a bloody nose, and felt a sliver of gratification that some of his hits had connected, at least.

“You got nothin’ to say for yourself?” the suited man barked in the boy’s face, shaking him by the shoulders until his head wobbled on his neck like a broken doll. The crowd was staring at him as if he were some sort of animal. And maybe that’s exactly what he was. He smiled back with bloody teeth.

“Goddamn feral…” the posseman spat, shaking his head, “Just came at me outta nowhere.” A few surrounding witnesses nodded and murmured their agreement.

“Take him outside and give him a whoppin’,” suggested one.

“Take him to the sheriff,” said another, “Probably pickpocketed the whole damn place, too.”

At that, the crowd reacted like a well-trained sideshow audience and filled the air with jeers and curses. Someone turned out his pockets and his hard-earned coins clattered the floor to a round of outraged gasps. The man holding him hauled him up to his tiptoes by his collar and displayed him to the room like a prize turkey. “I will not stand for this behaviour in my saloon!” he declared, as if he were the goddamn mayor instead of a small town business-owner. “Is no one gonna claim this boy?”

Arthur hung there, humiliated and devoid of hope. Charlie averted his eyes and the girls whispered among themselves, but none of them spoke up to defend him. He didn’t blame them for it, either. But the posseman was watching him curiously, as if perhaps he was beginning to put two and two together, and panic struck the boy like another slap across the face. What if he knew Lyle Morgan had a son? Dutch had said they were looking for an accomplice. What would they do to him if they found out who he was? Would they hang him, too?

The faces surrounding him suddenly felt like a jury, and the walls began to close in, hot and tight and overwhelming. He started struggling again – for his life this time – twisting and squirming out of the man’s grip, scrabbling like a rat through the saloon as the crowd grabbed for him, tearing his sleeves and tripping him on his face. They pinned him to the floor, but still he fought, tears streaking his cheeks, tossing his head from side to side yelling: “let me go!” until his throat was hoarse.

Until a voice he knew came roaring through the chaos and silenced the entire room: “Get off’a him!”

Grimshaw pushed her way through the cluster of goggling townsfolk, dressed all in black like the witch he’d mistaken her for, and her unspoken authority froze everyone in place.

“Let him up,” she ordered sharply, and the hands pressing down on him abruptly lifted. The boy lay there for a second, breathing heavily, fresh tears of relief burning his eyes as the crowd shuffled back and a space cleared around him.

Grimshaw barely even looked at him – her focus was intent on the man in the suit – but when she snapped her fingers at her side the boy got shakily to his feet and came to heel like a dog.

“Now wait a minute–” the man in the suit began, but she ignored him, placing one cool palm on the back of the boy’s neck and whispering out of the corner of her mouth to him:

“Go get your things. There’s a wagon outside. Quick now.”

Arthur hesitated for a moment, expecting someone to stop him, but the people parted before him as he stumbled back through the kitchen to gather up his bundle of belongings.

“You wanna tell me what in hell’s name is going on, Susan?” the suited man said, his face reddening with frustration as he spluttered out a stream of questions: “Who is that brat? Where have you been? And what on earth are you wearing?”

The boy paused in the doorway, unable to take his eyes off Grimshaw, who stood there with perfect poise in the face of the man’s interrogation. “The boy is my responsibility, Mr Jackson, and you won’t lay another hand on him,” she said in a clipped tone, joining Arthur at the door and repeating what she’d said to the boy that very morning. “I need to take care of some business out of town. I’ll be back this evening. I trust you can handle things until then.”

The man stood there, stunned, his mouth opening and shutting soundlessly, his face flushing an ever-deeper shade of crimson. A few bystanders broke the spell, sniggering and whispering, and it seemed to snap Jackson out of his incredulous shock. He was almost shaking with rage and jabbed a warning finger at her, but still couldn’t quite regain control over his tongue: “You… you… goddamn… disrespectful… woman. Acting like you’re in charge…”

Arthur felt Grimshaw drawing herself up to her full height beside him, watched her eyes narrow into slits, and in that moment he wouldn’t have traded places with Jackson for all the world. “That’s because I am, and you know it,” she replied in a hushed voice that promised a world of pain to anyone who dared disagree.

No one did. Jackson looked as though he were about to rupture something, but he didn’t have time to say a single word more – Grimshaw swept the boy out of the saloon and up onto the waiting wagon, and with a neat snap of the reins, they jolted down the thoroughfare and left the town of Westbury staring after them.

Chapter Text

They drove a long while before either of them spoke again, down the dusty road south out of Westbury and through the woods to the other side where the plain stretched up towards the horizon for miles.

Arthur could feel Grimshaw trembling a little beside him. Not from the cold, but from all that power she’d drawn out of herself to stand up to her boss, he reckoned. He was shivering himself, now that the fire of his anger had quenched itself. And without it, feeling began to return to his numb fingers and toes; his split lip stung something awful and he ached all over from being tackled to the floor. He felt sick at the thought of what they might’ve done to him if Grimshaw hadn’t turned up when she did – couldn’t help but imagine a rope tightening around his neck, his legs kicking for purchase as it pulled taut and left him dangling …

He resisted the urge to scoot closer to the women on the wagon bench beside him. She wasn’t soft and quiet like the memory of his mother but she held a different kind of comfort: the hard line of her mouth when she’d stood up to Jackson; the steel in her eyes when she’d said, “You won’t lay another hand on him.” Something formidable that couldn’t be shaken.

He wanted to thank her, too – for saving him. Again. And apologise for all the trouble he’d gotten her into. But he was afraid to break the silence. He figured she must still be angry, the way she sat stock upright, glaring ahead as if her eyes might burn a hole in the road, and he didn’t fancy her turning that stare on him.

There was an old familiar tug of shame in his guts as he risked a look sideways at her. He’d made a fine mess of things and they both knew it. He was surprised she didn’t just dump him off the cart right here, in the middle of nowhere, and be done with him.

She caught him looking and let out a long, tired sigh, easing up on the reins and letting the horses set their own pace for a while as she turned in her seat to face the boy. In the half-light he couldn’t quite gauge her expression – part curious and part… amused?

“So,” she said at last, with a tut of her tongue, “You gonna tell me why you were fightin’ like a wildcat back there? Thought I told you to lie low.”

Another layer of guilt rested in his guts. He scuffed his boots against the foot-board. He hadn’t been thinking of Grimshaw’s orders when he’d launched himself at the pock-faced man. Hadn’t thought of much besides the righteous hatred that fuelled him. But that was gone now, given way to cold humiliation at what a fool he’d been – how close he’d come to getting himself caught.

Grimshaw sighed again when the boy said nothing. “He deserve it, at least?” she asked.

He met her eyes, then - jaw half-clenched so his words came out forced. This he could answer. “He was talking shit about my pa.”

She pursed her lips at that, arching one eyebrow. “I see. And was it worth it? Seems like you came off a little worse in this deal, don’t you think?”

He shrugged roughly. “Made him bleed, didn’t I?”

“Uh huh. And riled up a whole mob while you were at it…” She watched him a moment more before turning back to the horses with a thin smile. “Word of advice, Mr Morgan. Don’t let your pride do your thinkin’ for you. Or you’ll spend your whole life fightin’.”

He didn’t have a reply to that. But a part of him thought that even a lifetime of fighting couldn’t satisfy the beast of rage that lay in his belly.

“Honestly,” she muttered, shaking her head, “I leave you alone for a few hours…”

He wanted to protest that it’d been more than a few hours – almost the whole damn day – and he’d tried to be good, done everything Charlie asked him, run all those errands for the girls, and how it wasn’t about hurt pride anyhow. It was about standing up to the kind of people who tried to grind you into the dirt. It takes strength to stay upright when this world beats you down, Dutch had said. And Arthur had damn well tried to. Just like Grimshaw, standing up to Jackson. Was it really all that different, what he’d done? And maybe, if she hadn't disappeared and left him to fend for himself all that time, maybe none of this would have happened at all.

But he couldn’t put all that into words – and he was well aware of just how thin the ice he stood upon was – so he let the quiet seep back between them for a moment before choosing his next question a little more carefully.

“Where did you go?” he asked her quietly.

She made an impatient tsking sound and snapped at the reins. “Where do you think, boy? Trying to get you out of all this. Get you set up somewhere. You can’t very well stay at the saloon – especially now.”

His heart sank a little. Before his scuffle with the posseman there had been a brief moment where he’d imagined staying on with Grimshaw and Charlie and the girls. Becoming part of the household. A place that was warm and familiar and straightforward. And even though he’d known it was an idle dream – just as unlikely as Dutch and Hosea coming back to claim him – the reality still stung.  

“Well, where we headed to, then?” he asked, peering out into the darkness for some kind of clue.

The sky was fast dimming from purple to a deep blue, and as his eyes adjusted to the changing light Arthur could see a line of mountains breaking up the horizon to the east. He didn’t recognise the country – a mix of grass and scrubland broken up by small stands of trees and a winding river. Westbury lay far behind them now, obscured by the forest. A shiver of apprehension ran through him – or perhaps it was the chill of the evening.

“Somewhere you can’t get into any more trouble,” Grimshaw answered, shooting a sharp, meaningful glance at him. “I’ve made arrangements. Somewhere proper.”

He didn’t quite understand what that meant but he held his tongue. It wasn’t as if he had a choice about any of it. But the way she said ‘arrangements’ made him nervous.

“You comin’ too?” he said, in a small, hopeful voice.

She snorted, looking askance at him. “I gotta go back and clear up that mess you left behind you.”

He blinked up at her incredulously. He’d half assumed there would be no going back for either of them. His daddy had always run after causing a ruckus, leaving a trail of disaster behind him, and the boy couldn’t imagine having the guts to go back and try to smooth things over. Jackson had been furious. And she’d pretty much called the man out in front of the whole saloon.

“But… You… Jackson said… Won’t you lose your job?”

Grimshaw let out a barking laugh that made him jump. “It’ll take more’n that to get rid of me,” she said, with the first real smile he’d seen on her. “Jackson’ll get over it. Just need to calm him down some. Man likes to imagine he runs the place, that’s all.”

He couldn’t tell if she were lying for his sake, or if he really couldn’t tell the difference between a disaster and a minor disagreement. The world had never made much sense to him, but since his daddy died it had been downright incomprehensible.

“Why’re you helpin’ me?” he blurted, almost angry at the confusion of it all.

She was silent for a short while, considering the question carefully, and then her voice lowered just a touch. “Well… Dutch, I guess.”

He wasn’t sure in the low light but he thought she might be blushing. If she was, she tried to hide it with another tut and a roll of her eyes.

“Dutch and his Robin Hood delusions...”

Arthur didn’t know what that meant either, but he didn’t want to interrupt. Her expression had taken on a thoughtful, almost mournful set.

“But,” she sighed, “for all his many faults, he’s got a good heart. Or good intentions, at least. S’pose it must have rubbed off on me.”

And there was that sly sideways smile again. She nudged him with a bony elbow. “Better make the most of it, ‘fore I change my mind.”

Arthur suspected she had a lot more goodness in her than she let on. And Dutch – well, the boy barely knew him. Sure, he’d been awed by the flashy demeanour of the mysterious man on the tall black horse, but Miss Grimshaw had been the one to show her colours when it mattered. He figured if he grew up to be half as tough and a quarter brave as her, he’d be lucky.

The next time he looked up there were lights ahead – a large cluster of low dwellings glowing with yellow lamps. At first, he thought it must be another town from the sheer size of it, but as they got closer he realised it was one sprawling farm, probably half the size of the whole of Westbury.

“Templeton Ranch,” Grimshaw announced grandly. “I have a… friend there. Owes me a favour. He’s put a word in with the overseer for you.”

The boy tried to look grateful, but the thought of being on his own again – of saying goodbye – made him feel sick.

She watched him for a moment, her forehead ruffled with a frown, and then her voice took on a gentleness he hadn’t heard before, “You like animals, Arthur?”

He nodded slowly. “I like… horses?”

“Well, there’ll be plenty o’ horses there,” she said, nodding down at the settlement ahead of them. 

Sometimes he thought he might like horses more than he liked people; the way they talked to you without having to say words, with their movements and their noises and their looks. The way they seemed to know what you were thinking, just from the tiniest shift in position. And that you could learn to read their minds, too – from the flick of an ear or a roll of the eye or a twitch of a muscle. That delicate, unspoken understanding from an animal that asked no more of you than to be kind and patient. It was what he thought the word peace might feel like.

Back when his ma was still with them, a gentle grey boy called Mason had pulled their wagon. The most patient of beasts. Let Arthur ride him long before he was really big enough and never once got uppity. His daddy had sold that old faithful horse, along with the wagon, after his mama died, and Arthur had cried for near three days. And maybe he’d been crying for his mother, too, but in that nightmare daze of a time, the loss of the animal seemed to be far more real.

After that, their steeds had mostly been stolen or traded – none of them matched ol’ Mason’s temperament but Arthur had never met a bad horse, and he took care of ‘em all the same. It was a chance for a moment of quiet, to go and brush down their coarse, dusty coat, make sure they were fed and watered and calm. He’d talk to them, sometimes, in a low whisper that his daddy couldn’t hear. Tell them they were good horses, no matter what crimes they unwittingly got caught up in. Tell them he’d never whip ‘em or mistreat ‘em or run ‘em too hard. Tell them he’d look after ‘em. He’d give them names, too, even though his father said it was stupid. Good, strong names like Charger and Bracken and Lucille and Pepper. And he remembered all of them.

Pepper had been the last – a piebald mare who loved mushrooms and was scared of the river – but she was taken as part of the bounty when they hauled his daddy in. Arthur had seen her there, behind the sheriff’s office, and had half-considered taking her back once the hanging was done. Maybe he would have, too, if Dutch hadn’t scooped him up and carried him off. Maybe it had been a blessing. Maybe he’d have gotten caught and hanged for stealing his own damn horse… Now wouldn’t that have been a legacy to follow in his father’s footsteps?

Regardless, poor Pepper was long gone now. And Grimshaw was right – there were plenty of horses here indeed. A whole ranch-full. Cattle, too. And a bull, out in a pen of his own. A few goats and sheep out to graze on the periphery. A yapping dog, somewhere unseen. He gazed down over the land and couldn’t count high enough to cover all of the animals he saw there. He’d have to learn to talk to more than just horses, it seemed.

A quiet sort of hopefulness crept into his belly as they drew nearer. A tentative wondering that this might not be a bad place to be after all.

Before he had time to doubt it, the track began to wind down towards a wide wooden archway at the entrance of the ranch. Two men stood there, waiting for the wagon to arrive.

Grimshaw took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter. “Well?” she said to the boy, before they came within earshot of the ranchers, “You ready?”

He attempted a nod, his head jangling with nerves. He hadn’t been ready for anything that had happened to him in the past few days but that hadn’t made a blind bit of difference. And it was too late anyhow. As they pulled up to the arch, one of the men waved the wagon to a stop and took hold of the horses, nodding in a familiar way to Grimshaw. The other man tipped his hat and offered the lady a hand down from the wagon, which she took with a graceful little dip of her head. The boy gathered up his things and scrambled down beside her.

Except suddenly she wasn’t Miss Grimshaw any more – she’d transformed, the moment they’d reached the ranch, into someone else entirely. Her voice sweetened and raised in pitch, completely unlike her usual flat, sardonic tone. She kept a faint, strained sort of smile on her face, as if she were trying her hardest to stay polite, despite some deep, inner sadness. And she kept her hand on the man’s arm, leaning in towards him as she spoke, almost as if she was using him to stay upright – as if she were some delicate little thing about to fall. Acting about as different from herself as she could possibly be.

Arthur could only watch in wonderment as she spun a story into the overseer’s ear, and her black outfit finally made sense.

According to this Miss Grimshaw, she was the housekeeper of a hotel in a town the boy had never heard of, and the boy was her late cousin’s son, unexpectedly orphaned and left in her care. Bereft, in mourning, and with barely enough money to hire the wagon that brought them here, she had come to beg for a place for the boy. She couldn’t provide for him with her meagre income and long working hours. He needed a trade and a place to grow into the fine young man she knew he would become – a good, wholesome vocation like ranching. This last part she directed at Arthur, one heavy hand on his shoulder, the other clutching a handkerchief to her cheek, as if she were moments away from being overcome with tears.

It was just this side of melodramatic that Arthur was sure the overseer would squint his eye and call her out, but the man seemed so uncomfortable by her emotional entreaty and the over-familiar touching of his arm that he looked likely to agree to anything she said just to make it all stop.

“I’m sure that’d be fine, Miss, now don’t you worry,” the overseer said quickly, and she all but fell into his arms with gratitude, which made him blush straight through his sunburn. “C’n always use an extra hand,” he added, extricating himself from her embrace and turning to the boy as Miss Grimshaw made a show of attempting to compose herself.

“Sorry for your loss, son,” the man said, and for a moment the boy forgot that part of the tale was true – that he really was an orphan and Grimshaw really was going to leave him here and it wasn’t all just a big performance. He managed a brief nod of appreciation, feeling a pang of guilt in his stomach for being complicit in such a bundle of lies, and wondered just how sympathetic the overseer would be if he knew he was really taking on an outlaw’s boy.

“You’ll get a meal and a bed in the bunkhouse with the other hands. Days are long, but you'll get your Sundays off,” the man continued, “I can only give you half wages ‘til you’re sixteen, though, you understand?”

Arthur blinked. He hadn’t expected to be paid at all. Food and a roof was more than he’d known most of his life, let alone money of his own.

Grimshaw saw his reaction and stepped in smoothly to distract from his blank look. “That’s more than generous of you, sir, and we are ever so appreciative, ain't we, Arthur?”

“Yessir. Yes’m,” the boy said automatically.

The overseer gave him a searching look, the same one Hosea had given when he’d called the boy a simpleton, and turned back to Grimshaw, “You, uh, want me to send the money on to you, Miss?”

And Arthur’s stomach dropped again. He was almost afraid to look up at her. He knew this routine all too well – it was just the same has the ones his father pulled: make the kid look as pathetic as possible, then watch some sympathetic sucker empty their pockets. Arthur supposed it was only fair, to be used as a tool for Grimshaw’s con – after all, she’d done all the work, all the lying, all the performance - she might as well be paid for it. He’d just stood there looking like a sad sack of shit. Seemed that’s all he was really good for. 

But then her hand was curling around his shoulder once more, pulling him in to her side for a brief squeeze. “No,” she said firmly, “No, you keep it aside for him. For when he’s older. And you,” she said, bending down and turning the boy to face her, “You behave yourself. You save up your wages and you earn your keep and you mind your manners, all right?”

And this time her pained look seemed real enough. Not quite tears, but a tension in her jaw that made it hard to smile properly.

This was it then. She was really going to leave him here.

The boy nodded loosely. It was far too late to object and it wasn’t as if he had any other options besides going feral in the woods. He should be grateful, he knew, that he’d been given a second chance at all, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was being passed on again – from his father to Dutch to Grimshaw to this unsmiling man – like some lame mule that no one really wanted.

The overseer was still watching him, something between impatience and awkward pity on his face. He didn’t seem like a bad man. But he didn’t seem all that moved by Arthur’s story either. And he certainly wasn’t agreeing to the arrangement out of the kindness of his heart – more likely, taking advantage of gaining some extra labour for next to nothing.

And Arthur knew this place, whatever it turned out to be, was never going to be a home. But then, he’d had never really had one to begin with. So what difference did it make?

Grimshaw was still holding onto him, her hard hands gripping at his upper arms, her eyes searching his blank face for something – acquiescence, perhaps, instead of resignation – as if she didn’t want to let go.

The overseer cleared his throat. “You, uh, wanna say your goodbyes, we’ll get this wagon turned around.”

Grimshaw nodded her thanks. Arthur stared at the ground so hard he imagined his eyes burrowing a hole right through it.

“This’ll be a new start for you,” Grimshaw whispered beneath the rumbling of the wagon wheels and the clinking of the harnesses. “It’s what you need.”

The boy shrugged. “Don’t know nothin’ about ranches.”

“So, you’ll learn,” she said, a little too brightly to be believed. “You’re a smart kid. You’ll figure it out.”

He didn’t know how to react to that. He’d been told the opposite all his life by his father. Dumb, foolish, stupid, dirt-for-brains, idiot child. He didn’t recognise the boy she thought she saw in front of her.

Her fingers were digging into his arms now, and her words came quicker, more forceful, as if she were trying to shake some sense into him, “Now, listen to me. You stay out of trouble, okay? No fightin’. No stealin’. No cheatin’. You’re out of that life, so stay out. Start over. Work hard. Show the world you’re better than where you come from.”

He looked up at her, finally. Her eyes were fierce and brimming with water, and he felt a sharp pang in his chest for ever doubting her intentions.

He didn’t quite understand why she believed he could do any of that but found he didn’t want to let her down. He nodded. He would try, at least. Try to stay upright.

“Will I see you again?” he asked her, in a tiny voice that cracked just a little.

She smiled faintly. “I ‘spect so.”

The way she said it made him sure she was lying, but he forced a smile in return. Wished he could swallow down the lump in his throat enough to say thank you, at least.

But the men had gotten the wagon facing back up the track and the overseer was waiting politely, if a little impatiently, back at the gate.  

Miss Grimshaw straightened up and a look of panic crossed her face. “Wait, I almost forgot,” she said, and darted over to the wagon, pulling out something dark and oval from under the seat. “Got something for you…”

Before she’d even half way back to the boy he recognised exactly what it was and let out a sudden pained breath as she placed his father’s weathered leather hat into his hands. It smelled like sweat and moonshine and fire smoke and the ghost of his daddy. The boy ran his fingers over the smooth cowhide and the double braided cord that wrapped around the rim in disbelief – as if it were his father himself risen from the grave.

There were no words. Nothing else in the world for a moment besides the object in his hands.

And, when he turned it over, he found something tucked into the inner band – a photograph he’d never seen before; and a face he knew better than any other. His father stood against a wall holding a chalkboard that bore words Arthur couldn’t read, and stared into the camera with eyes that pierced straight though the black and white image and into the boy's ragged heart. 

Grimshaw pressed a palm into the boy’s cheek and another gasping sob escaped him as he finally remembered to take in another breath.

“Be well, Arthur Morgan,” she said, and before either of them could start to crying in earnest, she turned towards to the wagon and she did not look back.

And as the shadows of the evening were swallowed up by the dark,  the boy followed the overseer to the bunkhouse, holding his father’s hat between his palms like a prayer.

Later – years later – still wearing the self-same hat upon his head, Arthur asked her how the hell she’d managed to get hold of it.

And Susan Grimshaw had turned her wry smile upon him, lit up a cigarette, and told a tall tale.

The morning she’d left the saloon in a whirlwind of fury, she’d paid a visit to the sheriff who’d had his daddy hanged. Used the same grieving damsel act she’d used on the overseer. Driven all the way over there and marched right into his office wearing her finest mourning clothes, told him she was Lyle Morgan’s only living relation – some sister-in-law or distant cousin or something – and demanded the right to his personal effects. Threatened to hire a lawyer and all. Given him the full force of that righteous Grimshaw wrath.

Arthur could imagine just how quickly the sheriff must have given in, faced with all that, and kinda wished he’d been there to see it.

There’d been no money, of course – only the photograph they’d taken on his arrest, and, with a little wheedling, the man’s hat, which had been set aside by some sharp-eyed deputy who knew decent leatherwork when he saw it.

And she’d done all that for him. So he'd have something that was his very own. Said she'd reckoned that old battered hat’d probably mean something to a little boy with nothing to remember his father by but curses and bruises.

And maybe, she said, stubbing out her cigarette with a decisive twist, it might remind that boy of what kind of man he was aiming to better.

Chapter Text

He spent the best part of a year there, all in all. Not counting the times he tried to run away.

And if life on the ranch taught him one thing, it was something he’d secretly known in his heart from the moment his mother died – that no one on this earth gave two shits about him.

Templeton ranch was full of rough men, rough jobs, long days and hard work. Arthur was expected to do as he was told and not complain, but he was used to that, at least. He shovelled a lot of crap. He dug a lot of holes. He fed and watered and brushed the horses and raked the yard and fetched and carried all damn day long until someone passed him a bowl of thin stew and he sank into his bunk without really pausing to taste it.

No one bothered to pay much attention to a scrawny boy with a permanent scowl on his face, so long as he didn’t answer back. There were a few older boys who tried to press him for gossip when he first arrived – curious as to where he came from and why – but they soon got bored of him too, getting nothing but grunts for their efforts. That first night, a rumour went round that the kid couldn’t speak at all, until one of the more patient farm hands managed to coax a response out of him, a few words at a time. But mostly, he was left alone to puzzle out the circumstances that had brought him here, and slowly come to the conclusion that he had been well and truly abandoned.

For weeks, he watched the road for Grimshaw but she didn’t come. He scoured the horizon for a pair of outlaw riders but they never appeared. And despite intermittent moments of kindness from his fellow labourers – a “good job, boy” or an extra slice of cornbread at supper – he decided that it was better not to trust people any more. Sure, folk pretended to be decent but, deep down, they only really thought of themselves. And no one had sympathy to spare for some cast-off kid. He remembered all too well how Charlie and the girls had stood and stared when Jackson had collared him. How nobody moved to help. How Grimshaw had done her best to clean him up and feed him up but then passed him on like a stray dog. How Dutch and Hosea had taken one look at him and put him straight on a train for the next poor sap to deal with.

His father had been telling him as much for years. Don’t trust nobody. Ain’t no good intentions that don’t come at a cost. This damn world don’t care about forgiveness, so you might as well take what’s owed to you, ‘cause ain’t nobody gonna give you nothin’.

He started to wonder if his daddy had been right all along. And no one tried to prove otherwise.

He skirted around the other workers as much as possible, getting on with his work with as little interaction as he could manage. The other boys made no real effort to include him in their card games and pranks, besides using him as the butt of whispered jokes, but it only took one attempt to steal his father’s hat for them to discover that the quiet, skinny little boy fought like a cornered cougar. He gave one of them a black eye and bloodied another’s nose before the older labourers split up the fight, half entertained and half disturbed by Arthur’s ferocity. He got a thick ear and a stern warning from the overseer, and was sent to bed with no dinner, but at least the boys left him alone after that.

He retreated even further into himself, preferring the company of the animals, and would have slept out in the stables if they’d have let him. He made it his mission to learn every horse’s name, and was appalled to learn that not all of them had one – caught and broken and trained and sold on without anything to differentiate them. And so, he secretly named them – Dusty and Moonlight and Flash and Blackberry – and spent his free Sundays gathering burdock root and mushrooms for treats. He had mixed success with the other animals. He didn’t much like the cows, and they didn't much like him. The sheep had a tendency to butt him when he wasn't looking, but the dogs followed him like he was the Pied Piper. The one-eared ranch tomcat staunchly ignored him during the day, but would creep into his bunk to sleep on the boy’s chest at night. He even left scraps out for the mice that scuttled across the beams of the bunkhouse. And perhaps he would have found a simple kind of happiness there with the animals, if the humans of the ranch hadn’t turned out to be so disappointingly... human.  

He’d been there less than two weeks before the older men started whispering about Grimshaw. As it turned out, her ‘friend’ - the other man who’d met them at the gate and put in a good word with the overseer - wasn’t a friend at all. He was a customer. And he’d loosened up his mouth one night after too much to drink and broken his promise not to tell. What followed was a colourful array of guesses as to Arthur’s origins. Some secret lovechild. Some whore’s brat. Who on earth his father might be… 

The boy overheard their discussions at dinner with his heart stuffed in his throat, waiting for one of them to land on the right target; terrified of what would happen when they did. His food curdled in his stomach and he shoved his bowl away, wanting to crawl under the table and hide. The men’s laughter and increasingly outlandish suggestions grew louder and louder until there was a sudden hush and a whispered reprimand from one of the older ranch hands: “Enough now. Kid’s just over there.” There was a mass rustling of fabric and creaking of benches as they all turned to look, but he kept his head down, staring at the knots in the tabletop until his eyes watered. A few lingering snickers rippled through the workmen, but eventually the conversation turned to other subjects and the sounds of clattering cutlery returned.

Arthur counted to a hundred before slipping out of the barn, a blinding panic tightening his muscles like the cold grip of a deathly hand. He had to leave. They would figure out who he was somehow and he would be strung up just like his daddy. Maybe on the very beam above his head. His stomach churned at the thought and he brought up his dinner into dirt with a great retching groan.

“What’s got you so sick?” came a voice from behind him. It was not a concerned voice – more twisted up with cruel amusement. Arthur looked up with bleary eyes to see one of the other boys, Caleb, standing over him. “Don’t like them talking about your mama like that, huh?”

Arthur wiped his mouth roughly on his sleeve and stood up to his full height, which was still a full head shorter than the other boy. “Ain’t my mama,” he grunted back.

“Ohhh, sure she ain't,” Caleb drawled, kicking soil over the pile of puke at his feet with a distasteful grin. “You grow up in a brothel then? Bet you got some stories…”

Arthur scowled at him, torn between his protectiveness for Grimshaw and the urge to distance himself from the shamefulness Caleb managed to smear his words with. “She ain’t my mama," he repeated, more vehemently this time. "I don’t barely know her.”

Caleb snorted. “Chances are your daddy didn’t neither…”

It took a moment for Arthur to get the joke, and by the time his cheeks coloured more laughter rounded on him as two other boys from the emerged from the evening shadows. Caleb was the eldest and tallest of all of them, almost sixteen and full of frustrated fire and swagger. The others were only a few years older than Arthur and followed their ringleader like scent hounds. One, Henry, was lanky with white blonde hair and a permanent sneer. The other, James, was almost as quiet as Arthur, but no less unfriendly for it. And the lot of them seemed intent in picking up where the older ranch hands had left off.

“So why’d she dump you here then?” Henry prodded.

Arthur ignored him, tried to push past the trio to the bunkhouse, but they formed a barricade, jostling him backwards.

Caleb leaned down to the boy’s eyeline, feigning concern and a babyish voice. “You in some kinda trouble, little rabbit?”

James gave a guttural laugh – his only contribution to most conversations – and Henry clapped a hand to his mouth in mock epiphany. “Maybe his daddy’s right here on the ranch.”

The others crowed and cawed at the suggestion, tossing names back and forth between them and sniggering louder at each one – from Grimshaw’s ‘friend to the overseer.

Arthur tried again to get past them but this time Caleb shoved him hard enough that he was pushed off his feet. He landed with a thud, clawing his hands into the soil and biting his lip to stop the prickling of tears.

Caleb stood over him, hands on his hips, sneering over his shoulder at his little gang. “Nah, see, my guess is his daddy’s dead, seeing as he’s always mooning over that stupid hat of his…”

Arthur threw himself at the other boy before his brain even really registered the words, wrapping his skinny arms around Caleb’s waist and ploughing forward until they both went down in a heap. There was a brief, scrabbling wrestle in the dirt, and miraculously, Arthur came out on top – the older boy left winded and puffing for breath as Arthur sat on his chest – but for once his thoughts weren’t on fighting. Flight was more important right now, and he left Caleb lying there dazed as he scrambled on towards the bunkhouse.

A trio of shouts rang out behind him, but he ignored them, bursting through the door and falling to his hands and knees to retrieve his father’s hat from beneath his bed. But as he turned to leave, a figure blocked the doorway, all silhouette aside from his white blonde hair.

“You’re gonna be in so much trouble,” Henry sneered, but his gleeful expression died a sliding death as Arthur approached him slowly and purposefully, whipping back a fist and knocking the smile right off the boy’s face.

It wasn’t quite enough to knock Henry down, but he staggered, leaving a gap big enough for Arthur to slip through the door and out into the night once more, the strangest sense of calm enveloping him like a cloak.

Caleb still lay in the dirt, propped up on one elbow, making a grand fuss of his injured pride with James fawning at his side. Henry retreated towards them, clutching at his jaw, staring at Arthur as if he were a feral dog. “I’m tellin’,” he whimpered, turning tail and scurrying back to the warm glow of the barn.

Arthur turned his back on all of them. A stretch of darkness lay between him and freedom – the empty courtyard, dusty in the moonlight, and beyond, the perimeter fence. He took a breath, let it out, and started off in the direction he and Grimshaw had come from, a few weeks before.

He ran through the night, sticking to the woodland at the side of the road as much as possible, feeling more and more a fool the further away he got. He’d made a mess of things again. It seemed to be all he was good for. More than once he considered turning back, but the fear of discovery spurned him on, footsore and snot-nosed and bitter-tongued. After the heat of adrenaline had worked itself out of his bloodstream, he came to realise that he hadn’t come off so well in the scuffle with Caleb after all – his ribs ached when he pressed them, and his left eye socket had begun to swell. He hadn't even felt the blows at the time, and hoped he’d at least given the older boy something similar to think about. He didn’t know why they’d picked on him like that. Perhaps he’d played the victim so often for his daddy’s schemes that it was all anyone saw when they looked at him.

The road went on forever, and as the dusky sky gave way to a clear midnight blue, the temperature dropped to a chill. He kept moving to keep from freezing, not even sure he was heading in the right direction any more. Everything looked different in the dark. At every fork in the trail he would find a pole with pointed wooden signs on it, but didn’t have the learning to read them. He took what he thought was the northerly path, towards what he hoped was Westbury, but eventually his legs would carry him no further and dawn found him curled up in the roots of a tree at a crossroads atop a hill. He hadn’t been able to decide on a direction and had slumped against the tree, too tired to even cry, and the night had claimed his consciousness with a shiver.

He woke to the sound of rattling, squeaking wagon wheels that stopped beside him. His limbs were stuck in a stiff knot, and it took him a moment to realise the sound of boots was heading right for him, blinking into the rising sun. He jolted when a shadow fell across his face, followed by a long sigh that stunk of bitter coffee.

“You alive there, little fella?” a wrinkled, peering face asked him. An old man with a handful of teeth and a wide straw hat crouched by the tree, closely followed by a shaggy collie dog who sniffed at Arthur’s feet.

The boy nodded, as though the question really needed answering, and muttered an apology, in case that was necessary too.

“You been out here all night?” the man said, a frown deepening the lines on his face.

Arthur shrugged. The dog moved its sniffing up his legs to his hand, then his elbow, before finally nuzzling into his armpit for good measure. He combed his fingers through its matted fur and breathed in its earthy canine scent. The animal was so warm he wanted to hold onto it forever. Now that his brain had woken up some, it was just coming to realise how cold and wet he was, covered in morning dew, and a shudder ran through him.

The old man gave a tut and creaked his way back upright, gesturing to his wagon. “Well, you're a fair while from home, I reckon. You want a ride someplace?”

Arthur shook his head. He didn’t have the energy left to trust or owe anybody anything. He struggled to his feet, using the tree trunk for support, and the dog cheered him on with a series of soft yips. The boy took a few tentative steps to work the pinpricks out of his muscles, ruffling the collie’s head every time it bounced up against him.

The old man sized him up, unconvinced. “You sure ‘bout that?”

Arthur tried a smile instead of a scowl but he didn’t think it was very convincing. “I’ll be fine,” he muttered, more to himself than anything. He didn’t never want to need nobody's help ever again.

The old fella gave a one-shouldered shrug and another bubbling sigh. “Alright then, kid. Be well,” he said, and turned back to his wagon, whistling for the dog to follow.

Arthur blinked after them, and then at the crossroad sign, which was no more decipherable than it had been the night before. “Wait!” he yelped, as the man clambered up onto the squeaky spring seat. “Which way’s Westbury?”

The old man pointed north-west, where the road curved down towards a settlement nestled between woods and a canyon edge. "Y'almost made it," he said with a gappy rin. 

The boy recognised the town at the foot of the hill clearly in the daylight and felt even more stupid than usual. He’d been so close, just a couple of miles away, but the mask of night had made his tiny world seem vast as an ocean.

The dog barked a farewell and the man tipped his straw hat as the wagon rattled its way down the eastern road, and Arthur nodded his thanks to them both before forcing his feet to do their job and setting off down the hill.

He made it to the edge of town by mid-morning and hid in the woods behind the saloon, waiting for a glimpse of Grimshaw. He wasn’t stupid enough to go knock on the back door – to risk Charlie or one of the girls or that bastard Jackson to catch sight of him – but he had to see her. Had to warn her about the gossip at the ranch. He knew it was a foolish plan to come back to Westbury, and he told himself he was doing it for noble reasons, but the lost, scared, lonely part of him just wanted to see her again. To see a face that cared. 

And, after an hour of crouching in the bracken, he got his wish. She came out yelling something over her shoulder and stomped her way down the steps to the yard, lighting one of her slim cigarellos and propping her elbow on her hip. It took him four attempts to hit the bucket by her feet with a pebble, but the last one connected with a dull but satisfying clang. Her head snapped sideways and she squinted into the trees with those eagle eyes of hers, swearing so blue it made the boy blush when she caught sight of him squatting there.

She tossed her cigarette away, hitched up her skirts, and hurried into the woods muttering a string of curses that ended with the boy’s name. She didn’t stop when she reached him but snatched up his arm and marched them deeper into the trees.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed, once she decided they were far enough away from the saloon. She didn’t wait for him to answer, bending down to examine his dirty face, his road-dusty clothes, and his brand new shiner. “Did you walk all this way? Lord have mercy, what were you thinkin’, Arthur?” His throat was too tight to reply anyway, and she interpreted his silence with suspicion, holding him at arm’s length. “Arthur? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” he insisted, which was partly true. He didn’t start it, at least. And under her stony gaze, the story came tumbling out of him – her so-called friend, telling the men who she really was; all their speculating about his daddy; the boys, messing with him, pushing him down, threatening to steal his hat… It all sounded much less serious when he said it out loud. 

She stopped him there, her soothing hands pressing down on his shoulders as if she were afraid he was about to take off again. “And you ran?” she finished for him. He nodded, wishing she wasn't so calm. So... disappointed. 

"Oh, Arthur..." 

“They know who you are,” he repeated, trying to get across the seriousness of the situation. “They’ll… they’ll figure out who I am, too.”

But she was already shaking her head in that way adults did when they thought you were being a stupid, naïve kid. “They ain’t gonna ever know who you are, Arthur. Don’t you fuss about that. They are gonna be sore that you ran off on them, though.”

He gaped at her. “But… They know you lied.” And his cheeks burned with the memory of the things they’d said about what she did for a living. The things they’d said about her. How he'd felt embarrassed when they'd thought he was her son.

She fixed him with a flat look. “Arthur, you really think the rest of those ranch hands come from happy little families? The lot of ‘em are orphans and runaways and… men with dubious pasts. You think they’re gonna shut the whole place down to chase after one scrappy little kid?”

She said it with a twisted smile, trying to make light of things, but he took it like a slug to the heart. It was just as he’d always known – no one really, truly, cared what happened to him. He could disappear and they wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Maybe they hadn’t even noticed he was gone.

Grimshaw seemed to realise her mistake, seeing the downcast realisation on his face, and gripped him by the back of the neck, forcing him to look at her.

“What I mean is: this ain’t life or death, Arthur. You gotta stop runnin’.”

But running was about the only thing his father had ever taught him. And Lyle had burned that lesson deep into the boy’s soul. 

“Where’m I s’posed to go, then?” he asked miserably.

She straightened up, lifting his chin as she did so. “"You’re going right back to that ranch," she said, in a voice as hard as iron. "You make a mistake, you darn well fix it, Arthur Morgan,"

Chapter Text

Grimshaw sent him back on a delivery wagon with a bundle of food and a candy bar that he ate before Westbury was even over the horizon. There was a letter, too, for him to give to the overseer. He couldn’t read it, even if he’d wanted to, but he assumed it contained more lies to keep him safe – excuses for why’d run and a plea not to punish him too badly for it. Or maybe, judging by the steely look in Grimshaw’s eye as she’d scrawled it out, some sort of threat. Either way, the overseer scanned it over quickly and folded it into his pocket after Arthur handed it to him, nodding at the boy with a practiced look of stern disapproval.

“Well. No more of that, y’hear?” the man said, docked him a week’s wages, and made him shovel horseshit for three days straight.

Arthur didn’t much care about that. He’d expected a beating, or to go without meals, or be chastised in front of the whole ranch, but it turned out no one had time to punish a scrawny little ranch hand who’d run off to the next town for half a day. No one cared enough to bother.

His daddy would have whooped him black and blue if Arthur had ever run away from him, but at least he’d have taken notice. Grimshaw had seemed inconvenienced more than anything. And the ranch had simply gone on without him, as if his existence hardly mattered either way. He was no one’s kid and no one’s concern.

And that was the hardest part of it. It wasn’t that he was poorly treated, it was just that he didn’t belong there. Didn’t want to end up like rest of them: the bored ranch hands with their idle gossip, the old grizzled men and their endless labouring. He couldn’t spend his life here, in one place, living the same day over and over.

Perhaps it was his father’s restlessness, or perhaps it was the fact that he could never stop looking over his shoulder, no matter what Grimshaw said, but it took him a long time to figure out he wasn’t in danger, always looking out for a reason to run. He’d been engineered that way, like those monstrous trains that ratcheted through the plains. Every piece of him, carefully put together to keep moving. He’d been running all his life. His family had been running before he’d even been born – to a new land, after a dream of a better life, away from his father’s mistakes – and now, all this stillness… it just felt wrong.

But he’d promised Grimshaw he would try. He owed her that. And he tried to be grateful, even if she’d only been trying to get rid of him, same way Dutch had. She’d told him to start a new life, start over, work hard. Not to fight. Not to steal. Cause no trouble. To be good. And Lord knows he tried. But it didn’t take him long to realise that the odds were stacked against him.

He lasted almost another year there and spent all of it learning—just not quite what Grimshaw had in mind. He learned that although he might be smaller than the other boys he was faster, wilier, and wasn’t afraid to fight dirty. He learned a kick in the balls might not be noble but it sure was effective on an assailant twice your size. He learned all the best places to hide around the ranch – places only a skinny little boy could sneak and not be found – perched up in the eaves of the cow sheds with the turtle doves, or crouched beneath the old upturned cart at the far end of the grazing field, or lying in the hollow of the dried up stream bed, hidden by the long grasses of the meadow.

He already knew how to take a beating but he learned how to give one right back, and talk a good fight while he was at it. And he learned there was a kind of respect to be found in your opponent. Though he’d never quite call Caleb and the others friends, over time their skirmishes gradually became less vicious and more like sparring, testing each other’s limits and tapping out with something alike to dignity. Not friends, exactly, but not enemies either.

And so, he figured breaking Grimshaw’s ‘no fighting’ rule wasn’t so bad after all. Because he also learned there were a whole lot of rules that adults broke all the time. From his hiding places around the ranch he saw the hands steal from one another’s bunks and plates; watched the overseer haggle down the price of supplies and pocket the difference; saw the owner’s wife sneak into the hay barn with a man who definitely wasn’t her husband; and heard all sorts of talk about Mr Templeton’s ruthless landowning ambitions – buying up tenancies, hiking rents, and muscling out the smaller homesteaders.

Turned out Grimshaw’s pretty painted picture of a wholesome life working the land was just as brutal and ruthless as a life out on the road. 

Turned out that almost everyone was crooked, somehow.

Even Grimshaw. Which is what made his decision to leave easy in the end.  

Two weeks after his first frantic attempt at running away, Miss Grimshaw turned up on a borrowed wagon wearing her Sunday best and half the ranch came out to gawp at her.

She made a good job of acting the lady, perched up there in her bonnet with a spine straighter than the railroad, waiting patiently for someone to come and enquire after her needs. A lady didn’t scramble down into the mud or yell across the yard. She sat primly and was attended to. And sure enough, a few moments later, a ranch hand went to fetch Arthur to tell him his ‘aunt’ had arrived to take him to church.

She was such a good liar that they were two miles out before he realised it was all a ruse. She’d put the genuine fear of god into him, fussing over his dirty face and making an appropriately domestic scene about the state of his shirt, demanding that he go dunk his head in the water butt before he got anywhere near the wagon. He hadn’t been to church since his mother died and his nerves had him stammering about whether he’d have to sing or the fact that he didn’t know no prayers or nothing proper and Grimshaw had laughed so hard she almost fell off the damn wagon.

“We’re not going to church, Arthur,” she managed, when she’d finally taken in a breath to speak with.

The boy looked back over his shoulder at the fast-shrinking ranch behind them. “Then where we goin’?”

She smirked, “Can’t your dear old aunt take her nephew out for the day?”

He didn’t argue. It was good to be away from the cow shit stink of the yard and the stale sweat stink of the bunkhouse, out among the hills in the open air, rattling along on the wagon with the rustle of Grimshaw’s crinoline beside him. 

They headed east, away from Westbury, skirting round the woods and across a high bridge over the ravine to a town set on a crossroads beside the railway line. He couldn’t read the sign but Grimshaw told him the place was called Broadbough and it looked busier and bigger than any place he’d been in a while. It was market day and the streets were full of stalls; the fields surrounding the town peppered with wagons and tents. Arthur tried not to see it through his father’s eyes – as a series of opportunities for thieving and cons. He could see other children running in and out of their parents’ legs, climbing porch railings, playing jumping games on storefront steps, pestering vendors for a free taste of their wares – behaving the way children should – and he felt even more out of place. Just like Westbury, just like the ranch, it was only a matter of time before someone realised what he was, who he was, and pointed him out as a fraud. He wanted to ask Grimshaw to just turn them around and head back to Templeton but he knew she was trying to do him a kindness and he kept his mouth shut, slid down from the wagon bench, and followed her into the market.

“They feedin’ you okay?” she asked him, and he made the mistake of shrugging, even though he got three square, if a little dull meals a day, which led to her making it her sole aim of the day to make up for weeks of assumed starvation. As they trailed up and down the stalls she insisted on making him test almost everything he so much as glanced at. She bought him a bag of roasted chestnuts, a hot cake, a hunk of deer jerky, something called rock candy that the Chinese railroad workers made in a huge steaming vat of boiled sugar by the side of the tracks, and when they were tired of browsing she took him to the café on the corner and ordered him a slice of cherry pie while she nursed a coffee and a cigarette and watched him clean his plate, even though by then his belly was aching and he’d had to undo the topmost button of his pants.

But at least with his mouth full, he didn’t have to talk, and she happily filled the silence by criticising the local ladies’ fashion and the idleness of the menfolk and the same backwater complaints she’d regaled him with back at the saloon in Westbury. She seemed most content when she was criticising something, and he wondered if that might mean she would understand if he was honest about how much he disliked the ranch but he doubted it worked that way. The same rules adults followed never seemed to apply to children. And sure enough, once he’d finished his pie, she turned her scrutiny on him.

“You behavin’ yourself, then?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Workin’ hard?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And no more runnin’ away?”

“No, ma’am.”

She sighed, even though he was sure he was giving her the right answers, and leaned her forearms on the table, looking into his face properly for the first time all day.

“What is it you want, Arthur?”

He didn’t understand the question. No one had ever asked him that before. It must have shown on his face because she sighed again but her voice softened a little.

“I mean, what do you want for yourself? You’ve got a whole life to live. And you get to choose how. So what do you want?”

His thoughts leapt to Dutch, riding free, sure and strong on a sleek black mare. But he remembered her feelings about the man and decided not to risk saying his name out loud. Instead, he picked the next best thing.

“A… horse?” he said quietly, in case she laughed at him. “One day, maybe? I want a horse of my own, I guess.”

She didn’t laugh, but she did smile in a sad sort of way.

“Well, I reckon that’s an admirable goal, Mr Morgan” she said, “Maybe one day, if you save up all them wages. And you’re certainly in the right place for horses, huh?”

He nodded, wondering how much a horse actually cost, and how long it would take him to afford one on half-wages. Months or years or forever? What he’d do when he had one. Where he’d go...

She was still watching him, her smile turned a touch fonder, and something made him wonder if the question hadn't really been meant for him at all. “What about you?" he asked her. "What do you want?”

She sat back slowly, an expression of consternation on her face, as if no one had ever asked her that either.

She covered her reaction with a sharp-edged laugh. “Oh, don’t you worry about me, Arthur.”

But he recognised the look. The real answer to the question. The same one he could feel buried inside his chest: To get the hell out of here.

Which meant she was lying, too. Just like everybody else. And maybe, deep down, everyone felt this way.

She came again the next month to fetch him for ‘church’, and the month after that, and the next. Market days and hot meals and sometimes just a picnic by the river. One Sunday a month like clockwork. A little parcel sometimes, with notes he was too embarrassed to ask someone to read for him. Once, she took him to a sideshow with puppets that sang and danced and hit each other with sticks. He sat on the grass with the other children and laughed until his jaw hurt. That was a good day, and for a while he'd forgetten who and where and what he was. Not an outlaw or an orphan. Just another kid at the fair. It never lasted long but it was enough.

The boys at the ranch teased him for his little day trips it but he didn’t care—they didn’t have no one coming to take them out, did they? They were just jealous. Although sometimes he secretly felt like he was getting too old for being treated like a kid. He’d long lost track of the months and was never that great at remembering the order of ‘em anyway, but the seasons were easy enough to follow – he’d arrived at the turn of fall and it was heading back that way again. He was growing like a weed, almost as tall as Grimshaw herself now, and he decided that maybe next time he’d muster up the courage to ask the overseer for a portion of his wages to take her out. Dig up some flowers, buy her a meal, or something pretty—he didn’t know what women liked but he was twelve and more than a half now and he thought it was probably time he started acting like a man instead of a boy.

But the next Sunday passed with no sign of her. The boys made puppy dog whining noises when they caught him watching the road late into the afternoon but he ignored them. He was too busy scouring his brain for something he might’ve done to upset her or make her not want to see him again.

The last time they’d met she’d seemed distracted, unsettled, and so he’d done most of the talking, told her the only stories he had: day-to-day ranch tales that must’ve seemed dull and pointless to her. A tricky calving, a rooster that attacked him every time he set foot in the yard. A horse he secretly had his eye on for buying one day. The mare's name was Misty—an ornery old thing that’d been retired from pulling the manure cart and now mainly served as a slow plodding ride for the younger hands to patrol the perimeter for foxes and coyotes of an evening. He didn’t think anyone would miss old Misty if he bought her. Didn’t think she’d cost all that much either. And she might not be the fastest or smartest or even listen to her rider most of the time but she liked him enough to snuffle at his hair when he mucked out her stall and she never ever spooked, not even at snakes and–

Grimshaw wasn’t really listening. She was nodding in all the right places but her eyes were elsewhere, staring at the furthest horizon. He tailed off and the sudden silence seemed to bring her out of it. She patted his hand and gave a strained smile. “Well, it’s good to have plans, Arthur.”

He wondered if she’d heard any of it, chewing on her lip like she was trying to peel all the skin off. She hadn’t touched her food, just smoked cheroot after cheroot and drunk enough coffee to make her hands tremble. And it wasn’t even mid-afternoon when she declared it’d be getting dark soon and she ought to get him back.

He hadn’t complained. He’d put it down to her having a bad day, or a long night, or whatever it was the ranch hands called ‘wimmins troubles’ in sarcastic whispers, but afterwards he started to worry that maybe she’d been coming down with something. What if she was laid up sick at the saloon and he wouldn’t even know about it until it was too late? What if she died and no one even told him about the funeral? He knew it was an awful thought but he’d rather she were ill than the other, simpler alternative – that she’d just grown tired of spending time with him.

Whatever it was, she never turned up. And, as the longest Sunday he’d ever known rolled on by, his worry turned to a gnawing anxiety, deep in his guts. He waited at the gate until they started lighting the lanterns. They tried to call him in for supper but he couldn’t face the inevitable questions and ribbing about where his fancy aunt had got to, so he went to bed with an empty belly and a lump in his throat.

The ranch day started at dawn, as it always did, but this time Arthur was the first to greet the supply wagons and the mail coach and every rider who passed on the track, hoping for a note or a message or something from Grimshaw to explain her absence. There was all the usual idle gossip—a new store being built in the next town over, the progress of the rail tracks, a shootout over a crooked card game, some woman who caught her husband with another woman and boxed his ears in the street—but nothing at all from Westbury. Nothing about Grimshaw.

Until he realised he’d been listening out for the wrong story.

More than once, someone had mentioned a big palaver over in Broadbough about fake property deeds that Arthur didn’t really understand. It was only when the late afternoon delivery driver described the con-artists in chillingly familiar detail that things began to fall into place. Two men, one fair, one dark, spinning a fine yarn, pocketing a bunch of gullible investments and riding off into the desert on a sleek black horse…

He’d long since given up his childish dreams of Dutch and Hosea turning up to rescue him from the drudgery of his new life and a part of him didn’t even want to believe it might be them. And before he could muster a question to find out for sure, the conversation moved on to other things so he kept his head down and helped unload the rest of the delivery in nervous silence.

When it was done, he waited until the other hands had wandered back to the bunkhouse before tagging alongside the empty wagon as it trundled back up the track.

“You been to Westbury today?” he called up to the driver.

“Yup,” the man nodded sagely, “Passed through this mornin’. Folk all in an uproar there, too. Somethin’ in the water today I swear…”

Arthur barely had to jog to keep up with the wagon but his heart was thumping as if he’d been sprinting. “Why? What happened?”

“You ain’t heard?” The driver’s voice pitched up and he shook his head incredulously, “News always gets to Templeton last, I swear…”

The driver hacked up something brown and spat it between the horses before continuing in his own sweet time. “Fine old mess, I tell ya. Don’t know what the world’s comin’ to. They say never trust a whore but what’re you supposed to do when you got a whole saloon full of ‘em?”

This was apparently a very good joke and the driver had to recover from a snorting laughing fit before he could elaborate.

Arthur gritted his teeth, feeling them grind with every thud of his heels on the packed earth, restraining himself from leaping up onto the wagon bench and hauling the infuriating man right off into the dirt to demand some proper information.

“Somethin' happened at the saloon?” he prompted.

“That pompous jackass, Jackson—can’t say he didn’t deserve it—got cleaned out. In-house job, too. His little madame damn ran off with a whole week’s takings and disappeared in the middle of the night.”

The driver bent over laughing once more and Arthur almost tripped over his own feet as his brain untangled the man’s words. Jackson’s madame. Grimshaw. Gone. He could barely keep up with the wagon as the horses picked up their pace and he made his decision in an instant, hopping up onto the step before he could be left behind.

“You going back that way now?”

The driver eyeing him sideways for a moment, then glanced back at the ranch—his sixth sense for fresh gossip clearly tingling as he broke into a grin. “Sure, why not?”

Someone called out Arthur’s name from behind them in the darkness but the boy didn’t look back.

The driver talked non-stop the whole way back through the valley to Westbury, filling him in on every scrap of speculation the townsfolk had gathered on why Jackson’s ‘madame’ might’ve double-crossed her boss. Got herself mixed up in some bad business. Debts, maybe. Some said she was the wife of some rich townie who’d run away from the city. Some said she’d put a curse on the town when she left and was gonna bring them all down with the cholera. Almost everyone had always suspected she was up to something.

By the time they rolled up the main thoroughfare Arthur was sick of the gleeful way the man delivered each morsel of gossip, as though another person’s misfortune was something to be savoured. The town of Westbury carried a similar atmosphere and a small crowd descended on the wagon the moment it arrived—townsfolk hungry for newcomers to pass the story on to, or ask if they’d heard any new details on the scandal from further afield. The driver sat back on the bench and lit himself a cigar, eager for a fresh audience, and Arthur slipped away before someone recognised him, heading for the glowing lights of the saloon at the end of the road. 

He took his usual route round to the back steps, though this time there was no skulking in the yard or hiding in the trees—this time he stormed right into the kitchen, calling for Charlie.

The cook was at his usual spot at the stove and his face betrayed Arthur’s worst suspicions the moment he turned around. She was gone. It was all true. 

“Where is she?” the boy demanded, wishing his voice had come out more threatening than whining.

Charlie gave a tired sigh and made a vain attempt at hustling the boy back out the door. “Come on now, don’t be making a scene…”

“Where the hell is she?” Arthur repeated, dodging around the cook and peering up the stairs as a trio of girls headed down. “Why did she go? Why didn't she say?”

He could feel the tears burning at his eyes but he’d be damned if he let himself cry in front of them all.

The girls stalled on the stairs, staring down at him with a horrible pity and a twisted kind of entertainment. “Glad to see the back of the snipin’ bitch,” one of the girls muttered and another whispered something in her ear that made them both cackle.

Charlie set a heavy hand on his shoulder from behind and Arthur flinched, jerking away. “Get offa me!”

The kitchen was suddenly far too small and hot and crowded. He could feel the walls closing in, just like last time he was in the saloon—surrounded by a snarling mob, all out for his blood. He could hear himself getting shriller and shriller as he spun from face to face, desperate for answers. “She wouldn’t just leave. She must’ve said why, or where. She must’ve… left a message or somethin’…”

The third girl, the only one who hadn’t laughed at him, gave him a sorry kind of shrug. “She’s just gone, honey.”

The futility of it all hit him like a blow and he barely registered it this time when Charlie nudged him towards the back steps once more. The cook was murmuring in his low gravel voice about how it wouldn’t help nothing for Jackson to catch the boy back here while the girls echoed the driver’s long list of slanderous reasons for Grimshaw’s disappearance, and Arthur was almost ready to give up and let himself be swept out and forgotten once more when one of the whispering girls gave a smirking smile and said, “It was ‘cause of those out-of-towners, I swear…”

Arthur gripped onto the doorframe and launched himself back into the kitchen, making the girls squeal and scuttle up a few steps like he was a roach. “What out-of-towners?” he snapped. “Tell me!”

The girl who’d spoken stared the boy out with a defiant jut of her chin. “All I’m sayin’ is, she went and got her panties in a twist about the news over in Broadbough and then she left. Made me think about them two fellas who passed through the other day. How Grimshaw wouldn’t let none of us go talk to them and they moved on before they’d even had a drink. Said they were just looking for directions but I knew something was off…”

One of the other girls jabbed her in the side with an elbow. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, you don’t even know if was the same fellas…”

"I'll swear on a goddamn bible," the first insisted, "and whoever they were, Susan knew them, for certain."

“I just wanna know where my wages are comin’ from this week,” the third girl griped, aiming a glare at Arthur like it was his fault.

The boy took a stumbling step backwards, his head reeling. It was all his wild imaginings come true. Dutch and Hosea had come back. But not for him. And Grimshaw had abandoned him, just like everyone else.

He’d known she was a liar, had seen first-hand how she spun a tale to get him a place at the ranch, but he’d let himself believe that she’d been honest with him. Or at least, as much as any adult was honest with a child. And just as he’d suspected, she’d grown bored of taking care of a stupid, needy little kid and she’d left without so much as a goodbye.

The noise of the kitchen became a background blur as the girls started a brand new argument over whether or not Grimshaw had also stolen a lace shawl from one of their rooms or if the girl in question just couldn’t keep track of her own possessions. The hubbub had begun to attract spectators from the bar who leered around the kitchen doorway to enjoy the free show. Arthur backed away further, his rabbit senses twitching to be out of this tiny room, but found his way blocked by the bulk of Charlie, who barely reacted—staring instead at the familiar red-faced figure in a navy blue suit who was barging his way through the crowd.

“What's going on back here?” Jackson yelled as he pushed through into the kitchen, his eyes snapping instantly onto Arthur’s face with a vicious look of victory.

“You!” He jabbed an accusing finger at the boy. “Susan’s pickpocket accomplice, come back to clear me out have you? Charlie! Grab him!”

Whether it was slow reactions or a deliberate delay to allow Arthur to slip free, the cook didn’t move fast enough to catch the boy when he ducked sideways and darted out of reach. But there was no route for escape: Charlie stood in front of the back door, Jackson guarded the doorway to the common room, and the girls clustered on the stairs, leaving a bare ten feet square of kitchen between them.

For a moment, Arthur’s terror almost got the better of him, remembering how the saloon crowd had cornered him last time, but he was a full year older now—taller and stronger, too—and his father’s anger was running through him like a river of fire. Rage was far more useful than fear right now, and he thought of how Grimshaw had drawn herself up and stared Jackson down; what his father would think of him cowering in the corner like a trapped rat. Be a man for once in your life.

He squared his shoulders, ready for the fight, and spat at Jackson’s feet.

The saloon owner gave a grimacing smile. “No Susan to save your hide this time, boy. But a whole lot of questions that need answering. So, where the hell’s she gone off to with my money, huh?”

“You think I’d be here if I knew?” Arthur spat back, surprised at the force of his own voice.

“Well, we’ll see what the sheriff has to say, shall we?” Jackson nodded to Charlie once more but the boy was already moving, not about to be caught a second time. He dodged the cook’s clumsy swiping arm and ran a skittering lap of the room, making the girls shriek again and raising a roar of frustration from Jackson, but the exits were all still firmly blocked and his frantic brain scanned for a way out or a weapon or something.

His eyes fell onto the square-edged chopping knife stuck into the block on the counter and Charlie’s deep voice rumbled out behind him: “Don’t be a fool now...”  

They were all watching him, Charlie and the girls, same way they’d watched when Jackson’d had him by the scruff of the neck before—not a single one of them offering a word in defence or an ounce of sympathy. Jackson was right. There was no Grimshaw to save him now. Just him and what little wits he had. 

“Ah, hang you all!” he snarled.

He acted without thinking, which was just as well, because if he’d considered what he was about to do, he would have realised how much it’d hurt.

Instead of the knife, he grabbed the handles of the gigantic stew pot on the stove and tipped the whole thing sideways, sloughing scalding hot liquid and fat and chunks of dubious meat across the kitchen floor like a flood of molten lava. It happened fast enough for him not to register the burning of his hands and slow enough that it seemed as if the pot was falling through water. Then an almighty crack as the pot hit the floorboards and time caught up with itself. There was a chorus of shouts and screams and everyone within the splash zone leapt backwards, creating just enough chaos and space for Arthur to scoot past Jackson and the cook—both swearing at the tops of their voices—and out the back door.

Down the steps, across the yard and into the woods, running full tilt, not stopping for nothing, branches whipping at his face, the palms of his hands red raw and blistered from the burning pot, heart hammering like a train, running until he had no breath left and stumbled to his knees at the foot of an old, twisted oak.

His blood rushing in his veins felt like rapids on a river. He recognised the fear all too well but there was something else, too—a kind of exhilaration for what he’d done. Yelling back at Jackson, spilling the stew, standing up for himself. It’d felt good, and he got a sense of why his father had always burned down all his bridges. Hang 'em all.

And all the while he stayed angry, it helped keep the tears at bay. Because behind the warmth of his fury was the cold realisation of what he'd done and just how alone he really was.

Chapter Text

He walked on as the light dimmed even further and the moon rose above, peeking through the gaps in the treetops and casting strange shadows all around him.

He had no real idea of how far into the woods he was, or even what direction he was headed. There was no sun to mark the compass with, but maybe it didn’t matter anyway—there was nowhere for him to go. Still, he figured he had to go somewhere, so when the woodland to his left began to slope upward he followed it to higher ground, hoping to find an elevated spot to get his bearings.

As the trees thinned and the sky reclaimed his view he found himself on a vaguely familiar road, looking down into the valley where the lights of Westbury glowed. And up ahead, the same crossroads and signpost he’d failed to read that first time he’d tried running away. It felt like that other kind of sign—the kind that tells your fortune or foretells of divine retribution. There was no going back north to Westbury, that was for sure. And to the east lay Broadbough, the other side of the ravine. An equally bad idea. Which left south, to Templeton ranch, or west, to who knows where.

He thought Dutch and Hosea must be long gone by now. They probably didn’t even remember his name; forgotten all about the boy they’d put on a train to nowhere all those months ago. And Grimshaw. She might not have forgotten him but she’d chosen to leave him. He didn’t know why he’d ever expected anything else. But at least he was used to this kind of hurt. He could live with it, always had. It’s just what the world was like, the way his daddy’d always told him. And he thought maybe his father would’ve been proud of him for standing up for himself, at least.

That decided it. He had to go back to Templeton to get his daddy’s hat, if nothing else. He was small and quiet, he could sneak in, sneak out, and be gone before anyone noticed. Or maybe the Westbury sheriff would already be there waiting for him with a hanging rope... He had no idea if Grimshaw had told Charlie or the girls where she’d taken him, but the gossip-mongering wagon driver would surely share that knowledge and they’d make the connection soon enough. Arthur was the missing link between Grimshaw and the two Broadbough outlaws and they’d surely think he was an accomplice, no matter what he said. Even though he genuinely knew nothing about the robberies, they wouldn’t care. Someone always had to pay.

And just as Jackson said, there was no one to save him this time.

The thought made him want to run. West, away from all of it. But a braver, or perhaps a more foolish voice inside told him maybe it was time to be his own saviour.

He wrapped his burned hands in dock leaves, turned his collar up against the evening chill, and took the north road to Templeton.

By the time he sprawl of the ranch came into view he was footsore as well as handsore but that flame of anger still burned in his belly, keeping him moving, readying him for whatever was to come.

He figured it must be long past supper by now and the ranch hands would mostly be lounging in their bunks or smoking out on the deck. On the far side of the fencing, a lone figure plodded around the perimeter on horseback, watching for predators, and the occasional echo of laughter sounded from the cabins of the contracted workmen, but otherwise the ranch was dark and quiet, with only the sounds of the livestock to fill the night.

He made his way to the bunkhouse to gather up his stuff and the murmur of voices made him stop dead in the shadow of the doorway. He recognised the broken adolescent tones of Caleb and Henry, and the grunting snicker of James. So much for slipping in and out unseen. He took a steadying breath. He wasn’t afraid of the other boys any more. And this was the very last time he’d ever have to deal with them. He could do this. Just get his daddy’s hat and his pack and–

A sudden silence followed by a hissing whisper interrupted his rallying of courage: “Arthur’s back.”

He looked around the doorway and all three boys were sat on the same bunk, staring at him. He’d expected them to crow; to gloat at the inevitable trouble he was in; to rub it in his face; but they looked more worried than anything and peppered him with hushed questions as he silently packed up his stuff.

“Where you been?”

“You leavin’? Right now?”

“Arthur, you’re gonna get it—I never seen the overseer so mad. What you gonna say?”

For once he felt that maybe they actually cared what happened to him, but he still had nothing to say to them. Once they found out who he was, who he was associated with, they’d turn on him just like Charlie and the girls.

He set his father’s hat on his head and slung his satchel over his shoulder without a word, but as he turned to leave Henry reached out and tugged on his shirt tail. “You just gonna go? Out there? With nothin’ but that?”

And that’s when he realised two things. First: he was stronger and tougher and braver than all of them. He’d lived ‘out there’, on the run, on the street and in the wilderness, and he’d survived. They had no idea what that was like and maybe they envied him, in a way. Or respected him for it, at least. Second: he didn’t have to go out there with nothing. He’d spent a year here, working like a dog. He had wages set aside for him, though he’d never seen a penny of them. And he deserved that money. A fair exchange for a year of his life. So why shouldn’t he go get it?

Perhaps his decision showed on his face because the boys seemed to shrink a little as he shook off Henry's hand, with only a breathless murmur of “Arthur…” to follow him out of the door.

Outside, the sway of lantern light greeted him, illuminating a figure striding towards the bunkhouse.

He recognised the overseer’s wide-legged gait as he approached and a part of him itched to bolt but a strange calm had settled over those primal impulses and he stood his ground, waiting for the consequences to arrive.

The overseer stopped when the glow of his lantern reached Arthur’s face. “There y'are. You got somethin’ to say for yourself, boy?”

“Not to you,” Arthur said plainly. He was sick of being called ‘boy’. Sick of people thinking they were in charge of him.

He watched the overseer’s eyes widen in surprise before the man schooled his expression back into his usual gruff disapproval. “You take off again, that’s it. Can’t just walk off a job whenever you damn well please.”

Arthur ignored the threat. It didn’t matter anymore. None of it mattered. “I want to see Templeton,” he said.

“Well that's convenient, ‘cause he wants to see you too,” the overseer replied with a twist of a smirk, turning back and jerking his chin over his shoulder for the boy to follow him.

Arthur only looked back once, to see the trio of boys clustered in the bunkhouse doorway like the scared children they really were. He wasn’t one of them any more, perhaps never was. He tipped his daddy’s hat to them and trailed after the overseer without a word.

“You best mind yourself, boy,” the overseer told him as he led him up the porch steps and into the farmhouse.

Arthur had never been inside before and did his best not to gawp at the size of the place. The polished furniture and the patterned rugs and the fancy crockery on the sideboard all made him suddenly aware of how wide a gap there was between his grubby little existence and the owner of the ranch. Arthur carried everything he owned on his person. Templeton was in charge of all these workers all this land, all these animals. He was a man of influence, a landlord, a businessman. The boy knew he meant nothing to the man. But he also had nothing left to lose.

Templeton was waiting for him in an office set off a parlour room, sat behind a grand desk covered in documents and newspapers. Arthur wondered if the news from Broadbough had made it into a paper yet. Wished he could read so he could find out the truth for himself. The overseer pushed the boy forward with a hand in the small of his back and Arthur stared sullenly at the man behind the desk.

Templeton looked the way Arthur imagined a judge would look, though he’d never seen one: stern and grey and somehow as if being in charge was in his very nature. The man watched him like the bull in the lower field used to—oddly wary of this small creature intruding on his territory but well aware he could stomp the boy to death whenever he wanted.

He’d only met the ranch owner a handful of times—had never mattered enough for anyone to introduce them properly—but from what he could tell Templeton was a fair man. More interested in the smooth running of his business than the individuals who worked there, but the rules of the ranch weren’t cruel or unreasonable and Arthur clung to one last faint hope that his plan might work. It was time something went his way, after all.

"Sir," he said, nodding at his soon-to-be ex-employer.

“What’s all this about, young man?” Templeton said with a sigh, as if Arthur’s existence was nothing but an inconvenience.

Arthur forced himself to stand up straight and look the man in the eye. “I want my wages.”

“I believe we had an agreement that we would put your money aside until you were of an age,” Templeton replied calmly, shuffling some papers around his desk.

“Yeah but.. I quit,” the boy blurted.

He caught a glance pass between Templeton and the overseer. “Is this about your... ‘aunt’?” the ranch owner said in a careful tone.

“Not about nothin’. I said I quit so I want my wages. I earned ‘em and I need ‘em now.” Arthur found himself shaking—not from fear or even anger this time but simply from the effort it took to speak up for himself.

“Now son–”

“Ain’t your son.”

“–I can see you’re upset.”

“Ain’t your business what I am,” Arthur snapped, and heard his daddy’s voice growling within his own. “Didn’t you hear me? I want my money!”

The overseer gave him a sharp slap around the ear. “Hey. Have a little respect.”

Templeton held up a hand as if to excuse the outburst and studied the boy for a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair and spoke in the same slow, reasonable tone that was somehow more unnerving than if the man had been yelling back at him. “I understand you’re lookin’ for some independence, son. And I don’t see why we can’t start giving you an allowance for small sundries and the like, but your aunt entrusted me to take responsibility for you and your wages and that’s what’s going to happen. Once you’re sixteen you’ll be on full pay and can do whatever you like with it.”

Arthur didn’t have a reply to that. His throat was tight with the effort of trying not to cry. Templeton gave him a tolerant smile and nodded over the boy’s shoulder that seemed to settle the whole matter and dismiss them both from the room.

Arthur heard the overseer shift behind him and took a step out of reach, right up against the desk, thumping both palms down on the tabletop.

“A horse then,” he said quickly. If they weren’t gonna give him his money then there must be a horse worth a year’s wages on the ranch.

After a moment of surprised consideration, Templeton let out a burst of laughter.

“A horse? You want me to give you a horse?”

Arthur felt his face glow hot as the overseer joined in with a snort of amusement.

“Misty,” the boy added in a quiet voice, as if that might explain his reasoning better, but it only provoked more laughter.  

“What on earth do you want with Misty?” Templeton said, and Arthur’s hands clawed into fists on the table, creasing the papers beneath his fingers.

It sounded so stupid saying out loud and all his logic fell to pieces in the face of their derision. Somehow he felt smaller and more powerless faced with a man sat at a desk than when he had a whole saloon full of townspeople baying for him to be beaten. And he realised, for the first time, that this was where the real power lay—not in the sheriff’s badge or the hangman’s noose but in the silk-lined pockets of a wealthy man.

Still, powerless or not, he didn’t much care for people laughing at him, just like his father before him. And if his daddy taught him anything it was how to deal with disrespectful, pompous assholes...

He could feel the rage rising in his chest, wild and out of control. It was like strapping on armour. He’d been afraid of it at first—having been on the receiving end of the self-same anger of his father—but now it just felt right. Necessary. As though he needed to fight the whole goddamn world. And this endless fiery fury was all he had to fight with. He let it flow through him, and before his rational brain could get a word in, he’d scrambled onto the desk and was reaching for a fistful of Templeton’s shirt. “Gimme my goddamn money, you sonuvabitch!”

He never even made contact with the man. The overseer grabbed hold of his legs and hauled him backwards of the desk, cracking his chin on the edge as he dropped like a sack of potatoes onto the floor. He could taste blood in his mouth as the overseer pulled him upright, strong hands gripped around his upper arms, and marched him back out of the office before his dazed head could recover.

Templeton sat cool and reserved behind his desk—hadn’t even moved in the face of a clawing streetrat comin’ right at him. In fact, he looked almost sorry for the boy. Or perhaps just confused by why a person would behave in such a way. Either way, it was as though Arthur’s outrage meant nothing, and as he was dragged back out into the yard he wished he had a gun so no one could never lay hands on him again. Never cross him. Never hold back what they owed him. Never laugh in his face.

The cool night air was a slap in the face and the yard was already half-full with curious spectators by the time the overseer tossed the kid into the dirt, muttering curses at him.

“Stupid boy... what in the hell’s got into ya? Acting like a damn fool…”

A smattering of sniggers ran through the crowd as Arthur got slowly to his feet. He could sense them waiting, eager for more spectacle—for him to behave like the stray dog they all saw him as—but all the fire had bled out of him and there was just a coldness in his stomach now. He took a moment to straighten himself up, gathering up the scraps of his dignity and setting his hat back on his head.

His silence seemed to knock the overseer off his course and the man let out an exasperated sigh. “Come on now. Get yourself to bed. Cool off. We’ll discuss this proper in the mornin’.”

Arthur lifted his blank eyes to the overseer and was satisfied to see the man take a step backward. Maybe he could learn something from Templeton: how keeping your cool sometimes scared people more than losing your temper.

“Ain’t stayin’,” the boy said, turning his back on the man and taking a few stiff steps towards the edge of the crowd.

The overseer scoffed. “You gon’ throw your job away for some whore who ran off in the night?”

The ranch hands formed a human barrier that closed up when Arthur approached: familiar faces with a mix of concern, entertainment and disapproval. He didn’t care for none of ‘em.

“Out of my way,” the boy said in a flat voice, face like a stone.

After a tense pause, they stepped aside to let him through. And this time no one tried to stop him.

He could feel their eyes on his back long after his figure must have faded into the darkness of the hills beyond the ranch and he couldn’t decide which was worse: being chased out of town or them just letting him leave.

Either way, he was right back where he started. Bruised, heartsick, with only a bundle of belongings to his name. And no idea where in the world might have a place for him.

Maybe he should have found a hollow or a tree to spend the night, but he kept on walking, trying to put as many miles between him and the whole damn mess he’d left behind. He headed west—the last point of the compass that held anything for him—and walked until the woods closed up over his head and shut out the moon, and he could barely see where he was putting his feet.

He was cold, tired and hungry, his hands still stung from grabbing the burning pot at the saloon, and he’d bitten his tongue and fattened his lip when he’d hit his chin on the desk. And, as his stomach kept loudly reminding him, he’d not eaten all day, distracted as he was with tracking down Grimshaw. Maybe he’d gone soft, staying at the ranch so long, but the memory of empty bellies and cold nights on the run was all too familiar.

His own thoughts came back to him in his father’s voice, harsh and jeering. Stupid, leaving without so much as a hunk of bread. Stupid, going and asking Templeton for your wages. Stupid, thinking you could survive out here on your own. Stupid, thinking Dutch would’ve come back for you. Stupid, thinking Grimshaw really cared…

He tripped on a rock or a root—he couldn’t see through the darkness and the water in his eyes—and he didn't bother getting up. Just curled up where he fell, breathing in the earthy mulch of the forest floor, shuddering silently with the tears he’d been keeping in so tightly. He hated them. Every last one of ‘em. Hated the overseer and Templeton. Hated Jackson and Charlie and the girls. Hated Dutch and Hosea. Hated Grimshaw. Hated his daddy. Hated the world. Hated himself, too.

He cried until he was all cried out, and then he just lay there shivering in the cold dead leaves, thinking maybe he’d just stay right here forever, when the smell of a campfire came sneaking through the night. Some instinct made him move. Crawling at first, then back on his feet, stumbling along with little more than a human need for warmth and light driving him on.

He followed the smoke like a ghost in the dark, a tiny, childish part of him wondering, hoping, praying that it might just be Dutch and the others, even though he knew it was a foolish thought. They’d be far away by now—much further on horseback than a boy on foot could possibly walk—but stranger things had happened. There was still a chance adn he had to check, just to be sure.

As the trees thinned to a clearing he heard voices conversing in low murmurs and a cautious shiver ran through him. It could be anyone out here. Travellers, hunters, bandits... But whoever it was, maybe they’d have something spare to eat. Maybe a spot by the fire for the night. Or maybe they’d skin him and cook him up like the folk in the nightmare stories Caleb used to tell after dark in the bunkhouse about how the woods around the ranch were haunted, or full of cannibals, or wolves, or–

The sound of footfall came from behind him, but before he could turn, something cold and metal pressed up against the back of his head.

“Easy now,” said a voice. “Keep on walkin’.”

It took him a moment to figure out how to send the message from his brain to his legs, frozen in place by the pressure of the gun barrel. A firm hand on his shoulder steered him onward and stopped him falling flat on his face while he quietly hyperventilated, his breath steaming in the cold night air.

The clearing contained four men set around a fire, bedrolls already laid out for the night, the gentle huff and snickering of horses coming from the darkness beyond. The men looked up as one as he was thrust into the light by his captor, who shoved the boy down onto a log by the fireside and waved his gun vaguely at him.

“Went for a piss and look what I found.”

“You ought to see a doctor if that’s what happens when you take a piss, lad,” one of the other men quipped back, and the rest gave a chorus of rough laughter.

Arthur recognised the soft accent. His daddy always said the Irish were cousins to the Welsh—mostly because they all hated the English just as much as each other—and though the sound was different, the cadence of the men’s tones reminded him a little of the way his father used to talk. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

“What you doin’ snoopin’ out there?” the one who’d caught him asked, jabbing him in the side with the barrel of his gun.

Arthur stared at his boots, too afraid to make eye contact with any of them. “Not snoopin’.”

His captor leaned closer, the sharp stink of chewing tobacco on his breath. “Looked like snoopin’.”

“Ah give it a rest, Denis,” another said, leaning forward to get a better look at the boy.

“What’s your name, kid?”

Arthur risked a glance at the new speaker. The man had a shrewd, thin face and a full moustache that joined his sideburns before wrapping all the way under his chin. And while the others had the glaze of alcohol in their eyes, his were clear.

“Arthur,” he mumbled, dropping his gaze back down to the ground.

A hand appeared in his view, palm empty, held out for shaking.

“Frances,” the man with the moustache said. “Pleased to meet you, Arthur.”

Arthur stared, wondering if it was some sort of trick. One of the other men snorted and spat into the fire, but no one moved to attack or even looked that interested in the exchange. He reached out and shook Frances’ hand, wincing slightly at the fresh burn on his own palm.

The man considered him with a tilt of his head. “You hungry, Arthur?”

He nodded before he could even think about it, and Frances passed him a half-empty tin of beans that was still warm from sitting on the fire. “You look it,” the man appraised. “What you doin’ all alone in the woods?”

Arthur was already busy scooping out beans with his fingers, figuring he might as well make the most of the free food, even if they did plan on murdering him.

“Ran away,” he managed, his mouth full.

Frances gave him a kindly smile. “Well, you’re in good company. We’re all runaways, too, ain’t that right boys?”

This earned him another round of laughter from the gang, along with some ayes and hat tips, and Arthur didn’t think they were making fun of him. Not quite. More like they were laughing at a joke he didn’t quite get.

“Ain’t no place for you out here,” Frances said, serious now, shaking his head. “Even a fine strappin’ young man like yourself. Dangerous folk, wild animals, outlaws… You ought to get back to your ma and pa.”

Arthur shrugged. “Ain’t got none.”

Frances’ brow furrowed in sympathy. “Well then, where’d you run from?”

He weighed up the risks of honesty, trying to figure out what kind of men they were and what the truth might cost him. They all had revolvers at their hips and a couple of rifles were propped up against their packs. They had a roughness about them that the ranchers and the townspeople didn’t have—proof of living out on the land instead of safe and soft within ‘civilisation’. Arthur preferred it out here, under the open sky. He’d spent too much time boxed up in little rooms over the past year, closed in by fences and walls. He figured these men probably felt the same, more comfortable sitting round a fire in the middle of the woods than in one of Templeton’s fine parlours, and decided on a vague kind of honesty.

“Workin’,” he said, “On a ranch.”

A brief lull fell and a few of the men exchanged a pointed look behind Frances’ back.

France’s mild, inquisitive look didn’t change. “That right? What ranch?”

Another shrug. “Don’t matter. Not going back there.”

The man’s eyes flicked over Arthur’s red-rimmed eyes and bloody chin. “Fair enough. Where’re you headed then?”

And Arthur realised he still had no idea. His main thought after leaving the ranch had simply been 'get away' but he hadn't put much thinking into a destination to aim for. As he scrambled for a satisfactory answer, his heart betrayed him and voiced what he’d buried down inside it. “Lookin’ for someone.”

“Aye? Who’s that then? Maybe we seen ‘em.”

Arthur bit his swollen lip, wishing he could take the words back. It occurred to him that they could be bounty hunters, or a posse—but they also could  be the only people for miles who might have seen a trace of Dutch and the others. And he figured the odds were stacked either way. The truth could be as good as handing himself in as an accomplice, but a lie could mean missing his only chance at finding the outlaws. And for some reason he found himself trusting this Frances. He was the first person in a long time to look him in the eye, like an equal, and listen to what he had to say.

He took a breath and a risk together. “Two men and a woman. Dutch. Hosea. And Miss Grimshaw. They… uh, they got in some trouble. In Broadbough and Westbury.”

Another look passed between the men and Arthur suddenly felt very small, hands wrapped tight around the tin of beans like it might protect him. Frances made a thoughtful tutting noise with his tongue and leaned forward so his face glowed gold in the firelight.

“Word of advice, Arthur?” he said softly, “Don’t go around asking about known criminals by name unless you want to be associated with ‘em.”

For a moment there was no other sound in the clearing but the popping of logs on the fire and the occasional scrabble of a small creature in the undergrowth. All eyes were on the boy, who had forgotten how to breathe.

His brain made a panicked decision to bolt but before he could move a heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder and Denis’ gravel voice sounded in his ear, just like before. “Easy now…”

Frances’ smile returned as if nothing had happened and he tossed another stick on the fire. “So, you’re a little lost lamb on the lam, huh?”

A couple of the other men smirked at that, though Arthur only vaguely understood what it meant He nodded bleakly.

“Well, seems like we have a lot in common then. Runaways, orphans and outlaws, the lot of us,” Frances grinned, spreading his arms wide to encompass the group.

Arthur's racing heart slowed down a little. At least he knew what they were now. And perhaps it was safer for him to be with fellow outlaws than regular folk, considering his position.

“Can’t help you with your friends though, I’m afraid," Frances continued, with that same thoughtful wrinkle in his brow. "Heard of ‘em, but ain’t seen ‘em. And if they’ve got any sense they’ll be well on their way by now. How’d you intend on catchin’ up with ‘em anyways. On foot?”

Arthur nodded again. “Tried to get a horse, but…” he trailed off. He didn’t need to relive that particular dent in his pride.

Frances gave a low chuckle. “Well, ain’t that a coincidence? We was just discussing the procurement of some new horses. Or perhaps some livestock, we ain’t decided just yet. But maybe you could help us, bein’ an experienced ranchman as y’are...”

Arthur knew the man was flattering him but he couldn't help liking it. He also liked the fact that no one here had called him ‘boy’ or clipped him round the head or treated him like an idiot. No one had tried to hurt him, either, or even really spoken that unkindly to him, and while he didn’t want to test what they’d do if he tried to leave, it wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to go.

He read the implication in the man’s words with a buzzing kind of thrill in his belly. He didn’t know what ‘procurement’ meant exactly, but he knew what rustlers were. Had heard enough stories and warnings at the ranch to know they were Templeton’s biggest liability. And anything that might hurt Templeton's self-satisfied interests was all right with him.

Frances seemed to read his face like a book and gave an encouraging nod. “So whaddaya say? You think you might know where we could find some fine workin' animals nearby, huh?”

Arthur met the man’s eyes and nodded back. “Yessir, I do.”

Chapter Text

Frances let him ride on the back of his horse as they headed back eastward towards the ranch. Arthur held onto the man’s gunbelt and tried not to think about the decision he’d made. But there hadn’t been any other answer to give, and he couldn’t pretend it didn’t feel a little like justice. Revenge, maybe. A righteousness he was surely owed after everything he’d been through. If the world was gonna spit him out then he might as well do what he’d been raised to do: steal and cheat and take what he damn well deserved.

“So why’d you leave this place?” Frances asked over his shoulder, as if he’d been reading the boy’s thoughts aloud.

Arthur shrugged. Tried to think of an answer that didn’t make him sound like a petulant kid. “Owed me money,” he said. “Wouldn’t give it to me.”

Frances gave a hacking laugh at that. “Aye, rich men always owe people money. That’s how they keep the rest of us scrabbling for scraps…”

It sounded like something his daddy would say, only this time it sounded less bitter and desperate, and more like a call to revolution.

The rustler twisted in the saddle to wink at him. “Well, maybe we’ll get you a little payback, huh?”

Arthur nodded, a twist of doubt in his stomach. The closer they got, the more he wished he’d just kept on running. He’d meant get as far away as he could—from the ranch, from his old life, from the ghost of his father—and here he was, riding right back into it.

He told himself it was different than before. Different than his father’s drunken, spiteful attempts at petty thievery. This was a gang of men, armed and focused, with a carefully laid plan. And Arthur wasn’t just a patsy—they’d asked his opinion, listened to his insights, made him feel useful. Made him feel like one of them.

Back at the clearing, they’d gotten him to draw out the layout of the ranch in the dirt while they bickered about whether to go for the cattle or the horses. The horses were easier to move but they’d have to take ‘em further afield to sell. The cattle might get a better price, but they’d be trickier to get out of the ranch without raising the alarm…

Arthur listened quietly, scraping at the ground with his drawing stick, before marking a cross over the line that signified the south-western fence and looking up at Frances.

“There’s a loose post just here,” he said. “Could pull it out easy enough with a tow rope, bring a couple of fences down? Lead the cattle out that way?”

The men fell silent, mid-argument, to peer at his sketch, and Frances clapped him on the back. “See, this is just the kinda forward thinking I expected from you, Arthur. Now how’s about lookouts? Any guards?”

Everyone was looking at him now and he shrugged into his shirt collar. “Sometimes they hire men from town for cattledrives but at night there’s just a couple of hands on patrol. Mostly lookin’ out for wolves…”

He dragged the stick all the around the perimeter of the map, then made a second circle going the other way, before stabbing it into the dirt where the two lines met. “They usually stop for a cigarette at the gate after a few passes. They shouldn’t, but they do.”

A ripple of appreciative nods ran through his audience and he felt a glow of pride at doing something right, his tongue loosening as his confidence grew: “Stables are here. This one’s the grain store. Cattle’ll be over this way, just watch out for the bull in this pen right there. You’ll wanna take ‘em out this way to keep away from the bunkhouse…”

He hadn’t realised it at the time, but a year at the ranch had shown him everything he needed to take it apart. Like puzzle pieces falling into place.

“Kid’s a natural,” Frances grinned, jostling the boy with his shoulder. “Lucky we found you.”

Arthur didn’t know about that. Maybe it was luck, maybe fate, maybe just the world laughing at him. But whatever it was, there was no turning back now.

The glow over the horizon became a string of lights as they crested the hill that looked down over the broad grazing fields of Templeton’s territory.

Frances brought his horse to a restless stop and the others did likewise, eyeing the lay of the land below. From here, Arthur could make out the swaying yellow points of the patrol’s lanterns as they made their slow circles around the property. It was still a good four or five hours before dawn and the moonlight was thin and patchy behind the clouds. The lookouts’ vision would be limited to the reach of their lanterns but the rustlers had eyes in the dark…

Arthur clung to the back of Frances’ belt as they made their way down the valley, slow and quiet. Everything was laid out just as he’d drawn it, except suddenly his dirt map was made real, full of people and animals and consequences. And as the rustlers loosened their weapons in their holsters, he realised he’d never asked if they intended on hurting anyone.

It was too late to speak up. They headed for a copse on the far western edge of the valley and slipped off their horses, quieter and less conspicuous on foot. Under the cover of the trees they passed a bottle of brandy around as they watched the patrol do another idle lap of the ranch, waiting for the moment where the pair of lookouts stopped at the gate as Arthur had predicted.

When the bottle reached Arthur, Denis pressed it into the boy’s hands with a smirk. “Little courage for ya,” the man said, and the others gave an assortment of snorts and nods when Arthur obediently knocked back a slug. Like one of the men. Like equals.

It wasn’t his first drink—his daddy’d let him have the odd nip of whiskey on a cold night. He’d always hated the taste, the way it burned his throat, but he’d appreciated the gesture, especially considering how precious each bottle was to his father. Worth more than almost anything, in Lyle’s eyes. Sometimes Arthur used to wonder if he’d ever get desperate enough to sell his own son for his next drink.

But this was different. For courage. For justice. The liquor sat heavy and hot in his belly as he wiped his mouth and passed the bottle on. When it got back to Frances, the rustler stuffed a rag into the neck of the bottle and tucked it into his belt before leaning down to look Arthur in the eye.

“Now, you’ve already done your part, Arthur. You’re to stay here, hold the horses, watch our backs, alright?”

Arthur nodded, struck speechless now that it was really happening.

“That’s a good lad.” Frances ruffled his hair and turned to mutter some last minute instructions to the rest of the men.

Arthur didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved to be left behind. Filled up with doubt and exhilaration and panic and vengeance, all at once. But he didn’t get a chance to argue. They were already gone. It was time.

Two of them mounted their horses and headed around the fence line while the others crept through the trees after Frances.

Arthur gripped the reins of the remaining horses tight and watched the shadowy figures disappear into the darkness.

For a long moment there was only the sound of the wind in the trees and the rustling of nocturnal creatures in the undergrowth. A screech of an owl. Arthur’s own breath, huffing along with the horses as he stood like a statue, waiting for what came next.

He wasn’t expecting fire.

Out of the stillness of the night there came the smashing of glass, a whooshing sound, and the haystack up against the stables burst into flame.

A few moments later, another blaze sprang to life, spreading across the roof of the grain store, lighting the midnight sky with a ghoulish orange glow.

The horses stamped their alarm and Arthur could barely keep hold of the reins, barely hold himself upright as he staggered a few paces away from the sight, not quite believing it.

The air rang with shouts and gunshots. Lantern-light swung wildly as men ran in all directions, and a great dust cloud filled the air as panicked animals scrambled to find safety from the flames.

The brandy in his belly threatened to come right back up again. The haystack fire was licking at the stable wall now, and the screams of horses split the air. They were still inside. Misty was in there.

Panic and guilt lanced through his chest, cold and sharp. He wrapped the reins of the rustler’s horses around a branch and started for the stables, moving against every instinct to stay back from the roaring fire. He could feel the heat of it from twenty feet away, hungry and fierce.

There were other fires too—the barn, the bunkhouse—throwing leaping shadows across the yard as half-dressed men dashed frantically from one disaster to another. Some were trying to set up a bucket chain from the well to the nearest fire. Others were trying to round up panicking animals—it looked like the rustlers had opened every gate they could find, and livestock ran wild and disoriented in every direction.

It was only because he knew where to look that he could see glimpses of the rustlers themselves—dark figures ducked down behind the cattle as they moved them towards the gap in the fence Arthur had led them to. The two on horseback rode in thundering circles, shooting at anyone who came too close, running down anyone and anything in their path, creating as much chaos and confusion as possible.

Arthur stood frozen, looking upon the terrible scene. This was his fault. He’d brought them here, caught up in thoughts of vengeance. But this wasn’t what he wanted. Not this. Nothing like this.

A movement to his left made him shrink back into the shadows but a voice followed after him: “Boy?”

By the light of the burning haystack he saw one of the older ranch hands, a grey-bearded man named Gill, standing in the open yard, a shovel clutched in his hands like a weapon.

They stared at one another for a long moment, two motionless statues in a fiery scene. Arthur watched as the man’s brow furrowed, as he lowered the shovel slowly, as he put two and two together—connected Arthur and the rustlers—as his expression turned to one of disbelief and dismay.

Gill opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word there was a sound that seemed to crack the air like thunder and a bullet hole erupted from the man’s chest. The rancher stood wavering for a moment before he dropped without a sound and lay still in the dirt.

Arthur stumbled forwards the body on numb feet but stopped after a few steps. He could see from here there was no rise and fall of the man’s chest. No sight left in his eyes. Just the thick scent of blood in the air.

He hadn’t known Gill all that well, but they’d worked together, eaten together, spent a whole year together and never shared a word that wasn’t civil. He hadn’t deserved this. None of them did—not even Templeton.

And all because of you.

Time felt slowed in the burning air. The whole incident had taken less than a minute, but it felt like hours, as if every sight surrounding him was being painted onto the inside of his brain. He stood there, unable to move aside from flinching at every crackle of burning wood made him flinch. Every whoop of the rustlers as they rode rings around the yard. Every echoing gunshot. Every screech of the horses, trapped in the stables…

The stables. The horses. Misty.

The thought lurched him towards the burning building, a terrible dread tightening his chest, tears filling his eyes, as much from guilt as from smoke. It might already be too late.

He didn’t stop to think how dangerous it was. How stupid. He shouldered the door to the stables open and was instantly met with a face-full of choking black smoke, but the sound of panicking horses was far worse. He yanked the collar of his shirt up over his nose and ducked inside, feeling his way more than seeing, following the line of stalls and fumbling with the catches as the animals reared and stamped and snorted above him. He knew there was a very real risk of being kicked or trampled but it didn’t matter—and maybe he deserved it—he wasn’t going to leave them now.

One by one he threw open the stall doors. Most of the horses bolted, thundering past like freight trains. Some needed more encouragement, stuck still with fear, and he hauled himself over each stall to slap at their sides, his shouts all but lost in the roar of the firestorm. Misty was the last, at the back of the stables, almost hidden by a wall of smoke. Arthur could barely stand upright, suffocating on the soot-filled air, eyes stinging, coughing so hard every breath felt like a stab between his ribs. He dragged himself along the wall to the final stall and the mare greeted him with a snap of her teeth and a warning whine. She was as blind and scared as he was.

“It’s me,” he whispered, his voice all but stripped out of his throat. “It’s okay, girl, it’s me, it’s me…”

He ran his hands over her neck, tense and tight with bunched muscle, and pulled gently on her mane to try to encourage her forward but she backed up even further, eyes rolling wildly. Every direction held a danger and there was no way she was going to head towards it.

He tried not to let his own panic take hold, hacking with every breath now, like needles in his lungs. It was becoming harder and harder to think straight in the foggy heat but he managed to edge his way into the next stall and drag himself up onto the wall beside the mare.

He leaned over and gave her a sharp slap on the flank. “C’mon girl, git!”

She skittered in the stall and tossed her head but couldn’t even seem to understand that the gate in front of her was open.

He hit her again. Harder. Tears streaming down his cheeks. Tears in his voice, too, begging her now. “C’mon, Misty, please. You gotta move...”

The smoke was even thicker up on the wall and he could feel himself swaying, bent double, desperately trying to claw a little air into his lungs. Misty was slowing too, huffing and side-stepping clumsily. They were running out of time. He threw his arms around her neck and slid onto her back, clutching onto her mane and lying as low as possible, hushing calming noises in her ear. If they were going to go, they’d go together.

She tossed her head backwards, perhaps recognising him at last, and when he squeezed his legs against her sides she took a few tentative steps forward, but his head was too thick and disoriented to figure out which way to turn her.

He pressed his face into her back, silently pleading for her to find the way.

There was an almighty crash and a portion of the roof fell in with a shower of sparks, sending flames whooshing up through the gap, as ravenous for oxygen as the boy and the horse.

A glimpse of night sky, tinted orange. And for the briefest of moments the smoke swirled in just the right way that the black rectangle of the doorway came into view.

Misty lunged towards it, so suddenly and so fast that Arthur tumbled right off her, turning a full backwards somersault before slamming into the dirt floor in a heap.

He just caught sight of the flick of a tail as the mare burst through the stable door and out into the yard, before a wracking bout of coughing sent him curling into a ball. He couldn’t seem to take in breath, only expel it. The very air around him was scalding now, and though he couldn’t open his eyes he could see the glow of red behind his eyelids.

It was strange—he’d always imagined he’d end up hanging, just like his daddy. Hadn’t considered there were other, worse ways to go. Hadn’t known you could drown in smoke. And he was so tired, his ribs aching with the effort of needing to breathe, that all he could do was whimper when someone grabbed hold of his shirt and hauled him upright.

Someone was yelling his name. His head lolled on his neck like a ragdoll as he was dragged backwards, passing through flame and splintered wood until the cool night air hit like an ice bath.

A heavy hand thumped him on the back until he dragged in a deep, jagged breath, until he started coughing afresh, until he vomited black drool into the sandy earth of the yard.

A voice he knew, low and rough and lilting like his daddy but not the same at all. “That’s it, boy… Get it all out...”

And he would have happily lain down and slept right there if the same someone hadn’t picked him up by his armpits and thrown him over the front of a saddle, spurring the horse on with a sharp kick, and then they were riding hard, up, up, up it felt all the way into the sky, and Arthur’s last grip on consciousness was jostled right out of him.

He woke coughing. He couldn’t seem to stop. Someone had laid a wet rag over his eyes. Someone was pouring water on his face, into his mouth, drip by drip. He choked on that, too. Rolled onto his side and spat out the taste of burnt ash. Wheezed in and out like a bellows. Wondered if he’d ever get the smell of smoke out of his nose.

He didn’t bother trying to move more than that. It was all he could do to focus on breathing.

Maybe he passed out again, or maybe it was only a few moments later, but the next time he came to he was back on a horse, propped up against the back of a man who smelled like tobacco and cow shit. The sun was too bright for him to open his eyes, too much like the glow of the burning stables, so he let himself drift into the black once more.

The time after that it was night again. Another fire, only this one was small, contained. A camp on a ridgetop, the wide sky above, punctured with stars. Arthur had never been so glad to be outside, surrounded by fresh, clean air. He never realised it had a taste—the way water does, even though it doesn’t—and although his lungs still felt like they’d been burned inside, every breath was like a sip from a clear cool stream.

He was rolled up in a dusty horse blanket, faced away from the fire, his view filled with grass and hills. From behind him he could hear the murmur of men’s voices on the other side of the campfire. The sound had been a background rumble within his sleep, but now the conversation came into focus as his senses sharpened and his memory filled in the gaps.

From what he could figure, they’d been riding hard for a day or two before splitting up—two men taking the stolen herd on to wherever they were selling it, and the rest heading up into the hills to make camp. No one seemed to be following. They’d left behind enough chaos at the ranch to take up all of Templeton’s resources—all those burnt buildings, all those loose animals, injured men, broken fences… Arthur couldn’t imagine how much it would take to restore the place to the way he’d known it. Didn’t want to think about how many people might’ve been hurt. Or worse. He could still see the blood bursting from Gill’s chest as he crumpled to the ground, a look of shock and confusion frozen on his face…

The vision repeated on a loop when he closed his eyes so he stared at a blade of grass a few inches from his nose instead. Tried to tune back into the voices. The sounds of a bottle being passed around.

“Takin’ their fuckin’ time, ain’t they?” muttered one—Arthur thought it might be Denis. “Don’t see why we have to freeze our balls off up here all night.”

A sigh from Frances, as if they’d already been over this more than once. “We stay put until we know the deal went off clean. Jesus, have some patience for once in your life. You want to lead a posse right back to Colm?”

“Ain’t nobody following,” said the third man, his voice lower than the others. Arthur vaguely remembered him having a reddish beard and a wide-brimmed hat. The man chuckled and spat. “No doubt they’re still busy putting out them fires. Chasin’ up them sheep and horses. Ain’t got no men left to come after us.”

“Don’t bet on nothin’ until we’ve got the money in our hands and a clear road behind us.” Frances’s voice was sharper with his colleagues than he had been with Arthur, his words clipped and rough. Like a warning. Like a different man entirely.

“Be a lot faster without haulin’ that kid around,” Denis sniffed.

Another dry laugh from Redbeard. “You sure the little fucker ain’t dead already?”

Arthur heard the rustle of clothing, the grunt of someone leaning his way. He didn’t dare move. He could feel three pairs of eyes on his back and tried his best to breathe steady, like he was still sleeping.

“He’ll be alright,” Frances said, after a long pause, a little quieter than before. “Just got a lungful, that’s all.”

A hack and a spit from Denis. “How long you gonna keep nurse-maidin’ him?”

“Thought we’d take him back with us.”

“What you gonna tell Colm?”

“That the boy helped.”

“Oh did he now?” Denis crowed. “And how’s that? By leavin’ the horses? Pissing his pants?”

“And what exactly did you do that was so helpful, besides ride around in circles like a damn fool?” Frances shot back, and Redbeard gave a snort that caused Denis to throw something at him.

“Seriously though, what the hell’s Colm gonna do with a kid?”

Frances’ next words came out like a growl, low and dangerous. “You tellin’ me I don’t know my own brother’s mind?”

“No, but—”

Redbeard’s rumbling voice cut in, with a hint of a warning. “Colm said no more dead weight. Not after Carrigan.”

“Carrigan got what was comin’ to him,” Frances snapped. “Colm put him out of his fuckin’ misery.”

“Yeah well,” Denis muttered, “You’d shoot a horse got sick as that one, too.” He kicked at the dirt and Arthur felt the pat of tiny stones hitting the back of his legs.

“Leave him be.”

“I’m just sayin’…”

“You can ‘just’ shut your fuckin mouth is what you can do!”

The shout rang out clear as a bell in the empty night air, and they all fell quiet for a long time after that. Arthur shrank further inside his blanket, even though the words hadn’t been aimed at him—had been defending him—he’d felt the heat of them.

He heard Denis scuffing his feet; Redbeard clearing his throat; someone throwing another stick on the fire. And after a long, awkward silence Redbeard declared he was going for a piss and one by one the rustlers settled down on their bedrolls.

Arthur could feel another bout of coughing coming on, but he held it in, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself. Better that they thought he was still asleep. Better that they forgot all about him for a while. Because he didn’t plan on staying, no matter what Frances said.

There was a snaky feeling in his stomach. Like a foreboding. He didn’t want to meet this Colm. Didn’t like the cruelty hidden in Denis’ laugh. Men like this were worse than his daddy. His father had never killed anyone—at least not that he knew of. Hurt people, sure. Hurt Arthur. Stole and cheated and got in stupid bar fights but nothing like this. Nothing like what they’d done at the ranch…

The snake in his guts coiled tighter. He didn’t trust a one of them. Not even Frances. The man had only found him useful because he’d known the layout of the ranch. If Arthur hadn’t run away that night he’d have still been there in the bunkhouse with the rest of the ranch hands and the rustlers would have had no qualms about shooting at him, burning him out, running him down with their horses, just like the others.

But now his usefulness had expired and he didn’t want to find out what Colm did with ‘dead weight’…

He fought to keep his breathing quiet. Squashed the panic down. He would slip away once they all fell asleep, before the others got back from selling off the cattle. Denis was right—why would any of them want a kid tagging along? No one would miss him. He’d be doing them a favor.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually he could hear the subtle sounds of sleep settling over the camp. It looked to be a few hours until dawn and he used the time spent waiting to memorise the path he planned on taking to the next stand of trees. As he looked, a wolf slunk along the edge of the woodland, and when it turned to look up at the campfire, its eyes glowed otherworldly. Arthur held his breath as the creature seemed to regard him for a moment, before making its unhurried way through the valley.

It felt like a sign, and the moment the wolf disappeared from view Arthur began inching his way away from the fire, silently gathering up his hat and his bag, shivering as he shrugged off the blanket and slowly raised himself into a crouch, hoping he was far enough away from the fire to be hidden in the darkness.

He risked a look over his shoulder to check the three men were still fast asleep but a horrible coldness crept over him he counted only two.

“Going somewhere, Arthur?”

Frances sat barely six feet away, leaning against a tree with his rifle across his knees. His voice carried through the night air like a whisper and the boy almost jolted out of his skin.

“Just… leavin’,” Arthur said, his voice still husky from the smoke.

Frances nodded slowly, his eyes drifting over to the two sleeping bundles by the fire, then back to the boy. “You know you can stay if you want to. Don’t need to pay them no mind.”

Arthur felt sheepish all of a sudden, under the man’s stare. Ungrateful, after being pulled out of the fire. But he was also sick of being rescued. Of being such a burden to everybody. It made him think of what Hosea had said, first time he’d laid eyes on him…

“Don’t need no charity,” he grunted.

“Well now. Doesn’t have to be like that. We gotta look out for one another, all us orphans abs runaways...” the rustler said with a wink.

Frances was using his soft, friendly voice again, but Arthur had also heard the way he’d spoken to Denis—spitting out his words. And he knew the way some people could switch their faces, switch their tone, switch their whole personality when it suited them. Grimshaw could do it, turning on her fancy lady act when she needed to sweet-talk someone. His daddy could do it, too—gentle one minute and the back of his hand the next.

Arthur didn’t reply. Stared fixedly at his feet.

Frances gave a sigh and leaned a little closer, “I promise you, if you’re loyal to Colm and work hard, he’ll treat you right. Make you one of us.”

Arthur’s voice was stuck in his throat. He didn’t want to be ‘one of them’. Didn’t want to be anything like Frances, or Colm, or Denis, or any of ‘em. Didn’t want to be like his daddy, neither. Didn’t even know who he wanted to be except for that stupid childish vision he’d gotten stuck in his head: Dutch on a tall black horse, riding free… 

And he heard Grimshaw’s words echoing back to him, from the last time he’d seen her, as if she’d known she was about to leave him behind.

You’ve got a whole life to live. And you get to choose how.

He got to choose. To be his own man, whatever that turned out to be. And he knew for sure it wasn’t this.

Except, he didn’t know how to say any of that. Wasn’t sure if it might make Frances angry anyhow, to turn down his offer. So he stood sullen and silent—the way he’d learned to with his father—and hoped no answer was better than the wrong one.

“I understand” Frances said quietly. “You’re looking for your people, right?”

Arthur nodded, swallowing around the lump in his throat. His people. He knew it was a longshot. Knew they were probably far too far away to catch on foot. Knew there was a chance they’d turn him away even if he did. But he also knew he had to try.

The rustler glanced back over at the sleeping shape of Denis and Redbeard. “Aye, well. Perhaps it’s for the best,” he sniffed. “You know where they’re headed? These outlaws of yours?”

Arthur shook his head, deflating a little at the realisation, but Frances made a clicking noise with his tongue and pointed north-westerly, down through the valley.

“Well, if they’re smart, they’ll be headin’ across the border,” he said thoughtfully. “But if they’re a little prideful there’s a chance they’ll head into the city to spend some of that money, instead...”

Judging by Frances’ wry grin, Arthur reckoned it would probably be the latter.

“Go ahead and follow the train tracks,” the rustler said with one final nod. “And that’s where you’ll end up, too.”

Arthur took a deep breath into his aching lungs and turned himself north-west, gathering up his bag against his chest like a shield. He could see the tracks from here, an unwavering line cut through the landscape. Unmistakable, even in the dark.

He risked a look back at Frances, hoping he wasn’t making the wrong choice.“Thank you,” he said, with a dip of his hat.

Frances touched his index finger to his own hat in reply. “I hope you find ‘em.”

Arthur did too. More than anything.

Chapter Text

When he looks back he can only remember glimpses of that time, as if a whole year blurred past like the view from a moving train.

He followed the tracks all the way to the city—that was the easy part—he just hadn’t really considered what he’d do when he got there.

His pa had always skirted around the bigger towns and cities—said there was more kindness in smaller places, which really meant more gullible folk. And it was better to keep on the move from town to town than get stuck somewhere; better to carry your own tent and choose your own camp than sleep on the streets; better to live free than become just another body in the faceless mass.

And for once the man was right. Arthur hated the place almost immediately. The buildings closed in on him like cages. The noise and stink of it was overwhelming—too much to take in, too much going on, something unexpected around every corner, putting all his senses on edge. There were more people than he’d ever seen in one place and not a chance in hell of finding the ones he was looking for. And everyone was alone here. Even with so many souls, all shoved up together, there was a yawning loneliness that seemed to permeate even the thickest crowd.

He wandered aimlessly that first day, not even caring how hopelessly lost he was, because he had no idea where he was supposed to be. He walked in circles, up and down the streets, peering into the windows of saloons and stores, getting chased away if he lingered too long. He saw plenty of beggars and grifters, and a group of men who definitely had the look of thieves about them, even though they were dressed all fancy—but there was no sign of Dutch and the others. He didn't even know how he'd begin to search somewhere this big. And it wasn't as if he could go around asking after them by name—he'd learned at least that much from Frances.

He started to wonder if they'd even come to the city at all. If he'd made yet another foolish decision trying to chase after them. All three of them had made it clear enough they didn't want him tagging along. But it was too late to turn around now. And what other options did he have? He'd ruined his chances at joining up with Frances, and the rustlers would surely be long gone by now. He couldn't go back to the ranch either—the thought of the place in ashes made him feel sick with guilt and he was still coughing and sore from breathing in all that smoke. He'd been walking half the night and all day and had no idea what he was doing or even where he was going to find his next meal and no one so much as spared him a glance as they passed him by.

And so, without anything better to do, he sat down in an alley and cried for a while, until the sky turned dark and the air turned cold and he got scared of all the unfamiliar noises of the urban night—the shouts and screams and drunken brawls and backstreet deals—and crept back out into the garish evening streets to find somewhere quiet to sleep.

Turned out the city never shut up, never put out its lights, like some perpetual nightmare. But there were quiet corners. He ended up back down at the railyard, where the gigantic locomotives slept, and climbed through a broken window into an old ramshackle storage shed to pass a few restless hours until dawn, dreaming of an endless train track leading off the edge of the world.

He woke to someone shaking him, jostling at his legs. He flinched into consciousness to find a skeletal old hobo trying to pull his satchel out from under him and scrambled back against the wall, his breath hitching in his chest. 

The man gave him a wide toothless grin. “What you got in there, huh? Some’n pretty? Some’n to eat?”

Bony hands grabbed for him once more and he kicked out instinctively, catching the old man in the shoulder and clambering back out through the window, followed by the sound of furious cursing. And then he was running, before he was even fully awake, bleary-eyed and rattled with blind fear, tearing through the streets and almost getting run over by a horse and carriage, splashing through filth-filled gutters and barging past pedestrians until there was a cacophony of yelling behind him. He kept running until his lungs were ready to burst and when he stopped he found himself crying again, right there in the middle of the road, even though he was sure he’d shed as many tears as a person could do the day before, and he must have looked utterly pathetic because a woman stopped to frown at him before pressing a couple of pennies into his hand with a disapproving tut of her tongue.

Which was the moment he realised just how hopeless it all was—how his grand plan of chasing after the outlaws paled in comparison to the real challenge that lay before him: how the hell he was going to get by on his own. Because he also realised it was the first time he’d been alone—really alone—since his father died, since being passed from pillar to post, told where to go and what to do. The first time in his life he had to decide things for himself.

And as he looked down at the coins in his hand, he realised nothing he’d learned at the ranch was going to be useful in the city. None of Grimshaw's hopeful ideals were going to serve him here. He had to go further back, to the lessons he'd had beaten into him—lessons of survival.

It was almost unnerving how quickly he fell back into his daddy’s way of thinking; seeing the world as something to be taken advantage of; the opportunities to benefit from someone else's misfortune. Easy pickings for a deft-handed pickpocket. Plenty of places for an almost thirteen-year-old to hide. Endless crowded streets to get lost in. And for a while it was a playground. He was getting too old for the little lost lamb routine—people didn’t so much look at him with pity as wariness these days—but it didn't matter. The city was merciless and anonymous and no one really bothered to try to chase after the many runaways and orphans who skulked the alleyways. Because he was one of many, here. Dirty-faced, sour looking little creatures, all of them. But there was no solidarity here, and he'd learned all the lessons he needed to about making friends from the kids on the ranch—here on the street, you held your own, you fought your corner, you protected your take, or you starved.

There were small kindnesses, here and there. Rich folk tossing out morsels of charity to make themselves feel better. A church in the northern quarter that tried to save the poor souls of the filthy urchins with soup and prayers. A bakery that left out their stale loaves every Monday night. A bar that let him wash the front windows for a hot meal from time to time. But more often than not, his days were a cycle of hustling, scavenging, dodging lawmen, and being told to move along—always being moved along, chased away, thrown out, shoved and pushed and smacked around the head. No one wanted a street rat hanging around. And so he learned how to stay out of sight, how to melt into the background, how to sit quiet and still and watch, waiting for his next chance to get himself through another day.  

And as the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months he slowly lost the will to keep looking for signs of the outlaws. He knew there was no way they'd still be in the city but he couldn't quite bring himself to leave it himself—the last thread he had to cling to. Once, he waited outside a blacksmiths for half a day because he saw a horse that looked like Dutch’s. Another time he almost ran right into the middle of a robbery because he heard there were two men holding up the post office. And one day he was sure he saw Grimshaw sitting in a café—just like the ones she used to take him, smoking a leisurely cigarette over a cup of coffee while he filled his belly. It seemed a lifetime ago now, and his stomach had never felt so full since. He pressed his face to the steamed-up window but of course it wasn’t her—just a tired-looking woman with a bored looking little girl who scowled and rapped on the glass to make him move away.

He waited until they came out, he wasn’t sure why. Petulant jealousy, perhaps. The unfairness of them sitting there all warm and content while he had newspaper packed in his shoes to stop up the holes. All of it made worse by the fact that the little girl was clutching a candied apple and looking particularly smug about it. And before he could think twice about it he was barging into the pair of them, knocking the girl to the ground and snatching the apple right out of her hands. The kid started squalling and the woman looked at him with a look of such incomprehensible shock that he almost dropped it right there, but his instincts took over and he set off running, trying to block out the wailing of the little girl and the horrified stares of the passers-by, fingers gripping the sticky apple as if his life depended on it.

But no one tried to stop him. No one bothered to chase him. And he couldn’t even bring himself to eat the damn thing in the end. Just dropped it in the middle of the muddy street and kept on walking, numb and hollow and half wanting for someone to bring him to justice. Or to at least notice him.

He walked and walked until he couldn’t feel his feet, until he found himself outside the sheriff’s office, wondering if they’d let him sleep in a cell if he turned himself in for crimes he’d long since lost count of, and there—right there, brazen as the cold dawn—was Dutch’s face.

He stood staring at the wanted poster with his mouth hanging open, as if the paper and ink might come to life if he willed it hard enough. He couldn’t read the writing but he recognised the dollar sign and there seemed to be a lot of numbers after it. And while mugshot drawings were never particularly accurate, there was no mistaking the shrewd eyes and carefully groomed moustache. Even down to the tiny smirk at the corner of his mouth.

A kind of urgency ran through him like lightning. If the law was looking for Dutch then he had to be nearby. He glanced up and down the street like a fool, as though the man might be loitering around to admire his poster, and caught the eye of the deputy who was leaning against a nearby hitching post, smoking a pipe.

“What’s it say?” Arthur blurted, pointing at the poster.

The deputy flashed him a knowing smile. “Fancy yourself a little bounty hunter, do ya? I’d be careful of that one. Slippery bastard, name of Van der Linde.”

Arthur almost bit his tongue but forced himself to nod, all wide-eyes and feigned ignorance. “Here in the city?”

“Not likely,” the deputy laughed. “He's wanted for three kinds of robbery and fraud.” He leaned over and tapped the bottom of the poster with his pipe. “Last seen in Norton, causing a ruckus tryin’ to sell a wagon full o' fake moonshine.”

Arthur peered at the nonsense letters, wondering which one said ‘Norton’. Wondering what other clues it might hold. “Where’s that?”

The deputy snorted. “I told ya, stay well away, boyo.”

“What direction?” Arthur demanded, and perhaps it was the force of his stare that made the deputy take half a step backward, his laughter turning uncertain.

“Well now, it’s over to the west, past the mine, but…”

Arthur didn’t need to hear any more. He slipped past the deputy and was gone, with nothing to his name but the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet and his satchel clutched at his side. Back to following the tracks—west this time—a tiny flare of hope in his chest.

He didn't know what he expected. For them all to be waiting there for him, ready to welcome him back as though all of this was a test? As though him walking fifty miles through the frozen plains was part of some masterplan for him to earn his place alongside them?

They weren’t in Norton. Hadn’t been for weeks. And it was the same in the next town, and the next. Another wanted poster, the next snatch of gossip overheard outside a general store. Two men and a formidable woman. A robbery. A held up stage. A con. But neither Arthur nor the law could catch them. He followed the trail in a wide counter-clockwise circle—from west to south, east to north—chasing every passing mention, always maddeningly close, but never quite close enough for a boy with nothing to propel him forward but sore feet and an empty belly and a fading dream.

He was fourteen now; a little taller, a little broader in the shoulders, with a permanent scowl, and he started to wonder if he’d spend his whole life this way: drifting from place to place, begging for scraps and stealing from the stupid until he starved to death or got caught and hanged or just froze solid one cold night—a little Arthur-shaped statue curled up in some ditch.

And as the weeks turned into months once more, the cold weather came around harsh and unforgiving, and the prospect of spending another long winter on the streets made him want to throw himself into the damn river.

But he kept on following the train tracks—more out of habit than anything—kept on looking for a sign. And then, one frosty night, he found one.

He thought he was seeing things at first—a string of lights hanging in the darkness where there shouldn’t be. He’d walked this track before and he knew there wasn’t a station or a town for miles. The lights were too regimented to be lanterns or a camp, but as he got nearer and heard the ticking of an engine he realised it was a train, stopped in the middle of nowhere, huffing and steaming into the night cold air.

A handful of men were gathered along one side, weapons drawn, barking instructions at the guards and passengers. He’d heard of trains being held up but never seen anything like it before—the immensity of the locomotive, the audacity of halting an entire train and systematically stripping its passengers of their valuables. And he knew it was a stupid situation to walk right into but he couldn't stop himself from creeping a little closer, just to see.

The bandits—outlaws, whoever they were—continued their yelling, ordering the guards to lay down their guns and kneel in the dirt, and a prickle of recognition ran down the back of Arthur’s neck. Because he knew one of those voices. An Irish accent. A harsh twist to his tone. The same voice Frances had used at the campfire the night Arthur had slipped away. One not to be argued with.

He kept to the bushes by the side of the track, making his way right up to the back of the train, reaching out a hand to touch the cold metal just to check it was real—that he wasn’t hallucinating the whole thing out of hunger and exhaustion. A thrumming vibration ran right through the monstrous engine, all the way to the final car, and made him shudder with the memory of the noise and terror of riding in one, all those years ago. When Dutch and Hosea had offloaded him with a train ticket and half a loaf of bread without a backward glance.

He shoved the thought aside and peered around the carriage. Frances was there alright, rounding up the guards while a couple of his companions made their way inside the cars to a chorus of terrified screams from the passengers. And there was another figure, too, slipping around the other side of the train and through the dark towards Frances, unseen. Another guard, taking aim to shoot the man in the back like a coward…

And the fact remained that Frances had saved Arthur’s life, dragging him out of that burning stable on the ranch, and he couldn’t just stand by and let it happen. He moved without considering the consequences, barreling out into the open, grappling his arms around the guard and sending them both sprawling to the ground.

Frances spun round at the commotion and was on them in seconds—shoving his gun in both their faces with a look so fierce it made Arthur shrink back into the dirt, covering his head with his arms.

A flicker of a frown passed over Frances’ expression as his looked down at the boy, before he brought the butt of his pistol down to knock out the guard with a sickening crack.

Arthur waited for his turn, wincing in anticipation of the pain, but the man just stood there, squinting through the darkness at him.

“I know you?” Frances said.

A strange disappointment slithered through his guts. How forgettable he must be. How little he must mean to anyone. Even though he wasn't sure he even wanted to be recognised.

He shook his head, avoiding Frances’ gaze. “Nossir.”

But the Irishman reached down and pulled the boy’s hands away from his face to get a better look. “I do know you… You’re that kid from the ranch… Arthur, wasn’t it?”

And Frances’ look was so intense that Arthur didn’t know if he was relieved or afraid. He gave a tiny nod and Frances hauled him up to his feet with a disbelieving laugh.

“Well you did me a favour there, friend,” the man said, kicking dirt over the unconscious body of the guard at their feet. “What you doin’ out here? Still following the tracks?”

It had been a while since Arthur had spoken to anyone—let alone someone he knew—and he didn't know if he was being made fun of. Couldn’t seem to find any response beyond a shrug. But he was saved from any further conversation by a harsh yell from one of the bandits over by the train.

“What the fuck’s going on over there? C’mon, we gotta go.”

And then Frances was whistling for his horse and pulling Arthur up behind him, grinning all the while, as if there was some great joke Arthur had failed to understand, and then they were riding full tilt away from the train after the others, and headlong into a whole new mess.

Chapter Text

Afterwards, he wasn’t even sure why he went along with the man, besides the fact that he hadn’t been given much of a choice. But perhaps the prospect of a fire and food and somewhere to sleep for the night was enough of a reason not to question it. And a part of him was glad of the fact that Frances had remembered him; made him wonder what the past year might have been like if he hadn’t walked away before. Wondered if he was about to find out.

“Couldn’t just leave you there, huh?” Frances said, nudging an elbow into him as they headed away from the train. “They’d’ve pinned it all on you as the grand mastermind...”

The man’s laugh was so good-natured it made it difficult for Arthur to align his fearful memories with the thrill of riding through the night with the band of whooping thieves. Except, the last time he’d been on the back of Frances’ horse they’d been on their way to burn down the ranch, and he had to remind himself that he’d left for a reason—a gut feeling he couldn’t ignore.

But as they turned down a side trail and through the woods to the O’Driscoll camp the smell of roasting meat took over any misgivings and his streetrat instincts told him to just take what he could get for now and figure the rest out later.

A circle of tents and bedrolls surrounded a cooking fire—enough for a dozen men at least—and soon the camp was alive with bustle and noise as the bandits celebrated their success. Arthur recognised a few faces, some of the rustlers from before, and Denis, who stared at him with a perturbed frown. He shied away from the scrutiny but Frances urged him forward into the crowd.

A man with a long scar across his forehead barked a laugh as he caught sight of the boy. “What the hell you got there?" he nodded to Frances, "Someone give up their firstborn instead of their jewellery?”

Frances jostled Arthur's shoulder with a rough kind of affection. “Big man here took out a train guard for me. Reckon he’s owed a drink.”

“Well then, a toast to ya,” the man said, giving Arthur a wink and gesturing to the campfire. “Better get in there before it’s all gone.”

Arthur felt himself flush hot at all the sudden attention—he'd spent the last year trying not to be noticed—but he let Frances lead him down to the fireside where the rest of the gang was gathering, passing around bowls and bottles, and making a spectacular pile of their takings at the feet of a man with a wide hat and a narrow face.

“Come on, it’s time you met Colm,” Frances said, pushing Arthur in front of the man as if the boy was a donation to the take.

Colm looked up from his counting and shot the boy a shrewd look before raising his eyebrows at his brother.

“What’s this then?”

Arthur couldn’t help but shrink back, but Frances pressed his hands down onto his shoulders, holding him in place.

“My old friend, Arthur. Ran into him down by the train.”

Colm gave a grunt of acknowledgement and returned to sorting the silver from the gold without a word.

“He likes you,” Frances muttered, flashing Arthur a winsome grin, and ducked forward to whisper in his brother’s ear for a minute or two.

Arthur stood awkwardly in the centre of the circle, feeling everyone’s gaze slowly gravitate towards him. He tried to ignore the rising panic, concentrating on the brothers in front of him, and could immediately see the resemblance between them—the same cunning eyes, the same pointed chin, the same trickster smile. Colm looked to be the elder of the two and the more serious. And clearly the one in charge.

Colm kept one eye on the boy while his brother spoke, his expression implacable, and all Arthur's misgivings about the man came flooding back to him. A man who cut the 'dead weight' without a second thought. A man everyone seemed to be silently afraid of. And the way Colm was looking at him, Arthur started to worry that maybe he’d already done something wrong. If there was some past slight that he had yet to pay for. If he'd only been brought here for some sort of revenge. But then Frances straightened up and took a step back and Colm gestured to a space by the fire.

“Why don’t you siddown, have yourself something to eat,” the man said, with that same tone his brother used—friendly on the surface and a warning underneath.

And when Colm spoke, the rest quietened. Watched. Waited. There was no room for refusal. Arthur did as he was told, taking a place beside Frances, and someone passed him a bowl of rabbit stew, still riddled with buckshot. He ate mechanically, his stomach clenching at the novelty of hot food, his eyes falling on the pile of treasure at Colm's feet: every watch and necklace and money clip and purse on that train, just sitting there in the grass.

“Seems I owe you for saving my brother’s life,” Colm said, picking through the haul with an idle disregard, even though it was more wealth than Arthur had ever seen in one place in his life. “I’d say that earns you a reward. Why don’t you take your pick?”

Colm gestured to the pile and Arthur froze, his mouth full of food. It felt like a test. And one he didn’t want to fail.

He shook his head, forcing himself to swallow down the too-hot stew so as he could speak. “Wasn’t nothin’.”

Colm smiled thinly. “You saying my brother’s life ain’t worth nothin’?”

There was a ripple of laughter from the other men but Arthur barely dared to breathe, watching wide-eyed as Colm plucked a silver pocket watch from the haul and ran the chain between his fingers. “Everything has a price,” he said, “And we pay our dues here.”

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the watch to the boy, who fumbled to catch it without spilling his bowl. The silver was cold and smooth in his palm, like a rock worn smooth in the river, and he turned it over to run his thumb over the intricate pattern engraved on its surface. He’d stolen and sold plenty of trinkets in his time, but this felt different. Heavier, somehow. Because he’d earned this. This belonged to him. And he knew in that moment he would never be able to bring himself to sell it.

He nodded his thanks to Colm but Frances gave a snort of mock offence. “Wait. You sayin’ my life’s only worth a pocket watch?”

And even Arthur raised a smile at that, beginning to understand the precarious line that ran right through the group. There was a prickling rivalry between the men—a dance between respect and defiance—and it felt dangerous and exhilarating at the same time.

Colm smirked at his brother. “Well now, you’re the one who really owes him. I’m just showin’ my appreciation for your sorry ass comin’ back in one piece.”

Arthur gave a little shrug. “He saved my life, too. Year ago. So we’re even.”

“Well ain’t you an honourable pair,” Colm drawled, casting a discerning eye over the boy. “Heard about what you did back then. That was a good take, too.”

Arthur suddenly lost his appetite, thinking back to the ranch and what the rustlers had done to the place. The people they’d hurt. Killed. All that destruction. And it was just a ‘take’ to Colm.

“Frances says he offered you a place with us then, too,” Colm added, that flat smile never wavering, “But you turned him down. Think you’re too good for us, is that it?”

An edge-filled silence fell around the campfire and Arthur gripped the bowl in his lap so tight he thought it might crack. He knew that tone of voice. It was his father’s calm voice, before his temper snapped.

“Well?” Colm prompted, when Arthur failed to reply, but Frances leaned across the boy to wave away the tension.

“He was lookin’ for his people, that’s all.”

“Ahh, and I s’pose they’re too good for us, too?”

Frances sighed. “Give it a rest, Colm.”

But Colm still hadn’t taken his eyes off the boy. “You find ‘em? Your ‘people’?”

Arthur forced himself to meet the man’s gaze. To tread that thin line. “Think I’d be here if I did?”

There was a tangible moment of possibility, where the air seemed to still, waiting to see which way the wind would turn, but then Colm let out a throaty laugh and the invisible bubble around them shattered.

“Fair enough,” Colm said, his smile more genuine now, and Arthur dared to breathe again. He never would have talked back to his father that way, but he got the feeling things were different here—that it paid to show you weren’t afraid. Or at least to pretend.

“Frances said you got some initiative,” Colm nodded, “Some balls, too. What else can you do? Been livin’ on the street all this time? Makin’ your own way?”

Arthur nodded.

“Stealin’ or beggin’?”

“Both.”

"Fightin'?" Colm smirked.

"When I have to," Arthur shrugged, and earned himself an appreciative chuckle.

Frances jerked his chin at the hitching posts at the edge of camp. “Kid knows horses, too.”

Colm mulled this over for a moment and Arthur took the opportunity to shove another spoonful of stew into his mouth, if only to avoid having to talk for a while. The switchback between interrogation and compliments and the constant lingering threat of danger was making his heart race.

“Long cold winter to be walking the tracks…” Colm said thoughtfully, “You got somewhere better to be?”

And as much as the man’s shrewd eyes made him want to shiver, the truth was he’d all but given up on ever finding Dutch and the others. The truth was he had nowhere to be and nowhere to go and no one who gave two shits about him besides the buzzards that circled the train tracks, waiting for him to drop.

He shook his head jerkily.

Colm's gruff tone softened just a touch. “Had a hard time of it, sounds like. World'll spit you out if you don't have someone to watch your back. But we can do that for ya. Keep you fed, keep you well, keep you out of mischief—or at least give you some more profitable mischief to get into..”

The man’s eyes twinkled a little at the last part and Arthur felt a twitch of a smile on his own lips, his hand tightening around the silver watch until it warmed in his palm.

“All we ask in return is that you make yourself useful," Colm added, leaning forward to catch the boy's eyeline in a snarelike hold. "Show you're loyal. Prove yourself worthy. Can you do that?”

Arthur wasn’t sure if he was worthy of much, but he could try. And the alternative—heading back out into the cold, dark night and offending Colm’s hospitality—didn’t bear thinking about. So he nodded, once, sharp and sure.

“Yessir.”

“Well then,” Colm said, slapping a hand down on his thigh, “Looks like we got ourselves a new stable boy.”

The rest of the gang made an assortment of grunts to acknowledge their new recruit, but mostly they just seemed relieved that the serious talk was out the way and they could begin drinking in earnest. A bottle made its way around the circle and Arthur failed to notice that it was deliberately passed back to him more often than was strictly necessary until his head was fuzzy and his belly was warm and the world turned soft and slow. 

"See? Told ya he likes you," Frances muttered in his ear.

And then Colm was sitting next to him with his arm around his shoulders, raising a toast in his name, and everyone was grinning and he couldn’t remember why he’d ever been scared of them all.

“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” Colm declared suddenly, raising the bottle to the sky. “You know what that means, Arthur?”

Arthur stared blankly back at him. There was no point lying. No one thought he was clever. He shook his head.

“Means the family you find can be stronger than the one you’re born with,” Colm explained, gesturing around the circle. “Frances and I, we’re brothers by blood, but we are all brothers, here. O’Driscoll boys, every one of us, and that’s what makes us strong.”

A ragged cheer went up in agreement and then the bottle was in Arthur’s hands once more and when he took a dutiful slug they cheered again. it made his cheeks burn but he couldn’t deny it felt good to be part of something after so long alone. He never had a brother before. Let alone a dozen.

And as the evening drew on, the noise of the celebrations faded into his dreams as the drink swallowed him up, pulling him down into the deepest sleep he’d had for years.

He began his first day as an O’Driscoll with his very first hangover and was summarily kicked awake at dawn.

The sky was pale and thin, and the air was crisp with the threat of snow. He was lying beside the ashes of the fire, wrapped in someone else’s coat and covered with a fine layer of frosty dew that crackled when he shifted.

A boot nudged against the back of his legs once more and Denis loomed over him with a look as grim as he felt. “Well, get to it then, stable boy.”

He let out a faint groan. His head felt as if it was about to crack open and the inside of his mouth was dry and pasty. The world still seemed to be tilting slightly, even though he was lying still, and all the warmth and courage of last night's liquor had slithered away into a writhing pile of snakes in his guts. He thought he might throw up if he so much as moved, but he also didn’t want to find out what would happen if he ignored Denis’ order, so he crawled tentatively onto all fours and then up to a crouch, exhaling with a shaky curse.

Denis laughed at his nauseous expression, pulling him up to standing a little rougher than was probably necessary. “Ah, you’ll live, little man."

Arthur wasn't so sure but he swallowed thickly and staggered towards the cluster of horses, wondering how the hell his father ever managed to even stand up straight when he spent most of Arthur's living memory in this state.

The rest of the gang were still in various states of unconsciousness, and Arthur picked his way carefully through the bedrolls and tents, trying to keep his balance despite the swirling of his head. Everything was worse now that he was upright, though he was somewhat proud of himself for making it all the way past the horses to the stream at the base of the clearing before he fell to his knees and puked his guts up.

It helped a little, and although he was sure he could hear Denis still laughing at him from across the camp he didn’t have the energy to care much about his pride. And at least the horses didn’t mind the stink. They were grateful for the water and the feed and the soft greetings he whispered in their ears; they let him lean against them when a dizzy spell hit him; and focusing on the job at hand helped to distract him from the godawful churning of his stomach.

It took no time at all for him to fall back into the stable work—the kind of thing he could do in his sleep—which was just as well because he wasn’t entirely sure he was fully conscious yet. But there was something calming being around animals again. They didn’t ask questions or demand anything more than basic decency, and he could think of worse ways to spend the colder months than taking care of his own little herd. He’d have to learn all their names and natures; earn their trust; prove himself worthy, like Colm said. And whatever else went on in the gang, well, he figured maybe he didn’t have to have much to do with that, so long as he did his job and kept his head down.

And he was right, to an extent. After all Colm’s big words about brotherhood that first night, for the most part, no one paid much attention to the boy aside from treating him like a dogsbody. It was more like being on the ranch than he expected, except they moved around a lot, and there was less shovelling shit and a lot more drunkenness and disorder. There was a constant thread of tension, too—as if everyone was on tenterhooks, all of them vying for their place, looking for a way to bring someone else down a peg or two. There was no overseer here to break up petty squabbles and make sure the men behaved themselves—only the judgement of Colm and Frances, who argued just as much between themselves but seemed to actively encourage the fights and rivalry to weed out the weak links and keep everyone hungry for approval.

“Everything has a price,” Colm had said, “And we pay our dues here.”

And Arthur knew just how dangerous it was to owe someone. No such thing as kindness without a catch. And so he made sure he did what he was told, fed and watered the horses, cleaned saddles and boots, gathered firewood and hauled water from the river, fetched and carried, made coffee and dug up roots for the stew, and never once asked for anything. They treated him well enough in return, just as Colm promised; gave him a bedroll of his own, at least one decent meal a day, taught him how to play cards and how to hold his liquor a little better. Frances took more of an interest in him than the others, called him ‘Big Man’ and asked him about himself—how he ended up knowing Dutch, how he ended up alone—told him he was better off without ‘em, how they obviously didn’t appreciate him, didn't deserve him.

And he didn’t want to believe it but he couldn’t see any proof to the contrary. He'd chased the outlaws all across the damn state and they didn't even care he existed. They’d left him behind. Let him to fend for himself. And for once in his sorry life he was doing alright. Holding his own. Not stuck in some dead-end ranch or scavenging in the gutter. He was riding with free men who took what they wanted and refused to live by anyone’s rules but their own.

And maybe this was the dream he'd had all along.

Maybe this was as good as it got.

Maybe, in time, he could learn to be an O’Driscoll.

Chapter Text

Life with the O’Driscolls taught him two things: how to fight and how to drink himself to sleep. Both were useful in their own way, but aside from that, they mostly kept him out of the main operations of the gang, which suited him just fine.

He’d seen what they did when they went off on a ‘job’—raiding nearby businesses or homesteads, setting up roadblocks for carriages, or stealing livestock the same way they’d done with Templeton—and while Arthur couldn’t exactly claim the high road when it came to his short life of crime, he couldn’t say he agreed with the gang’s methods either. His father had always relied on trickery and stealth as much as possible—better to go unnoticed than cause a big scene—but the O’Driscolls had numbers on their side, which meant the easiest way to get things done was with threats and violence and destruction. With fear.

Arthur had already had more than his fill of fear, so he was glad to be left behind, tending the horses, keeping watch at camp, making sure he never took more than he was given—and for a few weeks he thought he was keeping up his end of the bargain, paying his dues, proving himself useful, worthy. Only there were no constants under Colm’s rule; those scales of favour were constantly tipping one way or another, and earning your place was an endless task, complicated even further by the need to compete for favour. And whle Arthur hardly thought of himself as any kind of threat, other seemed to think differently.

Denis had it in for him from the moment he arrived, taking full advantage of having a new underling to order around, treating Arthur as his own personal servant, berating him if he didn’t move fast enough, and making out like he wasn’t pulling his weight, even though Arthur had never seen Denis doing a single thing round camp besides occasionally throwing a log on the fire. He didn’t know why the man hated him so much but he figured maybe there didn’t need to be a reason. It was just like the ranch, really—when you put a bunch of people together, some of them’ll naturally start to get to thinkin’ they’re more important than the others, and it made 'em feel bigger to pick on those that can’t fight back. Arthur was used to it, and he could cope with being treated like shit—what he couldn’t abide was the man’s treatment of his horse.

By now, Arthur knew all the horses and who they belonged to, and he also knew Denis wore spurs on his boots, used a whip rather than earn the trust of his mount, and failed to even give the animal a name besides ‘girl’. Arthur secretly called her Tulip, because of the petal-shaped patch on her nose and she quickly became his favourite—an underdog, just like him. He made sure to give her extra treats and scritches and make sure her time away from her unappreciative rider was as pleasant as possible, and in return she snuffled his hair and pestered him for nose-rubs and greeted him with wholehearted snorts whenever she saw him. He traced the scars on her flanks with gentle palms and wished he could show Denis what it felt like to be kicked with a jagged bit of metal. But he knew it was pointless to call the man out for it—he’d only get a slap round the head and an earful of abuse—and tattling would lose him what little respect he had from the others. So he kept quiet. Did his job. And waited for his chance to tip those scales, somehow.

Arthur had been with them little over a month when the gang came back sore and bloodied and run ragged from a job gone wrong, and there was nothing but sourness and swearing and picking at each other for the rest of the day. Arthur wasn’t sure of the specifics and was too afraid to ask, but from what he could gather it had involved an unexpected posse of bounty hunters, a long-winded chase, and a meagre reward to show for it. The take got brought to Colm for counting nonetheless, and he considered each piece with his usual cold measure, doling out each person’s share without so much as a word.

And whatever else Arthur thought about the man, at least he was fair. Because no matter how little there was to go around, everyone got something from each job—not equal shares by any means, but it was a decent enough policy to keep the group together, keep them competing for a better cut. Or, more importantly, for Colm’s approval. Which apparently was worth more than gold. 

Arthur was still surprised to get anything at all, and even though his share was mostly cast offs and trinkets he was just as grateful for pennies as he was for the silver watch. He soon realised it was nothing in the grand scheme of what the gang was taking, but it was still treasure to him and he slowly built up a little hoard, hidden at the bottom of a bag of horse feed. He didn’t know how much his left-behind Templeton wages were worth but he reckoned it wouldn’t be long until he surpassed it. And even though he had no way to spend his savings, it was good to have money of his own—just in case he needed to run one day.

But not everyone felt so appreciative of Colm’s fairness, and when Arthur received his share that day—a tarnished copper bracelet with a broken clasp—Denis snatched it right out of his hands with a scathing tut.

Arthur’s street rat instincts sent him leaping up at the man to try to grab it back but Denis held it easily out of reach and shoved him backwards so hard he tripped on his own feet and landed on his ass.

Colm lifted his head to fix Denis with a steady, neutral look and Arthur didn’t dare move from the ground; could feel everyone’s eyes on him as all activity in the camp ceased to watch the confrontation.

“What the hell d’you do to earn this, huh?” Denis snarled down at him.

Arthur figured the question was really meant for Colm but Arthur was the easier target, and he knew better than to answer back. Just stared sullenly up at the man.

Denis inspected the bracelet, bending it even further out of shape with a scathing look. “'Bout as valuable as you. Useless little shit. We’re out there, riskin’ our asses, and you didn't even leave the camp for chrissakes.”

“Neither did Jonny. Or Ted,” Colm pointed out calmly, nodding to a couple of men sipping coffee at the campfire.

Denis balked a little at the interjection before giving a reluctant shrug. “Yeah, but they were on watch. What did he do? Wash dishes?”

Arthur wanted to ask him when he’d last cleaned a pot or fixed a meal but he bit his tongue and scowled back instead.

Colm watched the kid’s reaction with a smirk of amusement before his eyes flicked up to Denis. “Everyone gets a cut. You know that.”

Denis looked for a moment as if he might argue the point further but faced with the full force of Colm’s focus he seemed to think better of it, tossing the bracelet down into the mud beside the boy.

“He ought to start pulling his weight, is all I’m sayin’,” he spat. “Or we just takin’ in orphans out of the goodness of our hearts now?”

The last part was aimed at Frances, who was over on the other side of camp, out of earshot, and Arthur saw a flicker of a shared joke pass between Denis and Colm.

“All part of the plan,” Colm drawled. “Building an army of O’Driscolls, one man at a time.”

Denis gave a snort and scuffed his boots at the boy, showering him with dirt. “Just a snotty little kid. Ain’t no man.”

Arthur knew he was proving him right by being childish but he couldn’t stop himself lobbing a handful of mud and grass at him, prompting a curse from Denis and a round of sniggering from their audience.

“Maybe not, but he’s learning to stand up for himself,” Colm said, with a wink at Arthur. “We’ll make a man out of him yet.”

Denis rolled his eyes. “Seems like a dumb sack o’ shit to me.”

“Guess I’m in good company, then,” Arthur snapped, finally reaching his limit. “They took you in, didn’t they?”

This time there was a roar of appreciative laughter from the gang and Arthur felt his cheeks burning red at the attention—especially under the shrewd eye of Colm, who seemed to be considering him in a new way all of a sudden.

“Maybe it is time you did more than feed horses. Huh, kid?” Colm said slowly.

Arthur gave a shrugging nod, aware that it was never wise to disagree with the man, even though his stomach clenched at the thought of riding out with the gang. But a small part of him—the part that wanted to send his fist thudding into Denis’ nose—wanted to prove himself, too. To Colm. To Frances. To all of them.

And as if he could read the kid’s thoughts, Colm turned his dangerous grin back on Denis. “Well now, since you’re so invested in the boy’s education, why don’t you take him into town tomorrow? See if he can’t find a way to show us what he’s made of. Earn his place.”

Denis attempted a scoffing noise until he realised Colm was deadly serious. And then it was his turn for the reluctant but obedient nod, exchanging a look with Arthur that told him in no uncertain terms he was going to pay for the shit Denis had started

And Arthur’s first test was set in stone.

Arthur rode behind Frances, trying not to dig his fingers into the man’s sides with the full force of his anxiety as they headed into town.

Frances had given the boy the same shark-like smile as Colm when he’d found out about the plan, but there had been a tightness in his eyes, too, and Arthur was reminded of the conversation he’d overheard when he’d first run away from the rustlers. About how Colm didn’t tolerate ‘dead weight’. He’d never found the courage to ask what had happened to the man they’d been discussing back then. Wasn’t sure he even wanted to know. Wondered what he’d have to do to show that he wasn’t just a dish-washing orphan. Wondered if this wasn’t all an elaborate plan to just dump him and run...

The nearest town was only a few miles away from camp—a fast-growing cluster of timber-framed buildings beside the railroad, like so many settlements that seemed to spring up out of nowhere these days. But however new the town was, its people knew instantly what kind of folk the O’Driscolls were. There were only five of them, but as they rode down the thoroughfare, Arthur could feel the power in the gang’s presence surrounding him. It wasn’t posturing as such, and there was no grand announcement to their arrival—they didn’t even bother to sit tall in the saddle; barely acknowledged the hurried hat tips of the men and the averted eyes of the women—just slouched their way through the town, slow as you like, as if it meant nothing that their wanted posters were plastered up on every train station wall for fifty miles. And perhaps that was it: the not caring. The fact that whatever rules of civility the town expected from its residents and visitors simply did not apply to the O’Driscolls and everyone knew it.

Arthur watched the fear ripple through the town like a wave and it was strange to be on the other side of the feeling. No one even dared look him in the eye. And although he knew it wasn’t him they were scared of, riding with the gang it made something swell in his chest. Not quite pride, exactly, but a kind of reassurance. For the first time in a long time—maybe forever—the knowledge that if it all went wrong, someone had his back. A band of brothers, just like Colm said. Even if Denis might be glad to abandon him without a second thought, now that he’d been seen with the O’Driscolls, pride alone demanded that they wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

Still, that didn't mean he felt any better about going looking for trouble. And now that they were here, a nervous nausea swirled in his stomach at the prospect of whatever the hell lay in store for him.

The men hitched their horses at the saloon, ignoring the boy entirely, as though it were just another day of drinking and gambling. But as Arthur went to follow them in, Denis barred the doorway and fixed the boy in place with a tight grip on his shoulder. “Nope. Not you. You got a job to do, remember?”

Arthur shook him off with a scowl. “What’m I s’posed to do?”

“That’s your business," Denis grunted. "Go ‘prove yourself’ like a good little boot licker. And you ain't hanging around with us—meet back at camp in a couple hours.”

The rest of the men filed past him with an assortment of amused expressions and Denis shot him a satisfied smirk before turning his back and letting the door clatter shut.

Only Frances remained outside for a moment more, lighting a cigar and chuckling to himself at the faltering look on the boy's face.

Arthur stood there like a tailor's dummy, trying to figure out exactly what kind of fool they were trying to make of him. He’d expected some kind of initiation. Some gut-gnawing mission to put him through his paces. Instructions, at the very least. And as much as the prospect had been slowly filling him with dread, somehow not being told what to do felt even more terrifying.

Frances scruffed the boy’s hair. “C’mon now. This is your chance to impress Colm,” he said. “And he’s gonna want more than just a bit of pickpocketing, so think big. But think smart, too.”

Arthur didn’t know how to do either of those things but didn’t want to let Frances down. Didn’t want him to know how useless and cowardly his new apprentice really was. 

But perhaps his expression said it all, because Frances leaned in a little closer, his hand grasping the back of Arthur’s collar tight for a second, and he wasn't sure if it was meant to be reassuring or a warning. “You’ll think of something, Big Man. Just don’t get caught, okay?”

Arthur tried to nod—tried to gather his thick senses enough to ask for more advice, for help—but he couldn't find the words and Frances gave him one last pat on the shoulder before heading into the saloon after the others.

Suddenly alone, without a clue or a hope, Arthur stood alone on the front steps of the saloon and fought the urge to just run. He could feel the town’s eyes on him and busied himself with the horses for a minute, making sure they were all hitched properly and able to reach the water trough. Tulip nuzzled his ear in solidarity and he rested his forehead against her nose with a sigh.

He was way out of his depth and there was no way he was going to get away with anything here. The townspeople were watching his every move already—knowing exactly who he was associated with—and as he scanned the street for potential marks he only felt the dread in his guts get heavier.

The town had all the usual amenities: a general store, a butcher’s stall, a cluster of shacks that served as a hotel, a post office bolted onto the side of the train station, and a small church that sat right beside the sheriff’s office, a tall hanging post standing between them like a symbol of their combined judgement. Or a premonition of what was waiting for him when he inevitably screwed this up...

Arthur considered each one in turn and decided just as quickly that none were worth the risk. Nor did he fancy his chances at lifting something from one of the townspeople’s pockets. Frances had said Colm would be expecting more than that, anyway, but Arthur had no idea what else he could do. Up until this moment he’d only ever stolen to survive: scraps and trinkets and opportunistic moments of sponteneity. Thefts he was sure he’d get away with—or act of desperation when he was beyond caring. But this was different. This was stealing just because he could. To prove he could. And he was pretty sure coming back empty handed was not an option.

Think big, Frances had said. But think smart, too.

He thought of the pile of silver and gold the men had brought back from the train job. The box of cash bonds and bank notes they’d stolen from a mail coach a week before. The pearl and silver pistol Frances had taken at knifepoint from some pompous wannabe gunslinger, fresh from the city.

There was nothing in this Podunk town to compare to any of that. Just everyday people trying to live their lives. But as he heard a burst of raucous laughter from the men inside the saloon, he thought maybe it didn’t have to be about money.

Maybe it was about showing he had the balls to take what he wanted most of all.

And once the thought had lodged itself in his head he couldn’t get it out.

And then it was as easy as slipping Tulip’s reins off the post and swinging himself up into the saddle.

It seemed like the perfect crime. Stealing from the person he hated the most. Saving Tulip from Denis’ mistreatment. And, since the townspeople had seen him ride in with the group, he doubted anyone would give two shits to see him riding back out again on one of the same horses. If anyone did stop him, he reckoned he could make up some lie about being sent on an errand, but sure enough, no one cast him much more than a glance. 

Tulip was happy to have him on her back, loping back down the thoroughfare with barely a nudge, and he felt a rush of exhilaration deep down in his lungs to feel her moving easy and confident beneath him, as if she’d been his all along. As if they were meant to be together.

He knew he didn’t need to hurry—he was pretty sure Denis and the others wouldn’t even notice he was gone until they finished their drinking and their card games and came back out to fetch their horses—but that didn’t stop a prickle of adrenaline running through him. And although he kinda wished he could have stuck around to see the look on Denis’ face when he realised what had happened, the thought of getting caught was making him sweat, hunching low over Tulip’s neck as if it might make him invisible as he trotted all the way out of town and into the woodland.

He still had a couple of hours to kill so he gave the horse her head and took a quiet trail down past the tracks to the river, looking over his shoulder all the while. And as the minutes ticked past he started to wonder if he’d made an extremely bad decision. Maybe this wasn’t the great jape he’d thought it was. Maybe he’d crossed a line. Maybe he’d tried to be a little too clever and ended up tipping over into stupid. Maybe he should just take Tulip and keep riding.

That particular thought made his heart stutter in his chest. A horse of his very own, just like he’d always wanted. Just like he'd told Grimshaw; told Templeton; imagined himself galloping free across the plains behind Dutch's tall black mare...

For a fleeting moment he considered it. And its consequences. And the sinking feeling returned. He had no idea if the O’Driscolls would bother to chase after him but he didn't want to think about what they’d do if they caught him. Or even if he wanted to run away. He imagined the disappointed look on France’s face. The smirk on Denis’. The cold fury on Colm’s.

And as much as he feared the man, it wasn’t as if the O’Driscolls had treated him badly. Frances had saved his life. They’d given him a home of sorts. Called him ‘brother’. They were trying to make him one of them. It was more than anyone had done for him in a long time—even Grimshaw’s kindness had faded to a bitter memory now—and here he was considering running away from it all. Again.

Maybe he deserved to be abandoned. Maybe his father was right and he was just an ungrateful little shit. Maybe he ought to be counting his blessing instead of dreaming of anything more than this.

It was hard to think clearly with so many thoughts in his head so he let Tulip make the decision for him, and sure enough, once she’d gotten bored with grazing at the river’s edge she started off on a meandering path back to camp. Delivering him back to whatever awaited him there.

He must’ve overestimated how long he’d been gone because it was almost dark by the time he got back and he could feel the tension in the air before he even caught sight of the first man on watch.

A shout went up when they recognised him, and within a few moments Arthur and Tulip were the focus of the entire gang as word trickled through the camp and a ramshackle crowd formed around the boy and his newly stolen horse.

Arthur sat awkwardly in the saddle, reluctant to get down but just as reluctant to be the centre of attention, unable to gauge if he was in trouble or if he’d done a good job or both at the same time. The reactions of the men were hard to read in the firelight—there was barking laughter and unimpressed glaring, disbelieving curses and muttered jokes at his expense. Frances was laughing so hard he had to hang onto the man next to him to stay upright, and Colm looked on with his usual flat, unreadable expression, but Denis was already storming towards the boy with a look like pure murder.

Tulip sidestepped at the man’s approach, echoing Arthur’s fear, and he slid a hand down her side, murmuring reassuring words he didn’t believe, steeling himself for the full force of Denis’s reaction as he straightened up again.

For a second they just glared at one another—and Arthur had the brief satisfaction of looking down on the man for a change. Denis looked no less terrifying from above, but Arthur could see just how much the ribbing and joking of the other men was getting to him and it was a small consolation for what he could tell was coming. 

And sure enough, a moment later, he saw Denis’ eyes narrow with the threat of violence as he lunged forward. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?” Denis growled, reaching up and yanking the boy right out of the saddle with a fistful of his shirt. Arthur hadn’t even hit the ground before the man’s other hand came swinging round to land a ringing slap across the side of his face. The strike resounded around his head, one ear hot and burning, and he missed most of what Denis yelled at him next, though he could gather the general sentiment easily enough by the red rage in the man’s eye.

Arthur had somehow managed to hold onto Tulip’s reins as he fell, and he could feel her tugging backwards, huffing and trying to pull away from the scuffle at her feet. And as Denis landed another open-fisted smack across his head, Arthur found he cared less about the beating and more about the fact that Tulip suffered this kind of treatment daily from the man—and he wished he’d never come back.

“…little shite for brains, got some fuckin’ nerve stealing my horse, haven’t ya? Coming back here like the king of fuckin’ England…”

Denis’ words blended into white noise as the blows kept coming, battering the boy every which way as the man beat him with one hand and held tight onto his shirt with the other, slowly ripping it down the side seam with every strike. 

Arthur clung onto the reins, more out of instinct than anything, and perhaps that’s what saved him, because Tulip finally decided she’d had enough of and reared up with a shrill shriek.

Denis let go of the boy, staggering backward, and Arthur curled in a ball, expecting the heavy pound of hooves to come crashing down on top of him at any moment. But Tulip set her feet down carefully—protectively—either side of him, as though she were standing guard, and tossed her head at her previous owner.

Denis sneered at the betrayal and started forward to snatch up the reins himself, but this time it was Arthur taking a stand. The boy scrambled to his feet and put himself between them, a harsh yell of warning escaping his throat.

”You leave her alone,” he snapped. “She don’t like you and you don’t treat her right.”

Tulip let out a warning snort of agreement and Denis froze, not wanting to risk another rearing.

”Give me my fucking horse,” Denis said, slow and dangerously quiet.

Arthur shook his head and took a step back, and Tulip moved with him.

”You don’t deserve her,” he said, in the same tone.

And for a moment the camp was silent but for the horse’s disgruntled snuffling and Arthur’s panicked breathing, the pair of them looking as wild and desperate as each other.

”Easy now,” came Frances’ low voice, cutting through the quiet and jolting them out of their stand off.

Both Colm and Frances were watching the boy carefully, and he swiped away the trickle of blood running out of his nose, doing his best to stand tall.

”I did what you said. Stole something valuable. Didn’t get caught. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?” He could hear the ragged edge in his own voice; could feel every one of Denis’ strikes radiating off his skin as though he’d left handprints.

Frances looked to his brother with a sideways smile. “Well. He ain’t wrong…”

But Colm was less easily amused. “We don’t steal from our own,” he said flatly. “Rule number one.”

Denis shot the boy a self-satisfied look, setting his hands on his hips, but then Colm echoed his brother's wily smirk.

“Though I figure you've probably already taken the punishment for that," Colm continued, nodding at the reddening marks on Arthur's face.“And technically, you fulfilled the terms set out for you. Showed some initiative. A little spunk. Thought your way around the problem. Could use a few more brains like that in this crew."

Denis' smug expression froze and fell as he stared back and forth between his boss and the boy in disbelief. He opened his mouth to object but Colm gave the man a pointed stare. “And, by the rules of fair play, looks to me like you need to find yourself a new horse.”

Arthur could barely breathe. He watched as Denis’ face flushed red and a slew of curses came stuttering out of his tight mouth. The man looked as though he wanted to wring the boy's neck, but he clearly knew better than to go against a direct order from Colm, and rather than face the jeering of his brethren he turned tail and stomped off across the camp to his tent without another word.

Arthur sagged against Tulip’s side, hardly daring to believe what was happening. His head was reeling and he flinched when someone gave him a congratulatory slap on the back as the crowd gradually dispersed back to the campfire. He was holding on so tight to the horse's reins that they were cutting a bruised line into his palm.

Colm gave him one last discerning look and turned away with a wry smile that made Arthur feel like there was some trick still waiting to spring. But Frances lingered behind a moment longer, a genuine look of fondness on his face as he jerked his chin at the mare. “You earned yourself a prize today, Arthur," he said, then let his eyes drift over to the direction of Denis' tent. "And... maybe an enemy, too."

Arthur followed the man's gaze and tried to let his hatred for Denis mask his fear, giving a sniff of indifference. "He's all mouth."

Frances raised an amused eyebrow. "You think? Aye. Maybe so. But best watch your back just in case, though, eh? If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Colm's favour always comes at a price."

Arthur nodded absently, but something had shifted inside the boy. He had been surviving for a long time—just getting by, scrambling and clinging to whatever shred of luck or charity came his way—but now, for the first time in his life, he’d done something for himself. Taken what he wanted. Taken a stand. And he was still standing, albeit bloody and breathless and lightheaded, with his very own horse by his side.

And whatever retribution might be coming his way from Denis, he was going to meet it head on. 

Chapter Text

Despite his attempts at bravado, Arthur couldn’t help but expect immediate and vicious retaliation from Denis after the liberation of Tulip, but instead the man simply acted like Arthur didn’t exist, refusing to acknowledge him at all—to the point where he’d walk right into him if the boy was in his way, and barge past even if he wasn’t. After a few days, the novelty seemed to wear off, and Denis returned to the kind of petty, irritating shit that Arthur would have expected from the boys at the ranch: ‘accidentally’ knocking his bowl out of his hands in the middle of a meal; kicking his bedroll into the embers of the fire; tossing his boots into the river... Childishness that made the other men snigger, but nothing bad enough for Arthur to complain about without looking like a whiny little tattle-tail. Still, if this was the worst of Denis' revenge, then the boy was content to put up with it and hope he'd lose interest eventually.

Sure enough, a week later, Denis's attention shifted to a new stolen mount of his own—a grouchy Hungarian who seemed to take an instant dislike to Arthur, just like his owner, snapping and kicking and making every interaction an ordeal. Arthur suspected it was more to do with the fact that Denis mistreated the poor animal, just like he did with Tulip, and while the knowledge didn’t make dealing with the beast any easier, he was just glad Denis seemed to have moved on.

The man was too busy bragging to anyone who’d listen about the Hungarian's superior strength and speed—"as fierce as a warhorse and twice as mean"—and Arthur once again bit his tongue about the fact that Denis did absolutely nothing to care for the creature, letting him deal with his dented pride in his own ridiculous way. And for a while he thought perhaps the whole episode was behind them. Perhaps Denis wasn’t as sore a loser as he seemed. And he made the mistake of letting his guard down.

Most nights with the O’Driscolls involved drinking round the fire, but on this particular evening things were especially jovial. They’d finally crossed the state border, leaving behind a sizable bounty and a string of botched jobs, and were celebrating their fresh start in earnest. And as the campfire roared ever higher, Frances took it upon himself to teach Arthur a filthy ballad involving several women of loose-morals and a priest, making the boy drink every time he got a word wrong.

Ever since Arthur had passed his first ‘test’, Frances had invested more interest in the boy—perhaps encouraged by the glimpse of acceptance from Colm—and Arthur couldn’t pretend he wasn’t enjoying the attention just a little bit. The alcohol helped, too, filling him up with a confidence he’d never let loose before, and he made up half the lines of the third verse of the song to earn himself another beer and a round of crowing applause.

Denis looked on with a sneering kind of smirk, finally showing some sort of acknowledgement of the boy, and raised his own bottle as the boy finished with a bow. “Here’s to the trained monkey,” he drawled. “’Imma go take a piss.”

And Arthur might have mistaken it for a kind of truce if he hadn’t caught the way the man’s drunken stumbling suddenly eased into a purposeful stride the moment he was clear of the campfire. The pretence, along with his sly parting smile, sent a cold slither of paranoia down Arthur’s spine. Denis was up to something, and he'd chosen a moment where the entire gang was distracted to do it.

But no one else seemed to have noticed. The rest of the men had moved onto a new song and were busy arguing about how the chorus went, so Arthur muttered his own excuse and slipped away to follow Denis into the dark.

He tried to quell the prickling unease as he weaved through the tents and bedrolls after him, keeping a wary distance. Maybe he was just overreacting. Or maybe Denis was just planning another stupid prank—cold stew in his saddle bags or mud in his coffee can or something equally juvenile. But as he watched the darkened figure make a distinct beeline for the horses, he knew in his guts his instincts had been right.

A few moments later and it might have been too late. If he’d stayed at the fire it would have been fatal. As it was, he barely caught up with the man to find him crushing oleander leaves into Tulip’s nosebag.

For a second Arthur could only stare in horror, hardly able to process the horror of what he was seeing. And then he was throwing himself at Denis with a cry of panic, ripping the bag out of his hands and sending the horses into a startled scuffle.

Denis staggered at the sudden attack but managed to stay on his feet, grabbing a fistful of the boy’s jacket and swinging him round until the boy slammed into the nearest tree. The impact knocked all the air out of his lungs and he scrabbled for purchase as Denis’ fist twisted ever tighter into his chest, squirming like a feral cat. And then he felt something cold and metallic being shoved beneath his chin, heard the click of a hammer being pulled back, the creak of a trigger under tension, and he froze—unable to even breathe as Denis’ unblinking eyes bored into his.

For a second, Arthur truly believed the man might shoot—consequences be damned—there was such an intense hatred in his stare. He could feel the barrel pressing harder into his throat every time he swallowed. Wondered if the blast would blow his head right to pieces or if it would be slow and agonising, choking on his own blood.

There was a long, silent moment, when time stood still and there was only the taste of metal hanging in the air, and then Denis seemed to realise what he was doing and his grip on the boy slackened with a sharp shake of his head.

“If I don’t deserve her then neither do you,” the man snarled, swinging the gun around to aim at Tulip instead.

Arthur let out an inhuman cry and clawed at the Denis' arm, pleading and shrieking for him to spare the horse, sobbing like a toddler on his knees in the dirt. 

The man turned slowly, letting the gun hang loosely at his side, staring down at the boy with a look of distaste.

Arthur clung onto his boots, almost prostrate in his desperation, his face a mess of snot and tears, murmuring, “Please… please don’t hurt her…” over and over.

Denis’ grimace slipped into a slow satisfied smile as he watched the boy beg. And without another word, he holstered his gun, stepped over Arthur’s prone body and headed back to the campfire.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, wasn’t sure if his shivering was from the shock or the cold. He curled into a ball on the ground, whatever courage he’d thought he’d found slithering away into his guts, and even though he could hear Frances calling out for another song, he couldn't bring himself to go back to the fire. At some point the drinking and the carousing died away and he crawled his way to the warmth of the horses and that’s where he slept—that night and every night afterwards—just in case.

And he never let his guard down again.

Afterwards, Denis acted like nothing had happened. In fact, he acted as if they whole Tulip affair was water under the bridge, reverting back to how things had been before, ordering the boy around every chance he got. Arthur might have wondered if he'd imagined the whole thing if he didn't have the bruise beneath his chin to prove it. And he was so afraid of Denis following through on his threat he didn't dare tell a soul about it. He did whatever Denis said. Went back to being the stable boy lackey he'd always been, the coward he'd always been—any joy he'd found in saving Tulip turned to fear and distrust. And the man had finally gotten his revenge, ruining the only good thing in the boy's life.

But Denis’ cruelty had taught him something important—that he couldn’t rely on anyone else to save him. He had to learn how to fight. Defend himself, and those he loved. To the death if necessary.

“I want a gun,” he blurted to Frances the next time they were alone.

The man gave him a sideways look and a scoffing laugh. “Why? You got someone you think needs shootin’?”

Arthur shrugged into his collar, forcing himself not to glance across the camp at Denis. “Wanna defend myself, that’s all.”

Frances read his silence with a frown and nodded slowly. “Fair enough. But that’s a privilege you gotta earn, Big Man. You got a knife, don’tcha? Let’s see it.”

Arthur took out his pocket knife and flipped it open. It wasn’t much but he kept it sharp, just like his daddy’d taught him. But it was hardly a weapon, and he’d never used it on anyone except the occasional rat when he was desperate and starving.

Frances took the blade from him and tested the edge against his thumb with an appreciative nod. “Aye. That'll do. Y’see, a gun’s almost too easy. Gives you distance. But a knife...” he grinned, slinging an arm around the boy’s shoulders, “With a knife you gotta get right up close. Gotta know you’ve got the guts to stick it into someone.”

As if to prove his point he pressed the tip of the knife against Arthur’s stomach, just hard enough to pinch. Then between his ribs. The hollow of his throat.

Arthur blinked, his breath hitching for a second, remembering Denis’ gun against his chin. Imagined the blade sliding through skin and flesh. Imagined hot blood pouring down his chest.

Frances barked a laugh and span the knife over his knuckles with a practised skill, slapping the handle back into the boy’s hand. Sometime Arthur thought the man enjoyed scaring him, even though he knew it was only teasing, knew he only did it to toughen him up—it was a twisted kind of kindness, all the same.

“Go on then, let’s see what you’re made of,” Frances said, picking up a half-rotten log from the ground and holding it out at arm’s length towards the boy.

Arthur tightened his fist around the weapon. It felt different to how he usually held it—a blunt kind of grip instead of the careful precision required for whittling wood or cutting up food—a different kind of tool. He focused on the log and tried to imagine it was a person’s chest. Denis’ chest.

Frances grinned in encouragement and the boy jabbed forward, hard and fast. He felt the blade connect, a moment of jarring resistance before it slid through the bark to the mulchy innards of the log, right up to the hilt. It made him feel a bit sick and he hurriedly yanked it out again, tearing off a chunk of rotten wood and sending a colony of pill bugs swarming out of the hole.

Frances dumped the whole mess at his feet with another husky laugh. “Aye, I think you’ve got the hang of that one already, Big Man.”

Arthur wiped the dirt off the knife and folded it away, glad the lesson was over, torn between feeling an uncomfortable kind of pride and wishing he’d never mentioned it at all.

After that, Frances started volunteering Arthur to come along on jobs.

“No point in letting that horse of yours just stand around, is there?” he said with a wink, and Colm indulged him, seemingly satsified to leave the boy’s training to his brother.

At first he was just an extra body, bolstering the numbers to make Colm’s ‘army’ seem ever more intimidating, and he stayed on the periphery, sitting as tall as he could on Tulip’s back, watching and learning first-hand how the O’Driscolls operated.

It wasn’t as if he had any illusions about the company he kept. And it wasn’t as if he could exactly judge, considering he’d been born into much the same life. He knew they weren’t good men by any means, but aside from what had happened at the ranch he hadn’t seen what they were really capable of up until this point. And by then it was too late.

His first ride out they robbed a train station—almost on a passing whim—just a tiny little shack in the middle of nowhere with a general store and a post office counter. The employees didn’t put up a fight but the O’Driscolls turned the place over anyway, beat the ticket attendant and the postal worker, swiped the meagre takings from the cash register and cleared out the store down to its last can of beans. A train pulled in just as they were done, and the gang rode like hell out of there, acting like it was some great victory, hooting and hollering all the way. Arthur just about managed to keep up with them, and was proud of Tulip for staying true despite the noise and chaos, but he couldn’t stop thinking the whole thing had been a senseless exercise. Just because they could.

He soon came to realise most of the gang’s jobs went a similar way. There was the occasional planned operation, but for the most part they were spontaneous, random, and violent. More about reinforcing the O’Driscoll’s notoriety than making a profit—growing the territory of Colm’s army, one raid at a time.

Arthur quickly came to recognise that look of fear when people watched the gang pass by—and after a while the initial thrill of it gave way to a heavy kind of shame. He’d spent his life being afraid but he was pretty sure the antidote to that was to terrorise others.

Frances, on the other hand, seemed to thrive off it. As if the whole thing was a huge joke and it was their God-given right to entertain themselves at the expense of the poor saps and suckers they robbed and beat. As if the world owed them something. And it was hard not to get swept along with the sheer adrenaline of it. Hard to argue with the combined influence of the O’Driscoll brothers: the charm of Frances’ mischievous warmth and the threat of Colm’s calculating coldness.

Because despite his misgivings, Arthur still wanted to prove himself. Not just to live up to the expectations Frances had set for him, but to claw back some of the pride Denis had taken when he’d left him sobbing on his knees, pleading for mercy. And if that meant becoming as hard and ruthless as Colm, then maybe that was the kind of man he needed to be.

Arthur’s second test was another of those passing whims of sudden violence, half way through a fruitless day of scouting for opportunities as they idled at a temporary camp on a hillside. Colm had sent out a bunch of small groups in different directions, all competing for a score, and Arthur was tagging along with Frances as usual. They sat looking over the plains—nothing but a couple of bare farms and a dirt crossroads scratched into the landscape—until something more interesting than a wagon rolled by.

“What about that?” Frances nodded as a black carriage rattled down the track. The two other O'Driscolls grunted their approval but Frances ignored them—he was waiting on Arthur’s opinion with a look of shrewd expectation.

The boy felt his pulse rising at the weight of the responsibility and squinted down at the carriage, trying to stay nonchalant. “Looks fancy enough," he shrugged, "Got some luggage on the back."

Frances nodded again and just like that it was settled—the crew mounted up and headed off down the hill after the carriage, its occupants blissfully oblivious to what was about to hit them.

It went the usual way. One of the men rode out in front and blocked the road, rifle aim steady on the driver. Another kept watch at the back of the carriage, rooting through the luggage before they’d even got the doors open. But when it came to the main event—the threatening and the robbing part—Frances gave Arthur a none-too-gentle nudge forward.

“G’on then. Reckon you can take point on this one.”

Arthur stared, slack jawed, at him for a second. “What?”

“Y’heard me. Get on in there. Show ‘em you ain’t foolin’.”

Arthur’s stare shifted to the polished doors and velvet curtains of the carriage. There was a shuffling inside, and a muffled voice calling, “What’s going on out there? Driver? Why have we stopped?”

“What do I do?” the boy whispered, panic turning his mind into an empty sinkhole.

Frances’s nudge turned to a shove. “You got your knife ain’t ya? Time you let those balls drop, kid.”

Arthur took a shuffling step forward, fumbling the blade out of his pocket and flicking it open. It suddenly didn’t seem like much at all, and the memory of jabbing it into a rotten old log felt like some childish game. But when he glanced back at Frances, the man was wearing his customary smirk of amusement at the boy’s discomfort, and he knew the only way out of this was through it.

He took a breath and yanked the carriage door open—at the very same time someone pushed it from the inside, sending him stumbling a couple of steps backward to avoid being smacked in the face.

A man in a grey suit hung onto the door, swinging half way out of the carriage with the momentum, half way to apologising when he took in the sight of the bandits before him and balked. Behind him sat a woman in a high-necked dress, covered in lace and ruffles, looking for all the world like a startled chicken.

“Hands up,” Arthur mumbled.

The man in the suit blinked at him, as if only noticing him for the first time. “What did you say?”

Arthur faltered for a moment before remembering his knife and jabbing at the air in front of him. “I said, hands up.”

The man looked down at the knife and back up at the boy's face with a frown. “How old are you?”

Arthur felt his face flush with embarrassment and anger, not daring to glance back to see Frances' reaction. “Shut up," he barked instead, "Empty your pockets. Your bags. Everything you got.”

There was a moment of awkward silence before the woman gave a nervous laugh and the man straight up ignored him, addressing Frances instead. “Sir, please. Let’s discuss this. I am on my way to a very important meeting and I’m sure we can come to some sort of—”

“I do believe my friend here gave you an order,” Frances said flatly. Then, to Arthur, “You gonna use that knife or just wave it around?”

Arthur tightened his grip around the knife handle and tried to fix his face into a mirror of Frances’ menacing stare, but he knew damn well he didn’t have it in him to use the blade on anyone. Frances had been right. It would be easier with a gun. Easier to posture and threaten and pretend you’re brave. But these people hadn’t done anything to him. Hadn’t done anything besides be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And his hesitancy must have been written all over his face, because the man in the suit’s expression turned almost sympathetic.

“Come on now, young man,” he said quietly, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Just… do what I said, okay?” Arthur stammered back, feeling the tension ratchet higher with every passing second. “Please,” he added with a wince, and knew he’d messed up the moment the word left his lips.

He saw the man flinch backwards before he even realised Frances was lunging towards them. And before he could even react, the O’Driscoll shoved Arthur aside and grabbed the passenger by the lapels, hauling him out of the carriage and tossing him face first onto the road.

“Enough of this bullshit,” Frances snarled, laying into the man with a series of vicious kicks while the woman started up a terrible shrieking.

And then Frances turned to Arthur with a look so fierce the boy almost thought he was about hit him, too. “Well, go on then,” the man snapped, nodding to the carriage. “Finish what you started."

Arthur couldn’t move. It had all happened so fast and he couldn't seem to catch up. The man in the suit was rolling in the dirt, bloody and groaning, and the woman was clinging onto the carriage curtains as though they might somehow hide her, still screaming all the while.

“And shut her up!” Frances barked.

Arthur ducked into the carriage, as much to get away from Frances’ wild eyes as anything, hunching in the uncomfortably cramped space. The woman’s panicked sobbing even worse this close and for a moment, she and the boy just stared at each other. He still had the knife in his hands and as he took a step toward her she shrank back against the wall, clawing at the seat, whining, ‘No, no, no…”

Outside, the man in the suit mumbled something unintelligible, followed by the unmistakable sound of fists connecting with flesh and a horrible, strangled maon of pain. The driver yelled out an objection, there was a brief scuffle from the roof, a gunshot, and all was quiet outside.

The woman was hyperventilating now, and as Arthur reached out to her, he found his hands were shaking as much as she was. He put away the knife and held up his open palms.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Please stay quiet. Please, just do as he says.”

She kept on crying, tears streaming down her reddened face, but she did it silently, shivering with the effort as she fumbled to pull off her jewellery. It was hardly worth it—a couple of rings, a string of pearls, and a pair of earrings—and Arthur couldn’t bear to look her in the eye as he stuffed them into his pockets.

He was almost about to thank her when a hand closed on his collar and yanked him back out of the carriage, nearly pulling him right off his feet.

“Come on,” Frances grunted, “What the hell were you doin’ in there, havin’ a damn tea party?”

Arthur staggered along after him as Frances half-dragged him away, past the bloody, unmoving body of the man in the suit. Arthur craned his neck around to look back at the carriage. The driver was slumped over the reins like a ragdoll and the other two O’Driscolls sat idly on their mounts looking bored with the whole affair. The woman had slipped off the seat and was kneeling on the floor, head in her hands.

“Gotta go, boss,” the O’Driscoll at the front of the carriage yelled suddenly, jutting his chin at a couple of riders that had appeared at the far end of the northern road.

Frances only let go of the boy when they reached the horses, as if he half expected him to go running back to comfort the sobbing woman. “Get on your damn horse,” he growled, and Arthur nodded and did as he was told, not trusting himself to speak—not knowing what he’d say anyhow. Not knowing if he felt worse for disappointing the man or for attempting to live up to his expectations.

But there was no time to consider it. By the time he'd hauled himself onto Tulip they'd already taken off, riding back across the plain to camp. Back to Colm with their petty take, to get their share of whatever was worth beating a man half to death. Maybe all the way to death. And the driver too. Terrifying that poor woman for a couple of trinkets.

Her crying started up again as they left and Arthur could hear her for a good half a mile but he couldn’t bring himself to look back.

Frances didn’t mention Arthur’s hesitation to Colm—at least not in front of the boy—but Arthur knew the word would get around, if not from Frances then from the other men. He suspected the gossip was already on its way through the camp judging by the way Denis was looking at him, his sneer even more leery than usual.

Arthur kept away from the campfire that evening, going hungry rather than have to face the consequences of his cowardice. Or mercy. Or whatever it was that happened. He stayed by the horses, hunched up against a hay bale, trying to get the echoes of the woman’s screams out of his head. Hoping that perhaps, by showing himself to be a useless kind of bandit, the gang might let him go back to being a simple stable boy.

But before it was even fully dark, Frances came and sought him out, sitting down beside him with a sigh Arthur couldn’t interpret. He was still reeling from the way Frances had snapped at him, grabbed him, pushed him. The way he’d beaten that man for next to nothing. And he couldn’t help flinching just a little as the man jostled him with his shoulder. But when he looked over, Frances didn’t look angry. He just looked kind of sad. No, worse—disappointed.

“You can’t let people make a fool outta you,” Frances said softly, and Arthur had a feeling he wasn’t just talking about the carriage job. He wondered if Frances somehow knew about Denis threatening to kill him and Tulip. If the rest of the gang were gossiping and laughing about that, too. How pathetic they must think he was. He pulled out a loose piece of straw from the bale and focused all his attention on splitting it into tiny slivers.

Frances sighed again at the boy’s silence. “You wanna be respected or you wanna be weak?”

Arthur shrugged miserably. Remembered how helpless he’d felt when Denis had him up against the tree, gun to his throat. He’d spent most of his life feeling that way. As if the world was a fast moving river and he was constantly being pulled downstream, being dragged underwater every time he managed to take a breath.

“You gotta stand up for yourself,” Frances said, looking down at his own knuckles, still bruised and a little bloody from the passenger's face, and Arthur wasn’t sure if the man was talking to him or to himself.

“These people… they deserve it. Don’t ever doubt that," Frances shook his head. "They think they’re better than us. Even when they beg and cry and bargain. So you take what you want. What you deserve. Just like you took that horse.”

Frances glanced up behind them at Tulip who was busy tugging at the haybale and Arthur forced a faint smile. He wanted to believe Frances’ words. Wanted to believe that what they’d done had been justified; that he wasn’t going to turn into his father. But that was precisely the problem. Because deep down he knew he had it in him—to be just like his pa, just like Frances and Colm. Even Denis. Because every fight he’d ever gotten into, he’d felt it there, just beneath the surface, waiting to burst through—the potential to cause real harm. To hurt for the sake of hurting. And to enjoy it.

He hadn't enjoyed robbing those people today but he knew the time might come when he'd convince himself otherwise; when he'd see the world the same way Frances did. And no matter whether anyone deserved it or not, it was Arthur’s soul at stake.

His third test came fast on the heels of the carriage job, and maybe that's why Arthur let his fear do his thinking for him, instead of his brain.

They’d just moved camp again and Colm had decided the gang needed to ‘introduce themselves’ to the local town, the whole lot of them, riding in like the army Colm always dreamed of, taking up the whole street and sending the townspeople scurrying for cover. They setled in the saloon like they owned the place, and although Arthur certainly didn’t see anyone pay for anything, the food and drink kept coming all night.

Arthur tried to let himself be pulled along with the carnival atmosphere, despite the fixed smiles of the barkeeps and the working girls. He had a far better meal than anything he’d have gotten in camp and he would have been quite happy to sit in a corner and drink himself into a sleepy stupor for the rest of the evening. They weren’t doing any harm just being here. And it was nice to be indoors for a change, with a big old fire and a clunky piano and a flurry of pretty ladies all around.

One of the girls kept smiling at him whenever she brought over a fresh round of drinks and it made him think of the saloon back in Westbury; about the girls there, and Grimshaw, and even Charlie; about how it might have been one of the last times he’d felt something close to safe. But he quickly shoved that memory away. None of it had been real. They’d all turned on him the minute he showed them what he really was. Just a feral street rat. A violent little thief who couldn’t even keep himself in check for a single day. Grimshaw couldn't wait to get rid of him. He’d never belonged there. Or anywhere.

He was jostled out of his thoughts by a dig in the ribs from Frances. The boy had been staring absently at the girl for a solid minute and she was smirking right back at him. He quickly redirected his attention back to his place, shovelling in three quick mouthfuls out of sheer panic as he felt a fiery flush creep over his face.

Frances slung an arm around his shoulder. “Think she likes you, Big Man,” he said, too loudly, like it was all a big performance, “You wanna get a room for the night, huh?”

Arthur shook his head vehemently, half-choking on his food, which only made everyone laugh harder.

“Nah, he’d rather sleep out there with the horses,” Denis snorted, prompting a round of even lewder jokes from the rest.

Arthur scowled into his spoon, gripping it like it was his knife. Denis' comment had a sting to it, given only the two of them knew the real reason why Arthur guarded the horses every night. And Arthur couldn't help but take it as another threat.

But Frances was too busy enjoying himself to notice the boy's discomfort—or maybe he had and just didn't care—elbowing him a little harder this time. “Ah, go on now, don’t be shy. Time we made a man outta you.”

Arthur tried to shrink even further into his collar and Denis rolled his eyes. “Yeah, ain't gonna happen. Scared of his own damn shadow. Blushing like a dairy maid..."

And maybe it was because he was burning with embarrassment, or maybe it was because of what Frances had said—about standing up for himself—or maybe it was because the prospect of actually going upstairs with the girl was too mortifying to contemplate, but Arthur felt his temper snap like a whipcrack. He tossed down his spoon and glared at Denis. 

“Why don’t you shut your damn mouth?”

An amused silence settled over the saloon, eager for more entertainment. Even Frances fell quiet, watching the boy with a mix of curious pride.

Denis stared right back, a cold grin twisting at his mouth. “Well lookit you. You got something to say to me, boy? Or you just a little man in a big hat?”

Arthur was on his feet without realising what he was doing, his chair scraping back with a squeal.

“I said shut your damn mouth, you piece of shit!”

Denis eyed him with a dangerous smirk, "You gonna make me, huh? Nah, I don't think you ever gonna fill out that hat..."

And before Arthur could react, Denis leaned across the table and smacked his daddy's hat right off his head.

It was like being back at the ranch, in a constant squabbling battle with the other boys, and those same childish instincts came rushing back all at once—because if Denis was going to behave like a kid then why shouldn’t he? And with a hoarse war cry, the boy scrambled up onto the table and launched himself at the man.

The saloon roared with riotous encouragement and laughter as Denis half-fell out of his chair and rolled to his feet, scooping up Arthur’s hat and planting it on his own head, crowing like a rooster. The boy chased after him, round and around the tables, up the stairs and down again, behind the bar and right back to where they started, the gang cheering them on like race horses, the girls screeching and bunching together as they passed by. And though Arthur was faster, Denis was bigger and stronger by far, simply shoving the boy aside every time he got near enough to grab for the hat.

Arthur could feel the frustration brimming over into rage. The humiliation burning with every peal of laughter surrounding him. And then he must have lost his focus because Denis’ boot hooked around his ankles and the boy went crashing to the floor with barely enough time to put his hands out to catch himself. His face hit the boards with a crunch and blood pooled in his mouth, his nose pouring like a tap, a blunt pain spreading across his cheekbones as the crowd's reaction screeched in his ears.

By the time he clambered back to his feet Denis was striking a victory pose, arms outstretched, Arthur’s hat set jauntily atop his stupid head, and no one ever said nothing about not fighting dirty so the boy took his chance and kicked the man right in the nuts.

Denis went down, first to his knees and then to all fours with a wheezing groan. A sympathetic hiss ran through the audience and Arthur readied himself for retaliation, snatching up a chair like a shield as the man slowly got back up, a glare of pure murderous intent in his eye.

But before Denis could take his revenge, Colm raised a hand and the room fell to abrupt silence. He’d been watching, stony-faced, the whole time—the polar opposite to his brother, who had been yelling and heckling along with the rest of them—and he let the quiet settle for a moment, let his authority assert itself before he deigned to pass judgement.

“Easy now…” Colm said, calm and low, “You want to do this, you take it outside. You two been pickin’ at each other for weeks. Maybe it’s time you had it out proper.”

Arthur and Denis exchanged a long, slow look of mutual hatred, both of them breathing hard. Arthur could feel his heart thudding in his chest; the blood still flowing from his nose; the need for vengeance running down to his very marrow. He could see the same reflection in Denis’ eye and they nodded in unison. A promise to end whatever lay between them. Like men.

A fine misty rain was falling outside and the thoroughfare was fast becoming a quagmire. The cold evening air was a sober slap to the face, leaving a seed of unease in his guts. Out under the dark sky, with the gang already forming an audience around them, and half the town coming out to watch the ruckus, the prospect of a proper fight suddenly seemed like less of a good idea. 

But it was too late now. The two of them circled each other slowly, tracking trails through the mud as money exchanged hands in the crowd. Arthur shook out the tension in his shoulders, letting his fists hang loose at his sides as he concentrated on finding his footing. He'd never fought a grown man before—been beaten by one, sure, but he’d only ever really fought other kids: the boys at the ranch, street rats, squabbling over territory and spoils. And although he was starting to catch up on years of malnutrition, broadening at the shoulders and fast growing out of his threadbare clothes, he was a lanky kind of tall, without a whole lot of muscle to speak of. Denis, on the other hand, was the kind of man Colm sent in for intimidation—stocky and thick-fisted and immovable—and Arthur knew first-hand the weight of his strikes; the strength of his grip. He’d already been at the man’s mercy twice before and he wasn’t about to make it a third.

Even in the most optimistic corner of his mind, he knew he had little chance of winning the fight, but he found himself eager for it anyways. Just as Colm said, they had scores to settle, and he figured now was as good a time as any. His nose was still bleeding a little and he wiped it roughly on his sleeve, smearing blood across his cheek and sending an ache of fresh pain through his face, but he barely blinked, keeping his focus on the man in front of him, as if the rest of the world faded into the rain.

Denis stared back at him with the same determination; the same old infuriating smirk.

“Come on then, boy,” the man growled. “You been wanting to take a swing at me for a while now, I seen it in your eyes…” He spread his arms wide, playing to the crowd, “Well? Give it your best shot.”

The O’Driscolls set up a raucous cheer, hungry for the action. And although Arthur knew they were likely only looking forward to watching him get his ass whooped, he could hear a couple of voices rooting for him, too. Frances’ voice. And a ring of grinning, wild faces that didn't seem to care what happened so long as they got a taste of blood. And then there was Colm, sitting casually on the railing in front of the saloon, nursing a cigar, as though the whole thing was his own private show. It felt like a rite of passage—and Arthur wondered for a fleeting moment if perhaps Frances had engineered it all—an opportunity to truly prove himself to Colm, to Denis, to all of them.

A thread of tension sang in the air and Arthur felt himself moving forward without really thinking about it, letting his instincts take over; whatever feral wolf resided deep inside his gut, sending him springing towards Denis, fists raised and coiled tight.

He swung and missed as Denis took a step back with a swiftness that belied his size. There was an eruption of jibes and cheers for the boy’s effort and he gathered himself and tried again—a wide punch that grazed past Denis’ cheek this time, just as the man shoved him hard in the shoulder, sending him stumbling sideways into the mud.

A cacophony of yells filled the air—an even mix of encouragement and insults—sending Arthur’s blood rushing with the thrill of the fight and the embarrassment of so quickly losing his footing. There was a whirling chaos inside of him and he couldn’t help kind of enjoying it—even with mud soaking through his pants. The whole thing was stupid and dangerous but he felt alive.

“You gonna get up, kid? Or are we done already?” Denis said, almost lazily, turning his back on Arthur to show just how little concern he had for his opponent’s abilities.

Arthur pulled himself out of the mud and took up a fighting stance once more, determined to be quicker this time. Cleverer. Stronger. The crowd kept on growing as more and more townspeople came out to see what was going on, suckers for the spectacle just like everyone else, but Arthur no longer cared. Let ‘em stare. If they had a problem with it, he’d fight them too. He’d fight the whole damn world if he had to.

Denis still had his back to him and he scooped up a handful of mud and lobbed it at the back of his head. It connected with a dull splat and the man rounded on him immediately, a dark grin on his face, but Arthur slipped out of reach as though they were only playing tag. He'd learned his lesson and wasn't about to make the same mistake twice by going rushing in. Denis might be older, slower, and had a couple more drinks in him, but he still had Arthur beat when it came to sheer strength. One good hit from the man would floor him and they both knew it.

But it seemed Denis didn't want it over so quickly. The man was toying with him—all jabs and shoves and open-handed strikes—like he was trying to make it last. Trying to make the boy look a fool. Arthur tried to use his size and speed to his advantage, ducking around the man, not even trying to get a hit in this time—just trying to stay on his feet and wait for a better chance.

But he couldn't dodge forever, the rain and the noise blurring his senses, and Denis landed a crashing slap that sent Arthur thudding into the mud once more. He lay there dazed a moment, the whole side of his face burning, listening to the muffled, echoing laughter of the crowd through one ringing ear. There was something particularly humiliating about it—being slapped like a wayward child—the same way Denis had treated him when he'd come back to camp on Tulip. He almost wished he’d hit him with his fists. At least then he could have taken it like a man instead of wallowing in the muck, clutching at his stinging cheek, holding back tears of rage and pain.

“Don’t make this too easy, huh, boy? Go on, get up!” Denis jeered, kicking at Arthur’s legs. Arthur scrambled back to his feet, driven by his burning pride, and perhaps it was the element of surprise or perhaps Denis let him get a hit in for the sake of it, but the boy’s next two swings connected—a punch to the ribs and another to the gut—but neither had much force behind them as he struggled for purchase on the slippery ground.

Denis grunted but barely seemed affected, and as if it had been the cue he’d been waiting for, this time he retaliated with a closed fist.

Arthur found himself back on the ground before he could process what had happened, only the pounding of his temple and the ache of his jaw to tell him where the punch had landed.

From far away, he could hear Frances calling for him to get the hell back on his feet; the white noise of the crowd; Denis' gruff laugh.

He dragged himself up once more, his cold, mud-soaked clothes weighing him down, his head still reeling. And he realised with an even colder lurch that it would go on this way—Arthur running circles like a trapped rat, Denis knocking him down, over and over again. Because there were no rules to this fight—no timer, no rounds, no restrictions. Colm looked on with a cool grimace of a smile, and Arthur knew the whole performance would go on as long as the man deemed necessary. Until Arthur had proved he could take a beating.

He took a deep, shaky breath and squared up to the looming figure of Denis, almost silhouetted in the darkening light, accepting his fate.

The man returned to his teasing approach—a smack round the head here, a shunt of his shoulder there, a kick to the back of his knees that almost sent him sprawling again.

Arthur tried to rally himself, focusing everything he had on watching his opponent's moves and waiting for his opening. He managed to get another decent strike in—a lucky hit really—a sideways punch that Denis happened to turn into, leaving him with a bloody nose to match Arthur’s. The crowd roared for the underdog and Arthur felt a rush of relief as he caught sight of Frances grinning from ear to ear. Perhaps that would be enough to end it—one good hit to show he wasn't just a kid—and Colm would raise a hand and put a stop to the whole thing before it got too bloody. But the boy’s success only seemed to ramp the bloodlust of the crowd higher and Colm remained an impassive statue.

Denis swayed a moment, wiping a hand across his face and inspecting the blood on his fingers with a blinking, disbelieving look. The sight of it seemed to switch something in the man’s eyes and Arthur found himself retreating, as far away as he could get, right into the waiting, shoving hands of the ring of O’Driscolls who pushed him right back into the fray.

And now there was only fear and instinct, all his pride forgotten. Denis was smiling in a horribly calm way. That same look he'd had on his face when he'd had a gun to Arthur's throat. And suddenly it wasn’t a game anymore.

Denis bore down on the boy, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and pulling him into a headlock, forcing him down to his knees, then onto his belly, pressing his face right into the rain-slick ground until he was breathing in puddle water. He tried to pull free but Denis yanked one arm behind his back, using it as a lever to keep him still, twisting it almost to breaking, tearing a jagged scream out of the boy's lungs.

Denis leaned over him, a harsh whisper in his ear, “You need to learn, boy. Need to stop pushing your goddamn luck. Time you learned to stop lookin’ for trouble when you can’t handle it…”

Arthur couldn’t form words to reply, couldn’t think of anything except the white hot pain running all the way down from his shoulder to his wrist as he writhed in the mud, whimpering and yelping, trying his best not to drown.

He’d never felt so helpless. It seemed to last forever as he waited in vain for Colm or Frances to step in and make it stop, but there was nothing but the baying of the crowd and the weight of Denis on his back, crushing him deeper into the ground.

A coldness that had nothing to do with the rain crept through him and his vision was beginning to blacken at the edges when he heard someone calling his name.

“Arthur?”

A woman. A voice he knew.

“Arthur?!” 

The pressure on his arm abruptly lifted with a head-spinning whoosh but it took him a moment or two to find the means to move at all, craning his head around to look up at the wavering figure pushing its way through the crowd like a vision from another life.

Grimshaw?

And suddenly there she was, just the way he remembered her, except she was dressed all fancy with a bonnet and gloves and a fine overcoat. He almost wouldn’t have believed it was her if she hadn’t loosed a string of swears the moment she saw the full extent of his bloody, mud-caked appearance.

She wasn’t alone, either. Dutch was right behind her, a guiding hand at her elbow. Then Hosea, closely followed by another woman Arthur didn’t recognise. All of them looking as if they’d just stepped out of some high society theatre. All of them staring down at him with a shocked kind of horror.

Arthur could only imagine what he looked like. About as bruised and feral as when they’d first met, he suspected—if not worse. But even though it had been… well, years now, it felt like only days, moments since he'd been that naive little kid getting scooped up onto Dutch’s horse, getting scrubbed half to death in Grimshaw’s bathtub, getting offered kindness out of thin air by complete strangers.

He blinked up at them through the rain, a lump forming in his throat, hoping to high heaven that this wasn't imagining it—that he hadn't passed out and this was all a dream.

But the ache in his shoulder was real enough. And the shudder running through him as the shock took hold. He tried to roll onto all fours with a groan and Grimshaw started forward to help him up but someone got there before her—rough hands yanking him up to his feet from behind and Frances’ smooth tones in his ear: “Alright, alright, I’ve got you, kid.”

The sudden interruption seemed to break up the crowd and the fighting ring fell apart as the audience scattered, eager to get out of the rain now the excitement was over. Only the O’Driscolls remained in the thoroughfare, forming a casually threatening roadblock opposite the four strangers.

Grimshaw stopped short a few feet away, suddenly less sure of herself as Frances wrapped his arm around the boy’s shoulder, a little too tight for comfort. His arm hurt something awful—felt like Denis had almost ripped it right out of its socket—but the look Grimshaw gave him hurt even more. Disbelief and betrayal and guilt, all mixed into one.

“Arthur?” she said slowly, “What’s going on?”

Frances spoke for him, giving the woman his most winsome grin, “Just a little harmless fun. Don’t you worry your pretty little bonnet about it.”

Grimshaw turned her eye on the O'Driscoll with a cool glare. “And who the hell are you?”

“We…” Frances answered, gesturing broadly to the rest of the gang, “…are his brothers.”

Grimshaw’s frown could have split a rock. “This is how you treat family?”

“Ahh, all in good fun, eh, Arthur?” Frances scoffed, jostling the boy playfully, and Arthur felt himself nod automatically, finding it hard to look any of them in the eye.

Grimshaw looked as though she was about to erupt into a fresh stream of swearing when Dutch stepped forward. “Let’s let the boy speak for himself, shall we?” he said in that low, golden voice Arthur remembered so well. So self-assured. A careful mix of authority and just a hint of a threat. And then the man was ducking his head to peer beneath the brim of his hat, looking the boy right in the eye with gentle concern. “Arthur? Are you alright?”

The lump in Arthur’s throat was becoming painful now and it was all he could do to swallow around it, let alone speak. He opted for something like a shrug but it apparently wasn't enough to stop Dutch's interrogating stare.

"Is that a yes, son?"

Arthur felt Frances' fingers dig into his shoulder hard enough to leave a mark and he cleared his throat, forcing himself to meet Dutch's gaze. "I'm fine." 

Dutch gave a slow, knowing nod. "I see. 'Cause it looked like you were gettin' your ass beat."

Grimshaw stretched out a hand across the muddy thoroughfare, the urgency in her voice unmistakable, despite the friendly tone she laid over it, "Why don't you come along with us now. Get you cleaned up. Been such a long time, Arthur..."

Arthur shrank back without meaning to, as if he'd forgotten how to accept an offer of help. But Frances’ expression turned harder as he put two and two together, watching the strangers carefully.

“So these are your people, huh? The ones who abandoned you? Aye, looks about right.”

"We didn't abandon you. Arthur-" Grimshaw began.

And: “We didn’t want you mixed up with folk like this,” Dutch finished.

Frances ignored the implication with a flat laugh. “Well, seems like you're doing alright for yourselves now, aren’t you?" he said, looking them up and down, "Fancy as you like.”

Dutch gave him an easy smile but it never quite reached his eyes. “That’s right, and now we’re in a better position to take proper care of the boy. So while we're mighty grateful for you looking after him in the meantime...”

“Oh, I don’t think so," Frances cut in, pushing Arthur behind him. "You heard him. He’s just fine where he is.”

“Fine is he? That man was gonna break his damn arm.” Hosea snapped, nodding to Denis who'd slunk back into the ranks of the gang.

“Why don’t you let the boy choose?” the woman beside Hosea added carefully, and the four of them seemed to be squaring up in readiness, as if they were still inside the fighting ring and the lot of them were about to enter the fray.

Arthur felt the air change. Could sense the bristling of Frances beside him. The territorial grumbling of the gang behind. He knew full well the O'Driscolls had killed for less. And he didn't understand why they'd feel such loyalty towards him but he reckoned maybe it was more about pride. Colm and the others had claimed him as one of their own and they didn't like their possessions being taken.

He wondered for a moment if the same was true of Dutch. If the man truly cared or if he was just offended that his cast off had been snapped up by someone else.

But then he saw that look again—the same disappointment and hurt he'd seen on Grimshaw's face when she'd laid eyes on him, brawling in the mud—and a wash of shame swept over him. All the times he'd dreamed of finding Dutch, finding Grimshaw, all of them—and now they were here and what did he have to show for it? How badly had he wasted the gifts they'd given him? What a letdown it must be to see what he'd become. To know he'd turned his back on their attempts to help and ended up the same kind of petty criminal as his father.

He certainly wasn't worth fighting over. 

And he didn't want to watch them die.

So he let Frances pull him further back into the line of O'Driscolls with a shake of his head. It was easier this way. They were better off without him. And no one needed to get hurt because of him.

A heavy hand clapped him on the shoulder, making him flinch, and he looked up into the skull-like grin of Colm—the two brothers flanking him now, holding him in place between them.

"That's my boy," Colm purred, reaching up with his other hand and planting Arthur's hat back on his head as if sealing the pact. "Where you belong."

Dutch was physically restraining Grimshaw now, holding her by her upper arms to stop her lunging forward, and Arthur could see Hosea's hand twitching at his belt; the other woman jutting her chin at Frances as though she were about to challenge him to a duel.

But Colm and Frances kept on smiling, as though they were all just regular folk chatting in the street.

Colm nodded to each of them, one by one. "Heard about you folk. Seen your work. Your wanted posters," he added with a sly wink. "Why don’t you join us? All o' you. Could do with a couple o' men like you. And women."

That last part earned him a ripple of sniggers from the men behind him and he spread his arms wide as if to encompass the whole gang. "There's strength in numbers... Nothin' they can do when you got an army, ain't that right boys?"

A ragged cheer of agreement rose up into the night sky and Arthur winced at the primal edge of it, like a pack of wolves howling at the moon.

He looked between Colm and Dutch—like a pair of distorted mirrors. Both of them had their own charm, their own kind of intimidation, but there was something fundamentally opposite there, too, and Arthur could almost see the clash of it in the air. They both seemed outwardly calm but it was as if an invisible thread of lightning ran between them. As if every courteous word they said was laced with hidden poison. Every move was set to a hair trigger. And Arthur was right smack in the middle.

Dutch kept a careful eye on Colm as he herded Grimshaw and the others back a few steps. "Well, that's very generous of you, but we work better as a small group," he said, that same stiff smile on his face, "Less... noticeable."

Colm gave a shrug and a sniff. "Suit yourself."

"Though I'm sure we'll cross paths again sometime. Plenty of room in this state for all of us..." Dutch added with a tilt of his head, and it sounded a lot like a promise.

Colm grunted in reply, as though he were bored of the whole affair, turning Arthur around with a pinch of his fingers and nodding the order to roll out to the rest of his men. But Arthur could feel the tension peeling off the man—the heat of the anger beneath the surface. And beside him, Frances was an echo of his brother, keeping a narrow-eyed glare on the strangers as they retreated.

Arthur couldn't stop himself looking back too, even though the sight of them leaving again was almost to painful to bear, but this time Dutch was looking right at him with a glint in his dark eye. "Offer still stands if you change your mind, Arthur."

And with a tip of his hat, the man turned away with the others, swallowed up by the night, and Arthur let himself be hauled in the opposite direction, back to the horses, back to camp, back to being an O'Driscoll.

Chapter Text

No one said a thing to Arthur all the way back to camp and he couldn’t do much more than focus his sights on the back of Tulip’s head, trusting her to follow the others.

He hurt all over. His face ached and his head pounded and his shoulder was stiff and full of shooting pains. He felt sick, too—doubt and regret churning in his belly—and he hunched over his reins, sullen and cold and covered in mud.

He half-considered wheeling the horse around and heading in the opposite direction, but he was too much of a coward. Too afraid to stand up to Colm. Too proud to admit he’d made a mistake. But as he replayed it over in his head, he didn’t see any other choice he could have made. If he’d gone with Dutch and the others, all that bubbling confrontation would have boiled over and he didn’t want to think what might have happened then. It would have been his fault, no matter what. But that didn’t stop a petulant side of him sulking about the unfairness of it, nonetheless. Why was it all on him? Why hadn’t Dutch fought harder for him? Why hadn’t Grimshaw shown Colm just how terrifying she could be? Why hadn’t they found a way to get him back? Instead, they’d taken his word and left, all over again. Left him with these people, who suddenly felt like strangers all around, staring and whispering as they trailed into camp.

He wanted to be alone, huddled up in his bedroll in the dark, as far away from all of them as possible, but he’d barely made it off his horse before Frances grabbed him by the collar and started pulled him across the camp. The boy tripped after him, not bothering to resist, still groggy from the fight. The man didn’t stop muttering in a low, furious tone the whole way—and it wasn’t that he seemed angry at Arthur, exactly, but the viciousness of his words still made him flinch. Worse, some of what he said seemed to have been plucked right from the dark recesses at the back of Arthur’s brain. The things he’d never have said out loud.

“Cocky shits… Thinkin’ you’d just go on right back to ‘em. After everything they did. Like you needed ‘em anyway. Who the hell do they think they are? Who do they think you are? You’re an O’Driscoll boy now, that’s what y’are? Orphans and runaways, all of us. Brothers… family. Ain’t that right?”

The sour, bruised part of Arthur wanted to agree with him. To let the resentment seep into his heart and push out the longing and the sadness. To believe that the O’Driscolls really were his brothers. That any of them genuinely cared what became of him. That Frances truly was outraged on his behalf. That all of this wasn’t just posturing for another kind of territory.

But then he thought of the worry on Grimshaw’s face. The way Hosea had been ready to reach for his gun belt. The way Dutch had peered beneath his hat brim to look him in the eye. His furrowed brow. We didn’t want you mixed up with folk like this...  

And he thought of the carriage—the way Frances had beat that man senseless; the way they’d shot the driver for trying to stop it; the way the woman had screamed and screamed. The way she’d looked at him like he was monstrous.

He thought of the saloon. The way Colm had looked on implacable, watching the fight pan out, one-sided and inevitable. The way the rest of them had circled him, crowing and baying for blood. The way Denis had beaten him into the mud, half drowned him, near broke his arm.

And maybe he was so used to being treated that way he forget there could be kindness in the world without a cost.

As they tramped across the camp, Frances wrapped an arm around his neck and yanked him into a rough headlock that was supposed to be affectionate. “You don’t need them fuckers, Arthur. Believe me. Better off without ‘em.”

Arthur didn’t bother to nod. Frances didn’t even look at him, just kept dragging him on towards Colm’s tent. The gang leader had his own private fire and was sitting there waiting, nursing a cigarillo as they approached.

Frances planted the boy in front of the man with both hands on his shoulders, fixing him in place. Colm looked up at him, sparing little more than a grimace for the fast-rising bruises and swelling on Arthur’s face. He wasn’t sure if it was blood or mud that was plastered, dried and cracking, across his cheek, matted in his hair. Maybe both.

“Look like you seen a ghost, boy,” Colm said with a flat laugh. “Sometimes the past catches up with you that way, huh?”

Arthur managed a vague nod. He’d been waiting—hoping—for his past to catch up with him for so long, and now that it had, it felt like someone else’s memories.

Colm took a short, sharp drag of his cigarillo and tossed it into the fire. “Well, at least you kept your head. Showed ‘em where you stand.”

The way Colm was smiling at him, Arthur guessed he meant it to be a compliment, but the more he thought about what had happened, the more it felt like a betrayal. He’d chosen his side, right there in front of everyone, and it hadn’t been the one he’d wanted.

He caught the two brothers exchanging a look over his head and stared down at the flames, avoiding their eyes. And when Colm spoke next, his voice was loaded with something Arthur couldn’t recognise.

“So. Those were your people, huh? Doing well for themselves, looks like.”

Arthur gave a wincing twitch, sending a fresh ache through his bruised cheekbone. He’d thought much the same, and it had made him ashamed for them to find that he was still in the gutter after all this time.

“Van der Linde…” Colm let the name roll off his tongue like smoke. “I’ve heard about how him and his associates get up to. How they do things. Pose as businessmen, set up complicated little schemes, makin’ out like they’re part of the gentry.”

“Snake oil merchants in fancy suits,” Frances cut in, hacking a wad of spit into fire with a hiss. His temper was a direct contrast to Colm’s icy calmness, though Arthur wasn’t sure which was more unnerving.

“Think they own you. Think you owe them something,” Frances leered over the boy’s shoulder, sneering into his ear, “After everything they did to you.”

Arthur tried to shake his head. Frances was making out like Dutch and the others had done something unforgivable by leaving him—and sure, there had been a time he’d been so angry about it he’d wanted to make them pay for it—but they’d never beaten him, never mistreated him, never even yelled at him or nothing. They’d just done what they thought was best for him, even if that wasn’t what he wanted. At least, that’s what they’d said. Maybe he was being delusional and they just couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

He didn’t know which way was up any more, especially with his head reeling the way it was.

“Must’ve been hard, being abandoned like that,” Colm said quietly.

Arthur opened his mouth to say that weren’t how it was, to explain, to defend them, but Colm gave him a look of such pitying condescension that he shut it right up again.

“These folk of yours, they talk might nice, and they do a damn fine job of playin’ the part, but underneath it all they’re just conmen—that’s what they do. They’ll lie to you and use you and cast you aside when they’re done. Seen it a hundred times before…”

Arthur fixed his eyeline on a burning log and bit the inside of his lip. Colm was the same kind of smooth talker as Dutch, but that only made it all the harder to know who was right.

True enough, they were conmen, and he was old enough now to understand that Dutch’d probably only pulled him up onto his horse that day because he was looking for the payroll his daddy’d stolen. Maybe there’d been some genuine concern there, too, with all that talk about knowing his pa when he was younger. But maybe he’d been lying about that, too. Maybe they’d only put him on that train to get him far away from them, so he couldn’t tell nobody where or who they were. Maybe Grimshaw’d done the same, dumping him on the ranch. Maybe she’d been lying all the while, too. Maybe she’d known Dutch’d come back for her and wanted Arthur out the way. Maybe she’d never wanted to take him out on all them Sundays at all— maybe she was just checking he hadn’t said nothing about it all to the other ranchers. Maybe they was still all pretending when they said they wanted him to go with them back there in the mud. Maybe it was all for show and they were relieved when he said no. Maybe he was just stupider than he ever knew, trusting any of ‘em.

And maybe Colm was right.

The threat of tears prickled at his eyes but he blinked them away, determined not to let it show.

“We’re just tryin’ to look out for you, kid,” Frances said, softer now, his grip squeezing on Arthur’s shoulder. “Remember when we first met? Looked like you’d been through all kinds o’ hell. You said they left you behind. They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again.”

Arthur gave a ragged nod. That much was true. And even though Frances’ righteous anger seemed to have faded a little, the memory lit a match in Arthur’s belly. It had felt good to see them all so worried—guilty, even. And they had plenty to feel guilty for. For abandoning him. For not fighting harder for him. For letting him end up on the street, scrabbling for scraps, when they looked so prosperous and happy. Like regular folk. Folk who surely wouldn’t want a filthy little orphan around.

But... if they really were pretending to care, they’d made it mighty convincing. Grimshaw had looked like she’d wanted to fight Frances right there in the thoroughfare. Hosea had been ready to start shootin’. Dutch had called him ‘son’.

His heart stuttered against his ribcage. He didn’t know what to think any more. What to feel. He stood there, numb and empty, like a scarecrow between the two smiling O’Driscolls.

“You wanna go, you c’n go,” Colm said, nodding towards the treeline at the edge of the camp clearing. “Ain’t no one stoppin’ you.”

Arthur could hear the blood pounding in his ears all of a sudden. The same prickling caution he learned to look out for whenever his daddy gave him the illusion of choice. It was a trick. And he might be confused but he wasn’t quite as stupid as they thought he was. He kept perfectly still and watched Colm’s eyes narrow.

“But answer me honest now, Arthur. You really think they’re here for you?”

Frances let out a wry huff of a laugh and Arthur felt the last bit of hope drain out of him. Because it might be a cruelty but it was also perhaps the only true thing to have come out of Colm’s mouth.

Of course they weren’t there for Arthur. Must have been sheer coincidence they’d happened to be in the same town. They’d likely forgotten all about him until that very moment, until they just happened to be passing, until Grimshaw yelled out his name. And even she hadn’t been sure it was him at first—her voice laced with uncertainty. She could have walked on by, never given him a second glance, pretended not to have noticed the brawling little brat in the mud, and he never even would have known they’d been there.

She hadn’t though. She’d stopped. They all had. Tried to help him. Remembered him, after all this time. And that had to count for something, even if it was happenstance.

Colm took his silence for agreement and gave a knowing nod, leaning toward the boy.

“I know why they’re really here,” he said conspiratorially. “Same reason we are. But they been stealing takes from right under our nose for a while now and I ain’t about to let it happen again.”

“Ain’t about to let them take one of our boys, neither,” Frances said, giving the boy a jostling nudge. And perhaps he meant it as a comfort but it felt like more of a threat.

Colm’s grin widened. “We’ll be seein’ them again. Don’t you worry about that. And when we do, how’s about we show ‘em how O’Driscolls do things, huh?”

Arthur’s throat was so tight he couldn’t have protested even if he’d had the courage to. Couldn’t do much more than stand stock still, France’s arm around his shoulders, Colm’s diamond-cut eyes fixing him in place, dread laying heavy in his stomach.

Colm leaned in further, so close Arthur could smell the stale liquor and tobacco on his breath.

“Now, why don’t you tell me everything you know about these fine folk of yours?”

So he was to be bait. That much he understood. And he knew this game well enough—his father had used him as a pawn this way plenty of times before.

He knew it must be bad because everyone was suddenly being nice to him, not just Frances. Colm was all smiles, and even Denis raised a drink to him across the fire—a silent acknowledgement of a truce, however temporary.

The rest of the men were buzzing at the prospect of the upcoming job—bigger than anything they’d pulled since Arthur’d been with the gang. A new railroad was about to be laid, east of the river, and a bridge spanning across it. A patch of ground nearby had already been cleared for a camp; trees felled in a great circle all around. It was set to be a huge, costly feat of engineering and manpower—one that would bring in hundreds of workers and require thousands of dollars’ worth of steel and wood. Colm’s scouts had gotten word that the very first payroll would be coming in soon, along with a hefty down-payment for materials. With only a skeleton crew of men on site to guard it until the main workforce arrived. And that’s what they were here for—O’Driscolls and Van der Lindes both. It was just a matter of who got there first.

Except, Colm really did seem to mean what he said about teaming up with Dutch and the others. An expansion of his ‘army ‘that wasn’t just about muscle. “No point riskin’ losing it all over a bit of competition. Might as well see how we might work together—benefit one another—mutual respect-like. Ain’t too proud to form an alliance from time to time, if it suits us.”

The words themselves seemed reasonable, but something still felt off. The way Colm wanted to know every scrap of detail Arthur had on the other gang. The way Frances’ grin seemed to freeze in place whenever they spoke about joining forces. All the ways it could go wrong…

And Arthur was pretty sure Dutch and the others wouldn’t go for it in the first place. They’d turned him down once already, hadn’t they?

But apparently Colm had already thought about that, figured out the angles—and that’s where Arthur came in. A neutral party. A messenger boy. A bargaining chip.

Bait.

Two days later, he found himself riding to the next town over with Frances, having made a cursory attempt at cleaning himself up in the stream. The marks of Denis’ beating weren’t quite as bad as they’d felt that night, but he had a spectacular black eye that was already turning yellow at the edges, and the lingering ache only added to his sullen mood.

He wasn’t usually privy to Colm and Frances’ plans, and though they’d given him the broad strokes of it, he suspected there was more they weren’t telling him; suspected none of it would unfold the way they were laying it out. Because although he should be glad at the prospect of seeing Dutch and the others again, the reality of it only filled him with dread.

The feeling weighed heavier and heavier as they reached the town and hitched their horses at a shack of a carriage station on the outskirts that overlooked the main street. Frances struck a match on the hitching post and lit up a thin cigar, gesturing at the span of buildings on the thoroughfare with it.

“S’where they’ve been holed up. Makin’ pretty with the railroad people.”

Arthur’s eyes followed where he pointed, scanning for familiar figures amongst the milling townspeople. A hotel stood on one corner, alongside a handful of stores and a brick building with an ornate clock set above its grand double doors. Arthur couldn’t read the lettering on the sign but he recognised a bank when he saw one. And sure enough, the doors opened and a cluster of people emerged, ‘making pretty’ with hat tips and handshakes: Dutch and Hosea and the women, along with a man in a suit and two others in workmen’s clothes.

“Got ‘emselves a meeting with the contractors, posing as investors,” Frances explained. “Clever, getting in on the inside, I’ll give ‘em that.” His face remained carefully impassive but there was no disguising the disdain in his tone.

“Couldn’t abide all that rubbin’ shoulders with hoity toity bankers, personally, but if that’s what they’re good at then let ‘em do it,” he shrugged, then nudged the boy in his bruised ribs with an elbow. “Your job is to get ‘em to share some of that insider information with us. Our little white flag…”

He grinned in a way that made Arthur want to shrink away, but the man already had him by the shoulder, fingers pressing down like an iron brand. With his other hand, he slapped a folded piece of paper into the boy’s chest.

“Here. Go be Colm’s errand boy.”

Arthur instinctually clutched the note in both hands, trying to decipher if Frances’ teasing tone was playful or malicious. Ever since Colm had declared his intention to bring Dutch on side, Frances’ affection towards Arthur had felt more and more like a performance.

“What if… they say no?” the boy stammered, not entirely sure he wanted to know.

But Frances’ smile only widened. “Hey, they’re your people. So do your part and bring ‘em on board.”

It wasn’t an answer, but it was enough to send Arthur stumbling down the track towards the thoroughfare, his heart in his throat.

By the time he got down to the bank he was already panicking that he’d missed them, but after a few moments of frantic searching up and down the street he caught sight of Dutch’s black hat and Grimshaw’s beehive hair over beside the hotel on the corner, where a street vendor was hawking health cures.

Arthur skirted around the back of the buildings and slipped down the side of the hotel, loitering in the shadows behind the stall where a line of wagons stood parked. He could hear Dutch’s laughter as the hawker spouted his sales pitch, and when he peeked around the side of the nearest wagon he saw an easy smile crinkling Dutch’s eyes; a tight scowl on Grimshaw’s face.

“Sounds like a downright miracle cure,” Dutch drawled incredulously, rolling one of the little brown bottles in his palm. “You get this holy water blessed by a preacher, too?”

The salesman’s practiced grin stayed in place as he plucked the bottle out of Dutch’s grip—one conman recognising another—and spread his arms wide.

“No blessings needed for this miracle—only the hard proofs of scientific advancement and a powerful combination of herbal tinctures to ease your pains, keep your eyes bright and your tail bushy!”

“Remarkable. The power of nature…” Dutch nodded sagely. “Even better that you’re using local resources, too. Pretty sure that was you we saw the other day topping up your bottles with water from the stream.”

A cackle of laughter ran through the handful of passers-by watching the exchange. But the salesman’s smile only faltered for a second.

“Sir, you must be mistaken.”

Dutch’s expression hardened. “No… I don’t think so. Now why don’t you stop trying to dupe these good people and move your little racket along?”

“What’s it to you?” the salesman hissed back, under his breath, all his sales bravado slipping away. “You don’t own this shitheel town.”

“No, but I am investing in it. And one day soon it’ll be a fine town, with all the prosperity the railroad’ll bring this way.”

Dutch’s rich voice carried his words across the thoroughfare, more for the benefit of the gawking townspeople rather than the hawker. It was a bold and grandiose lie given that he was planning on fleecing the same town in his own way—no better than any other kind of thief or conman, except that the man had presence.

The salesman muttered a curse under his breath and turned his back on his sceptical customers, packing up his stall with a rough kind of urgency. Arthur was so engrossed in the scene that he had half-forgotten what he was there for and panicked when the hawker pulled down his sign, exposing the boy’s hiding place. He darted back behind the wagon, dropping the letter in the mud in his haste.

Cursing under his breath, he scrabbled for it, muddying his pants and hands in the process, and leaving smears of dirt on the paper as he vainly attempted to wipe it off on his shirt.

“You alright there?”

He looked up into the shrewd stare of Hosea, who looked so unsurprised to see him as to suggest he’d been watching the boy for a while. The other woman stood just behind him, a sympathetic frown on her face as she took in his appearance—despite his best efforts, once again presenting himself as a filthy, bruised little gutter rat.

Before he could find his tongue, Dutch and Grimshaw joined them, hemming the boy in against the side of the hotel as they formed a loose semi-circle around him.

Grimshaw tutted at the sight of him, the muttering of his name coming out half way between disappointed and concerned. Dutch’s expression was more intrigued, as though Arthur was the next puzzle to be solved. Hosea remained cautious, scanning the town with narrowed eyes. “Where are the others?” he asked quietly.

Arthur’s gaze went automatically to the carriage station on the hill and Hosea’s followed. Frances stood there still, leaning against the hitching post. Keeping an eye on him. Making sure he didn’t try to run.

The boy looked away, shook his head. “It’s just me.”

Hosea made a disbelieving humming noise and the woman at his side tugged at his elbow, herding them all around the corner and out of sight.

“Good Lord, look at the state of you,” Grimshaw muttered, fusing his hair out of his face and tutting at the bruises underneath. He flinched away. He wasn’t the same grubby little orphan that’d turned up on her back step all that time ago. He was a man now, and he didn’t want her pity.

“M’fine,” he grouched, sounding more like a petulant child than he intended.

Grimshaw shot him an unimpressed look but didn’t press the issue. And Dutch just seemed amused by the whole interaction.

“Impressive shiner you got there, son. Hope you got in a few licks before that fella got you on the ground.”

Arthur recalled the brief moment where his fist had connected with Denis’ nose and coated his knuckles in blood. He ducked his head with a half-smirk. “I did.”

Dutch winked at him. “Looks like you need one of those health cures. Here–” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a little brown glass bottle that he must have swiped off the hawker's stall just moments before. “This’ll have that shiner disappearing into thin air in no time,” he said, tossing it to the boy.

Arthur clutched the bottle to his chest, trying his best not to grin—to look even more like a greenhorn kid—but Dutch’s easy laugh, his easy dealings, his charm, all of it was so infectious it seemed to glow around him.

Grimshaw was less impressed, or perhaps just used to the shiny effect of the man, and her hand hovered over Arthur’s sleeve, as if she wanted to pull him closer but was afraid to touch him again. Her uncertainty was unnerving, and then he realised why.

“Arthur, I’m… sorry,” she said.

The words were almost painful, not least because he knew she wasn’t used to apologising—to anyone.

“I should’ve… I tried… Did you get my letter?”

The glow abruptly disappeared, replaced with a coldness in his guts. What letter? He shook his head.

This time she let her hand drop to his forearm and held it, squeezing gently on every few words. “Oh, Arthur. I know I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye and you must’ve… I sent word—a letter—once we had a moment to stop. Hoped someone might read it to you. But then I heard about what happened at the ranch, the fire, and no one knew where you’d gone…”

He gaped at her. Didn’t even have the presence to pull his arm away. She hadn’t forgotten him. She’d written him. He wanted to ask what the letter had said. If she’d planned on sending for him. If he’d only waited. But he was a fool. A stupid, childish, impatient, impulsive idiot. Running off like that. Ruining everything, as usual…

As if she could read his mind, she glanced up behind her, even though the side of the building blocked the view to the carriage station. He knew what he was looking for.

“Was it… them?” she said in an undertone. “The fire? They said it was cattle rustlers but–”

Her insinuation trailed off and he couldn’t bring himself to confirm it.

Dutch rested a hand on Grimshaw’s back, nodding to the boy. “Well, the important thing you’re here now, all in one piece, huh? And just look at you. Gonna be taller than the lot of us soon.”

Arthur tried to smile but he suddenly didn’t feel like he deserved to.

Grimshaw’s fingers tightened around his sleeve. “Arthur, why don’t you come with us?”

A flash of panic flickered through him as he thought of Frances up on the hill. What he was thinking right now, seeing Arthur disappear around the corner with Dutch and the others. If he would come down looking for him.

“Can’t,” he grunted, then finally remembered what he was even doing here in the first place, shoving the grubby letter out towards Dutch. “Here. From Colm.”

“Well now, what’s this?” Dutch took it, unfolding the note within with a flourish, and Arthur was surprised to see a page of neat, almost graceful lettering. He’d expected Colm to write with a scrawl, but this looked like an official declaration.

Dutch scanned the words for a moment before meeting Hosea’s eye with an indecipherable look and reading aloud:

“Dear Mr Van der Linde and associates. You are cordially invited to grace us with the pleasure of your company for fine refreshments and even finer conversation regarding a business opportunity that is sure to benefit both our parties. If this proposal is amicable to your desires, meet at the Stag’s Head tomorrow evening at sundown. Yours sincerely, your aspiring co-conspirator, C.”

Arthur watched all four of their faces as some silent communication seemed to pass between them. Even he could see the affectation of the letter was a dig at their fancy clothes and society acting, but none of them appeared offended. On the contrary, Dutch laughed, giving the letter another little shake.

“Two business propositions in one day! We are becoming prosperous folk indeed.”

“Sounds like a hell of a trap,” Hosea replied, deadpan, and Arthur was glad that someone had said it out loud.

Dutch took it as a challenge, apparently, passing the letter to his partner in crime so Hosea could frown over it personally.

“Don’t reckon there’s any harm in hearing what the man has to say," Dutch said. "You’ll vouch for his honour, Arthur?”

Arthur shrank back at the sudden question. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He couldn’t say yes, couldn’t say no, so he offered something between a shrug and a tilt of his head.

He wanted to tell them to get as far away from Colm as they could. Wanted to beg them to take him with them. But he could see Dutch was already sold on his own version of how things would go. And after the fight in the thoroughfare, after feeling Colm’s spidery fingers digging into his shoulder, he reckoned having the O’Driscolls chasing him down might be the worst nightmare he could imagine.

Hosea folded the letter back up with a sigh and tucked it inside his jacket. “Well, you’d best be getting back to your man,” he said, giving Arthur’s shoulder a pat.

The boy barely registered the fact that Hosea had spotted Frances. That they all seemed to have figured things out far beyond what had been set down in the letter. He didn’t know how any of this was supposed to go. What his part in it might be. A little bait-worm on a hook.

“What do I tell Colm?” he muttered.

“Tell him we’d be delighted to take him up on his invitation,” Dutch beamed.

Hosea’s lady friend rolled her eyes and took Hosea's arm. Hosea just looked as stern as he ever did. And Grimshaw finally let go of Arthur’s shirtsleeve with one final pat.

“You be careful, all right?” she said in a warning tone.

He nodded once. “You too,” he echoed, though he wasn't sure caution would be enough to keep them all from harm.

“Well?” Frances barked, the moment the boy crested the hill. “Down there long enough, weren’t you? What did they say?”

Arthur took Tulip’s reins and gave the man a stuttering nod. “They’ll be there."

“Good.”

Frances didn’t smile, though his eyes flitted down to the glass bottle in Arthur’s hand. “What the hell’s that?”

He’d forgotten he was still holding it, and looked at it blankly. Frances snatched it up and squinted at the printed label.

"What kinda shit you spending your money on, kid?” he snorted, tossing the bottle away into the mud and manure piled up on the side of the street.

Arthur didn’t bother to retrieve it. Frances was already in the saddle, heading back up the trail. The boy risked one last look down at the town, but there was no sign of Dutch or Grimshaw or the others. Only the comings and goings of the townsfolk, oblivious as the bright new day as to what was coming their way.