Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Arthur scanned the sky. Black clouds tumbled in the distance and beneath them, a curtain of gray fading as it reached the ground. A promise of rain, but not the kind that pattered to the earth and coaxed the flowers out of reluctant cacti and turned sage silver with life. No, it was the kind of rain that lashed, that filled empty streams with torrential rivers. It came with rage and hail, and he’d be a fool to be caught in it. The wind rustled his hat, and he pushed it down tighter, drawing his lips in a thin line. The storm clouds bullied their way over the plains, chasing away the blue sky of late spring. The low grumble of the storm urged Arthur to action. He would be unlikely to make it to the abandoned frontier cabin he knew to be at least five miles to his south—not with the storm coming as it was, stampeding over the snow-capped mountains.

He urged Boadicea forward. She was quick to respond, having no interest in facing the violence that chased them. They were neither of them strangers to the mercurial nature of spring in the West. Summer’s firm establishment and unrelenting sun would come soon enough. For now, the weather would continue to vacillate between darkly hanging clouds and brilliant blue skies.

And the wind. Always, the wind.

Thunder bit at their heels, and Arthur could feel the hair on the back of his neck prickle as the electrical storm grew closer. The sky darkened, and he could feel the first drops of sleety rain on exposed skin. He leaned in closer, feeling Boadicea hot against him, her powerful muscles flexing and extending with each gallop. She snorted.

“C’mon, girl,” he urged, eyes squinting ahead against the wind and sand. She was sure footed even at these speeds, so he trusted her to keep them moving forward as he searched for the low shadow in the distance that promised cover.

The sleet grew in size and number, now the size of pellets he used to shoot cans off the fence with when he was six, and his father was not yet an alcoholic, and his mother was not yet dead.

A sliver of doubt seeped in under his collar, brought in with the sleet. Bitterbrush and shrub oak tore at his wool trousers. Hosea called him a natural compass, but he should’ve seen the cabin by now. He had heard stories of men, hit with lightning as they sought refuge. As if God Himself had reached out and smote them. Neither Dutch or Hosea took much stock in the Bible, near as Arthur could tell, and there weren’t none of the kindness in the world that the reverends liked to preach. But there was plenty of evil.

And Arthur, all of 21, felt that by most measures, he was already a pretty evil man. His hands would still be bloody from the man he had killed had the biting sleet not already cleansed his skin.

It had been an act of self-defense, a highway man who had chosen poorly, thinking Arthur was a kid. And what did Dutch say—that everybody was given an empty bag of experience and a full bag of luck, and it was a matter of filling up one before the other fell empty. By Dutch’s reckoning, today’s encounter was just a natural reaping, of sorts. The other man had run out of one bag before he’d filled the other. Dutch would clap Arthur on the shoulders before pulling him into a hug, his arms enveloping Arthur’s wiry body. For a long time, that embrace brought Arthur only to Dutch’s chest, and the rhythmic thumping of Dutch’s heart would bring Arthur as much comfort as his words. Now, his hugs were fewer but still as warm, and honeyed comfort would pour forth when Dutch pulled Arthur away to look him in the eyes.

“You did what you had to do, son.” It was the refrain to all of his speeches.

The wound in his shoulder was minor; it had been a glancing shot that had barely torn his jacket. Miss Grimshaw would scold him later when she’d pull the jacket from his shoulders for repair. A cover to her worry, Hosea would say with a smile that didn’t make it to his eyes, creased with his own concern. He thought they were putting Arthur in too much danger too often. This was his refrain, often repeated to Dutch late into the night. Arthur had become an expert at pretending to be asleep, as if Dutch’s tent weren’t less than ten feet from his own in almost all of their camps.

As the hail, now the size of the rocks he used to throw into windows before Dutch and Hosea had found him, pounded against his back and Boadicea nickered in fear and pain, Arthur realized that Dutch and Hosea’s proclivities likely contributed to their aversion of the Bible.

The cabin was smaller than he remembered. It loomed large in the lonesome plains. A testament to man’s ephemeral place in the world. This corner of the west had been inhabited for forty years at most, and this cabin had been built, inhabited, and already returned to the elements.

A casualty to the Indian Wars, or maybe just outlaws. The three wooden crosses carried little more than names and dates and did not speak to the how of their early demise, or the who of the person that had buried them. Arthur had visited them once, out of curiosity, or maybe respect. The dates of the smallest cross indicating a three-year time span had settled a piece of ice into his heart that made every breath sharp and ragged.

He had not looked at them again.

He tore himself off Boadicea, leading her into the attached barn that jutted off the main cabin. He immediately loosened the cinch and tack, checking her over for any hot spots from the water-laden ride. She was breathing heavily, and he dug into his bag for an apple. She took it with more grace than her size belayed.

“I’m sorry I ain’t got no more, girl. Plenty of good eatin’, once this storm rides on.”

There was another snort, and Arthur froze as he belatedly realized another steed stood in the small barn with them. He cursed himself for his stupidity. In all the times he’d ridden through, he’d been alone. Now he was tired and hurt and he’d been complacent. He could hear Dutch chiding him. “Complacency kills, son. Simple as that. You get complacent, you get dead. Some of the best men I’ve known were shot down before their time.” The shadows shifted in the dim light.

“You wouldn’t shoot a man in the back.” He raised his hands in the universal gesture of peace, turning slowly. The man behind him hadn’t made a noise, but Arthur knew he’d made enough racket coming in, and that a friendlier, or perhaps stupider man, would have already made his presence known.

A dark-skinned boy dressed partly in the plainsmen fashion had his bow raised and knocked. He stared at Arthur with dark eyes. His hair was plaited on either side, intertwined with cord. A red collared striped shirt was tucked into canvas pants. A beaded necklace ofbone and turquoise hung around his neck.

Arthur had grown up with stories of Comanche and Kiowa raiding parties; about children being stolen from their homes and their parents murdered. By the time he’d made it west, the major battles had been won. Arthur’s own prejudices were tempered by Dutch’s temperance on the subject. “They’re a free people, son. Got more right to these lands than we do. And they suffer from the oppression of the East and the government same as we do. No, son, we have no quarrel with the tribesmen.”

He and the boy eyed one another. He thought the boy probably was probably about the same age he’d been when his father died.

About the same age as John, the wayward boy who had recently joined their ranks and was a constant source of frustration for Arthur.

His shoulder ached from being held up, the adrenaline of the fight and the ride seeping back into his blood. Weariness took its place. “I’m gonna put my hands down. I’ll take my gun belt off and drop it, if’n it makes you feel better.”

The boy stayed silent, and Arthur kept his arms raised a moment longer before slowly lowering them to his belt. He began undoing it. “Don’t think you’d consider letting me keep it?” He gave what he thought was a friendly smile. The boy scowled back. “All right, no. I get it.” The gun belt to dropped to the floor with a thud.

Arthur had heard stories about Indians who coated their arrows in poison; that just a scratch could make a man lose a limb, could give him blood poisoning so bad it would kill him and there was nothing the best doctor could do. That, coupled with the knowledge that a teenage boy could be wilder than any man raised Arthur’s caution and respect. He had been a fourteen-year-old boy abandoned to the world.

“Name’s Arthur,” he offered. Hosea said names meant things. Dutch coached him to use a fake name whenever possible. But Arthur had the sense this boy would know if he were lying and did not bother to trial a fake name.

The boy stared back at him with black eyes. He lowered his bow and turned away, turning back into the cabin.

Arthur accepted the invitation, following the boy inside.

The interior was cozier than he remembered. Some of the gaps in the wall had been repaired. A fire banked up in the small stone hearth warmed the room, its flickering light casting shadows across the boy’s face. Over it hung a dutch oven, the smell of warm meat and stew caused Arthur’s stomach to clench in newly appreciated hunger. He shrugged off his overcoat with some difficulty, his wounded arm having grown stiff in the cold. He managed to get it on the hook next to the door by moving deliberately. The boy motioned to a rocking chair. It had been broken the last time Arthur had passed through, and he’d had to sit on the floor. He settled into it gratefully, the room swimming slightly. Likely, he figured, on account of the smoke. The chimney didn’t draw as well as it should.

“You fix this?” He asked, rocking back and forth. When the boy didn’t answer, he continued, “My name is Arthur,” he said again, slower, and louder, in the manner of people who assume that volume is all that is needed to cross language barriers.

“I heard you the first time.” The boy said, his voice cracking with the last word. Arthur fought the instinct to crack a smile. He remembered his own insecurities as he passed through the dubious threshold of puberty. There was no point making fun of something that couldn’t be helped; not when the boy had lost everything else already.

Not when he held Arthur’s life in his hands.

The boy dipped a ladle into the pot, silently passing over a tin can converted into a soup bowl. When Arthur reached out to grab it, his hand smeared blood around the old tin. He looked down at his arm. Adrenaline and cold had obscured the extent of his injury. Sluggish blood pumped laconically from the wound with his heartbeat. The blue calico of his shirt was a bright and shiny black in the reflected light of the fire.

“Oh,” he said, surprised.

The boy’s dark eyes followed the blood-stained hand up to the shoulder. Resignation dimmed the bright spark of his eyes. A boy tired already of seeing men die, even if they were strangers. It was a resignation that caused Arthur to bristle. Soup sloshed over the tin as he snatched his arm back.

“I’ll be fine.” He scowled, lifting the tin to his lips once he was sure it had cooled appropriately. The stew was lean on vegetables, but the well-seasoned rabbit was plentiful, mixed in with a grain Arthur wasn’t sure he could identify.

“Thanks,” he finally said. A full body shudder wracked his body despite the relative warmth of the cabin and the stew. His sleeve stuck to his skin, and he held his cup awkwardly in his hand.

“You should take it off,” the boy nodded to his shirt. “I can clean it for you.” He motioned to the kettle hanging from over the fire. Steam rose out of the spout in a lazy climb up the flue.

Arthur broadened his shoulders. “Like I never been shot. Been fine before. Be fine this time.” John had gotten him with ricochet in a canyon, but it had glanced off his thigh. There was hardly a scar to show for it. It hadn’t hurt like this and had clotted quickly. Miss Grimshaw had fussed over him with an attentiveness he hadn't known she was capable of.

The boy stared at him.

Arthur stared back.

The boy said, “It’s not my arm that will be lost to blood poisoning. I’ve seen cleaner wounds than that fester.” He turned back to his stew, looking out the rain-spattered window. Large stones of hail coated the plains, gradually melting under the steady course of rain. The lonesome plains caught in friezes of white light with every lighting blast.

They sat in silence, accompanied by the pounding rain and the wind that whistled around the house, as if it could tear it down if it could. The tin of soup cooled in Arthur’s hand. He gnawed the inside of his cheek. He’d bitten it the day before at dinner, and the skin was raw, but he couldn’t keep from worrying it.

“Aw hell, waddaya know about doctoring, anyway?” He griped, setting the can down on the floor and stumbled through undoing the button of his shirt with his good hand. The boy watched him with dark eyes, allowing him the dignity of getting the shirt open. With clumsy fingers, still numb from cold despite the hot tin can, he eventually managed to unbutton his cuff. He had almost peeled the calico shirt off when the pain made him catch his breath, the fabric plastered to the wound.

The boy waited.

Arthur sat in front of the fire the boy had stoked. He took several deep breaths, willing the pain to calm. He tried to pull the shirt off again.

“You’ll tear it open.” The boy prodded the fire with a stick.

“What’s your grand idea?” Arthur sniped. He was reminded of again of John.

“If you soak it, you can get the shirt off.”

Arthur sat hunched forward in the chair. If he left the wound alone, it faded to a dull throb, but the moment he tried moving, the pain flared back, catching his breath. He tried to ignore the fear that ate at him. He had just been heading back to camp and should’ve been home by now. Miss Grimshaw and Hosea would have him bundled in one of Hosea’s wool blankets. Dutch would stomp around the campfire, chewing anxiously on his cigar, the way he’d done after Hosea had been shot in their last escape.

He didn’t want to die in this cabin, with this strange boy and his dark eyes that seemed to pierce Arthur’s soul.

The boy took Arthur’s silence as acquiescence. Rummaging through the cupboards, he eventually produced a cracked earthenware bowl that he filled with water from the hot kettle over the fire. Sloshing the water around, he poured it back into the kettle and waited, before adding more water to the bowl. It was a plain brown thing, with ridges worked into the side. A crack on the side leaked water slowly if filled too high.

The boy put rags in the kettle over the fire, letting them come to a boil. Using the opposite side of the stick he’d been using to stoke the fire, he pulled one of the rags out of the top. He scooted a stool up to Arthur. “It will hurt.”

His only admission of pain as the boy poured water over the wound, pulling the fabric free with deliberation and patience, was a hissing through clenched teeth.

“You’re lucky. It’s clean through, and missed the artery,” the boy wrapped the boiled rags around Arthur’s bicep. “Keep it clean, and it might not get infected at all.”

“How you know all this?” Arthur twisted the top off his flask, taking another healthy swig.

“My mother.”

Arthur nodded. He tapped the top of the flask with his finger. There was no use asking after the boy’s parents when he already knew the answer.

“I run with a gang, we could use someone like you,” Arthur offered.

The boy’s hands paused from where he wrapped Arthur’s arm. “I run alone.” He finally said.

“But you don’t have to,” Arthur pressed. “The crew I run with—they don’t care about nothing ‘cept independence, n’ helpin’ people that needs helpin’, savin’ fellers as need saving, and feedin’ fellers as need feeding. And we only take from people who can afford it.”

“Sounds very righteous,” He tied the cleaned rag into a tight knot. “Keep it clean.”

Arthur bristled.

“But ain’t you heard what I said? There could be a place for you.”

The boy stared at him with his black eyes. Arthur felt like a butterfly he’d seen once pinned in a doctor’s office. It’d had beautiful blue wings splayed open; its small body expertly tacked to a cotton pillow.

“I heard.”

“Then maybe you heard the name Dutch Van Der Linde?” Arthur puffed out his chest.

“If you don’t want to lose this arm or worse,” the boy said in the slightly clinical tones of a person bored but trying to convey something important, “you’ll keep it clean. A poultice of honey and yarrow if you know how.”

Arthur fell silent, feeling chastised. The boy was as unflappable as Hosea, and annoyance warred with gratitude.

“I appreciate it,” he muttered, falling into an uneasy silence. He took a swig from his flask. Pain and exhaustion and the heady buzz of whiskey lulled him into an exhausted sleep.

He was not surprised to wake up to an abandoned cabin, embers still warm in the hearth. Sometime during the night, the boy had draped a hose blanket over him. His arm was stiff, and to his surprise, Boadicea had already been made ready for travel. A stool had been moved into the stalls to ease his climbing onto her back. His gun belt hung over the stall.

Reluctantly, and only after squinting across the prairie to ensure he was alone, he used the stool to mount Boadicea. He leaned in. “It’ll be our secret.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o

The homecoming was what he’d imagined. He led Boadicea back to the camp they’d set up on the plains in an another abandoned homestead with a working well. The laconic curl of smoke guided his way home long before he approached the small oasis along the stream bed. It would be drying up soon enough, and they’d be moving on. Dutch had eyes on Armadillo, which was too dry by Arthur’s measure, but served to help Hosea’s lungs in the summer. Hosea took Boadicea's lead, guiding her in while Dutch swung between pride for his boy and anger at the stranger who had done this.

“It’s done,” Arthur said. “I killed him.”

“Proud of you, son,” Dutch clasped slapped him lightly on the knee, giving him a grin. “Let Susan and Hosea get you taken care of.” He let Hosea shoulder him out of the way, Susan standing behind just behind. Her shoulders were taut, her dark eyes furrowed. The lines around her mouth deepened as her lips pursed.

Hosea patted the bandage as he pretended to let Arthur down off his horse under his own manpower. “You didn’t do this. Who did?”

Arthur’s eyes caught on John, standing on the edge of camp. He’d been working on his letters, but his books had been abandoned with Arthur’s arrival, the pages flipping in the wind. Hosea followed Arthur’s gaze before looking back at Arthur. “He was worried about you.” Then louder, “Who fixed you up? They did a good job.”

Arthur looked down at his arm before looking back up at Hosea. “It were a boy, Hosea. But I ain’t even sure he weren’t a ghost of some sort. Hardly spoke and never gave a name.” He drifted off. “Maybe a figment of blood loss and whiskey.” He shrugged dismissively, too close to the realm of spirituality for his own comfort.

“I’ve never seen a ghost clean a wound half as well as this.” Hosea carefully unwrapped the rags soaked with blood. “Ghost as he may be, he knew what he was doing. You got lucky.”

“That’s what he said.” Arthur tolerated Hosea’s prodding of the wound. If he winced, Hosea didn’t mention it. "And to use yarrow and honey."

“Your ghost knows what he's about," Hosea's wan face lightened into a smile before worry creased the corner of his eyes. "We were worried about you, Arthur.” Hosea sighed, pulling the young man into a hug. If his eyes were wet, Arthur didn’t mention it. He rested his head on Hosea’s shoulder. “If I ever get the chance, I will thank your ghost for getting you back home to me safely.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Later that evening, John found his way beside Arthur as they sat in front of the fire. They sat in silence, Arthur content in the gentle buzz of whiskey, his wound fading to a distant throb, and John, searching for his words.

“Does it hurt?” He finally asked.

Arthur snorted. “Waddaya think? Don’t ask stupid questions. ‘Course it got hurts. You been ruminating all evenin’ and that’s the question you come up with?”

John scowled, wrapping his knees to his chest. “Thought maybe you was dead,” he said into his knees.

“Takes little more than a storm and a bullet for that.” Arthur elbowed his brother gently, the irritation falling away, and he almost felt guilt for having felt it at all.

“Was you scared?” John poked the fire with a stick. One of the logs of wood crumbled into the coals, joining the throbbing orange and white that formed the foundation for the burning pinyon pine and creosote.

“’Course I was,” Arthur said. The flames warmed his face, chasing away the chill of the high desert and of the fear that had settled into his spine the night before. “It’s natural to be scared. But what matters is what you do when you’re scared that counts. A man can curl up and die, or he can live. That’s all the choices you got.”

“You always gonna choose to live?” The question almost came out as a whisper, John’s voice cracking in a way that reminded Arthur of the strange boy in the desert. He wrapped his arm around John, pulling him close on his good side.

“’Course I will, John. If I died, who would take care of your sorry self?”

John fell asleep that way, tucked against Arthur’s side. He let him rest, his head gradually leaning against John's as the coals died, and his wounded shoulder began to stiffen from the cold.

/end

Chapter Text

This late in the season Mount Shann had lost its snowcap, exposing bare faced granite that loomed sharp and unwelcoming over the Big Valley. The nights were almost always cool, the angry heat of the day run off by a breeze that would pick up with the setting sun.

Strawberry had once barely been a town— a scattering of log cabins, a saloon, and one general store that was little more than a trading post. Indians had once conducted a steady business at the post, bringing in pelts for guns. Over the years that they’d chanced through Strawberry, Arthur had watched the Indians, and pelts, grow fewer, replaced by white men with small bags of gold they’d found panning. The trees around Strawberry, giant sentinels that 15-year-old Arthur had thought unimaginable, were slowly being felled and replaced by more cabins, roads out of town, and the strained faces of the men who made their lives harvesting the land. There was rumor of gold in the hills, and Strawberry had grown since their last visit, filled with prospectors and gamblers and hopeless dreams.

Every time they came to Strawberry, Dutch’s face would darken. “The problem with progress,” he would say, “is that it knows no respect. Will they stop when they have raped the whole land, or even then, will they want more?”

But they returned, because Strawberry was small enough for them to lie low, and because as a rule, they never committed crime in or around the town. Importantly: it was the one place that was sure to soothe Hosea’s lungs.

Hosea leaned forward on the log railing; his arms folded as he watched the sun sink over the mountains. Arthur came up beside him, dropping his cigarette, stepping on it with his heel. If the quiet breathing was any indication, a month in the mountains was doing him well.

Hosea gave Arthur a smile as the younger man came abreast. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” Arthur agreed. He took up post beside Hosea, watching the eruption of lavender and indigo as the harsh golden rays relinquished into the pastels and deep royal colors of dusk. In the eastern sky, the brightest stars began to glitter. Arthur could see the distant lights of the saloon. In his first legitimate job of his life, he’d been hired on by the owner, Xavier Elm, to help keep the peace when it got too rowdy. In an act of shrewdness, Xavier allowed him to gamble, as long as he split the winnings with the Golden Boot.

“Sometimes,” Hosea breathed through his nose, and Arthur found himself unconsciously doing the same. Pine, cooling earth, and the wash of summer wildflowers. “I can see myself settling here, in the mountains. I grew up in a town not unlike this one.”

Arthur forgot about faro, his heart stuttering in his chest as he looked at Hosea. “But you wouldn’t leave us again.” He demanded, in what should’ve been a question. You wouldn’t leave me.

Not after Bessie, which had torn them apart, but Hosea most of all. They had just gotten him back. Strawberry was the clearest he’d seen Hosea’s eyes in a year. Arthur had gotten used to picking Hosea up off the ground, too drunk to make it to the bed. He and Miss Grimshaw had developed a stronger bond over the year, trying to keep Hosea’s worst excursions hidden from Dutch, who, for all his proclamations of freedom, had raged at Hosea’s departure. At his prodigal return and subsequent excessive libations, Dutch had almost seemed to enjoy Hosea’s suffering at the loss of his love.

Hosea’s eyes were gentle when he looked at Arthur. “No, I won’t be leaving for quite some time.” Hosea sighed, his sad eyes turning back to the small town and the mountains that loomed beyond. Only the edges of the peaks were outlined now in light. A dampened mauve that would soon fade into a shadow against the star punctured sky.

Arthur gazed at him a moment longer, noticing the silvering of his blonde hair at the temples, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes that were growing more pronounced, no longer fleeting with the crinkle of a smile or in laughter. Time was settling in and wearing down around Hosea.

The evening wind whispered down the mountain with the temperature inversion of the rapidly cooling air. They fell into an easy silence, Arthur taking comfort in the soft and easy breathing of Hosea next to him. For the first time in weeks, it wasn’t accompanied by the faint exhalation wheeze that had become so common that Arthur had forgotten a time when he hadn’t it.

He took an easy drag on his cigarette, the smoke curling before the wind ripped it away. Above, the Milky Way formed a faded pale stripe across the studded sky. Arthur had read once, he thinks in one of Hosea’s Farmer’s Almanacs, that the Milky Way contained all the stars of the universe. It didn’t make much sense to Arthur, seeing as he could see many stars in the sky that didn’t seem to be part of it, but he figured he weren’t learned enough to understand it, anyway.

“I know you’re itching to get into town,” Hosea settled into the rocking chair on the porch. “Working at the Golden Boot tonight?”

“If I’d known I could get an honest wage smashing the heads of unruly drunks, prolly would never’ve turned to a life of crime.” Arthur grinned at Hosea around his cigarette. Hosea grinned back. Catching movement on the dirt road leading up to the cabin, Arthur saw Hosea’s eyes brighten as he caught Dutch’s figure ambling towards them.

Arthur turned to watch Dutch. His shoulders were squared, head held high. He moved with purpose. Arthur had been riding with them long enough to know that the man was formulating a plan. He waited until the older man came to rest at the bottom of the stairs. “Hosea, Arthur,” He looked up at them. “Room for one more?”

“You make yourself comfortable, I was just getting going. See if I can’t scare hustle some of them boys think they know cards better than me.” Arthur grabbed his hat from the chair, leaving the space for Dutch, whose smiled warmed as he settled in besides Hosea.

“Have a good evening,” he winked at Arthur before focusing on Hosea, “I think I’ve got an idea for our next plan—”

Arthur left Dutch to pontificate, knowing that his proclamations would be tempered by Hosea’s equanimity, and then later, with gentle physicality that Arthur knew about, and John suspected but never asked about. He was a rough sort of boy, and Arthur had watched him carefully the day the boy had first seen Dutch and Hosea disappear into a tent. His dark eyes had skittered over to Arthur, met his impassive face, then turned back to focus on the fire he was building. He never brought it up.

It was the smartest thing Arthur had seen the boy do, and it was the first time he thought John might fit in with the gang after all.

The Golden Boot, one of Strawberry’s original structures, (the first, if Xavier, the owner, were to be believed) had likely not been an architectural wonder when it was first built, and time had made it tired. The front porch sagged, and the front window had been party to so many brawls that Xavier had paid for a double hung window, and kept it open nearly all the time--even in winter, if Elijah was to be believed. Elijah was an old prospector who lived in the Boot, near as Arthur could figure. He had worn a soft spot into Xavier’s heart, and would give Elijah whatever leftover food and drink remained when the girls cleaned up.

As Arthur entered, Xavier looked up. He was a slight man, with dark hair and narrow eyes. He always presented himself with an air of authority, and with the attitude of a concierge of a big city town, and not the owner of a run down saloon in a old trading post that was stumbling its way into the 1880s. He motioned the younger man over. “Glad you’re here, Arthur.”

“Got a problem?” Arthur shouldered his way through the crowd of prospectors, cowboys, and trappers.

“Got some men in from Lemoyne.” Xavier nodded towards a man well-dressed man settled at the main faro table. Arthur took his measure. The man in question had dark black hair slicked carefully in pomade with a tightly trimmed and crisply waxed mustache. He carried himself in the manner of young men who had been given everything and earned none of it. His grey pinstripe suit was well tailored. A green silk handkerchief and gold chain looping to a pocket watch that would cover the gang’s food expenses for the summer were understated adornments that spoke to his wealth. He had the look of someone who thought themselves well above the company they were keeping. His jacket was hung over the chair and white sleeves were rolled up to his elbows in the manner Arthur had seen in magazines and dime novels, and never in real life.

“What’s his sort doing here? Better suited for Tombstone or Black Water if he’s looking to get that Western life, ain’t he? Strawberry might be a little too honest for his needs.”

“Oh hell, Arthur, once somebody mentions gold, suddenly we get people falling in out of the sky.” Xavier poured a shot of whiskey for one of the regulars, pushing the amber liquid over.

“There’s no gold in these hills.” Arthur glanced down at Elijah, who was so pickled that he took a whole minute to piece together a sentence, and always walked slowly and deliberately, as if he expected the world to fall away. They said he’d found something up in the mountains, and on the day he’d come down, he started drinking and never stopped.

“Well hell, there’s a little," Xavier refuted mildly as he poured another drink. "And there’s worse places to settle than Strawberry. I got more money pouring in than I know what to do with. We aren’t another boom town—we’ve been here before the prospectors, and we’ve got to figure out how to keep them here after.”

“Sure, Xavier.” Arthur leaned on the bar. “What’s your contention with Mr. Confederate?” He watched as Xavier’s face, which had been open as he discussed his wild dreams about Strawberry shuttered again into a scowl.

“That’s Felix Faraday. He’s taking issue with some of our traders. Got some new ones in, and he won’t leave them alone." Arthur studied the men at the table. Two of them were regulars that Arthur knew in passing. The other was a young dark-skinned man that had more of a native look that spoke of mixed heritage and obviously the source of Felix’s ire. The slight furrow of his brow spoke to his self-control. The man wore a necklace with turquoise beads that tugged at Arthur’s memory.

“Oh yeah? What sort of issues?” Arthur took the offered whiskey that Xavier bumped into his arm that leaned on the sticky bar. He tried to place where he’d seen that necklace before.

Xavier huffed. “The sort that a lot of young men died for, one way or another.”

Before Arthur could press further, the Lemoyne man’s voice raised in pitch. “How dare you drink in this establishment; much less think you sit at my table. I thought your kind was bad enough where I come from, but I never imagined they allowed two lesser species to--"

Arthur was across the room and hauling the man from the table before he could finish his sentence. “Think you’ve had too much, mister. Time to sleep it off.” Felix was slight under Arthur’s grip as he struggled, the fine fabric of his striped suit wrinkling.

“You pigeon-livered ratbag, let me go.” Felix tried to twist to face Arthur, who had shifted his hand under the man’s armpit and was digging into the soft space there, causing the man to freeze slightly in pain.

That Xavier had only told him about one man was Xavier’s fault. That Arthur hadn’t thought to scope it out for himself landed squarely on Arthur’s shoulders. So, when John, who stood on the top stair with his arm looped around a young blonde with a full bosom shouted, “Arthur, he’s got a knife!” Arthur’s eyes flickered over Felix’s person and didn’t think to look behind him.

Too late he realized John was referring to someone besides Felix. As he was turning, another man in the attire of hired men everywhere was moving to jab a Bowie knife into his back. It would’ve caught him in the gut, and Arthur knew there weren’t anything worse than dying from gut rot.

But the young man with the turquoise necklace bodily hauled the assailant away, throwing him off to the side. Creek Jackson, one of the trappers turned prospectors used that moment to stand up with enough force that it upset the table. That Creek Jackson was losing badly and would’ve gone home penniless was likely of no contribution, Arthur was sure.

He grunted in pain as a fist connected solidly with his kidney. He’d be peeing blood tomorrow, like as not.

“Boy,” he yelled at Felix, “You’re lousy with men willing to pull your weight for you. But I ‘spect that’s what they teach you boys in Lemoyne-to let other men do the hard work for you.” He shoved the Southerner away to catch his new assailant with a haymaker that landed squarely before he turned on felix, catching him in the jaw. The man collapsed, his head hitting the turned table as he went down Arthur scowled down at Felix. “You got anybody else I should be watching for?”

But a bar fight had begun in earnest around him, and Felix was quickly swallowed up by the raucous men. Arthur, not yet drunk enough to fight for the sake of fighting, his kidney aching, had no real interest in fighting as he knew most of the patrons and had no real quarrel with them. A few well landed blows helped extract him, landing him on the relative quiet of the Golden Boot’s porch, the cool mountain air washing over him.

The young man with the turquoise necklace was leaning against the balcony. Arthur came abreast of him, reaching into his front pocket. “Smoke?” He wracked his mind of where he’d seen that necklace before.

“Thanks,” the man took the proffered cigarette. Arthur helped him light it.

They stood in silence, leaning against the balcony railing. A waning moon, just past full, rose in the east. It hung low in the sky, as if struggling against the confinements of gravity. The landscape around them grew in burgeoning silver that cast deep shadows against the light of the moon. Arthur tried to broach the subject of how he knew the man. And, failing, he blundered forward. “Feel like we met before.”

“You think so?” The man looked askance at him. Arthur was cast in a pool of silver and gold from the flickering light of the bar and of the rising moon. It cast deep conflicting shadows across his face.

“My name’s Arthur,” Arthur said.

The man breathed, his face relaxing in recognition. “On the plains, there was a storm.”

Arthur blinked, the distant memories of his first gunshot and a boy in a cabin. “You was a kid.”

The young man laughed. “Yes, I was.”

It placed the necklace for Arthur, and he breathed through his nose, the pieces clicking together. “You saved my life.”

“It wasn’t even infected,” The man said, a smile flickering across his face. Arthur got the sense he didn’t smile a lot. “You would’ve been fine.”

“You saved my life again." Arthur nodded inside to the saloon where the fight still raged. He would’ve stabbed me in the back.”

The young man shrugged. “Seems you live a dangerous life.”

“I never caught your name.” The silent, wild-eyed boy had become handsome in the intervening years. His soft face had hardened into angled planes. Gangly limbs had filled out. Once skinny arms were now well-muscled with broad shoulders evident even under his shirt. Arthur looked away, back to the distant stars. He chewed on his lip. He was interested in women, the way a man ought to be. He had been a father. He would have married Mary, if she’d come away with him.

You’d quit that life if you loved me.

And he had, but not enough.

And he had love Eliza, in her way. But not enough.

“It’s Charles.”

“Well Charles,” Arthur gave a faint smile. “That weren’t so hard were it? Only took half a decade. What was you doin’ out there on them plains, anyway? Living in that house?”

“What were you doing,” Charles countered smoothly. “As I recall, you showed up gunshot.”

“It were self-defense,” Arthur muttered darkly. “But you didn’t answer my question.” He breathed in deeply, the cool tendrils of nicotine seeping into his muscles. He breathed out, and relaxed.

“Still running with Dutch Van Der Linde?”

Ice dripped down Arthur’s spine, and he looked up sharply at the boy. “What do you know about that?”

Charles grinned, but it was tight and didn’t reach his eyes. “You told me, Arthur. Said there was a place for me. Is the offer still open?”

Before he could answer, there was a commotion behind them, and Xavier was on the porch, John beside him. They stared at him wild-eyed. Arthur leaned away from the porch to look between the pair. “What’s got you two so spooked?”

“Arthur, we gotta go.” John grabbed his arm.

“What the hell, get off me.” Arthur shrugged off his brother’s grasp.

“Listen to the man, Arthur,” Xavier shoved Arthur’s hat into his hands. “Felix is dead. Caught it on the way down when he hit the table. His friends have gone to get the law.”

“It was self-defense,” Arthur said again, this time with conviction. “Anyway, the sheriff knows me.” He wasn’t close to Sheriff Skelton, in the way prey and predator could never be comfortable, but they had a respect for one another. Arthur handled most of the altercations at the saloon, and Skelton didn’t ask too many questions about Dutch and his crew.

“Not the Sheriff,” Xavier said. “The Marshall. Turns out his daddy is some sort of rich fella, with money to spare. They’re already talking about a hanging.”

Arthur didn’t have to look at John to know that his breath was coming in tight, rapid gasps that he was fighting to keep under control at the mention of hanging, or that he was unconsciously rubbing his throat in the memory of the rope that had been tight enough to bruise.

“You have to go, Arthur.” Xavier pressed a bundle of goods into his arms. “You can’t come back. Not for a long time.” The owner of the Golden Boot slid back into his saloon. The fighting had largely died down, and Felix lay too still on the floor. His pocket watch had been knocked free in the fall, lying on the ground beside him.

A summer of plenty in a small disc of gold.

It didn’t make sense to Arthur that some men were born to everything, and only reaped despair from it.

Tearing his eyes from the watch, he realized Charles was gone, and only John stood before him. His brother stared at him with terrified eyes.

“Go get Dutch and Hosea.” John nodded wordlessly at the command. He paused in his escape down the sagging stairs, turning to look back at Arthur.

“Where you gonna be?”

“Gonna get that watch,” Arthur said as he marched back into the saloon. “Already gonna be wanted for murderin’, might as well be wanted for stealin,’ too.”

“I’ll wait.” John planted himself on the bottom step. Arthur was out a moment later, the gold watch already pocketed away. He handed his brother the green silk handkerchief. John looked down at it. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Well hell, I don’t know John. Might make you a refined man. Ain’t nobody ever told you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?” He started jogging up the road towards their cabin.

“Nobody ever told me that,” John groused as he kept pace. “But I don’t see what’s fair that you get a gold watch and I get a handkerchief.”

“If I’m gonna be hung for killin’ a man that needing killin’ even if it were an accident, might as well get his watch, too. You can inherit it when I’m gone.” The walk down to the saloon didn’t seem half as far as it did back to their home. Even in summer, their breaths puffed cool in the mountain air around them.

“What the hell would I be needin’ a watch for anyway, Arthur. You gonna give me anything, give me your hat. Spend more time out in the sun then I do starin’ down at watches. Can't barely understand them as it is.”

“Why would I give you my hat when you got one that works just fine. Dutch! Hosea!” Arthur shouted as they approached. It was courtesy more than necessity. Much as John suspected their relationship, he didn’t need to stumble into a room with them together. Arthur waited a moment, the gold light of a lantern brightening a bedroom window before Dutch stuck his head out. A second light on the bottom floor indicated Miss Grimshaw’s awareness.

“What is it, son?”

“We gotta go. Got the law after us.” He shoved John in the direction of the horses.

“Was it deserved?” Dutch called down. He was bare chested, and Arthur could see him bouncing slightly as he worked himself into his trousers.

“Deserved enough.” Arthur answered.

“How much time do we have?” He pulled on his shirt and thinned the corners of his mustache, giving an air of authority. Arthur could see the shadow of Hosea behind him.

“Enough to get the horses tacked, but we should be gone by morning.”

“We’ll be ready in an hour.”

They were in the forests of Monto’s Rest by the time the sun dawned. Hosea knew of a cabin in the area, and the alpine forest allowed his lungs continued rest. If the hard push to abscond to the relative wilds of the forest stressed his body, he did not let on. It was a quiet strength that Arthur admired. Up here, the air smelled crisp. The sky was already an austere blue. There was a thinness of the air that didn’t exist in Strawberry.

John set to shoring up the abandoned structure as Arthur pulled the tack off the horses.

“It’s called Turnbow Cabin,” Hosea said to no one in particular as he started filling the abandoned wooden structure with the things that would make it a home. Dutch was already on the roof, assessing the relative soundness of it. Miss Grimshaw busied herself with building a fire in the remnants of an old stone circle.

“Who was Turnbow?” Arthur asked, when nobody else rose to the bait.

“A man I knew that lived here, once. From England. Got sick and was told he needed dry air. But he was feared to death he might infect another, and he settled here in the deep, dark woods of Monto’s Rest.” Hosea looked up into the boughs of the pine trees.

“What happened?” Arthur paused in his work to watch Hosea. He was older than Arthur by twenty years, but twice as nimble. He was the only man that Arthur knew that had the peculiar ability to be able to fleece a man out of his life’s savings and have him convinced he was happy about it. It was a finesse that Arthur lacked with his own brutality.

“The same thing that happens to all men,” Hosea closed the saddle bags before removing them entirely off Silver Dollar. “He died.”

Chapter Text

Fall did not come to Monto’s Rest in increments. The pines were timeless in their endurance of the seasons, but the gang awoke one morning to find several inches of snow on the ground. The aspens were resplendent in shimmering blades of gold that had started at the peaks, and were now following cold air drainage along streams, until the willows had begun to yellow. And while the snow clouds stumbled around the tall mountain peaks in the morning sun before lumbering off to cause trouble in parts unknown, the sky they left behind was one of the purest blues Arthur thought he had ever laid eyes on. The tops of the peaks, now snow capped, were too painful to stare at too long under the morning sun.

Hosea settled in beside him around the campfire that Arthur had stoked from the embers of the night before. He’d hung a kettle over the fire, and he could hear the water frothing inside, indicating it had reached a boil. Arthur grabbed a rag and wrapped it several times around the handle before he pulled the kettle off, pouring in grounds to steep. Hosea watched him, a bemused expression settling in over his face. “Trying to raise the dead?”

“You can always dilute it, old man. You were up later than me though and you wasn’t even on guard duty, so I ‘spect you need it more than me.”

Arthur did not make many allusions to Hosea’s relationship with Dutch, and Hosea was too even-keeled for the ribbing to color his cheeks. He huffed in amusement. “How long have you known, son?”

Arthur grinned. “Y’all don’t exactly make a secret of it. Do you think I was stupid at 14?” He poured a cup for Hosea in one of the camp’s tin cups. He continued thoughtfully, “I know Bessie got under his bonnet.” He poured a cup for Hosea. Hosea took it gratefully, wrapping his hands around the cup carefully. His blue eyes had grown sad.

“I know she did. But I loved her so much, in my own way.” He sighed, “When she asked me to come away with her, I wanted the life she believed in.” He sipped from the cup, wincing slightly at the strength. “The life she believed in for both of us. That’s why I wanted you to come with us.”

“But Dutch—” Arthur looked to the cabin. He and John had set up their own tents in an arc off the main cabin. They'd spent the month of July building a small structure suitable for Miss Grimshaw’s own demands. She and Dutch had managed a rocky relationship between them during Hosea’s absence, but when Hosea came back, Dutch had quickly taken him back. Arthur didn’t think Miss Grimshaw’s love for Dutch faded at all, and in her own strict way, she accepted that she could not hold Dutch’s heart. So, she had packed her things up from their shared room and put Hosea’s belongings in Dutch’s room. She’d taken up as the gang’s hen, pecking at Arthur and John to get things done. She cooked and kept order among the small camp, and in one year, she had aged from a beautiful brunette that Arthur had found attractive, to a matronly figure. He had never seen a woman grow so old so quickly.

“He needed you more than we did,” Hosea agreed as he took a sip from the cup. “But I’m not sure it was the right thing for you. A boy should have a home.”

You are my home. Arthur stared into his cup. Dutch and Hosea had saved him from the streets and the orphanages. They were better parents than his own father had ever been.

“You wonder how she died.” Hosea guessed. It was not what Arthur was wondering, but he nodded because Hosea had left as the man Arthur had known and came back an alcoholic.

“Thrown from a carriage. We were visiting friends, and not long after we had started for home, the horse became unmanageable, and the harness gave way going downhill, causing the sleigh to come on the horse’s feet. It frightened him so badly that I could not hold him, and we were all thrown into a wall. Bessie was mortally wounded. She survived six days after the accident.”

Arthur stared into the boughs of the snow-laden pines, unsure of how to answer. He was familiar with the risks of horse-drawn carriages and knew that even someone as well schooled as Hosea could lose control.

He could not imagine the guilt Hosea must have felt. Must continue to feel.

Snow plopped beside them, forming an empty impression in the melt around them. Now that the sun was up, the snow was quickly melting into the earth around them.

“It’s bad business,” Arthur said, because he could not find the words he wanted to say. He wanted to tell Hosea he had loved Bessie, that he loved Hosea too, more than his own father. That he was glad Hosea was back, even at the expense of his own happiness, because he had missed him, and Dutch was lost without him. That Arthur and John had been lost without him.

“It was bad business,” Hosea agreed, taking another sip from the cup.

“What is this, y’all got some coffee?” John came stamping in from his duty wandering the perimeter. They’d never kept watch before, but they’d never been wanted quite as much before, either. Miss Grimshaw had come back from town with a wanted poster of Arthur’s face, which Dutch had taken from her with some amount of pride.

“Well look at this, wanted beyond just Strawberry.”

“It were an accident,” Arthur had responded, running his hand through his hair. He hadn’t meant to kill that boy. He’d been an ass, but Arthur hadn’t meant to kill him. The guilt of it still gnawed at him.

“Was,” Susan corrected as she dropped the produce off. Arthur and Hosea did a decent job of hunting for their dinners, but Miss Grimshaw insisted on vegetables. John pawed through the bags, looking for maple candies. “It was an accident.”

“It was an accident,” Arthur repeated.

“Sure, it was, son.” Dutch winked at Susan. She flushed, dropping a few of the carrots before she quickly gathered them up, her long lashes cast down, brushing the curve of her cheeks. She had been beautiful, but love that was not watered withered. Miss Grimshaw had allowed her beauty to do the same. Arthur wondered if Mary was shriveled and matronly, but he did not think she had held her life, or her beauty, for him.

Arthur wondered about Charles, who had become handsome and beautiful in a way that Arthur did not think possible for a man.

“There’s no candy,” John groused, closing the bags up. Susan swatted at him.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have to work. Start chopping.”

John grumbled louder, but made work of the vegetables Miss Grimshaw had brought back. He’d learned not to complain about cooking as women’s work.

They fell into the easy rhythm of their morning chores. The snow had sunk into the loamy, needle-laden floor, making it even spongier than normal. But the precipitation on the peaks was slow to melt, the whisper of a promise of coming winter. The aspens had begun their quaking.

“The elk will be migrating down soon,” Hosea mused, following Arthur’s gaze. Dutch came abreast of them.

“We’ll need to be getting over the pass before the next storm. I’ve got my eyes set on Cholla Springs. If we move expediently boys, we can be there in a month. Wide open spaces, and banks ripe for the picking. ” Dutch looked up at the mountains. Arthur could see the dreams turning behind his eyes.

Arthur heard the unspoken command. “John, start packing it up. We’re going west.”

“Cholla Springs?” John complained mildly even as he began to break camp. “Ain’t nothing there.”

“Armadillo is there, son,” Dutch said mildly, a hint of excitement threading his words. “A town brought low by disease. Deserved, you might say. More importantly—there is not much law, but there are banks.” He grinned broadly at John. “And what use is money to the dead?”

On their way west, out of the mountains and winter’s icy fingers that curled around the mountain tops, they crossed Hawks Eye Creek. Her levels were low this late in the season, making it easy to ford. They spent several days on her banks, enjoying the respite. Out of the mountains, summer was less inclined to relinquish her hold, and the days were hot. The river was a welcome vacation, and Hosea and Dutch had their fun fleecing several travelers out of their hard-earned money. “A fool and his money are easily parted,” Dutch justified with an easy grin, his eyes sparkling. Having Hosea back rounded off the sharp edges he’d taken first in Hosea’s absence, and then in his drunkenness.

They spent the afternoon playing in the river, washing off the grime from travel and languishing in their youth. Even Miss Grimshaw joined them, stripping to her bloomers as she hitched up her skirts before wading in. Her skin was pale, and the lines eased from around her eyes and mouth, crinkling with her smile. She was beautiful, Arthur realized, but none of them appreciated it. Least of all Dutch, whose dark eyes were skirting over Hosea when he thought he wasn’t paying attention.

Dutch’s cruelty in Hosea’s absence had been born from hurt. The realization caused Arthur to pause in the river. How many times had he lashed out at the other members of the gang, (of his family) when he’d been hurting over Mary or Eliza?

His reflecting was brought to an abrupt end as John jumped on his back, throwing him off balance, and sending them both careening into the mountain water. When he emerged sputtering, he roared and turned on his brother, sending them both back under mountain stream again.

That evening, Arthur spent the waning hours of daylight combing the riverbank for interesting stones. John came up beside him, dressed in only trousers. His feet were bare as he picked his way over stones smoothed from ten million years of erosion. By the campfire, Hosea and Dutch were laughing, deep into a shared bottle of bourbon. Age had settled in around Miss Grimshaw again, and she bustled around in her billowing blouse and expansive skirts, ensuring camp was set up and dinner was on its way. A wind had picked up, rolling off the mountain and stirring the river trees around them. Gold was touching the edges of the Cottonwood leaves, but they still hung tenaciously to the thin twigs and branches, casting a deep shade over the river.

“What’re you looking for, anyway?” John peered down at his toes and the rocks under them. Arthur gave him a bemused look.

“Maybe I jus’ like lookin’ at rocks.”

John sat down heavily; a bottle of whiskey clutched in his hand. He put his head slowly and deliberately on a fist folded on his knee, peering at Arthur. Arthur looked back with raised eyebrows.

“Hell John, are you already drunk? The sun ain’t even set.”

“Okay, Arthur. Okay.” John frowned in the acute deliberation of a man well into his cups. “But why are you looking at rocks. At rocks,” he repeated slowly, as if Arthur was slow.

“For one thing,” Arthur tested the weight of a river stone in his hand. “They’re pretty good at clocking drunken brothers.” He gave John a feral grin.

“You wouldn’t,” John slurred.

“I wouldn’t,” Arthur agreed, settling in beside his brother on the riverbank, taking the bottle that John passed over. They sat in amicable silence, sharing the liquor and watching the sun settle over the distant plateaus. The creek bubbled by in its brief eternity. Arthur wondered fleetingly if it would be a great river in a hundred years or only an empty riverbank full of smoothed rocks and dust.

He would never know.

“What’s got you all bothered, anyway?” Arthur asked, once the silence had settled in around them. A red winged blackbird was perched onto the willow beside them, chirping an evening song. The leaves of the willow were the brutal green of late summer and they ruffled crisply in the evening wind.

“Nuffin,” John returned petulantly. Arthur laughed, tossing a stone into the water. It landed with a soft plunk.

“Bullshit nothin’, John. Like we ain’t spent all this time together.”

“I just don’t know how I’m supposed to meet somebody of my own when we all over the place.” John finally ground out, refusing to meet Arthur’s eyes.

Arthur felt the laughter bubble up around him, and he managed to suppress a few shaking guffaws before he was laughing out loud. “We're wanted men, and that’s what’s got ya’ll shaken up?”

“To hell with you, Arthur Morgan.” John stood, stamping back off towards the fire he’d helped build earlier. Arthur watched him go, the amusement dropping away around him. He hadn’t thought his brother was serious, but then, John hadn’t managed to get his heart broken twice.

Arthur sat alone, watching the evening settle in around him. The crickets chirped rapidly in the dry heat, a noisy companion. Behind him, he could hear the makings of dinner, and then the measured footsteps of Hosea. The older man settled in beside him, and they sat in silence for a spell.

“You gonna harass me about pickin’ on John?” Arthur finally broke the silence. Hosea always won when it came to waiting. He heard Hosea chuff kindly beside him.

“I’m not Dutch, you’ll get that speech later.”

Arthur sucked on his teeth, throwing another rock in the stream with displeasure. It let out a satisfying plunk.

“There’s a philosopher,” Hosea began in the tone that John and Arthur had taken to calling his “school marm” voice, “Epicetus. He said: ‘Every event has two handles, one by which it can be carried, and one by which it can’t. If your brother does your wrong, don’t grab it by his wronging, because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other—that he is your brother, that you were raised together, and then you will have hold of the handle that carries.’”

Arthur squinted at Hosea. The older man stayed quiet, waiting for Arthur to mull through it. Finally, “I wasn’t trying to pick on him.” The whippoorwill took up its night trill, a lonely call that would continue for hours.

“He isn’t like you. He wears his heart on his sleeve. A failing on our part, I’m afraid. Be considerate of John. The world will make him hard enough without your contribution.” Hosea finally looked over at Arthur.

Chastised, Arthur nodded wordlessly. Satisfied that his lecture had sunk home, Hosea clasped his hand on Arthur’s back. “Now, come have some dinner. Dutch has found us a bank to rob.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Charles spent the day in Armadillo buying provisions for his camp when he’d heard the first gunshots. The general store owner, Otis, ducked behind the large wooden counter immediately. Charles, who had been toeing the door open with his foot dropped instinctively at the sound, taking cover before peeking over the windowsill. Four men were climbing onto their horses, the saddle bags they were swinging over their haunches swollen with money. A bank teller was just stumbling out the front door of the bank, one of his eyes swollen shut, a stream of blood down the side of his face from an open cut to his face. He held a shotgun in his hands. “We’ve been robbed!” He fired another shot from his shotgun at the robbers, the scattershot going wide. Charles watched as one of the mounted men coolly pulled his revolver from his side and shot back.

The bank teller collapsed, prompting a woman to scream.

The bank robbers began to disperse as the sheriff and his deputies poured out onto the street. The man that had murdered the bank teller road past. His hair was silky black, slicked back under a black bowler. He guided his horse right at the split in the road, throwing money onto the street as he took the turn, causing hiding townsfolk to spill into the streets. The sheriff, blocked by citizens instead followed the rider in a blue shirt and leather jacket as he took the split to the left. Charles stepped onto the boardwalk, watching the chase. After a moment there was a distant gunshot, and the Sheriff came riding back, his rifle across his horse.

“Did you get ‘em?” Charles heard one of the deputies ask. The sheriff smirked, pulling the reins up of his horse as he grew even with his deputy.

“Good enough. I was too far away to get him outright unless I’m luckier than I think. But I don’t think he’ll get far in that desert. Get the posse together, we’ll send riders out in the morning.”

Charles watched the sheriff and his deputies head back to the Sheriff’s office.

“Bank robbers,” Otis said, holding a Winchester Repeater that Charles had never realized the man kept behind the counter. The older man, a German with flinty blue eyes and a widow’s peak that silvered at the temples peered out the window onto the street with some curiosity. Charles bent to pick up his dropped goods.

“What’re all those people doing on the street?” Otis asked, his window had been unable to afford him the full view that Charles had. Otis had mentioned once in passing that he’d been in conflict before, back in Germany. Charles did not know enough about the skirmishes of countries he could hardly identify on maps when his own history was so storied with war and battle, but he had recognized combat reflexes when Otis had dropped behind the counter. Otis was no stranger to gunfire.

“One of the robbers threw money out on the street. They’re picking up what he left behind.” Charles paused at the door. Otis looked out the window thoughtfully, his hands in his apron pockets.

“It is a good way to win the people,” he mused. “I heard the Van der Linde gang does that.” He turned to look at Charles. There was a steeliness in his eyes Charles had failed to appreciate before. “Anything else you need?”

“No, you have a good afternoon,” Charles pulled at the knob, but Otis was around the corner of his counter and holding the door open. Charles looked at him, eyebrows raised as he failed to hide his surprise at the courtesy offered to him.

“From one old soldier to another,” Otis said, as if it explained the kindness.

“I’ve never been in a war.” Charles held his provisions awkwardly, unsure how to respond. He was unaccustomed of white men giving him any courtesy.

“But I recognize the look all the same,” Otis gave him a thin, cryptic smile. “Have a good afternoon.”

Charles road away from Armadillo thoughtfully. It was late afternoon, and the sun was already low in the sky, stretching deep shadows across the late summer brushes. The plateaus that dotted the landscaped cast shadows that were long and deep. He’d found an old cowboy camp on a plateau about five miles outside of the town, tucked into a rock formation. A horseshoe in the rocks and a fire circle, built long before Charles had found the camp, made a false camp that offered security and protection for passing riders. On the north end of the horseshoe formation, several sagebrush bushes hid a rock slope that provided a trail to the ledge above. Tucked in a rock formation, about thirty feet off the main ledge and invisible for anyone camped in the horseshoe formation was a lean-to of rocks that protected Charles from all but the worst weather. A roomy cave and sloping of tall sandstone rocks provided a chimney that drew his evening fires and kept the smoke hidden.

He had not been the first to discover the cave. The fire circle in the horseshoe was present already when he'd found it. Luck had found the hidden ramp to the plateau and the winding path way that lead to the open room with the tall, slanted rocks. The names of previous men were evident in the rocks around him. Some of them had scratched their names on the rocks with the years of their visit, the most recent was from ten years past. Before them, remnants of his people. The western wall of the open cave was populated with petroglyphs, of triangular men with horned heads and thin limbs that seemed to lumber towards him on wide stance legs. There were buffalo, from when their numbers had been plentiful, and they had not been hunted for no other reason than to kill, and to take. There were men mounted on horses hunting with bows, arrows in mid flight.

His people had been here before him. This place was safe, the figures said. You are safe.

Charles quietly came around the side of the canyon wall, pulling tightly on the reigns of Keesheswa at the sight before him. A man was slumped face-down in the desert sand, a foot from the fire circle. He chided himself for being so unobservant. He waited for the man to move, and when he did not, he edged his horse forward. He saw hoof prints leading to the northwest. He doubted the horse would make it without water.

He slid off Keesheswa, pulling his gun free from its holster as he edged towards the fallen man. He preferred the bow, but he was just as handy with his revolver, and had no illusions as to which would serve him better.

As he came abreast of the man. The left side of his leather jacket was nearly black from the stain to the left side. From the angle, it was high enough to have hit the heart if it hadn’t glanced off a rib. This must have been the bank robber the sheriff had talked about. Unable to tell if the man was breathing, Charles knelt beside him and rolled the man over. Surprised at the face he saw, he settled back on his haunches.

“Arthur Morgan,” he breathed.

The man’s face was pale beneath his five o’ clock shadow beard. His breath came in a wheeze, and the lack of a hole in his shirt meant the bullet was trapped somewhere in him. Charles knew the man was older than him, but in his unconsciousness, he looked young and vulnerable.

Charles looked up at the pale blue sky of the setting sun and then down at the desert around him before looking again at the pale face of Arthur Morgan, outlaw. He’d met the man through coincidence twice already, and it unsettled him that they should meet a third time. For all the evil that was attributed to Arthur Morgan, the man had only ever been polite and courteous to Charles. The memory of his brilliant eyes, as blue as the desert sky, and his smile, secret and slow, had haunted Charles since their meeting in the summer.

He had seen the WANTED posters for Arthur Morgan; had seen his bounty rise along with those of the rest of his gang. To bring in Arthur Morgan would be to live comfortably for years.

But not as comfortably as riding with the Van Der Linde Gang, if the newspapers were to be believed.

He sat on his haunches and stared at the man. His breaths were shallow and although the sun had burned his skin red, his lips chapped and peeling from exposure, his countenance was pale. The cool wind crept over them. Autumn was slinking across the desert with shorter days and cooler nights. Unattended, the man would not make it to daylight. The sun cast deep shadows across the canyon walls.

“Fate has brought us together three times, Mr. Morgan.” Charles said, staring at the face of a man who, newspaper reports aside, did not appear intimidating or frightening. Death whispered in Charles’ ear.

Blue eyes blinked open. There was no recognition in his eyes as he stared up at Charles. His fingers fluttered, and Charles held them. The last act of kindness to a dying man. His cracked lips parted. “…Take care of my horse, would you, friend? She’s gone to find her way home, but I’m afraid she won’t make it.”

Charles held the hand of the dying man, surprise settling into him. Arthur Morgan had once risked his life to attack a man who had insulted Charles simply for the color of his skin. Now in his dying, he’d asked Charles not to save him, but his horse. For the first time since his mother had died, Charles felt something crumple in his heart, like a levee giving way before a flood. “I will,” he promised.

Charles situated Arthur so that he was sitting against the fire circle, scooping his shoulder under Arthur’s folded body, bodily hauling him in a folded position over his right shoulder, He brought Arthur’s leg and arm together and held them together with his right hand, leaving his left hand free to help him scale the ascent to his camp. Slowly, he made his way up to his protected cave. His breaths coming in deep puffs by the time he’d managed to get Arthur into the confines of the protected stones. Night was settling in around them, the temperature rapidly falling. Outside the chamber of stones, the night wind howled. Charles took to restarting the fire. Orange flames jumped high, but he waited for the shifting white and blue embers that meant sustainment of a deeper fire. When the coals were banked, he put one of the bigger creosote logs on the fire and stared down at the man before him. He unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a bulge beneath his left breast that was dark purple and deeply bruised, and which Charles could only assume was the bullet, that had entered his body with enough force to pierce him, but not enough to exit. Gauging the size of the hole on the back, it was a rifle caliber that had been shot from a distance. A lucky shot.

Uncertain the man would make it to morning but unwilling to break his promise to a dying man, he headed into the night with Keesheswa to find Arthur’s missing horse.

The full moon cast the desert in a de-saturated silver as he followed the faint hoof prints. Coyotes howled in the distance. The first freeze was only a week or two away. Sooner, if Charles was unlucky. He’d need to head back into warmer climes. For as austere as the desert was in the summer, she became unfriendly with winter.

He found the horse five miles to the northwest, standing in silver riposte as she grazed. Charles was struck by the beauty of the horse, and as he slowly grew closer, he could appreciate how well cared for she was. She was still loaded down with her saddlebags, and Charles could spot at least two water bladders. She eyed Charles and Keeshesaw suspiciously as they approached. “Shh, girl. Good girl,” Charles said in what he thought was his most calming voice. Her eyes rolled, but she tolerated Charles’ gentle grabbing of her reigns. Together, they headed back across the desert.

As they traveled, Charles wondered if Arthur would still be alive. A soft wind scooted by, but it carried none of the veracity of the one that came with the setting sun, a violent exhalation of the dying day. The stars were dimmed from the silver disc of the full moon. She was too proud to share the night sky with her distant relatives. The ground, so vivid in the day, was a sea of silver and deep shadows. He had heard a story once that if a man were to step into a shadow of the desert on a full moon for too long, he would walk forever in the hunting lands of the night sky.

They made it back to the camp site when the moon was overhead. She had witnessed his birth, and she would witness his death, and she was impassive to both. She had little consideration for Charles Smith, but he viewed her as an occasional companion and friend, if for her light alone.

Charles hitched both horses, ensuring they were fed and watered before he approached the cave. The fire had banked down, orange shadows fluttering on the ancient stone walls. The petroglyphs seemed to shift and walk in the firelight. But Arthur Morgan did not move, and fear curled around Charles’ heart.

But as he approached, he was able to appreciate the slight rise and fall of his chest. Although his exposed skin was almost as white as the moon above, Charles could hear the slight wheeze of each breath as he drew closer. He settled into an easy cross-legged position besides the outlaw and set up a vigil, but he was not sure if it was for the man’s life, or for an easy death. For the first time in a long time, he prayed to the Great Spirit that his mother had believed in, although he had not been old enough to remember her stories.

When the sun rose that morning, Arthur Morgan still breathed, and Charles felt a fundamental shift in him; a knowledge that the man would live and Charles felt he could finally breathe, too.

He set about making camp with more deliberation than before. It was about a ten-mile ride to an oasis he’d found in a maze of canyons, a whisper of a river that ran even in the most brutal days of late summer, fed by a cool spring that bubbled forth deep from the bowels of the earth and undeterred by the heat of the surface. Cottonwoods curved over her slim banks, thirsty for the life she brought. Reeds hugged her sides, and Charles brought a few back with him on his ride, along with full bladders of cool water.

Charles looked at his surroundings with a critical eye. He brought Arthur onto the sandstone rocks in the morning, creating a shade to protect his face, already peeling from the sun. Charles spoke to the rocks, and to the sun, and to the man, and none of them responded. He dripped water into his mouth throughout the day, and cooked down a rabbit stew, and carefully fed a broth of bone and sage to him.

Each morning that saw Arthur Morgan to the dawn of the sun felt like a victory.

For the first time in many years, Charles felt he was working for something and not from something.

On the third day, he heated his knife over the fire and considered the bullet he could see just beneath the surface of Arthur’s skin before he dug in. The man woke up briefly, coming up swinging. But Charles was ready for it, and he caught Arthur’s first before he made contact. His blue eyes were delirious and bright with pain.

Charles dug the bullet free, applying a poultice of yarrow and sage to the wound. His breathing came harder and faster, and Charles applied a three-sided bandage that he had learned of once, but he could not remember from where.

On the fourth day, he headed into town for provisions. He learned from Otis that the Van der Linde gang had made off with $10,000 in cash. A couple of hundred had made it to the townspeople, which had in turned boosted Otis’ business. He cheerfully added a little extra to Charles’ order. Dutch Van der Linde and his gang were heroes to the people of Armadillo.

“Sheriff is after the one he shot,” he told Charles in his German accent, cutting off the t’s and rounding out his o’s. “Rode off with a quarter of the money. The sheriff said he won’t make it in the desert, but I’ve heard Dutch Van der Linde doesn’t leave his boys behind.” Otis offered a cigarette to Charles, who took it gratefully.

Charles had not looked through the saddle bags of Arthur’s horse, but he had appreciated their heft when he’d pulled them off. He suspected their contents.

“So, there’s a man who’s been gunshot wandering the desert with twenty-five hundred dollars,” Charles said as he took the smoke. He leaned on the counter, the bags of flour and sugar sitting at his feet. There was a small jar of honey he intended to add to his poultices. He’d planned to stop at the apothecary next, but now felt the sands of time trickling down his neck.

“Got my son out there right now looking. There’s a bounty on Arthur Morgan’s head, but Van der Linde has offered double that for the safe return of his gang mate. I’ve heard the man is his surrogate son, and Van der Linde will stop at nothing to get him back.”

“Must be a lot of people looking to claim that money.” Charles breathed the smoke out.

“Half the town is sick with cholera. The half that isn’t is in the desert. That man is coming back one way or another.”

“Appreciate the smoke,” Charles said, leaning down to heft up his purchase.

“You haven’t seen him, have you?” Otis peered at him as Charles stood. His eyes, previously wide in friendliness, were now pinched slightly at the corners. “You spend a lot of time out there, must’ve seen something.”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking, friend.” Charles allowed his face to shutter close. “If I see something, you’ll be the first to know.”

He skipped his visit to the apothecary, loading up Keesheswa and guiding her west for several miles before dipping back south. The desert was wide and empty and unforgiving. This late in the season, the sun sunk quickly, bringing with it the winds that heralded late autumn.

The waning moon took a late rise, and by the time Charles had made it back to his camp, he felt safe he had not been followed. He did not cross another soul in the desert, and he wondered how many men would die in the pursuit of Arthur Morgan.

He hitched his horse, ensuring she was well fed and brushed, her saddle removed before he clambered up the rocks. He found his patient where he had left him, propped up slightly to allow the wound on his back to breathe. His breaths were smoother than before, but his face was still pale. He did not stir at Charles’ arrival. When he had carefully fed the man his broth and banked the fire back up, he made his way over to the saddlebags and looked inside. He was not surprised to find them full of bank notes.

It was more money than Charles had ever seen in his life, and he had the fleeting realization that even with a quarter of the money stolen, he would never want again.

According to the newspaper, it was a long list in the gang’s robbery. Money had not brought them solace.

Money had brought his father drink, and drink had not bought him solace.

He closed the bags back up.

Ensuring Arthur was secured in his woolen blankets and the fire was banked up, he crawled up onto the ledge facing north, a wool blanket wrapped around him as he watched the distant flickering oil lamps of Armadillo. As the night progressed, the distant lights dimmed, and Charles fell into an uneasy sleep.

Trepidation crawled up his spine.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Charles woke before the sun, the autumn chill sinking into his bones with the longer night. In the east, the sky was pale pink, and the morning breeze stirred his hair. Even with the waking, he had not been able to shake the sense of unease. He threaded his way back to the protected camp site, slipping into a slight tunnel that overlooked the fire ring. Arthur lay undisturbed, cocooned in the blankets Charles had wrapped around him. He quietly dropped down and edged his way to the man. Something unclenched in his chest when he saw the even rise and fall of Arthur’s breath.

He did not know when the man’s survival had become so intertwined with his own, but Charles realized he would not let this man die.

Could not.

He spent that day close to camp, sitting on an outcropping that protected him from the worst of the sun as he stared north towards Armadillo. He kept his rifle across his lap, his hand resting over the trigger, ready to tighten with the approach of a distant figure.

Charles watched figures trace lines back and forth across the distant desert, trying to find patterns in the trails that left town. As the night settled, most of the distant figures retreated into Armadillo, but he could still make several campfires out of men testing the elements in their pursuit of wealth. Satisfied that they would not find their way to his camp, he slipped back into the warmer confines of the protected camp.

Charles became more careful with when he kept the fire burning. The tall natural chimney kept the smoke dissipated, but he knew that dark smoke could be seen from miles during the day. He took to sitting behind Arthur during the day to keep him warm in the cooler confines of the open cave.

On the seventh day, Charles awoke to find blue eyes staring at him.

“Charles,” Arthur Morgan rasped when Charles’ dark eyes settled on his. He had his hand clasped over the bandages of his chest, and Charles could tell from the way the man breathed and the corner of his shoulders were tucked that the man was in pain. The poultice of yarrow and honey was stained red.

“Arthur Morgan,” Charles said, his finger tightening around the trigger of the Colt in his lap hidden under the horse blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders.

Arthur took several struggling breaths. “My horse?”

“She’s safe,” Charles said. There was something sharp and feral about the look that Arthur was giving him that softened with Charles’ answer. The outlaw took several more breaths, his neck muscles bulging slightly with the effort. “Better than you.” Charles added, because he had never seen a man quite so close to death before but so singularly focused on the health of his horse.

Arthur looked at him with his brilliant blue eyes. He’d grown a beard in the days he’d been in Charles’ care. His mouth was drawn in a thin line of pain hidden beneath the hair. He kept his right arm pressed to his chest, his breaths pained and deliberate. In the week he’d been with Charles, he’d lost weight on his diet of broth. “She’s worth more than ten o’ me,” Arthur wheezed. “Just as well.”

Charles stared at the older man. They’d only met twice before, but those blue eyes haunted his dreams all the same. They looked at him now, dulled with pain but no less brilliant. Charles felt something in him fracture.

Outside, the morning October wind howled.

Chapter Text

Arthur spent the day drifting in and out of consciousness. In his moments of wakefulness, his eyes rolled around the protected stone enclave in confusion and curiosity. He spent a lot of time staring at the petroglyphs, his brow slightly furrowed. Occasionally, they’d land on Charles, as if to anchor himself.

Arthur’s breathing came in painful wheezes, although not as labored as the day Charles had found him. But his summer blue eyes had become glassy, and Charles knew that the battle he had just won was a skirmish, and not the war. Charles could feel the warmth settling in around the outlaw, his skin dry despite the heat.

Charles took to his saddle bags, stumbling over the half-forgotten memories his mother had passed onto him. Knowledge that had been passed down for thousands of years on how to heal a man, how to break a fever, how to stave off infection. Lost in a generation. In a decade.

In a son.

He collected dried feverfew, bitterroot, osha. While Arthur’s bags were full of money, Charles’ were a small apothecary, as Charles rarely found he was anywhere useful when he was injured. He pieced together healing in things he learned in his travels, soldering the gaps in the knowledge he'd forgotten, or had never learned, from his mother’s people. His father had carried forward what he could from his own people, but most of that knowledge had been beaten out of him before he'd become a freed man.

When the sun was high, the sandstone room still cool and protected but bright with reflected light, Charles gently shifted the outlaw so that he could take a tea of herbs meant to stave off infection and break fever.

In his arms, the outlaw was compliant, drifting from this world and the next. Charles had heard once that a fever was to walk in the sister plains of the waking world. A man sick enough would stay lost in those plains until he found his way back or until he stumbled into the undiscovered country.

“Charles,” Arthur managed in the afternoon when his breathing had evened. His eyes were still bright and glassy. The late autumn heat that had settled around the stones was quickly being swept away by the night wind. Charles looked up from where he was stoking the fire for the night. The sandstone walls would protect them from the flames being seen, and the night would obscure their smoke.

“Charles,” Arthur said again, sounding more insistent. Charles crossed the protected cave, kneeling beside the man. Heat cascaded off Arthur, but chills rolled through his body, a light shimmer of sweat on his brow. The color was high in his cheeks, and Charles brought the back of his hand to Arthur’s forehead.

The injured man reached up and grabbed the hand resting gently against his brow. He held Charles’ hand with his, and Charles was struck by how much younger the man looked in his fever. He pierced Charles’ eyes with his summer blue, bright with intensity. “Charles,” he repeated, “Be careful.”

“Of what?” Charles met Arthur’s piercing stare.

Arthur brought Charles’ hand to his bare chest, bright with sweat. He could feel the rhythmic thump of the outlaw’s heart, the wetness of the blood seeping through the bandages, the heat of Arthur’s breath on his skin, their faces only inches apart. There was an electricity that thrummed, like the open prairie in an encroaching storm.

“Of me. Of us.” He threaded his fingers in with Charles’, an act of intimacy the younger man had rarely experienced. “Be careful,” he said again, and there was no recognition in his eyes. A chill wracked his body. Charles reluctantly pulled away, adding another log to the fire, and tucking the blankets around Arthur’s shoulders.

That night, when his body would not stop shivering, Charles pulled the man as close to the fire as he thought safe. He draped himself behind the outlaw, pulling the wool blanket in around them both.

Tucked in behind Arthur, his left arm clasped around the man’s chest to keep him from tearing open the wounds both on his back and his chest, he wondered why the man’s survival had started to matter so much to him.

When his breathing had settled and his thrashing was not quite so violent, Charles quietly extracted himself and made his way to his bedroll, falling into an exhausted sleep.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Sunrise brought the strained light of an autumn petering into winter. Staring up at the blue above him, Charles knew he would need to head for better protected lands. There was not enough fuel to keep the winter fires burning, and the sandstone room, while a good hideout, was not enough protection from the bitter cold and snow that whispered its coming in the north wind. The winter desert was as shifting as her sands, but Charles knew she’d begun her slow creep off the mountains and over the valleys, and soon, to the high desert. But the hunters of Armadillo had not given up their pursuit of one Arthur Morgan, and Charles knew the man was not yet ready to move.

He propped himself up to check on his patient.

Arthur was missing.

Charles stared at the place he’d laid the man the evening before, cautiously making his way to where the man had been. There were no other footprints, but his stomach dropped when Charles made out the marks of a person being dragged,

no,

of having dragged himself across the floor. He could see where elbows and knees had found purchase on the smooth stone, inching an injured body forward. Charles followed the smeared rock dust out onto the rock ledge to where Arthur Morgan had propped himself into a sitting position, his back against the cool gritty sandstone rock. The wool blanket was wrapped tightly around him, and he was peering out at the rising sun. He looked up as Charles padded onto the stone ledge. His eyes were tired, but as clear and as blue as the sky above them. The fever had broken.

“Mornin’.” He rasped in an unused voice, his face fracturing into a genuine smile. The brilliance of it beat that of the rising sun, and Charles felt a now familiar feeling thrum through him.

“Good morning,” Charles settled down beside the outlaw, returning the smile. “Glad to see you’ve made it through the worst of it. I’ve seen men with less significant injuries get taken by fever all the same.”

Arthur brought a hand to his chest, careful of the poultice and bandages. “Was it through and through then? I don’t remember much. Worst I’ve had so far.” He looked over at Charles.

“Almost,” Charles looked out over the desert. “I had to dig it out the last little bit.”

“I, uh—” Arthur’s hand clenched over the wound. “I sure do appreciate it. Do you happen to know what happened to my horse-?”

Charles grinned in fondness. “Found her about five miles to the Northwest. She’s got a way about her. Came back peaceable enough, though.” Over the last week, Arthur’s horse had become friendly with Charles, aided in part by frequent brushing and sugar cubes. She was clearly spoiled and well loved, and Charles respected a man who respected his horse.

Arthur grinned with delight, and it chipped away all the hardness from his features as his eyes sparkled. “She’s a good horse. Boadicea.”

“It’s an interesting name.” Charles pulled his canteen and offered Arthur a swig. The man took it gratefully, taking a long pull on the cool water before handing it back.

“A Celtic queen who led an uprising against conquering forces.” Arthur looked at the canteen in Charles’ hand, his eyes hungry. “You got a water supply out here?”

“Within a day’s ride. And the town isn’t too far away.” Charles offered the canteen back. Arthur took it eagerly. After several pulls of clear water, the outlaw leaned against the rock. He was still naked from the chest up, the wool blanket wrapped tightly around him. His exposed skin was tan from a summer in the sun, his arms and torso well-muscled from physical labor.

They fell into silence. The air was cool, and the northern morning breeze carried a bite. The buttes and plateaus were vivid in the rising sun, brightly layered oranges, their abrupt curves accentuated by lavender shadows. The horizon was a sandy orange that faded into pale blue, as if the earth was reaching into the sky. The moon, a small silver disc, reluctantly sunk to the earth. After a long, unrelenting summer, the scrub brush that carpeted the desert was tired and worn, blending brown into the desert around it.

Charles watched Arthur take the desert in, his blue eyes distant and thoughtful. He wondered about an outlaw who robbed banks and knew about Celtic queens. Arthur’s face grew pinched, and Charles turned to watch riders in the distance; specks that traced paths across the desert. They’d grown closer in the last week, although Charles was confident that the desert wind had erased any trace of his travels and that their ventures were a matter of process of elimination, and not an actual lead.

Still, their doggedness unsettled Charles.

“They’re looking for me,” Arthur said, and it wasn’t a question. He turned to look at Charles, his movements careful. “You took a lot of risk on yourself.” The unanswered question of why hung between them.

“You stole a lot of money.” Charles struck a match, and having lit his own smoke, motioned for Arthur to light his as well. The outlaw leaned in, taking a deep breath to catch the end of the cigarette. He leaned back against the rock face, breathing out smoke. “But Dutch van der Linde has offered double the price on your head. You’re a pretty popular man, Mr. Morgan.”

“You seen the contents of my saddlebags, then.” Arthur’s face relaxed in understanding. He could not understand a man saving him out of altruism, but he could understand it out of greed. “But why ain’t you just let me die and get your due? Dutch wouldn’t offer more than what I got in them bags. You’ll be rich.”

Charles didn’t have a ready answer, and he breathed the smoke out slowly. Because Arthur offered him kindness, when most men did not. Because Arthur did not judge his worth on the color of his skin.

Because his blue eyes had haunted him, witty and clever and careful.

“From what I’ve heard, you are rich. But your gang continues to rob banks and steal. There’s more money in your bags than I would ever see. But it’s not enough for Dutch van der Linde and his gang.” He folded his arm over a bent knee. If his parents had had twenty-five hundred dollars, they’d probably still be alive, free of the subjugation of the American government.

But then, a Black man and an Indian woman would never have been allowed to keep twenty-five hundred dollars. They had barely been allowed to keep the clothes on their back, much less the traditions and language of their people.

Arthur floundered. He masked his uncertainty behind a quick drag of his smoke. He stumbled onto the rote lines he’d heard Dutch proclaim a thousand times before. “Thems banks don’t need it, anyway. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. We just tryin’ to even it out a little.”

“What good is that money, Arthur Morgan, if you are dead?”

Arthur’s face fractured again, but instead of recognition and warmth, the outlaw’s face revealed fear and youth. This time, it took greater effort to mask his thoughts, and the blue eyes that looked out over the desert were fraught.

Charles took a drag from his cigarette and stared in silence over the desert. In time, White men would come and claim these lands for their own, no longer passing through as the tribes had done for thousands of years before. They would drive their cattle in and settle in with their boxy wooden homes and barbed wire and force permanence in a transient land.

Arthur wheezed faintly beside him. He was through the worst of his injury, but to move too soon would encourage a return of infection and hemorrhage.

“How defensible is this place?” Arthur looked around the sandstone mound, an uprising that remained after millions of years of erosion. The desert around them was a sea of forgotten land. Red beads of sand rolled over one another in the morning wind. Remnants of plateaus that were, but no longer.

“It’s best defense is that nobody knows of it.”

“They’ll know about it soon enough,” Arthur nodded towards the searchers. Some of them had grown close enough to be recognizable as men, and not only shadows across a desert floor. “Men don’t give up on treasure. We need to get back to our camp by Twin Rocks.”

Charles looked out at the riders. “Years ago, you offered me a place in your gang. Does the offer still stand?”

Arthur gave him that guileless smile of his. “Always.”

“You’re not ready to ride.” Charles motioned to Arthur’s injury.

“I’m in better shape to ride than I am to gunfight.” Arthur nodded to the desert. “And they ain’t gonna give up. I wouldn’t. We mark where they rest for the evening, and then we hightail it outta here.” He moved to stand, but his knees buckled, sending him back to the ground with a pained grunt. He took a moment, bent over on his hands and knees. Charles could see cigarette smoke coming out in puffs in a manner not dissimilar to the tank engines Charles had seen climbing the steep grade in the Grizzlies.

Charles did not offer his hand, and Arthur did not look for it. Gradually, Arthur pushed himself up the stone wall until he was finally standing. He stood bent, and the blood had drained from his face but his blue eyes were crystalline and determined. The wool blanket wrapped around his shoulders had fallen to the ground, leaving his tanned chest barred, the bandage wrapped around his chest blossoming red under his heart with a matching rose at his back. But Arthur did not complain, and Charles did not bring attention to it.

Leaning against the stone wall, Arthur met Charles’ eyes, his mouth drawn in a thin line. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Let’s get going. We ain’t got all day.” He kept one hand on the wall for support, and Charles followed him quietly back into the stone room.

“You start packing things up here, I’ll get the horses loaded.” Charles said.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The sun was bright overhead, but did not carry the angry heat of full summer. It had taken several hours to beat the chill fully out of the air. Over the mountains to the northeast, snow clouds had taken up a daily residence. White glistening peaks were invariably covered with dark, heavy hanging clouds that grumbled in every afternoon. The vultures had begun their journeys south. Even the scavengers of death sought warmer climes than the winter desert. Charles wondered where they settled; if there were forests filled with black-winged vultures; if they took a vacation from death while they sunned themselves under the southern sun. He had heard once in a bar from a trapper who had met an explorer who had traveled far to the south, past the deserts of Mexico, and father still. The stories the trapper told were too fantastical for Charles; of forests so deep that sunlight almost never reached the floor. There were thousands of birds, all of brilliant color, and the forest sang with their song. It was also a dangerous country, the trapper said. Tiny spiders that crawled into your head and laid their eggs. Bright frogs coated in poison that could kill a man with an accidental touch. The trapper swore he had been told there was a fish that could swim up a man’s urine stream and take a bite out of a man’s pecker.

Charles forcibly turned his thoughts from peckers, fish bitten or otherwise, and set to settling the blanket over Keesheswa. Throwing the right stirrup over the horn, he put the cinch over the seat and swung the leather saddle gently over her back. Checking to make sure it was well seated and in line, he tossed the left stirrup up to access the latigo so he could cinch the saddle down. Satisfied with his work, he patted her fondly before throwing the saddlebags onto her back. As he worked, he eyed the ramp down from the ledge, and wondered if he could convince Arthur to use it as a means to mount Boadicea. He was already moving too much as it was, and Charles was sure the movement of throwing himself over the saddle from the ground would undo the week’s work. He was tightening up the saddlebags when he noticed k Kesheeswa was growing agitated. He scanned the ground for a rattler when he heard a soft click behind him. He froze.

“As I thought. You found Arthur Morgan.” He recognized the truncated accent immediately.

“Otis.” Charles cursed himself for getting complacent. He’d kept watch for seven days, and had been careful to mind the fire and the distant figures. Now that they had a plan to leave, he’d let his guard down. He’d set his sawed off against the stone slope so he could manage the saddles. His knife and tomahawk hung at his sides, but he knew he wouldn’t be fast enough to reach for them.

“Turn around, Charles. There’s no price on your head, and I’m not in the habit of killing innocent men. We can be civilized.” Otis’ voice was measured, a line of steel stressing his words. Charles turned to look at the man. Gone were the genial clothes of a General store keeper, replaced with riding canvas pants, a simple gray sleeved shirt and a red neckerchief tied around his neck. A large grey hat provided him suitable shade from the sun, his flinty eyes pinning Charles. A Colt long action was cocked at his side, but his finger was straight and off the trigger. Charles noticed there was no horse, left behind a crop of rocks he figured, and realized Otis’ tracking had been deliberate and careful.

This was not the first time the German had snuck up on a man, and Charles realized he would be dead if Otis had wanted it. He suspected the man was much more at home here in the desert hunting men than he was in his General store.

“Where’s the money?”

Charles opened his mouth, but Otis took his measure, and spoke before Charles could utter a denial. “Think carefully, Charles. You are a good man, strong and young. But you have no family. You are unmoored. If an accident were to happen, nobody would mourn the loss of a boy like you. Is Arthur Morgan and his money worth dying for?” Otis motioned to the vultures on their lazy course above.

No, Arthur Morgan was not worth dying for. The only people Charles would have pledged his life for were dead.

“Are you going to kill him?” Charles kept his arms up and tried not to look up to the ledge. His mind spun through his options. Arthur Morgan was not worth his life, but Charles had not spent a week bringing him back from death so that Otis could kill him. The German gave him a friendly smile.

“Not at all, son. I’m going to take the twenty-five hundred, and then I’m going to return him to Dutch van der Linde and capitalize on that reward money. I will buy a ranch in the valley and raise cattle, and I will serve myself and not other men.” Otis uncocked the gun, lowering it to his side.

Charles hesitated. Otis’ plan would have Arthur returned safely. “There’s other bounty hunters out there.”

“You’re a good hunter. Have you ever killed a man?”

Charles stared back at Otis wordlessly. The German nodded. “It is an unforgiving country, and we have all done things we perhaps are not proud of.” He continued, “If you help me get Arthur Morgan back alive, we’ll split the take evenly and I’ll take you on as my trail boss. It will be a good life.”

Above them, a Peregrine falcon screeched. The late afternoon wind began its whisper around the rocks. Charles had been raised to respect his fellow man, but not to trust him. But if Otis was being honest, it was a fair shake for the both of them.

But,

“Why would you split your take with me?” Charles shifted his weight, watching for a tell, his eyes on Otis’ dominant hand. It stayed still at his side, his form relaxed. Which either meant Otis was honest, or dangerous. Charles supposed it was both.

“If Arthur Morgan is still alive, it is because of you. The Sheriff was convinced it was a mortal wound he’d delivered, and that the hunters are searching for a body. Dutch van der Linde is paying for the safe recovery of his son, not a corpse. And seeing as you’re to be my top hand and partner, I would do well to treat you well.”

Charles mouth fell open in surprise before he clicked it shut. “You would call me a partner? A man like me?” Dreams that Charles had never dared dreamed spread out before him. A home. Respect. He would not be destined to roam the plains and mountains, an untethered ghost unable to claim either his mother or father’s people.

“Who is a man like you, Charles? A man of equanimity, of independence and capability? I did not know a man’s worthiness was anchored in the color of his skin."

"But why?"

"Because I know potential when I see it. And because I was lost once and recognize a lost soul. There can be fairness and good in this world, Charles. Go talk to him, and I will get my horse.” Otis turned away, heading back the way he’d came.

Charles knew there was a level of trust that he was taking to climb the stone slope and to not be shot in the back. He smoothly grabbed the sawed off as he passed his weapon. But there was no cocking of a gun behind him, and he tried to resist glancing back.

He heard the distinct call of a whippoorwill and paused, searching over the rocks, electricity running through his nerves. There were no whippoorwills in this desert. He heard it again, and carefully picked his way over to one of the many large collections of fallen rocks that peppered their butte. He saw the barrel of the repeater before he caught Arthur’s blue eyes, sharp and narrowed. “Givin’ me up to the first hunter that come along?” Hurt and betrayal laced his tone.

“It’s not like that, Arthur. That’s Otis. He’s the General Store owner in town, but was a soldier out in Germany. He wants to get you back to Dutch. Use your reward money to buy himself a ranch. Going to hire me on.”

Arthur lowered the barrel, but his mouth stayed pinched. “First man comes along offerin’ you a job, and you believe him? Gonna give whatever’s extra to the nuns? Run an orphanage?” Arthur spat his disbelief. Charles rankled.

“Dutch has offered your share and doubled it to get you back to him safely. I’m going to help get you home.”

Arthur’s face fractured in confusion. “That don’t make any kinda sense. Dutch wouldn’t give away half our earnings jus’ to get me back.” His line of thought was truncated by a series of gunfire that echoed through the butte. Arthur looked over Charles’ shoulder, his eyes narrowing again. “Get down,” he hissed.

Charles quickly jumped over part of the rock outcropping Arthur was crouched behind, the sound of the clattering rocks covered by shouting and gunshots. Charles clicked his sawed off open, ensured it was loaded, and then snapped it shut before peering over the sandstone rocks. Otis was running on foot back into the horseshoe-shaped canyon, a group of three men on horseback in pursuit, firing rounds at his feet.

“Is that your man?” Arthur asked under his breath. His shoulder was warm next to Charles in the cooling evening air. He was in Charles’ only spare shirt, a blue flannel that Charles had bought several months ago. He’d laid it out for Arthur, whose own shirt was stiff from blood as Charles did not have the water to spare in washing blood-stained clothes. The shirt was unbuttoned, the bandages apparent beneath.

“We got you cornered, Otis. Might as well turn and face us like a man,” A man in a red shirt said. He had curly blonde hair that poked from under a large white felt hat. A blonde mustache, well cared for and expertly tapered defined his face, which, from this distance, was a work of shadows and the golden light of the setting sun. A Schofield revolver glinted in the dying light, held tightly in his right hand, now crossed over his left on the horn. The two men that rode with him appeared to be brothers. Both wore nondescript canvas pants and had black hair. The younger one was dressed in a blue striped shirt with a large red and white neckerchief that was soiled from the sand and sweat. His black hat was cocked back slightly, exposing a face well-tanned by the sun and a shock of unruly black hair. He wore a casual smile. A Lancaster Repeater sat across his lap. The older brother had much of the same bone structure, and a distinct hooked nose that he shared with his brother. His black hair silvered at the temples. He wore black and his hat, also black, was low over his eyes. He spat a mouthful of tobacco off the side. A Volcanic rifle was tucked into a saddle scabbard within easy reach, a Peacemaker in a holster at his right hip. He held the reins of his horse loosely with his left hand, his right hand free at his side.

All three of them appeared casual and friendly, in the manner of men who were confident in their ability to handle any situation, and that situation usually involved death.

“I don’t have a quarrel with you, Charlie.” Otis turned, hands raised. His right hand dripped blood, and Charles realized his gun had been shot from his hand.

“What’s a Kraut doin’ out here in the middle of the desert, far from his General Store?” The blonde asked. “‘Less it’s the same thing the rest of us is up to. Searching for treasure.” Charlie grinned. “And here I thought you went straight. You still got your revolver? It weren’t that old thing I shot from you.”

Beside Charles, Arthur cursed. “That ain’t Otis Miller, is it? Robbed that train back in ‘66?”

Charles frowned. “I never caught his last name. He owns the General Store back in Armadillo,” he said, and then he wondered why General Store owners couldn’t be retired outlaws. He realized that although he lived in the gray areas of the law, he had never firmly put himself on one side or the other.

“That makes the blonde Charlie Tatum, his secondhand man. I guess the other one is Black Bart. I dunno who the third one is.” Arthur whispered, nodding to the blonde and older black-haired man. “They was close as thieves, Hosea says, until Otis found a woman and got a brood.”

“Dan, you finally got old enough and turned to riding with your brother, eh?” Otis addressed the younger man. “You were a boy when last I saw you. You always had the brains; thought you were gonna be a doctor.” Otis smirked. "Guess I had the wrong measure of you."

“I got old enough to ride, and you got soft,” Dan’s smile widened. “Hell, I kin remember when--”

“The only reason,” Charlie Tatum interrupted Dan, “Otis Miller would take up his guns again is for a mark too good to stand up. And the only mark I kin think of is Arthur Morgan. Now Otis, we got a history. Ain’t no reason for us to be sore. I been runnin’ the Otis Miller Boys all this time and you been running your General Store, and we’ve both done well for ourselves. Why not come together for one last ride?”

“Because, Charlie Tatum,” Otis said in his clipped German accent, “you crossed me. And a man transgresses me only once.” With his non dominant hand, Otis reached for a LeMat on his left hip and caught Charlie in the neck at the same time as his old gang mate caught him in the breast.

Besides Charles, Arthur raised his Winchester and shot both Dan and his older brother in two clean headshots. They fell off their horses wordlessly, who, thoroughly spooked, reared and, finding themselves free of familiar weight, galloped back into the desert.

For a moment, there was silence. Charles' ears rang from the loud rapport of Arthur’s repeater. The two sat next to one another. Charles’ shotgun did not have the range of the repeater, and his bow was already mounted onto Keesheswa, but he felt immensely useless next to the older man. He looked over at Arthur. His mouth was drawn in a thin line, his blue eyes narrowed. His face was cast in the pale blue of late evening.

“They’re gonna have heard that from all over. Best we get going.” Arthur shoved the butt of his rifle into the stone, his right hand gripped around the barrel and, using the rifle as a prop, pushed himself into a standing position.

“We gotta check on Otis. He’s got a family.” There was the son that had been helping him in the desert, but another two Charles had seen on occasion. His wife was a burly woman with warm brown eyes and a thick accent that was mostly incomprehensible. But she slung flour as good as any man, and this with a toddler bustling at her feet and a baby in her arms. She was a presence only occasionally in the store, but filled the whole room when she was there.

Arthur gave Charles a measured look. He glanced back down to the desert floor, now cast largely in dark shadows of deep blacks and blues, where they could see Otis’ feet sticking out from behind a rock. Charlie’s horse pawed the ground restlessly. Keesheswa and Boadicea, still tied, were rattled and pranced uncertainly around their hitches.

“My saddlebags are still in the cave. Go grab them. We’ll see to Otis, and go.”

That Arthur was able to move under his own weight at all was testament to his inner strength. Blood had bloomed again on his bandages under the blue flannel, but he tried to walk with intent, only limping when he stepped wrong. He used his rifle as a walking stick to help him manage his way down the slope. While he picked his way over the rocks, Charles ducked into the stone room and grabbed the bags of money. He gave a parting glance to the ancient petroglyphs that had guarded them for a week before following Arthur down the slope, out of the protective confines of his people and into the cold world of the White man.

At the bottom of the slope, Arthur was kneeling next to Otis. The German’s face was pale, and the sand beneath him was black from blood in the deep evening, the moon not yet risen. The bravest of stars punctuated the black sky, their brethren quickly joining them now that the sun had fully settled.

“I have been shot in the chest and I know I must die,” Charles heard Otis tell Arthur as he came upon the pair. When he saw Charles approach, his eyes softened. “It is true what I told you. I aimed to make you my partner and top hand. Survived a war and rode a gang, and this is how I’m killed. Greed,” Otis looked up at Charles, “only ends in death. I was happy. I thought I could be happier. Now I am dead and leave my children fatherless and my wife a widow.” He heaved a deep, shuddering breath. Blood flecked his lips. His eyes were bright, and Charles saw unshed tears gather in the corners of his eyes. "I have failed." Presently, the tears fell.

“Any last wishes you got, mister?” Arthur asked softly.

“My nearest kin is a cousin in Tumbleweed," Otis said wetly, "He was a man of ill repute, but has come west to make something of himself. Otis Jr is meant to study apothecary with him. If you would tell him what has happened, so that he might help out my family and take Junior on.”

“Does your cousin have a name, friend?”

“Leopold Strauss.”

“Leopold Strauss,” Arthur repeated. “All right, friend. We’ll get word to your cousin. Anything else?”

“Water.”

“I’ll get it.” Charles stood and made his way to Keesheswa. He unclasped the bladder and returned to Otis and Arthur. However, as he grew nearer, he recognized the mask of death. Otis’ flinty eyes stared sightlessly into the starry sky. A film had already taken his vision, and his skin was as pale as the starlit sands around him. It was not the first dead man Charles had seen, but it never ceased to surprise him how quickly a body transitioned from a moving, living thing to an unremarkable shell so inert that it was hard to believe it had been occupied by a soul just moments before, or ever.

Arthur looked up at Charles. “Let’s check the pockets of Charlie and his gang, but we gotta be fast. Those gunshots woulda been heard far and wide, and we’ve got a bunch of hateful men know that something interestin’ is goin’ on, and we better be outta here before they find out what.”

Charles looked down at Otis as Arthur checked his pockets. There was no time to bury him, or to stack rocks around his corpse to protect him from the coyotes and vultures. He knew this, and he did not ask Arthur for time to say words over the corpse. And although he had known Otis only in passing in Armadillo, the man had given him a chance today to dream of being someone greater than he was, and no man had given that to Charles before. He felt a sense of deep loss of who he could have been. But Charles did not know what to say, and did not have time to say it, and so he muttered, “thank you” to the corpse, but he was not sure it mattered to a corpse what was said over it.

Arthur, who had finished rummaging through the goods of the gang, had calmed Charlie’s horse and was walking over with him. It was a beautiful bay, about sixteen hands, and well muscled with proud eyes. He cleared his throat as he came abreast of Charles. “He seemed like a good man.” Arthur said woodenly, and Charles realized the other man was likely as good as he was about expressing himself.

“It seemed like it.” Charles agreed.

“Do you uh--” Arthur struggled with words “--wanna say a prayer or something? Some words?” He handed two coins to Charles.

Charles took the coins and closed Otis' sightless eyes. He unhitched Keesheswa, and swung his leg over her saddle. “I hardly knew the man. Let’s ride.”

Chapter Text

Their advantage was the waning moon, which was late to rise and slivering down to nothing. By Arthur’s figuring, they were only four or five days from a new moon and had several hours before her rise. From years on the frontier, Arthur knew that when she did finally peek over the horizon in the east, she would be petulant in her light. They rode across the black desert.

His wound ached. He’d been in a fair number of bar fights in his years. More, after Mary’s final departure. But violence was not the salve to his soul he had hoped for, and neither was alcohol. But while they were poor substitutes and did not fill his heart in the way Mary had, the only regrets they left him with were headaches and broken noses, and never the hurt of a broken heart. Besides, as he increased his experience at both, he found that generally the headaches were less, and the fights won were greater. Dutch did not discourage him; it only improved the aptitude of his heavy.

And he’d been caught once with a gunshot through the thigh and then the time in the arm, when he’d met Charles. But he had not thought he was brushing death the way he felt when he’d been lung shot. By all measure, he wasn’t meant to survive the wound, if Charles hadn’t found him.

Arthur carried a strong and unwavering loyalty to Dutch and Hosea, who had saved him from the streets and from himself. He extended that loyalty to Miss Grimshaw because Dutch had taken her in and loved her in his way, and still loved her, even if it was not the way she wished. For as much discontent as he showered on John, it was his providence and his alone, and he would kill the man who said anything sideways against his brother. (And had, although he was not proud of it. He had learned on that particular night how dangerous alcohol could be.)

But now he felt a building sense of--if not loyalty, than at least indebtedness, to the man that had saved him three times. Arthur didn’t much truck with the Divine, Reverend Swanson’s occasional interludes into their small gang aside. But hell if Charles weren’t something else; almost made Arthur believe in something greater than himself. But if he were to admit to a Divine Providence, it meant he’d have to acknowledge the deep abyss that the church going folks always accused him of heading to and Arthur weren’t sure he was ready to commit himself to an eternal damnation. Seemed safer to just hope he’d dissolve back into the earth, as he knew he weren’t a good enough man to ride the other way.

The younger man rode silent beside him. Arthur sensed something significant had happened back at the cavern with Otis Miller, but he couldn’t rightly figure out what. But then, he hardly had a memory of what had happened at all until he’d found himself on the cool ledge and greeted by the morning sun.

“We should settle down before the sun gets up.” Arthur nodded towards the eastern sky. It was still dark, but the stars that had started the evening there had rotated away and new constellations had taken up residence. As a child and ever since, Hosea had drilled the constellations, and their lore, into Arthur and John. A man who knew his stars was well served and never lost. Sailors had known it for thousands of years, and the plainsmen knew it, and Hosea thought it important his sons knew it, too.

Charles spent a moment surveying the sky impassively, his eyes lingering briefly on the brilliance of the milky way before he dropped his eyes and scanned the desert. The evening fires of their hunters had died to embers hidden by brown scrub grass and the rugged buttes that were the memories of forgotten oceans. The air was still.

“We’ll want to keep watch. I’ll go first.” He said firmly, arching an eyebrow when Arthur opened his mouth to argue.

“We’re about three nights ride from Twin Rocks,” Arthur said instead. “But way as I figure, somebody’s found Otis Miller’s body and the rest of that gang and they’ll know something fishy was about. They smell blood now. You wake me up in three hours, and we’ll take shift that way.”

“You need more rest than that,” Charles frowned. He was pale in the fragile light of the waning moon. Ice clouds striped in silver slid by in the black sky.

Arthur nodded towards the slump in Charles’ shoulders and the bags under his eyes.. “Looks like you need it as much as me. Wake me up in three hours and I’ll take my shift.” He repeated. “It’s a swear. We’re partners now.”

Charles gave Arthur a long, indecipherable look before his face warmed into a slight smile, his dark eyes sparkling. “It’s a swear.” He agreed tiredly. “Be careful dismounting, or you’ll undo all my hard work.”

Arthur made a show of snorting, but he was slow to dismount, and the impact of his boots hitting the desert floor caused him enough pain that he had to spend a moment breathing into his saddle. By the time the waves passed, Charles had already brought Keesheswa into a thicket of heavy pinyon-juniper and was tying her down. He muttered to her quietly, his hand outstretched with treats. He looked up, his dark eyes catching Arthur’s. Arthur waved his hand. “M’fine.”

Arthur brought Boadicea over to where Keesheswa was tied down. She nuzzled his hand. “Good girl.” He purred quietly.

“We should only unpack one roll, so we have less to pack if we need to get moving fast.” Charles worked on the leather straps for his bedroll. He set first to lay out the canvas tarp which he folded in half before settling a wool blanket with thick blue and black stripes occasionally intercepted by white.

“Makes good sense,” Arthur agreed. “You sure you don’t want me to take the first shift? Feels like I ain’t been doing anything but resting.”

Charles leveled him with a glare. “It’s not been rest, it’s been dying.” Satisfied with his work, he stood up.

“I uh-” Arthur cleared his throat. “I haven’t thanked you for saving my life.”

“We aren’t through it yet but,” Charles’ face softened again into a whisper of a smile, his dark eyes caught the slivered moon and sparkled dimly. “You’re welcome.”

At that smile, something deep and warm settled into Arthur’s heart. “Three hours?” He repeated.

“Three hours.” Charles confirmed.

Arthur settled onto the roll, slipping into a dreamless sleep almost as soon as he put his head down.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

It hadn’t felt like three hours when Charles’ warm hand cupped his shoulder. The earth was pale lavender with the early sun, the sky a growing rose. The browns of the scrub had warmed from tired brown to deep pastels. Stripes of clouds were golden in the rising sun. In the distance, a tall rock spire jutted into the air, a landmark across the rock-strewn landscape. A defiance of erosion.

Everything hurt. He suppressed a groan, ignoring the concern in Charles’ eyes. Something had begun to settle into the corners of his heart. It was a sensation that was not unfamiliar, but which he had previously only attributed to the fairer gender. Unsure what to do with the feeling, he buried it away.

“It has been three hours. I have seen riders to the south.” Charles’ shoulders were slumped, his eyes dull with exhaustion.

“I’ll keep an eye out. It’s going to be a rough three days without a fire.” Arthur pushed himself up off the desert floor, leaving the warm confines of the wool blanket. Charles slipped into the unoccupied space, quickly settling in.

“Rougher still if we’re found.” He mumbled sleepily before quickly slipping into unconsciousness.

Arthur watched the young man for a moment, marveling again by the coincidence that had brought them together. Dutch did not believe in coincidence. Hosea attributed it to powers beyond their control, but advantageous all the same. Arthur wasn’t sure where he fell on the matter.

In sleep, Charles looked like the young man he was, and not the lonely hunter that roamed deserts in search of a home. Exhaustion had smoothed his furrowed brow; had robbed him of his taut muscles and eyes narrowed in concern.

“Woulda been easier to let me die.” He told the sleeping man.

Arthur finally managed himself to a standing position, and stumbled off several feet for a piss. He gazed out over the horizon and the empty desert as he relieved himself. He appreciated the peace of the morning. At home, he usually shared an hour with Hosea after the chores were done and before Dutch and John woke up. Hosea would read whatever local paper he’d managed to find. Barring that, he’d reread his favorite novels and philosophers or pour over a new book he’d taken up residence with. Bessie had been a prolific reader, and that had been the linchpin to their relationship in the early days. She could argue philosophy or story structure as well as any professor or historian. The day Hosea had become absolutely smitten was the day Bessie had quoted Rousseau. “Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.”

It was also the day Dutch realized he was losing his best friend and lover, and had taken up the philosophers, both as a point of argument and to stay attractive to Hosea. That Dutch found Rousseau as an anchor to his own political beliefs was incidental and not causative. And when Hosea had left, Dutch had found comfort in philosophy, especially as it pertained to personal freedom.

Arthur finished his business. He wondered if Dutch and Hosea were looking for him. Dutch had ridden out for him before, but they’d not had heat on them like this. He considered what Charles had said about Dutch offering double his earnings for his safe return. He glanced over at Boadicea with her loaded saddlebags before glancing back out at the desert. He peered south, where Charles had seen movement, scanning the horizon. He knew that if it were him on a chase, he’d take the guaranteed twenty-five hundred in the bags and not trouble Marshals or Dutch for more. He knew if he were Dutch, he’d offer a doubled bounty for a safe return. He also knew that if he were Dutch, he’d probably fleece the man out of all his winnings. Failing that, he’d have the man murdered.

He’d have Arthur do it for him.

His eye caught movement, and he stilled. Two, no. Three riders in the distance. They were moving carefully. One of the figures dropped to the ground, peering at something on the ground. When he looked up, he pointed in Arthur’s general direction.

“Aw, hell.” Arthur muttered. He stayed frozen, knowing they were probably still too far away to parse him as man and not part of the landscape. The man remounted and the trio chatted briefly. When they were moving again, he quickly made his way back to Charles, feeling almost guilty when he leaned down to wake him up. As soon as he placed his hand on Charles’ shoulder, his brown eyes shot open, body tensing.

“We got company.”

“How close?” Charles rolled to a sitting position and scrambled out of the sleeping system. He had it rolled up within moments and was already on his feet.

“Coupla miles, but looks like they’ve got our trail. I’ll get the horses.”

Charles nodded tightly. He crossed over to Keesheswa and stowed the roll away. “Where?” He looked at Arthur. They’d both slunk into the heavy brush of the pinyon-juniper, trying to keep still as they peered to the south. “Ah, I see them.”

“Best to set up an ambush, I’m thinkin’.” Arthur scanned their surroundings. They were caught in an expanse without any significant rock outcroppings to help them. His eyes landed on a forgotten riverbed. During storms, water would roar through it, and then, just as quickly, evaporate away leaving a slowly deepening and winding path that cut through the land like wounds. “Looks like there’s a sandy wash.”

Charles followed Arthur’s line of sight. “I’ll go check it out.” He dropped to a crouching position, moving soundlessly between the low brush. Arthur watched the men on the horizon. They were still small--several miles distant, if he were to figure. But they were moving with deliberation now. Occasionally, he’d see the point man dip low to the ground and confirm their tracks.

“It’s not very deep,” Charles said in a low voice as he retook his place beside Arthur. “It won’t hide the horses, but it’s more than enough for us to get into. What’re you thinking?”

“The odds are pretty good, just three to two, and we know they’re coming.” Arthur began slowly. It was usually up to Dutch or Hosea to come up with the plans, and Arthur’s job to execute. Dutch had gone through a spell of poetry when he was younger and teaching Arthur to read. John had never taken to the rhyming schemes, but Arthur enjoyed the natural beat of the words. They hung around in his head better than some of the other literature his surrogate parents and impressed upon him. Theirs not to make reply/Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die. Arthur had never understood the history of the battle those men had fought, but he understood the loyalty.

But Charles was looking at him expectantly. It wasn’t the desperate look John wore, or the strained one that Mary had taken when she was relying on Arthur. The look she’d give him when she was hoping he’d agree to give up his whole life to come live a caged one with her with a father who couldn’t stand Arthur or anything he stood for. He offered her freedom and sure, there weren’t fancy dinners, and she’d probably only get new dresses sometimes, but they were happy in their freedom. Happier than her anyway, he figured. But he couldn’t change for her, and she couldn’t change for him, and she found a man who could make her a woman of stature and impress her father besides.

“I figure,” Arthur peered back at the wash, Charles’ eyes heavy on him. “We can set up a flanking ambush. One of us gets down in the wash, one stays up here in the pinyon with the horses. Looks like they’ve got their tracker up front.”

“I’ll take the wash.” Charles said. “I’ll use my bow. Less interference from the branches.” He pulled his bow from Keesheswa, shouldering the quiver of arrows. “I’ll take out the tracker, maybe the rider behind him.”

“I’ve got what’s left.” Arthur said. “See that half dead juniper?” Arthur nodded towards an ancient gnarled bush that was mostly twisted wood but still had one densely leafed limb. It had to be a hundred years old at least. There was a tenacity to the things that eked out a living in the desert. Charles nodded. “Wait until the second rider gets there. The tracker will be close, but if you go up the wash about fifty feet, you should have a good angle. You take him out, and I’ll get the second rider. We’ll both go for the third.” Arthur grinned. “Points to whoever gets him first.”

Charles frowned. “Is murder a game?”

Arthur felt his smile falter. “Aw hell, Charles. It ain’t murder. They're gonna kill us or we're gonna kill them.”

“I understand that, Arthur, but a man dies regardless.” He pinned Arthur with a searching look before he turned. “I’ll get down to the wash.” He ducked down, his eyes on the riders that were quickly morphing from distant shadows to definable men.

Behind Arthur, the sun continued her steady climb across the sky, casting long shadows and hiding Charles’ path to the intermittent river bed. Arthur watched as he hit the wash and followed it up for twenty or thirty feet before settling into a curve in the banks. Deeper and wider than the rest of the wash, Charles was able to stand upright. He gauged the incoming riders and when they had grown close, he dipped under the sandy overhang.

Arthur watched him go, feeling oddly chastised. It was a sensation that Dutch managed occasionally but that Hosea excelled in with heavy looks and deep frowns, disappointment written on his face.

Sighing, he brought his Winchester up. He was still stiff and weak on his left side, and he used the forking of two branches to help keep the barrel steady. Pulling the butt of the rifle into his shoulder, he settled in behind the weapon and squeezed his left eye closed. He eased into his breathing and sighted in on the riders. He could just make out the tracker as he came closer. He rode a sturdy mule that was well suited for mountains, and had a better constitution for the desert than the full-blooded horses behind him. He had a white bushy beard, and white hair that stuck out around his hat, a yellowish misshapen thing that was well worn and equally soiled. An old Sharps rifle was slung behind him. He was thin and wiry and Arthur recognized him as one of the dying breed of pioneers who had come West and settled it through diplomacy and death. Dutch loved these men, heralding their independence as the foundation of the gang’s own freedoms. “This land is meant for the man eager to cast off the chains of the East.” Hosea himself was meant to be descended from this type of man, born in the mountains of the West. Arthur had wondered on occasion if this was part of Dutch’s attraction to the older man; that Hosea represented his ideals of the independent mountain man. A true man of the West.

The men behind him were younger, although Arthur could not make out their faces under the shadows of their wide-brimmed hats dipped low over their eyes, he could tell from the strong square of their shoulders and straight backs unworn yet by time.

The tracker had reached the pinyon bush. Arthur stilled his breath, relaxed, and shot the rider behind the tracker. He ignored the rider as he collapsed, ignored the tracker as he toppled from his mule an arrow in his chest, and swiftly raised his sights to the third rider. He waited for the horse to stop rearing. The man spun in confusion, his six shooter pulled as he tried to locate his assailants. Arthur pulled the trigger a second time. The man toppled, his foot caught in the stirrup as his horse panicked, dragging his rider a short distance before breaking free.

Arthur and Charles waited a few moments. Neither the tracker or the other rider moved. The mule stood steadfast several yards away. The pinto of the second rider pranced and pawed the ground uncertainly. Arthur lowered his rifle and shouldered it. He carefully picked his way out of the bush and down to the collapsed tracker. Blood blossomed around the arrow in his chest. Brown eyes stared up at the blue sky. “Good shot.” He said as Charles came abreast. With effort, he pulled the arrow free from the tracker’s chest and inspected the shaft. Apparently satisfied, he slipped it back into his quiver. Charles knelt to check his pockets. Arthur shuffled to his rider. Arthur froze as he moved the man’s coat to the side to check his pockets and froze. He looked up at Charles.

Charles, who had already moved to the third body, was looking up at Arthur, the blood drained from his face. In his palm glinted the star of a deputy sheriff. Arthur looked down at his own find, a bright silver star, SHERIFF stamped in letters on the tin.

Arthur looked around, scanning the horizon for riders. In the desert sound traveled far, and he knew they’d drawn attention to themselves between last night and now. The early morning wind howled. The pinyons, adapted to thousands of years in the desert, barely moved in the cold wind. The sun was bright in his eyes, and he dipped his hat down. He’d been on the wrong side of the law--well hell, his whole life. But he’d never killed a sheriff before. His heart stuttered in his chest. Most of his murders were near defensible, but between the bank and now the sheriff, he had earned himself a lynching.

Charles was at his side. Arthur had not heard him approach. He looked up at his companion. “You gotta get outta here. They don’t know you’re with me.”

“I got the water bladders. I think we should load the mule down. He’s better suited for this land. We can add weight without sacrificing too much speed.”

In the distance, Arthur could see trails of dust being spit up by hunters. After a week of nothing, proximity to something exciting had spurred them forward again. Most of them were men searching for glory and quick riches, but Arthur knew a few of them were worth their weight, and he knew those men would not give up until they had captured Arthur or had been killed themselves. And with the death of the sheriff, Arthur knew his bounty had just gone up.

Fuck.

Breathing hurt. His wound hurt. Dutch had promised an easy take. It wasn’t supposed to go this sideways.

He looked at Charles. Exhaustion had worn the young man down, but adrenaline had brightened his features.

Arthur wanted to ask Charles why he was helping him at all. Why he had saved him, why he had spent a week nursing him back to health, and now, stuck with him still. But Arthur didn’t want to go this alone.

“Let’s ride.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o

They rode until the sun was high. It was warm enough in its apex, but the coming cold curled in the deep shadows of the butte and plateaus when they rode too close. Around noon, when their shadows were shallow and the heat was high, Arthur noticed Charles slumping in his saddle. He cantered up. Charles’ eyes were slipping shut, and he tried to rally as Arthur approached.

“When’s the last time you slept?”

Charles blinked at him. “Couple of hours ago.”

“When’s the last time you slept,” Arthur repeated, in that tone that usually worked on recalcitrant marks. Or John, sometimes.

Charles looked at him for a long time. “Not since I found you. I kept thinking you were going to die.” His words were slurred. That strange feeling in Arthur’s chest pinged again and he tabled the question of why again.

“We have to rest. There’s an outcropping up ahead. It’s enough to shelter us and the horses.”

Charles hesitated, his eyes scanning the desert horizon. Satisfied, he slipped from the saddle. Arthur followed carefully in his dismount, his breath hitching from the movement. A small butte with a rocky overhang provided meager shade and protection from the wind. Checking for snakes, Charles set his bed roll out as a pillow and tucked himself beneath the rocks. He was asleep within minutes, his chest rising in an easy, slow rhythm.

Arthur marveled at the man before he turned to care for the horses. Hosea and Dutch had taught him how to hobble his mount, but Boadicea had always been particularly good about not roaming too far to graze, and she didn’t spook as easily as some. Still, Hosea stressed the importance of hobbling, especially on the open range and in the mountains. In this case, he was able to hitch them to the flaking trunk of a pinyon-juniper. He brushed them down before filling a water bag for them to take their fill.

Dutch loved his horses, but it was Hosea that taught Arthur how to care for them. Arthur’s first horse had been a golden Palomino mare at 15.2 hands that they’d bought off an old farmer in western Illinois, just before they hit Missouri. He’d only been with Dutch and Hosea for two weeks at that point as they cleared Chicago. They had, he gathered, intended to stay longer on account of the easy money to be made. But both of them tired from big cities quickly, and Dutch in particular felt the open plains and snow-capped mountains of the west would be the salve Arthur needed for his soul. As they traveled, the pair carried on easy conversation and while Dutch told grandiose tales of the American West and their own manifest destiny, Hosea educated Arthur on the more mundane. This included the basic care of a horse. In pursuit of this education, they found Xanthippe in the pasture of Mr. Stanley, whose wife had died the year earlier from pleurisy. Spinning their magic which, in those days, consisted of more wordcraft and less violence, they’d brought the old farmer to tears as they’d told the tale of the orphaned Arthur. He’d sold Xanthippe to the motherless child for only thirty dollars, which was more money than Arthur had ever seen at once in his whole life. And while he was reserved with his surrogate fathers, he whispered all his secrets and wishes to Xanthippe. He fed her sugar cubes and brushed her until her coat shone gold. She’d nuzzle his shoulder, and seemed to know his frame of mind before he did. She was lively and responsive, but even-tempered and easily trainable. He had not loved anything in his whole life since his mother had died as much as he loved that horse.

She’d stepped in a prairie dog hole several years later in western Kansas, outside of Fort Hays while they were selling speculation rights to frontiersmen who had not been bold enough to travel west on the wagon trains, but now sought their fortune with the ease of the Union Pacific to ferry them to hills bright with gold and silver. They’d made several hundred selling dreams, but Dutch was beginning to grow restless. Arthur spent the summer watching Dutch watch the settlers, and saw the unease growing in him. He’d chew on a cigar, his eyes pinched as men and women flowed forth from the train cars filled with trunks.

So they headed west and south, away from the trains. For all the money the trains brought the gang, they also brought the end of a chapter to America Dutch wasn’t ready to read.

The misstep had sent Arthur tumbling. He’d spent a moment on his back, the air knocked out of him. When Hosea offered him a hand up, his blue eyes were sad. “Broke her leg, son.”

“It’s a mercy, there’s nothing to be done for it.” Dutch approached with his rifle, pressing it into Arthur’s hands.

When the deed was done, he turned and sobbed into Hosea’ chest. He cried for his mother, and for the childhood he had lost, and for being alone in the world. When he was done, he realized he must have said some of it out loud because Miss Grimshaw’s own eyes were misty, and Dutch was giving him an indecipherable look. He put his hands on Arthur’s shoulders before pulling him into a warm embrace.

“My son, you will never be lonely again. We are your family.”

The wind almost caught Arthur’s hat as it picked up, shaking him from his old memories. The sun was halfway through its afternoon arc. The shadows were already growing long, but lacked the depth of the evening. He glanced down at his riding companion. Charles was still deep asleep. He had not moved since he’d settled down; a testament to his exhaustion.

Arthur looked back up over the desert. He hadn’t meant to kill the sheriff, but he could hear Dutch in his head--It was you or him. The fact that he didn’t know it was a sheriff would be immaterial to the townsfolk of Armadillo. He knew also that it didn’t matter there hadn’t been witnesses to the killing. The bounty hunters would find the dead deputy and his sheriff and they would travel back to town with this information. Bank robbers were one thing, but law killers--well, that brought a different heat.

They’d have to leave Twin Rocks. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were already gone. The thought made Arthur’s heart skip. Where would he go to find them?

To the west, movement caught his eye. Dark, towering clouds were growing in the distance, lightning flashing and a distant rumble rolling across the open desert. The wind, already a constant companion, took on a greater urgency. It whipped around his face, and he shoved his hat down any tighter. Beside him, the horses began to get restless.

“Aw hell.” He looked up at their small butte, and then at the land around them. They weren’t going to be able to out ride this storm, and it’d be hell out in the desert. He knelt down beside Charles, almost feeling guilty in waking him. The young man started, his eyes wide before softening in recognition. The deep bags beneath his eyes weren’t gone, but they were better than they had been.

“We got a storm coming on,” Arthur said as Charles blinked away his fatigue. “Good chance there’s hail in it.”

“I have a canvas tarpaulin. It should keep us dry. We can stay under the overhang.” He jumped up, careful not to hit his head as he crossed over to Keesheswa and the mule.

“Leave them in the bushes, safe as anything.” Arthur was at Boadicea's side, unfastening the saddlebags loaded with money. He barely had any essentials on him, and twenty-five hundred dollars was useless out here. If he died, at least he died rich.

The storm was crossing the desert with the ferocity and anger of the untamed. It was a wildness reserved for the West, where the elements were young and raw. Lightning lanced out, striking the distant desert with bolts of bright white.

The wind whipped around them with increasing strength and the first fat drops of rain began hitting the earth. The desert, untouched for months now, took on a dusty smell as it was disturbed by the rainfall.

They rushed to climb under the overhang. It was small--only about four or five feet high and a few feet wide, but a rock jutting out on the leeward side protected them from the worst of the wind and rain. Charles sat on the canvas, and expanded his arm out. Arthur settled in beside him on the canvas and took the proffered canvas. They wrapped it closely around them and used the extra to cover their heads as best as they could. Hail began crashing down, cacophonous against the rock over them as it blanketed the desert floor in large pellets of ice. The black sky cracked with lightning. The gap between the thunder and the lightning bursts indicated that the worst of the storm was still approaching.

“It was better in the cabin.” Charles had to shout to be heard. Arthur chuckled.

“Better than being out there, anyway.” He nodded to the open desert.

“Think the horses are okay?”

“They’re gonna have to be.” Arthur shouted back.

They sat shoulder to shoulder while the storm thrashed around them. The thunder tumbled together with the flashes of lightning. Despite their cover, the rain lashed against them, and they pulled the waterproofed canvas further up around them until they were fully ensconced. Arthur could feel Charles’ warm breath on the skin of his arm. He chanced a look over at the younger man, but it was too dark to see.

Gradually, the storm roared off with the same abruptness that it had approached. Slowly, like soldiers who had endured a siege and were surprised it was finally over, they pulled the canvas away. The storm had brought with it a definitive chill that was now settling in around them. The setting sun was a golden line beneath more storms on the horizon that towered high into the sky and raced terror across the open desert before finally colliding with the distant mountain peaks. The eastern sky was black with both the coming evening and their recently departed storm. They sat huddled together under the overhang, sharing the relative warmth of their bodies.

“I should check on the horses.” Charles said, although he did not move. “It got cold,” he sighed. “Would be a nice night for a fire.”

“Wouldn’t be able to get it started even if we could afford it. At least we’re dry, thanks to you.” Arthur was careful with his gratitude back in camp. He was trying to be the man Dutch was cultivating him to be, and that man was strong and sure and a killer, and killers, as a rule, didn’t offer thanks. But Hosea taught him the importance of manners, and of giving due when it was owed.

“Let’s ride.” Arthur pushed himself away from the rock. His whole left side was stiff and he bit back a grimace.

“You haven’t rested, either.” Charles called over his shoulder as he walked back to where the horses had been hitched. “We’ll head out at first light.”

Arthur looked to the mountains. They loomed, distant and menacing. Tucked in their foothills was Twin Rocks and the abandoned white adobes they’d agreed to meet at.

“Horses okay?” He asked as Charles came back around the bend in the rock with a canteen of water. He handed it out to Arthur, who took it with his right hand, careful of his left side.

“A little spooked, but they’re fine. It’ll do them good to have some rest.”

The autumn wind kicked up with the setting sun, carrying a sharper bite than before. Charles settled down next to Arthur on the canvas. He unrolled the wool blanket. “The storm probably gained us some time. We could use some rest, too. No shifts; just sleep.”

Exhaustion was already pulling at Arthur and from Charles’ sluggish movements, he could tell the man was damned near half asleep anyway. He looked out over the darkening desert. In the distance, the storm continued to rage, distant flashes of bright light against dark clouds that were too far away to carry the calamity of the thunder back to them. The storm had likely put anyone off their trail, and they’d be hard to pick up again. Without sleep, they’d both be useless. Worse; a risk to themselves and each other .

So he didn’t argue, and instead made space for Charles beside him against the rock, sitting on the canvas and protected from the leeward wind. Charles settled in beside him and they leaned against each other for comfort and heat. In the distance, coyotes howled a lonesome lullaby. The warmth that had started in Arthur’s heart earlier had settled in, and he couldn’t deny the growing fondness he had for the young man beside him. He fell asleep content, if not conflicted.

Chapter Text

Charles shivered himself awake when the sky was a blanket of stars, cold and distant. He pulled his legs to his chest, feeling the desert around him steal his warmth. He looked at Arthur beside him, still propped up against the rocks. His eyes were half-lidded, the brilliance of his eyes dimmed in the starlight. His skin was pale, and some of the sickness had settled in around him again. Charles felt a sliver of fear slip between his ribs. Arthur looked over at him. He opened his arm up in a silent invitation.

Charles scooted in close, and Arthur dropped his arm down around his shoulders. “Usta’ hold my brother like this, when he was young and we was cold.” Arthur’s words were a drawl, but whether from sleep or sickness, Charles couldn’t tell.

“And now?” Charles could smell Arthur in a way he hadn’t before. He smelled of the earth, and time spent in the sun. He was dust on a late summer day, and the dry leather of a saddle, well loved. Beneath it was the slight scent of sickness, almost sweet.

Arthur sighed. “He grew up.”

They stared at the stars together, sleep pulling at Charles as he settled into the warmth beside him. Arthur had angled himself in against Charles, and his breath, still slightly ragged, was evening back out into the rhythm of sleep. Charles tucked his head in under Arthur’s. Neither of them were particularly comfortable, he suspected, but they were both warmer than they had been, and exhaustion wore at them both. He fell into a dreamless sleep.

“Hey you, get up.”

Charles woke up, staring into the barrel of a Winchester ‘73. Holding it was a young man in calico and with the same gray eyes as Otis Miller, and although Charles had never met Otis’ son, he recognized him immediately. The boy had the same bearing of his father.

“Otis Junior.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed at Charles’ recognition.

“How d’ya know who I am?”

Beside him, Arthur was still, but Charles had spent enough nights next to the older man to know when his breathing shifted into wakefulness, and knew he feigned sleep now.

“I knew your father.”

The boy’s face fractured, and he looked all of sixteen years for an ephemeral moment, grief tearing his shell away. The barrel of the gun dropped. “He was a good man,” the boy said, his voice hitching. He had found the corpse of his father, Charles realized. An infinite sadness washed over him with the knowledge that another boy had been left fatherless by the brutality of the West.

“He was,” Charles agreed.

The boy raised the barrel back up. “Is Arthur Morgan your bounty?”

Charles glanced over at the injured man beside him. He knew if he wanted to, he could claim the price on his head, and make the life for himself that Otis Miller had espoused. He thought that the boy would probably respect his claim, if he did. But Charles had not saved Arthur Morgan from dying in the desert to watch him hang. He looked back up at the boy. “He’s my friend.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed. His finger tightened around the trigger. “Then I guess you’re both my bounty.” That the boy had tracked them from his father’s corpse to their current location spoke to an aptitude or a general luckiness that Charles couldn’t account for.

“Your father wanted me to take you to a cousin, Leopold Strauss.”

The boy bristled. “Leopold Strauss’s a no good snake oil salesman. My father said so.”

“He did,” Charles agreed evenly. “But he said he’s changed his ways, and you’re to make something of yourself as an apothecary.”

“You’re a liar. There’s no price on your head, ain’t no reason I gotta bring both of you in together. If you ain’t gonna leave that man--he appears near enough dead--there’s no use for you.” The boy tightened his finger around his gun, but it was the tensing of the body beside him that alarmed Charles. The boy’s shot might go wide, but Arthur’s wouldn’t. Charles moved to knock Arthur’s gun out of his hand as he raised it. The boy, sensing danger, but not quickly enough, swiveled his barrel from Charles to Arthur, squeezing the trigger. The shot went high and Arthur’s aim was sent wide from a mortal shot as Charles knocked into him, catching the boy in the shoulder. He crumpled, his gun falling as he fell back. Charles wheeled on Arthur.

“You didn’t have to shoot him!”

“He was gonna kill you.”

It was true, and Charles knew it. He scrambled over to the boy who lay flat on his back, his hand at his shoulder. Blood spilled into the desert sand under him. At this distance, the .44 of Arthur’s gun had torn his shoulder open, leaving it an open mess of fractured bone and muscle. If he survived it at all, he’d likely never have use of his arm again. The courageous young man was replaced by a boy, eyes wide with with pain and fear as he stared at Charles.

“I want my momma," he pleaded.

Charles pressed his hands to the gaping wound, blood spilling around it. Pulling off his jacket, he pushed it up against the wound. Looking furiously back at Arthur, he said, “Get me some bandages! In my pack.”

Arthur pushed himself to his feet and rifled through Keesheswa’s pack before producing rolled bandages, bought from the Miller store to help put Arthur back together. Wordlessly, he handed the items over. The boy paled with blood loss.

“He woulda killed you,” Arthur said again, quieter, but with the same conviction as before.

And Charles, who was angry both with Arthur, who was right, and at him, for shooting the son of the father that had given him hope said, “He’s a boy.”

“So were we,” Arthur said. “I killed men at that age.”

So had Charles. But it was not the man he wanted to be; who he thought his parents had wanted him to be. He could’ve just as easily ended up on the wrong side of a gun, staring up at the desert sky and left to the wastelands.

“I’m going to take him home. You’re less than a day’s ride from where you aim to be. I couldn’t bury his father, but I’ll see him home.” To die in his mother’s arms, if he made it that far, or to be buried by her, if he didn’t.

“Alright,” Arthur agreed quietly. " He helped the boy onto the mule they’d absconded with after Charles wrapped his wound, blood already seeping through. Junior’s countenance was pale, and he slipped in and out of consciousness. They strapped him down so he wouldn't fall.

“Momma?”

“I can ride with you,” Arthur offered as Charles mounted Keesheswa.

“You won’t make it out of Ambarino alive if you do,” Charles said, looking down at Arthur. “Get to Twin Rocks. I’ll go alone.”

Arthur moved stiffly to his pack, pulling out a wad of banknotes. He held it up at Charles. When he hesitated, Arthur said, “It’d be yours, anyway, if’n you hadn’ta saved me. I think you prolly deserve it more than I do. Make sure the boy is settled. There should be enough for both’a you.”

Charles stared at the money. “It’s too much,” he said.

“It’s only money.”

Money that the gang had killed to take, and money that had almost killed Arthur in the process. Money that had killed Otis Miller, and was seeking its claim on his son. Charles took it. It was more than he’d had in his entire life; considering the cost, it almost wasn’t worth it.

He slipped it into his saddlebag.

“Will I see you again?” Arthur asked, looking very young. Charles, who’s heart was hardening, felt the process stop. He gazed down at the man that stood before him, still pale, the shadows under his eyes dark. He had shot the boy to protect Charles. That he was only a boy was not Arthur’s fault.

But he couldn’t help but blame him.

“I hope so.”

Charles turned Keesheswa and the mule away from their small camp and across the plains, in the direction of Ambarino. Arthur watched him go until they were specks on the horizon. An unsettled feeling sat in his chest. He carefully made waste of the camp before remounting Boadicea as gently as he could, and made his way across the empty desert.

The adobes of Twin Rocks were golden in the setting sun, deep lavender shadows gathering from the canyon walls as he approached. He saw the forms of Hosea and Susan bent over a rickety table, a deck of cards spread out between them. They both looked up with suspicion as the rider approached, surprise marking their features as they saw who it was. Arthur's shoulders were slumped, his hat low over his eyes. Hosea stood first.

“Dutch! Arthur’s back!”

Dutch stormed forth from one of white adobe buildings, his dark eyes alight.

“My son!” Dutch exclaimed as he ran towards him. Helping the younger man off his horse, he pulled him into a gentle embrace. “We thought we lost you.” He pulled him back, black eyes discerning as he assessed Arthur. “What happened?”

“Oh,” Arthur said, suddenly bone tired. “It’s a tale. I need to rest.”

“Of course Arthur, of course.” Dutch guided him into the adobe. He and Hosea helped him out of his riding clothes, mothering his wound as Susan boiled bandages to rewrap it. When the work was done, they settled him into the bed large enough for two. Arthur sat on it heavily, knowing he was taking accommodations from Dutch and Hosea.

“You sure?” He asked, staring up at the pair.

“We’re so glad you’re home,” Hosea said, his eyes bright. “Rest as long as you need.” He pressed Arthur back gently. Arthur stared around the small structure. It was well lived in, and bore no evidence of a place in the process of evacuation.

“You waited for me,” he realized.

“Of course we did, son,” Dutch said. “Of course we did.”

“The money’s in the saddlebags,” Arthur said, before slipping into a dreamless sleep. When he awoke hours later, the sunlight casting a golden shadow on the far wall, he saw John sitting beside him. Of the many things John was good at, sitting was not one of them, and he squirmed uneasily in his seat as he stood vigil over Arthur. When he saw his brother stir, John’s face brightened.

“You’re okay!”

“C’mere,” Arthur sighed, holding his arm open. John climbed in beside him, tucking in against his good side. They were larger than they had been the last time they’d shared a bed, but it was big enough for them, and John felt small. He wrapped an arm around his brother. John had always been sparse with his words, but he grappled Arthur. “S’okay,” Arthur said. “I’m okay.”

“They said you was shot.”

“I was,” Arthur said. “Lungshot. Ain’t gonna be myself for a little while. But you remember the man we helped back in the bar in Strawberry?”

“The Indian fella?”

“Charles, yeah. He saved me. I owe him my life.”

“I missed you.” John dug his head into Arthur’s neck. Arthur tightened his grip around his brother.

“I missed you, too.” He fell back asleep with John tucked against his side. When he awoke again, the strained light of morning casting a pale glow on the walls, it was Hosea who sat beside him. His blue eyes lightened when he saw Arthur return to consciousness.

“Where’s John?” Arthur asked.

“That was a day ago. He went to hunt with Dutch.” Hosea laughed. “They’ll probably bring back canned beans off some poor traveler.”

Arthur grinned. “I missed you.”

Hosea took his hand. “We missed you, too. I’m glad you made it home.”

“You didn’t leave me,” Arthur wondered.

“Of course we didn’t.”

Arthur passed through consciousness, waking to find his rotating members of the gang at his side. Most often, it was Dutch and Hosea, and if it was John, he was at Arthur’s side, his head on his chest as he took measure of Arthur’s breathing and the beat of his heart. Miss Grimshaw was nearly a constant companion, clean bandages in hand as she worried over Arthur.

“I’m okay,” he said, grabbing her wrist as she changed the bandages on his chest. “I’m okay.”

“I know you are,” she said, completing her revolution around his wound. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

After two weeks, Arthur found himself back on his feet. That his footing was unstable and the sky spun was of little import; he could once again breathe the fresh air of the desert. It had become unsettled as it tumbled into fall. The nights, more oft than not, were accompanied by electric storms that lit up the sky.

Dutch sat at the campfire. He motioned for Arthur to join him. “Come and tell me what happened.”

Arthur settled beside Dutch. He still moved stiffly, but his breathing didn’t wheeze like it did before. He rotated his shoulder around; it had a tendency to get stuck. He told Dutch of everything; of the escape from town and the man who had saved him, and the men they’d killed. He relayed that he’d killed a sheriff, and word would likely have gotten back to town by now. He was honest about the money he’d given Charles and the boy, and Dutch clapped him gently on the back and said it was a good thing he had done, and that they likely needed the money, and that’s why they stole it anyway: to give money to people who needed it.

What Arthur kept to himself was how he felt about Charles, and the unsettled feeling he felt in his chest when he thought of him, and the guilt he carried for separating the way he had.

After three weeks at Twin Rocks, Arthur was back to standing watch. Hosea and Dutch were planning their escape--somewhere west, far from Ambarino and the increasing price on their heads. The bounty hunters had continued their pursuit, and Hosea and Dutch had rode out to lay false tracks to throw them off their path. They knew their time in Twin Rocks was growing to a close but did not want to ride out until Arthur’s health allowed it.

John was growing restless. He couldn’t spend his days target shooting so as not to draw attention, and had been relegated to more or less wandering the nearby mountains as a roving watch.

Arthur focused on some distant riders who had dismounted and were studying some of the signs of the false trail Hosea had put down. They remounted and, ignoring the false trail, continued their journey towards Twin Rocks.

“Shit,” Arthur said to himself. He whistled the whippoorwill call, and Hosea looked up with sharp eyes from where he was tending to the horses.

“Company?” He called out.

They saw before they heard John as he clattered down the mountain side, a trail of dust kicking up behind him as he guided his horse down. “There’s riders on the ridge!”

“Shit,” Arthur said again, louder. This wasn’t random; they were being surrounded.

“How many, Arthur?” Hosea called out in a measured voice. Dutch joined his side. Susan immediately began to tear down the camp. They had kept the horses saddled and the camp sparse, ready to ride at any moment.

“Five, at least.”

“And you, John?”

“Another five, maybe more.”

“It’s a damn posse,” Dutch scowled.

“It was a lot of money and a dead sheriff,” Hosea said. “We’re outnumbered.”

“We’ve faced worse odds.” Dutch pulled his gun free, checking the chamber. “They’ll know we’re coming. Arthur, Hosea, you’re my best long range. Susan, get over there behind that building. They won’t be expecting you. Pick off as many as you can once they’re off the mountain and are funneled down the trail.”

Twin Rocks only had two exits--the main one, from the plains, and a small trail that led up to the mountains. Nearly a box canyon, its geography was its best defense. That men were coming down the mountain trail meant there was someone with knowledge of the canyon, which meant an outlaw, likely as not. Dutch chewed his lip.

The first shot came from John as the men funneled down the mountain path. They were on mules and had come prepared. John had never aimed a man down before, not really, and the shot went wide, ricocheting off a nearby boulder.

“Hold!” Dutch shouted.

Susan caught the man in the head when John did not, and his compatriots rapidly tried to disperse amongst the small camp, finding whatever cover was available. The men on the plains, spooked by the gunfire, dispersed. They weren’t quite close enough to make a sure shot. Arthur and Hosea shared a look.

“Ready, son?”

“When you are, old man.”

Hosea grinned, sighting in behind his Winchester. Holding his breath at its apex, he pulled the trigger. One of the riders fell back, falling off his horse and hitting the ground with a hard thud. Arthur followed his own rider--age and disposition indistinguishable at this distance--and squeezed. He hollered in victory when the man fell back, his horse rearing. He tuned out the sounds of gunfire behind him as he focused on the men spread out before them. He ducked behind a rock as he reloaded, glancing over at Hosea.

“Still got your eyesight at your age, then,” Arthur grinned.

“Better shot than you,” Hosea fired back with a quick smile. “Got my last one in the head.”

Arthur glanced at over the camp. A man was closing in on John’s position. Arthur lifted his gun and fired, the man falling back as blood and gore sprayed from a new hole in his head. Arthur shoved another round into the carbine and peered over the rock. There were only two riders left, and they came forward with hate and determination, pistols firing wildly in an attempt to keep Hosea and Arthur hunkered down as they rode closer. Arthur counted the shots as they flew around him, but there was too much chaos to make an accurate guess. He swiveled up and around as there was a pause in the gunfire. The rider was almost on him. He took his shot.

The man fell back, the back of his skull ripping out with the impact. He fell to the ground bonelessly, his horse riding harmlessly by. It was the last rider on the plains, and he and Hosea turned to take measure of the fight in the camp.

A bullet whizzed by Arthur’s ear, and he ducked as his hat flew off. He grabbed it and resettled it on his head.

“Sniper!” Hosea shouted, aiming his Winchester up towards the hills. He caught the glint of a scope. “He’s too far.”

“I got ‘em,” Arthur said, shouldering his rifle and pulling his pistol.

“Your wound--” Hosea started.

“I ain’t an invalid, Hosea.” Arthur skirted the gunfight in the camp and began the climb up the mountain path. His breath came in heavy wheezes by the time he was halfway up, and he cursed his wound and the steepness of the mountain. He should’ve taken a mule.

The sniper had a bead on him, and shots rang out around him. By the time he reached the ridge, he had the cover of brush and rocks, and his breath came in heavy gasps. He picked his way towards where the sniper had been. He found him hidden in an escapement of rocks, a silver double-action held coolly on Arthur. He was a young man, of Arthur’s age, in a bowler hat and a trimmed mustache. There was a bandolier around his shoulder and another at his hips.

“Mi nombre es Javier,” The man said. “Eres Arthur Morgan. Vales mucho dinero. Te mataré ,”

“That’s right, friend I’m Arthur Morgan.” He struggled with his Spanish. Hosea only had a passing knowledge that he’d passed on, and Arthur had found it useful in bargaining in western towns, where a smattering of English and Spanish usually led to a better deal. And what was this, if not a bargain.

“If you fire that gun, I’ll kill you first. Uh….Te mataré primero .”

Javier glared at Arthur. Arthur shifted his weight, his finger tight on the trigger as he tried to hide his uneven breaths.

“Eres….uh. Un outlaw? Proscrito.”

Javier peered at Arthur curiously.

“Maybe we can be friends. You know those men ain’t care about you a lick. Uhhhh, esos hombres...don’t care about you. Esos hombres no se...importa. You seem you know what you’re about. You could join us. “Usted a nosotros.”

Javier’s face relaxed into a grin. “Compadre, I speak English.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows. “Then what was all that nonsense just now?”

“Just taking your measure,” Javier said in a light accent. He holstered his weapon. “I’ve been looking for you. These men thought they had a lead, and I knew the way in. I was hoping to draw your attention. I accept your offer to join the gang. I’m a better shot than that.” Javier laughed. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes. “You’re slippery.”

Javier grinned. “I’m a survivor and Dutch van der Linde is my man. You’ve made quite a name for yourselves. Stealing from the rich, you are right. We can be friends. Nosotros podemos ser amigos.”

Slowly, Arthur holstered his gun. “I can take you down the path, but we’ll walk side by side. If you try and kill us, I’ll shoot you down first.”

“The path is not wide enough for two.”

“Then you’ll walk in front.”

Javier flashed another grin. “Sure, friend.”

Arthur followed him down the trail, his pistol drawn. He tried to keep his breathing even so Javier could not hear how ragged it was. His brow was wet with exertion, and he wiped it away with difficulty with his bad arm while keeping the pistol trained. Javier has his rifle shouldered and his pistols holstered, but Arthur took no chances.

By the time they made it to camp, the gang was already mounted. Dutch peered at the young Mexican. “Who’s this?”

“Javier Escuello,” the man introduced himself. “I’m wanted in Mexico for killing a man. I am a revolutionary and have heard of you. You steal from the rich to give to the poor. I want in.”

Dutch’s brows raised. “You tried to shoot us.”

Javier flashed an easy grin. “You’d be dead if I wanted.”

Dutch stared at the man, his face relaxing. He laughed. “I like you, Javier. We have horses aplenty now, take your pick.” He motioned to the mounts, recently freed from their riders. He chose a mare American Paint with gray splotches.

On their way west, Javier told them of his story. That his uncle and his friends had been castrated and fed to pigs when they demanded a fair wage, and that he fell in with revolutionaries, intent to overthrow what he considered to be a corrupt system. He killed a man over a woman, but the man was more powerful than he, and he escaped to America as a wanted man. He had struggled for years, learning English as he worked on ranches throughout the West. When he had learned of the van der Linde gang and their cause, he decided to join them. He'd happened to be in Ambarino when he'd heard of the posse riding out to ambush them. He'd offered to guide them in.

By nightfall, Dutch was smitten. He knew Javier was the right man for them, and he said as much as he poured whiskey from a stash he kept for special occasions.

“To the van der Linde gang!” He toasted. “And from freedom of tyranny!”

“We used to be Matthews and van der Linde,” Hosea said mildly as he toasted. Dutch flashed him a grin.

“Don’t be sore, Hosea. This is a great day.”

That night, Javier set up a bedroll around the campfire. John tucked in close to Arthur.

“You trust him?” He asked in a whisper, glancing over at Javier.

“Hell no, I don’t trust him,” Arthur fired back. He sighed. “But I figger he could’ve killed us if he wanted to, and he didn’t. He’s seemed to earned Dutch’s trust.” And Dutch had waited for him, against reason. The smart thing to do would’ve been to take the horses and ride west, and Arthur be damned. But they hadn’t. “But I guess that’s why I’m not the brains of this operation.”

“You’re brains enough,” John said in a rare compliment. Arthur scoffed, but he smiled to himself as he rolled back to stare at the stars. It was lonely on the plains, but it was less lonely with the gang around him.

He thought of Charles.

In San Angelo, they found a German hocking his wares on the street. He stood with a horse and cart, the tailgate open, a small crowd gathered around as the thin man promised a miracle concoction that could heal all manner of ills. It was an unremarkable cart, with hundreds just like it across the west.

“A Snake oil salesman,” Dutch scoffed as they rode into town. Arthur paused. The side of the cart, painted in white block letters, exclaimed loudly “STRAUSS’ MAGICAL AUSTRIAN ELIXIR”

“Hold up,” Arthur requested. Dutch gave him the side eye.

“I’ll be in the saloon,” he said dismissively, riding off.

Arthur waited for the man’s spiel to wind down. When he was finished selling his concoctions, Arthur rode up. He peered down at the man. He was graying prematurely, his spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose. He raised his eyebrows.

“Interested in buying my elixir, sir?” He asked in a heavy accent, his eyes dropped to Arthur’s waist briefly before returning to his eyes. “It’s good for all that ails, but especially the unwanted accompaniments from sporting women.”

“Are you Leopold Strauss?”

If the man was surprised, he did not show it. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and peered at Arthur. “If your wife bought my wares with the hope of not sharing something unwanted with you, I assure you it is not on me, friend.”

Arthur waved his hand. “I ain’t married. Do you know Otis Miller?”

At this, the man looked mildly interested. He peered at Arthur curiously. “A cousin of mine from the old country. Do you bring news?”

“He’s dead. His son was meant to study apothecary with you.”

The thin man stared at him with blue eyes the same icy flint as the plains sky on a winter day. “He was a good man. A tragedy,' Strauss said in the same tone he might use to discuss the weather.

And Arthur thought he probably had been a good man, if Charles’ conscience had been right. However, as for this man, Arthur had his misgivings. “His son?” He prompted.

“I’ve not seen hide nor hair.”

Arthur sighed, feeling something crumple in his soul. He hadn’t meant to kill the boy, but he suspected that the wound had been mortal. Charles would not forgive him, he suspected, of the act. He expected he’d never seen him again, and hated the thought that their last interaction had been one of strife. He owed the man a lot, and couldn’t think of a way to repay him. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about their last interaction.

“Thanks, mister.”

Strauss shrugged him away. Arthur rejoined John, who sat on his horse and had watched the exchange with interest. “What was that about?” He asked as Arthur drew closer.

“Thought he might know an old friend,” Arthur said.

And John, who had grown used to Arthur’s bouts of mystery, shrugged. “All right. Should we get to the saloon? Dutch said something about accommodations and I ain’t know ‘bout you, but I’m tired of the desert. Maybe there’s women.”

“O’course there’s women. It’s a saloon, ain’t it?”

But Arthur was not thinking of women, his thoughts instead occupied by the dusky complexion of Charles and a smile, rare, that he expected he’d never see again. Charles kept himself a companion in Arthur’s thoughts, but the west was large and wild, and without the man Strauss as an anchor, he knew their chances of crossing again were low.

“Aw, hell Arthur, what’s got you so low, anyhow? He’s just a snake oil salesman.”

“Oh, mind your own business John, wontcha?”

John rolled his eyes. “You got it, brother.”

They made their way to the saloon. It had the clapboard facade of saloons everywhere, “SALOON” marked in block letters on the front. A gray haired man sat out front on a chair, a bottle of whiskey resting on his belly. His hair was wiley, giving way into his unwieldy beard. He hiccuped at them as they made the approach, blue eyes peering around his whiskers.

“Whatcha got there, Uncle?’ John asked as he hitched his horse. The man’s eyes twinkled.

“Uncle! That’s a good one! I’ll have you know, I was quite the force in my day.” He hiccuped again.

“Is that so?” John feigned interested as he preened before the saloon window. He slicked his hair back to make something of a presentation of himself for the women that awaited inside. Arthur looked up at the evening sky. Of late, John had fancied himself quite the ladies man. It was an assumption unfounded by fact, except for the frequency with which he brought it up.

“It is! The One Shot Kid.” The fat man straightened up, his eyes sharpening. “Mebbe you heard a me?”

“Fat chance,” John said. “Why don’t you settle down with your whiskey there, and share some of it?” He held out a tin cup. The man poured an offering before John pushed himself into the saloon.

Arthur peered at the man. “You’re the One Shot Kid?”

The old man brightened. “You have heard of me.”

“They say you killed every man you faced.”

The man leaned forward, delight filling his features. “It’s true,” he said. “I did.”

Arthur looked at the man. Dip spit dribbled into his chin. His eyes were watery with whiskey, his cheeks a high red. He was settled unevenly in the chair, as if his back bothered him. He did not have a look of a killer. He did not have the look of much anyone at all. Arthur squinted at him in disbelief.

“What happened?”

“Lumbago,” the old man said. “A helluva thing.”

“I ain’t never heard of it. You catch it from a girl?”

Uncle tilted his head back and laughed. When he was done, his eyes were watering. He wiped the tears away. “Son, I like you. Let me walk you inside. They know me here.”

The saloon was a raucous affair, a small trio with a fiddler playing furiously in the corner with a pianist pounding away at his upright to match the beat. At Uncle’s entrance, they switched from a Stephan Foster to Rye Whiskey. Uncle, for lack of a better name, took to the lyrics quickly.

“If the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck I’d dive to the bottom and never come up!” Uncle ended his statement with a dramatic hiccup before continuing, “But the ocean ain’t whiskey and I ain’t a duck, so I play Jack o’ Diamonds and then I get drunk!”

A cheer went up, and Uncle laughed. The beat of the saloon picked up as they finished out the song. Uncle took Arthur to the bar. “What’re you drinkin’?”

“Whiskey, I guess.” Arthur eyed John, who was trying, and failing, to make himself popular with one of the women. Uncle followed his gaze.

“I know just the lady for that boy. They deserved of each other.” Uncle raised his fingers, and two pours of whiskey were quickly set before them. “Who you with, son?”

Arthur peered at the older man as he took a sip of the whiskey. It burned down his gullet and freshened him up. San Angelo was the first town they’d ridden into after weeks spent on the range.

“I’ve seen that look before,” Uncle said, studying him. “Four walls can feel like a jail after you been out on the range with only the stars as company.”

And while Uncle did not look like a man who knew the range, Arthur found himself agreeing. “You ain’t wrong.”

Uncle nodded, calling for a second round, and Arthur was surprised to find the first one already empty. He scanned the room and found it lacking of both Dutch and Hosea. He turned to the barkeep. “You seen a pair of men head in earlier? One with black hair, and the other a blonde.”

“Oh, sure,” the barkeep said, setting a second glass down. “They said to expect you. They’re up in the first room on the left, and the woman with them is in the room next door. Said she was riding with them until she met her man out in Taos.” Arthur nodded. “Meeting a man out in Taos” was her cover, allowing Dutch and Hose to share a room while she stayed alone, or worked, as the situation called for. The barkeep continued “There’s another room, too, they said.” He paused. “I’m guessing it’s yours?”

“And his,” Arthur nodded towards John on the far end of the bar. “But it looks like he’s after his own room tonight.”

The barkeep flashed a grin. “The ladies have rooms aside. The man with the black hair said he figured it might be the case. There was another man, a Mexican, they said you’d be rooming with if the boy found himself otherwise occupied.”

Dutch knew them too well. Arthur sighed. Javier was in a corner with three ladies around him, pulling attention from John. “Not him either, seems like, “Arthur said. The barkeep laughed.

“Not him, either. And you? Think I can make the room a vacancy? Will you be finding a friend for the evening?” The man leered at Arthur.

“No,” Arthur sighed. “I don’t think I will.” He raised his glass. “Bad at women and cards. Helluva a thing, ain’t it.”

“It sure is, friend,” the barkeep agreed, topping his glass off.

“He’ll be wantin’ Abigail,’ Uncle said from beside him, bringing Arthur's attention to a young woman with dark hair and gray eyes. “They’re suited for each other. You trust me on that.”

The drinks came in quick succession after that, and Arthur found himself joining in with the fiddler in Camptown Races as the last memory of the evening before he woke up with a headache and an aversion to sunlight and two new members to the gang: a Miss Abigail Robertson and Uncle, who had settled on the name, and was not forthcoming with more.

Over the next few years, they grew in both reputation and numbers; Dutch collecting the lost souls of the West and selling them stories of freedom. And they, unloved and untethered to the trappings of civilization, formed a burgeoning family. Strauss even found them after his magical elixirs had run dry, and it turned out he had a head for numbers that Dutch found useful.

Arthur kept his eye on the horizon, always looking for Charles, and never finding him. He wrote to Mrs. Miller one spring, when the leaves were just swelling with green and the birds were joyful in the trees. He slipped in a hundred dollars, and did not leave a return address. He signed it with, “Sincerely, a friend.” It did little to soothe the unease in his soul, both for the boy, and of his departure with Charles, but he did not know how to make it right except with money.

The fourth time Charles Smith saved Arthur Morgan started off as an unremarkable day in early winter. The first snowfall was sparse in the lands of Blackwater, and a sleety rain fell in the place of a more decisive participation. Dutch was working on something by the docks, but Hosea had his own misgivings about the endeavor. So he and Arthur were working on a side hustle that Hosea thought would be more lucrative, and wouldn’t bring half the heat that Dutch’s plan would. They'd picked up a new member, Micah, with oily hair and an oilier smile, and he told Dutch "yes" when Hosea said "no". Arthur didn't know why Dutch had stopped listening to Hosea when the man hadn't guided him wrong for twenty years, but Dutch, Arthur noticed, had become less willing to hear opposition to his plans.

"I ain't guided us wrong yet, have I?" was a common refrain in their arguments.

"You haven't done it alone," Hosea would fire back.

Unhappy with the strife caused over the affair, Arthur rode west into the Great Plains. There was less noise in the lonely, open lands. A frost had settled over the hardened ground. Arthur allowed a complacency to settle over him as he eased back into the plains. He always felt more at home in the wide expanse of the western plains, and while Blackwater was the biggest town he’d been privy to for many years, the closeness of wooden facades and people unsettled him. He was not, he thought, as he explored the plains, a man suited for the civilized world. Dutch promised that this would be their last take for a while, and that they would travel west, out of the growing confines of civilization and ownership. Arthur’s trip was as much a scouting endeavor as it was an escape from Dutch’s and Hosea’s arguing, and a task he took on willingly.

He followed a plume of smoking, hoping to avail the man who made it over a cup of coffee. He’d done well at the gambling table the night prior, and had money to share with a man who might share his camp.

That he was not the only outlaw scouting the open plains was not a surprise. That he came upon O’Driscoll’s, was. By the time he realized he’d stumbled into a hive of the violent Irish gang, he was too far to turn back. He took note of the green sashes on their sides, and their numbers, and knew he was in trouble if they pegged him.

“Howdy, friends,” he said with as much kindness as he could muster. “I’m a wayward traveler and saw your plume. Thought you might share in your fire before I ride on.”

A man that Arthur did not recognize stepped forward. Colm seemed to rotate through his men in rapid succession, and Irishmen were lousy out west. The man, with dark hair and light eyes, peered at Arthur.

“Best you move on, friend,” he said in a lilting brogue.

“Sure,” Arthur agreed, wheeling his horse away. There were six of them at least, and Arthur had faced worse odds, but he was not looking for a fight. There had been enough of that back at the camp lately.

“Hey,” another man, closer to the campfire said, “Ain’t that Arthur Morgan?”

“Who?” Arthur asked through dry lips, his muscles tensing. He kept his hand on the reigns and away from his gun.

Another man stood. Arthur recognized him as Timothy Ryan, one of Colm’s trusted men and longest members. They stared at one another. Timothy knew of the long and dark history between Colm and Dutch. He carried a purple scar around his neck, they said from a hanging he’d escaped. It was hidden now beneath his long coat, but Arthur recognized him all the same.

Fuck, is what he thought. “I think you’re mistaken, friend.” Is what he said.

“I don’t think I am.” Ryan stepped forward, peering up at Arthur. Time stretched out between them. Arthur was exposed on the plains, and he’d be gunned down before he got a shot off. Ryan’s eyes shifted as another rider rode out across the desert, his eyes narrowing as the rider approached, reluctant to pull his weapon with a witness. The man grew closer, and Arthur was quick to pick out his broad features and the beaded necklace around his neck. He wanted to shout at Charles, to tell him to leave, to run away as fast as he could. But the man continued his approach. When he was ten paces off he slowed, his dark eyes assessed the gang before flickering to Arthur.

“Otis, you’re off course,” Charles said calmly, addressing Arthur. “I see you’ve found some new friends.”

Ryan’s eyes squinted at Arthur. “Otis?” He repeated in his lilt. “This ain’t Otis, this is--”

“Arthur Morgan? Sure, he gets that a lot. An uncomfortable resemblance,” Charles sighed. “It’s gotten us into a situation more than once. But Morgan has brown eyes, and as you can see, Otis’ are blue.”

Ryan, now off balance, stared first at Charles, and then back at Arthur. “I...ain’t sure that’s right.”

“Sure it is. It's Otis’ one saving grace. Morgan’s eyes are brown as grave dirt.” Charles settled over the horn of his horse, not Keesheswa, Arthur noticed, staring at Timothy Ryan. “Now you can kill this man, but if you’re wrong, well…” he trailed off. “Hate to kill an innocent man and have that on your head. Lawman might not know right away, but I’m sure they’d figured out who did it. You have that way about you.”

“There’d be no witnesses, and we have you outgunned,” Ryan said with more courage than he felt in that exact moment. There was coldness in the stranger’s eyes he’d seen before in Colm, and it never led to anything good.

“Sure,” Charles agreed. “But I think between the two of us, we might be able to do a little damage. Are the lives of your men worth a mistake?”

Timothy Ryan looked back at his men, who returned his gaze uncertainly, but ready to follow his lead. The youngest of them was 15, with a taste for blood, and the recent burgeoning knowledge of his own mortality. Ryan’s kid sister was of the same age back on the Green Isle. He sent money home as much as he could manage in the hopes his family could escape for America, or make something of themselves in Ireland. He wondered if the boy sent home to his family, too. He hesitated, looking back at Charles.

“Arthur Morgan does have brown eyes, you’re right.” He rehostlered his gun. “We have no beef with you, friends. It’s a cold day, care for some coffee and supper?”

“Appreciate the offer,” Arthur spoke for the first time since Charles arrived. “But we best be getting on.”

“Sure,” Charles said, almost simultaneously. Arthur faltered. He forced a grin. “Sure,” he agreed.

And Timothy Ryan, who still wasn’t sure over the identity of the man before him, but unwilling to let his men die killing the wrong man, poured black coffee, thick with grounds, into the provided tin cups. They shared an uneasy truce. The sun, wan in appearance, peeked out behind ice clouds and settled the plains in a cold, lemon yellow light.

“What brings you fellers here?”

“On our way to Blackwater,” Charles said. “Supposed to be good opportunities for men like us.” He took a sip of the coffee. Timothy Ryan stared into his cup, and if he wondered who men like them were, he kept it to himself. There was a brittleness about them that unsettled him. “Otis doesn’t have much sense on direction, but he’s handy and has gotten us out of more than one situation. We were prospecting, but not much luck there.”

Ryan perked up. “I’ve had a mind for prospecting, myself.” When he was in town, he'd stop by the camps and listen in, and stop by the outfitter and peruse the wares. If he could stake a claim, he'd be an honest man and send money home that wasn't stained in anybody's but his own.

“Go West. The hills around here have already been claimed,” Arthur spoke up. Ryan nodded, his shoulders releasing moderately as he convinced himself that this man, a prospector, was not Arthur Morgan. He wouldn’t have to return to Colm with the knowledge he’d supped with Arthur, and let him go.

When they were done, Charles and Arthur mounted their steeds. Having shared accommodations, Ryan, in the teachings of his parents, could not raise a weapon against these men. He fared them well.

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” he said, although he supposed none of them hoped so.

Four weeks later, he’d be among the dead in the Adler cabin, and his family would receive no more money, and that would be their only clue that something had happened to the eldest Ryan son. His youngest sister would arrive in Ellis Island two years later and spend the rest of her life trying to find, and failing, what had happened to the brother that had bounced her on his knee and sung ballads to her in his thick brogue.

But none of them knew that now.

“Maybe,” Arthur said. But when he killed Timothy Ryan weeks later, he would not take the time to see his face and know he had killed the man he had supped with on the Great Plains outside of Blackwater.

When they were safely across the plains, Blackwater looming before them, Arthur asked the question that had bothered him nearly every day since Charles had left. “Did the boy live?”

“He did,” Charles said. “He's the sheriff of Ambarino now.”

“With one arm?”

“With one arm,” Charles confirmed with a grin. “A hell of a shot, too, and fair in his justice. I spent some time with the family. He’s going to be a good man.” He paused. ‘We received your money.”

Arthur had no kindness towards the law, but a warmth settled in his heart all the same. It would be good men, and not men like Arthur Morgan, that drove the country into its new century. He was not a good man, and it would be better for the country if he didn’t see the new century.

But he wanted to, all the same. After this take, maybe he could finally settle down on the ranch Dutch always promised. He could hang his guns up.

“It’s good to see you,” Arthur started slowly, blue eyes skirting to meet Charles’, a small vulnerable smile on his face. There were years of things he wanted to say. If he was lucky, maybe there would be time to say it all. “I’m sorry we parted like we did, and for shooting that boy.”

“You were right,” Charles looked over at Arthur. “He would’ve killed me. You saved my life.”

Arthur grinned. “I’m still behind. Those O’Driscolls had my number. If it hadn’ta been for you…” he trailed off.

“Seems like you need me around,” Charles looked at Arthur out of the corner of his eyes, his lips turned up in the faintest smile.

Arthur eyed Charles slyly. The thing that had died in his chest years ago rose up from the ashes of neglect and began to flutter. “So will you join us?” Arthur fielded the same question he’d offered 15 years ago. Charles glanced at him, a strange light in his eyes.

“I think I will.”

Arthur smiled broadly. “I’ll introduce you to the gang. We found Strauss. He sort of,” Arthur waved his hand dismissively. “Joined us.”

“Did you now? The family sent several letters, but they were always returned to sender.”

“I don’t think he’s the man Otis Miller had hoped he would be. It’s probably for the best.”

“Probably,” Charles agreed.

They rode together towards Blackwater, Arthur feeling a lift in his soul he hadn’t felt in a long time.

In years.

Since Charles left with the boy bleeding out.

When he introduced Charles to Dutch and Hosea later, Hosea gave him an approving look after glancing at Arthur. He clasped his hand around Charles’ when it was proffered.

“Welcome, Charles. We’ve been waiting for you a long time,” Hosea said warmly before pulling him into a brace after Dutch’s pontification about the morals and convictions of the gang was done. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He dropped his voice, speaking into Charles’ ear. “Take care of my boy.”

Charles whispered back, “If not me, then who.”

Hosea laughed as he pulled away, his blue eyes twinkling.

And after twenty years of searching, Charles realized he’d finally come home.