Chapter Text
Arthur should have told Dutch to shove it when he asked him to work for Strauss. That’s all he could think about as he rode out from camp with the list: Lilly Millet, Chick Matthews, Mr. Wróbel. And of course, if Arthur didn’t mind taking such a long trip away from Valentine, there was an old veteran named Hamish Sinclair who lived in a cabin along O’Creagh’s Run.
So far, getting folk to pay up had been a hassle. By the time Arthur crested the mountains around O’Creagh’s Run, a purple bruise had blossomed on his cheek and his hands burned slightly from the jolt of the lasso yanking the runaway debtor off his horse. He imagined that this next debtor would just put a bullet in him for knocking on the door, seeing how the day had been going.
Even the sight of the lake did little to improve his mood. The memory of camping under the stars and almost getting eaten by a bear would soon be tainted by Strauss’ ugly business. He spotted the cabin easily enough, vaguely remembering it sitting on the eastern shore. A horse grazed just off from the porch, a gorgeous cremello Warmblood, and Arthur couldn’t help but give him a few pats before knocking on the door.
“It’s open!” the muffled voice called from inside.
Arthur straightened his back and puffed out his chest. He pushed the door open fast, marching up to the man. “Hamish Sinclair?” he said.
Hamish raised his eyebrows at him. “Yeah, what do you want?”
“You borrowed money from Leopold Strauss,” Arthur growled.
“Oh!” Hamish said. Arthur curled his hand into a fist, getting ready. “I have that right here. Just give me a second.”
Arthur blinked, and his arms dropped just a fraction of an inch. Hamish hoisted himself up on one leg and a crutch and reached for a lockbox on top of his cabinet.
“Sorry you had to come all this way out here,” Hamish said, not noticing Arthur’s changing stance. “I told that Strauss feller I’d be back in Valentine at the end of the month, but he wasn’t willing to renegotiate the terms.”
“Oh, well, I’ll be sure to thank him for that,” Arthur said awkwardly. “It’s a pretty enough ride, though, and I knew where to go.”
“You from around here, mister…”
“Uh, Arthur,” he said. “And no, but a friend and I hunted a bear up this way.”
“Oh, you mean that big, scarred bastard?” Hamish asked, counting out the bills. “How’d you get on?”
“Ah, he nearly ate me,” Arthur laughed, before he frowned. He was here to collect a damn debt, not make friends!
“Yeah, well, near the same with me,” said Hamish. “I took his eye, and…”
He gestured to his leg, and Arthur’s eyes went wide.
“Oh, I’m joking!” Hamish said. “He would have, if I hadn’t lost the leg in the war. Put his teeth in the false one and spit it out. Still got the marks on it. And, there you go. Should be the right amount.”
He handed the money to Arthur, and Arthur felt wrong counting it. “Well, uh, thank you,” he stammered.
“You’re not used to folk having the money, are you?” Hamish said. “No offense, but you looked like you were ready for a fight.”
“This has been the easiest debt I’ve collected today,” Arthur admitted.
“Yeah, I see that shiner,” Hamish said. “One of Strauss’ clients do that?”
“The boyfriend of one,” Arthur said.
“Yeah, well, loans like that ain’t easy to pay back if you need them in the first place,” Hamish said.
“You did just fine,” Arthur said, and immediately regretted it. He couldn’t deny what Strauss’ business was.
“That’s a story,” Hamish said. “You want coffee?”
“Nah, I’m fine,” Arthur said. “Don’t want to impose.”
“Hey, it’s not a problem. I’m offering,” Hamish said. “Why don’t you sit a spell? It’s a long ride out here, I’m sure you could use a few minutes to relax.”
“Okay,” Arthur said, and he didn’t refuse the cup of coffee Hamish set in front of him.
“Well, the whole loan is all Buell’s fault.”
“Buell?” Arthur asked.
“That bastard of a horse out there,” Hamish said, gesturing out the window at the Warmblood. “We were in Valentine, a little late this year because of that big storm that blew over the mountains.”
“I remember,” Arthur said. “Got caught up in it myself.”
“Yeah, not a good time for snow when you’re running short on supplies,” said Hamish. “Anyway, we’re riding down the main street when Buell starts kicking up a fuss. Bucked me off straight into the mud, screaming and hollering like he’s dying. And Amos Levi, you know he runs a good stable, but he’s not too fond of treating Buell on account of him kicking his leg that one time. So, he’ll only do it if Buell is drugged. It’s expensive, though. I didn’t have the cash for it on hand, not with all the other supplies I needed, and most places in Valentine aren’t willing to give credit on account of my being a loner in the woods.”
“Well, that ain’t right,” Arthur said.
Hamish shrugged. “I see their point. I don’t come through town that often and I live in another state. But Strauss didn’t mind, though maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to borrow. You want to know what old Buell out there was making such a damn fuss about?”
“What?”
“A fly bit him in the ass!”
Arthur laughed so hard that coffee sloshed out of the cup and onto his hands. “Ah, shit!” he said. “Well, at least he knows you care about him.”
“On that, I’m not too sure,” Hamish said with a grin. “Well, I suppose you can’t take it with you. Might as well throw some money away on Buell.”
“Oh, the amount of money I’ve spent on horses over the years…” Arthur said, shaking his head.
“You had that one long?”
Arthur gazed out the window at the mahogany bay Tennesee Walker outside. “No, I just got him, actually. I’ve been calling him Waverley.”
“You like Scott?”
“I’ve read him,” Arthur said. “He’s okay. I guess the name just stuck with me.”
Arthur kept Waverley and Brutus, the giant Shire that Hosea gave him. Both horses would do, for the moment. He wasn’t sure how he felt about them yet.
“So, debt collecting?” Hamish asked.
Arthur sighed. “It’s not my… normal profession,” he said. “A friend of mine asked me to do Strauss a favor. The feller who used to work with him, Davey, he passed away not too long ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hamish said.
“Yeah, he was a good friend, too.”
Hamish raised his coffee in a toast, and Arthur took a sip of his own.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t be bothering you with all this. Especially seeing as I’m taking your money.”
“Hey, it’s no problem,” Hamish said. “I don’t mind talking.”
“I should be heading back, actually,” Arthur said, draining his cup of coffee.
“I understand. It’s a bit of a ride to Valentine,” Hamish said. “Do you like fishing? You can come with me some day. I know some pretty good spots. Hell, it’s nice right outside my door.”
“I’m a poor fisherman,” Arthur said.
“Yeah, well, I’m great, so between the two of us we’d do okay,” Hamish said, sending him a warm and inviting smile. “I certainly don’t mind the company.”
“Well, uh, I’ll think about it,” Arthur said. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Anytime.”
“How’d you get on, Herr Morgan?”
Arthur stuffed the debts into the box and wrote the amounts into the ledger. He paused over Hamish’s name. The man was not what he expected when he set out to collect from him.
“Got a start on things,” he said. “I haven’t made it out to Painted Sky.”
“Good, very good.”
“My pleasure,” Arthur said automatically, heading over to the stew pot.
“Well, if it’s pleasure you’re after, there is one other. This farmer, preacher, fellow who I met in Valentine. Mr. Downes.”
Arthur tasted a bit of Pearson’s stew before throwing the ladle down in disgust. Shit, why couldn’t Pearson add some flavoring? “The opinionated little do-gooder?”
That guy had to take out a loan?
Hamish’s words about Strauss’ loans came to mind all of a sudden, how they weren’t easy to pay back. Arthur wondered if Downes was lying about the charity to raise money for his debts. He seemed well-liked and trusted in town, but Arthur of all people knew what a good man would do when he was desperate.
Suddenly, it was more than Pearson’s stew that was turning his stomach.
“Listen, Strauss, I’ve been sort of busy lately,” Arthur said. “Maybe someone else can handle it.”
“It’s just… we lent him a great deal of money,” Strauss said.
“And I get that, but the thing is-”
“Arthur!” Dutch called. “What’s going on?”
Arthur sighed. He knew what Dutch was going to say about all of it. “Just did some debt collecting for Strauss,” Arthur said. “Thought someone else might be able to handle the rest of it.”
“Arthur, I asked you to help Herr Strauss,” Dutch said.
“I know, Dutch, but Hosea wants me to check out Emerald Ranch with him. I got a lead on some bounty hunting in Valentine, too,” Arthur said. “Now that Sean is back, we got a whole camp of fools hanging around who can go knock down a few doors. I did the far away ones.”
“Well, I suppose…” Dutch started saying.
“Besides, you know this place, I’m sure there will be a crisis to solve sooner or later,” Arthur joked.
“Now, son, I think you need to have more faith in these people.”
Almost as if on cue, Lenny came riding into camp shouting about Micah.
“…and the next morning, I wake up in a jail cell with no idea what I did to end up there!”
Hamish burst out laughing, losing his grip on the rowboat they were trying to put in the water. “And Lenny?”
“Oh, he was there, too,” Arthur said. “Hungover as hell, lost his guts on the porch as soon as we walked out.”
After his night of drinking with Lenny, Arthur decided to take Hamish up on his offer of fishing. It wasn’t that he was avoiding rescuing Micah. No, no way. It was on his list of things to do. He just thought the man should sit in jail for a few days to learn his lesson, first.
“Alright, first boating of the season. Let’s hope we haven’t missed any holes in the hull,” Hamish joked, hopping in the back. “You mind rowing?”
“Sure.”
“We have to see if the Tyrant made it through the winter.”
“The Tyrant?” Arthur asked.
“Mean as hell northern pike,” Hamish said, his eyes hardening as he gazed out over the lake. “Eats everything that spawns around here, his own kind included. I’ve been after him for years.”
“What’s our bait then, a jack or something?”
“Hell, no. He’s a clever bastard. I have some lures we can try, but there’s no guarantee.”
Hamish handed Arthur a large, shiny lure with feathers and twine. Arthur tilted it up to the light, watching a rainbow effect flow over the outside. “They are pretty,” he said, whistling in appreciation.
“And yet, the Tyrant won’t bite. It’s like he knows,” Hamish joked. “Go on, take us towards that island over there.”
Arthur took them into deeper water.
“He don’t stay too far away from me, that Tyrant. Wants me to know whose lake it is.”
“Well, we’ll show him who’s boss,” Arthur said.
Hamish laughed. “Oh, the optimism of youth!”
They stood up and cast into the clear water. Despite Hamish’s exaggeration that the Tyrant ate everything, Arthur could see some decent salmon swimming around.
“You do much fishing with a lure?” Hamish asked.
“Not really,” Arthur said.
“Well, you want to keep them moving on the water, nice and steady,” Hamish said.
Arthur started to turn the reel. He vaguely remembered Hosea giving him the same advice years ago.
“You can go a little faster,” Hamish said, showing off his own moves for Arthur to copy. “Maybe give it a little flick now and then. That’s it, just like that.”
To Arthur’s surprise, he soon felt a nibble.
“I think I got one!” Arthur said, yanking back on the line.
“Is it big? Is it the Tyrant?” Hamish asked.
“I don’t think it’s too big,” Arthur said. The fish struggled, flopping around in the water, then went limp for a moment.
“Nah, it’s not the Tyrant,” Hamish said. “You’d be fighting with him. Still, we might get something fresh for dinner! Bring him in.”
Hamish briefly abandoned his own rod to watch Arthur and offer advice. Slowly and steadily, Arthur brought the salmon closer to the boat.
“And you said you were bad at fishing,” Hamish laughed.
And then, out of nowhere, something tore the salmon from his line.
“What the hell was that?” Arthur asked, stumbling slightly from the pull.
“That bastard!” Hamish shouted at the water. “You want to fight, don’t yah? Come on, you Tyrant!”
“He just stole my fish!” Arthur said, dumbfounded. “Oh, I can see why you have a vendetta against this one.”
“And now he knows what the lures look like,” Hamish said, shaking his head. “I’ll have to start from scratch.”
“He’s that clever?” Arthur said.
“Oh, yes. Come on, let’s try a different spot. See if we can actually keep the fish we hook.”
The Tyrant, perhaps pleased with his victory, left them alone for the rest of their fishing. Arthur reeled in a few salmon under Hamish’s supervision. “See?” Hamish said, patting him on the shoulder. “We will make a decent fisherman out of you, yet. Let’s clean these up.”
They tied the boat back at the dock and prepared the fish for cooking. Once it was on the grill, Hamish handed Arthur a beer (“You sure you can handle it?” “Shut up!”) and sat down at the table.
“So, when you’re not working for your friend, what do you do?”
“Me?” Arthur said, almost surprised. “I’m, uh, I’m a wanderer.”
Hamish stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.
“I was born further north, but I spent a lot of time out west,” Arthur continued. “Funny, I never saw myself as a wandering man. But me and these folk, we drift from town to town looking for jobs and opportunities. We talk about settling down, sometimes, but we haven’t yet. Not sure we will ever get the chance at this point.”
Not after Blackwater.
“Do you want to settle down?” Hamish asked.
“I thought about it, sometimes,” Arthur said. “I don’t know. Can’t really imagine it, after all these years.”
“Any place ever tempt you to stay?” Hamish asked.
“Montana,” Arthur said immediately. “We stayed up there for a while last year. It was quiet. Beautiful. These mountains remind me of it, actually. But D- our leader wanted to try California, so we started heading south, got distracted, wound up this way.”
“How long have you been with them?”
“Twenty years.”
“That long? Damn! How did you meet them?”
“I kind of ended up on the streets when I was a kid,” Arthur said sheepishly. “My daddy died when I was eleven. He got caught stealing, a few times actually, but I guess he finally took something that was worth hanging a man over.”
“I’m sorry,” Hamish said.
“Don’t be. He was a rotten bastard. But I was on my own after that, my momma died when I was real little. And a lot of folk ain’t too kind to the orphan of a thief.” Arthur clenched his fingers tight around the beer bottle. “But then I met two fellers who were different from the rest. They took me in, taught me to shoot, to ride, to read even. I stayed with them ever since.”
Hamish nodded, giving him an encouraging smile. It wasn’t often Arthur opened up about his past, but he felt comfortable with Hamish.
“But enough about me,” Arthur said. “What made you choose this place?”
“You mean besides all the fishing I could ever hope for?” Hamish laughed. “After the war, I wanted to get away from it all. The memories seem to be in everywhere back east. My family, my friends, they thought things would go back to normal when I got home and started walking again, but it didn’t. So, I figured I’d keep moving west until I ran out of land and the ocean was right in front of me. But when I saw this lake, it was just perfect.”
“You build this cabin by yourself?” Arthur asked.
“I got some boys from town to help with the lifting and making sure my design wasn’t going to topple over, but I did a lot of it.”
“Can’t say I ever built a house,” Arthur said.
“As long as you get everything measured right and lined up, it’s not too bad,” said Hamish, looking up at the beams.
“Did you ever talk to your family after you moved here?” Arthur asked.
“A little. It’s just my sister now. My father died before the war from pneumonia, and my mother passed not long after my sister married. She’s got a whole brood of children now. Hell, even some of the children have children. We write each other on Christmas.”
“Does it ever get lonely up here?” Arthur asked.
“Oh, no. I got the whole of nature to keep me company,” Hamish said.
Arthur raised his bottle to that. Sure, he wandered back to gang, but he always returned to nature when he needed to relax.
It seemed like he found a kindred spirit.
“You seem chipper,” Hosea said when Arthur met him at Emerald Ranch the next day. This coming only a few minutes after chastising him for nearly scaring off Seamus, their new fence. Apparently, Arthur missed the signal that they were supposed to placate the ranch worker instead of intimidate him into cooperation. “You have a good time gallivanting?”
“You know what? I did,” Arthur said.
“Good,” Hosea said. “It’s nice to see you happy.”
“What? I’m not usually happy?” Arthur snorted.
“You are,” Hosea said. “Usually. But these last few months have been hard, on everyone of course. But don’t think I’ve ignored you.”
“Well, I know we’re more east than we intended, but there’s some nice spots out this way,” Arthur said. “I quite like the Heartlands.”
And Ambarino, of course.
“Besides,” he continued, “we’re almost back on our feet. You find a buyer for those Cornwall bonds yet?”
“Not yet,” Hosea said. “They are still pretty hot. It needs to be done right.”
“Of course.”
“But you are right about us making money. You think about buying yourself a real horse yet?”
Arthur patted Waverley on the neck. He meant to buy a different horse before his hunting trip with Hosea, but he didn’t find any he liked or could afford at the time. He kept Brutus, the giant black Shire, for the hunt, though he wasn’t sure about keeping him permanently. That horse loved Hosea and seemed to despise Arthur.
“We’ll see. Waverley ain’t too bad. Brutus is strong, at least. He can haul back twice the meat Boadicea could.”
“Not that you ever did much hunting before,” Hosea teased.
Arthur couldn’t let that go without defending himself. “Well, you always said you didn’t want shotgun pellets in your stew.”
“I’m pretty sure we’d still be breaking our teeth on buckshot if Charles hadn’t taught you different,” Hosea shot back.
Arthur smiled. “I guess if anyone can teach an old dog new tricks, it’s Charles. Maybe he can show you how to hunt a bear!”
Hosea laughed, his head tipped back as he kicked Silver Dollar forward.
They approached Carmody Dell soon, exactly where Seamus described. A young man sat on the porch, though Arthur suspected he wasn’t the owner.
“I reckon we can do it now,” Hosea said. He was always more confident about daytime robberies than Arthur. “I’ll head over, distract them by putting on a little show while you sneak into the house, find what you can, then get the stagecoach.”
“Okay,” Arthur said.
“Or, wait until nightfall. Sneak in, then I’ll get the coach. You can try the house.”
Arthur considered it for a moment, but ultimately decided, “Oh, I want to see what you’ve got, old man.”
Worst case scenario, he could intimidate a young boy and his no good father.
“Alright, then” Hosea said, stretching out his arms and getting into character, as he put it. “Don’t follow me.”
“I know, I know,” Arthur said. He quick lit a cigarette, letting the tobacco calm his nerves as Hosea walked alone towards the strangers.
“My good man! My good, young man!” Hosea called. “Fair thee well, fair thee well.”
Arthur snorted.
“Is your father home, son?”
He crushed the cigarette butt under his boot, then crept along the treeline. They’d done this routine before. Hosea attracted all occupants of the house to the porch while Arthur went in through the back door.
The front door opened. “Are you the father of the house?” Hosea asked.
“Sure.”
“Pleasure to meet you, I was just chatting with junior here a bit.”
Arthur surveyed the bedroom, clearly the son’s bedroom. Sure, a money clip sat in the chest, but he felt wrong stealing from a kid.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Robert Crawford the third, sir.”
Poor kid didn’t even have his own name. Arthur left the money clip and moved further into the house.
“I have been saved! I have been found!”
Hosea was really putting a lot of effort into this one. That’s when Arthur noticed two fireplaces in the house, one cold and the other containing roaring flames.
“I got something better, way better than church. And twice as useful. Free spinal alignment!”
Arthur reached into the chimney and found a stack of money. Well over a hundred dollars. Even if Seamus was pulling their legs about fencing for them, this trip wouldn’t be for nothing.
Hosea dragged Bob Crawford over to a table in the yard, and Arthur realized he had time to check the second floor. He found a few more dollars and some jewelry while Hosea pretended to feel Crawford’s spine.
Arthur watched for a moment, holding back a laugh, and then went to get the stagecoach. Sure, they were spotted when they drove the thing out of the barn, but it was worth it to see Hosea’s latest character. They got paid for the coach and proved themselves to Seamus, as much as it annoyed Arthur.
“So, you riding back with me?” Hosea asked.
“Nah, I should probably go and get Micah out of jail,” Arthur said. “Don’t want to get the lecture from Dutch if he hangs.”
His ears rang from all the shots, but he still heard the woman scream from when Micah entered the house. Damn fool, running into the town for his guns when they could have easily escaped, all those lives needlessly thrown away, but the woman… it reminded Arthur too much of Blackwater.
He noticed Dutch reading under a tree as soon as he got back to camp, with poor Waverley limping from a graze across his shoulder. “Oh, Arthur, come here!” he said, waving him over. “You get Micah out of jail?”
Arthur patted his horse on the shoulder. “Yeah, I got him. Listen, Dutch…”
“Well? Where is he?” Dutch asked.
Arthur scoffed. “Getting you a score as a peace offering. But I don’t think you should accept it.”
Dutch frowned and asked, “Why not?”
“Because as soon as he got out of that jail, he turned into a maniac! Killed a bunch of law, I think he killed an innocent women, too. Almost got me and Waverley killed.”
“Waverley?” Dutch said. “That’s what you called your horse? Should I be worried, Arthur?”
Suddenly, Arthur remembered why the novel had stuck in his head for so many years. Dutch hated it. He ranted about it for months after finishing it, using poor Edward Waverley as an example of disloyalty and doubt, who singlehandedly caused the downfall of the Jacobite cause. Hosea, of course, was quick to remind Dutch that he was misinterpreting events from a fictional story, but that didn’t stop Waverley’s name from being dragged through the mud in several speeches that year.
“Can we talk about Micah and not what I name my horses?” Arthur said.
“You named that Shire of yours Brutus, too. Don’t think I’m not seeing the connection!” Dutch shouted.
“Micah, Dutch! He’s a problem!”
“I’m not about to lay judgment on a man until I hear his side, Arthur,” Dutch said.
Arthur crossed his arms and huffed. Anyone else, and Dutch would have taken Arthur at his word. Was this really all because Micah saved Dutch’s life in a bar? Arthur had saved Dutch’s life plenty of times.
“Well, when Micah causes the next disaster, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Arthur said.
“Perhaps you should try to get to know him?”
Arthur just shook his head. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to take care of a bullet wound on my horse.”
“Alright, Arthur.”
Arthur gathered supplies from the medical wagon and made his way back to Waverley. Kieran approached him soon after with some ointments that would help the horse, and Arthur thanked him.
As strange as it was to have an O’Driscoll in camp, Kieran really did a fine job with the horses.
“Hey, Arthur, you busy?” John asked.
“A little,” Arthur said, gesturing to Waverley. “Why?”
“Uncle told me something about a train.”
Between the train robbery, tracking down Micah again, and of course the letter from Mary that threw Arthur into a confusing mess of emotions, Arthur didn’t get back to Hamish’s cabin for a while.
“Arthur! Good to see you!” Hamish said when he answered the door. “Come on in.”
“Meant to visit sooner,” Arthur said. “But, uh, you said we could go for a hunt?”
“Sure!” Hamish said. “I think I remember a few decent spots. There’s this moose up in Roanoke Ridge, pure white that thing is, according to other hunters in the area.”
“That so,” Arthur said, vaguely remembering the reference on his, well technically Hosea’s, stolen map.
“Yeah, it’s not too far from here. And if we can’t find it, there’ a nice river full of muskies we can wrangle for dinner.”
“Okay!” Arthur said. “Let’s go!”
Hamish grabbed his saddlebags and followed Arthur out the front door. “Now, who do we have here?” he asked, looking at the large gray mare. “First you had that Walker, and you mentioned a bastard Shire, but this is…”
“A Hungarian Halfbred,” Arthur said. "I named her Artemis.”
“Ah, the goddess of the hunt!”
“Yep,” Arthur said. “Got her while bounty hunting.”
“You weren’t kidding about working odd jobs,” Hamish said.
“It’s not something I like doing often,” Arthur said. “But this feller… he was selling snake oil that was killing folk, so I figured why not bring him in? He was worth fifty.”
“And you got a pretty nice horse,” Hamish added, loading his supplies onto Buell. “Are you replacing your Walker, or what?”
“No, not yet,” Arthur said. Artemis nudged him with her giant head, and he rubbed her forehead. “He’s a bit lame right now, and honestly I don’t know what I’m doing with him. Only had him for a few weeks. Boadicea, I had her for years, died not too long ago. Hard to replace them, you know?”
Yet another thing Blackwater cost them, one he didn’t have time to properly grieve yet. Boadicea went down with a bullet in her neck, and Arthur only had a brief moment to comfort her before he had to put her down and move. He only had one of her horseshoes left, one she threw years ago right before a stagecoach robbery that Dutch bemoaned the loss of, only to later find out the whole thing had been a setup. Hosea told him to keep the horseshoe, jokingly calling it a good luck charm.
Now, if only the Count or Baylock had thrown a shoe right before the ferry robbery.
“Oh, I hear you,” Hamish said, patting Buell on the neck, before covering his ears with a light press of his palms. “As much as I like to talk otherwise, I’d miss this big bastard if anything happened to him.”
Buell snorted and tossed his head, dislodging Hamish’s hands.
“You’ll find one you like. Just give it some time,” Hamish said.
“Or I’ll just keep collecting them,” Arthur said.
“That works, too!”
They wound their way into Roanoke Ridge, pausing to appreciate Brandywine Drop. As strange a place as Roanoke Ridge was, and dangerous given the gangs hiding in the hills, Arthur enjoyed the beauty of it.
The cougars, though… that Arthur didn’t enjoy.
When the cougar stalking them pounced from the bushes, Buell threw Hamish almost straight at it. Arthur had a few more seconds to raise his rifle and pull the trigger before Artemis did the same to him.
“Well, I’m glad you got your gun up in time,” Hamish said, letting his head fall back into the dirt. “That is not the way I want to go. Bastard cougars.”
“You alright?” Arthur asked, dusting himself off.
“Buell’s got my leg with him,” Hamish said, but he laughed it off. “Not the first time that’s happened.”
“I’ll go see if I can find him,” Arthur said.
He whistled, and Artemis trotted over, staring wide-eyed at the dead cat sprawled out in the leaves.
“Yes, it’s dead, girl, easy now,” Arthur said, patting her neck. “Now, let’s see if we can track down your new friend.”
“I’ll start dressing this feller,” said Hamish. “Might as well make myself useful. You might be a while.”
“Oh, he can’t have gotten that far, could he?” Arthur asked.
“You’d be surprised!”
Fortunately, not too many horses had come through the path in the last day, so Arthur could easily track Buell’s desperate gallop up the hill and through the trees. He found the Dutch Warmblood grazing along the river near a homestead like nothing ever happened, pretty close to where the map claimed the moose would be.
“Well, at least one of us made it to our destination,” Arthur called to him. “You left your man behind, though. Come on, let’s get you back to him.”
Buell snorted and reluctantly followed.
“I don’t much like cougars either,” Arthur said. “But if you are going to run, can you do Hamish a favor and take him with you?”
A couple walking in the forest gave Arthur an odd look as he passed.
“Just collecting a runaway horse,” he said to them. “Now, Buell, you are making folk stare.”
Buell gave a full body shake and kept walking.
“Got your horse,” Arthur said when he returned to Hamish.
“And I got you a nice pelt!” Hamish said. “Trade you for that leg?”
Arthur smirked as he handed it over. “Don’t know if this is a fair trade.”
Hamish just laughed as he pulled the wooden leg back on and hauled himself up. “Cheeky kid. Well, not the game we were going for but still an interesting hunt.”
“Yeah, I love getting hunted.”
“I’m wondering if we’ll find that moose, though,” Hamish said. “Big cats and us hollering might have scared it off. Plus, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to have some bruises tomorrow.”
“Sounds about right,” Arthur agreed.
“We can go after this moose another day,” Hamish said. “So long as no one gets to him first.”
“Albino animals do stand out, unfortunately,” said Arthur.
“I used to have this map,” Hamish said. “Marked out all the places I’d heard of big, rare animals. I had a plan to go around and try to track them down, but earlier this year in Valentine, I lost the damn thing! Now I sort of remember where some of them were supposed to be, but not all of them!”
Hamish tilted his head back towards the sky with a wistful look, unaware of Arthur’s jaw dropping behind him.
“You mean this map?”
He pulled the map Hosea stole, apparently from Hamish, out of his satchel. Hamish’s eyes lit up as soon as he saw it.
“No way! Where did you get this?”
“A friend of mine, uh, must have picked it up. Said he found it in a bar.” Arthur’s voice caught a little in his throat, and he couldn’t meet Hamish’s eyes. “We tried going after the bear because of it.”
“Wow! I never thought I’d see this again!” Hamish said. “You crossed out the buck in Big Valley. Did you get it?”
“Uh, yeah, sorry,” Arthur said.
“Oh, don’t be. Did he give you a hard time tracking?”
“A bit, I guess,” Arthur said. “I’m sorry.”
Hamish gave him an odd look. “Hey, you don’t have to be sorry. I don’t mind, really.”
But of course Arthur had to be sorry. Hamish still thought he’d lost the map by accident. He didn’t know Arthur’s gang stole it from him. First the debt, with Strauss’ horrible rates that Arthur was learning more and more about whenever he caught a glance at the ledger book, and now the chance to go after that buck was gone, too. Honestly, Arthur didn’t know what he expected, befriending a man the gang had targeted twice already.
“I, uh, thanks for the hunt,” Arthur said. “But I should be heading out.”
“It’s a long ride,” Hamish said. “You can stay the night at my place.”
“No, I should go,” Arthur said. The path split just ahead, and though the lower route towards the river would take longer, Arthur couldn’t stand to have Hamish looking at him like that anymore.
“Oh, well, I hope you’ll stop by again soon,” Hamish said. “I really do like your company, kid, and I still owe you a moose hunt.”
“Yeah, uh, I’ll be back,” he quickly said, then turned Artemis down the path before his guilt completely overwhelmed him.
He wondered if he should tell Hamish the truth. Explain himself, about the gang, who Strauss was. Let Hamish know that while it had been fun, it was for the best if they parted ways. He liked the man enough not to disappear on him.
Unfortunately, by the time Arthur came to the decision about that, John happened to need him for a job wrangling sheep. Between the shootout, the desperate escape, and the journey south, Arthur didn’t see Hamish again for a long time.