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You find Lyle fucking Morgan's kid near some backwater hick town. It's not a good start to the day.
The facts are as follows:
You and Dutch rob a postal office, take off with a pretty decent haul of about a hundred dollars, lie low a few towns over in a saloon with rental rooms upstairs. Over dinner, you see this skinny little figure in your peripherals, but in a momentarily lapse of judgement you don't really consider him. You also don't notice the money is gone until the two of you make your way upstairs, and Dutch lets out a real loud son of a bitch at the sight of his empty bag.
It's almost midnight, but time doesn't stop Dutch van der Linde's warpath. It never has.
It's this sort of determination that's helped you get as far as you have, though, and it comes in handy yet again because you find the kid a couple of hours later holed up in a dilapidated building not too far away. He's not even really hiding in it, because the damn thing is clearly what's left of something that's been burnt to the ground long ago. But he's there all the same, sleeping facedown under ratty blankets that are bundled up on charred floorboards, thin enough to read a newspaper through. Next to that is a wooden crate atop which sits what looks to be all of his worldly possessions: an empty kerosene lamp, a satchel, an opened can of beans, and—
"Jesus fucking christ!" Dutch shouts. Now the kid is awake and sits up, brown hair wild and untamed, eyes wide like a spooked deer, hand fumbling under his pillow. He's not quick enough though, and you end up moving forward and pressing your boot down hard on his wrist. He screams terribly, and you would almost feel bad for him if you weren't here to reclaim what he'd stolen off you in the first place.
"Dutch, what is it?"
But you don't need to hear him go any further. There is an animal carcass on the ground, something which might have been a lamb once, but it's been so violently disfigured that you can't even tell. Dutch is standing on a piece of its body where the flesh has been peeled back as though someone has made a botched attempt at trying to skin it. The kid is wriggling beneath you and cursing like it means something.
"I'm going to let you go on the condition that you give us that money", you say lowly. "You can manage that, can't you?"
He nods steadily, not letting the tears fall from his eyes. You've got to admit it, he's brave. Stupid, but brave. The two often go hand in hand, you suppose.
The boy — it dawns on you that he can't be any older than fourteen — gets up slowly once you release him and roots through his satchel, still on the floor, all quiet and deliberate now that Dutch has wiped the muck off his boot and gotten a gun pointed on him. Now he's handing you a stack of bills, staring at you like he wants to kill you. The feeling is becoming mutual.
"Come on, Hosea." Still he's got that thing pointed on the boy, even though it's not like either of them are going to do anything. The kid really would be stupid to attack him now, and Dutch, for as terrible as he can be, wouldn't ever kill a child. At worst he'd just fire a warning shot. So you turn away, relieved and ready to head on back to that town and get some sleep.
Until the sonuvabitch hurls a fucking can at your head.
It's empty at least, but goddamn does it hurt, and you don't even get the chance to totally react to your pain before he's rushed up behind you and reached into your pocket for the money, nimble enough that he feels lighter than air, like a force of nature in the form of a rabid hellspawn. Amidst the chaos he manages to run off and nearly gets to your horse outside the building, before he turns back around and charges towards Dutch.
Dutch, who is holding the boy's satchel that had been left behind. Who delivers the most earth-cracking smack to his face. The kid crumbles to the ground like a rag doll. In the silence that follows, you deflate a little, rubbing the back of your head, trying to make sense of it all. He whimpers and attempts to get on his feet, but Dutch shoots the ground right in front of him. A red hot flash of splintered wood bursts upwards as the kid covers his face.
"That's enough", you snap. You don't need to see Dutch's face to know that he's rolling his eyes, but nonetheless he lowers the gun. "We don't want to kill him."
"The little shit attacked you, Hosea."
"He threw a goddamn tin at me. I've taken far worse abuse than that."
How right that is. The kid dares not to move, save for his laboured breathing. He's feral, clearly. Like a fucking demon. He's got moxie, though. You've known him for about three minutes, and even you can see that he'd do anything to survive, even if his version of survival verges on stupidity.
"What's your name, son?" And now Dutch has entered your field of vision, now the two of them are staring at you like this is insensible. Which it is.
"James." He has a timid voice. It's unnaturally high, has a bit of a southern twang.
"Where are your parents, James?"
"Don't got none."
"Everyone's got parents, at some point or another."
He looks down, visibly uncomfortable. "They're dead. Momma got real sick and died a few years back. Daddy did the same."
You almost accept this, but then Dutch pulls something out of the kid's satchel, and cuts in, "What's Lyle Morgan doing in your bag?"
Sure enough, he's holding a photo — a mugshot, actually — of Lyle Morgan. You know him, vaguely. Heard stories of him burning down homesteads and killing families for money. Even you think he's a rat bastard, and it's physically apparent in this photo too, just how skinny and actually rat-like he looks. Looks a lot like the kid, as a matter of fact.
"Christ almighty", you mumble. A man like Morgan with a son. You can only imagine how that would've gone down. "Your daddy got hung in Chesapeake a few months back, James. It's all anyone could talk about for weeks."
“I know. I was there.”
”Thought you said he got sick.”
”What’s it matter? He’s dead all the same, ain’t he.”
“What matters is my friend and I don’t take kindly to liars. We don’t take kindly to children who rob and attack us either, so you can see why you telling fibs as well might put you in more of a detrimental position, James.”
The boy’s brow furrows like he doesn’t know what ‘detrimental’ means, and then his confusion is replaced with a frown. “My name’s Arthur. Not James.”
”Arthur”, you muse. You look around at his hideout, and you don't know why you say this, because you shouldn’t care less about this little shit, but you find yourself telling him, "You shouldn't be staying in a place like this. You'll freeze to death eventually."
"Yeah, well I ain't exactly able to afford a goddamn hotel, mister."
"Anything's better than this, though. It doesn't even have walls. D'ya know how to set up a tent?"
“Can’t say I do.”
”Would you like to learn how?”
Dutch hates you.
He has a tendency to do this: hate you, even though it never really means anything. It’s not a consistent hatred either, it’s something that only appears in short bursts when you’ve really done something wrong. Or something to give him the shits, at least. Example: taking in Lyle Morgan’s violent bastard orphan is not necessarily a wrong thing. It’s more of a give Dutch the shits thing.
This boy probably hates you even more. He doesn’t speak much on the ride back (he’s with you on your horse, with Dutch trailing closely behind because he doesn’t trust the kid not to attack you again, even though he confiscated his knife), and he says even less at the saloon. When he finally goes to sleep on the floor on the makeshift bed of blankets he took from the burnt out house — you’d watched him fall asleep, for some strange reason, like a paternal instinct had clawed it’s way out of the recesses of your stomach — Dutch grabs your arm and pins it down.
”What the hell is wrong with you?” he hisses. When he does things like this it makes him look a lot less human. You’re older than him, stronger too, but you keep your composure as not to antagonise him. “What are we going to do with a brat like that? We can’t afford to take care of another person, especially Lyle Morgan's bastard orphan who we hate.”
“Seems to me like he was taking care of himself pretty decently until we found him.”
“You said it yourself, he would have died from the cold eventually. Either that or he’ll get sick from his terrible butchering skills.”
”Which is why he needs us. He’s smart enough, but if he wants to stay alive he’ll need to sharpen up. He’s not a bad thief either, just needs more practice.”
”I can’t believe what I’m hearing. So you want to take care of some boy and teach him how to get better at stealing? You know, the thing he tried to do to us? You’ve lost it, Matthews.”
Maybe. Maybe you lost it a long time ago. Maybe the kid means more than any of you, said kid included, can comprehend.
“I’ve got a plan”, you say vaguely. “I just don’t totally know it yet. But you’re going to have to trust me.”
Dutch lets go of you and just falls back onto the bed with his hands covering his face.
You don’t know why you bothered to fight so hard to convince the kid to stay or Dutch to actually let this happen, because Arthur runs away later that morning before the sun even rises. Despite the fact that he'd gotten an insulated room to spend the night in, he’s still gone by the time you wake up, just in time to hear another loud son of a bitch! Now you’re probably going to have to kill him. It’s your fault for being foolish, for thinking this was a good idea. Now you’re down $100 yet again, and Dutch is going to be in the worst mood—
“Hosea. He didn’t take the money.”
You’re barely awake when you're searching through Dutch’s bag. He’s right, it’s all there. The kid’s gone and taken all of his own belongings too.
Stupid. He’s definitely stupid. And so are you, for doing what you’re about to do.
It doesn’t take long to locate him. He’s back where you found him last night, only this time he's awake and alert, and the knife isn't under his pillow. You can see his knuckles going white around the handle as you hitch your horse and approach him, sans Dutch. He's back in town, probably on the verge of a breakdown, which is why it seemed like a better idea to go to Arthur alone this time.
"I'm not going to hurt you." This is a truth.
"Jus' stay away from me, mister, or I'll kill you." This is a lie, or perhaps a delusion. Arthur is shaking too much, and for as feral as he may be, he's still just a kid who probably wouldn't stand much of a chance against a grown man anyway. For other reasons, this thought makes you feel sick.
"Why did you leave? I'd say you got a pretty good outcome for robbing two fellas."
"I don't need your help", he rasps, like he hasn't had water for a while. Fool. Should've offered him some at the saloon. But you were tired, and Dutch was angry, and the boy looked like he was going to collapse from exhaustion as it was. There are a lot of things you should've done, then and further back, and it's left a trail of regrets in its wake, but now you have the chance to do something decent. And you know that if you don't grab onto this opportunity, you'll spend the rest of your life wishing you had tried a lot harder.
"We all need help, son. Especially a kid like you, out here on his own."
"Don't call me son, and I'm not a kid either", he says, and his voice goes high with insecurity at the end. "What do you even want with me? Build a damn tent, like you're my father? Will that get you to leave me alone?"
"I'm not trying to be your father." Then what are you trying to do?
"'Cos I don't need another one of those. They just leave in the end, anyhow."
Something shifts. The air feels thick all of a sudden, heavy. You've got that awful feeling in your stomach again, the one that climbs up through your chest and throat like vines, like a disease. It's like seeing a man die, and god knows you've seen that happen in so many ways, the moment of fear that has to quickly turn into clarity before you end up dead yourself. Arthur is watching you with eyes that seem too big for his head. He's skinny, is what you think. Even fully covered by the patched up union suit, you can see his hipbones poke out beneath the fabric, a glimpse of his clavicle near the top three undone buttons.
"I don't want to be your dad", you say again, calmer this time, all gentle. "I just want to help. I think you're a good person."
He snorts, but you insist, "Really, I do. You could've robbed us again, but you didn't."
"I just didn't want you coming after me. Look how that turned out." He raises the knife for a moment, still shivering, still afraid. "How do I know you're a good person?"
"You don't. The fact that I haven't killed you by now should be enough proof that I'm decent, but you don't know for sure. It's a risk you're gonna have to take."
It's a pretty lousy way of convincing him to go with you. Still, he lowers the knife completely now so its at his side, and that's all you need to know. You can't help but smile at him. He doesn't smile back, but he packs his things anyway, chucks on a jacket that's too big for him and a hat that you recognise from Lyle Morgan's mugshot. He's compliant when you lift him up and put him on your horse, and on the ride back to town, you feel his arms wrap tighter around your midsection, his face bury into your back as if trying to find away to fight the morning breeze. Easing into a trot as you approach the main street, he says something for the first time in a while. "You're not gonna do anything weird to me, are you?"
It takes you a few seconds to understand what he means, but when it does hit you, you feel disgusted that he would even suggest it, and horrified that this is something he has to be afraid of. But the world is full of bad people of varying degrees, after all.
"Of course I'm not." A pause. "Has— has that ever happened to you?"
"No, but I'm just tryna be careful. Knew a girl once whose daddy used to do it to her and her sisters. She didn't like to talk a whole lot."
"Did, um. Did your father used to—"
"I said no", he snaps. "But if either of you hurt me again, I'll stab ya."
You think of the bruise on his wrist, all red and purple against his pallid skin. There isn't a mark on his face, but that doesn't mean what Dutch did didn't happen. "I'm sorry about your wrist and face. My friend and I can be quite the pair of brutes at times."
"Sorry for chuckin' a can at your head."
"Guess we got off to a bad start, huh?"
He doesn't respond. You hitch your horse outside of the saloon, lift him off, and place a hand on his shoulder, pretend that he doesn't flinch like it's an innate reaction to do so. "I need you to promise me something."
"What?"
"I can't have you running off again. For starters, it'll make me look like an idiot in front of Dutch— you know, my friend. But as well as that, if you leave, I'm not going to come after you. That clear?"
"Sounds like I'm more trouble than I'm worth, mister."
His eyes go downcast, and you follow them, and there it is. That's when it clicks. You suddenly wish his daddy wasn't dead, just so you could kill him yourself. You wish this boy didn't have to hold all the pain that he does, that he could just be free of it and live a life that he deserves. You know you can't give him that— safety, normalcy — but you can do something else for him. The two of you just need to find it.
"I think you're worth anything, Arthur."
Arthur looks up and starts doing something funny with his lips. He smiles like it's a foreign concept. Dutch is going to kill you for this.