Chapter Text
He received the telegram earlier that week, not even reaching fifteen words. A small, thin, rectangle of a card with neat printer ink and a black border. It was from John, as all his telegrams were. Short snippets, they were. Quick updates to let Charles know that he was still alive, that his wife and son were ok, that they hadn’t had any trouble with their disagreeable neighbors; though, disagreeable might not be the best word for them. The townspeople call them ‘The Skinner Brothers’. Charles calls them animals. Deranged and violent in a way that only people could be.
He thinks back, remembering what they did to Uncle, back raw and red and bleeding from fire a bit too close. Soot rested on his shoulders and in the back of his hair. Charles was sure they would find him dead; he turned to John to warn him of such, that maybe if it was bad enough, mercy would be best, but that old man has never been one to comply with expectations. Charles had expected him to be dead already, long before the Skinners and long before the eight years went by, but Charles saw him and John that day in Saint Denis looking for him. His expectations from then onward fell right through his fingers and onto the cobbled streets of that dreadful city, never to be picked back up again. Now, for example, he finds himself on horseback, packed for the long journey west, back to John’s house down at Beecher's Hope, disagreeable neighbors, defied expectations and all. The telegram weighs heavy in his pocket.
“Come as soon as able. Stop. Urgent. Stop. It’s about Arthur. Stop.”
Arthur. Arthur Morgan, the best and bravest person Charles ever knew. He was rough, quick witted with an even quicker draw. Charles would never forget the first time he saw him lay out five men in the time it took him to blink. He was ruthless, big, and terrifying, but he was also so very human. Charles would catch him on multiple accounts cooing at his horse, Kassim, like she were a child. He would let Jack, oh little baby Marston - no older than four, braid his hair with flowers he found by the river. He would sit and play dominoes with Tilly, of which he never won, not even once, yet every time he would accept her challenge to play. The men of the camp all looked up to him, most of them anyway. Sean and Lenny always tried to get a rise out of him, like two younger siblings, badgering him with jobs they could go on and ideas they had.
They would sit around the campfire, sometimes with Javier (and Charles' lungs throb with the thought. He rather liked Javier. He respected his strength, his loyalty, his humor. He was, more often than not, appreciative of the soft and gentle music he would play around the campfire, nimble fingers strumming the wound strings of a worn guitar. He'll miss those songs. He can't even remember the pitch or the tune or the words but he'll miss them anyway), mostly with Tilly and John. They would crowd him, swiping at his hat or bullying him into showing them his journal, which he never did comply. He would laugh and smack them over the head, but not Tilly. Never Tilly, more his little sister than not; all the women were. They would hang off his arms and tell him about their days, gossiping and laughing like an older brother with his rowdy younger sisters while they all sat and did laundry.
Charles cherishes the little nuances. Small details that should have been lost in the thick of it - the bigger picture. Sean was missing a tooth, one of the front ones on the top. He would laugh, big and loud and showy, but when he would really laugh, he would wire his jaw shut, clamping his teeth as he struggled to breath through his spasming lungs filled with humor, and the small gap in his smile would whistle.
Kieran was unmatched with a rifle, Arthur (oh, Arthur), told Charles as much. When things got particularly messy at Six Point Cabin, the man had jumped in after taking a gun off of one of the dead, and he didn't miss. It's a wonder how he hit every target, Charles had thought, seeing how his hands shook with every moment he was with the gang.
Lenny liked rococo art and old literature, Hosea made the best poultice and teas and wanted the best for anyone who cared enough to try, and Molly - well, Mrs. O’Shea liked to keep to herself, but Charles knew she didn't fancy embroidery that much. She always looked unhappiest with a needle in hand and an intricate pattern resting on her knee, and Charles had wondered why she embroidered so much if she hated it. Mrs. Grimshaw had dimples. You would never be able to tell with her perpetual scowl, but on rare occasions where she would give a fleeting glance or a well meant jab, her mouth would quirk, and Charles noticed.
Arthur was gentle. He was violent and big and intimidating, but not because he wanted to be, not in any way that mattered. He would sink his knees into the ground, unmindful of grass or mud stains, and carefully cut away flowers from their stems. He would wrap them in cloth and place them in his satchel like they were the most breakable thing on earth, and he would open his journal and draw the rest. Charles caught a glimpse of his journal, but he's sure it's only because Arthur had let him - had known he was there. Perfect representations of local flora and fauna were detailed so delicately in fine pencil strokes. A horse grazing, a flock of geese overhead, the bubbling stream, a photographer he had met, Jack, Abigail, Hosea, Tilly, John, Charles. He could see the scar down his jaw, crackled like lightning. The crook of his nose, the shape of his eyes, drawn with such care that the artist couldn’t have been anyone but Arthur. A gentle, soft-spoken man forced to be big and loud. He was always armed to the teeth, more ammunition and weaponry than they probably gave the men in the war; a gun across his back, one on his shoulder, two at his hips with even more tucked under the flaps of his saddle - and in his satchel were carefully wrapped Chocolate Daisies and Texas Bluebells.
He was kind, kind in the only way he knew how, the only way he was taught. Doing chores around camp, playing with Jack and letting him win every time, sitting with the women as they painstakingly sew up a new rip in his shirt fabric, looking sheepish as they poke fun at him.
“He’s one of the girls,” Mary-Beth said, laughing behind her book one sunny afternoon, as if Arthur isn’t a hulking behemoth of pure muscle and strength who wrestled a bear and won; like she knows he's gentle too, just like Charles knows . “He’s the only one of these fools who’ll actually give half a damn and listen to you. I mean, he actually takes the time to sit and listen to my silly romance stories, and - do forgive me if this is above my station - but I think he might actually like them.”
He died eight years ago on that mountain, alone. Charles found his long since cold body propped up on a slope in the sheer cliff, head turned east and eyes still open. Charles wondered if he had gotten to see the sun rise just one last time before he passed, that the rising rays might have warmed his cold, sunken cheeks one more time.
Curled up next to the body, oddly, was a giant stag. Its golden brown body compact into a tight ball at Arthur’s sunken rib cage, yet its head was held high, like a king on his throne, Its velvet nose twitching in curiosity. Atop its head lay a perfectly endowed crown of fourteen points, each branch of its antlers symbolizing another summer still alive. It did not run, rather it slowly stood on strong legs, head bowed as it rose.
It looked at him, and Charles could have sworn there was recognition in those eyes. It carefully approached him, reaching with its black nose to brush against his hand, and it was like the weight of the world crashed down upon his fragile, weary shoulders, and he cried. The buck did not run, it didn't even startle, so Charles sank to his knees as the grief crushed him. He clutched at his chest like it were going to burst, sinking his head to the cold, unforgiving earth, and he wailed. The buck only moved closer, and placed its crowned head atop his trembling back.
There wasn't much he remembered after that. At some point the buck had gone, bounded off down the mountain and into the surrounding wood. He pulled himself together, cradling Arthur in his arms as he lifted him off the ground. It shouldn't have been that easy to lift him. Arthur, always the pillar of strength, reduced to skin and bones from sickness and death. He buried him facing west, adorned his grave with flowers, and he visited every anniversary. And every time he showed up, he would catch a glimpse of those fourteen points, and he would think about gentle men forced to be mean.
Now, however, he is galloping along the well worn path that leads to Strawberry. It's taken him a week and a half to get this far, and Falmouth stumbles from under him, exhausted. He pats her neck, reaches into his satchel, and pulls out some bitters. Ripping off the cap with his teeth, he slips the needle into her neck muscle, and immediately she straightens out again with the effects of the medicine. He flies through the town, paying no heed to the shouts of indignation as he narrowly misses a man crossing the road. He thinks of how Micah shot up the town eight years back, and how furious Arthur was because of it. He's around the bend of the old holding camp; the decrepit, collapsed church and wethered teepees still withstanding. Charles sees the crosses outside the broken gate, and he closes his eyes for a moment and hopes that Rains Fall and the rest of the Wapiti are doing okay.
Blackwater is in sight now, just across the river. Beecher's Hope just to the west. Falmouth crashes through the river with such speed that Charles questions if she's even wet at all.
Dust kicks up from behind them as their final stretch is in sight. The fence in front of them that surrounds John's house opens up a ways down, but Charles wastes no time, turning sharply left and vaulting over the nailed wood and clearing it completely. Falmouth skids to a stop, sand and dirt flying in an arc behind her, stopping just next to Buell where he's hitched outside of the house. He stomps once, twice, a third time in annoyance for good measure, swiveling his ears back and snorting. Charles practically throws himself off of Falmouth and shoddily ties her next to Buell. As he nearly trips up the stairs, making his way to the front door, Abigail steps out.
“I thought I heard someone. Thought it was the devil coming to finally take John with all the noise you was making.” she laughs, breathless and humorless, voice tired and heavy. She looked like she hadn't slept in days. Maybe she hadn't.
“John said - he said that-” Charles choked, hopeful and doubtful all the same. He wasn't one to stutter or stumble, always calm and collected. He spoke low and purposeful, straight to the point. Fancy and pretty words took too long, and seconds were all someone needed to shoot you in the back, so he made a habit of speaking concisely. Now; however, he was rolling around his words like he had forgotten how to speak. In life, and in death, Arthur seemed to have that effect on him.
Abigail's face tightened. Pinched in only a way that told of exhaustion, exasperation, complete and absolute gravity. She nodded once towards the inside of the home, and Charles stepped the rest of the way up the stairs and into the doorway. Abigail herself had stepped to the side, allowing him to go first. He took a tentative step forward, like the home would swallow him whole. It felt different since the last time he was here; since he laid out the wood and nails and support beams - slowly shaping the skeleton of a home with John. He remembers how they lifted the walls, nailing them in place to the floor as the sun bared down on them. The house - their house that they had built - was different. He stepped further inside, unsure of the new air that suffocated the atmosphere, and froze. There, tied to a wooden chair in the middle of the front room - arms bound behind him and pressed to the back of the seat, and his ankles tied to the front two legs of the chair - was the rotted, decayed corpse of Arthur Morgan. John was seated in a chair off to the right, head in his hands.
Fury sparked deep in Charles’ throat, ripping him apart like a cougar in a cage. It sparked from disbelief; a deep and harsh reality being thrust back into his face after eight long years of suffering. Eight long years of rubbing his hands raw, frantic in getting rid of the feeling of Arthur's decayed skin, ripping and sliding off at the slightest touch, decompositious fluids coating his palms as he carried him away from the mountain side.
Eight long years of living without his greatest companion, a man he trusted more than anything to have his back.
Eight long years of faltering, of lowering his bow as he hunted, watching as a buck bound past. He would count the antlers with something akin to violent hope. He would count, and fourteen points or not, he would not shoot. His hands would shake something awful, and he would choke on nothing but his own sonder as it filled his throat, smelling Chocolate Daisies and Texas Bluebells as the buck bounded across the plain. His bow would quiver with the tremble in his hands, wobbling along with his lip as his ever crumbling sense of self came crashing down, and he would look at it’s branching antlers that could never quite reach fourteen, and he would think, ‘ I saw you today.’
But none of that matters anymore.
“What in the hell is this?” He hissed, knees weak. John raised his head in surprise, as if he was just now registering that Charles was there. He looks worse than Abigail, and the question of sleep or proper care isn't even really a question anymore.
“He was - I don't-” he stutters, and the scars on his face pull at his skin, looking healed and fresh all the same; like the wolf itself is just outside, but lying dead on the road. “I don't know.”
An unacceptable answer, really. Charles felt his lungs burn hot with rage, bubbling and sizzling with too many nights spent in agony over the simple act of knowing that Arthur won't be coming back. “You don't know? The corpse of my greatest friend, your brother, is tied up in the middle of your home, and you don't know?”
He was furious, but maybe he was heartbroken. He had spent a week looking for the best spot to bury Arthur, going through every possibility, every place he said he enjoyed. He carried his body on the back of his horse until it began to rot and spew, finally finding the perfect place. He dug until his hands bled, the shovel rough and splintered in his palms. Halfway through covering Arthur - his most wonderful friend - in dirt, did the weight of his loss rest deep into his knees, and he crumpled to the floor. The night was cold, and his breath escaped his lips in white puffs as he rested his head against the shovel and sobbed. The last image he had of Arthur wasn't one of him healthy, happy, alive. Instead it was the misshapen, horrific visage of a rotten man. And John had, what, dug him back up? For what? Just to tie him up in his home? Why in the hell is he even tied? He's dead. He's dead and hes-
He's dead.
As if the thought just now struck him, a horrible wave of grief washed over him, dowsing him where he stood. It was as if he was back on that mountain eight years ago, sorrow new and fresh in his chest. An awful, desperate longing lodged itself into the tremble of his hands. Arthur Morgan is dead, and it hurts just as much as it did the first time.
“Why did,” Charles starts, fury ebbing away into terrible hurt. There's a familiar sting behind his eyes, like they've been open for far too long. His ribs ache and his neck is cold and Arthur Morgan is as dead as he's always been, and he's tired. “Why did you dig him back up?”
John looks at him, helplessly small.
“Dig him back -” He says, hard. He cuts himself off, and now, softer in both voice and eyes, looks at Charles like he's the most fragile person in the whole world. “Charles, I didn't dig him up.”
“You didn't . . . dig him up?”
“No, no I didn't.”
Charles pointedly does not look at Arthur. John doesn't either.
“Then - why, how is he here?”
Light filters in through the window as the sun escapes the vice of a cloud, beaming in through the glass and landing onto the cold, horrific figure; and Charles swears it bends, filtering around his head into what Charles can only recognize as a familiar fourteen points.
And John, impossibly softer, says, “He came here on his own.”