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The Overlook is mild, besides the cool breeze that floats up from the river. Despite the meditative quality to the chore, Arthur almost prefers chopping wood in the blazing heat. There'd be no mismatch of chilly morning air soaking through his shirt and the sweat that gathers under his arms and along his back. Works up fast, today, and ruins the silence that enters his mind as he splits the short logs in half. It's mindless, his favorite kind of chore.
Sweat runs his skin tacky all over by the time he's through today's lot of wood, cotton sticking to him wrong at the seams. He drops the axe into its usual resting place in the face of the stump and peels the shoulders of his button-up from his skin, feels the fabric settling too-noticeable at the joint as it lays down against him. Can't win. A few popped buttons are his only grace outside pushed-up sleeves, the veins rolled from under the skin of his hands with dehydration.
Coffee'll be good, wake him up where his mind had dozed into quiet with the repetition of chopping. Will worsen this headache, but so be it. Sadie, he's glad to see, is at least sulking in the company of Abigail, a ways off from the axe; Javier is talking to Dutch past the small hill, overlooking the cliff-side; Charles and Kieran, of all odd pairs to see, are sitting beside each other at the poker table. No cards, no dominoes, and no conversation, either, from the looks of it. Granted, both men are the kind to appear generally held-at-gunpoint regardless of what mood they're in, to different but equally noticeable degrees.
That familiar, wide-eyed look comes about the latter as Arthur pauses at the table, settling his hands on his gun belt. "Fancy seein' you two be social."
Charles glances up, unamused, then to the table. Long hair had hidden the view of him whittling down a short stick in the shadow cast by his head. He does most things in whatever shade he can. For his part, Kieran looks glad to have someone willing to break the silence, even if there's a paleness to him under the usual rosiness of his cheeks. It creates an odd dissonance which Arthur can't place. Colter-chill clinging on, or he's got the same sort of flush Mary-Beth does, hangs on year-long. Beneath his shadow, a cigarette that he doesn't think the man rolled himself. Where'd he get that? He doubts Charles would share.
"Wouldn't call it social," Kieran says. It's an imitation of a joke, but it doesn't quite get there. His breath is too baited and short at the end, and he looks unsure of whether he ought to smile or not.
Arthur's privy to an awkward bout of eye contact as Charles looks up again and Kieran's eyes dart towards him in an anxious flick-around. They're both given an out when Arthur snickers. Charles back to whittling, Kieran back to studying the smoke trailing off his cigarette as though he knows how to tell fortunes by it. Guilty of his own lack of prowess, he leaves for coffee without bidding any kind of goodbye and walks past once again to the empty seat Kieran abandoned. Gone like or with the wind, whichever it was Hosea loves to say.
It's good as any, so he takes it. Camp air has felt fine since Sean's return, considering the last few months still hanging over their heads. Half-begrudgingly, he'll admit that much. The Irishman endears him the same way the two fools who had been sitting here do. People who hardly got a clue what they're doing capture him, he supposes, must be the familiarity in their listlessness. The day is clear and, at the very least, Arthur's not so bunched-up between the shoulders that he'd rather sulk than appreciate the short-lived peace.
With Dutch out of sight and Susan nowhere in it, either, he's got the next ten minutes to himself. More or less, considering Charles didn't seem keen on him interrupting his focus. Some days he is, others he isn't.
Passing thoughts of why Kieran left, cigarette only half-enjoyed, cross his mind and then fade with a lingering, vague sense of rejection. As he takes another survey of the perimeter, he catches Karen and Mary-Beth looking at him funny from beside Pearson's wagon.
While carrying a fresh-filled bucket to the wash basin across camp, Arthur has the opportunity to catch Kieran. He calls his name, gruff and short, tilted at the end.
The man looks up from where his chin had tucked towards his chest, eyes down on his way towards the horses. His hips cant to support a saddle, which looks like Dutch's. Must've cleaned it, if there were anything but air on the leather to start with given the old coot's neuroticism. Again, that startled look darts past loose brown hair, as if he's scared him out of his wits with a simple bark of his name.
"Yessir?" Knee-jerk. He can tell that Kieran regrets it the moment it leaves him, lips pressed into a firm line as if to hold any other words at bay.
With his free hand, Arthur rubs at his mouth to hide the otherwise plain look of disgruntledness on his face. He cannot look old enough to be a sir — can and does, according to his self-esteem and not his ego — and besides that, he feels he's got as much weight behind him in the gang as Molly. Probably isn't true, but he's overbruised.
And, it sours his gut to hear such a respect for authority.
"Don't be a pushover," he says. It's too quick, rushed in hopes he gets it out before Kieran starts wanting to get the hell out of dodge. He almost winces, figuring his accidental sharpness would do nothing but inspire the desire, so he tries to speak kinder, adding: "Ain't got to call nobody but Dutch sir 'round here."
Ironic, considering who cultivated that sour taste. Arthur doesn't contemplate why the imaginary branding of O'Driscoll was so simple to burn in and then flay away, and he doesn't consider it either. Both would tell him things he wouldn't smile to hear, and he prefers life be easy-like. Anyways, he's trying to set Kieran up for success, a favor given for saving his life. Respect is half of that success, but the anxiety won't do. It's all the kindness he can muster through his own awkward nature.
"Sorry." There's a flush crawling over Kieran's face that makes him feel guilty, in a way, more than it annoys him for its naivety. He supposes both are unfounded emotions and swallows an extra piece of advice that goes something like quit sayin' sorry. "Uh. What d'you want, Arthur?"
He ignores what must be a second pang of guilt twitching at his chest, hearing his voice waver on the correction he'd ordered. Kieran hoists the saddle up, shifting to rebalance the weight of it, so Arthur gets himself in gear. "Wanted to ask you," he says, chuffs as he wavers on his feet and switches the water pail between his hands. Eyes wrinkle at the corners. "Why you run from everybody? Are you some kind'a squirrel?"
Silence. With baited breath, he thinks of that poor excuse for cracking a joke that Kieran pulled this morning. After he hears the way his own words sounded aloud, he knows he's committed the same social sin. Even the noises of idleness throughout camp seem quieter, the way everything does when a man screws up a simple sentence and the powers that be decide to teach him a lesson in humility. Arthur's planned, friendly smile — that real smooth, nice one he's worked on his whole life, the one that doesn't come naturally to him — is tamed by the mortification of how he delivered it.
Another awkward beat and then a stunted inhale as he tries to salvage the interaction he started with only the power of his mind. If he makes his shoulders real relaxed, will Kieran know he's not meaning to laugh at him?
Well, maybe he is. Only a little, with friendly intentions.
"I..." Where Kieran was pink, he goes red, corners of his mouth furled up in what could either be the first inklings of discomfort from holding a saddle too long or the start of a nervous laugh. "I don't think I do that."
Mouth open, ready to give Arthur the first true instance of a whole two sentences spoken by Kieran Duffy that he's experienced since riding out with him a week and a half ago— and then the air's stuffed between them by Grimshaw letting Arthur know, very helpfully, that the washing water will not sprout legs the longer he pussyfoots around with it. Kieran is skittering off before she can say the same to him.
Camp's quiet means Susan has been in his business as if it pays. When he is feeling unkeen towards her, Miss Grimshaw becomes Susan, of course, the same way young boys call their mothers her first name during an argument with her or while attempting to communicate to a peer how sorry the relationship is. Too long at what's now home to them and she's trailing behind him as the watchdog stalks, making sure he's at least putting in physical labor if he's not gathering leads and marking heads.
Too long make-believing he had any kind of initiative or privacy while gallivanting the countryside, and he was corralled into camp under her orders. Javier said he wasn't meant to tell Arthur who sent him, but since we're friends, have to look out for each other, he had. Whether in his best interest, he weren't sure, but the reminder that the woman still held that power humbled him for a few weeks. Grimshaw she again became.
It's under his skin now.
Kieran is the recent victim of her smothering, releasing Tilly for a brief moment. Arthur appreciates that he is not the only one of the boys who works like a goddamned dog anymore. He understands there's a considerable and constant fire lit under Kieran's pants and that, one day, it might please him to see the man slack off without repercussions. Javier, Charles, and John, before things had frayed between them; Arthur's always gone soft on the ones who don't talk much, who spend their first weeks at camp waddling to and fro with a stick shoved up their asses and that almost biblical fear of the people he knows to be harmless, so long as people remain kept in line.
Finding his mare's saddle freshly polished, the metal cleaned better than he's ever had the chance to do it, Arthur assumes it was Susan's command. Glancing over the other horses and hitching posts hosting saddles, dirt and dust clings to the footstraps of them, the metal dull. He was busy hunting down the hill where the deer gather in clusters, borrowed a stronger horse to carry the carcass up. His girl had recently had a long day out and he'd planned an evening in town for today. As he was soft, too, on his animals, he let her rest. (Hoping had been that he'd nail two deer to bring back, but it hadn't happened.)
The time he was gone was plenty opportunity to scold Kieran into cleaning Mr. Morgan's saddle and doing it with a smile as penance for whatever run-in she believed they had earlier. A year ago, he might've liked to think he had that kind of authority around the camp. Better was the idea that she was so fond of him yet as to be looking out constantly. Now, it makes his mouth taste bitter.
He finds her cleaning her shotgun at the dominoes table, cloth with the supplies spread out next to her. The lantern at the hitching post and the near-set sun color her warm as a memory. Out of the elders he grew up with, she'd always had the nicest cleaning kit. Everything used for what it ought to be, no substitutes or cheap brands. It could be attributed to either her necessity for pristine quality or her care for violence, traits found one-or-the-other in Hosea and Dutch.
Her gaze flicks up to see his hands on his belt, knowing who he is, and then she must decide Arthur is not worth looking at. Familiarity or authority.
"Hello, Mr. Morgan," she greets, pleasant but curt, because either way it's clear he intends to start a conversation.
"Did you yell that poor O'Driscoll kid into cleanin' my saddle?" He asks.
"You never was one for subtlety," she comments, half-amused. "But no, I haven't any idea what you're talkin' about." She finishes with the rod and plucks it out of the barrel, moves on to polishing the gun with that fancy stuff she had him steal in Valentine a few days ago. Self-important at times, sure, but he doesn't understand why she neglects these small opportunities to see fresh faces.
Arthur studies her for a moment, eyes a little narrow, before accepting it. No sense of lying on her mug and no particular dedication to her focus that suggests she's looking at the gun only to not give herself away under his gaze. Before he can open his mouth to say an apology for presuming, she speaks again.
"I did have Mr. Duffy fetch water, since you didn't do it this mornin'." Susan looks up at him then, and he wishes she wouldn't, because there's that firm sort of disappoint on her face that has always made him feel juvenile and guilty.
"S'rry, Miss Grimshaw." There's even more familiar quality to his tone, dejected as a dog with his tail between his legs. His face burns but he does not look away nor hide beneath his hat, or else he'd receive a scolding for cowering at his grown age. "Guess I forgot."
Susan's mouth quirks up on one side. Normally, a sly implication that she knows why he forgot would follow, which years ago would have been that he was off to see Mary — why is he thinking of her? it was so long ago — or that he had slept in too late. "You're missin' out on a lot lately, son," she says, titters to herself before returning to her shotgun.
He doesn't ask what it means. He hasn't the slightest clue, but ahead, he's got a clean saddle and an evening at the saloon to enjoy.
He thinks Kieran might be afraid of him, despite the fact Arthur should and does feel indebted. The least he can do is not beat on the feller who saved his life. Doesn't he think so? Doubtful that Kieran would be the type to not exactly value it, either. That's too cold-blooded. He seems warm, a lot warmer than Arthur himself, scalding enough to be the reason his life has went on so miserable. He's not heard a lick of it, but he can tell by the flighty way he exists when he believes they are not looking. As a boy, he saw that disposition often on the streets.
The theory blossoms most, watching him and Mary-Beth converse. If he's socially inept, it seems implausible he'd be talking to women so easily. Easily may be an overstatement, but he doesn't run and hide from her. Arthur sits at the dominoes table some yards away from the girls' wagon, pondering. Thinking of the other day, when Kieran had been the one smoking and sitting, he realizes how strange it is that he'd not flee from Charles. Sure, he was a good guy and most of camp had the wrong reason for avoiding him. In reality, he was intimidating for his stature, the simple fact that everyone, including Kieran, has seen him punch Bill to the ground. Deserved as it was, the ex-marine is a whole lot of man to be slinging around in one hit. Even Arthur held his tongue if he was certain that Charles wouldn't agree with what he had to say.
He turns to the marred skin of the table and sees scarred-up brown splayed on the opposite side of it, looking up. Javier is watching him with a lopsided grin, takes a seat once he's gotten his attention, as if he was waiting on it. "You jealous, are you?"
"What?" Arthur says, narrowing his eyes.
"Of Kieran," Javier says, nods his head towards the pair Arthur was apparently gawking at. His demeanor is for once energetic, having latched onto an opportunity to tease. "Or, are you plannin' to kill one of 'em?"
"I ain't— the hell're you talkin' about, man?"
Javier makes a face: brows furrowed, a deep frown, flared nostrils, squinting. Oh. He relaxes, then snorts. "That's what you look like, dipshit. Ah, maybe you were trying to shit?"
"Leave me alone, jackass." It lacks any particular seething to it. His ears warm. Hosea has told him to quiet his face his whole life, but he's never figured out what that means. "I'm thinkin'."
His brows raise, and he splays his fingers at him where his hands rest on the table. "Please, share."
Javier must have something he wants if he's giving a penny for his thoughts, so Arthur goes ahead and divulges them to move it along. When Javier asks a question he intends to get the answer, anyhow, and he never sticks his nose where it needn't concern him for the sake of seeking amusement. Whatever motivation he has for it, Arthur can't see himself caring a whole lot. Glancing back at the pair, he finds Kieran gone. Mary-Beth is reading by herself and with Javier watching him expecting a reply, he can't be seen searching for him. Why that is or why Javier's initial accusation had startled him are things he can't place.
"That Kieran avoids me. Acts like... well, I don't know," he starts. "Like he's scared'a me one minute, but the next he isn't. That's the weird part." Arthur flicks ash off of his cigarette and feels bashful having to say, in no uncertain words, that at this point he wants the man's attention in a way he can understand it. "I'm tryn'a figure him out."
Javier doesn't ask if he wants his opinion. Arthur does and he also doesn't, because the Mexican is a little too honest for his comfort at times. Easy-like, that's how he prefers men to be.
"Have you done anything for him?"
"Done anything?"
"As much as I don't care for him, he saved your life, Arthur," Javier says, slow, as if he's the biggest fool he's ever come across. Head dropped, leant forward. "Don't tell me you sat with your thumb up your ass for two weeks, 'n' you're surprised he's bitter. Prob'ly wants a lot more'an a favor, bein' one of Colm's."
Jesus. It's honest, and now that he hears the situation reframed, it's the most obvious answer. Coming from Javier, of all people, he considers it to be of higher import. Granted, he's the type to view his whole life as indebtment, a man poor to the bone and unhappy for what he owes. It's his best quality, short of loyalty.
Arthur feels the flusterment manifest as irritation and swallows it with the struggling maturity that most men do. That a fellow man scolded him is more offensive than the implication he's an oaf. He hides it with a quip that makes it evident how perturbed he is, even if he tries to punch at his own ego in a show of defeat: "Are ya takin' lessons from Grimshaw, or somethin'?"
"Call it inspiration," Javier says, pats the table before fixing his posture. Happy lil' bastard today, Arthur thinks. The conversation is dismissed as suddenly as it started. "Do you wanna play Filet? So bored today, I could gouge my eyes out."
"Why don't you go do some work, then?" Arthur asks. He's already unsheathing his knife from its usual holster.
Javier doesn't flinch, beating him to his own blade. "I do my work while you sleep on your nice, comfortable cot."
Fishing had seemed the natural thing to offer. He weren't terribly motivated to do anything, once he'd solved the issue of not knowing why Kieran acted the way he did. Lacking that context seemed to get in his hide worse than anything. The fact that he acted that way wasn't a whole lot to him, really.
Really.
Dutch shrugged off his proposal to take Kieran down river for fishing and see how sturdy the man's loyalty is. You can handle yourself, do what you please came with as much conviction as a distracted father telling his son: have fun or sorry for your loss, I'm busy. Busy with Mr. Miller, that was. There were too few stakes in a walking trip down a hill and then a hairs length along a river for him to care.
It's a nice day out, the sun overbearing enough that the pervasive chill becomes near desirable. Kieran appears as though it is Hell-froze outside, his hands tapping against his hips and then the movement traveling to his feet by the time they have, in relative silence, set themselves up. Aside from bickering about who earned the best spot— the recent victim of being tied up or the one who insisted he had been strung up most overall, on account of seniority and having a far more punishable wit. If they are meant to get along, Arthur has to give him strife. This is the closest to relaxed he has looked in Arthur's presence, and so he resigns to participating in pissing contests.
The day is slow. The morning trudged along in camp, too, which was part of why he decided it was a good time to drag Kieran out. Invite him, that was, seeing as he agreed rather readily. Nearly threw Arthur off his feet. Kieran stands at the shore a few feet from his side, for once appearing alive in the noon sun under the curtain of his dark hair and scraggly beard. There's a deathlike prettiness to his pallor with how delicate his features are for a man. He was hardly the only gang member with a thin look, but it's nothing like the gauntness of Javier's corpse or the shrewd horse that is Strauss. Arthur had expected him to stammer out an excuse earlier, one that he'd would have to intimidate away with a dreadful hand on his shoulder and a gentle shove towards the hitching posts. He didn't want to push him around, but he knew his advantages.
"I can feel you starin' at me," Kieran says after a while. He realizes time has passed because, on the other side of the river, a pair of fishermen he hadn't taken note of are materialized, bleak black specks on the shoreline.
Arthur licks his lips. "Shit. Didn't mean to."
He squints at the strangers and decides they aren't anyone to worry about, returning to his own embarrassment. Another silence. The water laps gentle. Kieran catches a small fish and he's glad for the distraction. Pitiful enough that he would laugh at it, if he weren't unnerved by the concept of being remembered and perceived again. His eyes fix themselves on the fish as he drops it in the empty pail they brought along, and then they return to where his line hangs in the waves, empty. It weren't that odd to be staring, he reassures himself. If he's asked, his reason is—
"Arthur, I know you meant to." Kieran spits it out as though he can't wait to get the words away from him, shifting on his feet, uncomfortable. He might think he were trying to start a catfight if it weren't for the addition of: "It's okay."
His shuffling feet, the white knuckles on his fishing pole. Arthur recognizes the grip first, the same one he'd used to choke out the ledge of that crate while talking to Mary-Beth. Then, the way his mouth twitches, moving his profile against the sharp blue of the sky. The general apprehension, as if he isn't convinced of what he's said and is testing it against another person to get sure. He turns to look at his hands, a lurch in his chest that leads into palpitations, gradual soothing. He doesn't need a good reason.
Kieran's flirting with him.
Surely, he's making a pass to test the waters. Must be lonely, was telling Mary-Beth she was pretty the other day — not that he hasn't told her as much to see her swoon, meant it without any real conviction but might've chased the lead — and he doesn't come across as the player variety. When Arthur glances at him again, mouth poised to speak despite being unsure of what to say, he finds it impossible to imagine this amount of fidgeting on Hosea or Dutch or John, one of the men he knows makes a business of smooth-talking whatever breathes.
"I did. I do, I mean. Uh." Arthur clears his throat and finds great interest in the rocks that crumble towards the water. He kicks a stone off to join the legion of them with his boot, and huffs, nodding. "Yeah."
Kieran cracks. He almost flinches at how loud his laughter is compared to his usual mumbling. The noise is bumbling and hesitant, as if he's forgotten how to make such a happy one. The tips of Arthur's ears burn hot. Shit, he's laughing at him, the pig. Arthur feels irritation boil up in him, all reactionary and fruitless, no more potent than that he'd felt at Javier. He bites his tongue because he had yet to hear Kieran laugh and the breathy quality to it is very nice.
Arthur fumbles. "Thanks for cleanin' my saddle." He hopes the acknowledgement might trip the other man up, but it sounds akin to a diversion once he's said it.
"You're welcome," Kieran replies, humor lacing his voice. His hopes are crushed.
The air between them is still tense, but it lacks the stringent sense that it holds betwixt Arthur and anyone else. He doesn't know how to take that thought, and so he waits until Kieran begins talking about his life to try to return to normal, tossing a rusty insult or two at his feet and watching the man, with a renewed sort of vigor, disregard them. Arthur's not entirely sure what he's done, but has the idea it'll make the feller a whole lot more fun to mess with.