Chapter Text
“I have decided that there are few things worse than the heat in Lemoyne, the flies of Lemoyne or the people of Lemoyne. Them damn Lemoyne Raiders. They’re on every corner, convinced the war didn’t end some odd 30 years ago. This heat has turned my already Colter frayed nerves into taut wires, no longer relaxed like them telegraph lines along the railroad… Though I suppose I have never quite had such luxury.
However, I must be grateful. This new location has gifted us with our freedom once again, if only temporarily. Dutch is glad of it, back to his usual self. I suppose I have returned back to some of my old habits in response. I no longer have to haunt the camp like some specter from one of Hosea’s campfire stories, fearful that the Pinkertons are going to show up at any minute and blast each of us to hell. We have earned ourselves a reprieve. Yet I know there is no rest for the truly wicked, so I have decided to travel from camp for a bit. Earn some money from odd jobs, robberies and Strauss’ Collections, a job which I now share with Micah due to his… ever-ambitious nature.
That man is a suc-”
Arthur shuts his journal abruptly as he hears the chatter of a few more gang members awakening. If he had to guess, he would say it’s around 5 a.m. The sun is curiously peeking over the horizon opposite the lake. Sighing like the weight of the world has once again made its presence known and shuttered against him, he pushes himself to get up and face the day. His bones crack in a way that reveals his true age: 36… far older than he ever thought he’d get. His lips naturally fall into a frown, not that his old age is a prize. Often he imagines himself as Hosea, old and sick but maybe loving and fatherly if useless in all other ways. Arthur knows that aging must be a special kind of torture at that point.
Hopefully, a bullet will lodge itself between his eyes or into his temple before then.
He stretches languidly, to shove the ruminating thoughts away, and tucks his journal securely into his satchel. He makes sure the flap is closed properly so no skilled pickpocket fingers can pluck his only true private possession. One of the downsides of living with 24 thieves and thieves’ associates.
He meanders across the camp from his tent toward his beautiful Dutch Warmblood, Ares. He bought it when he sold that brute of a horse with Hosea, and he cannot imagine a better successor to Boadicea. Murmuring mornings to haggard faces and watching in amusement as they grunt back to him, barely fully roused from their uncomfortable rests. Being a natural early riser, or maybe just paranoid, makes early morning one of the best parts of his day. Usually he would be the grumpy skulker around camp while everyone else was jolly and bright, but this early in the morning the camp roles were ironically reversed.
He approaches the beautiful Dutch Warmblood, brushing down the soft greys and reds of his coat until they glimmer in the romantic morning light. Ares’ coat reminded Arthur a bit of both Hosea’s aging Turkoman, Silver Dollar, and Arthur’s passed best friend Copper. Both symbols of his young adulthood, in many ways Ares was a testament to them.
He can’t imagine what he’d do if Ares died like Boadicea; a bullet was a terrible way for a horse to go.
After murmuring praise and feeding treats to his ‘good boy’, Arthur climbs onto the rusted revolver horse and waves at Hosea as he heads toward Rhodes. His old man sipping some gross medicinal tea and waving his eldest son off. Both hope it’s a fruitful venture, not only for Arthur’s pride and reputation but for the gang- for Dutch.