Chapter Text
Charles is nearly done fletching arrows when he hears the sounds of horses approaching Clemens Point. Daylight has nearly left the clearing, and Charles should probably make his way to the fireside soon lest his knife slip and nick something he doesn’t want it to. Not that he can’t survive a scratch, God knows he’s survived more than his fair share of them, but blood spilled is blood wasted.
He’s squinting into the horizontal sun by the time Dutch’s brassy drawl is able to cut through the muggy Lemoyne air, and Charles gives up on fiddling with the sinewy ties of the second-to-last arrow. He collects the small pile of completed ones he’s amassed this afternoon and moves to deposit them in the munitions wagon that doubles as Arthur’s tent.
Micah’s snide voice joins Dutch’s. Then John’s, then Hosea’s. Arthur’s grumbling is not among them, he notes.
The voices start the mount in intensity. Brows creasing slightly at the commotion, Charles cannot remember the proper place Arthur likes his poisoned arrows and instead places them on his bedside table, between an old picture frame and his worn leather journal. Slipping into the middle of camp, he sees Dutch and Micah dismounting their respective horses, Hosea and John apparently upset at something and making it known.
“—didn’t even see him ride off?”
“You know our Arthur, Hosea, he’s probably got his mind set on some plant or other. Maybe he’s even after one of those big trophy hunts you put him on.”
“Well, yeah, but he always lets us know when he’s gonna be gone for a bit, especially after a job or somethin’,” John says, face wrinkling in dismay as Dutch hitches up the Count and Micah throws Baylock’s reins to Kieran. He had been approaching hesitantly from his scout fire with a brush and oats in hand and flinches, oats flying.
Micah snorts at John. “Like you’ve never up and left, Scarface. What makes you think your big, bad Arthur Morgan couldn’t do the same?”
John spits at his feet. “You joined only six months ago, you son of a bitch, what you know about anythin’?” he says, making to raise his fist before Hosea, calm, levelheaded Hosea, steps in between them.
“Now, boys, be civil,” he says. “Micah, that ain’t fair, that was years ago and young John here’s been given enough grief about it. John… well, he’s got a point, I suppose, but I agree that it’s not like Arthur to disappear without a word.”
“He’s alright, Hosea, just out wandering. Arthur can take care of himself,” Dutch insists, rolling his eyes. He pats the Count’s flank, ignores a stuttering Kieran, and moves towards his tent. The rest of camp is watching the fight with a range of feigned disinterest to unabashed curiosity, some busying themselves with chores or a particularly interesting novel while others stop their business to watch. Charles is part of the latter. Dutch doesn’t meet his eye as he passes.
“God knows I don’t doubt that, but it’s the whole O’Driscoll thing that has me worried, Dutch,” Hosea argues, following after him. “You know as well as I that Colm is one tricky bastard. Don’t tell me you really believed this parlay business,” he scoffs.
“Sure, I had my doubts, but Micah scouted the area after he hadn’t turned up. Said it was all clear, and I trust the man,” Dutch says, waving a dismissive hand as he steps into his tent.
Micah pipes up, slinking along like Dutch’s shadow. “Yeah, saw nothin’ out of the ordinary at the lookout. Big man probably just… meandered away. Hung us out to dry, I betcha. Lucky we even got back at all,” he snivels.
“Don’t you talk about Arthur that way, you—”
“John,” Dutch warns as he turns around, voice hard. Charles watches as John immediately shrinks, looking for all his dirt and scars to be a scolded child. “Mister Bell is a friend, and I will not have you act so hatefully towards him.”
“But—but Dutch, he—”
“Enough,” Dutch says. John turns red and makes a face like he is biting back all the hateful words he knows before spinning on his heel and storming off, mumbling to himself. Micah doesn’t smile, but it’s a near thing.
Hosea lets out a controlled breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Dutch, listen. I’m not calling Micah’s… qualities into question, but I think it would be wise to send at least someone to check for him. Not a whole search party with guns ablazing, just one man to make sure Micah didn’t miss anything.”
“For goodness sake, Arthur is fine, old girl.”
“Don’t you old girl me, Dutch.” Hosea’s reedy voice has a steel edge to it now, and Charles thinks distantly that only the best outlaws get old.
Dutch sighs. “We cannot afford to lose another hand around camp right now. We’re so close to that Confederate gold, I just know it,” he says, and Hosea looks at him doubtfully. “If Micah says there was no sign of a struggle, I believe him. Arthur has always been a bit… absentminded, you know that. I trust he will return to us when he is done gallivanting around New Hanover.”
“Dutch—”
“Hosea, that is final,” Dutch snaps, and turns his back to an incredulous Hosea.
Arthur Morgan is a grown man. Around ten years Charles’s senior, if he remembers their conversations correctly. He’s probably shot and killed more people than he can count, and for twenty years been the main muscle of one of the most feared gangs in the country. When Charles first joined the gang about seven or eight months back, Charles wasn’t necessarily afraid of the man, but he was always aware of where he was. Other members could pose a danger to him, sure, but Charles had learned over the years that the glint of Arthur Morgan’s eyes and the quiet confidence of his broad form told of a man that was capable of many, many things. Violent things, cruel things.
As the months passed, Charles saw those things. It didn’t surprise him. What did, however, was how much those violent, cruel things weighed on Arthur Morgan.
Charles learned that Arthur sleeps with a flower and pictures of his mother, father, and dog by his bed. He learned that Arthur’s rough hands soothed a horse far faster than any other man Charles had seen. He learned that the girls go to him for support, and that sometimes he talks to them about his dreams. He learned that other than Charles himself, Arthur was the only one to do chores and take watch unasked. He learned that Arthur listens when Charles talks, low tones not truly meant for other ears murmured over a fire blurred by whiskey, and that Arthur remembers.
Charles also learned that Arthur Morgan never went anywhere without his journal.
It’s not even a decision when Charles picks up the leather-bound book and moves to his own tent. He places the journal in his bag and makes sure he has restocked after his last hunt, and that he has enough rations for at least a day or so.
“Where the hell are you goin’?” Bill asks behind him.
“Out.” Charles does not look at him.
“Don’t tell me you’re goin’ after Morgan,” he jeers. Charles can hear alcohol on his tongue. It’s barely evening. “Dutch said we wasn’t to look.”
“Hm.”
“Hey, you listen to me when I talk to you,” Bill snaps, kicking Charles’s boot.
“I would, if you ever said anything worth listening to,” Charles replies, standing up and hoisting his bag over his shoulder and turning to face the man. Bill’s face is red.
“You—you shut up, y’hear,” Bill says smartly. He points a finger slightly to the left of Charles. “Y’know, you’n Morgan been gettin’ real close lately. Wouldn’t, wouldn’t look too good to be goin’ behind Dutch’s back, sneakin’ around with his main gun. People might… talk.”
“Would they.”
“Yeah, they would. S’not right, two fellers. You wouldn’t want people to think you’re bent, now would you?”
“I don’t care much what people think,” Charles says, and starts to walk past Bill towards the horses.
“Knew it. Knew you was one’a them inverts,” Bill spits, swaying.
A familiar fire builds in his stomach and his hands itch to curl, but Charles takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes. Flexes his fingers. Bigger fish to fry. “Sure, Bill,” he says, turning away.
“You’d know,” Charles adds, unable to resist a verbal jab if not a physical one.
He can hear Bill spluttering as he strides towards where the horses are hitched.
He’s tacking up Taima when behind him he hears footsteps again, and he silently rolls his eyes before a small, rattling cough lets him know that it’s Hosea.
“Charles, I need you to—”
“Already on it,” Charles replies as he turns to face the old man, jerking his head at the road-ready Taima.
Hosea huffs a small laugh, shaking his head. “Always ten steps ahead of the game, you are. Don’t know how you do it.”
Charles reaches into his bag and pulls out Arthur’s worn journal. “He left this.”
Hosea’s eyes narrow, mouth flattening into a frustrated line. “Well.” He runs a hand through his hair and looks back at Dutch’s white tent. “Well. Then I’m glad it’s you going. I’d join you, but Dutch needs me here, apparently,” he says, exasperated. Charles kindly does not point out that the tremors in Hosea’s hands have gotten worse over the last few weeks. The snow was not kind to him. “I’m not jumping to any conclusions, but… O’Driscolls are a nasty bunch. Be prepared to fight dirty.”
Charles nods his head. “I always am.”
Hosea smiles wryly. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Mister Smith,” he says. “You know, I wish you would have joined us sooner. Could have used a reliable man like you years ago.”
Charles snorts, a rare, crooked smile crossing his face as he loads Taima’s saddle bags and secures his weapons. “Nah. Don’t think you all would have liked me much back then. I sure didn’t.”
Hosea chuckles. “Well, I like you well enough now. Arthur too.”
Charles says nothing to that, but the corner of his mouth twitches upward again. He swings himself up onto Taima and pats her neck gently as she whinnies. “I’ll find him,” he promises.
Hosea shoots a glance behind them at where Dutch and Micah are deep in conversation, secretive and heavily invested. They don’t even seem to have noticed Charles departing, and something about Hosea sags. “I know, dear boy. I know.”
Charles likes the Heartlands.
He doesn’t remember much about his mother’s tribe, but he remembers the bison. His stomach had been full and warm and he had laughed till his sides ached. Now he sees a small herd moving across the plains and there is a pit where that warm feeling should be. He takes what he can get.
The air is lighter here, and his nose burns slightly in the cool morning wind as he guides Taima through the grasslands. Going off of what he had overheard from Pearson’s initial explanation of the parlay and what little information Hosea was able to give him, the meeting between Dutch and Colm likely happened somewhere here in the valley. Lookout, Micah had said, and Charles cranes his head into the watery sunlight to scan the surrounding cliffs. He spots one that angles well to overlook the area and offers a suitable amount of coverage from the ground, and supposes that it is as good of a place to start as any.
He’s guessed right, Charles realises, as he follows the hoofprints of several horses up to the cliffside. They’re recent too, only a day or so old. He dismounts to inspect them closer, and counts maybe four or five of varying sizes. The big horseshoes of Arthur’s Shire are among them.
Charles curses when he reaches the ridge. Spatterings of rusted blood stain the dirt where Arthur’s old, beat-up hat lies surrounded by several different bootprints, and Charles thinks, not for the first time, that he should kill Micah. Either the man hadn’t tried very hard to ‘scout’, or saw the struggle and had lied about it. Neither would surprise Charles very much.
He picks up the hat, placed so neatly in the middle of all this ruckus, and so clearly Arthur’s to any who knew him.
It takes him a whole day and a half to find the next lead. He’d followed the horse tracks to the forest southeast of Valentine, and he’d almost thought he’d lost the trail when the buzzing of flies leads him to the remains of a camp.
There’s more blood. It’s a pool this time, dark and sticky and still wet to the touch. It smells putrid, like sour pennies. A gleam of buckshot in the red catches his eye and Charles’s jaw tightens as he puts the picture together: a shotgun fired at close range directly into flesh. Not inherently fatal, depending on the location, but brutish and cruel regardless. As a rule Charles doesn’t allow himself to think on what-ifs, but right now it’s hard not to, and he spurs Taima onwards.
Tracking the O’Driscolls is easier now, and Charles follows a trail of blood along the Dakota River. There’s so much of it, and Charles hopes that the consistency means that Arthur’s heart is alive to keep pumping it.
The sun has set a long time ago, and Charles has gone far too long without sleep. Bard’s Crossing is just barely visible around a cliff in the distance. His hips ache, his lips are chapped and bleeding, and his stomach is growling at him in protest but the trail is so fresh that he cannot justify stopping to rest. Taima snorts under him, similarly exhausted, and he feeds her an apple.
“Sorry, girl,” he says. “Just a little bit longer,” he tells her and himself.
He stretches uncomfortably, back popping as he shifts in his saddle, and catches a glance of a lone, riderless horse up on a ridge above him. Strange, he thinks, for it to be in this area. The train usually scares the wild ones off.
Peering at the silhouette, Charles realizes that the horse is, in fact, not riderless. Instead it carries a slumped figure on its large back, and Charles thinks that the horse, large and Roman-nosed, looks rather familiar.
Arthur.
Charles spurs Taima up the closest path he can find, murmuring words of apology as she whines, and as he reaches the top Arthur’s stubborn black Shire comes into view, a body crumpled on his back.
He stumbles off Taima and ignores the shooting pains in his ankles as he runs towards the pair. Kawasaki, mulish as always, whinnies as Charles approaches, tossing his head and causing the clearly wounded man on his back to slip a few inches.
“Arthur,” he cries, but the man doesn’t stir. Arthur’s face is slack, skin pale in the moonlight, and his red union suit does little to hide the blood staining his chest. Charles motions for Kawasaki to bend down and the big horse must be able to sense his desperation because despite his ears pinning back and his eyes widening, he stays put and complies, allowing Charles to hoist Arthur off of him.
It’s not an easy feat, as Arthur easily has two inches on Charles, but Charles is broader—perhaps the broadest in the gang barring only Williamson. He is grateful for it now as two hundred pounds of dead weight falls into his arms.
He tries to jostle Arthur as little as possible off of his horse’s back. He makes a sad little gurgling noise at one point, which causes Charles to grimace in a mix of pity, concern, and relief. Not dead, but too close for comfort.
“Arthur,” he tries now that he’s got him lying on the ground. “Arthur, can you hear me?”
Arthur’s head lolls to the side, his brow creasing.
“Arthur,” Charles says.
His eyes flutter open, and Chales can just make out their watery haze through the dark.
“Dutch,” Arthur wheezes. “S’a trap, y’gotta go.”
“No, Arthur, you’re out, you got yourself out, you son of a bitch,” Charles tells him.
Arthur weakly pushes at Charles’s chest. “Gotta… gotta leave, Dutch, they’re gonna try’n… try n’kill you,” he babbles. Charles grabs Arthur’s flailing hand in his own, and puts the other palm to his burning forehead.
“It’s alright, you’re alright. No one’s dying. It’s just me here, it’s Charles.”
“Ch—Charles?” Arthur groans, face twisted in pain.
“Yeah, it’s me. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
Arthur’s breathing evens slightly, and now Charles sees where the shotgun got him—right in the left shoulder. An inch or two down and he would have been dead. It’s poorly cauterized, and certainly the source of Arthur’s fevered rambling.
“Arthur?”
Charles gets no response but a few labored breaths, and resigns himself to a long night.