Chapter Text
Life never went their way.
Arthur’s half convinced God is strictly against him, some code in heaven that doesn’t allow for peace, underlined twice so the angels never forget. Underlined thrice under his name, asking specifically to have him as miserable as they come. Making sure he watches all those he loves and cares for die, in front of his own two eyes, first his mother, then his father, Jenny and Davey, and now watching Hosea croak his final breath before a bullet lands straight in his head, and Dutch cries out for him, beaten bloody enough that he can’t even spit out the name.
It's a wordless gurgle, Dutch choking from the bullet he caught in the back, and Milton doesn’t have enough kindness in him to put him down like he did Hosea. And so there Arthur laid, a foot square on the middle his back, and arms pushing his head into the dirt, forced to look into Hosea’s void eyes and hear Dutch choke and die, slowly. No matter how hard he thrashed or screamed or promised death, they didn’t pay him any attention, too focused on their killings.
Ross didn’t even bother with him—Arthur will never know why—turned to him with a satisfied glint in his eye when now both Hosea and Dutch were still. He looked like he was about to shoot him too, that would’ve been merciful, Arthur guesses, and there’s no mercy in the hearts of men such like them.
He, instead, brought down the butt of his rifle across Arthur’s temple, once, stunning him, then twice to knock him out.
It’s not until much, much later that he comes back around, loud commotion around him, people yelling, calling for names. An arm shaking his shoulder fiercely, he would’ve thought it was wolves smelling all the blood if it weren’t for the very human fingers digging into his shoulder.
“Please,” a breathless voice begs, and Arthur recognizes it, opens his eyes very slowly. Head pounding like he drank an entire bar and then some, and vision filling with spots, but he opens his eyes nevertheless, and everything comes back to him.
Arthur can’t help but stare, really, he can’t. Hosea’s eyes are still fixed on him, head lolled to the side and a clear hole in his forehead bleeding, still bleeding. Arthur blinks, numb as he shifts to sit up, and the hand on his shoulders turn even more frantic.
He’s turned around, facing a very clearly distraught John Marston, eye’s wide and, dare he say almost tearful. There are others around too, Arthur can see when he cranes his neck. Javier, Bill, Charles, all crowding around him now that he’s decidedly not dead.
John doesn’t speak it, but Arthur can feel it, from the tight hold John had taken to his arm, other hand coming up to lift his head from the ground. Arthur doesn’t want to look into John’s eyes anymore, seeing the relief in them, or the worry. So instead he closes his eyes, stiffly moving so he’d sit up, feeling like the ground is inviting him to lay down and wait till death’s synth lands on him and swiftly takes him under.
He doesn’t speak, not that he think’s he can anyway; his throat is tight and dry, but he drags himself to the corpses of his father—and his mentor—and stares.
Arthur knows he probably shouldn’t, but again, he can’t help it. Maybe if he stared long enough, they’d come back and jib him about it, if he looked into Hosea’s eyes long enough, the faded color of his irises, he’d blink back. But they don’t, not when John joins him, or when Charles and Javier slowly, as carefully and respectful as possible carry their corpses to their horse.
“Pinkertons” Arthur mumbles, once John places a hand to get him to move, and John looks down to him, eyes slowly understanding, “they left me alive” he adds, hand coming up to touch the bruise on the side of his head.
“let’s go home,” John says quietly, and Arthur looks down to the dark stains of blood soaking into the soil.
Home?
--
Arthur doesn’t know what to do, now that his head finally healed. He doesn’t know what to do, now that Dutch and Hosea have been respectfully laid under the ground, graves close to each other and headstones carved with care. Now that it’s been weeks, and the gang is still shambling on, held together by tight threads of grief and loss.
It hangs in the air just as densely as it fills everyone’s eyes, their gait, their words. The red air of Lemoyne, the heavy hotness of the weather doesn’t help. And Arthur feels like he’s about to suffocate on himself. Closes his eyes as he sits by the shore, thinking.
He knows grief, knows it too well almost, but he’d only made accompany with this type of heaviness once before. The anvil in his chest, where he locks every tear that threatens to spill or every anger ridden word he wants to shout at anyone close by.
They’re expecting him to lead, he can see it in their eyes, the way their gaze follows him whenever he steps out. When Grimshaw cleared out Dutch’s things, laid them deep into one of the wagons, where Davey, Jenny, Mac and Hosea’s stuff lay too. When Tilly came to him asking what they’re going to do, and Arthur could only tell her that…there is nothing to do. Not yet.
He can’t think, Arthur doesn’t know how they expect him to lead them, take care of them, he can barely take care of himself. He’s half sure he’d been dead or starved to death already if Charles wasn’t there, a steady, strong presence that gently swept over the camp and held them up. A silent Atlas that made sure they don’t starve, don’t fight, that they eat and sleep and are guarded.
Arthur wants to thank him, has done it a few times, but they’re always quiet mummers that Charles doesn’t respond to. Maybe he doesn’t hear them, doesn’t need them. He can see the tired lines of his face, the gentleness that never disappears, that so few people see and appreciate. Arthur watched Charles head out every day, never failing to come back with something.
While the rest of them fell down into stupor, Arthur watched Charles become their savior.
It’s that same quiet strength that had him slowly pick up himself, watching Charles’ tired face move around camp, cut their wood and fill their water and hunt for them. One man doing the task of ten people, and it isn’t fair.
It’s as the first breeze of fall passes by them that Arthur picks up Dutch’s map, lays it down on Dutch’s table, inside of Dutch’s tent. Arthur pointedly ignoring the faint smell of cigar that had stuck to the canvas, the years of use and the presence he feels as he stands, staring down at the big map almost angrily.
They can’t stay in Lemoyne anymore.
It’s unkind and the Braithewaits and Grey’s have heard about their true identities. And while nothing has happened yet, they can’t afford any more loss. Arthur stares at the map, blinking slowly between long stretches, eyes fixed on the Lannahechee river, where Dutch has scribbled their location, as well as some pointers of where jobs can possibly be. His eyes trail up to Colter, where Dutch had drawn two small crosses, J under one and D under another.
Arthur looks down, eyes falling to the middle of New Hanover, where they laid Dutch and Hosea to rest, overlooking an area where deer and rabbits frequent, and long, green fields span over hills and cliffs. A place that can carry both their souls.
Arthur picks up a pencil, drawing another two crosses.
An H under one and a D under the other.
He stands back, feeling the wind leave his lungs, and a familiar rush of dread creep up his neck, down his arms till he feels weak again.
--
The night finds Arthur sitting on Dutch’s bed, Molly having sought refuge in the girl’s tent, sleeping on her own in the bed of the man she loved proving to hard. Especially with how everything seemed to hold a tether to him. Arthur understands, he thinks, it’s hard stepping out sometimes. There are days that pass where Arthur’s grief makes him quiet and somber, but functional enough that he can hang around John, share a cigarette and sit around the silent campfire; where no one speaks and most men drink.
Javier doesn’t play his guitar, Bill had stays drunk more often than not, Karen too. Sean is uncharacteristically quiet, playing on his string or harmonica at the edge of camp.
The only ones truly working are Pearson, cooking them food, Grimshaw, urging the girls with slightly more vigor than necessary to get off their ass and work, Sadie, who had taken to robbing stagecoaches on their behalf and sparsely killing O’driscolls when she finds them.
And Charles, of course, who looks more worn down as the days passed.
Arthur leaves the tent, standing on its edge where Dutch once stood, clearing his throat so his unused voice doesn’t crack. Not many are sleeping, despite how many people are laying down. He scans the camp, tousled and sullen and half dead, soul sucked right out of everyone, and even the moonlight can’t pierce the dark clouds hanging above them. Their sadness stinks, Arthur is surprised it hadn’t attracted vultures.
“Everyone,” Arthur calls, and several heads turn to him, some more surprised than the others. He hadn’t spoken since that night, only muttered thank you’s to Charles every once in a while, and whispered to himself as he hunched over Dutch’s map to find a good, safe place for them to settle until they pick themselves up again, “can you come here for a moment?”
They listen to him, herding around him, looking with parts of relief and expectation, and parts of curiosity and weariness. Arthur can feel their gazes heavy on him, he was never one for public speaking, he’s a bumbling fool most of the time, but there’s no time for shyness or miswording.
He glances at his feet for a second, before pulling a deep breath. With no speech, like Dutch would often have, Arthur resorts to straightforwardness, “we need to move, we can’t stay here anymore,” he says, his voice foreign to him, too gruff and low and emotionless, “we’re moving north, away from the Grey’s, and the Braithwaites, and any goddamn Pinkerton who might still be on our tail—” he explains despite his suspicion that the Pinkertons will leave them alone now, They want you, Dutch, he’d once told, and that was true, and instead of Dutch only, they got Hosea too. And so, they were winners, victorious in their hunt.
“Where?” John asks, and Arthur pulls in a deep breath, where had been the question plaguing Arthur since the day he laid eyes on the map. Where kept him up at night. Where, he didn’t know, but he had a sort of idea, and the people need any hope right not, Arthur’s uncertainty didn’t leave room for it.
So, with all the confidence he can muster—a miniscule amount really—Arthur answers, “Grizzlies”
It’s a mountain area, untouched mostly, he knows there’s the Native reservation there, the few instances where he’d rode around on Elk hunting trips, he’d gazed down on the reservation and left it unbothered. And he still plans to continue so, the Natives don’t need any more bother, by what the newspaper tells him anyway. There’s a very pretty mountain, with run down shacks up there, where he found a woman dead before her lover could come back from war—or so he thinks.
He'd cleared the shacks, discarded the body too, when he first stumbled on it. It proves helpful now, since all they’ll need to do is swipe the dust and settle their own stuff, the mountain top has three shacks if he remembers correctly, and a great view of the plains ahead of them. Enough space for them, enough distance too.
“Miss Grimshaw,” Arthur says, voice quieter now, “please start packing up, everyone, get your horses up and ready, we’ll leave as soon as we can, I’ll head out to check the place I have in mind—if it’s still free,” he pauses, looking behind him, where the map lays on the table, rough circles around the area of the mountain, his scribbled notes beside it, “Charles,” he calls, “a moment?”
The crowd slowly scatters, announcement over as Charles slowly walks up to Arthur, John stares at him for a moment before heading to groom Old Boy, get him saddled up for the first time in near a month.
“Arthur?” Charles starts softly, voice low and sweeping over Arthur like a strange balm.
“Charles,” Arthur starts, “I need you to lead them up the trail,” he says “you know the roads—”
“I do,” Charles confirms, and Arthur nods, and for a second, Arthur could only look back to the map, eyes on the graphite angrily circling the mountain name, “how are you?”
Arthur blinks, staring up at Charles, and for the first time in who knows how long, Arthur’s face breaks out into an expression. “Me?”
“Yeah,” Charles looks at him in puzzlement.
“You’re the one I should be asking,” Arthur says, “you’ve been running yourself to the ground on our behalf—”
“I didn’t lose my family,” Charles interjects softly, and Arthur’s words die on his lips, bitterness replacing them, climbing up the back of his throat, “I liked Dutch and Hosea, they were…I don’t know what they were to me, but whatever they meant to me would never compare to…how much you loved them”
“I-“ Arthur hesitates, I’m fine, he’s tempted to say, but Charles’ eyes are steady on him and daring him to even try to, “I need to get them out,” he says instead, and though it’s not what Charles asked, Charles nods at him with understanding, intelligent eyes. Always reliable, Dutch had once described Charles. Arthur can’t help but agree.
Charles doesn’t leave, still, and Arthur turns to sit on Dutch’s bed, “you haven’t eaten all day”
“I’m not hungry,” Arthur sighs.
“You need to be strong if you expect to lead them,” Charles coaxed, stepping closer to Arthur, until he could reach down and place a warm hand on his shoulder, “they need you to be their strongest”
“I ain’t too sure I can do that,” Arthur mutters, rubbing at his eyes, “I don’t know how…I ain’t no leader, Charles, I can barely form a sentence, never mind give orders out,” he explains, words easily spilling out. It’s always been that way with Charles, it seems, the man has an aura to him. A gentle soul with calmness surrounding it, prompting you to trust, “I ain’t Dutch, and I ain’t Hosea neither,” he sighs again, dropping his head into his hands.
“You don’t have to be,” Charles mused, “they don’t need Dutch or Hosea, they need you, Arthur Morgan,” he continues, hand slowly waning down till they’re at the middle of Arthur’s back, right between his shoulder blades, where the muscle is tense.
“I don’t know if I can be that either, anymore,” Arthur whispers.
Charles' knuckles kneed into his muscle, forcing him to relax.
“You can,” Charles insists, “I believe in you”
-
By mid-morning, Arthur was already sitting atop the mountain, looking down to the rocky below. The caravan should arrive at any time; faithfully lead by Charles.
For now, he sits alone, his mare beside him as they gaze together at the wildlife moving breezily below. The world hadn’t paused, for even a second to account for what’s happening in Arthur’s life. He hadn’t expected it to, but it still set a certain perspective in him, makes his chest feel small and lungs too big. Usually, at least, today he feels almost at ease. The bright scenery, the colored fields in the distance, the forest below changing colors as fall settles in easily.
It all makes him think of Hosea, not too far back, and that large bear they hunted—failed to until Arthur set out on his own and brought it down—and the pleasant few days they spent together. The easy banter that flowed between them, Hosea smiling for once, forgetting the weight of everything waiting back for them at camp.
Like the good old days, some ten years ago, when Arthur was younger, when the gang was smaller. Javier being their newest addition, a scrawny teenager that gave John a run for his money. Ten or so years ago Arthur found himself on another mountain, far, far down south, in Texas, having also just lost two people. History likes to repeat itself, Hosea always said so, it so very rarely makes new cases.
Arthur wishes he were here, that would’ve soothed the gaping wound in the gang, in Arthur heart. Hosea’s presence would’ve been a soul balm, he always had the words, always had the perfect amount of kindness and strictness to pull them out of their heads and back into working order.
He had done it with Arthur, when he near drowned himself in liquor and anger, having Isaac and Eliza’s murders as his only priority, and after he’d drained their blood, those long two months away from the gang hunting every single one down and giving them the same dose of pain they bestowed him, he came back empty and tired and ready to sleep for three long decades. Save for the fact that Hosea was there to pull him back, Arthur thinks he might have ended his road right there. Losing his son, losing his friend, losing the only family he’d had outside the gang, well, in short, it destroyed him. Burned him with anger long enough for him to avenge them and left him in his own ashes.
Maybe that’s why he can’t find it in himself to do anything, the emptiness that plagued him before had returned, and most nights he barely manages to convince himself to get up, to stop laying in his bed sleeplessly and stop ignoring life and everyone’s needs.
He heard snippets of Javier and Bill’s wishes of death, of pursuing Milton and Ross and bringing it down on their heads, he’d seen the glint in John’s eyes, more often drunk than not, when he spoke about revenge. Seen Karen and Grimshaw and Sean and Lenny all agree, seen them look at him for a green light.
One that he won’t ever give.
Their disappointment is clear every time he passes by them, every time he sits by the campfire and they open up the conversation, only for Arthur to leave again, wordlessly. Revenge will get them nowhere. A fool’s game, Hosea taught him.
And it’s Hosea’s teachings that keep him sane, just barely. Death is permanent, grief is temporary, he’d told him, that faithful night Arthur sat tearfully on a mountain cliff, ready to let gravity take him and his sins and all he is. Grief is temporary has been stuck in his head for days now. Arthur looks down past his feet, and if he closes his eyes and focuses, he can feel Hosea’s arm around him, can hear him coax the tears out of Arthur’s eyes. If Arthur ignores Shams' snorts behind him, and the soft breeze of fall, if he imagined himself in Texas, with the warm sun soaking him; he can almost see Hosea beside him.
The ache in his chest is near physical, and he brings up a hand almost to rub it away.
He blows a breath out, taking a stand again and turning to Shams. The mare stares at him, almost expectantly, he hadn’t indulged her much these past few weeks, and a stab of guilt hits the sore spot in his chest.
She easily crunches the peppermint he hands her, bumping her head against Arthur’s satchel for more.
“Don’t be greedy now,” Arthur coos, but he still hands her a second peppermint, she shakes her head at him, looking him straight in the eye as he moves past her, “it’s going to be alright, girl,” Arthur promises, “we’ll get through this, right?”
Shams blinks at him, and Arthur can’t help but sigh, leaning his forehead against hers.
The gang arrives just as his watch ticked one, unpacking provides them a welcome distraction, and despite everything Arthur tries to argue, Grimshaw sets up a shack for him, and him only. He doesn’t want it, feels too much like how Dutch would be treated, but he isn’t Dutch, and he can’t and doesn’t want to be. He didn’t want the large space for himself, he thinks, maybe he can give it to Sean or Lenny, or both, the space is big enough.
The girls got the biggest shack, on account of the fact that they’re six women, and jack of course. The last shack housed Charles, John, Bill, and Javier. That left only few out in the open, Micah, Strauss, Reverend, Lenny, Sean, Pearson, and Uncle. A good set up all around, especially since the weather won’t be too bothersome, if it comes to raining, Arthur can cram the rest into his shack.
With the evening bringing them all to the campfire, stew finally done and everyone seeking to rest for the rest of the day, Arthur sits at the edge of the circle, feeling far too tired to include himself in the dry conversations being passed around the campfire, still lacking humor or soul. Tilly only offers pleasantries about the new location, Sean muttering about the bears and the wolves. It rakes on Arthur’s nerves, somehow, he needs to fix this, somehow, he needs to heal them, breath life into them, bring back the hope.
How the fuck is he supposed to do that?
“They say the Pinkertons moved to Colorado,” John brings up, empty stew bowl at his heel, stick half whittled in his hands. Arthur snaps his attention to him, but John isn’t looking at him, or anyone, eyes trained on his knife sharpening at the wood, “Moved onto hunting other gangs terrorizing the Midwest, got paid enough from Cornwall for Dutch and Hosea’s heads”
“Good,” Arthur grunts, “that means they won’t bother us no more,” he says, voice gruff with a warning.
John has always been to defy him, though, brushed past the warning and glared daggers into Arthur, “so we’ll just let them go?”
“You want us to go after them?”
“We all do!” John sneered, looking around the campfire, and a spiral of anger twists in Arthur’s chest when everyone nodded in agreement.
“Well, we won’t,” Arthur sneers right back.
John’s eyes darken, stepping towards Arthur, just the same way he did as a teenager and about to drag Arthur by the neck into a fight. But they haven’t fought like that in years, not since John left, and he isn’t in the mood to spare John Marston from a beating, so he steps towards him to cut him off, grabbing his arm. John glares at him, trying to tug his arm out of his grip, but he can’t, not with how adamant Arthur was about keeping him in place.
“Don’t be stupid,” Arthur hisses, “you go after them, you kill yourself, you kill whoever follows you”
“Dutch wou-“
“Dutch ain’t here no more!” Arthur shouts, pushing John back, pointing an accusing finger at him. John stares at him with surprise for a quick second, before his expression quickly falls to anger again, “Dutch died because he didn’t know when to stop-“
“He died because the Pinkertons jumped him” John spits back, and Arthur’s shoulder tense. Staring at John with so much poison that he feels like a viper about to strike, and John looks much the same, sneering at Arthur like an angry wolf—maybe his nickname had some truth—fists curled by his sides.
As quickly as the anger surfaced, Arthur feels it seep out of him as a breeze blows by, his shoulders are still tense, head nearly buried between them, but his eyes are cold and so are his words, “We won’t go after them,” He states simply, “revenge is a fool’s game, all it’ll do is get more folk dead and break us apart.”
“Dutch woulda went after them if it were you,” John insisted, stepping closer, “he wouldn’t stand for those bastards to get away with it”
“Well, good thing I’m not Dutch, then,” Arthur replies coldly, and John blinks at him in bewilderment. Arthur looks away, instead turning to look at the rest of the gang, all staring at him with shock, “any one of you wanna go out there, get themselves killed, give us more heartbreak, make us weaker? It’s your choice, I ain’t got the power to stop you, but don’t expect Dutch ‘n Hosea to spring outta the dirt and give ya a goddamn hug!” Arthur snaps, “You want revenge, it ain’t gonna bring ‘em back, it ain’t gonna do us no good, all it’ll do is bring back the goddamn law on us, and more people’ll die for no good fucking reason!”
“It’s a damn good point,” Charles says, breaking the deathly silence that fell over them, “we’re not nearly strong or spirited enough to go after an entire army of lawmen”
“Then what are we doing?” Javier asks, “what’s there left for us to do? Dutch always had a plan.”
“I know,” Arthur sighs, crossing his arms, looking at the now dark sky as he gets his thoughts straight, “we do what we always set out to do,” he says, “we get enough money, and we buy ourselves a piece of land and live goddamnit, we survived for long enough” Arthur turns to John again, who’s glare had been burning at the side of his head “That’s what Dutch ‘n Hosea woulda wanted”