Chapter Text
Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,
That maybe reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That maybe identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only
—Walt Whitman
The sky went from overcast, to dusky gray, to a downpour in a manner of minutes. Charles was glad he’d been in this area for a while, and had camped in this recessed cave before. He’d even had the time to gather an armful of firewood before the rain started. The storm now formed a wall of water beyond the rock. Tamia let out a soft squeal of nerves at a distant rumble of thunder. This was another good thing about his circumstances—the rock overhang was tall enough for Tamia to find shelter, too.
They both jumped when another horse burst through the rain and into the cave. Tamia stomped her foot indignantly and Charles stared as a man swung himself out of his saddle and cursed. He swept his hat off his head and pushed back his light-colored hair with a hiss as water ran down his neck. He gave his horse a pat, then noticed Charles.
“Ah, shit,” the man said. The single word was enough for Charles to hear the absurd drawl of the man's accent. He stretched the one-syllable word into two—shyi-it. He glanced towards the rain, then back at Charles. "I, uh, didn't realize it was occupied."
The poor feller already looked half-drowned, and his horse was trying to make her way deeper into the cave. Charles wasn't looking for company, but he couldn't send them back out in this. "I reckon there's room for all four of us."
The man slumped in relief and placed his hat on his saddlehorn, then began unbuttoning his shirt. "Thank you, mister. I really don't wanna go back out into all that mess. I thought this was supposed to be a desert?"
"It's the rainy season," Charles replied. He went back to working on starting the fire, keeping half his attention on the stranger. The other man was now removing his boots, dumping rainwater out of them with a grimace and steadying himself with a hand on his horse. The beast was either very placid or very fond of her rider. She didn't move even as the man cursed and draped wet clothing over her.
Perhaps it had something to do with the peppermints.
In his socks, jeans, and union suit, the stranger pulled a paper bag from a satchel at his waist. Charles could smell the mints as soon as the bag opened and the mare's ears perked up at the sound. The smell intensified as she crunched into her treat and Charles glanced back towards his growing ember as the stranger peeked in Taima's direction. "That's a real fine appaloosa you've got there."
Charles looked to Taima and saw her focus was on the other man and his mints. She didn't move towards him, most likely because she couldn't navigate across the cave without stepping too close to where Charles was working or venturing back out into the storm. "Thank you." Neither man had offered the other a name and Charles was content to leave it at that unless prompted. But it seemed harmless enough to say, "Her name is Taima."
"Can Miss Taima have a peppermint?" The stranger asked. He was still looking at her, and not at Charles, and it was strange how much easier that made it for Charles to agree.
"Sure. Just don't try to pet her. She's a bit testy."
The stranger removed a mint, tucked the bag away again, and lightly swatted at his own mare when she nosed at his satchel. He approached Taima calmly, his posture loose and open. "I would never touch a lady fine as you without express permission, ma'am. Don't you worry none." He stopped just out of arm's reach and extended his hand with the mint sitting flat on the center of his palm. Taima sized him up, scented the air, and took the half-step forward required to nab the candy. "Enjoy, madam."
He stepped back with a little bow to her and an aborted gesture that was clearly meant to be a tip of his hat, which he remembered halfway through that he was no longer wearing. This close, with the fire starting to crackle between them, Charles could see the crow's feet at the edges of the man's smiling eyes. He was still wearing his gun belt, which Charles thought was perfectly reasonable. They were strangers to one another, trapped by circumstance, and the feller didn’t seem like he was worth robbing, but a man could never be too careful when he was out on his own like this.
“Who’s your girl?” Charles asked, because the horses seemed to put the stranger at ease, and Charles would greatly prefer the company of a man who was relaxed.
“Boadecia,” the man replied.
“And here I thought ‘Taima’ was unusual.”
The man smiled again. He had a nice smile, that eased something from his face all the way down to the loose slope of his shoulders and the easy tucking of his thumbs into his belt. “It’s the name of some Welsh queen. She fought against the Romans. Seemed like a good strong name for a horse.” He shrugged, “What about Taima?”
“It means ’Thunder’,” Charles replied. He glanced to her, than back towards the wall of rain. “Not the most fitting, seeing as how she hates storms.”
“Well, she’s beautiful,” the man said. “Always had a thing for appaloosas. For any horse with a striking pattern, to be honest. Hard to tell in this light, but Bo here’s a reverse dapple thoroughbred.”
Boadecia was mostly black, with a white marking on her face a little like a backwards question mark. From here, in the gloom of the stormy cave, Charles couldn’t really make out the dappling. “She seems very fond of you. Not many horses would let you use them as a clothing rack.”
This drew a genuine laugh from the stranger, and Charles found himself wondering when the last time had been that he'd made anyone laugh, joyously and not at his own expense. For that matter, when was the last time he'd spoken so many words to a stranger, just for the hell of it? His instinct was to excuse it as self-preservation. They were trapped in this cave together until the rain let up, and friendliness would keep Charles safer than his usual walled silence. But if he'd truly felt threatened, he would've just forced Taima out into the rain anyway. It wouldn't be the first time he'd given something up to avoid trouble with a white man. And all this talk was amounting to nothing—he'd learned nothing important about this man except that he had a distinctive horse with an unusual name. He didn't know his name, he didn't know where he was coming from or where he was heading when the storm passed.
But here he was, making the man laugh and, now, considering sharing his dinner. "I've got a rabbit here I was going to sell to a trapper in town. Looks like we may be here awhile yet, though. You hungry?" Charles stood, untied the rabbit from Taima's saddle, and settled back by the crackling fire.
"I don't wanna take your livelihood or nothin', mister," the man said.
"One rabbit is hardly my livelihood. And I can still sell the pelt. I just don't want it to sit so long that the meat spoils. It'd be an awful waste. Ruin the pelt, too."
He kept his eyes down, on the working of his knife through the rabbit's soft fur. "Well," the other man said, "I ain't gonna say no to a decent meal. Maybe I can manage dessert."
He wandered back across the cave to rifle through his saddlebags and Charles tried to be surreptitious with his stare. If he was being honest with himself, which he usually tried to be, than he was perhaps treating this feller with a bit more kindness than usual because he was attractive. Charles wasn't stupid enough to act on it. It was just as he'd thought earlier—they were strangers, they knew nothing of each other, and the world was a dangerous place. But he also wasn't one to turn away from a nice view just because it was tempting. Especially when said view was only temporary. It was best to enjoy these things while he still could. He could handle the temptation just fine, even if this feller was handsome and good to his horses and had a charming drawl that twanged against Charles' heartstrings.
"Ah-ha! Here we go." The man pulled something from his bags and brought it over. It was a battered little tin of cookies, which he frowned at as he dropped to the cave floor by the fire. "Shouldn'ta put 'em with the cans, but they should be salvageable."
Charles could see the man more clearly now that he was sitting a few feet away in the light of the fire. He was older than Charles, but probably still in his thirties. His age showed mostly in the number of scars marring his face and hands, and in the odd gray hair hiding in his beard. The rest of his hair was a sandy blond that was curling against the nape of his neck and around his ears as it dried. The disparity between the broad sweep of the man's shoulders and his narrow waist was especially tantalizing. His suspenders were still hanging loose off his pants, shucked at the same time he'd removed his shirt, and the top of the man's trousers was rucked down enough to show the soft, slight swell of the man's belly beneath his union suit.
It was a little odd that he was wearing a union suit at all, but part of Charles was grateful to not also be able to feast his eyes on the man's bare chest. He was good at ignoring his own desires, but if the man was any more exposed, then Charles was going to start feeling lecherous. Perhaps the feller was simply a late riser, and had intended to be in the desert during the cool of the night.
"You got a sweet tooth?" Charles asked. The rabbit was now skinned, resting atop the pelt that Charles had left fur-down against the cave floor. He contained the little animal's innards in a bit of waxed paper, to dispose of later or to use as bait for a larger beast. He set about assembling the metal spit he carried strapped to Taima's saddle.
"Nah, no more than the next feller." The man replied. "I picked 'em up for—for my nephew, I suppose. But if I bring 'em to him in this state, he'll complain about it and it'll piss me off. Ungrateful little bastard." Charles could tell there was genuine fondness in the man's tone. It was just gentle teasing, with no real malice. "He only just turned four. He's at that age where he talks real good now, but he ain't great at not saying every little thing that crosses his mind. It can be mighty entertainin', 'cept when you've had a long day and you try to do somethin' nice for the kid, and he scowls at you because half his cookies are crumbs."
"Sure," Charles agreed, because it seemed like he should respond somehow. But he didn't really have much to offer in way of tidbits about children. He hadn't spent a lot of time around kids since he was one himself and, even then, he hadn't been good with them. He'd always been too quiet and too serious. He'd preferred the company of his parents or his aunts and uncles. He had learned more in his childhood than his peers, because sticking around the adults meant being put to work, but he hadn't minded. The skills he had learned then had become invaluable pretty quickly when he left home at thirteen.
"Besides, I think Jack is more int'rested in candy than cookies that ain't even got chocolate in them." He was carefully removing some of the cookies that were still in one piece from the dented tin, placing them in a little stack atop the lid.
"Your nephew and Boadecia? Your peppermint budget must be insane."
This brought forth a genuine, rumbling round of laughter in the other man. His whole body lit up with it. He rocked back on his heels from where he was stooped by the fire, tilted back his head, and touched his hand to his own chest, as though surprised by the sound emanating from it. Charles found himself smirking in return and was grateful that his dark skin and the low light was surely keeping the stranger from seeing the warmth that had rushed to his face.
"Christ," the man breathed when he was done laughing. He shook his head, still smiling, and lifted the improvised plate of cookies to pass them to Charles. "Here."
He had given him the less crumbled ones. It was such a small gesture of kindness, but the man had done it without seeming to think twice. Charles wondered, again, why this man was out here and what he did for work. He didn't seem like a hunter or a trapper. Those sorts of men tended to carry more equipment, catch their own dinners, and be less fussed about the rain. But the man had a bedroll strapped behind his saddle, so he was used to sleeping rough and probably not a feller that had been waylaid on his path to somewhere more civilized.
Rancher or drover, therefore, seemed the most likely, given the man's apparent ease with horses and strangers. It could also explain some of his kindness towards Charles. Ranchhands and cattlemen were a nomadic bunch, usually taking work in seasons. It was possible this man had a singular place he called home; it was more likely that ‘home’ was a series of ranches or farms he drifted between to keep his work steady. Ranch work brought in all kinds of wanderers. Charles himself had done it on occasion. Some white ranchhands saw colored or Mexican men as threats to their livelihoods, most simply saw them as fellow workers—just trying to get by, keep themselves and their animals alive, and get the job done. The stranger across the fire from him now was probably the latter sort.
Still, the small kindness of the better half of the cookies didn’t seem such a small kindness to Charles. He was so used to needing to forcibly take the things he wanted for himself or else be left with other men’s dregs. Maybe this feller had lived a similar life. Maybe it had made it easier to extend kindness to someone else, rather than hoard whatever he’d managed to claim for himself.
Charles didn’t ask after any of it—the man’s job or motivations. He just replied, sincerely, “Thank you,” and ate one of the cookies. They were gingersnaps, and therefore probably not the go-to cookie for a boy of four, but they were good enough for two grown men to have before their supper.
They shared the cookies and the rabbit in near-silence, only communicating twice. Once, when the stranger grunted, “S’good,” midway through a bite of rabbit, and a second time, nonverbally, when the man extended a brown bottle towards Charles, then shrugged and lifted it to his own lips when Charles shook his head.
“Can I help you clean anything up?” The stranger asked when the food was gone. He’d removed the bandana from around his neck to wipe his hands.
All that needed tidying was the spit, which still needed to cool anyway. “I’ll handle it in the morning.”
“I’ll give you some space, then. Thanks again for dinner.” He bowed his head in that same hatless tip he’d given Taima. Charles thought for a moment that the man intended to venture out into the storm, that he thought he’d overstayed his welcome, but he merely moved back to the side of the cave where his horse waited. He dropped to sit against the rock wall at her side. When the mare lowered her head to bump against the man’s chest, he said, voice low and rumbling with fondness, “my girl,” and lifted his hand to scratch along her jaw.
The next time Charles glanced towards the stranger, he had his hat back on his head, the brim dipped low to hide his eyes. His head was bowed, arms crossed over his chest and legs outstretched, and he appeared to be asleep. Charles busied himself with arranging his own bedroll. He didn’t really intend to sleep himself, not with the other man so nearby and still wearing his guns, but he must have dozed. He awoke to the sound of Taima’s weight shifting, her hooves clopping gently against the rock.
The fire had died to a few glowing embers, but the stranger was working by lantern light. He was standing alongside Boadecia, redressing, and gently shushing her for obvious worry of waking Charles. He kept glancing over his shoulder at him, but it must’ve been too dark for him to be able to tell that Charles was awake and watching him, and so Charles let himself watch. The other man dressed, lifted himself into the saddle, and quietly plodded out into the rain, now just a drizzle, with a murmured, “Shh, girl. Easy, Bo.”
Charles listened until Boadecia’s hoof-falls were too far gone to hear, then drifted back to sleep. When he awoke properly in the earliest hours of dawn, he found a gift.
Near the cave wall where the stranger had dozed was the cookie tin.
Inside, a single peppermint.
Charles looked to Taima and smiled.
Bounty hunting wasn’t Charles’ preferred method for making money, but years of living alone had made him into an opportunist. He didn’t usually waste his time on setting out with the sole intention of bringing back a runaway criminal, but he made a point to always check the sheriff’s office when he was in town and to keep an eye out on his travels. He’d stumbled across an outlaw’s camp on more than one occasion and earned himself some relatively easy money.
The feller he had his eye on now was wanted for theft, assault, and destruction of property. The man was standing well off the road, but Charles had spotted his horse with relative ease. The animal had wandered away from its rider to graze among the brush. The man—John Marston, if Charles was right about his identity—was leaning against a weathered tree and watching something with his binoculars. He was wearing a gun belt slung low across his slim hips. Charles carefully dropped from Taima's saddle after taking the care to properly lead her away from the road. Charles eased closer to Marston, wanting to be sure of his identity before he acted. Marston's horse moved away with nothing more than a glance and a huff, clearly concerned only with the tufts of roadside grass. The stallion's saddle had JM embossed on the sides.
Probably his bounty, then, but Charles still took a good look at the man's profile as he crept forward. He moved as quickly as he dared, mindful of twigs and rocks, but Marston's attention remained on his binoculars. Once in reach, Charles lifted Marston's pistol from his right-hand holster and, with his left, grabbed the man by the wrist and yanked him around to shove him against the tree. In the same steady breath, he pushed a knee into Marston's back and pressed the barrel of Marston's gun into his ribs.
"Fuck!" Marston yelled.
He thrashed uselessly in Charles' grip as he pulled Marston's left hand down behind his back and said, "Don't be stupid. Give me your other hand."
Marston was trying to use his free right hand to reach the pistol still holstered on his left side, but it was pinned between the tree and his and Charles' weight. He continued to struggle anyway, trying to use the arm as leverage to buck Charles off. The scrawny bastard was going to dislocate his own shoulder if he kept this up. Charles sighed and pulled the gun from the man's ribs long enough to shoot a bullet into the sand a few inches from Marston's boot.
His whole body flinched beneath Charles and he croaked, "Fine, damnit! Fine!" Charles gave him enough room to free his hand, tossed the gun aside, and tied Marston's wrists together at the small of his back. While he was at it, he lifted the second pistol, unloaded it, and tucked it into the waist of his own jeans. He cursed under his breath as Marston began to shout, "Arthur! Arthur, get over here, you bastard!"
Quickly, Charles shoved him to the ground to tie his ankles, then hauled him back up with a hand clamped tight over his mouth. Marston thrashed in his arms like a hooked fish but the man was skinny as a rail and Charles hadn't left him enough slack to bite. He whistled for Taima and, as soon as Marston was draped over her back, he began to scream again, his voice cracking sharply, "Arthur, where the hell are you? Goddamnit! Arthur!"
Charles fished a bandana out of his saddlebags and shoved it into Marston’s mouth until the other man heaved around the gag. He spurred Taima into a gallop before his ass was properly in the saddle. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before another set of hooves began thundering behind him. Charles jerked Taima off the road, hoping to lose his pursuer amidst the scraggly brush and rock. There wasn’t enough damn cover out here—
“Hey! Hey, mister!” A voice called and Charles twisted in his saddle because that voice was familiar.
It had been nearly a week since he’d shared a rabbit with a stranger during a storm, but the man’s drawl was unmistakable. It was fucking stupid, but Charles found himself tugging Taima to a stop and whirling around to face the man.
And there was Boadecia, roaring down the road at him. He could see her dappled coat now, sunlight on a dark, deep pool of water. The stranger, who must have been called Arthur, was riding low over her saddle but he sat up straighter when he saw Charles, his face sparking with recognition. Charles let Taima’s reins drop and rested his hands over his pommel in a clear display of non-aggression. Marston was trying to twist to see what was going on and Charles glanced down to see his eyes go wide and then get a triumphant gleam. Charles really hoped he hadn’t judged this Arthur feller all wrong.
“Hey, it’s you—" Arthur said, and he hadn’t drawn his gun, which was a relief.
“You must be Arthur,” Charles replied, raising an eyebrow with another glance towards Marston’s squirming body.
“Arthur Morgan,” the man agreed, with a proper tip of his hat this time. It was a worn and ragged thing with a bit of rope tied around the brim.
“Charles Smith.”
Marston tried his damnedest to roar something around his gag and Arthur sighed. He tipped his head back towards the sky, as though asking his God for strength, and then said to Charles, “It’s a pleasure to meet you properly, Mr. Smith. Unfortunately I am gonna have to take that fool off your hands.”
They stared at each other for a few tense seconds before Charles relented and nudged Taima forward to stand alongside Boadecia. Twenty dollars was a decent amount of money, but it wasn’t worth dodging gunfire. And he did like Arthur, despite his own good sense. “He’s your fool, then?”
“He’s my brother,” Arthur corrected with a snort, “as if there’s much difference.” Marston made another noise around the gag and squirmed. Arthur finally reached down to tug the bandana free.
“About damn time!” Marston hollered. “Untie me! You know this feller?”
“We’ve met,” Arthur said easily. He slid off Boadecia and dumped Marston unceremoniously to the dirt. Marston kept up a string of curses as Arthur knelt down and cut his ropes. He offered him a hand up to stand and, once Marston was on his feet and had let go, the larger man popped him on the back of the head. “How’d you let this big bastard sneak up on you?”
Charles arched an eyebrow as Marston muttered, “Was watchin’ you.”
“Yeah? You learn anything?”
“That you’re a dick.”
Arthur snorted, “How much was you gonna get for him anyhow?”
“Twenty dollars,” Charles said.
Arthur let out a low whistle, “What’d you do, Marston?”
“Weren’t my fault! Micah—"
“Now him I wouldn’t mind being rid of. You see a wanted poster for a Micah Bell?” Arthur’s gaze was back on Charles. Charles felt a little like he was watching a comedy act.
“No, just this one.” He nodded towards the smaller man.
“Barkeep asked my name,” Marston said. “Must not have gotten Micah’s.”
“You still ain’t said what you done.” Arthur’s drawl was absolutely ridiculous. Did he really sound like this all the time?
“Micah got drunk and dragged me into his bullshit. You know how he is. Started a fight, broke a few tables, I mighta punched the barkeep when he tried to escort me out. It’s all a bit blurry.”
“I think the barkeep might be the one that owns that saloon,” Charles put in. The sheriff had told him as much—that John Marston’s bounty was higher than usual, given the lightness of his crimes, because a local with some money had been personally offended and had doubled the bounty with his own funds. Charles had just thought it meant easy money, and that Marston wouldn’t be too much trouble. So much for that.
“Can’t go drinkin’ there anymore,” Arthur said. He lifted a hat off his saddle and shoved it roughly onto Marston’s head. “Go on, go get your sorry excuse for a horse. I don’t think he even noticed you were gone.”
“Ain’t you gonna give me a ride?”
“Does it look like I’m feelin’ charitable today, Marston? Get out of here. I’ll see you back at camp.” Still muttering, Marston stalked past them and back the way they’d come. Arthur pulled himself onto Boadecia and asked, “Mr. Smith, would you care to ride with me for a bit?”
Charles felt his heart pick up its paces and he tried not to show any tension in his face or shoulders. “I’m content to forget this ever happened.”
“Aw, no, it ain’t nothin’ like that. I’m just curious, is all. You runnin’ on your own?” He turned his horse back towards town and, after a beat, Charles followed with Taima. When Charles didn’t answer, Arthur frowned and scratched at his beard, “Right. I see where that might not be the smartest question for you to answer.”
If Arthur was threatening him, it would not be wise for Charles to admit that he didn’t have anyone that was going to come looking for him.
“The reason I ask,” Arthur continued, “is that Marston and I run with a group that could always use an extra pair of hands, and you seem like the capable sort. You got the jump on John, which, admittedly, ain’t always that hard, but you’re a big feller so you must’ve been doing somethin’ right to sneak up on him. You seem good under pressure, and you can obviously hunt or trap or whatever it was you did to get that rabbit, and we ain’t got many folks that can do that sort of thing. It’d be a useful skill to have around.”
Charles didn’t immediately reply, but he didn’t pull Taima away from Arthur’s path either. "When you say 'group'...?"
Arthur smiled, and there was a sharp edge to it, like the glint of a knife. "You heard of the Van der Linde gang?"
Most people in this part of the country had, and Charles was no exception. "You're running with Van der Linde?"
"Have been for most of my life," Arthur replied. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his satchel and lit up. Charles was surprised when he extended the pack his way, and even more surprised when he found himself accepting. He sidled Taima within reach and Arthur shook out a cigarette, passed it over, and gestured for Charles to lean in so that he could light it for him. It was an awfully familiar thing to do for a feller if you planned on harming him. "I ain't saying it's an easy life, but it doesn't look like you've had one of those anyway." His gaze lingered over the scar lancing Charles' jaw and cheek, then he turned his head back towards the road and gave Bo a nudge.
"I haven't," Charles agreed.
"And, well, maybe you think it might be better than what you have now. It's your decision, I ain't gonna hurt you or nothin' if you wanna go your separate ways. I appreciate you giving me my prized fool back."
"Oh, here—" Charles tossed over Marston's pistol. Arthur shook his head and tucked it into his saddlebags. "How many folks do you run with?"
Most of what Charles had heard about the Van der Lindes surrounded stopped trains, robbed banks, and the occasional debauchery. His guess would've been a group of ten or so men. He was not expecting Arthur to need to pause and count. "There's somethin' like twenty of us, but some of those come and go, and little Jack don't really count." The trepidation involved with going from living alone to living with twenty other people must have shown on Charles' face, because Arthur added, "Ain't all men like me and John. There's a couple older fellers and—" again he paused, considering, and shrugged, "—I don't know. Not quite half of us are women. We're a bunch of outlaw degenerates, but we're good enough folk. Most of us anyway."
"And you'd let me in? Even after I tried to put your brother in jail?"
Arthur shrugged, "I'd have done it myself if I knew he was worth twenty dollars." He smirked at Charles. "And he ain't really my brother, we've just both been with the gang since we were kids."
Charles had never heard of a gang of outlaws that raised children. Outlaws tended to be men. They sometimes traveled with the odd prized woman, but never with children. Especially not children they just picked up like strays. "That seems...unusual. A gang with kids."
"Well, it didn't start out as a gang. Started as a pair of conmen, but they kept collectin' folks. Most of us are just people that have nowhere else to be, no other folks to look after them. So, we look after each other. There's some robbin' and connin' and the occasional killin' involved, but mostly we're just trying to survive."
Charles was still working the offer over in his mind, and wasn't yet keen to accept or reject the other man. Instead, he said, "I thought you may have been a rancher, the last time we met."
"Oh, yeah? What makes you say that?"
"You're good with horses and—" He took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled in a long sigh. "You were kind to me, when you didn't have to be. I don't get that often."
Arthur didn't say anything for several seconds. He glanced at Charles, then frowned a little and hid his face beneath the brim of his hat. "What's that got to do with ranchin'?"
"Ranchhands work with all sorts and aren't as set in their ways as folks who are less traveled."
Arthur huffed a soft laugh, "Well, we got all sorts at camp. You ain't gonna stand out too much." Charles hummed in response, noncommittal, and Arthur added, "Look, you ain't gotta decide to stay right this moment. Come on back with me, stay a few days at least, see if you can tolerate us. Dutch—that's Mr. Van der Linde himself—will probably wanna put you to work soon and see what you're made of, but it won't be nothin' too terrible. And if you decide to leave, we ain't gonna prevent it. Of course if you leave and one of us finds out you tried to turn us into the law or somethin'—well, that's gonna be a problem you ain't gonna like seeing the solution for."
"Of course," Charles agreed, easier than the thrill of intimidation made him feel. "I've never really been the type to involve the law in my personal business. Usually does more harm than good for folks like me."
Arthur nodded approvingly. "What you think, then?"
What harm could there be in giving it a try? In at least meeting some of these people before he decided with certainty?
"Lead the way."
