Still trying to get as many amazing sunsets as possible in rdr2, even if it requires stealing a boat from two innocent people and then causing arthur to drown and lose a perfect boar pelt because I paddled too far out.
Sorry for such a long wait for this chapter I’ve had some big life changes (moving to another country for one lol) so I’ve not been writing much. But it’s here, and it might be formatted weirdly coz I’m posting from my phone instead of my laptop. I’m also having some issues connecting to tumblr so this is going up a little later than it went up on ao3. Anyway, to those who are still here, enjoy!
(All chapters tagged with #ATINK and also posted on Ao3, username PorkChop)
-
When I woke up in the morning Arthur was asleep by my side. The attack on the O'Driscoll’s must have been a success. I laid on my side next to him and watched him for a while, noticing the flecks of red on his cheek. They weren’t overly obvious at first glance, but the way I studied the face of the man I loved was close enough to notice even the smallest of details. The blood was dry and by the looks of things, not his. I reached out and traced my thumb gently over his cheek; with a few easy swipes the blood flaked off and he was clean again. I pressed a kiss to his forehead before laying back down and closing my eyes, snuggling closer to him to have a few more moments of sleep.
The day ahead was busy. People were preparing to move on, having made their plans and starting to pluck up the courage to actually leave. We knew that we couldn’t stay here for long and so there was a weird mix of urgency and hesitancy among us all.
Sadie – now content in the knowledge she’d done as much damage to the O'Driscoll’s as she possibly could, though far from at peace – mentioned bounty hunting. Still clearly on the hunt for justice in whatever form she could deliver it, being a woman with good aim and a ballsy attitude.
Lenny was gearing up for a long journey, compacting his belongings into just a pair of saddle bags that poor Maggie seemed only just about capable of carrying. He refused a wagon, wanting to travel lightly. He was going to be on the road for a long time, stopping wherever he could along the way in the sleepiest towns he could find, on his way to Washington like he had mentioned a few nights prior. In search of education. A better, more honourable future. I couldn’t be prouder of him.
Miss Grimshaw had heard from her potential moonshine partner. She’d sent off a letter to a Maggie Fike, who had seemingly written back right away, giving Susan information on her current whereabouts, organising a midpoint where the two could meet. Apparently she’d already started up a moonshine business with rather an odd character; never said a word, but got the job done. She said she’d appreciate the company of someone who could offer a little conversation, however, and welcomed her with open arms.
Abigail, John and Jack were all packed up too. Like Lenny, they packed lightly, taking their most important belongings and fitting them into saddle bags, and selling the rest for some extra pocket change. Their plan was to leave by boat, put some real distance between them and the folks who were after them. They wanted to take Jack to safety and lie as low as possible for as long as possible.
Charles was packed up too. In fact, he had been for the entire time we camped here, just unpacking the essentials when needed. He knew more than anyone that if he needed to go, it would be quick, given the ever changing situation at the Wapiti reservation. He’d found another family there, I believed. He’d always have one with us too, the remaining few good souls of the Van Der Linde gang… if we’d even be able to utter that name as part of our identities ever again. But the Wapiti people understood him in ways that we couldn’t, and I was overjoyed that he’d found that kind of love and support, despite the horrendous circumstances.
So, that left just Arthur and I. I took the liberty of starting to pack our things onto the remaining wagon that none of the others had claimed, my palms clammy and my heart rate elevated the entire time. We were leaving. Today, tomorrow, maybe the next day, but soon! Finally! It was happening! I couldn’t keep the smile from my face as Arthur helped me, collecting his clothes and his belongings and sliding them neatly across the wooden planks of the wagon. He knew it too, he knew this was it.
And then a man rode into camp. One I’d never met but knew within seconds who he was.
“Mr Morgan, Charles, my friends… It doesn’t please me to ask you for assistance yet again but I fear my son has made a grave mistake. He visited your old camping place not half an hour ago and he is riding towards the oil fields as we speak… with those men you used to ride with, and so many of my people at his side,” Rains Fall, a man with long hair and a pair of tired, kind and pleading eyes called out as he climbed down from his horse and came swiftly over to us.
“Dutch? He’s riding out there with Dutch?” Arthur hissed incredulously, “after we told him about everything that happened?” He wasn’t angry, he was in shock.
“Unfortunately so, I believe he went to him in spite of all this because he knew that he would help. Mr Van Der Linde has always encouraged his more reckless ideas,” Rains Fall sighed, eyes dropping to the ground as he shook his head. “Please, will you go there and assist him? I worry that with only Mr Van Der Linde and his followers at his side, he will lose all sense and put himself and everyone else in unnecessary danger!”
Arthur’s eyes met mine for just a moment, wide, indecisive, pained. I was too in shock to give him even a hint of what I was feeling, only staring back with just as much surprise. But Charles’ actions sealed his fate as he mounted up.
“Of course. I’m not letting Dutch take advantage once again, all he cares about is giving the authorities a bigger target than himself!”
“Charles–” Arthur began, stammering once or twice before giving up with a sigh and running to mount up too.
“Thank you, thank you!” Rains Fall breathed out in grateful relief, his hands pressed to his chest, “you are good men!”
Charles and Arthur began to ride, Lenny, Sadie and John joining them without hesitation, following them out of camp in a thunder of hoof steps. I stood and watched with a slack jaw, unable to muster enough rational thought to react.
“I must go back to the reservation, my people will need to move after this, no doubt,” Rains Fall explained, mounting up on his steed and leaving just as quickly as he came.
Momentarily my heart ached solely for him as I watched him ride away, until I was left in the stupefied silence of the camp and realised that I was alone again. Arthur had gone again. He was in danger, again.
I glanced over at Abigail, who’s face betrayed the same dumbstruck emotions as myself, watching after the small speck in the distance that was John. Her hand was loose around Jack’s, who stood and looked up at his mother and quietly asked where his father was going. He didn’t get a response. I stepped forwards, closing the gap between us, reaching for Abigail’s shoulder when I was close enough. She just let out a sigh when she felt my presence, shaking her head.
“I guess their work ain’t over yet,” her tone was a mix between defeated and angry. Harsh but soft at the same time. She turned and walked out of my arm’s reach and I let the hand drop, watching as she continued with her preparations for leaving.
“I’m sure they’ll catch up with ‘em, talk things out and stop it before anything happens,” I offered pathetically and she laughed without a drop of humour.
“You think so?”
I looked down at the ground, where the hem of my skirt dragged just a little and was covered in dust and frayed threads. “No,” I deadpanned, and turned to return to our wagon. There was little for me to do but I fiddled and rearranged things just to give my hands, and my mind, something to do. I needed to be occupied. Because that creeping sensation in my gut and in the back of my mind was back, the one that filled me with enough dread to completely consume me until I saw Arthur again.
But this time it was different. Because we were so close. So damn close! We had packed our things and were planning to leave over the next couple of days and then we’d be free! Free from all of the violence and the danger and the crap that being in Dutch’s gang had always brought since the very start. I was under no illusion that going it alone would come without its challenges and dangers, but at least we’d be fighting for ourselves. We’d be putting our necks on the line for us. Not getting swept up in other people’s problems.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think Arthur should help Rains Fall. It wasn’t that I thought his problems should be ignored, or weren’t worth the fight. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Arthur was doing the right thing and I wouldn’t for one second feel good about attempting to stop him from doing it; this was the man I fell in love with. One of the reasons why. His drive to do the right thing despite his upbringing and his time with Dutch. In his heart he was morally good and of course he would help people in need.
But.
We were so close.
An immeasurable amount of time passed before I let out a growl of frustration, as if something had been wearing me down for ages and ages until I had to give in to it. Then I found myself storming over to Rayna.
“Where are you going?” Miss Grimshaw yelled across the camp.
I didn’t consciously think of my response, it burst from my lips without input from my brain, it felt; “to the oil fields.”
“No you ain’t!” She hissed, whirling towards me as I mounted up.
“Don’t try and stop me Susan, I got a bad feeling about this and I ain’t sitting idly by waiting for them to bring Arthur back with a hole in his chest. I’m going over there and seeing the situation for myself,” I shouted back, not looking up.
“You’ll get yourself killed, girl!”
“I can look after myself just fine.”
“And Mr Morgan can’t? He ain’t alone out there, they’ll handle it. He don’t need to be worrying about you–”
“Please!” I sighed, scrunching my eyes shut, feeling them ache with the tears that wanted to come.
There was silence for some time, and I heard no further protests. I urged Rayna forwards and into a gallop, and followed the hoofprints that had been left by Arthur and our friends.
—
I arrived in good time, but my haste brought no relief; the oil fields were a gruesome sight to behold. Bodies littered the vast expanse in front of me and my mouth was dry. The fight still was not over, in the distance I saw men in uniform turning up on their horses, barely able to dismount before they were ambushed by a group of men that I recognised to be friends of Eagle Flies’. It looked as though I had missed most of the battle, but I urged Rayna forwards anyway.
As I got closer I decided to dismount, making my way across the wooden walkways stained with black sludge and blood, and closer to the main building where most of the men I saw were gathered. I made my way through the little village of huts and through the open doors of a train cart, through to the other side; gulping down my dread as I passed the gatling gun inside.
I spotted Charles. Standing by a door into the building, watching something intently. Relief of some sort washed over me but it wasn’t as strong as the fear I still felt; I was yet to hear or see any proof that Arthur was unharmed.
I closed the space between Charles and I, not making any noise, unsure of what I was walking into. As quiet as I tried to be, Charles still took notice of me, and his eyes widened as he realised who he was looking at. He made a beeline for me.
“What are you doing here?” He hissed with just as much surprise and disapproval as I had expected, if not more.
I ignored his question in favour of demanding an answer to my own. “Is Arthur okay?”
“Yes, but he’s in there with Dutch—”
“Dutch? Why on earth did you let him go inside with him?” I cut him off and immediately went for the door. Charles halted me with a strong hand wrapped around my forearm.
“I didn’t let him do anything; he insisted. He said he wanted to talk, try to make an agreement with him. I tried to stop him but he wouldn’t listen, so I said I’d wait outside,” he explained to me, eyes wandering to the building, “I was keeping watch to make sure nothing went wrong, until now. So I’ll ask again, what’re you doing here?”
“I came to see if you all were still alive, I was worried sick!” I told him as he walked back over to the door, still holding onto me to keep me by his side. “Where are the others? And what agreement does he wanna make?”
“Shh,” he put his free hand’s index finger to his lips and listened for a moment before answering. “Lenny and John just headed back to camp to protect it until everyone can leave, Sadie’s still here, keeping guard around the other side. And Arthur wants to make sure that Dutch won’t come after anyone after all this, he just wants… a truce?” He sighed and shook his head.
Shouting caught our attention from around the side of the building and Charles let go of my arm, readying his gun. It was clear that more men were turning up, and Eagle Flies and the others needed help.
“Stay out of trouble, hide somewhere inside,” he ordered me before running off out of sight. My arm tingled as the blood flowed back into the spot where he’d held me, and I ducked in through the door. It took my eyes a second to adjust to the dark interior, mostly lit by a furnace to my left. There were a couple of desks in the room, and I contemplated hiding under one of them, but then I heard Dutch speaking from the floor above, through the doorway to the next room.
“You betrayed all of us, stole from me,” his voice echoed over the sound of the machinery that filled the next room. “I had to bury my most loyal and valuable man yesterday because of you.”
My mind went to Micah, remembering his weakness when we left and realising that he must have only gotten worse. It didn’t make me happy but I’d be pretending if I felt any grief whatsoever.
I tiptoed through the doorway, eyes peeling upwards to the walkways above. I couldn’t see them, but I knew it’d be best if they didn’t see me. So I found my hiding place, under the walkway and between a pair of big metal pipe things, I had no idea what they were but they’d hide me, so I squeezed in close to the wall so I couldn’t be seen from any angle besides right in front of me. It would be good enough with the dim light.
“And now you want my word?” Dutch continued incredulously, then my heart raced at the sound of the voice that followed.
“I ain’t asking for much, just peace. I don’t wanna be a part of this no more, you gotta understand–”
“I don’t understand! I never understood you, Arthur, not at all these past months. You just got further and further from the man I thought I could trust, and after all I’ve done for you, you destroyed all my plans and my work,” Dutch’s voice raised.
“I didn’t ruin nothing, it was all falling to pieces already, you know that. And you think I’d let Micah shoot the woman I love for your sake? You ain’t that special Dutch, you don’t deserve nothing from me. That man was a snake the whole time, working for the Pinkertons, and I did you a favour by killing him. And I didn’t steal from you, I took what was ours, what we earned,” Arthur ranted in a stream of anger and unleashed frustrations, the likes of which I never expected to hear from him like this.
“All I’m asking is for you to give me your word and shake my hand, and tell me that you’ll do just as I’ll do and move on. No revenge. No fighting to the death. We can both get out of here and do whatever the heck we want, nobody has to spend their lives hunting someone down for vengeance,” he continued.
“How do I know you won’t stab me in the back as soon as I shake your hand?”
“Well, I s'pose you just gotta find what’s in you that trusted me all those years, and do it one last time,” Arthur said after a pause.
There was another stretch of silence.
“Or,” Dutch began, with a nonchalance that made my blood boil, “I could just shoot you now and rid myself of the risk.”
“You think you’ve got a quicker hand than mine? You and Hosea taught me how to use a gun. I know everything you do, plus everything I learned without you. You reach for that gun and it’ll be the last thing you do,” the coolness of Arthur’s voice made me shiver. It was so ruthless, so bare of emotion, so frightening. “You’re forgetting that I’ve got far more to live for than you do, Dutch.”
“What’s that, son?” The word made me turn my nose up, he was no father figure, far from it! “That floozy, that hopeless woman who did nothing but drag you down and take you away from everything that used to matter to you? This life, Arthur. This is what we used to fight for, our freedom! And you’re throwing all that away because of–”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Dutch. That was your dream, living like a crook all these years. I went along with it 'cause I had nothing, you were all I had. And it’s down to her that I realised that there’s more to life than you, than the gang, than this so-called freedom that just entails us lookin’ over our shoulders every damn day. There’s more to me than what you moulded me into,” Arthur was speaking with such diction, such certainty. It made me proud. It made me want to step out and applaud him but with things on such a knife edge, I remained hidden.
“Women, they always did have a way of rotting a good man’s brain,” was Dutch’s only response and I rolled my eyes.
“I won’t bother trying to get through to you Dutch, all I ask for is peace. I don’t wanna interfere with you, and I don’t want you interfering with me. If you can’t shake my hand like a man then I’m telling you Dutch; I ain’t afraid to solve this some other way.”
“Meaning you’ll have no qualms about killing me, huh?” Dutch said incredulously and released a heavy sigh.
Outside I heard more activity. There was a door near my hiding spot, just on the other side of one of the pipes, there was yelling and some gunfire. I prayed that Charles and the others were okay, and contemplated going out there to help. Something held me back though, I wasn’t sure what, but I felt as though I should stay. It was probably for the better, I wasn’t great with combat and my interference would probably just get me or someone else killed.
“We ain’t got much time Dutch, you gonna shake my hand, end this thing? Or are we gonna get shot by the army once and for all while we stand here like fools?” Arthur’s words gave me a clear image of what was happening above me. I imagined him standing before Dutch with his hand extended, waiting. Perhaps the other hand was carefully poised to grab his gun if things weren’t to be solved peacefully. Dutch was probably staring at him with that gaze that seemed to have the ability to freeze a person in place with its iciness despite the warm brown tone of his eyes.
“Fair enough,” Dutch finally said. Though his tone was a little light and apathetic, I got the impression that it was his pride that was doing it. He did not want Arthur to think he was doing this out of fear. He wanted to seem as though he was doing him a favour, in a way that was pretty inconsequential to him. But I knew better, because Dutch was scared. I had no doubt that after everything that had transpired over the past few days that Dutch wouldn’t hesitate to kill Arthur if he didn’t think that his own life would be in danger with the attempt. He wanted Arthur dead, his resentment was so clear.
He just didn’t have the balls to do it while Arthur was standing in front of him so impregnable and fierce.
I heard the clap of two hands coming together, and I envisioned the two men shaking hands. Calling a truce and, with any luck, putting this whole ordeal behind them. With any luck, though? We never had much luck. And I couldn’t say with total honesty that I trusted that handshake.
“Thank you,” Arthur said solemnly. “Now we better leave, these men will just keep coming and we can’t stay here much longer if we want a chance of actually getting out of here.”
“If you say so, Arthur,” Dutch’s voice was tired and nonchalant. I heard the creak of the floorboards overhead and the footsteps as the men made their way down the stairs. I froze up. Shit! I wondered if I should make myself known before I caught them by surprise. Would they even notice me? Was I well hidden enough? Fuck! I panicked as I scrambled for an idea about what to do but in the end I had no choice. A group of men rushed in through the door, yelling.
“There’s more in here!” They exclaimed, eyes peeled up towards the walkways, too focused on them to notice me. I cowered against the wall, huddling into the space as best I could, knowing that if someone saw me, I’d probably be dead before I had the chance to do anything.
I had to wait it out while I listened to Arthur work together with Dutch to clear the building. One last job together. One last glimpse of what they used to be.
Took this one in Cinco Torres while exploring Guarma, and it’s one I quite enjoy.
This might sound a bit silly, but to me it gives a sense of the struggle Arthur goes through. Looking over his shoulder, he stares through the bars and longs for the freedom he can see just beyond. It symbolizes the choices he’s made, and the weight of his past that keeps him from being able to move forward onto something better.
But if he happens to look ahead, the way to freedom is just before him – it’s a path he hasn’t even thought to look for. Loyalty to Dutch, loyalty to the gang; it’s all he knows. And unless he stops looking over his shoulder at the demons of his past, he won’t be able to see what’s before him.
I hope that makes some sort of sense. At any rate, rambling aside – it’s still one of my favorite photos of him :)
