Chapter Text
Arthur Morgan knew the day was going to be a bad one the moment he woke up.
He sat on the uncomfortable stool in The Broken Wheel saloon, the only halfway decent place in Heritage that had whiskey that didn’t taste like week old piss. The most recent drained glass sat on the counter, taunting him with its emptiness, even as the world around him began to blur discreetly at the edges.
There wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to drown the storm raging inside his soul.
Arthur waved the bartender over. He was a surly man, content to linger in the corner of the bar rinsing and repeatedly washing the same glasses in an effort to appear busy. He’d given Arthur the same once over he’d grown used to all these years; it was the one that just about everyone gave him as they assessed whether or not he was a threat.
They usually decided on the latter.
“Hey, partner,” Arthur grunted as he gestured vaguely to his distinct lack of liquor. “Can I get another?”
The bartender paused in his polishing and quirked an eyebrow at his patron. “Ain’t you had enough yet?”
Arthur clenched his fist in an effort to tamp down the fiery anger that boiled quickly and hotly in his veins. “What are you, a goddamn nursemaid? Just get the whiskey and shut up.”
The bartender rolled his eyes and did as he was told, making sure all the while that Arthur was aware that he was not at all pleased to be serving him. Arthur didn’t take it personally, though the dark voice in his head whispered at him to make it so; this barkeep treated everyone like that. Arthur only drew his ire because he’d planted himself at the bar a half hour after it opened and, approximately three hours later, still hadn’t deigned to leave.
Arthur dished out the appropriate number of coins (plus one for the bartender, though his better senses told him the idiot didn’t deserve it) and turned his undivided attention to the crisp, smoky amber liquid in the perfectly polished glass.
Dutch and Hosea had taken one look at him that morning and knew precisely what was wrong. Arthur had barely slept; he never did on the night before this particular day. He’d wandered the camp while the moon made its descent towards dawn and the rest of the gang slept off the day’s labors, bottle in hand and bleary eyes unwilling to let him rest.
His mind raged all night long.
Hosea came to find him at one point, as he usually did when this day rolled around in the godforsaken calendar. The old man said nothing; he’d only taken the half empty bottle from Arthur’s hand and steered him back to his tent. After depositing his wayward son on his cot, Hosea retreated to a nearby table with his book and a lantern, intent on keeping one watchful eye on Arthur while the other passed the hours by devouring literature.
Arthur wasn’t sure if he’d slept or, if he did, how long he managed to stay unconscious. He’d only jolted from the cot an hour or two after dawn, donned his jacket and hat, and stalked to his horse without a word.
Dutch and Hosea watched from Dutch’s tent, their gazes wary and concerned. They didn’t stop him, though, and they knew better than to try.
The outlaw and sometimes human being downed his fresh whiskey and let the burn sear away memories new and old. They’d send someone for him eventually. He hoped it wouldn’t be Marston; that boy was perpetually on his last nerve and Arthur couldn’t promise John would return to camp unscathed.
If Arthur was lucky, they would just let him drink until he passed out and never woke up again.
A fresh, hellish wave of anguish lanced through his heart. He clutched his head between his hands and stared at the newly empty glass, wishing it contained enough whiskey to suffocate and drown him.
Today was the day he’d found the graves of Eliza and their son, Isaac.
Over the years since they died, Arthur found that the only proper way to dull the worst of the lingering pain was with whiskey. Sometimes it was beer and other times it was a terrible combination of the two. He’d buried the rest of the torment and self-hatred, opting instead to throw himself headlong into whatever the gang needed doing to survive. If there were people and places that needed robbing, Arthur was there; if there were enemies that needed killing, his gun was the first to leave its holster.
Eventually her sheer will and denial hardened the sharp edge of that pain into something more manageable. But he still found his way to a saloon every day on this day, whether he wanted to or not. Today, however, Arthur carried a new, fresh hurt with him.
He was forgetting what Isaac looked like.
There was a page in his journal that contained his son’s likeness. He’d drawn it, tore the page from the book, folded it, and kept it tucked firmly between a set of random pages. It was too painful to look at and Arthur was petrified that the sometimes-prying eyes that wandered by as he wrote and drew in his journal would see Isaac.
Arthur would share most anything with the rest of the gang; the memory of his son, though, was strictly off limits.
But the drawing had served a different purpose last night. Rather than feed the memory he kept harbored close to his heart, the pencil shaded and outlined image of a young boy began to replace that memory. That had been the true catalyst for picking up the bottle and letting his feet eventually carry him to the saloon, where he could drown in his own sorrow.
He ordered another whiskey, which did its job of dulling the pain for a moment or two. But there was still a lifetime of pain to manage and not nearly enough time left on earth to begin to hope to sort through it all. Arthur wasn’t even sure he wanted to, when he thought about it.
For the moment, all he could think about was the next whiskey.
*
The girl from back east was not quite desperate. She was madly, wildly desperate, which made her both dangerous and careless.
This was precisely the regrettable combination that led to her current predicament. Really, it had been the woman’s fault; her coin purse was not cinched properly. That was the problem with rich folk—they thought their fine clothes and full wallets separated them distinctly enough from the rest of society that no one, especially the undesirable sort, would think twice about accosting and robbing them.
Unfortunately for the woman, Claramae Howard was an undesirable.
Claramae—or Clara, as she preferred—found her opportunity moments after the stagecoach dropped off the woman and her companion, an equally foppish young lady with far too much money and far too little common sense. She dusted off her clothes and sauntered over to the women, feigning being lost.
When she bumped into the first woman with the loose coin purse, she apologized profusely even as the woman eyed her with a venomous mixture of disgust and pity.
It was all the opening Clara needed to slip her hand quickly into the woman’s purse and pull out a few of the hastily tucked bills.
She left them with another round of apologies and made her way down the main thoroughfare of Heritage, keeping discreetly to the shadows cast by the late afternoon sun. Stealing was one thing—instilling the casualness of innocence after said stealing was an entirely different challenge. Fortunately, it was one that Clara had grown up honing until it was damn near perfect.
Well, usually it was perfect.
It wasn’t until she’d ducked into a short alley between buildings to count the money that she heard the first chorus of frustrated cries. They were followed swiftly by the sharp call for the law in order to report a theft.
Clara cursed, shoved the money into her pocket, and forced herself to remain calm. She had to get out of Heritage before the lawmen turned out into the streets. She was an outlier in this town and an obvious one at that; her previous lack of money had prevented her from buying clothes at the nearby general store and her attire was not only in dire need of replacing; it also loudly proclaimed her to be not of this area. For now, though, she huddled in the alley while she pondered her next move.
This was what desperation got you: shitty clothes, annoying rich women, and a day that couldn’t possibly get much worse.
*
Arthur needed to piss.
That, he told himself, was the real reason he left the saloon. It certainly had not been because he’d threatened the bartender. For what, exactly, he couldn’t quite remember, but Arthur was sure it was entirely warranted. It also wasn’t because the man who’d been stupid enough to intervene put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder in an attempt to calm him down. Needless to say, it hadn’t gone very well for that feller.
He probably would’ve kept punching the idiot, too, if someone else hadn’t thrown him outside and threatened him with the law if he showed his face back at the saloon.
That was how he’d ended up in the alley outside the saloon, leaning heavily against the wooden building as he emptied his bladder of the afternoon’s stock of whiskey.
None of it—not the whiskey, the threats, the physical violence—was enough to drown out the voice in his head that whispered his failure over and over. None if it was enough to bring back the fading memory of his son’s face.
Somehow, he managed to make his way to the hitching post outside the saloon, casting one suspicious eye on the doorway. If that fool came looking for him, he couldn’t promise that he would keep his hands to himself. Arthur was halfway to Boadicea when he heard the frantic shouts of a woman.
He turned his head and spotted the source of the keening. She was young and, by the look of her dress, quite obviously from money. Her companion was equally wealthy, and his eyes darted immediately to the coin purses they kept clutched firmly in their hands. The woman currently shouting was trying desperately to get the attention of male passersby, all of whom cast dubious looks at her before hurrying in the opposite direction or muttered some incoherent apology before turning away.
If they were men, Arthur would have robbed them without a moment’s hesitation. As it was, robbing innocent women was one of the few things beneath his personal code of honor, so he turned his attention back to his horse. He had one foot in the stirrup when the woman’s yells came nearer and, as his luck would have it, focused solely on him.
“Sir! Oh, sir, please, I beg you!”
Arthur spared half a thought to telling the women to piss off (that was also beneath his code of honor, but his mood was rather sour in that particular moment) before he sighed, lowered his foot, and turned to face the women.
She was young, hardly older than twenty years old. Her companion, who appeared to be of similar age, stared at him as though he were pulled directly from the gutter, which, he supposed, was not entirely that far from the truth.
The woman in distress clutched her purse tightly and widened her soft, brown eyes. “Someone stole my money, sir. I’ve been trying to ask for help,” she explained, tossing an angry hand at the town in general, “but no one seems to want to help me.”
Arthur narrowed his eyes at her and she instinctively took a step back. His hands landed heavily on his belt as he replied, “How terrible for you. But I fail to see how this is in anyway my concern.”
Her companion tugged on her friend’s arm and whispered in ear. “Leave it, Audrey. I can pay for our ticket back home.”
The woman—Audrey—tugged her arm free and squared her shoulders. “It’s the point of the matter! That—that street urchin took my money and they deserve to be punished!”
Arthur was quickly growing tired of the woman. Her voice was grating on his already frayed nerves and he could already feel the creeping, momentous wave of anguish threatening to swallow him.
“Take it up with the law,” he grunted at her as he prepared to mount up. “That’s what they was there for, last time I checked.”
Audrey stepped quickly back into Arthur’s line of sight. “They won’t help me,” she confessed with lips pressed angrily together. “Apparently they think their time is best spent elsewhere.”
“And perhaps that’s for the best,” Arthur answered tersely. He tipped his hand to the women. “Stay safe, ladies.”
Audrey’s hand darted out and landed on Arthur’s arm. He glanced down at it then quickly back up at her, unsure if he should be feeling quite so angry at the unrequested touch.
The alleged robbery victim put on her best, most innocent expression. “I’m asking you, sir. Please help find the person who stole from me, so that we might still maintain some semblance of justice in this country.”
Arthur nearly laughed, both at her request and the idea of American justice. “Do I really look like the sort of person you should be asking for help?”
As it turned out, there was something about Arthur Morgan—outlaw, killer, and sometimes human being—that struck Audrey as the helpful type.
Besides that, she was willing to pay him, and in Arthur’s very particular line of work, money always did the talking.
When Arthur inquired just how she was going to do that, Audrey offered her companion’s money: the amount that was stolen plus another ten, a total of forty dollars. They would wait in front of the train station for him, reward in hand after the successful apprehension of the thief.
“I saw the culprit go that way,” Audrey explained with an imperious gesture toward the far end of town.
So it was that somehow Arthur Morgan found himself slightly drunk, full of festering anguish, and on an errand for a rich girl whose money was stolen.
What a goddamn shit day it was turning out to be.
*
It turned out that even shit days had the propensity to get worse when given half a chance.
Clara was used to being chased, which was unusual for a woman of her particular upbringing. She admitted with some raw humility that she was the one usually doing the chasing, but given the day’s exceptional capacity for inconvenience, it wasn’t entirely surprising that she was now the hunted instead of the hunter.
She knew she had to think and act fast when she spotted the man heading toward her general direction. Clara shoved her recently pilfered bills into her boot and darted back down the alley. A few twists, sharp corners, and shouts of dismay later, she found herself beside the Broken Wheel. Clara slid to a stop, pressed up against the building, and peered around the front.
Her pursuer, a rather larger and intimidating man, stalked angrily toward the saloon.
“Shit,” Clara muttered.
She pressed her back flat against the wall. Her thoughts whipped through her mind, each one colliding with another in an effort to take control of her actions. Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it fast.
Her eyes, which had been roving through the alley in search of a well-disguised miracle, landed on precisely that.
Clara smirked despite the gravity of her current predicament. She took hold of her miracle—a small one but beggars couldn’t be choosers when being pursued by an ominous figure—and slipped into the saloon.
One of the things her unusual upbringing instilled in her was that hiding didn’t mean wrapping oneself in shadow to avoid detection. More often than not, people were entirely content to live in ignorance of their surroundings.
Sometimes, it was best to hide in plain sight.
*
The bartender took one look at Arthur, frowned, and slammed the glass he’d been cleaning on the counter.
“Thought I told you I’d fetch the law if you came back,” he said darkly.
Arthur held up his hands in what he hoped resembled a gesture of peace. “Turns out I’m working in representation of the law. Or thereabouts,” he muttered the last bit under his breath. He leaned an elbow on the bar and made a show of glancing around the room with a watchful, imposing eye.
“Woman outside claims to have been robbed. She’s enlisted my help in resolving the matter.” Arthur turned his gaze to the bartender, who stared back at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Arthur nodded toward the front door. “You can ask her yourself, if you don’t believe me.”
The bartender glanced between the front door, the room, and the outlaw taking up as much bar space as possible. He looked about to protest, to find some reason why Arthur should leave, but apparently thought the consequences of such a decision to be not at all worth the trouble that he gave Arthur a single, swift nod.
“But I don’t want no trouble, you hear?” the bartender inserted quickly.
Arthur reached into his satchel and tossed the man a few coins. “You’ll get none from me. I’ll take a beer, and get one for yourself, while you’re at it.”
The bartender snatched the coins and muttered a half-hearted thank you. A moment later, Arthur had a beer in hand and a foul mood that seemed large enough to fill the entire saloon.
There were a few options, insofar as he saw it.
He could spend the time actually searching for the culprit (it dawned on Arthur that he’d retrieved next to no information concerning the thief, but he was also a thief, as it were, and would likely recognize a man cut from the same cloth), retrieve the money, and receive said money plus a bit more for his trouble.
Arthur sipped the beer and glanced around the room. Was it worth it? Probably not, but money was money, and if the gang was to eventually push back west, then every cent would count.
On the other hand, it would be just as easy to rob someone else, get twice the money, and leave the whole damn business to the wolves.
He sipped the beer and sighed. Arthur leaned back against the bar and let his eyes wander again over the faces of the other patrons. Many of them made it a point not to look in his direction; his kind were a particular breed of distasteful and better left to their own devices.
Arthur sighed, though the sound came out as more of a grunt of frustration. Matters of money warred with the half-forgotten image of a boy’s face as the beer swirled along with the rest of the alcohol filling his veins.
His heart clenched in his chest. His fingers wrapped around the bottle until the glass threatened to shatter. Maybe he should let it; maybe feeling the shards press through his skin and bleed him out would stop him from feeling so thoroughly disgusted with himself, the world, and everyone in it.
Then Arthur swept his gaze to the right. A few hunched figures lingered at the bar, each one keeping a fair distance between themselves and his imposing bulk. But there was one person at the far end of the bar that had snagged his attention.
It wasn’t the ill-fitting clothing and the dirt smeared across their cheeks that inevitably drew his notice. It was the fact that the person was already watching him. A pair of bright green eyes peered from around the other bar patrons to land directly on Arthur’s person. They were cool, assessing, and not a little bit curious.
Arthur set the bottle of beer down on the counter. He narrowed his eyes at the figure and wondered just how eyes could acquire such a captivating color. It also dawned on him that the person was looking at him with something other than contempt, which was strange in of itself.
Then the eyes widened as they discovered that Arthur had, at some point, chosen to look back.
Before he could make sense of what was going on, the figure with the green eyes sprinted from the bar and headed toward the back door.
*
Clara hadn’t intended on watching the man Audrey had sent after her.
She hulked at the far end of the bar with a beer in hand and her ridiculous disguise. Clara shifted uncomfortably in the too-large coat that smelled vaguely of piss and sweat and the hat that sat lopsidedly on her head. The drunk in the alley had been far too unconscious to notice that his effects had been taken and, at least for the moment, they served as a halfway decent disguise. She’d rubbed some dirt into her cheeks just before entering the saloon to ensure the distinctly feminine cut of her cheeks and jaw were hidden from view.
After a minor half-argument with the bartender, her pursuer settled in with a beer and took in his surroundings. Clara fought the instinct to huddle further into herself; shrinking away would only draw more attention than she needed. Besides, there were a few patrons between her and the man, which gave her a decent opportunity to sneak a few looks at him.
The first thing she decided was that he was certainly not law. There was a manner in which he held himself that reeked of swagger born from taking what he wanted without remorse. Clara leaned a little farther forward and chanced letting her eyes linger on him a bit longer.
He was imposing, to be sure. She was fairly certain he could wrestle a bear, if given half a chance, and most likely come out in one piece. His mouth had a mean cut to it, but Clara could tell that it was, for the most part, feigned; the man was wearing a mask, much as she did when it suited her best.
Something about him seemed sad and tormented. It was a feeling entirely at odds with the person Clara watched that for a moment she was certain she was mistaken. There was no way that the man, with his gun belt slung low over his hips and the brim of his hat pulled low over his face, could be sad. Angry, perhaps, and a little bit off, but not sad.
But…the longer she looked…
Clara tilted her head as her thoughts continued to wander. He was handsome, she thought, in a rugged sort of way. He wasn’t exactly the well put together kind, and the manner in which he glared at the rest of the room as if in defiance of their existence made her believe he didn’t quite fit in with regular society. Clara would know; she hadn’t been a part of that world for quite some time.
She wondered why the woman she’d stolen from had chosen this man to send after her. Perhaps she’d thought this one would frighten her into giving her the money, as it was quite clear he could frighten with hardly more than a look. Clara knew she’d have to get out of the saloon and out of Heritage before this man caught her trail.
He turned slightly and put his beer down on the bar counter. Clara was surprised to notice that his eyes, which she’d expected to be muddied and dark, were a crisp, unexpectedly bright mix of green and blue. Even at this distance and in the dimness of the saloon, Clara found herself captivated by the color.
It was only then that the realization hit her: there was only one way to determine what color his eyes were. He was looking right at her.
Clara’s heart gave one panicked lurch in her chest. Don’t panic—think slowly, act quickly, stay alive.
Her pursuer’s eyes narrowed a fraction and his head tilted slightly. He slowly pushed away from the bar to peer more closely at her. To her surprise, there was an element of curiosity in his gaze, the sort that comes with being unsure if you’ve met the person before.
Think slowly. If she stayed, his eyes would linger on her and he would be quick to find out the truth. If she ran, he would pursue her further; Clara had never been good at running, but she was positive she could at least outlast him long enough to get out of town and lose her trial. The problem was, she couldn’t tell how far he was willing to go to catch her.
That left her only one option, then.
Clara took a breath, steadied her muscles, and sprinted away from the bar.
Sometimes the only way to stay alive was to run as fast as you could and hope for the best.