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“You sure are beautiful.”
The words come with affection, called softly in the calm of morning; it startles Arthur as he hauls hay across camp, few awake to have said or heard it. Gloves protect his fingers from the pinch of twine as he pauses, looks sharp over his shoulder to the tents and lean-tos clustered about Clemens Point. Sleeping forms and silence greet him, give him room to breathe again as his attention turns towards Kieran, gaze narrowed because, well, only a fool’d say such things in a place where folk value the bite of lead over the kindness of compliments.
Kieran doesn’t flinch at the warning in his look, too few the witnesses to drag out his anxieties and slump his shoulders to the meek profile that they’re familiar seeing slinking about the edges of camp, hiding amidst the horses, who don’t judge him for fool choices or bad luck, only for the lack of apples or mints if his pockets run empty.
No, he don’t flinch, just runs the brush down Branwen’s flank as he looks at Arthur, makes sure he knows that the comment weren’t meant for his mare, beauty though she is. Nah, the comment found voice for him to hear and the fool’s got this silly little smile toying about his lips, a cherry flush slow in starting up his neck where it sticks awkward out of his collar. Seems he’s turned shy having said what he done said, maybe worried that it won’t be nothing more than words left empty in the air.
Arthur frowns and says nothing instead, just hauls the hay over and splits the bale for the horses to munch and muddle their way through. There’s heat risen in his ears, but his hat hides the reddened tell and he’s grateful for that. Strips off his gloves and tucks them into the saddlebag of his shire, the brute still as ornery this morning as when Hosea first had Arthur saddle him up for the ride to Valentine, when he ain’t had it in him to sell the bastard for all that the beast’s temper ran foul. Spite, well suited to the name for the five times he’d managed to buck Arthur off when they was first learning one another’s tells and temperaments, still snorts at the sight of him; the horse knows that Arthur ain’t no beauty to be lauded and that makes him laugh, a gruff sound swallowed down. He pulls the reins from their knotted hitch and settles them over the shire’s neck, hauls himself up into the saddle with familiar effort, and squeezes down his knees to remind Spite that this ain’t no game of toss-the-Morgan, not no more.
“C’mon, boy,” he says, turning the stallion about. Spite digs a hoof into the ground and tosses his head, but it’s more show than tell these days, their understanding stronger the longer they stick together. Arthur lets him chomp at the bit briefly, then scratches his fingers down the great brute’s neck to find the spot that calms the savage beast. Spite stills his fussing when he finds it, decides then to comply today because, hell. Some days, seems it’s just whether the finicky horse wants to behave or not; it’s a mood what’s put his patience to the test too many times, where banked it in long hours training and retraining. They turn out too perfect a match, with Arthur stubborn and Spite strong, brave as Boadicea’d been at her heyday. Together they’ve run down plenty of foes to build a bond of blood extracted from the bodies of them they’ve made fall, a grudging understanding forged.
“There’s an extra couple mints in the saddlebag,” Kieran chirps, voice light for all it cracks and breaks from meek disuse. “He, uh. Really seems to love them.”
“I’ll bet he does,” Arthur grumbles, reaching forward to smooth down Spite’s mane where it catches up in his ears. “Spoiled bastard that he is.” There’s fondness to them words, truth told, because he understands the brute’s bitterness towards others and, hell, maybe a bit about why Spite don’t trample down Kieran when he pulls his tack at the end of the day and brushes him down. The gentle touches and the kind assurances are what calms the beast within and makes him feel, well. Just feel and that’s too much and not enough and he ain’t good with none of it.
The shire takes heavy steps, easily the biggest horse in the gang’s herd, but Kieran doesn’t flinch from him neither; he’s brushing the last of the dust from Branwen and encouraging her to wander idle amidst the other horses, murmuring something about the sweetest hay always being in the middle of the bale that’s just been spread. Strange sight, this kind confidence in a man what ain’t able to stand straight and string two words together when an angry person yells at him. But, put him before an angry steed and Kieran holds his ground, unfazed and gentle as he pats the shire’s neck on his way past.
Mind that Kieran’s composure falters when Arthur reaches down and grabs hold of his arm, drags him up and near as throws him into an awkward seat behind him that’s padded by his wool bedroll. The man squawks, embarrassingly indignant in his surprise, and arms wrap tight about his midsection when gravity threatens to tip him off towards the ground. “A-Arthur?” he squeaks out and Arthur feels him glancing back at camp, then worriedly forward as he urges Spite into a canter on the trail out of the Point.
“Heard tell ‘bout some fancy leatherworker what’s set up shop out at the Rhodes stable,” Arthur grunts, settling his hat low against the morning sun when they break from the treeline into its light.
“Tha-“ Kieran swallows, thick the sound in the morning air, and his hands are clenching into fists as he looks at their surroundings. Lemoyne’s got its share of horrible folk, but the scenery’s beautiful and maybe one day the man’ll see that instead of the menace of the shadows, fearful that the variegated flora’s hiding the green scarves and mean faces of Colm’s boys come to fetch their pound of flesh. “I- I don’t understand.”
Arthur sighs and holds the reins in one hand, the other he lets fall back and pat the man’s thigh, a reassurance that this ain’t no cruel torment he’s doling out. “I seen how Branwen’s bridle ain’t holdin’ together so well no more,” he says. “Maybe this feller’ll have somethin’ pretty ‘nough to work for your lady.”
That plays easy enough the reason to get them both out of camp for a day, away from dark looks and incessant demands, them threats that still get uttered and the fears that drive him to the very fringes of the gang. The boy deserves the break, to have the freshness of air greet him over the burden of sin and folly that hound him there.
Silence and stillness are a poor response and it’s nearer the quarter mile mark when Kieran takes a breath loud enough to be heard. “Oh,” he says, the protest gone weak in his voice. There’s hints there, them notes of excitement as he understands what Arthur’s doing here, getting them out and away together for one of them days they don’t have many of, not since Kieran saved his life from an O’Driscoll bullet, not since they’ve gone fishing for the sake of the calm, and not since Arthur’s found this something he ain’t got words for, too ready for karma to steal it away if he admits to anything more than not wanting Kieran dead when they’s in earshot of others. “I guess that’d be real nice.”
Warmer, these words, and that stirs a warmth in Arthur that he hides too damn well, turning Spite northeast for the long ride to the stables. The distance and day’ll bring them near the Heartlands, but he’s been out there three times this week and ain’t been no sign of O’Driscoll activity; Colm has his boys running some job out of Big Valley, far as he figures, so it’ll be safe to stretch their legs, get Kieran some sun what ain’t spoiled by chores around camp, and that small gift’s about all that Arthur knows how to give.
Further that they get from camp, the more he feels the tension bleed out of the man sat behind him; Kieran trusts him, though Arthur’d tell him that ain’t ever wise, and he rests his head forward, between Arthur’s shoulder blades and the deathgrip he’s got about his midsection loosens. After a bit, Arthur shifts his free hand forward, pats the tangled fingers of Kieran’s hands where they’re holding against him. Subtle and slow, the man lets his hands shift and wrap around Arthur’s here where ain’t no one to see, no one to judge, and no one to tease or torment it.
They’s an hour further down the road when Arthur gets the urge for a cigarette, frees his hand briefly to draw one out and strike a match. His focus stays on the task, sees an ember nestled amidst paper and tobacco before the match shakes out and falls. He takes a drag from it, feels the familiar burn of smoke in his lungs, and decides that it’s been long and far enough to start talking on things they can’t speak of around others. “I ain’t beautiful,” is what he says, breathing out smoke, derisive to the comment made back at camp.
Kieran sometimes changes when they’ve left the confines of the gang, finds courage and resilience in ways he don’t show in camp, and today’s one of them days. The hands about his midriff shift and he gets thumped in the gut once, playful and protest both. “You are,” he protests and it ain’t plaintive nor pleading. Conviction stretches richly through them two words, a surety that Arthur don’t feel when he looks in the mirror and sees the same ragged, rugged, scarred mug that’s been greeting him for too damn many years.
“Don’t argue the point, boy,” Arthur warns, but he doesn’t put an edge to them. Flicks ash from the tip of his cigarette and draws deep again of the smoke. “This ain’t no opinion, it’s fact. Pure and simple.”
“You say that, but it ain’t true,” Kieran manages, arms squeezing that bit tighter around him. “Just ‘cause you got scars and you like scowlin’ at people don’t mean you’re ugly. Just means you don’t like folk seeing who you are.”
Arthur frowns, discomfited by Kieran holding his ground even as Spite’s stride eats quick the miles of countryside. “Folk seein’ anythin’ more than a bastard outlaw means folk not knowing they oughta fear him,” he growls.
“See,” Kieran counters like he’s gone and made a point. “You’re saying the same, just trying to sound mean in doing it. You don’t like people seeing you, but that don’t make you ugly.” He doubles down on his surety and, well. Hell. Arthur feels his discontent about it slipping away, or at least the ground on which he protests it churned to mud.
“I ain’t no prize stallion neither,” is the tactic he takes, deflecting because one thing Arthur’s learned the longer he and Kieran do this dance, strangely intimate and something he finds himself missing the weeks he’s out on other jobs, it’s that once Kieran digs his heels in with fervent belief, ain’t no amount of threatening with gelding tong’s’ll see him relent.
“I don’t want no prize stallion,” Kieran murmurs, head pressed between his shoulder blades again like there’s something safe for them both in the embrace. “Just want you.”
Arthur burns on the hearing of it and ain’t all shame. Takes his breath, chokes it with the smoke and he goes silent, focuses on finishing his cigarette and swallowing down the moths eating at the lining of his stomach. When it is spent and he flicks the stub away, Arthur sighs and maybe his shoulders relax some, maybe the feeling that Kieran’ll be repulsed by him the longer they stay like this fades some bit further.
“You just… mind yourself around them horses,” he grumbles. “Keep talking crazy like that and everyone’ll think you got kicked in the head by ‘em.”
Soft comes the laugh, content even. Like Kieran knows the win goes to him on this, for all they ain’t keeping score. “Don’t worry, Arthur,” his assurance. “Horses are the only ones I trust the same as I do you. They won’t hurt me none.”
There’s truth there, because ain’t no way Arthur means for Kieran to be made to suffer after all he’s seen and had done to him, after what he’d done in saving Arthur from more than just that O’Driscoll bullet. And though he don’t know quite what hell they’re set to ride into, he knows at least that he’ll protect him long as he holds the breath to do so.