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“God Damn.” Arthur muttered, bent over with his hands on his knees.
He mentally cataloged if anything felt broken before straightening with a groan. Just more bruises to add to the ones he had gotten in that fight in Valentine. His new horse snorted at him from the side of the road, the whites still showing in his eyes.
Shied at a rabbit.
Arthur’s thoughts had been preoccupied with how he would replace the gang’s money after giving it away to a charity case and had stupidly been caught off balance. The horse had tossed him like a sack of dried beans. At least it wasn’t as bad as getting thrown out a window.
“Morgan, you idiot.” He chastised himself as he moved towards the startled animal. He tried to move slowly and carefully, eying the reins dragging on the ground. The last thing he needed was for the stallion to step on his own reins, jerk his own head, panic again and then fuck off somewhere into the woods. Losing this horse after giving away the gang’s money would just about fit his luck.
“Heeey boy, you’re alright. It’s alright, I’ve got you.” He crooned softly. Finally able to brush his fingers over the soft hair of the stallion’s shoulder, he carefully scooped up the fallen reins and then began running his hands over the horse's neck and shoulders. The stallion blew out a deep breath and lowered his head, licking his lips as he settled. He ran his hands down the horse’s legs and then walked him forward, watching him move to make sure he hadn’t strained anything in the mad scramble. Satisfied that the horse was unhurt, he remounted, groaning as his sore back made itself known. “Well, I am definitely going to have some interesting bruises tomorrow, eh boy?”
Arthur took the right rein in his hands and gently drew the horse’s head to his right, holding until the stallion relaxed. Releasing from the right, he immediately drew his head to the left side, the stallion grunted and moved around in a circle, tight and uncomfortable. As soon as he stopped moving his feet and relaxed, Arthur released him completely and patted his neck.
The horse's ears twitched back and forth between him and the open road. Clearly still on alert for deadly rabbits or squirrels. He snorted at a bush and pranced sideways.
Arthur sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yer more dramatic than Marston.” he commented as he bent the horse's head around and applied his leg to the horse’s flank. The stallion circled for a moment, ears still pinched forwards on whatever evil lurked in the bushes. Arthur continued to move him in circles until his attention was on him and he had calmed significantly.
“I hope this won’t be a thing witchu. At this rate, we will never get anywhere.” The horse seemed to snort in response as they finally settled into a quick paced walk.
Without the necessity of horse wrangling, Arthur’s worried thoughts came back full force. At the forefront was how he was going to explain to Dutch that he had collected the debt money for Strauss but had decided that it was more important to give it to a stranger than it was to put it in the gang’s donation box. He could already hear the lecture in his head. Robbin individuals would only give him a dollar or two at a time. A stagecoach might be better, though there was quite a bit of risk doing that alone. If he hadn’t completely pissed off the Sheriff, there was a chance he could pick up a bounty in Valentine. He hadn’t gone on a pickpocketing spree in years, now too big and scary looking for that work. Every other option just got gradually worse.
He could see the path leading up to Horseshoe Overlook and the gang’s current camp in the distance and decided he needed to think on things for a bit longer. He wasn’t dodging the gang, he was just trying to come up with a plan. Mentally cringing at his excuses, he rode past the turn and on towards a burned out husk of an abandoned town.
Pretending he wasn’t a coward for avoiding the inevitable, he busied himself poking around the remains of the buildings. Finding little, a tonic here and a cigarette card there, he was about to give up and face the music. He kicked at some debris behind the old desk in the sheriff’s office when his boot hit something with a clank. Bending down to look under the desk he found an old lock box, covered in soot and rust. Figuring whatever had been in it had long burned up, he joggled it open with his knife and then just about dropped it in shock. A gold bar. Just sitting there. He blinked a few times like his vision would correct itself and it would disappear and reached down to pick it up. “Well I’ll be damned,” he mumbled.
It wasn’t the first one he had held in his life, but it had been a good long while. Weighing it in his hand, it occurred to him that this was the answer to his problem. He could pay back the debt with money from the gold bar. Hosea had even set him up with the skittish feller at Emerald Ranch. He could fence the gold and then no one would need to know about his little slip up.
Grinning as he walked over to where he had hitched the pinto, the horse whickered to him as he approached. Placing the bar in his saddle bags, he checked the sun to see how long he had before dark. He guessed he had just enough time to see the fence and get back before nightfall. Talking to his new buddy, “We just got lucky my friend!”
***
That fence at Emerald Ranch was the twitchiest little weasel that he ever had the displeasure to deal with. Though even the man’s suspicious demeanor couldn’t bring down Arthur’s spirits. Turns out this horse could travel at a lope for as long as he needed him too. His trot was probably the smoothest he had ever experienced. Not wanting to push his luck too much, he held off seeing just how fast his new boy could run, but he had high hopes.
Riding into camp just after dusk, he hollered at Bill as he passed and rode in a wide berth around the horse herd near the scout fire. With this new horse being a stallion, he should probably keep him separated from the rest until they could work out where he would stand in the herd. He should definitely keep him away from the Count. Instinct told him there would be trouble there.
“King Arthur! The Big Man! Bring me back anything good?” Sean called out from he was lounging against a rock out in front of camp.
“A course not! Get off yer ass and do some work Sean!” Arthur barked back, hiding his smirk at the boy’s sputtering as he dodged between tents towards the donation box and ledger. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Charles approaching him as he was signing in the returned debts and a bit extra for good measure.
“Hey Arthur.”
Arthur felt a little thrill of happiness at the sound of his friend’s voice. “Hey Charles.”
“Is that a new horse?”
“It is, got it off a dead man.”
Charles cocked an eyebrow at him, “Were you the one to make him that way?”
Arthur snorted at the thought, “Naw, he was already like that when I got there.”
“Well that is a lucky find. He is beautiful.”
“Thanks Charles.”
Charles clapped him on the shoulder and headed off towards Pearson’s stew pot.
Humming in response, Arthur realized that he hadn’t eaten since that morning and was suddenly ravenous. He would take care of the horse first and then get some stew of dubious origin. The fact that he was supposed to have gone hunting and then came back with nothing didn’t escape him, but he hoped no one else remembered.
***
Picking through the gristly meat in his stew, Arthur tried to figure out what animal it had once been.
It was one of those good nights in camp. Everyone was doing well, with a fairly full belly and no current emergencies. Hosea was sitting across the fire from him, Javier played his guitar next to him and Arthur could hear Sean and Karen sniping at each other from the other side of the tents. It was late enough that Abigail and the boy had already gone to bed
Hosea hummed for a moment, catching Arthur’s attention. “Saw that new horse of yours. He is a fancy one. What is the story there?”
“Aw, nothing special, just good fortune to find him is all.”
Hosea’s eyes narrowed, years of witnessing Arthur attempts at misdirection had him sensing this wasn’t the full story. Before Hosea could start grilling him, John plopped down on one of the boxes that served as seats and stretched out his long legs, kicking Arthur’s in the process. Arthur kicked him back. John made a noise of irritation and half rose to continue the scuffle but was interrupted by Hosea pointedly clearing his throat. He raised an eyebrow at the two. “You would think by now that the two of you would know how to behave like adults.”
“Marston will always be an idiot man child.” Arthur’s lip curled as he glared at the man that he had once thought of as a brother.
“Hey!” John voiced his outrage by flipping Arthur the bird. Arthur responded by flicking a bit of gristle at John when Hosea wasn’t looking.
“Damnit Arthur!” John shot to his feet. Arthur smirked, but quickly ducked his head as Hosea scolded them both.
“Cut it out you two! All I want is one evening of peace.” Still muttering about ungrateful children, Hosea stalked off in the direction of his tent.
John huffed and pouted at his seat and Arthur decided that ignoring him was more satisfying then continuing to needle him. Rising and stretching in place, Arthur kicked John’s boot one last time as he left for his own tent.
“Jackass.” John called from behind him.
***
Arthur woke with snort, a puddle of drool on his pillow below him.
An enraged voice called out from beyond his tent, “ARTHUR MORGAN! Get out here right now!”
Arthur groaned as all his bruises made themselves known and wondered if Susan would leave him alone if he pretended to be dead.
There was a rustle behind him and then the snap of cloth as it smacked him on the leg.
“Ow! Okay! I’m up!” Feeling very much like a teenager again, he sat up and faced Susan Grimshaw’s scowling face. “Jesus, what's wrong?” Arthur grumbled as he rubbed the sleep from his face.
Susan’s eyes narrowed in outrage, “That horse of yours!”
Arthur’s heart sank. Oh no.
“That horse got loose from the hitch and yanked ALL of the clean clothing off the line! There are underclothes everywhere and all of it will have to be rewashed! Do you know how hard it is to get grass stains out of linen?” She screeched at him, smacking him again with someone’s underpants.
“Agh!” He covered his head and lurched to his feet. “Okay! I will take care of it!”
“You had better! And keep that damn horse out of camp!” She snarled at him before whirling away.
Sighing, he yanked his jeans on and shoved his feet in his boots.
Sean snickered and made comments as he followed Arthur around camp, on his quest to find all the disturbed clothing. Not even a threatening look or shaken fist got rid of him. Arthur sighed as he stood on his toes to pull a flower patterned pair of bloomers from a tree limb. How the hell the damn horse got it up there, he had no clue.
Sean finally let him be when Athur offered to let him help with the washing. He scurried off quickly at the idea of any kind of labor, much less “women’s work”, though the girls were another story entirely. They stayed to watch the spectacle and giggled and offered commentary on his scrubbing technique as he rewashed everything and hung it up to dry. He seemed particularly bad at keeping himself dry as he washed and ended up covered in soapy water. The girls offered to include him in the camp gossip, especially if he was going to regularly join in on laundry days.
He declined.
Still in his sopping wet union suit, he stomped over to the horse that he now considered to be the devil. He missed the startled look he got from Charles as he sloshed past. He grabbed the lead rope and gave the horse a glare. “You are trouble.” The horse whickered at him and attempted to search his pockets for mints.
***
Finally in dry clothing, he finished saddling the pinto, noting the pinch of the leverage bit at his mouth. The headstall of the bridle was fully lengthened so he would either need to punch a new hole in the leather or just get a new one that fit better. With the extra money from the day before, he could afford nice new tack. The stable in Valentine probably had something decent, though he had heard good things about that trader over by Riggs Station.
“Arthur!” Dutch called from behind him. “How did it go yesterday?”
Arthur’s left eye twitched.
“Fine Dutch. Got the debt money back.” It wasn’t a lie. Just not the whole story.
“Good!” Dutched clapped him on the back. “New horse?”
“Yeah, picked him up yesterday.”
“What’s his name?”
“He doesn’t have one yet.”
Dutch shook his head, “Well keep him away from the Count, you know how he feels about other stallions.” Dutch reminded him from over his shoulder as he walked back towards his tent.
“Will do Dutch.” Arthur called back before returning his attention to the gray snuffling at his shirt. “Stop that, you are going to get grass all over this one too.” he gently pushed the stallion's head away and grimaced at the smear of green tinged drool left on his shirt.
“This is going to be a thing witchu, isn’t it?” He asked the horse as he scratched along his mane.
A scuff behind him alerted him to Charles' presence. “Hey Charles.” Arthur couldn’t stop the little smile that crept up on his face as he turned to face him. The corner of Charles’s mouth tweaked upwards.
“I heard you had fun this morning.” Charles' eyes sparkled in amusement as he reached out a hand for the horse to smell.
Arthur rolled his eyes and shook his head as he patted the stallion’s neck. “I can’t decide if this guy is good luck or bad.”
Charles gave him a dubious look. “More like he takes after his owner and gets into more trouble than he should.”
Arthur ducked his head, hiding under his hat. “Well, I guess we are both fools.”
Charles chuckled, “What are you going to name him?”
Arthur shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about it and I feel like I am going to need all the help I can get with him. So Caerus, I think.”
“What does it mean?” Charles brows pinched at the strange name.
“Good luck I hope. I think I am going to need it.”