Chapter Text
John checked his map again, making sure he chose the right trail. There were few more house calls that he wanted to make before he returned to Beecher’s Hope. A few more of Arthur’s friends to talk with, and let them know what he suspected since that fateful night in 1899.
When Abigail and Jack left him at Pronghorn Ranch, he began reading Arthur’s journal. Being a father, having a family… it all felt like a life that Arthur would have been good at. Maybe he was trying to find some wisdom in the pages, or maybe he just wanted to know his brother a little better, even eight years after his passing.
But between Arthur’s retelling of the events after Blackwater and his thoughts on the gang were adventures that John never knew that Arthur had. There were people he met and helped, strange places he discovered. A whole life separate from the gang.
Now that John had built his home with the help of Charles and Uncle, John decided it was time to find some of the folk who knew Arthur. He went to Jeremy Gill first, a strange individual who seemed to believe he was famous, and constantly called him chum. John had never heard of him, and Mr. Gill didn’t seem to remember Arthur very well. When John explained that Arthur would send him fish to be stuffed, Mr. Gill shrugged and said that someone occasionally sent him fish from the Emerald Ranch post office.
John didn’t understand how Arthur could have been friends with this man. Maybe he wasn’t, and it was just about the money. There were still a few locations on the Legendary Fish Map that weren’t crossed out, so John figured why not give it a try? He could always use some extra money to pay off his bank debt.
Next on the list was Deborah MacGuiness, a woman interested in dinosaur bones. When John approached her house in Cumberland Forest, she immediately remembered Arthur and was sorry about his passing. But she gleefully showed John the giant dinosaur skeleton she constructed with the bones Arthur told her about, though John doubted that such a monster had ever existed.
John spent the night near Moonstone Pond, setting out early for the third friend, Hamish Sinclair. From what he could tell, Arthur would visit Hamish at his cabin on the shore of O’Creagh’s Run to hunt or fish, mainly to escape the growing tension at Beaver Hollow. The two had become fast friends. If anyone deserved to know about Arthur’s death, it was Hamish.
As he rounded the bend and O’Creagh’s Run came into view, John understood why Arthur viewed it as an escape. Between the wildlife and the water, there was a certain serenity at O’Creagh’s Run. He could see the cabin, perfectly situated on the water, with a gorgeous cremello gold Dutch Warmblood grazing outside.
At least someone was home.
John breathed deep and knocked on the door. He heard some grumbling on the other side, a shifting chair, and he briefly wondered if he came at the wrong time.
Then the door swung open.
“Hello, sir,” John began. He recognized Hamish from Arthur’s drawing.
“And who might you be?” Hamish asked.
“A caller… John Marston. Years ago, a friend of mine helped you retrieve your horse and you became friends.”
“Ah, Arthur! You’re Arthur’s friend. Yeah, he mentioned you a couple of times,” Hamish said, opened the door more to let John inside.
“Sorry to say he passed, soon after that,” John said.
“Now, hold on? What are you talking about?”
“Arthur, he was sick,” John said, but Hamish shook his head.
“He was sick around that time, but he got better. Lives up at the Loft. I saw him last week!”
“He- he’s alive?” John stammered.
“Yeah! Come on, I’ll take you up there. Let me just grab Buell.”
Buell turned out to be the Dutch Warmblood outside, and soon they were off. “You said he was at the Loft? Where is that?” John shouted up to Hamish.
“Up the mountain and past the train tracks. We can take a shortcut if your horse is up for the climb.”
“She can handle it.” Rachel, his seal brown Thoroughbred, kept pace with Buell up the mountain. Soon, they were in sight of the Loft, a small tower just off the road.
“Looks like he’s home,” Hamish said, gesturing to the amber champagne Missouri Fox Trotter snoozing in the small horse shed.
Hamish had to push John towards the door. He breathed deep, and knocked. It opened a second later.
And John couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Arthur?”
His hair was starting to turn gray, his face had aged. Instead of his familiar gunslinger jacket and the gambler hat that John kept in his saddlebag, Arthur wore a beaver hunting jacket and a white hat that looked like it was made of alligator skin, but it was unmistakably him.
Arthur’s eyes widened as he took in John, but he only stayed frozen for a second. He pulled John into a hug, whispering in his ear, “You made it out. You’re okay!”
John took in a deep, shuddering breath, and collapsed into Arthur’s arms. After the horrid end of the gang, traveling all over the country without ever finding a home, and then Abigail and Jack leaving, to find out he hadn’t lost everything… John cried, unashamed, and he was pretty sure that Arthur was crying, too.
Later, when Hamish sat the stunned John and Arthur in chairs and shoved cups of coffee into their hands, John managed to stammer, “What happened? I thought you died on that mountain.”
“For a second there, I thought I had, too,” Arthur said. “Dutch and Micah left-”
“Wait, you saw Dutch?” John shouted, almost dropping his mug.
“Yeah. I tried to tell him one last time that Micah was the rat and he just… walked away. Left me, left Micah, too,” Arthur said.
“Damn.”
“Yeah. I thought I was going to die there, and then I woke up. Was hurting pretty bad, but I was able to get up, get off that mountain. I realized how close I was to Hamish’s cabin, so I went there.”
“But- but you were sick! Dying!” The words left his mouth before he could stop them. Great job, Marston, John thought to himself.
Arthur let out a chuckle. “Turns out I had a nasty case of pneumonia. Probably got it from that damn shipwreck in Guarma. Hamish brought me a doctor from Emerald Ranch, and he figured it out. I guess TB was spreading in a factory in Saint Denis when I went to the first doctor, so he thought it was the same.”
“So you were okay?”
“I still almost died from it. But turns out that getting actual rest and not running around doing jobs for a crazy man is pretty good medicine,” Arthur said. “And what about you, John? How did you find me, anyway?”
“I… read your journal. I feel kind of bad about that now,” John said, slightly nervous. “You wrote about a lot of friends in this area. I thought I’d stop by and see some of them.”
“So, you went to see Hamish.”
“Yeah.” The man waved at them from Arthur’s small kitchen. “Actually, I still have a lot of your things. Your hat, some items from your satchel. I guess I should give it all back.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’ve lived without all that stuff for so long, it don’t even feel like mine.”
“Not even your hat.”
“And take off this beauty? I’ve got to tell you about the alligator that made this,” Arthur laughed, then pointed at the ladder. “Want to see my view?”
“Sure,” John said.
John couldn’t help but admire the view from the deck above the house. They could see the Three Sisters and O’Creagh’s Run between the clouds. “Look at that,” John said.
“It’s why I came here, after I healed,” Arthur said, settling against the wall. “How are you, John?”
And it all tumbled out. His reunion with Abigail and their desperate escape west while he still recovered from that gunshot wound. How they tried to get in on the gold rush up in the Yukon with little success. How they drifted from town to town before finally ending up at Pronghorn Ranch. How she left him, and how that finally pushed him to settle down and build a life that she and his son deserved.
He looked up at Arthur, expecting a lecture. But Arthur nodded and said, “Glad to know Blackwater doesn’t remember us. I’ve only gone through Tall Trees and into New Austin.”
John let out a breath. “Yeah, no wanted posters at least.”
“And you ran into Uncle and Charles?”
“Sadie, too. I did some bounty hunting work with her. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Uncle was actually helpful. You know, you should come back with me and visit. They’d be glad to see you.”
“I think I’d like that,” Arthur said. “I’ll just have to let Charlotte know that the cabin is going to be empty.”
“Charlotte… Balfour? The widow you helped.”
“We’ve been good friends ever since. She and Hamish, too. We go hunting together every once in a while. She even wrote a book about her time out here, and was very nice to change my name in it,” he joked.
“I’d like to meet her,” John said.
“Let’s stay here tonight, head there tomorrow morning. There’s usually a train that comes through Annesburg in the afternoon, we can catch a ride to Riggs Station. Unless there’s other folk you want to visit.”
“Charlotte is the last one,” John said.
They ate dinner, venison that Hamish kindly cooked for them while they talked. They exchanged stories from the last eight years, though John believed Arthur’s stories to be more uplifting than his own. Arthur insisted on John taking his bed for the night, setting up on a cot across the room. Still, as John stared up at the ceiling and listened to his brother’s light snores, he couldn’t believe Arthur was alive.
But his proof was still there the next morning when Arthur kicked him out of bed with a, “Get up, lazy bones.” They drank their coffee, ate a light breakfast, said their goodbyes to Hamish.
“Make sure you look after him,” Hamish said to John.
Arthur rolled his eyes and said, “You know I’m older than him, right?”
Hamish laughed and said, “I know what sort of trouble you get into, Arthur. Be safe now.”
They parted ways, and Arthur and John headed to Willard’s Rest. Arthur rode a Missouri Fox Trotter named Achilles, who he bought after stumbling on some treasure along the Dakota River. “Nice Thoroughbred you got there,” he said to John.
“Yeah, this is Rachel.”
“Rachel? Really?”
It was all so familiar. Arthur teased him about the name Old Boy, too.
“Yes, really,” John said, rolling his eyes.
Arthur laughed as they trotted closer to Willard’s Rest, just over the river and next to a roaring waterfall.
“Arthur!” a woman called from the porch of the small homestead.
“How are you, Charlotte?”
“Good. I just finished preparing a deer. What brings you by?”
“I want you to meet my brother, John.”
“This is John?” Charlotte said, jumping up from her chair. “It’s so nice to meet you! I’ve heard so much about you from Arthur.”
“Good to meet you, too. I know a little about you, from Arthur,” John said.
“Arthur found me at my lowest point and lifted me up,” Charlotte said, even though Arthur waved her off.
“Oh, I just gave you a few tips on hunting and skinning. You did most of this on your own.”
“Nonsense.”
Arthur chuckled and said, “We were just stopping by to let you know the cabin is going to be empty for a bit. John’s just built a house over near Blackwater. Hamish knows, too.”
“Oh, how wonderful! You have a family, right John?”
“Yeah, my wife, Abigail. And a son, Jack. They… are going to join us later. The land could still use some work.”
“I understand. I feel like I am always doing improvements on this place, especially in the beginning. I’ll be sure to check on the Loft every once in a while,” Charlotte said. “But please stay for a moment. Have a cup of tea.”
“Thank you, but we’re trying to catch the afternoon train,” said Arthur.
“I understand. Please, stop by on your way home.”
“I will. Thank you, Charlotte,” Arthur said.
They made the train, and suddenly John was nervous to go home. He wanted so badly for Abigail and Jack to be there, to see Arthur again, but what if they never came back? He’d have to write to them again, but that worried him, too. What if they only came back to see Arthur and left again?
“Alright, why do you got that frown on your face?” Arthur asked him.
“What if Abigail doesn’t forgive me?” John said.
“She will,” Arthur said. “She stuck with you this long, didn’t she?”
“I guess.”
“Things will turn out alright, John.”
And John believed him. Because just yesterday, Arthur was dead, and now they were riding the train back to John’s home, together.
They got off at Riggs Station, both Rachel and Achilles happy stretch their legs. Though once they were across the river, Rachel spooked at the bushes just off the trail, and John pulled out his rifle. “I think there’s a cougar that lives around here,” he said.
“Great.”
“And then there’s the Skinner Brothers that moved into Tall Trees. They are worse than the Murfree Brood. Charles and I had to rescue Uncle from them. He’ll live, and I think we scared them away from the ranch, at least. Or killed most of them.”
“You know, I’m starting to get worried about this land you purchased,” Arthur said, only half-joking.
“Me, too. I want it to be perfect. For Abigail and Jack.”
They trotted through the entrance and towards the newly constructed house. “You built that with Charles and Uncle?” Arthur said, amazed.
“More like me and Charles while Uncle yelled at us about what to do,” said John. “Charles hired a crew to help with the barn. Though there’s still a lot left to do.”
“So that’s why you want me to visit? To put me to work?”
John ignored him, instead shouting to the house, “Hey Charles! Uncle! Get out here!”
Uncle stumbled through the door, shouting back, “What’s all this ruckus about? I’m still healing!” But he paused immediately, a smile spreading wide across his face. “Well, I never thought I’d see you again!”
Jumping off Achilles, Arthur said, “Well, I never thought I’d be happy to see you.”
“Oh, get in here, you sour old bastard,” Uncle replied, opening his arms for a hug.
“Who are you calling old?”
“You got grey hairs growing!”
Despite their arguing, Arthur let Uncle pull him into a hug.
Then a Nokota trotted up, its rider leaping off and running up to them. Charles paused for just a moment, staring in disbelief even as Uncle and John backed off to give them a little space.
“I- I looked for you, after,” Charles stammered. “I thought- I-”
“You did?” Arthur asked.
“I found Susan. Buried her. Found your horse, too, but not you.”
“Oh, Charles,” Arthur said, wrapping his arms around Charles, the man himself starting to break down. “I wish I’d known you came back. But why? You could have stayed up north.”
“Didn’t want to. I couldn’t.”
“But you could have had a home, and a family!”
“It wasn’t the home I wanted,” Charles muttered into Arthur’s shoulder, and Arthur hugged him tighter.
Even after reading Arthur’s journal, John had no idea that Arthur and Charles were more than just friends. Perhaps they’d only begun to figure it out themselves before the gang collapsed at Beaver Hollow. Or Arthur, believing he was dying, didn’t want to consider it. But now, Arthur and Charles leaned into each other as they sat around the fire, and Arthur’s arm draped over Charles’ shoulders as he filled everyone in on his life during the last eight years.
John knew, before Arthur even offered it to Charles, that Charles would move back to the Loft with him. He never expected Charles to stay at the ranch forever, as much as he wanted his friend to remain in his life.
Unlike Uncle. Maybe he could convince Arthur to take Uncle with him.
“So, what’s next?” Arthur asked. “You’ve got a house, a barn.”
“Livestock, I guess,” John said. “I want sheep.”
“Cows might be good, too.”
“I hate cows,” John said. “Didn’t have good luck with them up at Pronghorn Ranch.”
“Maybe you could get some horses,” Arthur suggested.
Uncle agreed. “You two fools should head down to Blackwater tomorrow. See what we can buy.”
“Do I look made of money, old man?” John shouted at him, and Arthur laughed.
“I’ve got a bit of money saved up,” said Arthur. “I could help you out with those sheep. Consider it a housewarming present.”
“Thank you,” John said. “At least someone is helping out.”
“I am helping!” Uncle said.
The next morning, with Uncle staying at the ranch with Charles on guard duty, Arthur and John rode to Blackwater. “You sure there are no posters,” Arthur said, concerned.
John shook his head. “No posters. Hell, I don’t think I heard anyone mention the robbery since we got here.”
“Good. Should we go to the stable first? Or see about sheep?”
“We might need to go to the Valentine auction yard for the sheep. I don’t know the farms in this area real well.”
They rode to the stables, though there weren’t many options. And the horses available for sale were expensive, though John could tell that Arthur was very tempted to buy the silver dapple pinto Missouri Fox Trotter. “Could you imagine the foals from her and Achilles together?” he said. While Arthur did walk away, John knew he’d be back if he had the money after they purchased the sheep.
Weeks passed quickly, and John found himself getting used to having Arthur around again. They slid back into each other’s lives like they never left it. Arthur did gain some practical home experience after living in his cabin for the last few years, and he built John a chicken coop as well as repaired some of their fencing that the Skinner Brothers destroyed.
John was just stacking feed for the chickens when two familiar figures made there way down the road. “What the hell?”
And he ran.
“You… you’re…” he began, not knowing what to say. He and Abigail hesitated for just a second before she jumped into his arms.
“You always did have that fine way with words,” she said.
“You doing alright, son?” John asked Jack.
“Sure, Pa. Can I go see the house?” Jack asked, a little standoffish.
“In a second,” John said. “I’ve got news. It’s a bit… unexpected. But it’s good. I swear.”
“Well, what is it then?” Abigail asked.
“I didn’t just find Uncle and Charles Smith,” he laughed nervously. “Arthur… he’s alive, Abigail. He’s here.”
“Really? Where?” she cried, eyes sweeping the fields.
“With the horses, of course,” John said, leading her towards the barn. “Arthur! Abigail is here!”
More hugs. More tears. Abigail could barely talk, somehow getting out, “I thought- after you left, I thought-”
“I know. But a good man took care of me, helped me get better.”
“Uncle Arthur?” Jack said.
“Hey kid,” Arthur said, eyes watering as he invited Jack into the hug. “You got so big!”
“Any other friends you are hiding from me, John Marston?” Abigail asked.
“I saw Sadie, too,” John laughed. “She’s a bounty hunter now, comes through Blackwater every once in a while. I invited her to visit.”
“I hope she does,” Abigail said. “Come on, let’s go see this house.”
“It’s yours.”
“Ours,” she said.
“Who’s my new rival?” John asked, pointing at the Labrador that Abigail and Jack had brought with them.
“Oh, that’s Rufus, he’s loyal, dumb, and angry, so he reminded us of you,” she chuckled.
“That’s your idea of a joke, miss?” John asked, as Arthur howled with laughter behind him.
“I guess,” Abigail said, and all of them went to the house.
Sadie visited soon after, laughing and punching Arthur in the shoulder when she saw him. “I thought you was dead!” she said.
“Oh, I’m still holding on,” Arthur said. “Looks like you’re doing well for yourself. Bounty hunting suits you.”
“It has its moments. I could use a new employee now that this one has his ranch.”
That, of course, sparked an argument between John and Abigail about how John was making money. She brought with her rumors of Micah, which Abigail was also against. John was certain that Arthur would want to go after Micah, but Arthur shook his head.
“No. I agree with Abigail, we shouldn’t go.”
“But Arthur! After everything he did!” John said.
“I went back to confront Micah before, when I thought I had nothing left to lose. And I don’t regret it, because I was able to get you out. But there’s no point now.”
“Arthur-” John started.
“And it wasn’t just Micah’s fault the gang fell apart, was it? It was Dutch who lost sight of everything, who came up with that crazy plan. Hell, I blame myself, too. I should have stood up to Dutch long before things went that far!”
“But if we don’t stop him, who knows what he’ll do!” Sadie said.
“The law will catch up to him. They always do.”
“But-”
“Let it go,” Arthur said.
“Okay,” Sadie said, disappointed. John nodded, too.
“Good. I know Dutch said a lot of lies, but he was right about one thing. Revenge is a fool’s game. And I’m tired of losing fools I care about.”
It was good advice. Would have been perfect advice, except for what was happening on Mount Hagen.
“Did you find it?” the one man asked. The years after the fall of the Van der Linde gang had changed him. Gone were the gold rings, the pocket watch, the carefully groomed mustache, and pomade. Those things didn’t matter anymore. Little did.
“No,” the other said. He hadn’t changed much, other than age turning his hair grey. He still had the same sinister smile. “Saw something else that had me wondering if the money is even still there. John Marston and Arthur Morgan. Alive.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Didn’t think so, either. But it was them. And it seems that Mr. Marston managed to buy himself a ranch not far from Blackwater, called Beecher’s Hope. Now, I wonder where he got the money to do that?”