Arthur Morgan did not intend to survive when he gave his hat to John Marston and stayed behind to gain his redemption. As he crawled towards his final resting place, he never intended to wake up again.
But he does wake up. Thanks to time travelers F...
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1883
"Sneaking off again, Arthur?" John asked stiffly, hands on his hips.
"I ain't sneakin'," Arthur protested, shoving a foot into Boadicea's stirrup and swinging onto her broad back. "Ask where I'm going and I ain't gonna lie to you."
"Fine," John growled, tucking his long, black hair behind his ear. "You goin' off to get yourself almost caught by bounty hunters again?"
"Not if I'm careful," Arthur protested. "The Evans Boys are idiots, as far as I'm concerned. They ain't got a very high opinion of ladies, and Mary's pretty dang smart."
"She can't be very smart if she put you in danger," his surrogate brother replied, taking the reins to Arthur's horse. "Besides, you can't go now. We need you for a robbery. Dutch and Hosea have been planning it for a couple of weeks now. You'd know that if you actually spent time around camp like you used to. We're your family, Arthur. You've known her, what? A month?"
"Something like that," Arthur grumbled, dismounting his horse. He re-tied her to the camp hitching post and turned to John hands on his hips. "So who we robbin'?" His voice was like ice-cold poison. Not even the prospect of a good, old-fashioned stickup could cheer him up. He'd been dying to see Mary for the past three days.
Trudging behind John as they made their way to Dutch's tent, Arthur stared at the ground, seething that his plans for the evening were ruined. "You could at least try to look cheerful, Arthur," Hosea called as the young men came to a stop near where he and Dutch were looking at a map of a town.
"I don't like havin' my plans interrupted for a robbery I didn't even know anyone was planning."
"And you would have preferred us to, what?" John asked. "Send smoke signals? Kinda hard to tell you things when you ain't in camp."
"Would you two shut up and stop bickering for five damn minutes?" Dutch moaned, covering his forehead with his hand. "I need to think."
"About what?" Hosea questioned, eyes narrowing. "I thought the plan we came up with was final. Hit the house and get out."
"If it's a house, why you got a map of a town?" Arthur questioned, peeking over Dutch's shoulder. "Where's Limpany?"
"It's a new town on the east bank of the Dakota River," Hosea informed him, rubbing his chin as he stared at the map. "Some oil company started it as a small settlement to house amenities for its workers. At least, that's what's on paper."
"Why can't they just go to Valentine? It's closer to the oil fields than any land along the Dakota River."
"Because, Arthur, the sheriff of Valentine ain't a fellow who can be bought," said Dutch in an oily, content voice. "It's why we never robbed near there before. We'd have the law breathing down our necks before we even set one foot in there. Now, the sheriff of Limpany, on the other hand, is as crooked as they come. Fellow named Mac Callandar. He and his brother Davey, who owns the general store there, are oilfield plants that keep the law away from the town while the company uses it as a way to traffic men, women, and even children to islands in the Caribbean to be used as enslaved laborers for the sugar plantations there. The owner of the company, a man by the name of Solomon Cornwall, also owns shares in sugar, mining, and railroad companies. Give him a few years and he'll probably be the full owner of them."
