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
They'd been riding for days.
Following Dutch and Mac's successful robbery and the safe return of Jamie to his sister, the gang had packed up camp and moved out. The plan was to head south to New Austin to see if there was any money to be made in Tumbleweed or Armadillo, before pushing even further west into Utah or Nevada.
Arthur didn't disagree with this plan. Even Blackwater was too far east, in his opinion. And after the mess with Mary's cousins and the burning of Limpany, the east wasn't safe anymore. All their current troubles lay there, and even Hosea agreed they needed to run.
They rode for the better part of a week, and the terrain was growing slowly and surely more arid. Grass and sagebrush were slowly being replaced by rocks and cactus, and Arthur's hunts began to yield javelinas and desert bighorn rather than elk and whitetail deer.
Not that there weren't deer in the desert. In fact, there were plenty of mule deer here. Mule deer were larger than whitetails, with antlers composed of split forks rather than straight tines and a strange, leaping bound instead of running. They were hard to hunt, however, and since the gang was only stopping for the night these days, Arthur preferred easier game.
In fact, a javelina was Arthur's quarry one evening as he rode back into camp. He doubted anyone would be pleased with such a meager dinner, but it was better than starving.
"Arthur!" Mary cried, abandoning the tent she was erecting when she saw his horse. The dying, evening light caught her auburn hair perfectly, setting it ablaze with the colors of the sunset. Of one thing he was sure: desert sunsets beat mountain sunsets easily. The redness of the landscape made it difficult to tell where Earth ended and sky began.
"Mary!" Arthur called back to her, dismounting Boadicea and slinging the dead javelina over his shoulder.
Mary paced quickly up to him and kissed him lightly on the lips, as if brushing them with a feather. Whether her nose wrinkled at the musky scent of the animal he carried or at the smell of his unwashed body, he didn't know. It had been far too long since he'd bathed. Living this rough definitely had its drawbacks.
Among those drawbacks was a lack of alone time with Mary. Now that they had Jamie to care for, the two never got a moment's peace to enjoy each other's company. Arthur liked Jamie well enough, but the most he'd touched Mary in what seemed like forever were stolen pecks on the cheek or lips or forehead. His mind wandered far too often to the two nights he'd spent with her in the peaceful darkness of her room, and he longed to have her in that way again.
But whether she was ready or not was another question entirely. She seemed to be in a better mental state now that she was traveling increasingly far from her father, but Arthur caught her staring at the dying fire far too often, or laying awake at night as he held her in his arms and pretended to be asleep. He knew they needed to have a conversation about things at some point, but for now, he was content to let her grieve the fragmenting of her family in her own way.
