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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2021
Red.
It was the color that haunted Arthur's dreams that night. Red, like the color of coughed-up blood on pale, sallow skin. Red like the glow of a raging wildfire off in the distance. Red like the rocks in Rio Bravo and the bright hues of a desert sunset, red like Wapiti war paint, and red like the light when it perfectly caught Tori's auburn hair in the evening. But, most chillingly, red like the angry veins in Micah's eyes and the blood that poured from a wound in Eagle Flies' gut.
Red.
As he dreamed, Arthur remembered the Native American boy and his father, Rains Fall. He had not thought of the Wapiti for a while. Now, it seemed his brain was intent on forcing him to relive his worst nightmares about them.
The dream wasn't a specific scenario or alternate reality, played out on the stage behind his eyelids. Rather, it was a blend of shapes and colors, of emotions and faces. It was the wailing of a father who had lost his only living son, a wailing Arthur knew far too well, and the horrible, putrid smell of a bullet lodged in a boy's intestines.
He rolled over in his bed, begging his brain to clear the evil images from his memory, but they stuck there like maggots on a carcass, and drilled themselves into his already-shot mind. Arthur screamed in pain and terror, fighting them with heavy, sleepless hands, but they would not go away. They hovered around him, buzzing incessantly as he screamed and screamed and screamed.
Finally, Arthur, sat bolt upright in his bed in terror. Beads of sweat rolled down his arms and neck and forehead. He could feel their lingering, salty moistness as he wiped at his forehead in agitation, muscles quivering from terror and adrenaline.
He blinked rapidly, shaking his head desperately to clear the evil scenes from it, and stood up, casting aside the soft, warm buffalo robe he slept beneath. The chill of the house he shared with Jackson seeped into his bones and past his bare skin, clothed only with a pair of loose-fitting, cotton briefs.
After standing up, Arthur at last began to calm down a bit. His heart still raced, and the memory of Eagle Flies as he died was still seared into his mind as though it had been stamped there with a red-hot branding iron, but he at last realized where he was, and that he was mostly safe. He could feel the rough-hewn boards of the floor beneath his feet, and feel easy, warm breath as it left his lungs. Still trembling with adrenaline and a strange emotion that seemed like one part terror and one part rage, yet was somehow neither of them, Arthur took a step forward.
His first order of business was to visit the bathroom. The cool metal of the sink tap as he turned it on helped bring him even further back to reality, which was aided further as he splashed cold, soothing water on his face. At last, the pounding in his chest began to wane, although he had no desire to return to bed.
Instead, Arthur returned to his bedroom and pulled on a pair of loose-fitting trousers that were apparently called "basketball shorts." They looked like underwear to him, but men of this day wore them out in public on occasion, and they were evidently a new-fangled form of athletic attire. Arthur wouldn't be caught dead in public himself while wearing them, but they were excellent loungewear, and Arthur knew there was no way he'd be able to go back to sleep now.
