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
The wind blew against the new barn, causing it to creak like the hull of an old boat. Inside, the body heat of easily a dozen horses kept it nice and warm, but outside, the sky was dark grey and icy cold.
Arthur busied himself with chores. Charles and Francis were gone now, and it was once again up to him and Jackson to do most everything around the place. Tori helped when she could, but she was bogged down in office work, trying to pencil-push the ranch out of its dangerous financial situation.
They still were not well off. Cattle prices had fallen precipitously due to a packing plant closure in Blackwater, the early winter had pushed up the price of corn which dropped the price of live cattle even further, and no one seemed to want to buy horses either. There were four broken horses ready to go to new homes, but a financial crisis in the rest of the United States had made it difficult for people to afford the luxury of a horse.
Still, Arthur tried to remain happy. They had meat to eat, and enough dry goods to add to their diet. He split firewood for the main house and Jackson's cabin every day, meaning they saved money on electricity from the fire heating their homes, rather than an electric heating system. It didn't eliminate their need for power completely, but it most certainly helped. Their margins were thin, and the cattle grew thinner, but Arthur's spirits were good, even as he shoveled shit from Cheyenne's stall.
After filling the wheelbarrow with muck, Arthur wheeled it out into the barn aisle and turned back around to shut Cheyenne's gate. She lowered her face to his and snorted loudly.
Laughing, Arthur wiped tiny droplets of her snot from his face and ran his hands across her smooth, creamy neck, beneath her long, raven mane. He delicately traced the black bars on her shoulders and ran his hand over the black line down her spine. Then, he reached into his pocket for a peppermint, feeding it to her as he patted her shoulder, right over the spot where a bright white Double L freeze brand gleamed on her buttermilk coat.
"I don't blame you for hatin' most folk," Arthur said quietly to her as she crunched on her treat. "I'd hate a feller that held me down and burned me with a metal rod, too."
Talk of branding horses reminded him of another horse he'd come to own in 1899 and ridden for a time. Dakota had been his main horse, but while the gang had camped at Clemens Cove, Arthur and Javier had gone to steal some horses from a vile, rich woman by the name of Catherine Braithwaite.
Mrs. Braithwaite bred racehorses and took an absurd amount of pride in them. After being given false information about the true value of those horses, Arthur and the others had snuck onto her property to steal them. Dutch said they needed more money after all, and John swore up and down that the horses were worth at least five thousand dollars each. That was nearly $165,000 in today's money. It was an opportunity too good to pass up.
They'd gone to the Braithwaite stables, pretending to be interested in breeding some mares to the Braithwaite stallions, only to kill the stable manager and steal the horses for themselves. But, before Arthur had slit the man's throat with his knife, he'd shown them a massive, bay Turkoman named Cerberus. Arthur didn't know why, but he'd instantly taken a liking to the horse.
