We're Dead, No Redemption

Debters or Deaders?

(Warning: This chapter's probably kinda slow. Also early morning editing is in place so tell me if something doesn't make any sense and I'll go back and fix it)

"O'Driscoll."
Kieran jumped at the mention of his gang name, getting an amused smile from Arthur. Kieran's return laugh was more nervous than anything and he left quickly, heading towards the horses.
That man and his horses. Arthur doesn't think he's ever seen him away from them for longer than a few moments. He couldn't blame him, really-with how the gang treated him until recently, he wouldn't want to hang around them either. Bill constantly threatening him about following through on his gelding threat probably didn't help ma-
"Arthur!!"
Lenny shouting the cowboy's name snapped him out of his thoughts. The young man speed-walked over and tried to act casual, yet was failing.
"Well..." Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Hello to you too, Lenny."
"Have you seen anything strange lately?" Lenny said quickly. "Something like...The dead walking?"
"What're you on about?"
"Just-tell me, Arthur! Have you seen the dead walk or not?"
"Uh...Yes. No. Maybe." Arthur shrugged. "I dunno."
"Could you NOT give every possible answer to that question?!"
"Listen, kid." Arthur put his hands on Lenny's shoulders, trying to calm him down. "What's all this about? The walking dead?"
"Y-You know when you took me into town to drink a few days ago?" Lenny asked anxiously. "Well I got caught, and-"
"Shit," Arthur muttered under his breath.
"You can pay me back later, that's not the point! Listen. I overheard something." Lenny dropped his voice to a whisper. "A widow and her family invited in some kid who seemed sick, and then maybe hours later he bit her husband. Then her husband went after her kids or something, scratched her-the whole thing went to Hell."
"You sure you heard that right?" Arthur asked, giving the 19-year-old a sideways look.
"I know what I heard!" Lenny countered.
"I dunno, Lenny-"
"There's more."
Arthur dropped his hands when Lenny motioned to Kieran. "He said he saw dead bodies get back up too, right?"
"That don't mean nothin'. Some men use the dead as cover, Lenny, you know this."
"He said one of them tried to bite you."
"Desperate men do desperate things."
"What about what happened with you and Charles? Back at Colter?"
That got his attention. Lenny crossed his arms. "And the stories John told? With the savage wolves? Even starving wolves don't ignore gunshots."
"The boy in the carriage."
"What?"
Arthur shook his head. "Have you told Dutch about this?"
"Well I tried. He was more hung up on the fact that you got me into a bar fight."
That would explain why he lay into Arthur at random the day after.
"Listen, I-listen." Arthur rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Just-be careful. Alright? I'll talk to Dutch or Hosea. Maybe it's not the dead, maybe-maybe a family of cannibals moved in and they're playin' games with us all."
"Do you really believe that?" Lenny asked.
Arthur faltered repeatedly, stuck between yes and no before giving in and shrugging. "I don't know. Okay? I have no idea what to think about all this."
"Hey Arthur?" Tilly tapped the cowboy on the shoulder and snickered when he turned in a half-circle to try and face her. "Herr Strauss wants to see you."
"Probably for debt collecting." Lenny shrugged and moved away, looking somewhat defeated. "I'll be seeing you, Arthur."
Arthur shook his head with a growl and made his way over towards where Tilly pointed. "This better be good, Strauss."
Leopold Strauss, or herr Strauss as the gang members call him, was sitting on a rock near the cliff's edge of Horseshoe overlook. He flinched and looked up when Arthur made his way over. "Ah. Herr Morgan."
"Strauss." Arthur crossed his arms. "You needed me?"
"I did, yes." Leopold turned a few pages in the grey book he was holding. "Some payments are overdue."
"And that's my problem because?"
"I could try and get them myself, that is true." Leopold shrugged casually, making Arthur grind his teeth a little. "But they'll be more willing to pay someone that looks like you over a bookworm like myself."
"Translation: I'll have to punch some fools." Arthur stepped closer to look over Leopold's shoulder at the book. "Who are they?"
Leopold flipped back a few pages. "Let's see...A Chick Matthews, works at Guthrie Farm. He's a hand, I believe."
'Only a farm hand would be mad enough to take money from the likes of you.'
"Mr. Wróbel, the small holder at Painted Sky. Runs the operations there."
Leopold looked up at Arthur with an unimpressed expression. "Badly."
Arthur smiled despite himself as the Austrian went back to the book. "Miss Lilly Millet is a Ranch Maid up at Emerald Ranch."
"Chick, Wróbel and Lilly. Only three?"
Leopold nodded. "Only three."
"You're slipping."
"There is another..."
There was a brief awkward silence after Leopold trailed off. Arthur nudged his shoulder. "Well?"
"I gave him until the end of today to pay it."
"Point taken."
"Put the debts in the deed box," Leopold called after Arthur as he made his way back into camp. "And try not to kill them, it's very bad for business."
"Those people would have to be crazy to seek you out again after this," Arthur grumbled to himself.
A blue roan warhorse picked up her head from grazing when the cowboy made his way over, making him smile. He let the mare sniff his hand and she lightly lipped it.
"Hey, pretty girl." Arthur rubbed the mare's forehead. "You ready to go around for a ride?"
The warhorse, of course, didn't answer. Arthur freed her reins from the hitching post, pulled himself into the saddle and turned her towards the path leading out of the camp.
Painted Sky wasn't hard to find, what with it being labelled on his recently-acquired map in large letters. It was also the area closest to the camp so it was probably a good place to start.
With the warhorse happily trotting along, the wildlife doing it's thing around him and the sun doing it's damn job for once (keeping everything decently warm), Arthur was able to forget about the strange happenings going on and felt his spirits lift. Sure, the gang was in a bad way, but they're slowly getting their footing back and Dutch was already making plans to get to a place that wasn't so barren of hope. Valentine was a good town, sure, but it also was covered in so much mud it might as well be sinking into the ground. Compared to Blackwater, it was pathetic. But it was a better footing for the future than Colter had any hope to be.
Plus there was the fact it allowed Arthur to get a pretty good horse. Gunner was a good horse in his own right, granted, but the warhorse proved to live up to her title. She hardly spooked at guns and ran fast enough to keep up with a train.
All in all, realistic pessimism aside, thing could have been a lot worse.
And there's Painted Sky.
The moment Arthur pulled his warhorse to a stop a little ways away from the house of the place, he could tell something was up. The place was pretty empty for what looked like a ranch, for starters: there were no stable hands around, no horses, cows or sheep in any fields, not even the squeal of a pig or bark of a dog to suggest there was any life there at all. The warhorse prancing to the side and anxiously tossing her head up and down put Arthur further on guard. This place was abandoned.
He hoped he wouldn't find out why the hard way.
"Mr. Wróbel!" Arthur climbed off his horse and patted her neck when she sniffed the side of his head. "Are you in here?"
Silence. Heaving a sigh, Arthur took his horse's reins and lead her towards the hitching post on the side of the house.
The mare took three steps foreword, five panicked steps back, yanked the reins out of Arthur's hand and bolted back the way they had come. "No! Dammit!! HORSE!!!"
She didn't stop. Arthur kicked himself for not naming her and looked back at the house. The sound of something shuffling around inside caught his ear and made him reach for the pistol at his side.
"Mr. Wróbel!!" He called again, against his better judgement. "Are you in there? Can you hear me?"
More shuffling. The sound of something glass smashing to the ground. Something was certainly in there. Arthur's first thought was another burglar, but the warhorse wouldn't react that badly to a human. Yet the only predator that comes to mind that could make that amount of noise was a wolf or a cougar.
Well, either one would certainly bring back the same amount owed by all the debtors. With that in mind, Arthur kept his hand on the pistol and crept over to the door leading inside the house.
The door creaked when it opened despite his best attempts at going slowly. The animal either didn't hear him or froze, since there was no responding snarl or wildcat hiss. Arthur pushed it the rest of the way open and found himself walking in on Mr. Wróbel seemingly staring out the window.
"What the Hell?" Arthur straightened up out of his crouched position. "What're you doing? What's going on here?"
Wróbel didn't react beyond twitching his head. Mentally shaking his head, Arthur got down to business.
"Hey! Mr. Wróbel! I'm here for the money. Have you got it?"
Wróbel responded with a low groan. Arthur put his hand on his gun. "Mr. Wróbel?"
Another groan, this one louder. Wróbel stumbled back a step and turned towards Arthur. The front of the man's shirt was soaked in blood, the same liquid was dripping from his chin and his eyes were clouded over. He looked startlingly like the woman Arthur had been attacked by weeks earlier.
Arthur drew his gun and pointed it at the man's head. "Don't you come any closer, you hear me? I'm just here for the money. You can either give it to me and I'll go, or you can drop dead here and now."
Wróbel reached out towards him and took a stumbling step foreword. Arthur took a step back. "I'm warning you! I have no qualms about killing a sick man!"
Wróbel screamed like an animal and ran towards him at a stumbling pace. He made it three steps when Arthur pulled the trigger and painted the floor with blood from his shoulder, making him reel back from the blow.
"Back down," Arthur growled. "Or the next one will go in your forehead, as promised. I'm done being nice. Where's the money?!"
Wróbel whimpered from pain, swaying on his feet. He seemed to be weighing his options.
"I'm gonna count to three," Arthur warned. "If you run outta time, I'll shoot you here and loot the place. One...Tw-"
Wróbel howled and lunged again, this time moving much faster. He managed to get his hands on Arthur's shoulders and almost shoved him to the ground, Arthur had to punch him in the stomach to make him back off. The cowboy knocked him to the ground and emptied the remaining five rounds of his pistol into the sick man's head, turning it to mush.
"Jesus," Arthur muttered, wiping blood off his chin. "What was wrong with you?"
At least he could save his fists the trouble of roughing up the man and could simply loot the place for the debt.

Chick Matthews was next, being on the way to the Emerald Ranch. After tracking down his horse and giving her what for over running off on him, Arthur was on his way.
The pretty view and nice weather weren't enough to sooth his nerves this time, however. His conversation with Lenny was now at the forefront of his mind, what with what happened to Mr. Wróbel. That man was definitely dead-or at least half dead, he could still feel pain. This was no cannibal family. This was more like an illness.
He wiped his mouth again to make sure none of the sick man's blood got into it.
Arthur shook his head harshly. "Stop it, Morgan," he scolded himself. "You're letting an old wives' tale get away with you. The dead walking, really!"
The woman he met with Charles could have just had the same sickness. John's wolves could have been delirious from weather thrown out of whack. The boy in the carriage...That's the one he got stuck on. What could possess a young boy to rip apart his parents?
Unless it was a set-up? Something planned to use as a distraction for a robbery that he, Uncle and the girls just managed to avoid? Maybe the show of blood and gore was something meant to startle them, something to keep them in one place so the robbers hiding nearby could jump on them. Maybe, for whatever reason, they didn't. 'Maybe they recognized us as members of Dutch's gang and left us alone.'
The thought made him smile. It wouldn't be the first time reputation saved him from a robbery.
Arthur's warhorse suddenly jerked her head up and slowed to a trot from her easy lope. Arthur muttered "not again" to himself and rubbed her neck to sooth her when she whinnied shrilly. A handful of horses responded to her whinny and she picked up speed again, over a hill and to the debtor's workplace.
The ranch Chick worked at was kind of...Sad. Merely a field, a lean-to for the horses and a small house. Someone was grooming a palomino horse in the lean-to, so Arthur steered the warhorse over to see them.
The groomer looked up at him. "Oh. Hi."
"Howdy." Arthur pulled the warhorse to a stop. "Have you seen Chick Matthews around here?"
"Oh s-s-um-sure." The suddenly nervous hand pointed over the horse's back at another man a little ways away, sitting on a log. "That's him. Over there."
Arthur tilted his hat to him in thanks and made his way over to Chick. The man looked up when he rode over and moved off his horse. "Chick Matthews."
"That ain't me." The man pointed back the way Arthur had come. "That's him over there. Gettin' on that horse."
Arthur turned around and saw the man that was evidently not Chick was right-the hand at the palomino horse's side had thrown a makeshift bridle on it and was climbing on to ride it bareback. Arthur swore under his breath and rushed to mount his horse again as Chick backed the palomino out of the lean-to and rode off at a gallop.
The chase was on in less than a minute. Unfortunately, Chick had a head start and knew the area better than Arthur did. He taunted him and made him chase him a ways up to a crossing train before the cowboy managed to lasso him off the horse.
"'The money's mine and I'm keepin' it'," Arthur scoffed, mimicking the tone Chick had used to taunt him during the chase. "Did you really think that was gonna work?"
"I didn't intend to get caught, ya backwoods hick!" Chick snapped.
"You don't borrow off of people and expect to not pay them back, Chick." Arthur threw the ranch hand onto his stomach and yanked his hands behind him, tying them up. "I was originally gonna let you off with just a beating. Now I think I'm gonna do a little more with you."
"L-Like what?"
Arthur tied up the man's feet and put a foot on his back. When the train passed, he bent down to pick up Chick. The hand put two-and-two together.
"Look-wait! Look." Chick's voice shook when Arthur paused, letting him speak. "I got the money...But it's hidden. Untie me and I'll tell you where it is."
"A goddamn treasure hunt?" Arthur cut the ropes around the man's ankles and yanked him to his feet, gripping the front of his shirt. "You're lucky I ain't taking your teeth as well!"
"Are you gonna untie my hands?"
Arthur pulled his fist back. Chick flinched. "O-Okay! Okay, forget the hands! The map is in my pocket!"
Arthur dug his hand into one of Chick's pockets and pulled out the folded piece of paper he found in there. Unfolding it showed it was a map. "That's more like it."
The small detail put into the map showed the owed debt wasn't far from here...Hopefully. The money seemed to be tucked into a specific tree's hollow. There was writing on the map as well, but it was more of an unintelligible scribble than good writing.
Arthur tucked the map away in his satchel and found he was alone. Somehow, in the ten or so seconds he was distracted, Chick had run off.
He shrugged and walked over to his warhorse, mounting up again. Not his problem.