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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March 2022
"Frosted mini wheats, anyone?" Tori chuckled, using a box cutter to rip the bale wrap from a large round bale of hay. Chunks of snow slid off the bale as the wrap beneath it moved.
Jackson gave Arthur a look and pulled a knob on the tractor, raising the bale up on the spear to give her easier access to it.
Arthur, however, wasn't paying much attention to them. His eyes were on the cows. They stood hungrily, licking their lips as they anticipated consuming glorious mouthfulls of the hay currently right in front of them. If it weren't for Arthur standing guard on Cheyenne, they would be all over Jackson and Tori, creating a dangerous situation.
Tori finally got the net-like bale wrap free of the hay. She bunched it up into a huge, nylon ball and speared it on the end of the tractor's bale spear as soon as Jackson dropped the bale. He slid down down from the tractor seat after driving it forward a few feet and helped his sister roll a metal hay ring over to the bale and pull it down over the hay. At last, the cows could eat.
Jackson hopped back up on the tractor, and Arthur lifted Tori up onto Cheyenne's rump. She wrapped her arms around Arthur and gave him a peck on the cheek. "I think that went well, don't you?"
Arthur gave Cheyenne's reins a gentle tug and turned her about so he could look at the cows as they stampeded over to the bale, tossing their heads and lowing softly in happiness. They were glad to get more hay. They'd been out for several days now, but the ranch was currently forced to ration it to make it through the unusually harsh winter they'd been having. Now, on the cusp of spring, when the days were warmer and they were agonizingly close to having grass again, their feed situation was rather dire. Not many hay bales remained, stacked neatly against the barn. Those that did were old and degraded in quality from the constant wet snow and ice on them.
The cattle showed it. They looked thin. This particular pasture contained the purebred Angus brood cows, and almost all of them were currently pregnant for a May calving. The third trimester was a terrible time to run out of feed because most of the unborn calf's growth occurred then, but they had no choice. The silo was almost out of feed, and they had no more hay. The cows would have to starve and have small calves.
Arthur prayed for a warm, mild spring.
It seemed, at least from the past few days, that he might get his wish. The weather had been warm enough to cause the ancient icicles on the barn and fences to drip with real, liquid water. The creek that ran through the middle of the valley began to run with snowmelt, and even a few patches of brilliant, violet snowdrop flowers began to emerge, attached to verdant, emerald-green stems.
Seeing the flowers at last made Arthur happy. In truth, he was happier than he'd been in a long while. No one had seen hide or hair of Levi Cornwall in months, medication and therapy had seemed to finally make enough difference that he could sleep peacefully at night, and he got to wake up with Tori in his bed every morning. For that one, brief, shining moment, like the calm, peaceful eye of a category five hurricane, everything seemed perfect.
