This is a collection of one-shots that takes place in my Traveler Trilogy series.
In the Traveler Trilogy, Arthur does not die and is instead brought to the present day by Charles Smith and Francis Sinclair, who save his life by bringing him to a mo...
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January 1st, 2022
Arthur couldn't feel his fingers. He'd been out here, in this godforsaken snow, for hours. Hours! And still nothing to show for it. His hands and toes were stiff and frozen, from trudging through the deep drifts of soft, fresh powder, and he was exhausted and growing more desperate by the minute.
His breath came in quick, shallow pants, making steaming clouds of vapor in the cold, golden-red light of the evening, but still he did not turn tail and head for the warm, inviting house in the distance. He had his repeater slung across his back and needed desperately one thing and one thing only: a deer.
He'd have been fine with any deer, or even a pronghorn or an elk. Hell, at this point, even a rabbit or yearling doe would do. He'd seen the back of the meat freezer in Tori's garage this morning, and it had frightened him. The moose from a few months ago had been large, but they were running out of meat, and if he was being honest, Arthur was tired of moose. They had it for nearly every meal now, and he had a craving for something new. Good as it was, and as many different dishes as Tori made with it, he could still taste it in practically every dish, the same way he could plastic.
Unfortunately, likely due to the cold weather, the deer had all but evaporated. There was no sign of them anywhere; not a hoofprint or a hair or a black, shiny berry. It was tough not to grow frustrated with the state of the game, but there had been more deer moving than this after that awful, May snowstorm in 1899. In fact, Arthur couldn't remember it even being this cold back then, perhaps because he'd had a warm horse beneath him instead of just his boots and a blanket of snow.
On the subject of horses, Arthur often found it was best to hunt on the ground. That, and Cheyenne still had a bad habit of spooking at gunshots. Even after the fire when she'd seemingly done just fine around them, Arthur found these days she was still just a bit gun shy. It was a work in progress, however. She was not near as bad as she'd been the first ever time he'd taken her for a ride and been stupid enough to fire a gun from her back. To desensitize her to gunshots, Arthur usually tied her to a post behind the spot where he often gave Jackson shooting lessons.
Jackson, it seemed, was coming right along with those. He was already a better shot than some of the men, like Bill Williamson and Sean Macguire, who'd ridden with Arthur back in the day. He might have even been a better shot than John Marston at the time, or Sadie Adler, but for some reason Arthur couldn't quite remember their skills all that well. He knew from talking to Jackson that John had become something of a legend eventually, more famous than Arthur had ever been, because of his roll in the Mexican revolution and his hand in making sure Javier had been sent to hang and in executing Bill and Dutch. But, whenever Arthur had known him, his skill with a gun hadn't been all that impressive.
Arthur sat down in the snow to wait with his back to a pine tree and smiled, thinking of John. "You're a regular Landon Ricketts, Marston," he'd joke sarcastically if he ever saw him again. The teasing would never cease, and Arthur still maintained that he was still a better shot than John had ever been.
