The Angel Butcher of Rio Bravo: An RDR2 Story

xxix. "We're spread thin"

Arthur.

As exhausted as he was following the move to Fairvale, the isolated field in Ambarino Tine'd chosen for the gang, Arthur'd had a bad sleep.

Tine had approached him the evening before, after the sun had long gone down and all but a handful of gang members with it. "Hey, warm fella," she smirked, her fingers trailing along his upper arm, which he followed, astonished. "Was looking for you to take the frost out of my breath." As if to emphasize her point, she pursed her lips and blew, the vapour streaming from her mouth faintly visible in the firelight. And beyond it, Dutch, hunched in his overcoat, gazing into the flames.

Arthur sighed, conflicting feelings battling within him. "Maybe not tonight, Tine," he said, avoiding her eyes. "Things is complicated enough." He'd been so ready to claim her as his own just a short time ago, but that seemed another age.

He saw the flash of something in her eye, but it vanished just as quickly. "OK, then," she said, and walked back to her own tent without another word.

When day broke, he crunched through the dewfrost that had collected on the ground and lined every blade of grass, every lupin petal. It could have been that he was just used to the Lemoyne heat - to say nothing of his time on Guarma - but it was quite cold up here, where the sun took its sweet time to rise over the mountains. He thought of the women, Strauss, Uncle, Bill; many of them sleeping directly on the ground. They'd need beds, bedding, heaters. He knew what a disaster Beaver Hollow was, but saw problems with the site Tine had picked, too.

Arthur whirled at the hiss of a whisper behind him, spotting none but Lenny, hurriedly trying to pull his saddlebags over his Maggie's rump without notice. Lenny caught Arthur's bald stare and his dark eyes grew guilty, looked to the tips of his boots. Arthur stepped quietly over, his palms open as if to convey that he didn't mean anything by his quick movement.

"Where're you off to?" He said casually. Lenny's eyes glanced up again, then back down, liquid with regret. "Len?" Arthur asked again, resting a hand over the nearest saddlebag. It was packed full, bulging with Lenny's belongings. Arthur chanced a look back to where the young man's tent had been the night before, only to see it gone, a telltale square of frostless grass where it'd sat pitched. Shame filled Lenny's face, his lower lip quivered, once.

"I only thought-" Lenny began, and Arthur felt his heart lurch, moved his hand to Lenny's shoulder.

"It's OK, Lenny," he said, firmly, hoping to assuage him of his guilt at leaving.

"I mean-"

"You don't have to explain, it's all right."

Lenny gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. He forced himself to meet Arthur's steady gaze. "I just thought we was doing something, you know?"

I rob, I kill, I make money so that we all can live. Those are the only ideals we practice. Tine's words from the cabin in Lakay hung over them both. "I know," Arthur nodded, patting Lenny's shoulder before releasing him, making a waving motion back towards the road they'd followed in. "I don't hold it against ya. Be safe, now." Lenny saddled up and took off, a small dot against the rising sun that grew smaller, then vanished.

*

Dutch seemed in halfway decent spirits when Arthur met him in his little stone cabin, a fire crackling merrily in the little hearth, the smoke from a cigar parked in his fingers perfuming the air.

"How's everyone keeping?" He asked as Arthur shouldered off his overcoat, the air close in the small, single room.

"Cold, mostly," he tried to laugh, but the sound caught in his throat; he coughed instead. "We're gonna need pallets for folks, get 'em up off the ground. And, uh-" He hesitated, Lenny's guilt-ridden face burning in his mind's eye. "Lenny's gone."