From the Ashes

Chapter 4

A couple of weeks had passed and Violet was getting into the routine of life in camp. She would help Mr. Pearson cook the meals and wash the dishes after each of them. She would also help out another fairly recent addition to the Van der Linde gang, Kieran Duffy, who up until now had been a part of the notorious O'Driscoll gang.

Though he would swear up and down to everyone that he wasn't an O'Driscoll.

Violet had enjoyed and appreciated his company as he reminded her a lot of her eldest brother, Oliver. She took advantage of spending time with him and the gangs' horses, helping to feed and water them as well as brush them down.

She'd even spent time with Hosea Matthews, Dutch's right hand man. She would sit with him and listen to his many stories of past cons and robberies.

She was beginning to grow friendships with nearly everyone in the camp.

Everyone that is, except Arthur. He was harder to read and approach than the others. He was kind whenever he'd seen Violet in camp and would always give a small smile or tip his hat, but otherwise he really wouldn't be around all that much or pay her much mind when he was.

He would leave camp often very early in the morning, before the sun had begun to rise, returning only just after dusk. Violet was always so curious where he went off to.

She did know that occasionally, Arthur and some of the other gang members would go out and do odd jobs, to keep the money flowing for the camp. Stage coach, bank robberies and the like.

Surely that wasn't what he was doing all that time, was he?

She had heard from some members of camp in passing that he sometimes would be gone for weeks at a time.

One day, very early in the morning, Violet had been awoken by the light clinking of spurs as Arthur walked up to his sooty buckskin Dutch Warmblood and gave her a quick pat on the neck before brushing her off quickly and saddling her up. The mare nickered softly at him as she continued to munch on the hay in front of her.

Violet watched all of this quietly, still laying on her bedroll and she smiled softly.

She loved the way he was with his horse.

He mounted up and gave her another quick pat before turning the mare and trotting off towards the entrance of camp.

He had been away since then, doing who knows what for a week after that and had still not returned.

Violet didn't want to admit it to herself, but she had missed glancing at him from across camp. She had always kept the glances brief, never longer than a moment and not often enough to draw attention to herself.

Obviously he wasn't bad to look at, but it wasn't just that.

There was just this way about him. Something about the way he interacted with the people in his vicinity. His family. How he cared for them. He was quite reserved mostly, but he could be loud and boisterous, especially with a drink in his hand.

She had also noticed that journal of his that he often scribbled in. Violet was dying to know what was written in there.

There was something about this mysterious gunslinger, and she wanted -needed- to find out what that something was.

                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~

One morning, while she was sitting in front of Mary-Beth Gaskill -a sweet young woman who had been quite kind to her since arriving, who also just happened to be quite a talented pickpocket- who was sat on a log, happily braiding Violet's long dark hair down her back, Tilly Jackson and Sadie walked up to the two of them.