Strangers By Nature | Red Dead Redemption II |

Chapter Seventeen | The Sacred and the Profane

Arthur bundled their things together, stuffing guns in holsters, gathering silverware, and stowing it all on Spirit while Peter stood by in a daze, all he could see when he closed his eyes was Steph. The blood, the way it crusted to her hair.

What's gonna happen to Jenny? She doesn't have her momma no more, and Miguel... he's now a widow. She didn't deserve it, why her? Why not me? All she said was she loved me, she was my fucking sister. My blood. I failed her. I should've done more, maybe I shouldn't have even spoken to her. Maybe I was what caused it. I'm a poison, a disease on the world.

Suddenly, a shot rang out. Blood hit Arthur's face, and Spirit fell to the floor dead.
"Get inside!" The blonde shouted through his shock, he yanked Peter in as the two began to breathe faster. Their hearts were racing as the sound of a horde of men on horseback approached the cabin. They didn't even have their guns, they just had their pistols which can't do jack shit against a crowd. Their shotguns, riffles, all of it was on Spirit.

The crowd soon surrounded the home as Arthur lifted the dinner table, pushing it against the window beside the door to block the strangers. Peter shoved the couch in front of the main door. Of which started to shake and rattle as they were seemingly overtaken.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Peter cried out as he held his revolver in his hand with frustration.

"We're gonna be f—" Arthur started,
"No Arthur, we're not fucking fine! Nothing about this is fine! My sister is dead! She's gone forever and it's my fuckin' fault! Now we're surrounded by a hoard of bastards with nothing besides two fucking handguns goddamnit—!" Peter screamed as he kicked over a chair, angrily sobbing into his hands.

Arthur was at a loss for words, just standing there like a coat rack as he tried to figure out some sort of response that would help. So he did the only thing he could think to do, which was hold him. So Arthur grabbed him, holding Peter for a moment as he tried to calm him enough to fight.
"We're not gonna let them win, you hear me?" Arthur said as he looked Peter in his sad eyes, blood dripping down his brow as Peter nodded.

Suddenly, they started to smell smoke, and soon a corner of the home caved into their left. Arthur and Peter jumped back as they watched fire spill into the house and light the walls ablaze with a blinding orange light. Flames seemingly spread like spilled water.

They backed themselves into a corner as the fire continued to spread, Arthur all but thinking this was it when Peter grabbed a chair. He threw it through a window and jumped out, screaming in pain as Arthur followed him.
"Shit!" Peter groaned as he grabbed his side,
"What?!" Arthur asked,
"I pulled my stitches," Peter reached to his abdomen and found fresh blood beginning to pour from the wound as he stood up.

The two took off on foot, hoping to lose their pursuers in the forest. Much to their dismay they immediately heard a man shout,
"They went into the woods!" Arthur sped up his pace, Peter and him dashing through the trees as the pain in his side grew worse and worse. They hopped over rocks, and dashed in between tree trunks, powering through greenery as they tried to escape. The sounds of the crowd entering the forest signaled by the loud crushing of leaves. Arthur and Peter ran through a stream, gunfire suddenly raining down on them as they desperately scaled a muddy hill.
"C'mon!" Arthur shouted, scaling the mound of dirt with ease. Peter just barely scaled it before the crowd reached the hillside. Immediately men began climbing the muddy hill.

Suddenly, Arthur and Peter spotted a man on a wagon. Within a few seconds, they hijacked it. The man that was on the seat ran off with his tail tucked between his legs. Two horses dragged an empty wagon, the two men sat up on the seat. Peter was hurting, his hand clutched his side hard. Blood had soaked through his shirt onto his hand.
"Where'r we goin', Arthur?!" Peter shouted. The blonde man was moving them fast. The horses were squealing under the constant whipping of the reins. The wheels shook something fierce as they treaded the forest floor.
"I don't know, just keep—"

Without warning a shot ran through the reins. The horses were freed and immediately ran off with great speed. The wagon then began to coast down a hill, they had no way to stop it.
"Fuck! Hold onto something!"
"Get in the back!" Arthur hollered, the two of them climbing into the wagon bed. The speed they had picked up was immense, Peter looked behind them to see the law still following. But they were a ways back. They halted their gunfire for some reason.

With the wind blowing in their hair, dirt dusting up behind them, and the steepness of the hill; The two of them thought they were gonna crash. Perhaps, crash and burn for all they knew. They weren't expecting to come to a screeching halt. It happened so fast that the momentum threw them forward a bit. Arthur looked around the wheels to see what stopped them, and Peter found a nice cattleman revolver in a small box behind them.

It was a root. It was an insane bout of luck that it managed to loop into the spokes of the wheel. Like a hand, as if nature itself held them still. Kept them safe from their demises. If only nature could keep them safe forever.
"We're caught in a root. Alright, we uh...we keep goin' west. We change our names, change our hair I don't know." Arthur said. Working through ideas while they spilled out of his lips like vomit.

Panting, Peter looked up front. The wagon was facing a hill, one that led directly to a long, long fall to the base of the valley. They wouldn't survive that fall.
"We're never gonna escape this Arthur," Peter interjected, taking a seat in the wagon bed.
"What? You wanna give up?"
"I just—" Peter was then cut off by an increasingly desperate Arthur. He was panicking for any way to escape this moment. This nightmare of pursuit.
"There ain't another option, Peter."

Then they heard the law, and the crowd of folks with guns came galloping up behind them. They were cornered like sick animals in a barn.
"Put your goddamn hands up and come easy! You ain't got nowhere to run!" A man shouted from the crowd. Peter and Arthur started to breathe heavier. The blonde took the revolver Peter found and checked its ammunition. Four shots.
"What're you doin'?"
"I'm not going down like this. We can't give up."

Serial killing queers. That was who they were to the world. No matter where they went, no matter what they did, this was who they were now. This was their title. Their branding. Peter knew this, and he didn't want to fight this anymore. He was tired. He was beaten.
"Okay, listen. Let's not get caught." Peter mumbled.
"What the hell'r you talkin' about?"
"Gimme the gun, I'll pretend to take you hostage. Spin a yarn, tell 'em I threatened to kill your family or something. We—" Peter's then cut off,
"What? No! What about you?"
"We ain't both gonna make it, Arthur."

Arthur had a family. He had people waiting for him. Peter didn't, and he knew that well. He didn't, he didn't have anyone waiting for him. No relatives. Nothing, Arthur was it. He was his family. His friend. His neighbor, everything.
"How about not goin' out at all?" Arthur asked, the outlaw then took a seat down beside him.
"Arthur, I have nothing. There's nothing for me here besides you. Does no good lashing back at the inevitable. People like me don't get happy endings."

Peter had always known he wouldn't get to be truly happy. In the cruel cold world, all he had ever felt was pain. Then Arthur came, like a light in the shadow. But it couldn't last. Nothing ever did.
"I can't do that. I can't..."
"I'm tired, Arthur. I've done all the fightin' I can do. I think I just want to say goodbye." It'd be useless for Arthur to go down with him. Not when he has a family of folk waiting for him. They shouldn't be robbed of a good man due to Peter.
"Let's go."
"What?"

Arthur then looked forward. His head motioned to the hill leading to the fall. A cliff. He had no doubt in his tone, no doubt in his eyes.
"What? You..."
"I've made up my mind. You go, I go."
Peter couldn't help but smile with his weak and teary eyes, "Are... Are you sure?"
Arthur paused. He looked at the drop in front of them again before nodding out a positive,
"Yeah. I'm certain."

Peter lunged forward and planted a deep kiss on him. He ran his hand up the side of his face, longingly tapping at the door of his love once again before pulling back with a smile. He nodded, and Arthur leaned over and shot the root. It split in half and they were sent barreling towards the edge of the cliff.

The folk behind them were shouting all sorts of stuff. But they didn't care. They didn't even listen to them as they flew down the slope. All they did was smile, and right before they hit the small ramp at the end they clutched their hands together. Then they were flying, the wagon in the air as they felt the freedom they'd been longing for all this time. To be one with the wind, to fly above it all. Nothing else mattered. They were free.