Second Chances

Chapter 5- All About That Huntin'

It was a bright and early morning in the outskirts of Valentine, the birds were chirping and singing, Arthur came by my tent saying "Good morning" smiling, I say "Well, good morning Arthur" blushing softly.

he says "How're you doin' today?" and smiling, I say "Pretty good, what's yer plans for today?" sitting crisscross on my bed, he says "Hosea asked me to go huntin' with him so imma go find this bear he wants to find" and laughs.

I say "Well be careful and have fun, I'll see you later?" he says "Uhhh, not too sure, we'll probably camp out on the way so I'll be back tomorrow"

we say our goodbyes and I get ready for today, after I ate and prepared myself for today, I walk over to John and a few others and hear Dutch saying "alright, so Hosea told me he found this  small cabin around Valentine, about 15 O'Driscolls are hiding out there, and apparently some money hidden in the cabin"

I say "Dutch let me join, I wanna be in on this" he says "No Adler, this is the O'Driscolls were dealing with" I say "That's exactly why I want to go, and it the least I can do for you for taking me in"

he says "Fine, you can come" so Dutch, John, Micah, and I head off to the location, you can tell it's an abandoned cabin, it's also surrounded by trees to make it more different.

We see a few O'Driscolls so we immediately start shooting at them, I take cover by a big rock and so do the others, Dutch says "Alright, move forward!"

We begin forward nearing the cabin, once we've taken down all the men, dutch kicks the door down, and I am behind him.

When the door falls down, there are two men in the cabin, they both draw their guns so I quickly pull my gun out, shooting the two men who were aiming at Dutch.

He says "Alright get the money" As we look around, he says "dammit there's nothing here!!" I look under the table and say "Dutch, there's about $600 here" and hand it to him.

he says "Good job Adler, let's head back to the rest, as we walk out, Dutch says "alright, everyone is dead, we got the money"

Micah says "You slowed him down, you're so useless, why did you even need to be here?" I say "Micah, I didn't see you kicking a door down saving Dutch and shootin' everyone, you sat on your ass the whole damn time but dont you worry your little heart, keep a tryin' maybe someday you might make some sorta sense, and say something intelligent" and smirks.

he says "I was a shootin' you just couldn't see you diseased cow, you were probably hiding behind a bush! leaving the shootin' to the real men"

I say "I'll be more of a man than you'll ever be you coward" Dutch walks over saying "ENOUGH! Back on the horses, we need to leave before anyone else shows up" so we get on our horses and ride back to camp.

on the ride back, John says 'good job back there Adler, pretty fine shootin' if I say so myself" smiling, I say "Thank ya thank ya" smirking goofily.

once we arrive back at camp Dutch says "I hate to say this but good job Adler, you're quite alright" walking away as I stand there in shock feeling some sense of pride.

Arthurs POV-

Hosea and I have been heading to our destination to look for this legendary bear, hosea said this bear is huge so we're gonna try to to kill it.

Hosea says "Me and my Bessie were in the area, a long time ago" Arthur says "Hmm I didn't know that, I'm sure you still miss her" Hosea says "Every single day" sadly.

I say "Did y'all ever talk about getting out of this life? moving away?" he says "Yeah we did here and there, I guess you don't remember much cause you were just a young'un" and chuckles.

I say "Yeah I remember you bein' gone fer awhile, it was a lot calmer back then" and sighs, Hosea says "The truth is, it's impossible getting out, staying in, it's hard, but we made it work, why you thinkin' about gettin' out?"

I say "Me, no, not right now, I... if I had the right woman and she wanted me to, I would" Hosea says "Well if Dutch's grand plan works and get enough money then you might be able to get out, we all will but for now let's catch ourselves a bear" and smiles.

we start looking around the lake to see if he's there or left any trails,  Hosea says "Look for any signs of him" I say "I found something! This way" and follow the footprints in the dirt.

I say "Trail ends here, wait a minute, there's something on the ground her' a half-eaten fish" Hosea says "Here, come'er, let's put the bait down'er" setting the bait down in the grass.

we take cover and wait, "Hosea, are you alright? You seem nervous?" he says "No, no I'm good, let's go spread it out more" so we go and fix the bait, as soon as we do the bear comes running at us.

I pull out the gun and shoot the bear but he runs off, "arthur, that was fun, imma head'on back to the camp, you coming back or you gonna get the bear?"

"Imma go get the bear, tell y/n I'm okay and I'm getting the bear so she doesn't worry" Hosea says "You're sweet on her aren't ya?" I say "shes a nice young lady" looking away.

Hosea says "Well I wish you luck on the bear" smiling, and gets on his horse and heads back to camp, I start looking for tracks again.

After a bit of looking, I see a recent footprint so I squat down to study it, then all of a sudden I hear growling so I stand up slowly and turn around and I see the biggest bear I've ever seen.

I go to draw my gun and shoot it a few times but it does nothing to him, he knocks me down and bites me enough to take a small chunk out of my side.

I'm trying to block his swats but he takes a big swipe at my face, but I block the rest of them, he backs up so I draw my gun again and shoot him in the chest and he drops dead.

I get up holding my side, in pain, and skin him so I can take the skin back to camp and put it to good use.

y/ns POV-

It has been a day since Arthur has been at camp, I'm a little worried about him, my worry really grows when I see Hosea come back without Arthur.

I ran up to him saying "Hosea, where is Arthur!?' he says "he stayed behind to get the bear, I promise you he's fine, he wanted me to tell you that actually, he should be back soon, if not we can go out and look for him"

I look very nervous, he says "y/n/n I promise he'll be alright" and hugs me, I say "Thank you, Hosea, he's talked about you a lot" and smiles.

a few hours later Arthur arrives back at camp all bloody and holding his side, I run up to him "Arthur! Oh my gosh! What happened!? Are you alright!?" leading him back to my tent to take care of him.

he says "My dumbass tried to fight the biggest bear in the west, got the crap beat out of me but at least I caught it" and chuckles.

I say "Arthur you have to be careful... I... I can't lose you" and begin to fix up his wounds, I think to myself "Did I just say that out loud?" and he thinks "Did she just say she can't lose me?" as I continue to clean up his wounds.