The wild, wild West (Arthur Morgan x f!reader)

CHAPTER 32 - Of cats and dogs and friendships

I'm currently in a village on the top of a mountain in Italy and the internet connection is shit. I really hope this gets actually uploaded.

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The sun was rising, filling the camp with its pale, somewhat cold light. I felt lightheaded, ready to do something reckless to forget last nights events. It wouldn't be to bad to avoid Arthur for a while either. Technically, no one had really allowed me to move again, but my back felt as good as new. I was done with wasting my time.

Luckily, I already had an idea. The photographs that the man in the bar had given me a while back had been stashed away in my pockets since the encounter and I hadn't payed them any attention. Now they gave me a perfect opportunity to escape for a day or two. I had deciphered the locations on the back of each picture and had decided on Emmet Granger, because he was closest to the camp. There had been more information above the location, but quite frankly, my reading was still to bad to read more than two lines without getting a headache.

Smith, who hadn't been ridden since Javier had found him a few days after the incident when he was running errands, was as nervous and hot-headed as always, maybe even worse. He greeted me with a high pitched whinny, as if to say: „Took you long enough, let's get moving now."

I laughed and then closed my mouth quickly when I noticed how unfamiliar it sounded. Hell, when had been the last time something made me really laugh? It must have been ages ago. But my heart felt much lighter, knowing that Smith was well and happy to see me. I stepped closer and rubbed his ear. „Hey, boy. You wanna go on a trip?"

He just shoved my arm with his nose and pawed the ground impatiently. It would be an exhausting ride.

On my way out, I greeted Karen, who stood guard. She looked half asleep and leaned heavily on her gun. When I passed by, she looked up with droopy eyes and mumbled „Mornin'." I wondered if I was the only one in the camp wasn't hung over.

I knew mostly where to go, and that was good, because Smith definitely wouldn't have been very easy to stop once he was allowed to stretch his legs a little. It wasn't a very long ride, but as soon as we reached open field, I let him run, reins loose and hunched over his neck. Luckily, the straps that were tied under my chin kept my hat in place, otherwise the wind that burned on my face would have snatched it from my head. It drew tears from the corners of my eyes and whistled in my ears. The roads where empty, there was no need to be careful.

Once he got all that energy out, Smith was very cooperative. I could get him to slow down and stand without any problems once we reached our destination. I trusted him enough to leave him without hitching him to a tree. Instead, I just tied the reins to the saddle so he wouldn't step on them and left him to graze a few meters away.

The place was tiny. A house - or rather a cabin, a pen with pigs, a small kennel and a chicken coop. It smelled like it hadn't been cleaned in ages. When I got closer, I could hear the voice of a man in between the squealing the pigs. He leaned against the fence of the enclosure, wiping sweat from his forehead while he muttered something under his breath.

Compared to the picture, he looked older, skinnier and less threatening. Just a grumpy old man in his farm. It was definitely him though.

„Hey, Mister! Are you Emmet Granger?", I called out to him.

His head shot up and he stepped away from the fence. Then his eyes landed on me. I had made sure to place my shotgun on my shoulder before I left the camp, and my revolver hung pretty obvious on my belt to make sure everyone payed me the respect they should. As soon as he noticed the weapons, a sour grin filled his face. „What do you want, woman?"

„Heard you knew Jim Calloway?", I opened the topic. „You used to be some type of gunslinger, right?"

„Used to is right.", he muttered in his monotonous voice. „These days are long over. And who might you be? A woman with a gun?"