Traveler trilogy Book 2.
Five years after killing Levi Cornwall, Arthur Morgan is happy. He has a wife who loves him, an honest job he enjoys, and two beautiful children named Sadie and Hiram. All of it is turned on its head, however, when Francis S...
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It felt good to be home at last, except for the large Cheyenne-shaped hole in Arthur's heart.
He and Mac did most of the work around the place these days, seeing as Jackson was stuck in some sort of depressive episode following Francis' death, and Tori had Sadie and Hiram, plus the newborn twins, to care for. Arthur helped her as much as he could, but when one's livelihood depended on livestock that needed to eat too, there was only so much he could do. He wouldn't have been able to do it all without Mac.
Jenny was here too now, having been discharged from the hospital in Blackwater a couple of weeks prior, but she was under strict orders not to do any heavy lifting and to take it easy for a while as her body continued to heal from the combination of the gunshot and brain bleed.
She and Mac were staying in the small apartment above the horse barn for the time being. A couple of years ago, Tori had suggested turning the hay loft into a barndominium to serve as a bit of a guest house now that she and Arthur had so many children and all the bedrooms in their house were now taken. It was a small, hotel-sized suite with a full bathroom, queen-sized bed, small living area, and even a kitchenette.
There was currently a spare room in Jackson's log cabin at the moment, but somehow it didn't seem like a good idea for Mac and Jenny to stay there. Jackson wasn't speaking to either of them; he wasn't speaking to anyone, in fact. He stayed in his house all day, barely ate, and barely left his bed. Arthur checked on him a few times per day to make sure he kept himself hydrated and wasn't letting the little cabin fall into too much disrepair.
It was where Arthur expected Jackson to be for the next little while as he mucked horse stalls with Mac, so the sound of Jackson's diesel one-ton and the horse trailer, crunching gravel as it pulled up beside the barn, surprised him and caught him off guard.
At first, he figured it had to be Tori driving for some reason. Jackson hadn't shown many signs of life in months. And yet, as Arthur peered out the small window of the stall that used to be Cheyenne's, he saw Jackson get out of the truck with a completely neutral expression on his face.
"Jackson?!" Arthur exclaimed, setting his pitchfork down and leaving the wheelbarrow in the stall behind him as he followed Jackson to the tack room at the back of the barn. "How... what...?" He couldn't stop himself from sputtering awkwardly in shock.
"I'll be gone a few days," Jackson said simply, grabbing his saddle from its rack in the tack room. "The Armadillo rodeo is this week, and I'm entered in it."
"Doing what?" Arthur asked cautiously, following after Jackson again as the latter started back towards his truck and the horse trailer. He felt like he already knew the answer, but he prayed he was wrong.
"A couple of things," Jackson grunted, opening the small tack room at the front of the horse trailer and heaving his saddle inside. "Roping, steer wrestling-."
