Bad Beginnings (A RDR2 Fanfic)

Quickly

Arthur was now 13 years old. He was getting older, taller, and looking less like a boy and more like a teen, including his crackly voice and awkwardly lanky frame.

Many of the girls around town noticed too. Whenever he walked down there to get more food, girls his age sometimes talked to him or stared.

Arthur wasn't much of a looker, but he was a mysterious boy from a house down the path outside of the village. His diet of exclusively canned food for the past 10 years made him very skinny, his cheekbones jutting out. Cute in theory, but a part of himself he hated every day, including the visible ribs and the scars on his body from the hands of his old man.

It was becoming fall and he was buying more alcohol for his father. The jail was still being rebuilt after he burned it down all those years ago. They were still looking for the cause of it, and many people were whispering that they were going to find the man who did it any day now.

However, someone must have spilled because as soon as Arthur was going to go into the general store, he was pulled aside by none other but the sheriff.

The sheriff was a tall man, easily 6'3" or 6'4", Arthur would say. Definitely taller than his father. However, the sheriff had friendly, honey colored eyes, hidden under thick blond eyebrows, and a long prickly mustache.

The tall man clasped him on the shoulder. "How're you doing today, son?"

Arthur gulped, trying to keep his expression neutrally happy. "Pretty good, sir. How are you, sir?"

The taller man chuckled. The shade given to Arthur's eyes by the man's wide brimmed hat was stripped away, blinding him slightly. "Pretty good son, pretty good, but I do have a problem on my hands."

"Sir?" Arthur asked, his anxiety growing. Did the sheriff know what he did. It's been years, surely it wasn't a problem.

"Well, to cut to the chase, you know that your father, Lyle Morgan, escaped jail years ago when the building got burned down, and we haven't seen him since," the man said. "You and me both know who got him out..."

Arthur gulped. This was it for sure. He was going to jail. He was going to get hung for helping a prisoner escape. He was going to die miserable and as a toy to his father. Die just a child to everyone around him and the pretty girls across the street.

"However," the sheriff continued, oblivious to the turmoil in Arthur's head. "If you tell me where Lyle Morgan is... I'll let you go. No questions asked."

Arthur's voice got cut off in his throat. He could turn in his father. His coughing, soon to be dead, father and finally leave.

He could see that nasty old bastard swing. Of course, Arthur was older now and wiser, so he weighed his options like a sensible boy would do. Pushing his dirty blond hair out of his eyes, he thought.

Even if he didn't help the sheriff, his father wasn't helping him now anyway, causing more trouble for himself and less food. If he did help the sheriff, he could better use his money buying food and not alcohol, and could finally see his father to his doom. The answer was clear.

"Yes, sir, I'll help you. I'll show you where he is now."