Arthur Morgan's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

They almost reached the tree line clean. Then Violet's mare stopped short, ears back, and the thin man at the post turned. His eyes found Arthur's face across the mud. Arthur felt it land. The man knew him. John saw it too from his saddle. "He made you," John said, low. He was a hard, bearded man who rode with Arthur's gang, quiet until trouble came. Now his hand drifted to his hip. "We ride, or we deal with him." Arthur looked at Violet on the brown mare, her knuckles white on the reins. Then at the thin man, who stepped away from the horses and reached inside his heavy coat. No poster this time. A pistol. "Take her up the creek," Arthur told John. "Now." "Arthur—" "Go." John grabbed the mare's bridle and pulled Violet into the trees. Arthur turned his horse sideways, blocking the path behind them. The thin man crossed the mud fast. His coat swung. Traders scattered from the space between them. "Arthur Morgan," the man called. His voice shook. His hand shook worse. "Stay where you are." Arthur read him the way he'd taught Violet. The man's feet were wrong. His draw hand was too high. He wanted the bounty, but he didn't want to die for it. A hunter, not a killer. "You don't want this," Arthur said. He kept his own hand loose. "Put it down and walk. Nobody has to write your name anywhere." The man's eyes flicked to the trees where Violet had gone. That was the mistake. Arthur saw him decide. The man pulled. He was slow. Arthur drew and fired once. The shot caught the man in the chest and dropped him in the mud. His pistol never cleared the coat. The post went silent. Traders stood frozen over their pelts. Arthur didn't wait. He wheeled his horse and rode into the trees. Branches whipped his face. He found John and Violet stopped beside the creek, the brown mare stamping in the shallows. Violet stared at him. She'd heard the shot. She knew what it meant. But she didn't cry, and she didn't look away. She'd seen this before. "You read him right," she said. Her voice was flat and steady. "He didn't want to fight." "No," Arthur said. "He didn't." That was the trouble. A man who feared him still came. The bounty was worth more than the fear. John wiped his mouth. "Those traders saw your face plain. Saw you kill him. They'll talk in every town on the creek by morning." Arthur knew it. He'd closed one mouth and opened twenty. The post was burned to him now. And Violet had watched him do it again, calm as reading a page. "We can't come back here," Arthur said. He looked at his daughter. "Anywhere strangers gather, they'll be watching for me now." He turned the horses upstream, away from the post, into ground he didn't know.