The Angel Butcher of Rio Bravo - goodbyelisahoney (2024)

Chapter 1: i. “Damn Norwegian”

Chapter Text

Dutch Van der Linde huffed another long sigh, hot vapour streaming from his lips in the freezing air, staring at the two men who knew him most. Hosea Matthews, leant against the mantel of the fireplace, trying to return the warmth to his bones, and Arthur Morgan, sat across from him, his heavy blue duffel coat buttoned up to the neck. The three men shivered in unison, teeth all but chattering in the small cabin they'd claimed as their own, the warped wooden boards that made up its walls no match for the storm howling outside.

"What should we do with the woman?" Hosea asked, cupping his fingers to his lips and blowing on them, as if it'd do anything.

"She might not feel safe in her home, yet," Dutch said, stealing a glance through the window back toward the main building in Colter, where Sadie Adler, a widow they'd just rescued from the clutches of the O'Driscoll gang, was being fed and clothed by the women. Her rescue was yet another unpredicted development in a devastating day; the capstone to the gang's fleeing north in an unseasonable snowstorm, less a good handful of their members after their planned robbery in Blackwater became an unmitigated disaster.

"She were real frightened," Arthur added quietly, his radiant blue-green eyes cast down to the floor. "Can't imagine what Colm and those fellers gone and done to her."

Dutch nodded, saying, "we'll keep her as long as she wants to be kept, I guess" as the door to their shared cabin opened, inviting a rush of wind and a snow-covered figure inside. Tine Nilsen shook snowflakes off the brim of her hat, revealing a head of white-blonde hair, pale blue eyes, a sweet, heart-shaped face.

Arthur knew that her angelic countenance belied the devil's plaything. Tine was brutal and merciless; while the Van der Linde gang had its fair share of killers, she was the only one with a moniker on her wanted poster: "The Butcher of Rio Bravo."

Fortunately to Arthur - or unfortunately, depending on which day he was asked - she was also effective. Out scouting just hours before, she'd found the Adler homestead, and Sadie, too. And he realized it likely that the traumatized widow wouldn't have left with them had Tine not been there.

Now before them, Hosea and Dutch nodding in greeting, Tine removed her overcoat and gloves, just the apples of her cheeks rosy, wisps of her white-blonde hair gilded copper in the firelight. "Damn Norwegian," Dutch guffawed, prompting a smile from Tine. "Real good work today, Miss Nilsen. We need another half dozen like you."

Her smile broadened at the praise as the thought of six more bloodthirsty Tines in the gang curdled Arthur's stomach.

"Mmm," she hummed noncommittally, the smile fading from her face. "Where's John gone?"

"Out scouting, same as you," Dutch replied, the brief humour that had found its way into his deep voice once again absent. "Hope he finds us some food." Dutch's lover, Molly O'Shea, emerged from their shared bedroom, leaning against the doorframe. Dutch stood, scratching at the dark curls that sprung from the nape of his neck. "I'm going to turn in, you three. It's... it's been a day." Dutch's expression said what he couldn't bear to admit twice; that the Blackwater job had been a failure, nearly ruined them.

Molly curled her fingers around his upper arm and led him into the room, his shoulders visibly slumping as the door closed. Hosea mumbled more of the same and left the room, only Arthur and Tine remaining in front of the fire. She moved to Dutch's vacated chair and plunked into it, kicking out her legs, the brass points of her boots occasionally waving back and forth.

For a while, there was only silence, Tine toying with her knife, wood crackling in the fireplace, Arthur's stuttered, shivering exhales from the cigarette he'd lit with fingers trembling from cold.

Arthur broke the quiet, his low, gruff question crawling along the floorboards of the room. "What happened on that boat?"

Tine's eyes canted up to meet his. "Wouldn't you like to know, cowboy," she sneered. Normally, her gaze would have remained steely, fixed on Arthur's until he turned away. But in that small, firelit room, he watched it shift permanently to the window behind him, her pale eyebrows furrowed.

"What's with you?" He asked, his voice still low, still stern.

She chewed her lower lip before replying. "John's not back yet."

Arthur scoffed, throwing the butt of his cigarette into the fireplace. "Maybe you should let Abigail worry about that."

Tine's expression darkened. "Who says I'm worried?" But she'd been stung just the same; pulling her coat back on and storming out, Arthur glad for the tension to have left with her. He knew there was a kernel of something between Tine and John; he was the reason she'd joined them, after all, a souvenir from his year away from the gang.

He was glad to put it out of mind, lighting another cigarette and grateful for the quiet, the warmth. Arthur was dozing, sitting up by the fire when Tine returned, the whoosh of the stormwind preceding her.

"I can't sleep with the women and the baby-" Tine always called Jack "the baby," which the little boy hated "-all in there crying."

Arthur let out an incredulous chuckle, wondering how the same Tine who'd carefully bundled Sadie Adler in a blanket and led her to her horse could be so thoughtless about her fellows in the gang. "Don't you think they might be upset about it all, Miss Nilsen?"

"Upsetisn't going to make the money come back."

"Or Mac?" He corrected, feeling his voice rise and forcing it back down to an angry whisper. "Or Sean?"

"OrJohn?" She jeered back, and Arthur rolled his eyes.

"John'sfine," he stressed, "ain't worried about him one lick." Arthur leaned forward in his chair, gesturing a broad hand out to Tine. "He's probably gone and found some family by now whose fed him a three-course dinner, and dessert, besides."

Something quirked in Tine's face, an arching of an eyebrow or curve of a lip, something only his keen eye could track. "Don't tell me Arthur Morgan misses his pudding?" She reached forward and patted his stomach, and he grabbed at her intruding hand, squeezing her fingers held together as if to crush them, for the briefest moment.

"Don't do that again," his voice was a low warning, but to his fury she only smiled at him, her face lighting up, gleaming teeth bared. He threw her hand away from his with a huff, stalking up and out of the cabin.

With nowhere to go, Arthur slunk into the bunkhouse inhabited by Bill, Charles, Javier, and Lenny; their hammocks crisscrossed over one another's. He laid out a bedroll in the only drafty corner of the room that remained, furious that he'd surrendered his warm, private room to Tine.

Unbidden, he imagined her curling up in the quilt Susan Grimshaw had found for him, forhim, the gang's most hardworking, stolen away. In his treacherous mind's eye it was instead wrapped around Tine, her light hair fanned out on the pillow, the puckishness from her face vanished in a sleeping peace he seldom saw. The imagined Tine tossed and turned on the mattress Arthur knew to be lumpy, the quilt sliding down her body, which was bare, dimly illuminated by the fire, and infuriatingly perfect.

Damn Norwegian, indeed, he thought, his own mind against him. Arthur groaned as he loosed himself from his pants, hoping Bill's snores would conceal the desperate noises he'd begun to make. Remembering her warm fingers in his brief grasp, he imagined them in the place of his own around his co*ck and allowed himself a slow, luxurious stroke.

Allowing his eyes to slide closed, Arthur drew careful breaths, pumping his fist and picturing Tine knelt in front of him, eyes as they'd been in the cabin, her pale irises reflecting the firelight.

But then, the same smile she'd cracked moments before broke upon her face in his vision, and the satisfaction even a make-believe Tine had at his coming undone before her frustrated him into softening, the moment passed. He let a low growl rumble from his throat and tucked himself away, shivering into his bedroll.

After a bad night's sleep, Arthur's frustration had reached a fevered pitch the following morning, when he entered the main building of the tiny mining town of Colter, only to be confronted with Abigail Roberts, wringing her hands over John. Beyond her, Hosea played with her son, Jack, walking a wooden horse toy along the floor.

"You think you can go out lookin' for him, Arthur?" She all but pleaded, rushing him as he entered.

"Ask Tine to find him," he said, nonchalantly, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "She was askin' after him last night."

"Tine," Abigail repeated, her face blanching.

"I'll go, Abigail," Javier Escuella piped up, setting his cup down and pulling on a pair of leather gloves. Tine walked in, then, nodding at Javier as he made to exit the building.

"Where's he going?" She asked, co*cking her thumb over her shoulder to Javier's retreating form. Arthur noticed how well-rested she looked, sunlit hair gently framing her face under the brim of her hat, and he was rankled anew.

"'S your lucky day, Miss Nilsen," he said, raising his cup in a mocking toast. "Scouting party for John."

Abigail looked between Tine and Arthur before settling on him, her tone frantic. "Couldn't you go instead?"

Arthur shook his head, grinned menacingly into his cup. "Tine'll have better luck," he said, "you know how drawn to each other they are." It was unkind, and he knew it, witnessing Abigail's face grow crestfallen.

"Arthur," Hosea said lowly, a warning chime, just as he had when Arthur was a misbehaving boy. But he refused to be swayed.

"No need for more than two; Javier and Tine'll be fine. I'll help elsewhere." Refusing to be under Hosea's judgement and witness to Abigail's distress any further, Arthur abandoned his half-finished coffee and swept from the room.

He spent the morning chopping wood for the fires that needed constant attention until his hands grew chapped and numb, realizing belatedly that Javier would have been much more pliant than Tine to ask about the Blackwater job; looking for John the perfect excuse to speak about it away from the rest of the gang.

But, no matter. He stacked yet another bundle of firewood as Charles strode by, his hand still bandaged but otherwise unscathed. "Hey, Arthur," he greeted. "Feel like feeding those that need feeding?"

Arthur barked a single laugh. "What're you thinking?"

"Might be the day I teach you how to use a bow, if you're up for it. Saw some deer out on the fringe of town."

"Sure," Arthur nodded, swinging the axe down a final time to embed it in its stump, and made after Charles, glad to be free of the gang for a few moments.

Chapter 2: ii. The promise of money

Chapter Text

John Marston felt little, but what he did was acute. A burning pain on the side of his face, where the wolf had bitten him. An aching hunger in his gut, a constant roil. And a cold so fierce that he thought he might already be dead. He looked out to the white void beyond the cliff where he'd hauled himself, so pitiful that even the wolves had left him.

It was becoming more likely that no one was coming for him. A different, deeper pain that he had a hard time admitting was the hardest to sit with, dying on the mountainside. He supposed he'd cried wolf before, the irony of the idiom not lost on him. What did Abigail owe him, did any of them owe him, when he'd run off right after Jack was born, choosing a dangerous, solitary life over not just fatherhood, but brotherhood, too?

But, Tine. She was too new to the gang to have felt any kind of betrayal; in fact, he was the reason she'd joined. It might be enough to compel her after him, he thought, briefly hopeful. Though, after the disaster in Blackwater, being a part of the Van der Linde gang was hardly a gift, either.

John closed his eyes against the startling white before him, took careful, staggered breaths through the searing pain in his cheek and chin. Behind his eyelids, scenes from his life flowed into one another in bursts - Dutch lifting his twelve-year-old self onto a horse, Arthur teaching him to shoot a gun, meeting Abigail by the campfire - coalescing on a dingy saloon in Gillette, close to the end of his year away from the gang.

He had been sitting at the bar, a letter from Abigail - in Hosea's handwriting - hot in his pocket. Jack had said his first word ("hi"), and he was missed. The letter damned him, and he tapped two gloved fingers on the bartop, indicating it was time for another whiskey.

The portly bartender drifted over, a bottle of the cheap stuff at the ready. He refilled his glass while looking over his shoulder, having already found John unworthy of conversation. John watched the whiskey reach the lip of his shotglass, then spill over it, the bartender distracted.

"Oh, no," the man whispered, finally remembering the task at hand and righting the bottle, attacking the spilled liquor with a dirty rag. "It's the Butcher." John caught the terror in his tone and swivelled on his stool, expecting to be met with a giant man, a fearsome gunslinger: the types who might earn such a name.

Though the young woman he found was dressed like a gunslinger, she was like a porcelain doll come to life: delicate features on a heart-shaped face, white-blonde hair in a ponytail slung down her back. John laughed in surprise. "You've got to be kidding," he muttered, shaking his head, turning his attention back to the dusty bottles on display behind the counter.

He was only half-aware of her coming to sit at the bar a few stools to his left; the full glass of whiskey before him much more interesting. The man at his right stepped down and made his way over, leaning against the hand-weathered wood, his hat jauntily perched on his head.

"Can I interest you in a drink, little lady?" John's mind, independent of himself, anticipated a typical response; a woman's voice to sing out above the grumbling men scattered throughout the room. What came instead was a dull, wetthunk, then the man's agonized scream.

John turned to see blood, welling up around a wicked-looking knife stuck through the man's hand, embedded into the bartop; the unfortunate fellow simultaneously twisting away and gravitating back towards his injury.

"Oh, fool, me," the woman's voice finally came, and it was deceptively sweet, clear as a bell. "You mind giving me my knife back?"

"You crazybitch," the man seethed through his teeth. That bravado too, soon vanished, a revolver procured from somewhere at her waist, pushed up against his temple.

"I will have my knife back," she said, the sweetness gone, "and you will give it to me." The man's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat and he winced, grasping the handle of the knife in his free hand and, in one sickening squelch, pulled it up with a flourish. He immediately dropped it, in favour of clutching at his bleeding hand, fleeing from the saloon.

The woman - Tine, as John would soon learn - stood on the footrest and reached over the counter, seizing the rag and wiping the knife's blade clean. John's curiosity won out over his fear.

"Why'd you do that, Miss?" Her eyes fixed on him, and he gulped. "He was just offering you a drink, I mean." Her face broke into a smile, and she hopped down from her seat, slipping the knife into a sheath at her belt before joining John at his adjoining stool.

"Watch this, cowboy," she said, then affected a friendly expression. "Would you like a drink?" She waited expectantly for his answer, and he played along.

"OK, sure, thank you."

Tine nodded. "Now this one." John's eyes widened as her hand ran up his inner thigh, her body leaning into his, her lips at his ear. "Can I interest you in a drink, little lady?" Her breath tickled his sideburns and her perfume filled his nose, her hand warm and heavy in his lap, flustering him. But she straightened again, withdrawing her hand, smiling brightly. "You see the difference?"

John gulped again. "Yes, Miss." She laughed.

"You're awful green, aren't you?" She said, signalling to the bartender - scrubbing stubbornly at the bloodstain she'd put into his bartop - for a drink. "Ever used those guns at your hip, even?"

"I have," he retorted.

"Feel up to using them tonight?" The smile vanished from her face, she was serious, now.

"Er, what for?" He scratched at his hair, grown longish and scraggly without anyone to admonish him for it.

"Money," her eyes lit up as the word left her mouth, a mouth he couldn't stop staring at since it'd whispered into his ear.

He stared at it again as she bellowed for a stagecoach they'd swarmed to halt, as it counted stacks of bills over the corpses of the stage's guards. As it neared his again, that night; the pair holed up in a hotel room well beyond their usual means.

When he returned to the gang with Tine in tow, he flubbed the truth; telling Dutch and Hosea he'd been running with her for months, when it had only been a dizzying week. He told Tine herself that what had happened between them was over, here; he had responsibilities, obligations. She readily agreed, and to her credit, it was always John who gravitated back to Tine's embrace when he and Abigail fought, which was often enough.He'd been swimming in the bald cruelty of her actions in that saloon ever since, and John was never much for water.

A gunshot dragged John forcibly into the present, his eyes snapping open, greeted by the blinding white of the snow. He shouted for help; once, twice, his entire body singing out tolive, dammit, just a few minutes more.

A shadow eclipsed the white beyond, Tine's smirking face, blue eyes bright even under the shaded brim of her hat. Sweet relief flooded his heart; he was saved, after all.

"Oh, Lord," John said, coughing out a joke, "angel of death's come for me."

"Ha. Ha." She replied sarcastically, but her eyes glanced up to the ledge all the same. When she was sure Javier couldn't see her, Tine brushed her warm lips against his unmauled, icy cheek, a gesture both uncharacteristically kind and deeply welcomed.

Tine helped John to standing, his weight on her shoulders, and then cupped her hands under his uninjured foot to boost him onto the ledge above, where Javier hauled him the rest of the way up. The pair of them surrounded John, easing his way back to their horses and onto the back of Javier's Boaz, Tine's Darling always too fussy for a second rider.

The horses pulled into the sorry collection of buildings that Javier announced as their home, and a few figures burst from a large building to their right; Hosea, Arthur, and Abigail.

"You stupid, foolish man," Abigail cried, batting at John's shoulder as Arthur helped ease his broken body off the back of Javier's horse. She whirled around to the two still on horseback, a complicated gratitude shining in her eyes. "Javier, Miss-Miss Nilsen, thank you."

"Of course," Javier replied, kindly, but Tine merely nodded, swinging a leg around Darling's back and dismounting into the snow.

John was carried over Arthur's shoulder into the main building, laid out in front of the crackling fire; the flames heavenly against his freezing bones. Abigail appeared above him, stroking loving fingers along the gashes in his cheek. He tried to kiss at her fingertips, wincing at the pull on his lip. "Never you mind, John," she said, more quietly, "let's focus on healing you up, first."

*

Where John lay, suspended between wakefulness and sleep in a pleasant, laudanum-induced haze by the main fire, he overheard a lot of plans. He heard about the gang's raid on an O'Driscoll encampment - of course those bastards would be up in the Grizzlies, too - and about the train robbery their rivals were planning to do, one Dutch now hoped to conduct for himself.

He heard too about the young man they'd captured and kept in the barn, a preoccupation of one of the gang women, Mary-Beth. "He doesn't seem like an O'Driscoll," she said to the room; John a forced captive audience on the bed, Tine playing with her knife, seated on a wooden crate in the corner. "Told me his name's Kieran. Ain't that an unusual name, Kieran?"

"I sure am hungry," Tine said, making a show of licking her lips, running her fingertip along the blade. "I wonder how Kieran tastes."

Mary-Beth held her hand to her chest, shaking her head violently. "Goodness you're awful, Miss Nilsen." John chuckled as Mary-Beth left the room, Arthur and Dutch pausing at the door to let her pass.

"We're going for that train today, Arthur," Dutch said, and John coughed, trying to rise to seated.

"Want me to come, Dutch?" The words were clumsy in his mouth, a side-effect from the laudanum.

Dutch seemed surprised by the offer, his gaze fixed on John. "Well, of course I do, son, but just look at you."

John smiled to himself, the expression not as painful as it had been in recent past, the gashes beginning to harden and heal. "Always been ugly, Dutch." Dutch smiled at him, then turned to Tine, who'd moved to picking her nails with the knifepoint.

"How about you, Miss Nilsen? Could use your steady eye on this thing."

"Sure, Dutch," she said, hopping down from her crate and making for the door. It swung open before she could get out, Abigail and Jack walking in. Abigail froze for a moment, sizing up Tine before pushing past her, ushering the boy in front of her and pushing him towards John.

"The boy was wanting to see you, John," Abigail said, her hand on Jack's shoulder.

"Well, here I am," John said, realizing himself to be a rotten sight to anyone, let alone little Jack. Through the eye that wasn't covered by bandages, he saw beyond the boy's fearful face and Abigail's pointed insistence to Tine, walking out between Arthur and Dutch, her eyes twinkling with the promise of money.

Chapter 3: iii. “Appeal to Me”

Chapter Text

Dutch had asked Tine along on the train robbery as a mere afterthought, but the invitation wedged a dread into Arthur's gut all the same. He watched as she unfolded herself from the crate she sat upon, by an ailing John, her face alight. The three exited the cabin only to find Hosea, who was similarly fretting, but to a different end.

"The weather's clearing, Dutch," Hosea gestured to the clearing sky above their heads, the snow just beginning to melt underfoot. Beyond him, Bill, Javier, Lenny, and Charles were tacking their horses, loading guns onto their saddles. "Aren't we supposed to be lying low?"

Dutch stepped ahead to intercept his oldest friend and longtime partner, leaving Arthur behind next to Tine; her delight at impending crime still clear on her face.

"You ain't supposed to enjoy these," Arthur muttered as they gravitated toward their horses; the spotted Walker he'd taken from the Adler barn next to her Darling; a mink-coloured Paint with a white mane and tail.

"Oh, but Ido," Tine gushed, throwing a blanket over Darling's back before pointing her saddle, slung over the fence, out to Arthur, obviously expecting his help with it. "And I think you do, too."

He snorted, bending forward to hoist the saddle up. "Yeah," he said sarcastically, the saddle clutched against his chest. "Always dreamed I'd grow up to rob folks, kill 'em."

Tine looked thoughtful for a moment. "You could have ran off with that Mary, but you didn't. Maybe you dreamed more about robbing than you did laying up with pretty women?" At the mention of Mary's name, Arthur froze, his knuckles in a white grip around the pommel and cantle of Tine's saddle.John must've told her, that idiot.

Tine blinked innocently at him, and Arthur forced himself to calm down, refusing to give the rise in temper she was expecting. "I'd ask you not to mention her again," he said, before turning back to her horse. And then, her voice, worming its way into his ear:

"I'd really rather you begged."

White rage flared in his chest, furious at both her and at his naïveté that he could weather her barbed teasing, her ability to get under his skin practised and potent. "Fix your own damn tack," he grumbled, dropping her saddle into the snow and stalking back to where Hosea continued to ask Dutch to see sense and abandon the plan.

But to no end. They were going robbing; the private train of a magnate named Cornwall. Magnate ofwhatseemed to know no end: oil, sugar, gold. Arthur could see where Hosea's fears stemmed from - they'd just narrowly escaped another heist - but also knew that they were desperately short of cash.

While Arthur would have rather extracted his own tooth than admitted it, Tine was right about one thing: he relished being on this new horse, galloping among his brothers in the gang, Dutch waxing on about the task at hand in front of them. "Arthur, you and Miss Nilsen can work on opening up Cornwall's private car," he was saying, Arthur perking his ears to the mention of his own name and then cluing into his assignment, a sour knot in his stomach.

"Sure, Dutch," he called forward, his earlier enthusiasm tempered by his pairing with Tine, who rode beside him in silence, crouched low in her saddle, her hair and Darling's mane two streaming white banners.

They rode through the slowly-thawing wilds - their buffer between safety in Colter and civilization, the law - some long grasses poking out from the thick snow that had blanketed them a couple of weeks past. The stand pines creaked in the wind as they passed, eventually coming over a ridge to spot the water tower and beneath it, the hulking form of Bill Williamson, setting up the charges along the train tracks for their job. The Van der Lindes pulled up their kerchiefs and waited, the chugging drone of the train moving closer.

To their credit, the O'Driscoll gang had cooked up a decent plan; blow the tracks, kill the few guards on board, take whatever Cornwall keeps aboard. But, even the best-laid plans couldn't account for Bill, who depressed the plunger to an absence of noise, almost a vacuum, filled immediately by Dutch's bellowed: "Shiiiiiiiiiit!"

Arthur looked from the still-moving train to the leader, who stared expectantly at him. "Of course," he hissed under his breath, leaping from his saddle and running after Javier and Lenny, who'd had the same idea. They made their way to the top lip of the train tunnel, their arms waving to steady themselves, looking to each other and nodding grimly.

The train horn blasted and it was as good a cue as any to jump, Arthur landing on the roof of a car with a thud and skidding a couple of feet back before grasping at a few bolts to stop himself. Javier glanced off the side of the train, and Arthur chanced a look back to see him pick himself up off of the tracks, brushing snow from his poncho.

"Help!" Lenny's strangled yell sounded reedy, strung along by the whipping wind. Arthur walked carefully to where he saw the boy's clutching hand and dropped to his knees, grasping his other hand and elbow and hauling him up.

"You OK?" Arthur asked, as Lenny picked himself up from the train roof.

"Am now, thanks," he replied. "Should move to stop that train, let the others catch up." The pair made their way across the train cars, heading towards the engine; dispatching guards that seemed to appear endlessly; from behind doorways, joining them on the rooftop.

As the train crossed a large bridge, Arthur dashed ahead, the engine in sight. Its accompanying engineer had other plans. A man leapt at Arthur sideways, pressing his back into the narrow rail that held him on the train. Arthur felt the man's fingers clench around his neck and tried to force his own hand in between, his other pawing frantically at the engineer's face.

A gunshot rang out, and in the brief moment the engineer was startled Arthur gained the upper hand, grasping the man's lapels and swinging him around, upending his body over the railing and into the abyss below. Dusting his hands, he met the quirking eyebrows of a still-masked Tine, her revolver held aloft, smoking.

"Could've shot him, too," he grunted, unwilling to thank her for the distraction he'd sorely needed. But she'd said it anyway,you're welcome, and together they stopped the train, exiting swiftly from the engine to make for their particular quarry, Cornwall's private car.

Arthur, Lenny, and Tine battled their way back through a dozen more guards before making it to the rear of the train, the rest of their gang arriving on horseback just as Lenny put a bullet through the last man.

"Nice of y'all to turn up," Arthur scoffed, offering his hand to Dutch to shake just the same.

"How do you think we get into this train car?" Dutch asked, rubbing at his chin under his checked bandana, just as a tinny voice from within the car yelled: "We have our orders! We're not coming out!"

Arthur had started to look for Bill, the worddynamiteon his lips, but Tine had suddenly rushed to the door of the car, pressing herself flat against it.

"Please, help!" He hadn't known she could scream that loudly, nor desperately, a shriek that rang in his ears. "Oh my Lord in heaven please someone help me!"

"Miss? You OK out there?" Came the voice again. Arthur saw two heads appear in the window, silhouetted against the glass, but they couldn't see Tine, as close as she was to the door, from where they stood.

"Please!" She screamed again, tears streaming down her face, banging her flat palm against the door. "They're going to kill me, youhaveto help, please!" The final plea came out in a broken sob, her hand hammering more feebly, her body sliding down the front of the door.

And then, to the Van der Lindes great surprise, the door swung open. A hand grabbed for Tine's arm and tried to pull her up and into the car, but she was on her feet in an instant, bringing the grip of her revolver down onto the crown of the man's head with a sickening crack. It was immediately aimed at the second, then, who raised his hands in surrender.

Lenny and Arthur both sprung forward - Lenny to escort the second man down the steps so that Tine could point her gun at a third, Arthur to drag the unconscious good Samaritan down to lay next to his fellows. The three bounded forward to search the car. Arthur and Lenny were each methodical; moving from one cabinet to the next, pocketing fine things - a fountain pen for Lenny, a pack of premium cigarettes for Arthur - as they went.

But Tine whirled about the car, her face blissful. She threw herself into a plush armchair, running her fingertips along the green velvet. Then leapt up to mimic the grim countenance of Cornwall in his painted portrait, turning on her heel to show off her low eyebrows and forced pose, winning a bright laugh from Lenny and a reluctant chuckle from Arthur, which he covered up with an admonishment for her to keep looking.

It was Arthur who found the lockbox full of bearer's bonds, a small fortune in his hands, if only they could find a way to cash them. The three left the train car and Arthur handed the bonds over to Dutch, who nodded approvingly.

"Well done, Arthur, Lenny," his eyes crinkled to show he was smiling under his kerchief. "And an inspiring performance from our Miss Nilsen, as well." She curtsied, then looked to the three men from the car; one unconscious, the others trembling with fear.

Arthur picked up on the curious look in her eye. "What about these?" He asked.

"Don't care one way or another, Arthur, so long as they don't talk," Dutch clapped Arthur's shoulder and mounted up, as did Lenny. "Will leave it to you both to decide."

As soon as Dutch's impressive albino horse The Count had taken its leave over the ridge, the man closest to Tine clasped his hands together, shaking his joined fists at her. "Please, Miss," he pleaded, "I have a wife, children."

Tine co*cked her head at him, as if he'd told her an interesting and slightly dubious fact. Arthur chuckled lowly, his breath tickling at his stubble under his black kerchief.

"You appeal tome," he said, drawing the man's fearful attention back to him. "She don't care if you live."

Tine shook her head, so that the wisps of her hair caught a slow draft and moved with her. "You might say," she said thoughtfully, removing her knife and pressing the flat side of the blade to the man's cheek, 'I preferred you didn't."

Arthur shifted his weight from one boot to the other. There it was: the disturbing thrill that wavered low in him when they worked together. As frustrating as it was to be on the receiving end of Tine's cruelty, he took a certain pleasure in watching her inflict it on someone else.

But all the same, he didn't need three more kills on his conscience, so he pulled Tine's forearm so that the knife moved harmlessly away from his face, and waved toward the open door. "Get on, and help your sorry friend do the same."

The men thanked Arthur, stooping to gather their barely-conscious colleague before reentering the train car. Tine lowered her kerchief to deliver Arthur a concerted pout, and he shrugged at her. "Watch these three while I start up the train," he ordered, and she lifted the bandana back up over her mouth and nose, holding her revolver at the ready.

As Arthur walked towards the front of the train, he heard a resounding stamp. In a stable car stood a big dark Thoroughbred, a fine animal.Why not?He thought, leading the horse carefully down from the car and taking it with him to fire up the train engine.

From Darling's back, Tine nodded approvingly at Arthur's new mount; any instances of unnecessary stealing worthy of congratulations, in her mind. He clicked his tongue to urge his Walker to follow behind them, and they headed back to Colter in uncharacteristically companionable silence.

Arthur and Tine hitched their horses as Sadie Adler emerged from the main building, a gunnysack under one arm. "Mrs. Adler," Arthur greeted, tipping his hat.

Sadie traded a look with Tine before snorting, "Mister Gallant."

Tine's own clear laugh joined Sadie's and Arthur grimaced. "You on your way?"

"That's the plan," Sadie nodded. "Just need a ride." Arthur grew sheepish, then, stepping out from in front of the Walker.

"Think this might be your boy? We took him from your barn, anyway. He's uh- been good to me. I got Buster here, now."

Sadie apprised the Thoroughbred. "Buster's a nice-lookin' horse, wonder whohebelongs to?" She laughed again. "I ain't going to thank you formyhorse, if it's all the same to you." The smile vanished from her, a grim appreciation settling on her features, instead. "But, thanks."

Arthur nodded in turn. "Sure." He tipped his hat again, making more of a show of it to make the women laugh anew. Sadie briefly clasped Tine's shoulder and mounted up, spurring the Walker on and out of their gang for good.

Chapter 4: iv. A nice spot

Chapter Text

The loudthunkof wood hitting the floorboards startled John from his slumber, heavy with laudanum.

"Oh, sorry, John," Tilly said, her deep brown eyes regretful as she stooped to pick up the crate she'd been carrying.

"No matter, Till," he gruffed, his mouth cottoned with sleep, vaguely aware of a bustle of other gang members around his sleeping place in Colter's main building. "What's going on?"

"We're moving on," she said, grunting softly as she adjusted the crate within her arms, "weather's finally cooperating, thank goodness."

"Heh, yeah," John replied, pushing himself to sitting; something that still required a fair degree of effort. Abigail swept into the building, Jack at her skirts. Her eyes rested on John sitting up and her expression softened, grateful she didn't have to wake him.

"Oh, good, you're up," she said, approaching him with an extended hand that she pressed briefly to his forehead, checking his temperature. "You're cooler, too."

John stretched, feeling the muscles in his back and shoulders, long dormant, uncoil. "Anything I can help out on?"

"No, we're most of the way there," she dismissed, nodding at John's arms for him to feed them into the jacket she held out, the arm where the wolves had torn into him carefully patched.

"Thanks," he whispered, astounded again that she did so much for him, despite his not much deserving of any of it. But she was already out of earshot, having hustled on to a pile of Jack's toys by the fire and throwing them into a sack. John was inspecting the fine stitching on the patch adorning his sleeve when the boy himself sat next to him, swinging his legs.

"Oh, uh, hey, Jack," John uttered, the remaining laudanum in his system giving the boy's tawny head a preternatural glow in the sunlight that made its way through the windows.

"Hi, Pa," Jack said, his gaze on his toes.

"You know where we're going?"

"Uncle Hosea said he found a nice spot." Jack's finger drew a repetitive circle on the quilt between them.

John chuckled, awkward. "He knows all about them, Uncle Hosea." The boy swivelled to look at John, staring directly at him for what seemed like an endless amount of time, before growing bored, hopping off the bed and running back to his mother. John exhaled a hot breath through his nostrils. For all that time learning shooting and reading, no one had taught him how to speak to children.

The gang's belongings packed, Arthur and Charles appeared in the doorway, each grasping under John's shoulders and heaving him out toward his wagon, where Abigail, Jack, and Uncle were seated in the back; Pearson and Grimshaw in the driver's seat. With an unceremonious shove, Arthur dumped John's ungainly, injured limbs into the wagon bed, where Abigail had laid out the quilt and pillows that had been on his cot.

"Always so gentle," John scoffed from where he lay sprawled, as Arthur brushed off his palms.

"Yeah, yeah," Arthur said, his tone short, tipping his hat to Abigail and hopping down from the wagon to make for one further down the train.

From up ahead, John heard Dutch shout, "Time to get out of this frozen hell, folks! Mount up!" There were scattered cheers all around him, and Jack, picking up on the excitement of his aunts and uncles, joined in with a pitched, "wahoo!"

"Keep the boy quiet, Abigail," said John, his scowl pulling at the stitches on his face.

"Oh, shut your mouth, John Marston," she scolded. "Would rather have left you in the snow." But even as she said it, she fluffed the pillow behind his head, stroked some of the hair from his eyes.

"I'll drink to that!" Uncle crowed, uncorking a jug of whiskey and taking a deep drink.

John made a reaching movement for the jug and Uncle shook his grizzled head, not a small feat considering the bottle was still at his mouth.

He swallowed a big glug of whiskey with a pronouncedaahand looked to John. "This is from my private stores, John, can't go sharin' with anyone wantin' some."

John's face darkened. "Private stores," he muttered, then, louder, "how'd we get stuck with you, anyhow?"

"Oh, be kind, John!" Uncle implored him, his cheeks rosy from the drink and cold, a deranged Father Christmas. "The rest of the Marston clan seems delighted by my company." As if to put a finer point on it, he procured a sweet from his pocket and bestowed it upon Jack with a wink, the boy's eyes lighting up.

"That from your 'private stores', too?" But even surly John couldn't deny the happiness on Jack's face at this small kindness, the candy bulging out of the side of his little cheek.

John rolled onto his back, looking at the clear sky above them, clouds entering and leaving his field of vision as the wagon train slowly trundled southeast. From a wagon up the line from them, John heard some of the women - Karen, Mary-Beth, Tilly - singing a bawdy tune and giggling. As they passed over the Cumberland Falls, a crack sounded at the rear of the wagon train, followed by Arthur's annoyed shout. "What was that?" John asked.

"Arthur's wagon broke a wheel, looks like," Abigail said absentmindedly, and John laughed at the justice he saw in it, that Arthur had thrown him unceremoniously into the wagon, and now Arthur would have to deal with wagon troubles of his own.

He pushed himself up to his elbows to peer over the side of the wagon, and spotted Tine riding up ahead, next to Charles Smith, each gesturing at the other's horse. He watched her remove the knife from her belt and offer it, handle-first, to Charles, for him to examine more closely. She seemed a distant memory, as if riding off and away from him, Abigail's hand warm and comforting on his forearm in contrast.

Their new campsite - an outcrop overlooking a peaceful river valley not far from the livestock town of Valentine - only served to solidify John's feelings on the wagon.

Two days into their new lodgings, John could stand unassisted. Leaning against a tree, he looked over the river winding its way below them and swore he could see a bowed rainbow in the sky. He pledged to himself to be better; a better father, a better man. With his head clear of the laudanum's dulling effects, and Tine keeping to herself, the tide seemed to be changing in that welcome direction.

John stepped away from the glorious view and made for Pearson's wagon, pulling a can of strawberries - about the only thing he could manage eating, with his stitches - from the food stores. As he wedged his knifepoint into the top of the can and popped it open, he spotted the O'Driscoll boy, now days starving and filthy, tied to a post by the gang's new chickens.

Tine emerged from amid the chickens with the feedbag slung down by her side, drinking from a canteen, passing the man - Kieran, Mary-Beth had said in Colter - without so much as a glance.

"Ex-excuse me, Miss?" Kieran said hoarsely. "You don't think you could help me with just a drink of your water, there, if you could spare it?"

Tine stopped and turned back to look at Kieran, as if noticing him for the first time, saying nothing. Kieran cleared his dry throat as best he could and continued.

"It-it's just, my momma said angels come down in times such as these, and, well," he laughed bashfully, "you sure do look like one." Tine's face broke into a brilliant smile, pity and kindness clear on her face. She lowered herself to stroke his cheek, and John watched the man lean into her fingertips, his eyes closing briefly at the contact.

"Oh, sweet fellow," she crooned, "you must be so thirsty."

Kieran stuttered another laugh. "I am, Miss, yes."

Tine shook her head, continuing to stroke Kieran's face. "Sweet, simple man." Kieran's chuckle continued, but his eyebrows furrowed. Tine enveloped his stubbled cheeks in her hands. "Sweet idiot, just like his damn fool momma."

Kieran's smile vanished, only disappointment left on his face. "OK, Miss, understood. You don't have to be cruel."

Tine rose from her crouch, her head still shaking from side to side. "Sweet, stupid bastard," she said, as if to the sky, and John laughed, in spite of himself.

Tine's eyes found his, offering him a crooked smile at Kieran's expense, and John felt a needy pull, low in his belly. When they'd run together, her pointed mockery always made way to f*cking, and his body, working around him, had made the unwelcome association. John watched the swish of her hips as she walked on, his hand clenched into a fist in the hope of winding it into her ponytail, the white strands like spun silk in his gripping fingers.

Chapter 5: v. “I’d live and die for this gang”

Chapter Text

"Please, please stop this. You've won, isn't that enough?" Arthur turned his head, his fist still co*cked to pummel into the face of Valentine's resident tough Tommy, drooling in the mud under him, to take in the small man imploring him to end things.

"Don't know, sometimes it's never enough," he said lowly, relishing the man's face turn from worry to terror.

"P-please," the man stammered, his voice defeated, "just leave him be." Arthur looked from the brute underneath him to the man trembling before him and huffed a sigh, stepping up and off of the man's chest and rubbing at his bruised knuckles.

"If you're gonna be all upset about it," he said, looking beyond the man nodding in fearful thanks to spot two familiar faces: Dutch, who shook his head in good-natured admonishment, and Josiah Trelawny, a longtime, foppish contact of the gang who caused problems often as much as he came in handy. Arthur dully wondered what it'd be this time.

"Making friends, Arthur?" Josiah called out.

"You know it," he gruffed back, wiping at his mouth, which throbbed from the few punches Tommy had landed before Arthur'd gained the upper hand. He extended his hand to Josiah for a shake, and noted his slight trepidation before taking it in his white glove, covered in blood and muck as it was.

"Certainly one way to settle in, my boy," Dutch chuckled, leaning against a post holding up the awning outside Valentine's General Store and withdrawing a cigar from his pocket. Arthur felt slightly scolded, glad of the mud around his ears to cover their growing red.

He cleared his throat and turned his attention to Trelawny. "So, to what do we owe the pleasure? Thought you were off to New York."

"And miss all this glamour, Arthur?" He crowed, gesturing grandly around him. Bill, Charles, and Javier joined them, having picked themselves out of their own fights in the Valentine saloon. "Ah, hello, boys. You'd be interested in this as well." Trelawny looked around and leaned forward, whispering surreptitiously: "I just came from looking for you all in Blackwater. Turns out you're none too popular out there."

Dutch puffed on his cigar, remarking thoughtfully, "Sure ain't."

Arthur added, "Left a lot of money out there."

"And young Sean, it seems." Trelawny always had this infuriating way of delivering news, and he knew it; watching the men around him stiffen, look upon him with much more interest.

"Yes, yes, ta-dah, you old magician," Dutch rolled his eyes. "Our Sean, really? You found him out there?"

Trelawny nodded. "He's being held by some bounty hunters down there, negotiating a price, it seems like. Looks like they're about to move him."

Dutch appeared deep in thought, his thick eyebrows furrowed, the cigar smoke ambling around his face. "Well, we've got to go in after him. Charles, you think you could scout out the situation,carefully?" Charles nodded. "Javier, why don't you follow Josiah here in. Arthur, head back to camp and get yourself cleaned up, then meet up with the rest."

"Sure," Arthur nodded, his fingers to his lips, about to whistle for Buster.

"And Arthur?" Dutch continued, and Arthur turned back. "Take Miss Nilsen with you? She might be able to help talk you boys out of trouble should you run into some."

"Sure, OK," he repeated, but there was little joy in it.

*

The day was bright and cloudless as Arthur and Tine crossed over the Upper Montana River, but a low thrill roiled in his stomach all the same, riding into where they were wanted by the law, the belly of the beast.

Tine'd been quiet on their ride over, and Arthur filled the silences largely by ordering her around: "Take your gun out here," or, "Best ride alongside me for this stretch," or, just then, in the riverwater, "Watch yourself with these damn river rocks."

She scowled as they made their way onto the southern shore, at the mouth of a natural sort of ramp up from the cliffside. Arthur held up his hand, suddenly dismounting from Buster and sneaking up the outcrop, gesturing for her to do the same. She jumped down from Darling and marched up to glare at him, hissing, "Are you going to tell me what to do all damn day, Morgan, because-"

Arthur covered her mouth with his wide palm, grabbing around her waist and flattening himself against the outcrop's wall, taking Tine with him. From against his chest, she made an indignant "nnn!", muffled into his hand. A moment later, they heard the snort of a horse above them, its dark snout coming to hang over the cliff's edge. Tine's eyes went from furious to wide in fear, meeting Arthur's, their chests rising and falling rapidly.

A man's voice finally sounded; "It weren't nothing, let's go." They stayed stock still in the shadow of the outcrop, waiting for the sound of the horses to fade, and then disappear completely. Tine sighed, warm in Arthur's hand, and he let her go, smirking.

"Shut up," she said, stalking back to Darling and swinging into her saddle.

"Didn't say nothing," he replied, holding his hands up innocently as she passed him, eyes intent on the road ahead.

He mounted up and spurred Buster on to follow Tine, until they spotted Charles, Javier, and their horses, the town of Blackwater below them. They dismounted and crawled on their bellies to join them on the overlook with murmured hellos, Arthur pulling his binoculars from his bag to take a better look.

"Where is that little bastard?" He whispered, looking out over the town square, remembering the last time he'd been in the town, a blur of gunfire, screaming.

Beside him, her blue eyes shining with want, Tine said as if in rapture: "We're so close to all that money."

Arthur pulled his gaze from the binoculars to look over to her. "You going to go in and get it?" She pushed herself up to a crouch and began to creep towards the edge, but Arthur seized her wrist and hauled her back. "That weren't a real question, you stay right here." Seeing a top hat emerge from behind the hill, Arthur lay back on an elbow to greet Trelawny.

"Gentlemen, andlady," he greeted back, with a wink to Tine. "Sean is being moved up the Upper Montana... then to a federal prison out west." He explained that Ike Skelding and his crew of bounty hunters would be taking Sean to a camp, first - their best chance to strike.

Arthur nodded, assessing their options. "We ain't getting anyone out of a federal prison, so...we either spring him now, or cut him loose."

Charles' face grew stern. "We aren't cutting anyone loose."

"No, 'course not." Arthur agreed in so many words, but whether or not he meant them, he didn't have time to parse. "OK, Charles and Tine, you head on up the north side and see if we can't pinch them in the middle. Javier, Josiah, you're with me."

The group split up, Arthur glad to have Tine's unpredictable temper away from him for a few moments as he trailed Josiah along the edge of the river, the boat - with Sean captive on it - snaking below them. Though, his palm warmed of its own volition around Buster's reins, remembering the pleasant heat of her mouth in it.Christ. He forced his attentions back to his fellows riding around him.

"Lots of talk about your nefarious deeds down in Blackwater," Trelawny was saying, calling back to Arthur and Javier behind him. "Town's practically papered in Dutch and Hosea's handsome mugs, the name 'Heidi McCourt' on everyone's lips, poor girl..."

"Heidi McCourt?" Arthur asked, "who's that?"

"Some woman murdered on the ferry, you weren't there," Javier said from behind him, sounding rueful.

"Murdered by whom?" Arthur asked, uncertainty blooming in his gut.

"No one knows but Dutch and the Butcher," said Javier. "They were the only two in there when it happened. Sure weren't nice, though. Woman died in a bad way." Arthur swallowed.

"They've stopped," Trelawny informed from up front, interrupting his darkening train of thought. "Let's go."

*

Having battled their way through Ike Skelding's boys up the hillside, Arthur and Javier linked up with Charles and Tine at its summit, a camp of bounty hunters remaining between them and Sean Macguire. Charles and Tine went right, Tine skirting wide around the camp to attack a rifleman shooting from a cliffside looking over them. Javier and Arthur went left.

It was a bloody fight, with a small legion of hunters to shoot down before it was just the four of them and Sean, strung upside down from a tree by his ankles. Tine crept up behind him, sheathing her bloodied knife, until Sean rotated gently in the breeze, his eyes at her hips.

"Hi Arthur, Charles, Javier," the redhead chirped. "What bonny girl's come to call on old Macguire?" Tine crouched to meet his eyeline, waving her fingers in his face.

"Hi, Sean," she said sweetly, and he immediately began jerking his body away from her, waving violently from his tether.

"Oh lord jaysus, he's sent the devil herself to free me." At Sean's distress, Tine feigned indignation, and Javier and Arthur only chuckled.

Charles leaned over to Arthur, also grinning. "Why's he afraid of her?"

Arthur shook his head. "Damn fool tried to make a move on her when she first joined us. We was livin' out in bear country those days, and she smeared honey all over his tent." Charles gruffed a laugh, then, and the three men stood content to watch Tine torment Sean for a bit, as the man bucked on the rope, away from her.

"I don't know why you're so agitated," she soothed, reaching for his face as he wrenched away, once again. "No bears around here, Macguire. Few cougars, though."

"It en't my fault you're jealous!" Sean cried, "Can't blame me for wanderin' Jones' greener pastures, Butcher, greener on this occasion meaning less inclined to cut me."

Tine pouted. "It was just aweecut," she said, pulling her bloodied knife from her belt.

"Ah, that's right," Arthur nodded to Charles, remembering, "She stabbed him, too."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, English," Sean shouted at Arthur. "Get her away from me!"

"Hold still, you jackass," he called back, "she's only getting you down." Tine sawed her knife across the rope a few times, Sean falling unceremoniously to the ground. He sprung to standing, stumbling sideways to the men, looking backwards over his shoulder.

"Good to see you, Arthur, Charles, Javier." He sneered purposely back at Tine, who blew him a kiss. Arthur clapped a hand on Sean's shoulder.

"You know, I'd live and die for this gang, it's the most real thing to me," he said, "But all that said, I would have easily left you here to rot, If Charles hadn't stopped me."

"Oh, come now, youmissedme," Sean remarked coyly, "But all the same, thanks to you, Charles, in particular."

Arthur surveyed the damage, the corpses of the Skelding boys strewn about the camp, riddled with their bulletholes, Charles' arrowshafts. "OK, best we split up. Javier, you take Sean; Charles, you go another way."

"And you?" Javier piped, whistling for his horse.

"I'm going to see if there's anythin' worth taking. Miss Nilsen, I know you'd be down for that party."

"Oh, but I was hoping to be the one to give Sean a ride home," she pretended, already moving to the nearest corpse to check the dead man's pockets.

"A ride straight to the grave," Sean moaned, clambering onto the back of Javier's horse, Boaz. "No, thank you." Javier too mounted up, and Charles on his Taima, leaving Arthur and Tine to the mess.

They worked separately, the quiet deafening after so much gunfire, Arthur pocketing about fifteen dollars in loose change and bills, and a few rings and watches, besides. Tine had done the same, her slender fingers festooned with loose-fitting wedding bands, a cigarette from a found pack dangling unlit from her lips.

After five or so minutes, Tine called, "Hey Arthur, who'm I?" He looked over to her to find her standing, her hips co*cked with her ringed fingers on them, one hand moving to take the cigarette between thumb and forefinger, rolling it pensively.

"Stop it," he stifled his snicker, the picture of a small, blonde Dutch Van der Linde suddenly before him a lot to take.

"Real fine work you've done here, my boy," she mimicked Dutch's wide-legged strut over to Arthur and reached out for a handshake, which he shook his head at, irked that she had him nearly laughing.

"You done? Put them rings away and let's get the hell out of here." He whistled for Buster as she shook a hand of rings into her opposite palm, chastised enough to behave on their way back to camp.

He rode behind her, watching the swish of Darling's tail, trying to reconcile the joking Tine with the murderous one, the nameHeidi McCourttroubling his mind.

And, a different Tine, too; one from earlier that day. Her back warm against his chest and stomach, her face soft in his roughened palm.

Chapter 6: vi. Outgunned

Chapter Text

From where he sat under the little lean-to by the campfire, the sun hanging low over Mount Shann in the distance, John watched Susan Grimshaw tear a strip off of Karen for clumsy stitching. Karen wasn't known for her sewing, nor keeping quiet when she was being scolded. As Karen rose to her feet to shout Grimshaw down, Abigail, seated next to John, let out an audible snort.

"Grimshaw gives all the girls hell, 'cept for Tine," she said darkly, gesturing towards Tine at the poker table. "Wonder how she got so lucky." He followed Abigail's hand to the Butcher, tilted back in her chair, the picture of leisure. She was half-listening to Reverend Swanson go on about something or another, nodding occasionally. John watched as she bit into an unexpectedly juicy peach, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. Lenny passed by, heaving a crate of beer onto the table to rest on his way to Pearson's wagon, and Tine smiled at him, her lips shiny with nectar. The party for Sean's return had already started, but only the usual drunkards - Swanson included - had really tucked in so far.

"John!" Abigail startled him, and he snapped his attentions back to her.

"Yeah, 's good," he tried, unconvincingly.

"It'sgoodthat your son ran into Pinkertons by the river?"

"Pinker- when was Jack down by the river?" John always tried to meet Abigail's anger with unjustified anger of his own, with middling to poor results.

"Arthur took him fishing, not that you'd know anything about that," she retorted, and John clenched his fists, realizing his usual strategy would leave him severely outgunned, if he was being compared to Arthur Morgan.

"So what about the Pinkertons? They know where we are?"

Abigail nodded, her face grave. "Dutch says we have time, but not much. Likely moving on soon."

John thought to his day by the tree, the rainbow. His rapidly failing promise to himself. "Feels like we just got here," he murmured.

"That it does," Abigail rose to standing, moved to collect Jack from where he played by the fire's edge. "This boy has had quite the day, I'm going to put him to bed. Maybe you can see about keeping the revelry down, so that he can get a good night's sleep?"

"What am I supposed to do?" He moaned, waving his hand around him, trying to keep the partying Van der Lindes quiet an improbable, if not impossible, task.

"Oh, use your damn imagination," she snapped, hoisting Jack up under his shoulders and carrying him off to bed.

Great. John sighed in defeat, pushing himself up to standing and wiping his hands on his pants, scanning the developing party. He noted Bill laughing loudly with Uncle and Hosea, near Hosea's sleeping-place, and slunk over.

"You think you could quiet down, Bill?" He asked, half-heartedly, "Jack's just gone to bed."

Even thick-headed Bill noted the reluctance in John's voice, and sneered back, "How about Iquiet downwhen you lift a single finger, Marston. Or would that disrupt your beauty rest?" If anything, the man was louder than before, and John retreated, shaking his head at the hopelessness of it.

"Just tell Abigail I told you," he called over his shoulder. John passed Dutch, his arms around Molly's waist, murmuring lovingly into her ear, by the side of his tent. Then saw Arthur by the campfire, laughingly putting a lit cigarette into Javier's mouth mid-song, Javier's hands otherwise occupied by his guitar. In mere moments, John had seen nearly the entirety of the original gang, his family, and none had called him over, asked him to sit, offered him a drink. He felt profoundly lonely.

John spotted Tine then, by Pearson's wagon, fishing a beer out of the very crate Lenny'd been lugging across camp. He tried creeping over but she sensed him anyway, her eyes, pale in the firelight, assessing him as he leaned against the wagon.

"So, uh," he said, "how do you like the camp?"

She brought the beer down on the edge of Pearson's butcher table to cap it, and then brought it to her lips. "I like it fine, I guess." Tine had a half-smile on her lips that meant, in John's years of experience, that she found him embarrassing, and hence, amusing to only her.

"Good to be out of the snow, at least," he tried again.

"I didn't mind it."

He thought back to the warm brush of her lips on the mountain, so suited was she to the cold. "Of course you didn't." John looked past Tine's infuriating expression to the campfire, Javier's playing joined by Uncle on his banjo. Next to them, Karen sat wavering in Sean's lap, her collarbones peppered with hickeys, Sean going in for another. When was the last time he'd been with anyone, AbigailorTine?

He cleared his throat, forced a chuckle. "You couldn't have just left Sean behind?"

"Weren't what Dutch wanted." She was being curt with him on purpose, he could sense, and before he could respond, she put her empty bottle back into the crate, stating, "I'm getting another drink."

John sighed as she meandered away. He withdrew a beer from the crate - dully realizing that Tine could have got her next drink here, she just wanted to be rid of him - and drank deeply, casting his eyes skyward.

The music from the campfire was on the wind, and John let it tangle in his hair, looking up at the stars that hung prettily over their camp, the galaxy rippling through them. Tine showed no signs of returning, and, his own beer finished, felt no need to keep pretending he was having fun.

John wandered over to his tent, about to open the flap, when he heard a stifled giggle, then an unmistakable Irish accent.Ugh. Sean and Karen had moved their business from the campfire, clearly, and John dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, momentarily forgetting, then upsetting the stitches on the bridge of his nose.

He breathed through his teeth, willing the pain to go down, turning his back on the noises emanating from his tent, growing rapidly louder and lewder. He spotted Dutch dancing with Molly; Arthur, with Mary-Beth. And beyond them, Tine, leant against the barrel outside of Arthur's wagon, a bottle of whiskey dangling from her fingers.

John marched over to her, his hand outstretched. "Dance with me."

She laughed aloud, surprised. "That's a terrible idea."

"What, it's just friendly, like." He pointed at the couples behind him. "Ain't nothin' between Arthur and Mary-Beth, neither." They watched for a moment, the couple clumsily navigating each other, especially compared to Dutch's practiced movements.

"It's a stupid idea, John," Tine reiterated, adding "What are you pretending at, anyway?" She stood up from the barrel and walked into Arthur's lean-to, examining the items he kept on his side table with interest. John sidled in next to her, watching her bring a preserved flower Arthur kept in glass up to her curious eye, out of the corner of his own.

He would have liked the dance, his arms around her waist, but the lean-to was almost as good; close-quartered enough that he could smell her perfume, their sides touching.

Tine set down the flower and picked up an opened letter, squinting at the envelope in the dim before slipping out the note inside with quick fingers. "Mary Linton," she read the signature at the bottom of the letter first, turning to John with a glint of mischievousness in her eye. "You think it'stheMary?"

"Don't know," John whispered, "she were 'Gillis' when I knew her." The two read the letter together, too engrossed to have noticed when the music from Dutch's gramophone stopped. The letter was ripped without warning from Tine's fingers, both of their heads snapping to. Arthur's face was blotchy from drink and embarrassment, and he growled, "Get the hell out of here, both of you. Mind your own damn business."

Tine smirked backwards at John as they left, offered him a drink of whiskey from the bottle held at her hip. He knew this about her, too; she was always more friendly after making trouble. They shared the rest of the bottle by the dying fire, talking quietly, into the early morning, until Tine slumped into John's side and fell suddenly into sleep.

He was carefully extracting himself from Tine's sleeping form when he heard the clanking of tongs and Bill's deranged laughter, then the cries of the O'Driscoll boy from where he was tied up at the northern side of camp.

John wandered over just in time to see Kieran's pants around his ankles, the tongs in Bill's gloved hands held dangerously close to his nethers; to hear him yell, "Please, don't! I know where Colm O'Driscoll is, I'll take you to him."

"That's the kind of inspired cooperation we're looking for!" Dutch boomed, pounding Kieran on the back a few times, then nodding more seriously to Arthur.

"C'mon, then," Arthur gruffed, pushing at Kieran's back towards the horses. "You lead the way, O'Driscoll." He caught John staring as he passed by, and chirped, "You comin', Marston? Or you got more pokin' around to do in my wagon?"

"Didn't you hear, Arthur?" Bill said, "Marston's joinin' the women; face too pretty to come out on jobs anymore."

"Shut up, Bill, you big bastard," John snapped back, incensed that he found every opportunity to throw his injury in his face. "I'm comin'."

"You take the O'Driscoll with you, then," Arthur said, giving Kieran a shove towards John's horse, Old Boy. "Give 'im hell if he acts out, John."

"Will do," he nodded, pulling himself up into the saddle with some effort, the healing bite wound on his arm protesting dully. John quickly realized his mistake, Kieran having marinated in his own filth for the better part of a month, the smell coming off the man sat behind him nauseating even in the fresh air.

The three horses made their way over the Heartlands east of Valentine, Kieran directing them towards Six Point Cabin; an O'Driscoll outpost with their leader Colm - supposedly - at its heart. John didn't like that Arthur and Bill's attentions were spent nearly as much on him as they were Kieran.

"What's the view like from within Abigail's skirts, Marston?" Bill asked, looking over at Arthur and sharing a wicked smile.

"Just grand," John replied sarcastically, hoping they'd stop.

Bill continued, "Bet if Miss Nilsen wore skirts, you could tell us they were grand, too, ain't that right, Arthur?"

John braced himself for Arthur's rebuke, but it never came. "We're close, here," he heard Arthur mutter instead, "Get off your horses and grab somethin' quiet; let's go."

*

As things turned out, Colm hadn't been at the cabin, even though the three of them shot their way through the dozen or so O'Driscolls that were. Arthur spared Kieran's life all the same, after the boy shot an O'Driscoll that had the drop on him. Thankfully to John, they also found Kieran a horse from one of the cabin's hitching posts, and he could ride back on his own, free of his stench.

John guided Old Boy to take up the rear of their procession back to camp, slumped in his saddle, utterly exhausted. They arrived back at Horseshoe Overlook in the late afternoon and he clambered into his tent, falling asleep nearly as soon as he lay his head on the pillow.

When he woke hours later, it was to a pleasant scene; a bowl of stew on the apple crate he used for a bedside table, Abigail's cool fingers stroking his forehead.

Chapter 7: vii. “I require your services”

Chapter Text

Arthur waved off the departing train and ambled, backward, in the direction of his horse. He wanted to look at Mary, looking back at him from the first-class compartment window, as long as possible.

His entire body buzzed with the truth of their reunion; that she was back in his life. Sure, she'd reached out to ask his help with her impressionable younger brother, Jamie - far from a romantic tryst - but she'd askedhim, and that was enough. The encounter had Arthur in conflict with a group of turtle-worshippers, but even their unsettling strangeness, nor Jamie's worrisome adherence to it, could unseat his good mood.

He pulled himself onto Buster's back and took him at a leisurely trot back to camp, still plenty of day left to let his mind wander, maybe even sketch Mary as she'd looked at her rooming-house in Valentine, dark eyes troubled and beautiful, overdressed for the livestock town.

Arthur steered Buster into camp and dismounted, heading to his wagon to retrieve a new pencil. He found one, and a chocolate bar beside it with a scribbled note from Jack, in Hosea's writing:

Thank you for taking me fishing, Uncle Arthur, even though it was boring.

And then,JACK, in the boy's own clumsy hand.

Arthur chuckled and pocketed the candy, making for the overlook that earned their camp its name. He sat on a rock, closing his eyes against the gorgeous vista before him to better remember Mary: her full mouth, the worry lines etched between her eyes. Her mouth opened as if to speak in his mind, and said:

"Mr. Morgan! Good to see you." Arthur's eyes snapped open to meet the watery ones of Leopold Strauss, which had the curious, unnerving quality of boring into him. "I require your services."

"You-" Arthur paused, to shake his head in annoyed disbelief. "You got to be kidding me, already? We just got here."

"We need revenue," Strauss continued, his voice level and unchanging, stoic. "There are a lot of mouths to feed in this camp."

"Not least yours," Arthur grumbled, closing his journal with a sigh.

"Arthur's growing soft, Herr Strauss," Tine's melodic voice chimed, a small smile on her lips as she rose from her place by the campfire, turning to the two men, hands at her belt buckle. "Let some Cornwall men go to rat us out to the Pinkertons up north, kept me from going after the money in Blackwater." The smile on Arthur's face was one of aggravation; his fist clenched around his pencil until it snapped in his palm. "He even let the little O'Driscoll live." Tine pointed behind her to Kieran, who was standing awkwardly by Mary-Beth, interrupting her reading.

Arthur let go a single, dark laugh. "Good lord, I'm sick of your lip, Miss Nilsen." He dropped the broken pencil to the grass and matched her posture, putting his own hands to his belt and striding over, until he was looking down at her. Tine didn't flinch, her serene expression a continued provocation. "You want to come shake down some poor folk for their loose change?"

She shrugged. "How hard could it be?"

"C'mon then," he gruffed, backing away from her to step to Strauss. "Now, Herr Strauss, which unlucky bastard should we call on first?"

*

The first such bastard was a man named Wrobel out at Painted Sky Ranch. Arthur and Tine burst into the farmhouse, all bluster and seriousness. The man greeted them with words Arthur didn't understand, ones that rankled the few nerves he had left.

"That's enough, Mr. Wrobel, you speak English?" The man's eyes were afraid, but no more or less than they had been when they entered; he couldn't understand Arthur, either. "Did you borrow some money from a German feller?"

At the word,German, Wrobel's eyes lit up, and he spoke another litany incomprehensible to Arthur, the outlaw gripping at the bridge of his nose, uncertain on how to proceed.

"Christ, no," he moaned, "don't speak that, neither." Beside him, practically wriggling with impatience, Tine snapped.

"Oh, f*ck this," she said, pulling her knife from her belt and moving swiftly on Wrobel, the blade to his neck and her free hand gripping his shoulder. "Everyone speaks knife." Wrobel began to tremble, his eyes crossing in a thwarted attempt to see the cold steel whispering against his Adam's apple.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Tine said sweetly, her hand moving from Wrobel's shoulder to stroke his hair, then beckon Arthur forward. "How aboutButcher, you know that one?"

"Butcher,tak," the man nodded carefully, hyper-aware of the knife.

"That's me, Mr. Wrobel.I'mButcher." His terrified eyes followed Tine's hand, to where she held it flat to her chest.

Arthur sidled up next to Tine and Mr. Wrobel succumbed to being held by him instead, Arthur's large fists gripped into the fabric of his shirt to keep him still while Tine ransacked his home for cash and valuables.

They rode off with an antique watch and a few items of jewelry, Arthur pleasantly surprised that he hadn't needed to throw a single punch.

It wasn't so on their second visit, a long ride out to Emerald Ranch to find one Lilly Millet. Arthur beat the tar out of Lilly's deadbeat beau while Tinetsked loudly, rubbing the woman's back. "You could do so much better, Miss Millet," she lamented, as the woman looked on in horror at the sorry state in which Arthur'd left her man. "Pretty little thing like you." They picked the unconscious man's pockets for a decent billfold's worth of money.

They searched for their third debtor, Chick Matthews, on a farm, where he was supposedly serving as a hand.

Arthur spotted a young man in a stable and was about to spur Buster on to confront him, but Tine placed her hand on his arm, whispering, "he's awful close to that horse. Get down and get your rope ready."

Tine dismounted from Darling and approached the stable on foot, Arthur following behind at a few paces, more curious than anything. She rounded the corner into the horse stall where the man was brushing down a Saddler. He took notice of Tine and gulped; her flyaway hairs lit by the setting sun, a disarming smile spread across her cheeks.

"Hey, handsome," she purred, moving into the stall enough to corner the man, resting her hand delicately on his chest. "What's your name?"

The man puffed up at the contact; he ran a hand through his hair in an attempt at being suave, held Tine's fingers against his chest. "Girls like you call me Chick."

"Oh yeah?" Arthur chimed, entering the stall with his lasso in his hands, ready to unleash, Chick's eyes widening, "What do boys like me call you?"

"f*ck!" Chick yelled. Tine smiled wickedly and stepped off, Chick already trying to scramble over the stall's half wall to get away. Arthur handily pulled him down and tied him up, leaning close to whisper his advice: "if a girl came 'round lookin' like that interested inme, I'dve been halfway to Armadillo by now."

Tine reached forward to slip a hand drawn map from Chick's pocket, and she and Arthur followed it to his meagre treasure; still a good enough take to satisfy Strauss's needy ledger.

Arthur had always hated collecting Strauss's debts, but, riding back to camp with Tine, he realized a big part of that hatred was feeling apart; a bad man coming to call on poor people, down on their luck. Tine, another person on his side, made the work bearable - and, a small, nasty hum in his stomach added, even fun.

So the next morning, when Strauss asked Arthur to collect on another debtor, a Thomas Downes, west of Valentine, he asked Tine to join him without reservation. They arrived at the ranch in the mid-morning, the final bit of dew evaporating from the grass sweet-smelling and pleasant.

"How do you want to handle this one?" Arthur said quietly, touching down from Buster's saddle, a small man spotted in the fenced garden before them their likely target.

"I'll follow your lead," Tine responded, climbing off of Darling. And she did, trailing Arthur by a few yards, a meandering walk to her footsteps, as if she were just out enjoying the fine day.

Arthur looked back to the man and called out, in the low growl he reserved for debtors: "Thomas Downes?" The man whirled around, a long-handled rake in his hands suddenly clutched to his chest. "I believe you owe us some money."

"I-I'm sorry but we don't have it," Downes stammered. "We just need a little more time."

"Time's up, Mr. Downes," Arthur's voice rose, pushing up his shirtsleeves, advancing on Downes.

He was only a few feet away when the man cried, "No, please, I-" and then began coughing, a heaving fit that wracked his body, as if an invisible hand had grabbed him by the back and jerked his body up and down.

Arthur skidded to a stop, his eyebrows raised, looking back to Tine; behind her, Mrs. Downes and their son emerged from the house, running toward Thomas's shout. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Arthur gestured at a convulsing Downes, looking to Tine.

She appeared pensive, her eyes looking around her, until Mrs. Downes passed on her left, headed for her ailing husband. Tine seized her arm and violently yanked her back, her knife to her neck. Arthur's eyebrows raised further still, unsure of this new development.

"Tell us, Downes," Tine called out, tightening her grip on the wife, who twisted under Tine's arm. "What do you love about the missus, here? Because I have to tell you, I lovemoney. And when you take money from me, I'm going to take what you love."

She was terrifyingly calm and it had an immediate effect on Arthur, a roil of fear in his stomach, not least the family. "Stay still, Edith, darling," Downes cried between coughs; large tears ran down their boy's face.

"Which is it?" Tine ordered. "Is it her hair?" She pulled a hank of Edith's dark hair skyward, lurching the woman's head up with it. "Or her pretty smile?" Tine tapped the flat side of the knife on the woman's cheek. "Tell you what, I'm feeling charitable: tell me which of dear Edith's fingers here you like the least." Edith sobbed in Tine's grasp, the roil in Arthur's stomach turning to a boiling guilt.

"No, please!" Thomas cried again. He took laboured breaths, stooped over, his face broken. Then, quieter, "Archie, boy. Go in and get them the necklace, grandmother's necklace."

Arthur felt an order to stop him, a last-ditch invocation that this was all a mistake bubble up in him that he suppressed, physically, a hand to his mouth. Tine beamed instead, watching the boy lope into the house, her grip on Edith still firm.

Archie returned after a few moments with a heavy, tarnished silver necklace set with three bulbous rubies, which he dropped into Tine's palm and then ran to stand behind his father, a consoling hand to the man's back. Tine released Edith to hold the bauble in both hands, the blood-red of the rubies reflected in her cheeks, glinting in her eyes.

"Jesus, Tine," Arthur uttered, the words pulled from him. Her head shot up, her reverie broken.

"What? Suddenly there's an honourable way to moneylend? Why don't you show the Downes family how you collect?" She gestured to the family, huddled together, the necklace snaked around her fingers. "Knock the man's damn teeth out in front of the boy. Or better yet, knock the boy's teeth out in front of his folks. It's all the same."

Arthur didn't want to follow Tine's pointing finger but felt obligated to, for the horror he'd invited on the Downes family. And in looking at them, Edith's face buried into Thomas's neck, Archie quietly sobbing behind them, he recognized Thomas; the same man who'd stopped him from punching Tommy's face into a pulp in Valentine. Thomas coughed into a kerchief once again, trembling, pitiful.

"Well, we've what we came for, so," he said, the words an agony to leave his mouth, the sentence hanging unfinished on the air. Arthur mounted up on Buster and spurred off without another word, hearing Tine do the same behind him.

Soon Darling, and Tine on her back, had caught up to appear on his left, Tine looking curiously at him, the necklace swinging from her fist. "Take that to camp," he muttered, the deep shame in his gut converting to intense hatred.

"What about your cut?" She asked.

"Forget it, want nothin' to do with it." He carved off from her, then, in the direction of Valentine. Arthur felt dizzy with the senseless violence he'd witnessed, the terror in the family's eyes. He was in disbelief that he'd thought collectingfunmere hours ago, that he'd forgotten himself in Tine's shallow charms. Worst of all, her words in front of the Downes family were absolutely true. What difference did it make their tactics, or the words they used? The end result was always the same; taking from people who didn't have anything to give.

He passed Mary's rooming house as he came into town, and could only imagine what she'd think; discovering him to be the same old bruiser he was nearly a decade before. Arthur sorely needed a drink, or several, enough to drown out his dark thoughts.

He dismounted and hitched Buster outside of the Valentine saloon when he spotted a familiar golden braid swishing into the gunsmith's, and unthinkingly followed after it.

"Mrs. Adler," he said, with some surprise in his voice, and the widow turned, recognition, then a smile, dawning on her face. She wasn't the devastated widow she'd been a month before; her borrowed dresses replaced with heavy riding pants, a bright, yellow blouse, a duster coat over it all.

"Mr. Morgan!" He went to tip his hat but remembered her teasing him for it back in Colter, and settled for a nod instead. Sadie's genuine happiness in seeing him was infectious enough to forget himself, to make-believe he was a decent person, for a moment. "You all are in warmer climes, now?"

"Sure am, and you?" He gestured at the gun on the counter she'd been inspecting. "That looks like a hell of a rifle."

She grinned. "Yeah, well, I'm trying my hand at bounty hunting." Sadie leaned into him a little, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial murmur. "Could make a pretty penny on y'all, in fact, but I'm busy hunting those O'Driscoll bastards. So you can consider that a free pass."

Arthur chuckled, surprising himself. "Much obliged, Mrs. Adler."

Sadie lifted the rifle from the counter and peered down its sight, aiming at the ceiling. "Were supposed to be some in the area out by Six Point Cabin, but they all seemed to have cleared off."

"Ah, well," Arthur reddened a little, "we may've had somethin' to do with that."

She squinted at him, the smile not quite vanished from her face. "I'll bet you did. So long as you gunned some of 'em down for me."

Arthur nodded, and with a few words of friendly farewell, excused himself from the store, his head clear enough that he thought he could skip the drink, after all. When he rode into camp, John intercepted him by the hitching post, a torn page of his cramped writing in his hand.

"Been cookin' up a plan, Arthur, for a train," he said, holding Buster's reins while Arthur hopped down. "Want your eyes on it."

"Sure."

Chapter 8: viii. The ash tree

Chapter Text

John crouched in the bushes lining the train tracks; he, and Sean and Charles next to him, briefly illuminated by the train engine's headlamp. Beyond them, standing on a stolen oil tank parked on the tracks was Arthur, holding a rifle aloft. Separately, together; all the men were praying the train would stop.

John needed this robbery to work. With the exception of his sojourn out to Six Point Cabin, he'd been sitting mostly idle for weeks while the stitches mended his face anew; as if the gang would let him forget about it.

A week after their failed search for Colm O'Driscoll, John had been watching Jack play by the fire while Abigail finished some mending work. Sean, nursing a hangover, ambled over and sunk to his knees in the dirt next to Jack, exclaiming, "What's the wean got? Show Uncle Sean."

"It's my trains," Jack explained, sitting up so Sean could better see how the boy carefully paraded the wooden cars, attached by a length of twine, in a loop in the dirt.

Sean grinned. "You've got quite a track, there, but what if-" Sean seized a large rock, and put it in the train's path. "-this happened?"

Jack paused the train, now confronted with the rock. He looked to Sean and back to the rock, uncertain. "Crash?"

"Yes, my boy, crash!" Sean was gleeful, and encouraged Jack's hand forward with the train in it to bump against the rock, making dramatic explosion noises with his mouth. Jack giggled, backed the train up, and brought it forth again, prompting even more ridiculous sounds from Sean.

John was about to admonish them both for the ruckus, but witnessed their play first hand. If a train didn't want to crash... "That's it." He murmured to himself, scribbling frantically in his notebook.

"What's it?" Sean asked, looking up from the make-believe carnage before him.

"Never you mind," John replied, not looking up from the page he was writing on; the wordsoil tank, secluded track, first class carriage.

A pronounced, disgusted scoff pulled John from his writing. Abigail stood over Jack, swatting at the dirt on the child's pants and shirt. "You're letting him run this filthy train all over his clothes, John! You couldn't have kept an eye on him for ten goddamn minutes?"

Already he could see Sean smirking behind her, and his blood boiled, hating to be shouted down in front of camp. "I'm working, Abigail!"

"I'm working, John, to keep this child clean and fed. You're just-" she gestured at John's lap, the notebook still lain open in it. "-scribbling and drawing pictures."

"They'rewords," he said, unkindly, holding up the book to show her, knowing her inability to read was a sore spot. "See? Train robbery?" He jabbed his finger at the letters and her face fell.

"God damn you, John Marston." Abigail picked up Jack and held the boy to her, and John stormed off, sick of being woefully inadequate for fatherhood and equally sick that everyone in the gang was privy to it.

He huffed through the denser forest at the northern edge of their camp, ducking under low hanging branches and wading through clusters of ferns, disrupting a couple of squirrels in their hiding places. He clenched his fists and felt the bite of his fingernails in his palms. They'd grown long again; Abigail usually trimmed them.

John finally stopped his relentless march when he came upon a small clearing, the sun shafting in, here; a massive old ash tree anchoring the area. He sighed.

"Trouble in paradise?" Tine's voice rang out from behind him, and he whirled around; thinking he'd been alone. She was a wicked sprite in the forest, the sunlight illuminating her hair, cigarette smoke streaming from her pursed lips.

"You heard that?"

"They heard it out in San Francisco, John," she remarked, observing him casually as he continued to seethe. Tine flicked her cigarette away, her face grew serious. "I want in on that robbery."

"Oh, yeah?" His eyebrow raised; he'd almost forgotten about the plan he'd roughed out moments ago, his excitement eclipsed by his anger.

"Yes," she replied, "I'm dying out here. Let me in."

It was rare John had something that anyone needed, and he savoured the moment. "I'm not sure," he said slowly, "Might need to keep a tight crew on this one." He said it with the intention that she'd plead with him, and awaited her reaction. If it were up to John, Tine would be with him on every job.

"Oh, I forgot," Tine said, instead. "I suppose I should ask Abigail about these things, not you."

John's anger immediately returned, a hot feeling that seared along his stitches. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Tine examined her fingernails, crossing in front of John toward the ash tree. "It means you're in her thrall," she said, as if explaining something as simple as boiling an egg. "A whipped, obedient bitch."

And there it was. Tine always seemed to sense when he'd grown angry to the point that he needed to f*ck himself out of it, and needled him along. He felt his co*ck twitch and swallowed, trying to contend with the anger and arousal surging through him.

"Yeah, well," he said, trying to sound measured, failing, "you could stand to learn a thing or two about obedience."

"Tell me, John," Tine said, ignoring him, gesturing in a lazy circle toward his groin. "The wolves eat that thing between your legs? Or does Abigail keep it in a locket 'round her neck to trot out for special occasions?"

She opened her mouth to say more, but John flew to Tine, slamming her chest forcefully into the ash tree's trunk, pinning her wrists, gathered in his long fingers, above her head. He rubbed the hardening bulge in his pants against her ass, hissing in her ear, "You tell me where it is."

Tine hummed in response, pressing backwards into him. John tore at her clothes one-handed, unfastening her suspenders and unbuttoning her fly, tugging her pants down over her hips so they'd fall down the rest of the way to her ankles. He fished his co*ck out of his union suit and pressed the head of it against her warm, wet entrance bared to him and hesitated, breathing deeply, realizing she'd been toying with him for weeks to get to this very moment.

"Should I call for Abigail?" Tine taunted, speaking to the tree. "See if it's OK for you to f*ck m-" Tine was silenced with a snap of John's hips, her mouth transforming into anoof surprise as he thrusted his full length into her.

John dropped his hand from her wrists to grasp at Tine's jaw, pulling her face back toward him, her body a graceful arc for him to rut into. "Where's your lip gone, hmm?" He challenged, and her eyes meeting his burned hot, her pupils wide in the shade of the tree, a mixture of defiance and bliss in them. His body had ached for this without him knowing; his co*ck warm and gripped within Tine, John drowsy with her perfume.

Tine steadied herself against the trunk as John's other hand squeezed at her waist, pressing small bruises there as he repeatedly pulled her to him to meet his insistent thrusting. Tine hummed again and let one hand drop from the tree trunk to touch herself.

He could feel the backs of her thighs begin to tremble against his and a quiet whine start from deep in her throat, and he let go of her waist to grasp her wrist instead, wrenching her hand away from where she rubbed at her cl*t, growling, "I didn't say you could do that."

Tine's knees buckled, then, his hand releasing her arm to hurriedly return to holding her up. For how they acted among the others, things were different when they were alone, what John craved the most in his affairs with Tine: she loved to be dominated by him.

She moved the hand to tug feebly at his hair instead, his hand on her chin moving down to her throat, where her pulse hammered.

John whispered, "Look at you, a mess for me, the so-called Butcher of Rio Bravo." He rubbed his uninjured left cheek into the crook of her neck, his stubble rasping against her skin, the daub of perfume she kept under her collar. Tine whimpered, her legs quaking, clenching deliciously around him.

John sucked a single, angry mark into her neck before growling, back into her ear, "No more'n a girl in need of some god. Damned. Discipline." John thrusted to punctuate each word, and felt the band snap within him just in time, pulling out to spill his seed on the grass.

Tine tipped forward, resting her forehead and arms against the tree, the glisten of her own release trailing down the inside of her exposed legs, their shoulders both heaving.

There always came a moment after they'd f*cked that John had a sinking feeling; that he'd gone too far. He looked at the ripening hickey on her neck and the mottling of crescent moons of his fingernails bitten into her torso, and reached for her, but she hitched her pants up and refastened her suspenders, turning to reveal a wry grin that twisted her sweet face.

"That was fun," she whispered, patting his shoulder and exiting the way she came, leaving him alone in the clearing.

John's mind grew cloudy and troubled, and he sunk to sit against the tree, his body tingling, their sex, and Tine's perfume, heady on the air. He was so desperate for these times where he had one up on her, where she trembled before and under him, but he always felt empty after; the ferocity of their f*cking met with the reality that he'd failed Abigail, again.

The guilt still ate at him as he crouched in the bushes the night of the job, hearing one, and then several of the brakes on the train send up their screeching chorus, halting just in front of Arthur atop the oil tank, on the tracks. Arthur began to bark orders to the engineer and John swallowed, readying his gun, emerging from the trees alongside Sean and Charles, all four men masked for the robbery.

He heard the affected fury in Arthur's voice and could only pray he wouldn't experience it for real, when he discovered John'd invited Tine along; awaiting them in the first-class compartment, ready to rob.

Chapter 9: ix. “A whole lot less to lose”

Chapter Text

Atop the oil tank, Arthur hoisted his rifle by its forestock and heaved nervous breaths from behind his kerchief, hoping that the train would stop. Momentarily blinded by its headlamp, he only heard an engineer shout, "What's going on?" before being subdued by Charles, rushing him like a ghost from the treeline.

Arthur hopped down from the tank to make for the first-class carriage, the paused train hissing pleasantly, Sean taking care of the second engineer and already running his mouth at a pace that he thought disagreeable.

But John awaited him in the carriage, and for all that he found detestable in John since he'd returned to the gang, he trusted him on a job. As Arthur ascended the stairs to the carriage and slid open the cabin door, John looked over his shoulder, an uncharacteristic nervousness in his eye, before turning back to the terrified passengers and shouting: "Everybody stay calm and nobody'll get shot! Let's go: money, valuables, everything you have!"

Arthur wondered briefly about John's nerves - was he still shaky on his feet since the wolves, maybe? - until their true reason revealed itself. There she was, lit in the treacly glow of the carriage lamps, in a blue travelling outfit trimmed in black velvet, a blue hat pinned to her white-blonde hair. It was far enough away from her usual riding pants and button-down shirts that he hadn't recognized Tine immediately.

She stood from her bench seat and screamed at an advancing Arthur, hitching up her skirt and running to the end of the carriage.What the hell is she playing at?He thought, especially as three men rose from their seats to challenge him and John, suddenly outnumbered. But Tine swivelled around at the man closest to her and pulled her revolver on him, leaving Arthur and John to handily subdue the other two with threats or punches; whatever was needed.

Tine approached Arthur and co*cked her head to the side so he could see her wink from under the brim of the hat. "That's about all the heroes in the car; should be easy pickings, now," she whispered, exiting out of the rear door, ostensibly to cause more mayhem while dressed like a girl going to church.

Arthur turned to John, scowling, and the younger man shrugged in response. "You brought Macguire," he said, precautioning any outburst, and there wasn't much more Arthur could say after that. Plus, he begrudgingly saw the beauty in her ruse as the rich passengers of the car handed over their valuables without much more than a snotty whimper. Hell, he'd been half-inclined to turn his gun on John before he'd realized it was her, so convincing was her scream, her little outfit.

They were about three-quarters of the way through the car and still no signs of a passenger-wide revolt - again, Arthur reluctantly thought to himself, likely thanks to Tine - so he signalled to John that he'd check the next car, and headed out the rear door, himself.

He nearly ran right into Sean, who was standing in front of a closed car, mildly perplexed. "Pretty sure this is the baggage car, big man."

Arthur scoffed. "What, you ain't even looked in there yet?"

Sean smiled. "All in good time." He strode forward and went to open the door, only to have a man rush him from the other side, whom Arthur dispatched quickly. A few more guards from within the car revealed themselves, all meeting their untimely end from Arthur's gun. Sean reeled in place, holding his head where it had clunked against the door.

"I'm gonna look," Arthur said, shouldering past him into the car, stepping over a man's corpse to do so. "You cover me."

"I'll do my best, Arthurs - seeing as there is about six o' yous."

Once inside, Arthur was confronted with the trappings of immeasurable wealth; the constant salve to their life of stealing.

"Aw, I hope I don't have a lump on my pretty head," Sean lamented from outside the car.

Who could possibly need to travel with six tennis racquets, let alone own them?H.A. Abernathy, according to the claim ticket. Or, what person thought a white peaco*ck was worthy of ownership and transport?Dr. Morneau.

"Jaysus, that well smarts," Sean continued his litany against his injury.

Arthur sifted through the less transportable valuables and found jewels, watches, billfolds; all filed into his bag as part of what was becoming an excellent take.

"Iswearif this is permanent," Sean said.

Arthur growled back, "Good lord, you're worse than Marston, all that complainin'."

Sean whipped his head to look at Arthur, indignation clear on his face. "Now don't you say that, Arthur Morgan, Ien't." With his focus on Arthur, Sean didn't see the guard drop down from the roof of the first-class carriage; and Arthur's gun was hung useless at his back.

Arthur went for his holstered revolver, but no need. Tine emerged from behind a crate on the flat car and pistol-whipped the guard, the conflicting images of the violent act and her demure look drawing forth an unintentioned chuckle from Arthur.

He nodded to her in thanks, then scowled anew at Sean. "You was supposed to be lookin' out."

Sean's face grew shameful, but then he brightened, pointing past Arthur's shoulder. "Two arseholes on horses, right there."

John and Charles joined them on the flat car, the five looking around them to spot the horsem*n Sean had seen.

"If it's just two, we're fighting," Arthur said, steeling his resolve. "Charles, John, Butcher, get ready." They each crouched behind a crate or barrel - some kind of cover - and Arthur yelled out, "There's only two of you, you fools; we got a whole lot less to lose. Why don't the two of you ride away? That way neither of you get killed."

"Looks like a few more turnin' up, Arthur," Sean reported, and sure enough, more winking lanterns of incoming lawmen appeared at the crest of the hill.

"Wish you could've been this goddamned observant a minute ago," Arthur grumbled, swinging his rifle around to clutch in both hands, at the ready.

"You get off the train, now!" Rang the voice of a lawman from beyond the train. "Drop your weapons and come on out!"

"Capture me," Tine murmured, drawing Arthur's attention away from the growing battalion of lawmen outside of the train.

"What?"

"C'mon, capture me, like a hostage," Tine said, more insistently. "They might not shoot and we can get the rest of the boys away."

Arthur rubbed at his face. "Yeah, OK, why not?" He jumped cover from his crate to hers, shouldered his rifle, then seized her by the upper arm and held her in front of him, standing before the lawmen and pressing his revolver to the side of her head.

"Don't shoot, 'less you want her dead," Arthur yelled, and he saw the lawmen hesitate. Tine, for her part, sobbed convincingly, shuddering in his grasp, wet tears grazing the knuckles of his hand holding the gun against her temple.

The men's horses ran up the other side of the train, and John, Charles, and Sean made a hasty escape, spurring their mounts on. A few distant gunshots showed that there were more lawmen waiting for them that way. Arthur dared a glance behind him, and saw Buster waiting, stomping his hooves at the gunfire.

"Can you handle a rifle?" He whispered, shrugging his gun off his shoulder so that it hung off his elbow, still holding Tine. Infinitesimally, she nodded.

"Let's go!" Arthur released Tine and dove for Buster's saddle, leaving the rifle for her to catch, which she did, backing off, firing, and making her own leap off of the far side of the train car. She landed behind Arthur and steadied herself by linking her arm through his, taking up the rifle and expertly firing on two of the advancing lawmen, sending them each flying off their saddles.

"You think the others made it out?" She shouted, her voice having trouble carrying over the night wind whipping their faces, Buster's hammering gallop.

"Ain't seen any sign otherwise," Arthur responded, navigating the horse down a narrow path. They were nearby a darkened cabin when Arthur spotted another lantern on the road ahead, so he dismounted, pulling Tine down off Buster's back and with a slap, sent his horse to flee into the trees.

The pair crept into the cabin and, once confirming they were alone, heaved a sigh of relief. Ever the lookout, Arthur waited by the window, bathed in moonlight, while Tine rooted through the cupboards.

She'd unearthed a bottle of rum from somewhere in the cabin, and held it up to Arthur in a sort of toast before pulling the cork out with her teeth and taking a healthy swig. She passed the bottle to him to do the same.

Arthur struggled with what he'd witnessed at the Downes', versus what he'd seen tonight: his heavy satchel no doubt in thanks to Tine's help, not least that all of them were still alive.

"You done good on that train, Tine," he said, finally, holding her gaze. She smiled.

"You called me Teeny," she took another drink of the rum and held her wrist to her mouth, a dainty gesture befitting her lady's apparel.

"Ain't what I said," he groused, feeling his annoyance creep in. She continued to smile, rising from her place to join him at the window.

"You sure were something on that oil tank," she said, looking up at him, her hair and eyelashes silvered by the moon. "I saw you when the train was turning, from the carriage window."

Arthur took the bottle back, laughed into the neck. "Yeah, I stand with the best of 'em."

"That's not what I meant," Tine seemed more serious, her smile fading. "I mean, there was just something about it." She was profoundly close to him, her pale eyes bright in the moonlight.

"You ain't drunk already," Arthur said, a warning tone to his whisper.

"No, just inspired." Tine ran her hands up his chest, experimentally. She'd made it as far as his collarbones before he seized her wrists and pushed them off, stalking away to the far side of the room.

"You're crazy," he said, unsure why he was suddenly short of breath, his heart deafening in his ears.

"My mistake." She grinned, then, and he was doubly angry, toying with his feelings as a cat might a hobbled bird.

They waited another hour in a dense silence before Arthur deemed it safe to go, and he gave her a ride back to camp, her hands chastely at his hips.

But, the next morning, he couldn't deny how much he appreciated her steady nerves on the train, when Sean failed him and when they were swarmed by the law. She'd picked off lawmen hurtling after them on horseback like they were no more than glass bottles lined up along a fence. He could appreciate that.

So, he joined her on the overlook, where she sat in her usual garb, blowing on her coffee.

"Mornin', Miss Nilsen," he greeted, sitting opposite her. She looked up and nodded her own hello. "How do you feel about rustling? John might have a line on something."

Tine smiled into her cup. "John's always looking for new ways to smell like sh*t."

Arthur laughed, which surprised him.

"It's not for me," she added, "but thanks for the invite, all the same."

"Suit yourself," he said, rising from his place, only thinking to lean toward her as he passed, his lips by her ear:

"Teeny."

Chapter 10: x. A catalogue of flaws and foibles

Chapter Text

It was warm enough in town that John thought he might shed his jacket, the morning sun beating down on his stitched cheek. He smoked a cigarette down to the quick, closely watching a flock of sheep in their pen, smack dab in the middle of Valentine's auction yard. The puffed, bleating creatures didn't look particularly difficult to manage.

"There he is," Arthur's gruff voice caught John's attention; he turned to see the gang's senior gun - and him alone - standing before him, leading his new, massive horse.

"Tine didn't want to come with you?" John asked, glancing behind Arthur, as if she were hiding there.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Said she weren't interested in smellin' like sh*t, her words."

John felt a small sting in his chest; that they'd been talking behind his back, and not kindly. He buried the thought and gestured for Arthur to follow him through town, leading him towards the gunsmith's in the hopes of purchasing a scoped rifle.

"Where're we headed?" Arthur asked, looking around himself.

"Just need something to help with these sheep we're after," John said, evasively. "Should be worth a good deal of money once the deal's done. Tide us over until we get back to Blackwater for the rest."

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose, which John knew meant he was about due for a lecture. "The two of you and that damn money," he lamented, almost to himself, then dropped his hand to stare John down. "You seen what things were like in Blackwater; we ain't getting anywhere near there, anytime soon."

John huffed and walked on in silence, and heard Arthur ask behind him, the pontificating edge in his voice subsided somewhat. "You, uh, heard anything about Dutch and Tine, on that boat in Blackwater?"

He stopped walking, turned back to Arthur. "You mean the woman." He said, tentative.

"Mmm."

John shook his head. "Don't know much more than that; they ain't said another thing about it." He thought back to the brief glimpse he'd had of the inner cabin in the ferryboat. Dutch and Tine rushing out, looking grave; a bloodied woman, lain on the floor. "Bit odd for him." He added.

"Not her, though," Arthur said, a small smile on his lips, and John surprised himself, loosed a brief laugh.

"No, not odd for her." It was macabre, the two laughing about a woman's brutal death, but welcome, if only in the sense that John hadn't shared a laugh with Arthur in a long time.

The feeling was soon gone once they'd rode out into the Heartlands for the herd of sheep John had carefully targeted to rustle, Arthur soon hollering at him for a catalogue of flaws and foibles.

"Jesus, Marston," Arthur admonished, cutting in front of John's Old Boy to encourage a few of the sheep back into the herd. "Can't even figure out something as simple as herdin' livestock. Is it 'cause the sheep are smarter than you?"

"You seen me grow up," John retorted, his cheeks burning. "When did we spend any time 'round livestock?"

Arthurgee-uped at a couple more sheep, sending them running back to their flock. Ofcoursehe had to be naturally talented at herding sheep, too. "I managed to learn a little." He said, sitting straight in his saddle, evidently proud of himself.

"Must've been those glory days I've heard tell about, before I came on." John groused, and Arthur sighed loudly.

"Oh, don't get salty, now," Arthur said. "Ride shank, all right? Let's get these sheep back to Valentine." It was too late. The whole job had been John's idea, John's planning, but Arthur had slouched into a leadership role once again. He felt no older than thirteen, resentful of his surrogate brother's orders and capability. The pair rode on, only Arthur's occasional commands to the sheep breaking their near-silence.

They led the sheep into the auction pen and dismounted their horses, approaching the auctioneer.

"Fine sheep, wouldn't you say?" John said, trying to keep the hopefulness from his voice.

"Finer still if they weren't stolen," the auctioneer replied. "But a twenty-five percent cut could see me turning a blind eye to any such realities."

Next to him, Arthur bristled, growling, "Twenty-five percent? Happy to puttwoblind eyes in your head, friend."

The auctioneer remained unimpressed. John put himself between the auctioneer and a seething Arthur and countered, "What d'you say to fifteen?"

"I say twenty."

"Eighteen." The auctioneer extended his hand at that, and John nodded, shaking it.

"Come back after the auction to get your money," the auctioneer called, John steering Arthur back toward their horses.

"C'mon, Dutch is over at the saloon, said he'd meet us there," John said, proud he'd whittled down the auctioneer. But Arthur remained unconvinced.

"I thought we was doing the robbing, eighteen," he muttered, mounting up on Buster and trotting after John.

His good mood renewed, John replied, "I'll buy you a whiskey for your heartache, sunshine."

They hitched their horses outside of the small saloon - really, more of a watering hole - and walked in, spotting Dutch, Strauss, and Tine sat at a table. Dutch and Strauss were arguing, while Tine just fiddled with her knife, her eyes alighting at the sight of the two men coming in.

Dutch interrupted Strauss and called to them, "John, Arthur, how did you get on?"

"Waitin' to be paid on them sheep," Arthur replied, before John could.

"Very good," Dutch said, reaching to touch Strauss' shoulder. "Leopold, good man, why don't you head out with John to go over the particulars? And Miss Nilsen, you're a sight for a hayseed's sore eyes; you head on, too."

John hadn't been in the bar a moment before he found himself back out in the bright day, trailing after Strauss on foot toward the auction yard, Tine next to him.

"How the hell did this happen," John mumbled, Tine turning her head slightly to show she was listening. "This was my damn job, and Arthur's drinking with Dutch while I run more errands."

"Successful, though, the job, wasn't it?" She murmured back. "Gang's making a lot of money, thanks to you."

John paused in his tracks, eyeing her suspiciously. "Why are you being nice to me?"

She smiled, her teeth startlingly white in the sunshine. "Happy to stop." He smiled too, then, shaking off his feelings of ill will and making the rest of the way back to the auction yard. Strauss, John, and Tine lined up along the fence surrounding the sheep pen, Strauss craning his head, looking for the auctioneer.

One sheep bit another and John pointed at it, leaning over to whisper, "I named that one Tine." She elbowed him in the ribs, a reluctant grin pulling at the corner of her mouth.

He made to say more, but felt a hard hit to the side of his face that housed his stitches, upsetting the nerves in his cheek. He was held around the neck with the cold snout of a gun pressed to his head, made to frogmarch towards the saloon they'd just left.

"Don't say a single word," his captor breathed into his ear, the foul stink of chewing tobacco on his breath.

Strauss and Tine were similarly held, the three of them and their captors following a well-dressed man on a brown horse, his thinning white hair catching the breeze and flying haphazardly about his head.

They were lined up and then forced onto their knees in front of the saloon, the horse's hoofsteps idling behind them. Next to him, Tine alternated from hanging limp in the man's grasp and struggling furiously, and John hissed, "Tine, hold still, dammit." Her eyes met his for a mere moment and they were wide and panicked; the blue in them startlingly clear.

"Dutch Van der Linde!" A voice boomed behind them. "You don't know me, but you keep robbing me. My name is Leviticus Cornwall. I am not a man to be messed with by the likes of you. Get out here, before I have these three killed!"

Dutch and Arthur crept from the saloon, making their way onto its sinking porch, their hands raised. Dutch began to address Cornwall in the rambling, deferential way that usually meant he was trying to buy more time, and John caught Arthur's eye, for just a moment, then followed his darting gaze to his raised right hand. His middle and ring finger, twitching slightly.

John's captor was down in the next second, and he seized the dying man's gun and fired on Strauss's, Tine's, the additional man behind him. At the first sign of gunfire, Cornwall galloped off; but he'd left a legion of men behind, one of which managed to shoot Strauss in the calf, sending the man howling to the ground.

"Strauss is hit!" John yelled, and Dutch rushed forward to lift him into a horseless wagon, John joining him to push. Arthur and Tine circled the vehicle, firing on the men that appeared on the balconies and boardwalks of Valentine's main drag, bodies soon littering the muddy road.

Arthur heaved a wailing Strauss over his shoulder and onto Old Boy's haunches, and the four riders - John, Arthur, Dutch, and Tine - hastened their way out of town, shooting down a few pursuers before turning southeast for camp.

Tine had called the job successful, but, to John, it sure didn't feel like it.

*

John held a cool, wet rag against his troubled stitches, watching Abigail throw Jack's clothes into a trunk. "I just can't believe we're moving again, already," she huffed, seizing a stuffed bear by the neck, contemplating it as if she might try and wring its throat, and then hurling it into the trunk as well. "You had to go stealing sheep from the most powerful man in America."

His face already stung, and her words joined in on the feeling. "If it weren't this it'd be something else!" He shouted back. "Hell, the oil tank we stole for the train robbery was from Cornwall."

Abigail froze, whirling around to stare daggers into John. "How is thatbetter?" Her voice was just below a screech, her hair standing on end. John jumped to his feet and stormed out of their tent, spotting Tine over by the horses, patting at Darling's mink-coloured neck.

He marched over, trying to cool his pace to something affecting indifference, leaning against Darling's hitching post. "So, us moving again is all my fault."

Tine hummed noncommittally, bending to tighten Darling's girth strap. He'd been hoping to provoke her into a confrontation that might lead to more, but she was, infuriatingly, immune to the bait.

"Ain't you going to say, 'Yes, John, it is'?" He goaded, to which she only shrugged. "What's with you?"

"Finding somewhere new for us to live," she replied, untying Darling's reins from the post and climbing into her saddle, turning the horse around to face the way out of camp. Tine clicked her horse into a walk, and then looked over her shoulder, beaming down at John. "Seeing as how this is all your fault."

She turned back to face front and Darling picked up a trot, following after Arthur and Charles on horseback. John could do nothing but return to his tent to pack, his temper foul and intractable.

Chapter 11: xi. “I’ll be damned”

Chapter Text

Once Arthur had settled a howling Strauss outside his wagon, to be tended to by Susan Grimshaw's cold, yet effective hands, he marched towards Dutch's tent. Arthur dodged Karen hauling a basket of laundry and Lenny with a bundle of repeaters in his arms, trying to parse Hosea's insistent admonishments, Dutch's placating replies. At his appearance in the entrance to the tent, Dutch held his hand up to silence Hosea, beaming at Arthur.

"Just who I was hoping to see," he greeted. Hosea stood and stalked off, and Arthur and Dutch both looked after him for a moment. "He'll be fine," Dutch muttered, as if to himself.

"What d'you need doing?" Arthur asked, drawing his leader's attention back into the tent.

"Well, we need somewhere to live, to put it plain," Dutch waved around him; the hubbub of gang members rushing to pack their belongings, once again. "Could you take Charles with you, and Miss Nilsen, too? Find us somewhere?"

"Like where?" Arthur scrunched up his face, Charles, having heard his assignment, joined at Arthur's shoulder.

"Someplace east of here," said Dutch, leaning forward to rest a broad hand on his knee.

"Real specific," Arthur chuckled darkly, as Charles scratched at the back of his head, looking pensive.

"What about south of where we hid that oil tank? Seemed secluded enough."

Arthur shrugged. "It's a start, anyway." They waved goodbye to Dutch and headed for their horses, Arthur tugging on Tine's sleeve as they passed her. "C'mon, we're after a new campsite." She nodded and followed, made to retack her horse.

*

Tine was largely silent while Arthur and Charles took turns grousing about heading further east, further south; further into civilized society.

"You're quiet, Miss Nilsen," Charles invited, turning three-quarters in his saddle to look at Tine. "What do you think of all this?"

"No difference to me where I lay my head," she replied, spurring on Darling so that she rode beside the two men.

Arthur scoffed. "Now that ain't true," he gave Charles a knowing look. "Took my damn bed in Colter."

A small smile played on her lips, and Arthur felt his face grow pink; remembering his furtive imaginings in the freezing bunkhouse, suddenly wishing he hadn't brought it up at all. Charles seemed unconcerned, though, slowing Taima to a trot as they came upon a dry creek bed, deer springing away at their approach.

The three dismounted and stalked around, Arthur looking at the wide bowl of darkening sky above them. "Bit out in the open, wouldn't you say?"

"And it looks like someone beat us to it," added Charles, inspecting a fire pit with warm coals still smouldering in it. Beyond that, ghostly in the dim evening, were collected wagons in a natural enclave; what would have been a tributary had the creek still been wet. "These folks can't have been gone long."

"Him, either," Tine said, wincing, rolling over a corpse with the burnished toe of her boot. "He's fresh; can't be more than a few hours dead." She stepped away from the body, her nose wrinkling; evidently a time limit on when she'd scour someone's pockets, a picky carrion bird.

Tine proceeded towards the wagons, instead; Arthur and Charles trailing her. They found little beyond a chunk of bread, a few tins of fruit and fish.

Arthur leant down to shift a crate, only to be greeted by the twin barrels of a shotgun, levelled at his nose. The gun lay in the hands of a trembling woman, her blonde hair swept back into a half-knot; a fearful child clutched to either shoulder.

"OK," he said, trying his best to keep the natural grit out of his voice, holding his hands aloft in surrender. "It's all right, we ain't going to hurt you." Charles and Tine followed suit, returning their weapons to their holsters, bringing their hands up around their ears.

The woman babbled something to Arthur and he shook his head. "Nope, sorry, I-I don't know what you're saying."

"It's my father," the woman's girl piped up, her round face framed by two long plaits, "he was taken. That way." Crouched as she was, the girl still managed to point south.

"We don't want nothing to do with all that," Arthur winced, looking back at Charles and Tine.

"You don't mean that," scolded Charles, before whistling for his horse and addressing the woman again, "we'll look for him. Tine here will keep watch."

Arthur whistled for Buster and clambered onto his back before pointing a warning finger to Tine. "Be good." She rolled her eyes, but he saw her lend a hand to the family all the same, helping them out of their hiding place.

As he trotted behind, furious he was off on an unrelated errand, Charles called out in front of him: "That wasn't like you, all cold-hearted."

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think," Arthur replied, leaning over the pommel of his saddle to stretch out his back.

"Know you well enough." Charles challenged, and the matter was rested, the men riding in silence down to the shoreline. From there, Charles picked up the trail, again; the sign of a body struggling in the damp sand, multiple hoofprints.

They set off again, heads fixed forward. "I heard John mention he might go back to Valentine for that sheep auction money," Charles said.

Arthur let out a derisive laugh. "Then he's even stupider than I thought."

"What's with you two? Didn't you grow up together?"

Arthur sighed, letting the sound of Buster's careful steps fill his ears for a moment. "We did, and John were like a brother to me. But he left when Jack was born, ran off, like a damned thief in the night. Went against all we stood for, or what I thought we stood for, anyway."

Charles was silent, but intently listening; his shoulders set into a square, unmoving on Taima's back.

"Then he brought Tine back with'im and, well. You seen what she's like. I-" Arthur paused, a hurt he'd buried roaring to the surface. "I hated the person who came back. Even though he's tryin' to make things the same as they was, I think. And I'm still..." The complicated tangle of recent events with Tine - laughing and then loathing debt work, her quick thinking during the train robbery met with her quick hands, on him - "...still on the fence about her."

"Shh," Charles hissed, holding up a hand. "Someone in this clearing, here."

They dismounted, leaving their horses in a small forest and approaching the clearing on foot; a broad expanse of flat land, water on two sides and forest on the left.

"Not bad for a campsite," Arthur muttered, and Charles nodded, tapping his temple to signal he'd been thinking the same.

Near a weakened campfire, a hogtied man struggled in his bindings, one of his eyes blackened and swollen. Arthur crept forward and carefully slid his knife between the man's face and the cloth that gagged him, slicing through it.

"Es ist eine Falle!" The man whispered sharply, and Arthur's brow rumpled, until he translated: "A trap!"

Men emerged from the woods; on horseback and foot alike, all for Arthur and Charles to gun down. As the last man made to retreat, Arthur swung his repeater from behind his back and expertly picked him off. The danger passed, he finished untying the captive man, swatting at the proliferate mosquitoes as he did so.

"I'll take this one back," Arthur said to Charles, as the man continued to speak a language Arthur he didn't understand, but making motions of gratitude, he gathered. "You want to catch up with Dutch and them, lead them here?"

"Sure, Arthur," Charles nodded, swung into his saddle, and was off. Arthur helped the man onto Buster's back, climbed up in front of him, and spurred him on back to the family.

He spotted Tine's moon-brightened head of hair first, standing before the family's wagon, packed to leave. As he came into view, the man behind him cawed in greeting, and the mother jumped from her seat on the wagon as he did off Arthur's horse, the pair in a weeping embrace, chattering to each other.

"Where's Charles?" Tine asked, out of the corner of her mouth, the two watching the family's relieved affections play out before them.

"Off to link up with the rest." The father turned to Arthur again and babbled a long sentence, causing the outlaw to wince anew. "Hey, Tine, you speak this? Can't understand a word out this feller's mouth."

She scoffed. "More than one language in Europe."

"Y'all look alike, is all," he pointed at the young girl and then flicked one of Tine's pigtails, hinting at their sameness. The man stood before Arthur again, pressing a small bar of gold into his hand.

"You are a good man," the father said, holding his hands over Arthur's own before climbing into the wagon's seat, his family settled around him.

"Don't know about that," Arthur said to himself, scratching at the nape of his neck and pocketing the ingot, noticing Tine staring after them.

"OK, mount up, we've got to meet with the others at the new camp. Think you'll like it." If Tine heard him, she gave no indication, standing stock-still, watching the wagon trundle off over the horizon.

"There's some bodies for you to pick over," he offered, reaching out to shake her shoulder. "C'mon, Tine."

He forced her shoulder sideways, saw a wet glimmer in one blue eye, and chuckled in surprise. "Well I'll be damned if Tine Nilsen has a heart."

He thought she'd needle him back and was more surprised still when her cheeks burned hot; she stormed away from him, snapping, "f*ck off, Arthur."

She was almost at her horse when Arthur caught up to her in a few long strides, grasping for her shoulder again. "Hold on now, what's with you?" His hand making contact with the shoulder found it shaking, a violent boiling under her stillness.

"Tine," he repeated, and she turned slowly, her eyes slid decisively away from him.

"It was just, earlier today. Cornwall and his men."

Arthur remembered her face when held captive, more furious than afraid. He chuckled again, out of nerves, unaccustomed to seeing her like this. "Seen you deal with plenty worse."

Tine only shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut, and he felt her tremble under his palm worsen. "OK, now," he said, soothingly, grasping her other shoulder so that both were under the weight of his hands.

"OK," he repeated, sliding his hands around her back and holding her, her arms hanging at her sides, stiff in his awkward embrace. She was small, delicate, even; he'd forgotten. "You're fine," he promised into the crown of her hair, white flyaways whispering against his mouth.

He let go, and she turned and pulled herself up into Darling's saddle without a word. Arthur led them to the new camp in heavy silence.

*

The next day, Dutch and Hosea offered to take Arthur fishing. Of course, Dutch couldn't pass up the opportunity to ingratiate himself with local law enforcement - Arthur his ready instrument to do so - but that done, the three men found themselves in a boat fifty yards or so from the shoreline in the placid lake, their lines in the water, talking and joking as they had for decades.

Just as it had with Charles the night before, talk moved to John, to Tine. "She's been out with you boys a few times, lately," said Dutch, who'd abandoned his line to sprawl in the prow of the boat, a cigar wedged between his fore and middle fingers. "What do you think?"

Arthur's mind flooded with thoughts of her warm, quivering body between his arms the previous night, and he swallowed. "Uh, well, she keeps John in line, like you used to."

Dutch hummed, leaning slightly forward to show his interest.

"Has good ideas, sometimes."

Hosea squinted, but whether it was due to the southern sun or concern, Arthur couldn't tell. "What d'you mean, sometimes?"

The terrified face of Edith Downes swam into Arthur's mind, and he shook his head to dispel it.

"Sounds like she's working out well." Dutch broke up his thoughts still further. "Hell, a few more jobs like that train robbery you three pulled, and we might just be ready to pack things in for good. Maybe you all should work together more often."

And, for the first time in the three years since she'd joined them up, despite his better judgements, Arthur found he didn't hate the suggestion.

Chapter 12: xii. Dutch's first boys

Chapter Text

Lucky for John, Abigail found things to like about the gang's new camp at Clemens Point. She got over their hurried move quickly enough, once she saw how the site was open and mostly flat, free of the risk of Jack falling from the overlook's steep edge. And the camp had its own raw beauty to it; wild islands just beyond the shoreline that hummed with crickets at night, flickering lightning bugs that Jack tried to catch in his chubby palms.

Arthur had also seemed to loosen his hold on the grudge he'd been harbouring against him, he, John, and Tine away from the camp as often as they were in it. Dutch had been so impressed by what they'd accomplished on the passenger train, and wanted them working together more. As the rest settled into Clemens Point, the three would go further afield on jobs, so as to not make waves in their new home.

Tine's sweet face was the perfect disguise more often than not, so they'd send her into a store to ask a million questions of the shopkeeper, while they raided a storeroom or broke into an illegal card game. She'd flirt with farmhands for information and they'd strike the main houses for their jewelry and valuables when empty of people. She excelled at being a plant, like she'd been on the train, becoming a terrifying third gun if anyone had the mettle to strike back.

As one of Dutch's first boys, John saw how she added something to his and Arthur's bailiwick; improvisation, credible lying, and a ferocity Arthur used to be capable of, but less and less so as he grew older.

Something he hadn't anticipated, though, was Arthur warming to Tine, nor to John himself, once again. The three spent their sojourns out of camp in makeshift camps of their own, joking and drinking, recounting their takes with glee. It was the furthest and most frequent John had been from Abigail since he'd run, all those years ago, but he felt no urge to seek out Tine or have her seek him, contented in his own tent at night, glad to be useful and respected.

And of course, the money they were bringing into the gang spoke well to that. Whenever they did happen to be in camp, Dutch waxed on about moving back west, about finally being free. Soon after any of these pronouncements, they'd be on the road again, out on another job.

He'd given one such moonshine-inspired speech not two days prior, so the three found themselves hunched behind a few trees in the dead of night by the old Fort Brennand, waiting for a coal magnate's stagecoach to come down from Annesburg.

John looked from Arthur, watching the horizon with his binoculars, to Tine, in her blue traveller's outfit, thumbing the velvet-covered buttons dotting her sleeve. Her plan this time was to act as an abandoned new bride, the details of which she'd kept infuriatingly to herself. "Just get ready to kill some guards, all right?" She'd said, "I'm just a poor, innocent girl all by her lonesome." The men had rolled their eyes but let it rest. She hadn't let them down yet.

"I seen it up ahead, Tine," Arthur muttered, lowering his binoculars briefly to address them. "Go." She sprang up from her crouch and picked her way down the hill, pulling a few hairs to float askew around her face. Her usual, eerie calm was replaced by agitated fretting; Tine wrung her hands, paced in a small circle, looked about herself. All with a pronounced sniffing, like she'd been crying and was due to start again at any moment.

Before long, the stage appeared at the crest of the hill and began to make its way down, and Tine whirled toward it, exclaiming, "Oh, thank heavens!"

"Three guards, plus a driver," whispered John from their hiding place, counting the silhouetted figures surrounding the coach.

"Plus whoever's inside," added Arthur, squinting through his binoculars again.

The driver slowed the two draft horses pulling the stage with a "Whoa!", looking down from his seat at Tine. "What are you doing in parts like these so late at night, Miss? This here's Murfree country, ain't safe for a thing like you."

"Ain't safe?" John felt the tremble in Tine's voice from the trees; she was projecting, making sure that the magnate inside the coach heard her every word. "Ain't safe anywhere for me, mister." Her voice carefully broke, there, and she made a show of patting at her pockets for a kerchief, a tear rolling down her cheek visible in the moonlight.

"'Ere y'are," one of the guards walked up his horse to hand her his, and she sniffed loudly, smiling at him.

"Much obliged, sir," she said, her tone brimming with gratitude, wiping at her eyes and cheeks with the bit of cloth.

"What d'you mean, you ain't safe anywhere?" Asked the driver, bent forward, elbows resting on his knees. She turned her attentions on him, again.

"I were riding through here with my new husband and, and, well-" Tine paused, looking to the ground. "He showed me something awful frightening."

"She sounds like Mary-Beth, don't she?" John whispered, and Arthur nodded in agreement.

"What do you mean frightening, darlin'?" Asked the kindly guard.

Tine began to tremble, toying with the kerchief in her fingers. "He's got a monster on him," she whimpered, "keeps it in his pants. Squinted at me with one eye."

"Oh, Christ," Arthur shook his head, laughing silently, his eyes closed. John was still watching with a disbelieving grin that turned to surprise, when the coal magnate himself stepped from the coach. He slapped Arthur, pointing, and Arthur quickly peered through the binoculars again.

"No one else in there," Arthur reported. "I don't believe this."

"You poor dear," the magnate crooned. He was a small man, just a whisper taller than Tine, finely dressed, his bald pate shining. He took her hand in both of his own and held it close to his mouth. "Didn't your mother teach you about your wifely duties?"

The men all looking at the scene before them, John silently crept from his hiding place, hidden in the dark, down around to the back of the stage where the lockbox lay in wait. He picked the lock and carefully opened the box's hinged lid - sometimes they were made to squeak on purpose - revealing a small bag of jewelry, but nothing else. A small hum of panic bloomed in his chest.

"Were raised by my nana, sir," Tine said from the front, doing her best to sound demure and not repulsed, the magnate nearly salivating over the woman she was pretending to be. "And my grandpappy's long dead, she ain't had to perform none such duties in some time."

The magnate laughed, and the driver and guards chimed in. "Well, why don't I take you into town? It's a safe ride here in my stage, and I can tell you all about what a man like your husband might expect. Maybe even show you."

"That's awful kind of you," Tine replied, her eyes sliding over the man's shoulder briefly to John, who emphatically shook his head, wanting to cut their losses and leave. "Ain't ever seen the inside of no stage before."

The man put a hand at her elbow, guiding her to the stage door, the interior blazing with light. John, crouched behind the stage, caught her eye once again, gave another firm shake of his head. She smiled, and John knew it was defiant, intended for him.Dammit, Tine.

A gunshot echoed out into the night, and the magnate shoved Tine aside, clambering into the coach, shouting, "Brigands!" The guards looked around themselves but couldn't see where the shot had come from, nor what it targeted. At the insistence of the magnate, his muffled yell coming from within the coach, the driver whipped the horses into motion, the stagecoach hastening away, flanked by its mounted guardsmen.

Tine and John were left in the road, and she stomped over to him, giving his shoulder a slap. "Why'd you do that?" Her voice, returned to its normal clarity, was destabilizing to hear. "There could have been more in there!"

"It weren't me!" He protested, his cheeks growing hot.

"It were me," Arthur piped, coming down from the hill, thumbing a bullet into his revolver's emptied chamber. "Ain't no way you was getting into that coach, Teeny."

"This is horsesh*t," she griped, pulling the hat pinned to her head with force until it came off, blonde flyaways floating to settle around her face. "What'd you get from the back, John?"

He sheepishly held up the jewelry bag, as if it were his fault the lockbox had been so meagre. Tine's face soured.

"Son of abitch," she hissed, throwing the hat into the dirt. "You just had to get skittish, Morgan! What's that jewelry worth, twenty dollars, twenty-five? A wholethree dollarseach?" Tine rivalled Strauss in her ability to calculate the value of a take and their shares on the fly, always determined to get her fair due.

"Calm yourself now," Arthur scolded, the steadfast one of the three, "why don't we head into Rhodes and spend them takes? I could sure use a drink." The idea didn't sound too bad to John, all of his shares of late going to clothes and toys for Jack. Surely Abigail wouldn't miss three measly dollars?

Tine retrieved her hat from the ground and dusted it off with a few pronounced smacks. "Use a drink to get some of your damned courage back, you mean," she grumbled, still upset that she hadn't robbed the magnate of every last cent.

But her mood lifted with a couple of shots of whiskey, changed back into her gunslinger's attire, the handle of her knife again at her fingertips. John himself nursed a beer, calculating how many he could muster while still bringing a few coins to Abigail, rehearsing in his mind how he'd tell her the job had been a bust. Tine was sat next to him in their booth at the Rhodes parlour house, her side not unpleasantly pressed into his on the small bench; Arthur across, toying with a bottlecap.

John decided to try one of his excuses out on his companions. "Even with tonight being what it were, I think it's likely Dutch is still sitting on a small fortune by now."

Arthur nodded, which buoyed John, thinking Abigail would also see the silver lining to their spoiled night. He added, "Reckon we'll be moving on soon? Like Dutch says?"

Tine peered into her empty glass, as if to manifest more whiskey in it. "Could do this forever, me," she said quietly, and John and Arthur traded a look over the tabletop.

"Let's head back, break the news," Arthur said, rising from the bench with a pronounced stretch.

"'Arthur was too yeller to let Tine finish the job,' you mean," Tine also half-stood, encumbered by the table, waiting for John to rise so that she could exit the booth.

"Didn't want you in that coach, didn't like how that man were talkin' to you," he said back.

"Protecting my virtue, myhero," she teased, and he made an impatient wave of his hand toward the door, ushering them out without a word of reply. John snickered at her joke; Tine's virtue about as bountiful as their take that night.

The trio rode into the quiet camp and tethered their horses, the O'Driscoll boy Kieran offering to brush them down, to which they nodded their assent. Abigail, sat by the fire and bundled into a shawl in the evening's chill, rose from her place and strode up to the three, planting her feet in front of John, brushing a kiss to his cheek.

He heard Arthur and Tine's muffled laughter as they made their way into the camp, and he felt embarrassed; like a child too old to be picked up by his mother (or so he gathered, having no experience of it that he could remember).

"How'd things go?" Abigail asked, winding her hands through his arms and around to his back, dragging her fingernails gently against his shoulderblades, a touch John loved.

"A bit of a bust, to be honest," he said, forcing a laugh, and then adding quickly his practiced words from the saloon, verbatim: "Even with tonight being what it were, I think it's likely Dutch is still sitting on a small fortune by now."

"Still took in a little somethin', though?" She asked, hopefully. "I wanted to get Jack a lighter shirt for these hot days we've been havin'." Her fingertips briefly clenched against John's back.

"Well, uh," he scratched behind his head, casting about him, avoiding Abigail's eyes. "We didn't make hardly anything, so we spent it at the saloon."

"What's 'hardly anything'?" She said, an edge to her voice.

John found it possible to look anywhere else, even with Abigail's face no more than a foot from his. "'Bout three dollars."

Her face darkened. "The shirt I found for Jack's only two dollars."

f*ck, of course. John retrieved his last half-dollar from his pocket and gingerly placed it into Abigail's hand.

"John Marston-" she began, but pressed her lips together, leaving the sentence half-done. He could fill most of it in, he thought, feeling low, as she removed her other hand from his back and walked back to their lean-to, the coin clenched into her fist.

f*ck, f*ck. He thought again, looking desperately about for Tine, hoping to unburden himself. His eyes settled on another twist to his stomach: Tine was seated next to Arthur by the fire, both of them clearly laughing at him.

John made off into the woods, instead, his anger left to himself.

Chapter 13: xiii. “What you can’t take”

Chapter Text

Since Blackwater, the gang had been running as often as they sat still. It made Arthur appreciate, all the more, the quiet moments he'd been afforded working with John and Tine; sitting across from them in the saloon, or by their small cookfire. Their time together reminded him of how the gang used to be, before it ballooned in size and, despite their best efforts, couldn't dream of escaping the law's notice.

Only in his thirties, Arthur realized he'd become an old gun. He watched with a smirk as John and Tine would playfully swat at one another, co*ck their hips and make bravado-laced pronouncements that they could shoot a bullet through a hat tossed in midair; an apple; a pea.To your tents, he'd order, once he'd had enough, and they'd listen. He'd lay alone in his, wondering what other orders Tine would obey, an urgent twinge in his stomach that he'd repeatedly dismiss.

Just as soon as he'd settled into a comfortable rhythm of running with the two, he was hauled away. Things had been ramping up with the two wealthy, warring families that controlled the gang's adoptive home of Rhodes. Dutch and Bill - of all people - had been deputized by the Sheriff, Leigh Gray, who belonged to the tobacco-growing Grays. Hosea had been taking a selection of gang members to play cribbage and drink sweet tea with Catherine Braithwaite, the matriarch of the moonshining Braithwaites.

All that Arthur had heard about the families only served to remind him of why he hated places like Lemoyne - they clung to the defeated Confederacy as much as they did to the grudges they held against each other - but, sidling up to Dutch by the lakeside one morning, he could see the tiredness in the leader's eyes, his hesitancy to ask what he was about to.

"They've got tons of gold, Arthur, that much is clear," Dutch said, out to the water. "It's just our efforts have been a little-" he paused, sighed "-clumsy so far. We could really use you on this."

So he was playing both sides, burning the Gray tobacco fields, stealing Braithwaite moonshine only to serve it for free at the Gray-owned saloon, taking the young Braithwaite girl to a suffragette rally on the young Gray's command. It was dizzying work - the families so identically awful that he barely registered who he was working for, and who against - and there was no way it could amount to anything other than naught. And it was the kind of work Arthur hated, regardless. For as deeply as he loved Hosea, he'd never seen the value in the long con: hours and days spent nudging a mark to give away what he could easily take within minutes. Arthur would watch with yearning as John and Tine saddled up and left the camp together, off on another job, wishing he could be with them.

Which is why, when Bill and Karen approached him to help them rob a bank in Valentine, he abandoned his usual skepticism and leapt at the chance. The opportunity for quick violence was far too appealing.

"Hoping you could be our vault man on this," Bill continued, after Karen explained the plan: the livestock auctions had just concluded and the bank vaults flooded with cash; she'd lead off a distraction and case the bank before Bill, Lenny, and Arthur ran in.

Arthur stopped mid-nod, looked across the camp to where Tine was polishing her boot, her hair taking on the pink cast of the early-morning sunrise. "How about two? I want Tine's hands on this."

Bill's laugh yelped out of him and Karen cackled, "Probably ain't the only place!"

He scowled, feeling his cheeks heat up. "Forget it."

"Good to know you still can't take a joke, Arthur, c'mon," Karen prodded him in the shoulder. "You know you love my classic drunken harlot bit."

The smile coaxed out of him. "OK, fine," he relented, and made off to tell Tine.

*

It was unsettling to be back in Valentine after they'd shot the town to hell, escaping Cornwall's men. Even in their many adventures outside of camp since moving to Clemens Point, Arthur, John, and Tine had skirted wide around the town, afraid to be recognized.

Moving down the boardwalk after Karen, Arthur and Tine both looked furtively around them, chins tucked into their shoulders. Tine had thought ahead; her conspicuous hair was tucked under her hat brim in a low bun, only a few strands loose. The five stood outside the bank, forming a semi-circle around Karen.

She took a few practice stumbles and tested out the line, "I'mfine, mister, I jus' need anodder drink."

"It's a thing of beauty, Miss Jones," Lenny snickered, and she beamed, proud of herself.

"All right, I'm going in. Get ready, boys, Tine." Karen resumed her wavering gait into the bank, and they heard her rambling cry: "Where is he? Wherrizzhe? Have you seen 'im?"

Next to him, Tine swallowed, her face serious. Arthur nudged her side, whispered, "You feeling left out, Teeny?"

The serious expression gave way to a small smile. "No, Karen's grand at this," she replied, "And this way, I get to be bad from the start." She pulled her kerchief up over her nose, her eyes twinkling at him.

Her statement temporarily staggered him and he shook his head just in time to hear Karen's tone change from inebriated to assertive, barking: "Get down on the ground and nobody move! This is a goddamn robbery!"

The four broke into the bank, several of the patrons already cowered on the ground, whimpering. Right in front of him, Lenny crashed the butt of his shotgun into the face of the man daring to stand up for himself, leaving Arthur to make for the grille that led to the vault. Karen caught a set of keys and unlocked it, and Arthur pushed through, seizing the mild-mannered teller he found on the other side by the scruff of his neck and forcing him through the office door.

"Open the goddamn vault," Arthur growled from behind his kerchief, the man trembling before him.

"You'd best listen to him," he heard Tine's clear, mocking voice to his left, her gun drawn and aimed at the man's chest. "He's an angry man."

The teller turned and began to fiddle with the large, golden padlock on the safe door, his fingers visibly trembling. "How are things going in there?" They heard Karen yell from the other room.

Tine leaned against the vault door, pointing her revolver right at the teller's face. He stopped, his eyes narrowing at the gun's muzzle, whimpering. "You want to tell my friend out there how things are going?" She said quietly, the menace implied and dripping from every word.

"I- I'm trying!" His yell turned into a croak, and Tine started from the door as if pinched, her eyes, meeting Arthur's, mirthful. He felt his own eyes crinkling despite himself; all of the fear and adrenaline buzzing through him joined by a strange, unfettered joy. But, they did need to move faster, and he slugged the man in his ribs, sneering for him to hurry up.

The vault opened with a metallic groan, and they abandoned the teller for the small room, Tine's eyes alight at the ordered rows of lock boxes, the riches within. Bill came in with the poor teller held by the neck, ordering: "Open these boxes now!"

"I-I don't know how, that's something the manager does..." the teller stammered, big, pearly tears streaming down his cheeks. Bill let out a guttural moan and smacked him, the man falling to the ground in a disordered heap, unconscious.

"Can you two get into these without Mr. Fancy-coat here?" Bill asked, scratching his head.

"Gonna have to," Arthur said, his eyebrows rumpled. A groan, the higher-pitched twin to the vault's from moments before, screeched to his right.

"Mmm?" Tine said, distraction in her voice, her arms elbows-deep into the first lockbox.

Arthur laughed. "Think we'll be just fine, Mr. Williamson," he corrected, moving to the opposite end of the row of lockboxes and pressing his ear against the door. As Bill stood guard at the vault's entrance, they moved methodically through the lockboxes; hundreds of dollars in cash in each.

Tine reached the centre box first, and Arthur leaned against the wall while she worked, his heart beating erratically at the thought of all of the money in the saddlebag draped over his shoulder. He felt a hit to his side, Tine's beckoning finger for him to look. The final box easily held thousands of dollars in cash, plus five gold ingots, neatly stacked one above the other. He looked from the box, to Tine, holding her cheeks in his palms before moving to fill the saddlebag in frantic sweeps of his arm.

The two walked slowly out of the vault, nodding to Bill, and then to Lenny, who had kept the front of the bank silent as a grave. Karen came in from the boardwalk, her chest heaving. "I think we're good," she said, looking between them all. "Follow me and let's get to the horses."

"All of you count to one hundred," Arthur gruffed, aiming his gun in a lazy circle about himself.

They proceeded after Karen on the boardwalk, back towards their horses, and were just steps from freedom when they heard a man's voice cry, "Good Lord! Someone's robbed the bank!"

"sh*t," Arthur hissed, stepping in front of Tine to fire on two of the local law that emerged from the Sheriff's, right across the street. He felt her duck under his extended arm before he saw it, returning the fire of two more who'd emerged from the alley they'd just crossed. Arthur grasped around her middle and pulled her briefly towards the horses, distracting her enough from her inclinations to stand ground and fight.

The five mounted their distressed horses and ducked low in their saddles, galloping out of Valentine, past its train station and headed east. It wasn't long before lawmen on horseback fell in after them, emerging as dots on the edges of hilltops and along the cliffs of Citadel Rock and then careening down in a hailstorm of bullets.

The Van der Lindes scattered wide, Tine falling behind to pull her longarm from her back to fire on an approaching pair. Then, Arthur heard the unmistakeable sound of a bullet whizzing through soft flesh.

Tine grit her teeth and bellowed through them, her eyes in a concentrated wince, spurring Darling on to get away. She sidled up beside Arthur and the pair crossed the train tracks as a locomotive blared its approach, the last two to leap the tracks and leave the lawmen stuck on the other side of them.

They continued to ride until they were concealed in a copse of trees, Arthur dismounting and grasping Tine's forearm, blood blooming through her right sleeve at the shoulder.

"I was only clipped, I'm fine," she murmured to him, trying to sound reassuring, though her breaths were short. His eyes searched hers and she insisted, "I mean it. I'mfine."

He forced himself to turn away and pull the saddlebags off Buster's rump, pulling out stacks of cash and pushing them into the attendant gang's hands. "Well done, all, Dutch is going to be real happy about this one. Good harloting as always, Karen."

She curtsied before taking the cash, a mischievous glint in her eye. "Good plannin', you mean."

"I've seen better," he rolled his eyes, slapping the last chunk of the take into Lenny's outstretched palm. "Now get gone, all of you,separately." He seized Darling's reins before Tine could, said more quietly, "Not you; I'm gonna have a look at that arm. Get down."

Bill, Karen, and Lenny rode off through the trees as Tine slid carefully down from her saddle, Arthur steadying her by the hips as she landed in the grass. With her unbloodied arm she removed her hat, the blonde startling in the bright day, wiped at the sweat dotting her forehead.

"Others are gone," he said, smirking at her, "you can start cryin' now."

She grinned even as her eyebrows narrowed. "Hush, you."

He led her to a fallen log, sat her down, opened the first few buttons of her shirt so he could better access the graze on her shoulder. A waft of her perfume rose from her opened collar, fresh-smelling, like clean linen. And a golden chain, revealed at her neck. He grasped it and pulled until the heavy coin hung upon it showed itself, held it aloft in his palm. "That was my father's, an old speciedaler from home," she explained.

Arthur peered at the coin, the unfamiliar king's face, the roaring lion on the reverse, language he couldn't understand even if it had been legible, nearly rubbed smooth. "Real sentimental of you, Teeny." He dropped the coin to grasp and untie his kerchief instead, pouring alcohol onto the cloth and pressing it into the wound, Tine sucking air through her teeth. He caught her eyeline again and chirped, "That's a brave Miss." She squinted at him as he tied the kerchief onto her arm, when he was done, finding his face inches from hers.

"Don't tease me," she said, and he hummed.

"Shouldn't dish out what you can't take." They stared at each other until Arthur broke off his gaze, gingerly pulling her shirt back up over the kerchief and helping her fasten her buttons, dropping the coin into her collar. He felt a charge between them, still holding the neck of her shirt.

"Thank you, Arthur," she said, and he swallowed, releasing her shirt, thinking of where the coin would naturally rest beneath it.

"Don't mention it." Once Tine remounted Darling, he pulled himself into Buster's saddle and clicked him into a walk, immensely frustrated and ever more confused about the woman riding next to him.

Chapter 14: xiv. Marriage and horses

Chapter Text

Two cups of steaming coffee in hand, John wandered to the lean-to, only to find neither Abigail nor Jack there. He looked about himself, taking in the camp in varying degrees of wakefulness, many of the women still in their nightdresses - though, that was as much a function of the oppressive southern heat as it was the hour. Beyond them all, on the rickety dock that jutted out into the lake, stood Abigail, her arms around herself as if shivering, despite the humidity.

"Coffee," he said by way of greeting, taking measured steps over the warped wooden boards of the dock; the lakewater murky, its depth indiscernible even this close to shore.

"Thanks," she said, taking the cup from him and wrapping it in her delicate fingers, venturing a careful sip.

"Where's the boy?"

There was a flash of happiness across her face, that he'd thought to ask. "With his Auntie Tilly, on the bay side."

John grunted his approval, not that he had much of a say. He took another cautious step so that he stood beside her, drinking from his own coffee.

Abigail peered at him, started briefly. He looked into her slate-blue eyes, the same as Jack's, concerned. "Sorry, John, it's the scars. Still getting used to them."

He ran a self-conscious hand along his cheek, tracing the wolf-drawn fissures in it. He'd been so long without a mirror, he'd forgotten, too.

"They don't look bad," she added hastily, granting him a tiny smile, which faltered. "I bet Tine likes them."

"Don't start that," he warned, his cheek heating under his lingering fingertips. Behind them, they heard Pearson booming away about some encounter he'd had with the O'Driscolls, and John did his best to focus on the trembling woman - his - before him.

"I'm sorry," her tone was genuine, and her eyes brimmed with tears; never John's strong suit. "I just- you're always out, now, and it's always with her, and..." Dutch and Arthur's voices could be heard, joining Pearson's, if echoed and garbled over the lake's surface.

John's eyebrows raised, and he pulled Abigail towards his chest, holding her there, surreptitiously looking over her head to the commotion on the land. "Nothing- nothing's happened between her and I on them trips, Abigail, I swear it."

"You ain't lying to me, John Marston," she said, somewhere against his sternum, but he felt her body expand and release, a sigh of relief.

Now Hosea joined the discussing men, his hands on his hips. John quipped: "Honest as the day is long."

"That ain't a saying," she pulled out of his embrace to bat at him, but she kissed his nose, after, an apology he knew he didn't quite deserve.

He broke away from Abigail, giving her a half-hearted salute before making off the dock. "Got to see what all the ruckus is about."

John wedged himself into their huddle just as Dutch said, "I'm as skeptical as any, but do you think there's even a slim chance it might work?"

Arthur scoffed "No shot" at the same time Hosea uttered, "absolutely not," the two united in their disbelief.

"What might?" John asked, feeling left out.

"Parley with the O'Driscolls," Pearson said excitedly, his eyes darting from one to the next, sensing John as an opportunity to win them over. John followed Arthur's lead, though, narrowing his gaze and spitting onto the ground.

"I think that's a no, Simon, but with thanks," Dutch said gingerly, patting the cook on the shoulder. He left the group, shoulders slumped, and the men watched after him for a few moments.

"Would have been a trap, anyway," Hosea murmured, before addressing them all more loudly, "Glad you've joined us, John. You all are horse thieving today while Miss Nilsen and I keep the Braithwaites distracted."

Arthur shot John a conciliatory look as John griped, "I'm part of this now?"

"And Javier," Dutch said, the tone in his voice one demanding obeisance. "As many of us as it takes to get that gold."

"It looks like we can get a lot for those horses, from a couple boys just over the way from here," Hosea explained, "Round about five thousand."

John looked at his feet, temporarily chastened. Hearing some of the women giggling roused him upright; Mary-Beth and Tilly each flanked Tine, emerging from where the women slept. As they approached the men, he could better see the lace dress Tine wore. He suspected they'd had it made just for the job, because it fit her like a glove. Her hair was just a shade darker than the lace, and done in a complicated plait by the girls, tied with a length of green satin ribbon.She really does look like an angel, John thought, the early morning sun igniting her hair, haloed around her face.

"What the hell?" He muttered as she joined them, waving a small, delicate goodbye to Mary-Beth and Tilly, already in character.

Hosea beamed. "My darling daughter, Tansy Matthews," he waved a hand in front of Tine, who batted her eyelashes, "we may just make a Braithwaite wife of you yet."

"You ain't serious," John said, his eyebrows narrowing dangerously.

"Always dreamed of marrying off to old Inbrediah Braithwaite, in search of a better life," she gushed, hands clasped by her heart, "to be finally free of these miscreants and n'er-do-wells."

"Enough," John gruffed, reddening again as the others laughed.

They made for their own horses, then, Javier falling into step with John and Arthur; Tine accepting Hosea's hand to climb up behind him on Silver Dollar, sitting sidesaddle.

Dutch had picked slowly after them, and he stood watching them prepare their horses, rubbing his chin. His gaze rested on Tine, who was doing her best to get comfortable in the unfamiliar riding position before they set off.

"Ain't you amorselin that dress, Miss Nilsen," he said softly, and John's head shot up from where he was fixing Old Boy's girth strap, as did Arthur's beside him, "Those Braithwaites don't know what's coming." Molly had been approaching Dutch but winced and changed course upon hearing his compliments, her apple cheeks reddening.

Tine only smiled at Dutch, then turned back, winding her hands around Hosea's waist. "Are we going, Papa?" She asked sweetly, and Hosea scoff-laughed.

Soon after, they were off, John, Arthur, and Javier trailing Hosea and Tine until they approached the Braithwaite compound, watched as Silver Dollar took his riders down their tree-lined front path. Even in the dappled sunlight John could see the little buttons tracing down Tine's spine, felt a needy pull in his stomach he'd told Abigail didn't exist, that very morning.

He wasn't alone. "Normally I know the devil behind that face but today, that dress..."
Javier whistled, then laughed. "I nearly forgot. Hosea is one lucky man."

John felt a sting of possessiveness, and perhaps, so too, did Arthur, his hands tight around Buster's reins, his jaw set.

They approached a gate on the edge of the Braithwaite property, a guard standing in front. Wordlessly, John edged Old Boy out in front of the others, not content with sitting back. "We're here after some horses, some fine ones y'all got," he said, after greeting the guard, the man's eyes already narrowed in suspicion.

"I ain't heard nothing about that," the guard replied, sneering.

"That's fine," John said, "Guess we'll take our business elsewhere. Be sure to tell Mr. Braithwaite we stopped by."

"Now, hold on," the man called after John, and he stopped Old Boy from turning all the way around. "Stable with the thoroughbreds is in back, head on down." The gate swung open and John tipped his hat to the guard, sneaking a smug look back at Arthur and Javier.

As they rode through the Braithwaite crops, the family manor loomed impressively in the distance. He pictured Hosea and Tine's twinned white heads, charming the woman and her idiot sons. The pair, Tine in that dress, faded from his mind as they approached the small stable, a frisson of fear in his gut at the impending theft before them.

"Hi, feller," Arthur called out to the hand in front, his voice friendly, as he so seldom wanted it to be. "Heard you're keepin' some fine horses for sale in there. Mind if we take a look?"

The hand looked suspicious, much as the guard did; the Braithwaites unfriendly and frequently hiring the same. "I do mind, actually."

"Don't think the lady of the house would be too impressed that her stablehand turned some serious buyers away, now," Arthur slid down from the saddle, his shoulders squaring just slightly, to show off his size. John had been on the receiving end of the gesture enough in his life to know that it worked.

"All right, then, follow me," the stablehand said, holding up his hands briefly. "You, and scarface and your greaser friend, there."

"Whoa!" Javier shouted, immediately rankled. As the stablehand introduced them to the horses: a big, blood bay; a white stallion; and a swift little black horse; the last of which the hand was describing when Javier slammed his fist into the back of the man's head, knocking him out cold.

"Bandanas up," John whispered, the three men covering their faces and each approaching a horse. Javier tied the lead of each of the three thoroughbreds to the pommel of his horse, Boaz, and they quietly mounted up, setting off at a trot so as not to arouse suspicion.

As they moved past the manor, John spotted Tine and Hosea seated on the back veranda, Tine's hand on his forearm and beaming at a sour old woman, the handle of a fine teacup pinced between her thumb and forefinger. Her eyes widened briefly as they passed by, and a guard began to follow her eyeline, but she immediately closed them and slumped forward, collapsing onto the porch. John heard the tinkling of breaking china as guards rushed to her aid, leaving them to pass by most of the property unharmed.

That was,most. As they circled around the front of the house, John heard a shout: "They're off with the horses!" and his gun was in his hand before he'd even thought to grab it, firing on the Braithwaites that were in pursuit.

They cut through the fields and then the adjoining forest, gunshots whizzing past John's ears, forcing him low in Old Boy's saddle. Thankfully, the three outshot the Braithwaite guard, and headed for the horse fences in Clemens Cove.

Arthur had groused to John one night by the fire that all of the Gray and Braithwaite work was little more than a headache, and this was no exception. The two fences - an odd pair of twins - took one look at the horses, knew they were stolen, and offered a paltry sum for them. The cash in John's hands felt like surrender, and he rode the short distance back to camp, his head hanging below his shoulderblades.

"Reckon even that parley would have been more fruitful," he joked to Arthur, who convulsed a single, bitter laugh.

They handed off the reins of their horses to Kieran to manage and John made immediately for the crate of beers by Pearson's wagon, ready for a drink.

Jack appeared around the corner, holding a small wooden horse that Hosea'd carved for him, for his last birthday. "Hi, pa," the boy said, shyly, waving from his hip.

John wiped the foam from his mouth and stuttered a greeting, "Oh, uh, hi Jack. What are you doing?"

"Playing with Auntie Tilly, but she's working now." Jack dug his toe into the dirt.

"Ah." He felt the heavy silence between them, himself and his supposed son.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked in turn.

"I was, uh, bringing some horses to their new owners. Me and your Uncle Arthur and Javier." Jack had seldom shown interest in him before.

"What kind of horses?" John knelt to be closer to Jack, and the boy nestled into him, obligingly, his head against John's shoulder.

"Well, there was a big brown horse named Cerberus, and a white one named Old Faithful, and a quick little black one called Father Time." John laughed. "Your Uncle Arthur had to chase him down."

"Wow!" Jack exclaimed, giggling, then, "Hey, pa?"

"Yes, Jack?"

"Which was your favourite?"

John hummed, the child's question a surprise to him. "Ain't sure. Suppose Old Boy's still my favourite."

Jack brightened, looked right into John's face. "He's my favourite, too." The statement clutched at John's heart, even more so when Jack turned his toy over, revealed the childlike inscription ofOLD BOYon the horse's stomach in wax pencil.

"Why don't we go see him?" The boy's face lit up still further as John took his hand, leading him over to the big Hungarian he'd grown to trust with his life. He lifted Jack and sat him on Old Boy's bare back, holding him steady with one hand while patting the horse's neck with the other.

Over by the campfire, he caught a glimpse of Abigail holding a hand to her chest, smiling through tears.

Chapter 15: xv. “Sober up”

Chapter Text

That damned dress.

Whatever hold Tine, in that lace confection, had had on the other Van der Linde men had seemingly passed, but it was killing Arthur. Since they'd stolen the Braithwaite horses, Tine in the dress was all he could think about; the wisps of white blonde hair encircling her face, how the garment skimmed along her figure, normally obscured by slouchy men's attire.

At his weakest, he even had a smoke near the dress by the clothesline, one quiet night when most of the gang had already gone to bed, surreptitiously grabbing the lace between his fingers. Arthur stayed up trying to capture the pattern in his journal by the firelight; drawing Tine in the dress would have been too damning.

His decision saved him; Tine crept up behind him, only announcing herself with a curious: "What're you writing?"

Arthur startled and slammed the journal shut in his lap, muttering, "Nothing." He rotated his shoulder in its socket; the horse he'd roped had yanked him nearly off his saddle, bothering it some.

"Sore?" She asked, still behind him.

"Mmm." Her hands were on his shoulders before he'd stopped humming, light yet deliciously warm, squeezing the muscles between them and his neck, her fingers massaging out the tightness he hadn't realized he'd been carrying. The touch was heavenly and Arthur closed his eyes, murmuring, "what're you doing to me?"

His eyes snapped open when he felt her nose burrow into his collar, smelled the liquor on her breath mingling with her perfume, her arms encircling his neck. He stiffened. Tine whined softly: "Let me be sweet to you, Morgan," the words were warm, moving the hairs on his nape, "I'm always giving you such a time, aren't I?"

Was this making amends? Or had she only found a more cruel way to tease him? Her lips whispered at his neck and he leapt to his feet, away from her, disturbing his shoulder anew.

"Sober up, Tine," he managed, scoldingly, and then excused himself to a fitful night alone, Tine left to stand by the fire, dejected.

Arthur woke the next morning late, yet determined to confront Tine about her actions the night before. A not-so-small part of him hoped she'd reprise her advances while sober, her mouth at his neck, hands trailing down his chest... But, merely validating that they'd happened would be enough. He found himself worryingly unsure, that her silhouette by the firelight as he retreated to bed was a fiction, something in his wild imagination.

But Tine was absent from the camp, as was the dress, missing from the clothesline. Present, however, was John, sat by the campfire with Jack on his knee. A welcome sight, that he was warming up to being a father.

"Mornin' Jack," Arthur greeted the boy, before looking to John, "You seen Tine?"

"Dutch has her working some Gray boys in Rhodes," John paused, then a dawning set upon him and he added, "you're supposed to be down that way too, something Bill's set up. He and Sean are waiting for you."

Arthur scoffed, but it was free of the scorn that he'd previously harboured for John. "Real detailed."

John held up his hands in his defence, then lowered one to steady a wavering Jack. "You expectin' more out of Bill?"

Arthur's grumpy expression broke. "Fair point." They grinned at each other and Arthur backed away towards the horses, Buster already saddled and ready for his ride into town.

*

"He's finished his beauty rest, then?" Sean chirped from the steps of the Rhodes bank, a repeater slung over his shoulder. Bill stood next to him, face scrunched with annoyance.

"You're late, Morgan," he said, once Arthur had dismounted and hitched Buster up, loped over to them.

"You didn't exactly give me a heap of notice," Arthur said back, squinting against the high-noon sun. Sean stood from his perch, performed an elaborate stretch, his hands hooked over the gun. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Down t'the saloon," Bill pushed off from the column he leaned against, began leading their slow procession down the street. "Sheriff Gray's hopin' to talk to us about some security job. Gonna pay real well."

Arthur stopped walking, eyes still narrowed as much from skepticism as they were the bright day. "You sure they're keen on working with us, again? Been givin' them a fair bit of hell this last month or two."

Bill chuckled, as if Arthur were being especially foolish. "They didn't know that wereus, Morgan."

"And they gave us that godawful tip about the Braithwaite horses being worth somethin'." Arthur added, looking around him, noticing several of the men slouched in doorways and leaning on balconies were more than casually interested in their progress.

"Could you can it for five minutes?" Bill retorted, raising his voice. "Never a word left your mouth that weren't a complaint."

Walking a few steps ahead of them, Sean turned back, an impish grin on his face. "Sometimes they're chastisem*nts, Bill, don't forget th-"

The rest of Sean's sentence was lost, as was Sean, the crack of a gunshot met immediately after with a bullet through his forehead, sending his body spinning to the ground.

"sh*t!" Bill shouted to Arthur's left, a bulletwound reddening his shirtsleeve. A third cut across the top of Arthur's left hand, a nasty graze that seared his nerves. He gave up on trying to draw his second revolver and dashed behind a barrel, his heart pounding, the tears that sprang to his eyes at Sean's death drying immediately in a rush of adrenaline.

"You OK, Bill?" He managed to shout from his place, eyes widening as the full impact of their situation became clear; the men stationed about the town all armed, all aimed at them, with more approaching on horseback in the distance.

Bill didn't respond, and Arthur took a galvanizing breath, running backwards towards the side door of the gunsmith's, firing all six rounds in his chamber and taking out as many men during his retreat. He burst into the building, tackling the man he found there and cracking his head against the register, killing him instantly.

Arthur crouched under the front window, breathing heavily, reloading his revolver with trembling fingers. He dropped his final bullet, startled, when the door swung open, flooding the dim interior of the store with light, illuminating the dust motes in the air.

And beyond them, in the dress, an angel come to rescue him. Tine crouched to the ground, handing the skittering bullet to him and then touching at his wounded hand gently. "You OK?"

Arthur nodded, then shook his head, croaking out, "Sean's dead." Her fingers moved from stroking his hand, to his cheek.

"I know," she nodded to him, frowning, her eyes sad. Outside, the thundering gallop of hooves built in their ears until it suddenly stopped, signalling still more Gray boys outside of the gunsmith's. Both of their heads turned toward the noise, but Arthur looked back to Tine, first, his injured hand on hers, still on his face.

"Don't suppose you have some handy ruse for this, Teeny?" He smiled lopsidedly, the thumping of his heart giving way to a calm resignation that they were likely to die where they sat.

"Got one I rather like," she winked back, picking up a pair of sawed-offs from the man Arthur'd laid out moments before. "It's called shoot them dead, every last one." Her eyes flashed dangerously, and in them, Arthur found his will to keep fighting.

So he followed her out, her arms stretched to their fullest, firing in both directions at the riders surrounding them; the impact of the shells knocking them clear off their horses. He caught what she missed; a man on the General Store roof with a rifle, two peering around the side of the mortuary, another pair knelt behind a wagon. Tine fired and reloaded in a fluid dance, always moving, a shot through one man meaning she was already finding her next.

Just as things had seemed hopeless, so suddenly were they calm; the red dust that made up Rhodes' main causeway a haze around their waists, the only indication that there had been horses galloping down the street, errant bullets skidding against the ground.

Tine surveyed the bodies, pressing two more shotgun shells into one of the guns. She looked back to Arthur, a relieved smile on her face changing to a look of confusion. "Where the hell is Bill?"

She was answered by the sound of a door flinging open; Bill held at gunpoint by Leigh Gray in front of his Sheriff's office, a few remaining gunmen rushing out onto the porch.

"Dammit, Bill," Arthur muttered.

"Miss Matthews?" The Sheriff asked, recognizing Tine and lowering his gun in surprise. It was the only opportunity Arthur needed, firing four clean shots through each of the men, Bill lurching from them down the steps.

The four congregated around Sean's body, looking down at the sorry state of him. Arthur felt a familiar hand on his shoulder.

"You're OK?" Tine's question sought to confirm, her eyes searching his, and he nodded, again. She smiled at him.

"See you at camp." She whistled, Darling appearing around the corner with a nicker of fury at all of the commotion and bodies to step over, and Tine mounted up, rode off.

"I'm fine too, Miss Nilsen!" Bill shouted after her, scowling, then to Arthur: "Where the hell did she come from?"

"She were in the Sheriff's, I guess," Arthur said, the image of Tine in white, standing before him at his most hopeless, burning in his mind's eye. "Don't know how she missed all that gunfire; next I knew she were in the smith's next to me, picking up some dead man's gun."And stroking his cheek, the touch of a lover.He swallowed. "Lucky for us."

Bill looked down again. "Not so for Sean."

"No," Arthur's voice went bitter, pulling him from his thoughts. "Not for Sean. Youidiot. Take him and bury him someplace." Bill opened his mouth to protest, but Arthur was already walking back to where he'd hitched Buster, winding his kerchief around his hand, wincing through the sting.

As he pulled the big horse into camp, he spotted John and Abigail over by Dutch and his tent; Abigail sobbing, the men looking grave. Tine remained where she'd hitched Darling, her eyes wide. Arthur sidled up next to her, nudging her shoulder.

"They heard about Sean?" He intoned, watching Abigail point a finger into Dutch's chest and bellow at him.

Tine shook her head. "No." Her voice sounded rueful, the first he'd ever heard it. "Those Braithwaites took the baby."

And Arthur looked around him, the realization that Jack was missing a second stone in his stomach, joining the one he carried for Sean.

Chapter 16: xvi. Red dust

Chapter Text

He'd only left Jack a moment.

It was an all-encompassing thought, buzzing around his skull as the Van der Lindes thundered down the road to Braithwaite Manor, their horses' hoofbeats no more than a dull, repetitive thudding. He'd gone to grab stew for them both, not more than two minutes away, and turned back to the boy gone. Abigail was bereft, and he could see it in her eyes; it wouldn't have happened if Jack weren't with him.

Arthur's massive horse passed on John's left, Tine clinging to Arthur's back in their shared saddle. She'd had no time to change out of the white dress she'd been wearing, but her guns and knife were slung around her hips, ready to fight.

John displaced his fury against himself with one against Dutch and Hosea; with every repeated invocation from one of them for him to remain calm. All of their gladhanding with these families had been for nothing, just Sean dead and his boy missing.

He followed them into the Braithwaite house once they'd cleared the front yard of men, Arthur behind him, his body tight with rage. John shot at everything tall that moved on the main floor, the men dead before they'd even seen him, shouting for Jack. Dutch and Hosea hollered from upstairs and John and Arthur made their way up. He'd never been one of the boys invited to Catherine Braithwaite's cribbage game and hadn't previously seen the lavishness of the house; mouldings gilded, frescoes of antebellum pastoral scenes, every surface laid with statuettes, or fresh flowers, or both. His blood boiled further.

"They've barricaded the door," Dutch grunted, then leapt aside as a bullet shot through the wooden door they were trying to force their way into. "Arthur, John, see if you can't get to it from outside."

As he and Arthur walked onto the wraparound balcony, John spotted Tine down below, the white dress and hair rendering her as a ghost, moving through the night. Her revolver in one hand and knife in the other, she carved her way through the Braithwaite men, their screams carrying on the air.

Arthur found the door and he and John shouldered into it as one, falling into the room and met with two of the Braithwaite sons, quickly dispatched. They cleared the way for Dutch and Hosea to come in and Dutch promptly went for the adjoining powder-room, hauling the Braithwaite woman out. She spotted her dead sons and began to wail.

"Where's my son?" John shouted, unable to help himself. Dutch looked to him briefly and then back to the woman, sneering down at her.

"Where is the boy?" He repeated, his voice icy.

She paused her wailing to glower at the men in the room. "He ain't here. Now where aremysons?"

"Every last one of them dead," Hosea said coldly, and Dutch began to drag the woman out by her hair, screaming and wailing once again. Hosea and John threw burning rags into the rooms and ran them along the walls, the house already beginning to fill with smoke.

The four men and Catherine made their way to the front, the rest of the gang in a semi-circle, looking every bit a collection of cutthroat killers. Tine stood at their apex, eyes sparkling at the violence before her.

Catherine recognized the dress, the woman, and shouted, "Tansy!"

"Mrs. Braithwaite!" Tine greeted back, uncannily cheery. "Or should I call youmomma?"

"Afraid we've killed off most of your marriage prospects, my dear," Hosea said, and the woman's moaning "nos" resumed.

"Reckon I took care of the rest," Tine pinched at the tip of her knife, smiled.

The fire in the house turned from a crackle to a roar as Dutch demanded, shaking Catherine by the shoulder, his voice overtaking the flame, "Where is the boy?"

"He's with Angelo Bronte, over in Saint Denis," Catherine seethed, her hateful eyes boring into them all. "If he isn't on a boat halfway to Italy by now."

It was barely anything, but enough to know that they wouldn't see Jack return safe that night, a sinking feeling in John's gut. Dutch released Catherine to run into her burning home and they rode back to camp, John slumped in his saddle, defeated.

Abigail ran to the men as they broke into the camp's clearing, the hope in her eyes diminishing with each horse's arrival without Jack seated at the front of it. By the time John trotted in, close to last, her face was screwed up in anguish, her eyes burning with the same fury that had fuelled John during their assault on the manor.

"We know where to look next," he said quietly, slipping from his saddle and reaching for her. She wheeled back from his hand, gathering her arms around herself, tears falling freely down her face. The rejection stung him.

Finally, she scathed, "Wouldn't even have been here if it weren't for you, with those damned sheep."

The guilt John already felt reached a boil, and he managed to sneer back, "you're still holding onto that, huh. OK."It doesn't matter what I do, he thought,I'll never live down my mistakes, back to the original sin of leaving when Jack was born.

So why not sin again.

John stalked toward the forest, spotting Tine beginning to remove her gunbelt by the scout fire. He seized her by the arm before she could, and dragged her along with him, her readily trailing along and the fury surging through him already making him hard.

They reached a small, treed enclave, right by the shoreline, and John kissed her, roughly, feeling his stubble catch and burn against her soft cheek. He could still feel the licking flames from Braithwaite Manor on his face, even though they were well away from it.

Ever practical, Tine pulled at the dress and said, "You'll have to help me with these buttons. Or should I just pull up the skirt?"

"I want it off," John growled into her throat around the lump in his.

"Then help." Her tone was mocking, egging him on.

"Oh, I'll help," he muttered, pulling the knife from her belt and sliding the blade up the placket, buttons popping off in different directions, littering the forest floor with ghostly white dots. The front of the dress hung loose and he pulled it forcefully from her arms, sliding it down off her hips and into the red dust, and then throwing Tine down after it, ruining them both.

She was a sight, sprawled on her back, open to him. The gold coin Tine wore between her breasts sparked a sudden memory, or maybe an absence of one; when was the last time he'd seen her naked? He joined her, stripping off his jacket, jeans, union suit.

John knelt between her legs and spat onto the pad of his thumb, rubbing roughly at her cl*t. Tine squirmed under his hand, chasing more contact. He delivered, plunging two fingers into her and pumping them a few times before pulling out, drawing a whine from her that he silenced by stuffing them into her mouth, forcing her to taste herself.

Tine sucked dutifully on his fingers as he stroked himself, gasping around them as he lined up and pushed into her, grunting. He pulled his hand away from her mouth to rest beside her head, instead, holding himself over her as he f*cked, mercilessly, not building a rhythm but starting at his fastest, desperate for release.

He could feel her gasping for breath under the weight of his chest, watched his dark hair commingle with hers, squeezing his eyes shut against the strands tangling together. John felt Tine's fingers trace the scars along his cheek and his eyes snapped open. He seized her wrist and pinned it to the earth, growling, "don't touch me like that."

"You were crying, is all," she said, the sound of her voice uncommon during their trysts, and unsettling as a result, as was the truth that he'd been crying without knowing it.

He felt his co*ck soften by half and sat back on his haunches, quivering, leaving Tine empty. She propped herself up on her elbows, squinting at him.

"Yeah, well, what," John stammered, thumbing another unbidden tear from his eye. "What kind of animals would take an innocent little kid?"

Tine's squint softened, her pupils huge in the dark. She pushed herself up to kneeling and wrapped her arms around John, holding his head against her shoulder. The deep sadness within him welled to the surface and he choked out a sob, buried his forehead in her collarbone.

She held him for a long time, then murmured, "come on, we're filthy." She held his hands in hers and stood, helping him do the same, and then led him into the water, a siren leading him to doom.

But she was especially kind to him, cupping the water in her hands to pour over his hair, the red dirt blooming off their bodies. Tine stepped to John and slid her hands around his waist, resting her temple against his chest, his heartbeat calming in her embrace.

Finally, a respite from the heat.

Chapter 17: xvii. “Another thing to steal”

Chapter Text

The morning after their ill-fated ride on the Braithwaites, Arthur was rudely awakened by another enemy of the Van der Linde gang; one with decidedly deeper pockets.

The faces of the two Pinkerton agents were as familiar as they were unwelcome, the very same two he'd been confronted with while fishing with little Jack, back in New Hanover. Their sudden appearance was jarring after the loss of Sean and Jack's kidnapping.Bad news comes in threes, he supposed.

Arthur looked to the twin, angry statues that were John and Tine for support, stood next to each other with their elbows identically bent, hands hovering over their guns. Also identical; their normally-straight hair - John's dark, Tine's light - with an unkempt waviness to it, signalling it had recently been wet.

Arthur clued back into the tense conversation between Dutch and the two agents, Milton and Ross, just as his leader - rather insincerely - bid them good day. Lenny stepped forward to usher the pair out and Dutch called, "Arthur, John, to me, please."

Arthur witnessed a brief brush of Tine's fingertips to John's upper arm as they passed each other; John, to Dutch, and Tine to stalk after the Pinkertons making their slow way out of camp, ensuring they really were gone.

"We need somewhere new to live, and fast," Dutch said, his face grave, and Hosea's filled with worry next to it. "You boys have been here and there this past while, anywhere we could go?"

Arthur wracked his brains, thinking to the handful of makeshift campsites he'd shared with John and Tine; suitable for three, not their twenty or so. Outside of camps... "There was some old plantation house I been through with Lenny, had some of them Lemoyne raiders in it, east of here. Has a house we could sleep some of the women in, and a decent-sized lawn, besides. Close to water."

"It'll do just fine, sounds like," Dutch nodded quickly, his eyes shut tight. "You two head off and we'll pack and meet you there."

Arthur saw John's mouth open in protest, but he seemed to think better of it, pursing his lips and pulling himself away for his horse, choosing to voice his concern when the pair were on the road, instead.

"We should be going after Jack," John said, trailing after Arthur and Buster, who were leading the way to the house.

"Soon as we get to the house I'll head on to Saint Denis, John, look for him," Arthur soothed, glancing over his shoulder. "This new place is right by the city, if my map is right." John spurred on Old Boy until he rode beside Arthur, offering him a grateful smile, one that faded immediately when Arthur asked, "Where were you and Tine last night?"

John's face reddened, and he looked down at the loose grip his hands had on the reins. "I washed up."

"So did she, by the looks of things," Arthur tried to keep the accusation out of his voice, but was only somewhat successful.

"Yeah, well," John's head was completely turned away now, his address to the old civil war battlefield they passed. "I don't control what she does."

Arthur loosed a bitter laugh. "You have me there," he said, under his breath. They were quiet the rest of the way, and Arthur was glad of the task of clearing the plantation house of the few Lemoyne raiders that remained there, sparing him from having to dwell on their painful silence.

He and John were throwing the last of the dead raiders into the gator-infested creek that abutted the property when the gang's wagons began to trundle in, Dutch beaming from the front seat of the lead wagon. The leader hopped down and spread his arms wide, clearly elated by the grandeur of the house, even if it had fallen to ruin.

"Well done, Arthur," Dutch crowed, striding forward to clap him on the back. "I think we could really make a home here, and by we, of course I mean Miss Grimshaw." The statement was made for Susan to hear, standing behind him, and she smiled for a brief moment before barking orders to the girls, putting them to work.

Arthur leaned forward to speak more quietly to Dutch; "I've got to get into the city, see if I can't find out anything about where that Bronte is, with the boy."

"A fine idea," Dutch gave Arthur a grim nod. "I'll join you, want to see the look on your face when you see the city for the first time." There was a whiff of playful cruelty in his voice, which only reminded Arthur of Tine, who he soon spotted pulling a crate off of the back of a wagon.

"I'll bring Tine, too," he said, whistling for Buster and having the horse trot after him across the lawn. "Hey," he greeted her, once he was closer, seizing the crate from her and setting it onto the ground. "Going into the city to see if we can't turn up Jack." She nodded to him, and then to Dutch, who was leading his own horse The Count.

"Dutch!" A voice cried from amid the swarm of gang members working to turn the old plantation into a functioning camp. Molly emerged from them, distress clear on her face. "I was hoping to speak with you."

Dutch shook his head, waved his hand around it as though he were annoyed by a swarm of gnats. "Not now, Molly," he said, firmly, pulling himself into his saddle and nudging The Count into a walk. "More important things to do." He didn't see her face fall, her agonized clutch at her stomach; but Arthur and Tine did, and traded looks.

They broke free of the tangled forest that made for the border of their new camp, riding along the easternmost edge of Caliga Hall, the Gray's estate. East of that, on the other side of a swampy waterway, rose an assemblage of smokestacks and tall buildings; the southern entry point into the city of Saint Denis. As they got further into town, and factory workers gave way to the busy commercial district, Arthur watched Tine's eyes as they grew saucer-like. She looked at all of the wealthy, distracted people meandering along the street, ripe for the taking, her hands twitching on Darling's reins.

Dutch caught Arthur observing her and chuckled richly, startling them both from their twin reveries. "Tell you what, Miss Nilsen," he said, once his laughter had worn off. "You turn up this boy, and I'll bail you out, personally, of whatever trouble you might find yourself in, robbing these rich folk. You can rob the goddamned mayor, for all I care."

Tine smiled. "Yes, Dutch."

Dutch nodded, pleased. "I'm going to take my leave; make tracks, you two." Arthur and Tine watched The Count pick his stately way back down the street, until they were distracted by a relentless dinging.

"Move!" A voice joined the noise, and Arthur and Tine turned to find the angry face of the trolley operator, waving his arm dramatically for them to get their horses out of the street. They obliged, but only after Arthur fixed the driver with a deadly stare, hitching their horses and making their way through the town on foot.

Arthur and Tine continuously split and reunited as a massive current of people flowed against and around them. As thrilled as she'd looked while safely on Darling's back, Arthur sensed Tine was slightly overwhelmed, one hand resting on the handle of her knife, shoulders up by her ears. He motioned for her to join him down an alley and she followed readily, her body relaxing, spine straightening out, arms returned to hang at her sides.

Though much narrower than the street, the alley was less claustrophobic with fewer people around, the fever pitch of hundreds of conversations a dull hum, here. The balconies above them were limned in cheery pink flowers, massive, dark red hibiscus beamed at them from planters set on the ground.

They passed by two well-dressed ladies, Tine staring brazenly at their silk purses, dangling from dainty chains off their wrists.

"I know what Dutch said," Arthur murmured, bending down so she could hear him. "But keep your hands to yourself."

"They'd never know," she whispered back, smiling and offering a friendly wave to the women. Their eyes glanced over the two armed outlaws and hurried along, little heels clacking on the cobblestone path.

"They might," he said, more stern.

Tine grinned wickedly, holding up his billfold. "You didn't." As he swiped for it back, Arthur marvelled that this would have infuriated him a few short months ago. Now, shoving the returned billfold deeper into his back pocket, he only wondered how her fingers were so deft, his easy smile belying an intense curiosity.

"You think things are off between Dutch and Molly?" Tine asked, the two of them alone in the alley, now, walking at an unhurried pace.

The question gave Arthur pause; Tine rarely showed interest in camp's goings-on, and he himself had little interest in Molly O'Shea, which he felt no guilt about, given that the same could be said for the woman and any of the rest of them. "Don't know that they was ever proper on," he said finally. "Dutch loved one woman that I ever seen, and she died. Now, I reckon he just sees 'em as another thing to steal, to win."

"Do you share that opinion, Arthur?" Tine's tone aimed to tease him, but he noticed she'd stopped walking and stood behind him a few paces, looking at him with interest.

He retreated back a few steps and leant over her, until her back found the crumbling alley wall. Arthur curled his finger under Tine's chin and tilted her head to look into his eyes. "Understand something," his voice was low and made dangerous, and his finger caught a minute tremble in her jaw. "If you're my woman, you're mine, that's it. Ain't something to win, or lose," he leaned in further still, to hiss into her ear, "but to worship."

Colour blossomed across Tine's cheeks and her pupils dilated into black pools ringed with icy blue, and Arthur took that moment to push off from the wall, sauntering down the rest of the alley with a spring in his step.

"Hey!" She called after him, and he swore he could hear the fluster in her voice. He smiled to himself.Two can play the game she started.

Arthur saw two little feet scamper around the corner, and the smile faded from his face, remembering their serious errand. "C'mon," he beckoned, ushering Tine back out into the crowd, a protective hand on her shoulder. "We gotta find Jack."

And after three days of bribing and interrogating, they did. Or his captor, anyway. One Angelo Bronte, at whose lavish mansion - doubtlessly filled with expensive items - Arthur took one look and reminded himself;best leave Tine at home for this one.

Chapter 18: xviii. Friendships, new and old

Chapter Text

Days passed without Jack, and still, Abigail hadn't spoken to him. It was a uniquely cruel thing, that they were grieving together, and yet, apart.

But John understood her anger, understood her better than he ever had. The only thing that thrummed within him was raw desperation to get his boy back, whatever the cost. It was devastating to sit with, and while Abigail cried in the arms of Grimshaw or one of the other women, John sat concealed in the curtains of Spanish moss that hung from the trees bordering their new camp, drinking himself numb.

Ever loyal, Tine sat with him in the evenings, after she'd returned from her sojourns to the city, searching for Jack. She nursed a beer while he drank, his head inevitably sinking into her lap, momentarily soothed by her fingers picking gently through the tangles in his hair. It was the only comfort she could spare, and he took it.

It was one such night, the swamp bugs deafening in the ear that wasn't pressed against Tine's clothed thigh, her fingernails dragging along his scalp, that she said it: "We found that Bronte, Arthur and I."

John wavered to sitting to squint at her, his vision whiskey-blurred. "Is Jack with him?" The question was simple but his delivery wasn't, the words sticky in his mouth.

"We don't know," she replied, her hand on his shoulder, steadying him. "Reckon you'll find out tomorrow. Dutch is going, too. Wants a look at the crime king of Saint Denis."

"You coming?" John's head dipped in an effort to peer closer into Tine's eyes, and she pushed up on his shoulder again, held fast.

"If you want me there, I'll be there," she said, matter-of-factly. John slumped forward, then, too fast for her to stop him, a dead weight draped over her neck.

The next morning, John vaguely remembered the warmth of her chest pressed into his, her soothing hands on his back, but not when she'd extracted herself from him, nor how he'd ended up on one of the small settees in the front parlour of the house. He didn't have time to puzzle it through, because Arthur was nudging him in the ribs with his knee, grumbling, "wake up, Marston."

"Gimme a minute," he mumbled back, the sun unforgivably blinding. Through the throes of his hangover he could make out Arthur's impressive silhouette, straight-backed and square, and he felt doubly pathetic, cramped on the settee, his shirt untucked and stomach exposed.

Arthur huffed. "I'll meet you there, Dutch's already waiting for your dumb ass. Flavian Street, on the west side of the city."

John's hand covered his eyes, minor relief from the sun and Arthur's disappointment. "Flavian Street, west side, got it." He listened for Arthur's impatient boot strides to leave the house, then heaved himself up to sitting, bearing the brunt of his dizziness all at once.

He gulped down a cup of coffee and splashed cold water on his face and neck, a bracing distraction from the punishing sunlight. John felt a gentle tap on his shoulder.

"You're upright," Tine's teasing voice preceded his turning to see her, but even in recognizing it he was unprepared for the light reflected off of her hair, blinding him.

"Aw, sh*t," he squinted his eyes shut, stumbled a few feet backwards. "Hey, Tine," he managed, once he'd regained his footing.

"Still want me along today?"Oh.He'd forgotten that he'd asked, but he realized he could tie Old Boy's reins up to Darling and ride blind, and what a blessing, in his state.

"You bet," he grimaced a smile, his eyelids fluttering with the desire to stay closed. "Let's go."

*

John had the good sense to stop Tine and untether his reins from her horse before they pulled up on the leafy park that sat across from Bronte's mansion. He'd sobered up some on the ride over, lain on his stomach on Old Boy's broad back, his head lolling against the side of his horse's neck.

Sober enough that he could sit upright in his saddle, greet Dutch and Arthur with a tip of his hat. Dutch smiled at him from where he had assumed all of the trappings of a man of leisure; sprawled comfortably on the broad stone steps of the park, a cigar poised between his fingers. Arthur, much more conspicuous in the wealthy suburb, leant against the wrought-iron fence but stood up to pitch the end of his cigarette into the greenery, co*cking an eyebrow at Tine.

"Weren't expecting you," he said, bypassing John to meet her, descending from her saddle.

"John asked me along," she said casually, tying Darling's reins to the decorative hitching post by the entrance to the park.

"This is delicate as it is, Teeny," John heard Arthur hiss, saw Tine's small smile at his seriousness, "you wait outside."

"Fine by me," she said. Tine stopped to pick up a fallen branch and, unsheathing her knife, began to strip it of bark, her face one of utter, placid contentment.

John couldn't ask her to come in, now. He skulked by Old Boy's flank, peering out at the armed men surrounding the house from under the brim of his hat. He felt a warm, broad hand on the flat of his back.

"It's going to be just fine, son," came Dutch's soothing baritone, the hand leaving and returning to his back a few times, thumping his whole body. "Just follow my lead."

Of course, Dutch's lead was one laced with bravado and designed as much to fuel the man's ego as it was to retrieve the boy, and John felt a low, simmering anger start to build within him; the same he'd felt on their ride to the Braithwaites. Dutch's grandstanding had gotten his boy kidnapped, after all, and just now, an escort-at-gunpoint into the house, to be presented before Angelo Bronte and his guards like the spoils of a particularly lucrative hunt.

He felt a pang of guilt at his momentary ill-will toward the man who'd raised him, supposing Dutch didn't know another way. All the same, he wished it were just he and Arthur, or better, he and Arthur and Tine. He admired Arthur's tendency to quiet, all of the man's words deliberately chosen, carefully delivered. And Tine... well, her confidence mirrored Dutch, but she was just as likely to laugh when insulted, as opposed to drawing iron.

But John needn't have worried, because just then, before him, Bronte was clapping Dutch on the back, laughing raucously. "Oh, my cowboys, dispense of your seriousness, and have a drink with me, hey? To new friendships."

A crystal shotglass was placed into John's fingers and he stared at it, bewildered, before looking into the clever, dark eyes of the crime boss before him.

"New friendships!" Dutch boomed happily, raising the glass to the air and then bringing it to his lips.

"'Friendships," John mumbled along, downing the drink. The clear liquor burned through his nostrils but went down smoothly after that.

"Grappa," Bronte said, grinning at John's expression, and Arthur's beside him. He settled down onto his chaise and motioned for the men to sit opposite him, which they did, crowded onto a small sofa. The crystal glass in John's fingers was of a part of the opulence all around him; brocade curtains and throw pillows, a large oil painting hung on the wall in a gilt frame, dark, exotic wood furnishings.

"So, uh, as I was saying," Dutch said, slightly awkward from his place, squished in next to Arthur. "Can my friend here-" he paused, reached his hand forth "-have his son back?"

There was only the briefest moment where John saw a darkness descend on the crime boss's face, before he beamed a smile so genuine, he swore he could have imagined it. "Of course!" Then it was relief, flooding into him. John heaved a deep breath and it was like the first he'd ever taken.

"Well, that's grand," Dutch said, the relief in his own voice also apparent. "Where is he?"

"He's safe in the house, I assure you this," Bronte replied, waving his hand, dismissively. "Though you understand that releasing him to you means I'm out a significant amount of money. I'd hope these capable men here could help me mitigate those losses?" He gestured toward John and Arthur, and Dutch followed his hand, sneaking a glance at them both.

"I'm sure they could help you, yes," Dutch said, hesitancy limning his voice. One of the guards by the window stepped forward to whisper into Bronte's ear, and he looked to the window and then to the three on the sofa, an incredulous grin growing on his face.

"You didn't tell me you had more outside," he said, "a woman, no less. Who is she?"

Dutch chuckled. "Why, that's one of our associates. She'll help get this job done."

Bronte hummed, considering it. "Very well. There have been some grave robbers of late in the Saint Denis necropolis. No respect for the dead, and little for the living, either. If you could put a stop to them, I'd be willing to forgive the debt owed to me."

As swiftly as they'd been threatened, then welcomed into Bronte's house, John and Arthur found themselves back on the street at dusk, urging Tine on after them towards the cemetery on the northern edge of the city.

"So we're grave robbing," Tine said, pulling Darling up next to John and Arthur, riding side-by-side along the road. The trolley dinged in protest and she sighed, heavily, surging ahead of the men, still unused to sharing the street.

"We'restoppingsome grave robbing," Arthur stressed, stern. His expression softened when he looked over to John. "You OK, John?"

"Let's just get this over with, get the boy back," he huffed, slouched in his saddle. As dreadful as his present task sounded, it was one he understood, and for that, he was thankful. No more buttering up a slimy crime lord with empty words; John was sent to kill someone or someones, and kill he would.

The trio hitched up their horses and made their way into the cemetery, just as the last few shafts of sunlight disappeared behind its western wall. They came upon an old woman grieving her husband, a stray dog, and then, a couple hunched between two graves, going at it. Tine snickered loudly, startling the pair, before moving on.

They heard a faint clang of metal further down their row of graves, and Arthur put a finger to his lips, beckoning them to follow him. John crouched next to Tine, the pale stone graves lit yellow - and her white-blonde hair, too - a contrast to the blue-black sky above them.

"There's three of them," Arthur whispered, so quietly that John wondered if he'd mouthed the words, and he'd imagined his voice. On his other side, Tine drew her knife, rising from her crouch and padding around the gravestones to the man on the right.

He was overly focused on lighting a cigarette with an uncooperative lighter, and didn't see Tine creep up beside him, plunge the knife blade into his neck. Arthur rushed the second man, smacking his head against a grave and dropping him to the ground. The third man, deep in the crypt, turned with shock clear on his face, and John fired on him, his bullet catching the man square in the chest.

Tine moved in with her own gun drawn to check he was dead, then nodded to her companions.

"Good," Arthur whispered, "let's go." John watched him offer his hand to her to help step over the fresh corpse in the path, which she took with a depraved giggle. The three scurried out to their horses, far and away from the sound of John's lone gunshot, and rode back to Bronte's.

John half-imagined, with dread in his stomach, that this would be the first of many tasks Bronte would assign before he was given his boy back, if he even still had Jack at all. So his heart leapt when he spotted the boy, waiting out front next to Dutch, in a strange, foppish little outfit.

"Pa!" Jack cried happily, his little legs pumping to meet John.

"Jack!" He barked, jumping from the saddle and rushing to meet the boy, sweeping him into his arms and lifting him up, cradling his small, tawny head in his hand. "Am I glad to see you. You all right?"

"Yes, Pa," Jack said, clambering to sit on Old Boy's saddle, John climbing up behind him. He heard Dutch recount his evening to Arthur and Tine behind him, but couldn't be bothered with the details, his son very much alive and in front of him, a little miracle.

As Jack told him about his time with Bronte - certainly odd-sounding to John, with words he'd never heard before and the child's use of the endearment "Papa Bronte" - his relief grew that nothing beyond the kidnapping itself was untoward or concerning. He clutched at Jack's shoulder with his free hand, as if to dispel his dark thoughts on how much worse things could have been.

It was a sign, to him; much clearer than any other he'd ever seen. John would be a better father, and he wouldn't stray again. Seeing Abigail's face light up as they rode into camp, mended anew, only served to confirm that pledge. She grasped the boy to herself and reached out for John's hand, squeezing tightly. His heart felt whole.

The gang erupted into cheers and drink, each member passing by to clap John on the back, tousle Jack's hair. John looked on after Javier, who'd stopped playing his guitar to grab another drink, and spotted Arthur, a gallant motion of his arm, waving Tine into the house.

Chapter 19: xix. “All this other stuff on”

Chapter Text

The gang needed this; a win. Arthur smiled to himself as a returned Jack was hoisted onto John's shoulder, danced around his aunts and uncles in the yard, all of them beaming effusively at the boy.

Arthur had needed this, too; a chance to go back out with John and Tine, to accomplish something tangible, and within their realm of capability. He looked down at his hands; ones that had killed that night, sure, but also ones that had found him and his brother success. After all of the lofty and unrealized dreaming that surrounded the Gray and Braithwaite work, it felt good to return to what he knew.

Two warm, slender hands appeared in his own, running along his palms before snatching away. "Were you ever lost in it," Tine remarked, smirking at him.

"Just glad we got him, is all," he replied, moving his hands to assist him in affecting a deep, casual lean, the pair of them watching the festivities from afar on the wide front porch of the house.

Tine pulled from the bottle of whiskey the two had been handing back and forth. Swallowing, she murmured, "John looks happy." Arthur followed her gaze, watching John swing Jack down from his perch on his shoulder and into a wide circle, the boy screeching in delight. Nearby, Abigail held her hands to her mouth, alternately joyful and concerned. When John set Jack onto the ground, he pulled her to him by the waist, kissed her deeply amid the gang's raucous cheering.

Arthur had grown so close to Tine and John, the three of them together, that he'd forgotten his two companions had once been a pair. He still didn't know what kind. He observed Tine carefully, watching for any sign of disappointment or hurt on her face. But she only looked contented; amused, even.

All the same, he'd had enough to drink that he was done with sharing her attention, wanted her to himself. He leant down to speak into her ear: "You want to get out of this ruckus," so low that the question became an order. He watched goose pimples rise on the back of her neck, before her hand hastened to cover them.

Even in the dim light of their late evening Arthur could see the colour on her cheeks as Tine turned to look at him. "Lead the way," she said, her game tone at odds with her flustered appearance, "I've got something to show you."

She sounded conspiratorial, and he felt the heat rise to his own face, an urgent lurch in his stomach. He made a waving motion with his arm -after you, I insist- and then followed Tine into the old house, up the stairs, into his little corner bedroom. Tine looked with some interest at the map on the little wooden work table, tracing her finger along an erratic line that Arthur recognized as marking Horseshoe Overlook to Colter to Blackwater, and then back north, to a town he'd never been called Gillette.

The silence, and their distance, was suddenly unbearable, and he stepped toward her, leaned over her right shoulder to watch her finger progress along the map. "Quite a night it's been," he said, then cursed himself for making the very kind of non-statement that usually invited a wicked taunt from Tine. But she turned around so that she faced him fully, smiling.

"We were grave robbers, Arthur," she said, the excitement in her voice mirroring the glint in her eyes, "a whole new kind of robbing."

He chuckled. "Tine, we was stopping grave robbers." She looked sheepish, then, a rare expression for her and as such, much more endearing to him to witness. From her pocket, she pulled out an ornate, jewelled comb, its gems catching, sparkling in, the limited light.

"Tine," he tried to sound stern, but failed, a second chuckle bubbling up in his chest. "When'd you get that?"

"In the crypt." In response, Arthur took the comb from her, brushed some of her hair back behind her ear, pushed its teeth into the ghost blonde strands until it stuck. She watched him with wide eyes, lips parted.

"Work fast, don't you," he said quietly, arranging her hair to hang in front, a light brush of his fingertips to her shoulder. She hummed in response, the sound stuttering in her throat.

Arthur glowed inwardly at her reaction, moved his fingers to grasp delicately at her chin and push it to one side, saying, "let me get a better look at this comb, here."

The gems cast a pattern of coloured points of light on Tine's hair, her breathing loud and quick into his hand on her face. "How's it look?" She managed, glancing into his eyes, their pupils both wide in the dark.

"Hard to tell," he said, pinching the shoulder of her shirt between his fingers, "all this other stuff on." There was a moment where she froze and Arthur's heart sunk to his ankles. But her fingers moved to her placket, swiftly opening the buttons, obliging him and then going further, removing her gun belt, pants, undergarments; a bloom of perfume joining the sight of her unclothed.

He couldn't help himself, skimming his hands all over her body bared to him. It wasn't perfect and unblemished - as he'd imagined that night in Colter - but scarred; nicks and burns here and there, a deep, puckered line on her abdomen. He traced his fingers along her injuries just as she had the map, her breathing heaved under his touch. Arthur's hand travelled up between her breasts to palm the gold coin that hung there, then over to thumb a pink nipple.

She moved, then, to place a gentle hand on his neck, his own breathing grown ragged. "Teeny," he breathed, closing the distance between their bodies and clutching her to him, their mouths meeting in a desperate kiss. It was his first in a long time, hot and wet, his tongue tangling with hers to taste the whiskey they'd drunk, the cigarettes they'd smoked, and something else - licorice, herbal - that was only Tine.

Arthur bent to lift Tine by the thighs and dropped her to sit on the map, smack in the middle of the Heartlands. She reached for his belt buckle but he tutted, grinning wickedly. "In good time," he whispered in her ear, trailing kisses down her neck and chest, swirling his tongue around a peaked nipple and then continuing down, sinking into a chair before her and spreading her knees open to him.

He felt her hands rest on his shoulders and his head shot up to check her expression, afraid she wanted him to stop. But she was only steadying herself, even nodded toward him. He marvelled inwardly that he'd finally found the thing to make Tine quiet.

Arthur kissed her stomach and along the tops of her thighs but couldn't bear his own teasing for long, already achingly hard in his jeans, drawn to the blonde thatch between her legs and what lay beneath, her sensitive bud under the tip of his tongue. She squirmed immediately at the contact, and he eased one of her moving legs over his shoulder to get more access to her, wet and intoxicating, saturating his beard.

He felt her body tremble above him with every expert swirl of his tongue, her fingers bury into his hair, nails biting deliciously into his scalp. Tine was still almost silent, save for a small whimpering that grew pitched as she pulsed against his mouth, her body curling over his head, scratching along his back as he coaxed out her release.

Tine loosed a nervous, almost incredulous laugh, unhooking her knee from his shoulder, looking down at him. In her eyes lay a challenge, and Arthur grinned again, wiping her from his beard. "I ain't finished if you ain't," he said. In response, she seized his collar in her fist, kissing him hungrily as they both worked to rid him of his clothing; Tine loosing his belt from its buckle, Arthur unbuttoning his shirt.

Stripping down took Arthur less than a minute but it felt like an age until he could lift Tine again, her chest pressed against his as her arms encircled his neck, switching places so that he half-sat on the table with her straddling him. He felt a pleasurable warmth as his co*ck slowly breached her entrance, Tine sinking down onto him; their position the safest in his current state, he much too desperate to be in control.

But he soon found she did as he would have, riding him with careful, languid movements so that he felt her slide along his full length, tight around him, that same whimper building in his ears. "Good girl," Arthur choked out in praise, and he felt her clench as she came again, panting, clutching to him while he thrusted upwards, chasing his own release. He squeezed his own eyes shut as he came, burying his face into her shoulder, pressing a single kiss to her throat.

Tine climbed off of him and made for her discarded clothes but he grasped her wrist, tugged her toward the cot. He crawled in backwards and pulled her to do the same, even in the prickling heat, her back held against his chest, the coin in his fingers, his lips at her ear.

In the early morning, he woke to see Tine mostly dressed, the comb left on his table, reading a letter he'd left on the shelf. She noticed him looking at her and held it up.

"You've been summoned, I see," she said, her voice foreign to him, like he hadn't heard it in years. He slumped back down into the pillow, Tine's perfume still faintly present there.

"Yeah, uh, Mary," he grunted, forgetting that she'd asked to meet him in the city, a shapeless and dull prospect after the previous night. He watched Tine with bated breath, fearing her reaction.

But her expression was placid, encouraging, even. "It doesn't matter, Arthur. Go see her."

Even with Tine's blessing, Arthur found plenty of excuses over the week to delay his reunion with Mary, most of them revolving around the two of them and that room. The house was unbearably hot in the daytime and usually empty as a result, so they'd steal into it then, the sweat rolling from their bodies as they f*cked, clung to each other.

Tine watched from his bedsheets while he dressed in a tuxedo Trelawny had procured for him, Arthur set to go to a party at the mayor's house that Dutch had arranged with Bronte. "I look ridiculous," he groused, peering into the cracked and desilvered mirror hanging on the wall. Her face appeared behind his, on tiptoe to hook her chin over his shoulder.

"I like it," she purred, nipping his earlobe and then returning to the bed, igniting something in him that he was frustrated he didn't have the time to pursue.

His ear burned en route to the party in their borrowed carriage, Dutch, Hosea, and Bill giddy with laughter and champagne, equally dressed for the event.

"Maybe we should've brought a lady along," he said aloud, and the men stopped laughing, looked at him with interest.

Dutch broke the silence with another roar of laughter. "You think Miss Nilsen could keep her fingers out of rich folks' pockets?"

"Wouldn't have to've been her," Arthur protested, hoping the men couldn't see his cheeks burning in the dimly lit carriage, feeling caught. "What about Molly? She's a high-society type."

Dutch's expression soured, his laugh abruptly stopped. "Like we need her bad attitude spoiling everything," he said, an anger turning his voice into a growl.

There was no more time to discuss, nor unpack Dutch's spoiling feelings towards Miss O'Shea. They'd arrived.

Chapter 20: xx. Family man

Chapter Text

In Colter, delivered to Abigail's embrace in pieces, John had been reunited with his family. Before then, outside of Blackwater, too; hat in hand, Tine in tow.

But bringing Jack back from his kidnapper, the rambunctious, joyful celebration the gang'd had with John, Abigail, and their boy at its core on Shady Belle's expansive lawn: he felt like part of a family, instead of just beholden to one.

That night of the party he'd slept in the room upstairs with Abigail tucked into him, Jack in his little cot on the floor; and they'd done the same every night since. John began to beg off jobs - some kind of boat heist Trelawny'd been planning, as if this gang hadn't had enough trouble on boats for one lifetime - in favour of camp duties, to stick by his son, his woman.

Serving as a guard almost daily as a result, he frequently saw Arthur and Tine gallop off, en route to something. But no jealousy, no itching trigger finger befell him.

Because he was on guard duty so often, John also had the misfortune, a couple of weeks after the party, of being the first to see what had happened to Kieran. His head was clumsily detached from his neck, held in his dead hands. After Kieran, he spotted a swarm of O'Driscolls, moving through the treeline and onto the property.

As John took cover behind a wagon and began picking off enemies, shouting for Abigail to take Jack into the house, Tine and Arthur rushed to join him. Some things had to stay the same, and he was glad of their support.

"Ain't too many," he remarked, ducking as a bullet whistled over his head. The O'Driscolls must have been hoping for prolonged shock value with what they'd done to the unfortunate Kieran, because their numbers were few.

"It's that Mrs. Adler hunting them down, I'd wager," Arthur replied, thumbing bullets into his gun, then chuckling: "Remind me to stay on her good side." John vaguely remembered the blonde woman who'd skulked around the cabin in Colter, hardly imagining her able to lift and fire a gun. But he hadn't been so effective himself, then, either.

Just as soon as it had started, the gunfire abruptly stopped. Dutch sprang from the house and bellowed after a final O'Driscoll who'd begun to run off, clutching his hat to his head with one hand and holding his britches up with the other. Tine smiled devilishly at her companions and stood just as he was due to pass, swinging the butt of her gun forward and letting the O'Driscoll break his own nose on it.

He collapsed to the dirt, red blood spurting through the fingers wrapped around his broken nose. Tine sat on his chest, stopping his writhing with her knifepoint at his throat.

"Please," he stammered, his voice muffled through his blood-stained hand, "Spare me, I'll work for you, I'll do whatever you ask."

Tine was unmoved, the Van der Linde gang surrounding the pair on the ground. "That boy you beheaded worked for us, too. You want to groom horses and shovel sh*t for the rest of your life?"

"Yes, please, I'll do anything." His voice wheezed slightly, Tine sitting heavy on his sternum.

She appeared to think for a moment, then frowned again, looking to Bill. "Reckon we should geld this one, so as not to take any chances."

Bill grinned. "I'll get the tongs," he made to scurry away from the gang huddle as the O'Driscoll under Tine moaned, fresh tears streaming down his cheeks. Tine slapped him.

"Stop crying, Jesus," she snapped, then pointed behind her, to where Kieran's corpse had been lain, his head carefully placed close to his neck. "Who did that?"

"Weren't me," he blurted, "I always liked Kieran."

Tine grimaced. "And yet, here you are, riding behind him while he's looking like that." The O'Driscoll opened his mouth to defend himself, argue, something; but he was cut short, Tine's knife plunging into his neck, killing him quickly. "That's enough," she muttered, wiping the blade on the dead man's shoulder before rising from her spot.

Dutch chuckled darkly. "I admire your candour, Miss Nilsen, but we could have asked him where Colm was hiding."

"Just like we asked Kieran, you mean?" She countered, moving to stand between John and Arthur, who'd watched the scene with little more than indifference.

Dutch regarded her for a moment, his keen brown eyes flitting between Tine and the dead man on the ground, and then Kieran behind them. "Fair enough," he said quietly, before turning to the group at large.

"My friends, my dear, loyal friends," he said, his voice assuming its tenor of grand address; throaty, warm, and imposing all at once. They were immediately silenced, only the gentle sniffling of Mary-Beth to be heard among them. "We need to go somewhere where our problems-" and here, he pointed at the O'Driscoll "-can't follow us.

"But more than that; we need to go somewhere where we can bewho we are. I'm afraid that place is no longer to be found in America. Paradise awaits us, should we only go to seek it. Australia, Tahiti - it is my intention that we leave for one such paradise before the Pinkertons, or any of these remaining, unfortunate bastards-" Dutch nudged gently at the dead man's ribs with his foot "- return. I know you all have been working hard, and we need to work harder still, to make the money we need to find our utopia. I trust in each and every one of you to get it done."

"Yes, Dutch," the gang chorused, several of their eyes impassioned, hands resting on pistol grips or held to chests.

Quieter, Dutch leant into Arthur, Tine, and John, and muttered, "Clean up the damn lawn, get that boy Kieran proper buried."

John elected to stay in camp and dispose of the O'Driscolls, and worked for the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon, dumping bodies into the marshy creek that ran beside the property, watching the alligators feed with a turn of his stomach as he did so. His shirt was drenched with sweat by the time he was done, and he dragged himself into the dilapidated mansion and up its creaking staircase, to the room he shared with Abigail and Jack.

He'd just peeled his old shirt off when he heard a distinct whimper, out from under the bed. John's gun flew into his hand by habit; he dropped to the ground to find two glittering green eyes peering back out at him.

"Miss O'Shea?" He remarked, surprised to find Molly hiding there.

"Is it safe out there?" She asked, her lip quivering.

"Long safe," he replied, returning his gun to its holster, reaching a hand forth to help her out. But she remained there, in the dust under the bed he shared with Abigail.

"Dutch abandoned me," she said, her voice a whisper. John sat back on his heels, scratching behind his head, before lowering back down to look at her. He heard footsteps and glanced towards the door, seeing Abigail come in, a curious expression on her face.

"It's likely he knew you was safe up here, Miss O'Shea," he said, using Molly's name to bring Abigail up to speed.

Molly shook her head, furiously. "I wasn't up here," she stressed, tone just shy of complete panic, "I was outside. Had to find my own way, through the bullets."

Abigail sunk to her knees next to John, offered her own hand to Molly. "How awful," she said soothingly, looking between Molly and John. "Come on out, Miss O'Shea, it's filthy under there. I'll get you a coffee."

Molly stared wide-eyed at them both, as if considering whether or not to live underneath their bed forever. But she grasped Abigail's hand and allowed herself to be pulled from the darkness, accepting Abigail's gentle half-hug, a sisterly rub of her shoulder. "That's it, good girl," Abigail said, looking back to John before leading Molly from the room, a supportive hand around her waist.

John followed them onto the landing, listened to them descend the steps. When the creaking ceased, he heard low voices from Arthur's room, and crept over to investigate.

Seated on Arthur's bed were he and Tine, deep in conversation, their noses almost touching. Arthur noticed John first, and looked almost perturbed to see him, standing in the doorway. Tine followed Arthur's gaze and grinned, looking up and down at John's bare torso. He scowled, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Come in, John," she invited, beckoning him with a casual wave of her hand. "We were just discussing this latest plan."

"What, you mean 'paradise'?" John asked, crossing the room to lean on Arthur's map table. "Tahiti, or whatever?"

"Exactly."

"Well, what about it?"

Tine looked momentarily cross, her eyebrows furrowed. "I don't want to go to some Podunk tropical island in the middle of nowhere, is what. This southern hellhole is bad enough." Now that she'd said it, John clued into how the humidity outside of Saint Denis did seem bad for Tine's constitution: instead of her usual stillness she constantly fanned herself, her heart-shaped face flushed, beads of sweat at her temple.

"We funded any such trip, wouldn't you say?" She continued, looking imploringly at both of them.

"Sure, most of the money in that pile's from us," Arthur started, but Tine interjected, her face fierce.

"Then we should get a say in how we use it."

"Teeny," Arthur said, John picking up on the warning tone he too had been subjected to for much of his life.

Tine turned away from him, her pale eyes again fixed on John. "We know what old faithful here's going to say," she said, clapping Arthur's back and winking. "But what about you, John?"

John looked between Tine's shrewd expression and Arthur's troubled one, scratching again at the hairs on the nape of his neck. "I, uh," he mumbled, settling on staring at the ground. "I just want to do what's best for Jack, whatever that is."

Tine let loose a single laugh in surprise. There was a groan from Arthur's old mattress as she stood, sauntering toward John on her way out the door. "Excuse me, family man," she teased, her hand momentarily hot on his bare shoulder, "I had no idea."

It was the kind of taunt he would have risen to before, maybe even chased after the confident sway of her hips as she made her way out of the room, but he found he had no appetite for it, content with his again-easy partnership with Abigail.

Instead, he looked to Arthur, and the two men shared an indecisive shrug.

Chapter 21: xxi. “You spying on me?”

Chapter Text

Arthur squinted at the man stumbling off in the distance, trying to determine if he were merely drunk or sneakily perceptive. An urgent tug on his sleeve pulled his attention back to the woman he leaned into, against a Saint Denis factory building.

"I think it's safe, Arthur," Mary Linton said, "let's not lose daddy, now."

Mary's eyes were as deep and enchanting as he remembered them to be, and yet, he was unmoved. He pushed himself up off the wall to stand, the motion triggering a recent memory of him doing the same after Tine had pulled him by his suit collar into a heated kiss in a deserted corridor, on board the Grand Korrigan.

She'd been radiant that night, in a green dress Josiah Trelawny had found for her - "Don't lose this one in the dirt, Miss Nilsen," he'd admonished, the lace dress wrecked beyond repair - and the pair stole away whenever they could. They felt the thrill of being doubly caught by their fellow gang members and the rich socialites they were hoping to cheat out of a poker game, both.

Mary's beauty hadn't changed, Arthur thought, loping behind her shapely figure, picking her way over the cobblestones, trailing after her father. It was the need she had, a lot of it. Maybe he'd loved being needed, before. Tine, on the other hand, was raw want; the two of them desperately ridding themselves of their wet clothes after they'd jumped overboard in a hasty escape, mere moments after they'd said their farewells to Josiah, Javier, and old Strauss; Tine's body fiery hot against his even as cold water dripped from her hair.

"I don't believe it," Mary hissed, pointing forth, shaking Arthur from his reminisces once again. "That's mama's brooch he's selling."

Arthur nodded, dully aware of what she wanted of him. He pushed up the sleeves on his new black shirt - a gift from Tine, "you look too much like a yokel in this other one," she'd said, and then with a twinkle in her eye, "so take it off" - and clenched a fist.

"Best you return that brooch, Mr. Gillis," he said, lowly, stopping the man from his progress into the small, dusty shop he was due to enter.

Mary's father turned, his eyes widening in surprise before they settled on an expression of disapproval, his lip curling decisively down. "It looks like my daughter's consorting with riff-raff again, I see."

"Ain't the one about to pawn off an heirloom, friend," Arthur replied with a roll of his eyes, stepping forward and squaring his shoulders. For most men of Mr. Gillis' size and age, this was enough. But most men of his size and age were not also at his degree of drunkenness, and he swung an unwieldy haymaker at Arthur's cheek.

More annoyed than injured, Arthur let loose a growl of frustration and returned the punch, catching Mr. Gillis true in the jaw and sending him spinning to the ground. The brooch skittered away by a few feet in the dirt and Arthur made to retrieve it, brushing it off and handing it to Mary, who scolded her father even as she dotingly held his arm. Arthur felt left out, rubbing the sore spot on his face where the man's punch had landed and wondering what else Mary might need him for.

As it turned out, just one more thing. They meandered their way from Mr. Gillis toward the trolley station, Mary on Arthur's arm. She stopped short and looked to him, a small smile on her full lips, "I have some time before my train," she said, "wouldn't suppose you might like to see a show with me?"

Her big brown eyes were hopeful, needing him to say yes. He looked into them, feeling his heart softening. But then, he saw beyond them to Darling's unmistakable mink coat, and Tine stood before her with her hat pulled low, cigarette illuminating her co*cky grin.

"Uh, no, Mary, sorry," he said clumsily, giving her a perfunctory kiss to her cheek before stepping off from her, watching Tine flick away her smoke and pull herself into the saddle. "I best get back."

He whistled for Buster and nudged him into a canter, giving chase, Darling's white tail streaming in the wind ahead of him a beckon. Darling was a quick, agile little horse, but nowhere near a match for Buster's long, effortless strides, and Arthur was soon at Tine's side, riding down the willow-lined road out of the city.

"You spying on me, Teeny?" He teased, grinning at her.

"Thought about it," she replied, smiling back, "but just dreadful boring. Watched some plants grow instead." He mock-scoffed and pulled up to let her ride ahead a few paces, her hair in a long braid down her back swishing in time with Darling's trot.

Tine, then Arthur filed into the camp at Shady Belle, dismounting after passing John at the guard post, and then on foot, past Grimshaw smoking by the dilapidated, dry fountain, Strauss doing his accounts on the front porch. They were in the front foyer of the house, eyes adjusting to the dim light, when they saw Molly bellow at Dutch on the stairs, heard her run up them, saw him sigh and follow.

"sh*t," Arthur muttered, Tine's expression matching his frustration, each of them separately hoping no one would be in the house. But her eyebrows jumped in surprise, and she snuck a surreptitious look behind her before grabbing Arthur's hand and tugging, pulling him towards the back door and out beyond it, then releasing his hand, walking a few paces in front of him towards the rear of the property.

"Where we going?" He stage-whispered, taking careful steps as the land grew more marshy, more prone to suck at his boots. Tine didn't reply, just continued to lead him to the small cottage that half-sat on stilts next to the creek, up its sagging front steps, through its front door.

If the inside of the main house was dim, the cottage was nearly dark; sunlight peeking in through its boarded-up windows and orange and treacly as a result. A single cot sat in the corner, fastidiously made.

"This is Strauss' place," Arthur said slowly.

Tine nodded, moving to him, her hands resting on his chest. "And he isn't home."

Their situation, Tine's unsound cleverness, dawned on Arthur all at once, and he grabbed at her ass and flung her backwards onto the bed, her squeal of surprise breaking off in its middle.

Arthur kissed down Tine's neck and breasts as he exposed them, unbuttoning her shirt, gooseflesh rising in the humid air. He unbuttoned her fly and removed the fasteners on her suspenders, sliding her pants down off her hips, Tine a willing supplicant, lifting them to help him along.

He stood momentarily to kick off his own pants, co*ck leaking and at rapt attention at the woman before him, squirming for contact. Arthur kissed her again before lining himself up with Tine and driving home, relishing her quiet gasp as much as he did the feeling of her around him. Her legs snaked up under his hips, pulling him repeatedly to her, setting a rhythm.

"So damngood," he growled, into the strands of her hair glowing preternaturally in the low light, into the hollow of her neck. Tine only whimpered in response. He pushed himself up on his arms to meet her eyes, pupils massive, lips parted, face flushed. "Speak up for me," he ordered, though gently, caressing her cheek with his roughened fingers.

Tine's mouth parted wider, her breathing grew more heavy. "A-Arthur," she stammered, and he felt her legs tighten still further around him, pulling him in deeper. "f*ck."

He felt her clench around him, then, a series of pulsing waves that triggered his own coming, spilling into Tine and then out onto Strauss's bedspread. The pair of them eyed the mess and then laughed, mercilessly, Tine's hand to her mouth, Arthur shaking his head.

He used his shirt to wipe off himself and the bedding and kissed Tine's cheek, muttering that they should each leave separately. Arthur left the cottage first, blinded by the full daylight but invigorated, heading for his room to retrieve his old, clean shirt.

Whatever spat that had been going on between Dutch and Molly had been resolved - or at least, concluded - as the door to their room was open and beyond it, Hosea was sat alone on a small stool on the room's private balcony.

"That you, Arthur?" Hosea called, and Arthur found himself drawn to him, fastening his remaining buttons.

"Would be," he replied, stepping over the threshold onto the balcony, and leaning with one elbow on the railing, grinning.

"Why son, you look like the cat who got the cream," Hosea teased, a knowing glint in his eye. Arthur felt pink rise in his cheeks and he shrugged. "Supposing seeing a certain Mrs. Linton today might have something to do with that?"

Oh. He could hardly believe it'd been the same day. "Yeah, I seen her earlier today." He said carefully, rubbing at his mouth. He smelled Tine's perfume on his fingers and pulled his hand quickly away, a motion Hosea's keen eyes followed.

"And how is she?"

Arthur laughed, a bitter, singlehaw. "Fine, same as usual. Needin' me to do the dirty work that kept her family against me in the first place."

Hosea looked rueful. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't bother me anymore," Arthur said flippantly, drawing a cigarette from his pack and placing it between his lips. Unbidden, he thought again of Tine, who'd nicked a silver cigarette case from a passenger on the Grand Korrigan not three days' hence, right before the man's eyes, without him knowing. It was just the type of thing that would impress Hosea, and he recounted the story, hearing the excitement in his own voice.

But Hosea only peered at Arthur, his eyes narrowed. "You know, Arthur," he said, his words careful, "you told me that story already."

"Oh, I did?" His pink cheeks grew hot, and he covered them by lighting the cigarette, finally, dangling from his lips. Hosea nodded. "Ah, sorry. Forgot."

Hosea remained still, his mouth opening and closing a few times, as though he were trying to figure out what to say.

Finally, he spoke. "Do you remember when you ate Susan's birthday cake? You were maybe fifteen, sixteen at the time. You'd never had anything like it, and you just didn't stop eating."

Arthur chuckled. "Yeah, I remember. Sickest I ever was. Still don't have a taste for cake."

Hosea joined in on Arthur's laugh and then stopped, his face sobering. "I'm worried our Miss Nilsen is a bit like that."

Arthur darkened, cluing in too late. He stared at Hosea, troubled and bothered by the man's sad expression, before his concentration was broken by Dutch, joining them on the porch, beaming at them both.

"Think it might be the time to take on that Trolley station Bronte told us about," he said by way of greeting, joining Arthur to lean on the railing. "Supposed to be a lot of money for the taking."

Hosea finally broke his stare away from Arthur's face, swung his head to look at Dutch. "I thought we were going for the bank, Dutch?"

"In good time, my old friend," Dutch was genial, clapping Hosea on the shoulder. "We'll see what the station yields us and go from there; we'll need plenty to get out Tahiti way." He turned to Arthur and continued, "what say you to taking Lenny along on this?"

Arthur nodded readily; if he couldn't have John with him, he preferred working with Lenny on any job with a potential firefight attached, the young man's keen eyes always welcome.

"Good," Dutch said, pleased. "Maybe we send Miss Nilsen in too, our plant in the station." He guffawed. "I like that 'heroes' trick she pulled with you boys on the train, think that could work here, too."

Arthur watched Hosea bristle at the mention of Tine's name. He burned from within, the subtle judgement he felt from the man resting uneasily next to the soaring high he'd felt with Tine moments before. His mood curdled, and he made sure to hold Hosea's gaze before responding, slowly and coldly, "I think that's a great idea."

Chapter 22: xxii. Night and day

Chapter Text

Not without a fair bit of effort on the part of John and Abigail; Jack had finally fallen asleep.

"What if the O'Driscolls come back?" The boy had said, fearfully, his little hand protective over his own throat. The motion tore at John's heart; he squeezed forcefully at Abigail's shoulder until she prised his fingers back and held them instead, a comfort.

"You're safe right here, my sweet Jack," she soothed, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Me and your pa ain't going to let nothing happen to you." Her stare, meeting John's, was fierce, provoked an urgent twinge in him.

The pair waited for the fluttering of Jack's eyelids to cease, his fawn-coloured lashes resting long on his round cheeks. They watched for the heavy rise and fall of his chest. John helped Abigail to standing, and they crept backwards from the room, out into the darkened hallway. The doors to Dutch and Arthur's rooms were each shut, so they proceeded to the small sitting room at the corner of the house; still much larger than their old tent had been.

Abigail's fingers trailed along the wine-coloured crushed velvet settee, expertly missing the spots balded by hungry moths; John waited by the door, apprehensive despite the casual lean he'd affected in the doorframe. The length of the chaise completed, Abigail peered out the window, murmured; "Camp's just about gone to bed."

John sidled up next to her and dreamed of sliding his hands around her hips, burying his nose in her collar; but while things had been much better between the two of them, they hadn't re-crossed that particular threshold, yet. He settled for humming his assent, instead, his fingers perched on the windowsill, glancing away from Abigail's graceful neck to what lay beyond the leaded glass.

Just Karen remained by the fireside, pulling deeply from a bottle of whiskey. So much had happened - happened to them, in particular - since Sean had died, he'd nearly forgotten. John just clued into what his death must have meant for the woman outside, teetering on a stump, the notes of the sad old song she was singing muffled through the window.

"Penny for your thoughts," Abigail said, smirking at him. He was pulled from his musings, returned her smile.

"I want to see that penny, make sure you're good for it." Abigail's grin grew more mischievous; her fingers resumed their trailing, this time up John's arm.

"You accepting other kinds of payment?" Her hand left his arm to cup his face, the delicate pad of her thumb stroking across the scars slashed into his stubble. Then, almost to herself, "these are real handsome on you."

John closed the gap between them, his own hand to the back of Abigail's head pressing her into his kiss. She whispered a moan into his mouth, provoking a stirring in his co*ck, an increase in the speed and desperation of his movements.

He lifted Abigail unprompted onto the sill, a free hand suddenly available to tear at the buttons of her blouse, exposing a breast to the room. John's teeth found her nipple and he bit down, until he found her hands pushing against his forehead, forcing him off.

Abigail was panting, pulling her shirt back over her reddened breast, the crescent of John's bite briefly visible in the moonlight. "You be sweet with me, John Marston," she whispered, and he hung his head.

He felt her soft palm at his jaw once again, tilting his head up and out of his shame, his green eyes finding her blue ones, softened. He'd been unpracticed in sweetness, but those eyes promised to show him the way.

*

When John awoke, the sunlight golden and filtered by the leaves of the big willow outside their window, he spotted Abigail snoring quietly mere inches from him, her nose adorably scrunched. His heart ached; how he'd missed these quiet moments with her, how he'd lost so many of them to years of sneaking around.

His shoulder was sore; a happy complaint from the woman nestled into it. John felt his arms wrapped around Abigail as strong and capable; he tensed his forearms as if in anticipation that he'd need to use them to protect her.

He remembered, involuntarily, a similar embrace from when he'd first returned home, Abigail weeping into his chest with relief, her fingers buried into his hair grown long in his year away.

And then, through her sniffling: "Who's this?" He'd broken from their embrace to look back to Tine, who looked around with mild interest at the camp in Blackwater and the various gang members scattered about.

"This is, uh, Tine Nilsen, a friend, someone I've been running with," John had stammered, feeling the immediate cold as Abigail broke off their embrace. She stepped cautiously to Tine, offered her hand.

"Abigail," she'd introduced herself. "Thanks for protectin' this idiot, being a friend to him." Tine took Abigail's hand and shook it, as the two women sized each other up. Abigail forced a chuckle. "Under all them gunslinger trappings, you sure are pretty, Miss Nilsen."

Tine beamed, then, and even in their short time together John had known it meant something wicked was coming. She leaned into Abigail, held the woman's extended arm by its elbow.

"John certainly thinks so."

He didn't know how Abigail'd ever forgiven him.

But she had, and awoke just then to kiss his nose, prompting an explosion of feelings in his stomach. Things were different now.

"Jack up?" She asked, squinting at the boy's empty cot.

"Looks to be," John replied, disentangling himself from Abigail. "You stay in and rest, darlin', I'll go fix his breakfast."

He rose from the bed and pulled a pair of jeans on over his union suit, then his discarded boots from the floor. He seized his hat from its peg by the doorframe and jammed it over his mussed hair on the stairs leading down to the campground, where the gang was already milling about, a nefarious hive of worker bees.

By Pearson's wagon, he saw Jack bolt down the last few bites of his porridge - fixed for him by Hosea, maybe, or Grimshaw or one of the other women - and then fling himself from his seat, ready to play. John was thankful the boy's fears of O'Driscolls waiting in the wings had largely subsided.

"Here." He'd been so fixated on Jack that he hadn't seen Tine's approach, a second cup of coffee held out to him.

John took the cup with a nod of thanks. "Morning."

"And to you." She leaned against the wagon next to him, its shade welcome in a heat that was already punishing for the early morning.

John took a bracing sip of the coffee, grimacing at its bitterness. "So, uh," he began, "I know I've said this a few times before, but, uh."

He squirmed against the wagon, finding it impossible to get settled. Tine stood exceptionally still, looking out at the lawn.

"No more us," she said.

"Yes."

The shadow of a smirk crossed her face. "Arthur'll have to do."Arthur?He felt a bloom of rage in his chest, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught her pupil swivel toward him, judging his reaction. She was testing him.

John snorted into his cup. "He strikes me as a cuddler, might be good for you."

Tine's pale eyebrow arched, she sniffed a laugh. But beyond that, a silence hung over them, heavy and thick.

He cleared his throat. "You get it, though?" He said, his throat slightly pinched. An angry or spurned Tine would only make things difficult for him.

"I can see you've hung up your spurs to play house," she said, the hint of a sneer in her voice. But the sneer was absent when she said, genuinely, "I really hope it works for you."

The relief moved through John, a release of breath knocked from his lungs. His fidgeting ceased. "Thanks."

John and Tine watched Jack gambol around the yard, tearing up handfuls of the wildflowers that grew at the lawn's fringes. A bouquet gathered, the boy presented them to a nearby, sewing Tilly, who made a big show of accepting them, her hand to her chest and gushing over the blooms. Jack blushed, his emptied hands clasped behind his back.

"He really is a sweet little darling," Tine said quietly, a smile growing on her face. "Understand why you think he isn't yours."

"Enough, Tine," John mock-scolded her, a smile on his own face. Their conversation couldn't have gone better from where he sat, and yet, a niggling fear remained in him, that devoting himself to his family meant an end to it all; sitting and laughing with Tine, planning jobs. She'd been the only friend he'd had for some time, and he wasn't prepared to let her go, completely.

Tine lifted herself from the wagon and stretched, tossing her cup into the washbasin, its splash breaking John free of his thoughts. "I've got to go get dressed for this trolley thing," she said, patting his shoulder and making for the house. "See you later."

Chapter 23: xxiii. “What the plan were for all of us”

Chapter Text

Arthur awoke to the gently waving willow fronds dappling the sunlight in the empty space next to him, where Tine had been. He was hardly a late sleeper, but it was rare that he caught her getting dressed or slinking out of the sheets, let alone leaving the little room they increasingly shared.

Just as soon as he began to contemplate what that might mean, she was back, sidling between the door and its jamb, closing it quietly behind her. The blue travelling suit she favoured for robberies was bundled in her arms, the matching felt hat balanced on top.

"Mornin'," Arthur grunted, and she smiled at him from her place in front of the desilvering mirror, her flyaways alight in the sun.

She unbuttoned her shirt and slid the suspenders from her shoulders, eased her pants by the waistband to the ground. Arthur waited until she stepped out of the pants and slunk out of the bed to stand behind her, pressing his chest into her back, trailing his fingers along her shoulder and gathering her hair as he went.

"This really has been something, you and me," his voice was a low rumble, still gravelled from sleep. She hummed in response, stood taller so that his lips made contact with her neck, and he kissed it in kind.

Arthur slid his hands down her hips and pulled her backwards to him, met her eyes through the mirror, heavy-lidded. "Maybe we should tell the gang."

He watched her eyes widen, briefly, in their reflection. "Tell them we're f*cking?" He laughed, once, and then nipped her shoulder, a warning.

"Ain't just that, is it?"

"f*cking and sleeping?" She'd said it with a wry smile, as if to invite him in on the joke, but he felt frustrated, and pulled away from Tine to sit on the bed, rubbing at his face.

He felt her fingers wrap around his own, pull his hand back, held his jaw in her palms to meet her gaze. "Why don't we tell them once we have all this trolley money? We should have enough by then to break from the rest."

"Bre- Tine, we ain't leaving the others." His hands were around her wrists, and he squeezed them once.

"Yes, weare," she stressed. "We're not going to Tahiti."

"It's what Dutch thinks is best. I ain't going to start questioning him now." Arthur could hear the weariness in his own voice, and, by the shrewd look in Tine's eyes, figured she could, too.

"Don't you ever take a minute to think about what's best for you, Morgan? What do you want to do?" A wolfish smile overtook his features and he reached down to pinch her bare ass, hard. She stifled a shriek, tsked at him.

"I'mserious."

"'Bout time you was," he said, still chuckling. But she stared at him until he relented, his expression growing pensive. "Ranch someplace, bring horses up, I don't know. That's what the plan were for all of us until this Tahiti business."

Tine scoffed. "Doubt there're even horses on that island that weren't brought over. Just a tropical graveyard for all of us to die in."

"Teeny." Arthur's tone was scolding; he glowered at her from where he perched on the cot. Tine stroked his cheeks with the back of her hands, made little soothing noises.

"You know I'm right," she said, straddling him, wrapping her arms around his neck and forcing him to do the same around her waist, lest they lose balance.

His nose was buried in the crook of her neck and though he'd sworn he hadn't taken his eyes off her, she'd reapplied her perfume. He was drowsy with it, devoted. Loyalty was such an intangible quantity when compared to the warm woman in his lap, pressing kisses against his ear. He groaned, burying his nose into the scent of her.

"Whatever you want," he whispered, the words pulled from him. She drew backward to search his face, then kissed him once and stood, returning to her task of dressing.

The room was humid - always humid, in Lemoyne - but Arthur felt a chill from her sudden absence, pulled the sheet around himself. He watched Tine pull on a chemise, then button a white blouse over her torso; step into the long blue skirt; thread her arms through its matching jacket. She wound her long hair around a pin and forced it into a knot, and then pinned her hat to perch upon it. The lady before him stood straight and turned his way, smiling. She tucked one of her revolvers into a handbag and sunk her knife into the skirt's waistband by her spine, its handle concealed under the hem of her jacket. He couldn't forget she was deadly, too.

"See you there?" He offered weakly.

Her smile faded, tears gathered in her eyes. "Please don't kill me, mister," she whispered, her tone theatrical. The grin returned, and she stepped forward to press a kiss to his cheekbone before sweeping from the room, a waggle of her fingers the only goodbye he'd get.

*

Arthur linked up with Dutch and Lenny in Saint Denis, in an alleyway facing the trolley station. Tahiti was clearly front of mind for more than just Tine; Dutch spoke excitedly about how he'd already found a boat captain who'd take them all aboard, the trolley money hopefully enough to fund their passage to the island.

"You bringing The Count?" Arthur asked, absentmindedly, distracted by the front of the low-lying building where he'd seen Tine, slouched before her horse, a few days hence.

"Bringing him where?" Dutch's heavy eyebrows sat low over his eyes, scrutinizing Arthur, who startled into presence.

"Nevermind," he mumbled, his mind swimming in what Tine had said about Tahiti and horses. She never read, and showed little curiosity in the world outside of what was ripe for the taking; what could she know about the tropics? Arthur tied his bandana around his neck in preparation for the robbery to come and nodded to Dutch.

Dutch stared after him for another moment, then held his hand over his own bandana, looking between Arthur and Lenny. "Don't know why I'm about to preach to you both, my choir," he chuckled, clapping them each on the shoulder. "Do what you do best, boys."

The three pulled their bandanas up over their mouths and noses and walked quickly across the street, drawing their guns at the entrance to the trolley station and bursting their way in, Dutch in the lead.

"This is what we'd call a robbery, ladies and gentlemen!" He said by way of greeting, his voice booming in the little waiting area of the station and inviting instant chaos, well-dressed women and men alike falling over themselves to get to the ground.

Arthur scanned the crowd for a shock of blonde hair as the woman next to him moaned, "no, not again!"Again?

Dutch had also picked up on her outcry, swivelled to point his gun in her face and trade looks with Arthur. "Please be quiet, ma'am," he reminded, voice sweet as honey, then turning to address Lenny, "Mr. S, the vault, if you please?"

Lenny picked his way over the passengers on the ground toward the ornate door in the corner of the station, and Arthur started moving among them, looking from face to face, the dread in his stomach growing at a missing Tine.

"Looks like someone beat you to it, you ingrates," the woman on the ground said through laboured sniffs, a little poodle clutched to her chest they hadn't noticed before yipping its assent.

"She's right, there's nothing here!" Lenny confirmed, the panic the three men were now feeling evident in the young man's voice.

Dutch stared at the dark void that was the empty vault and then turned to Arthur. "The register, then, hurry," he said, and then, aiming his gun again at the woman, "and remember what I said about being quiet."

Arthur strode over to the grill-encased clerk's box just as the wail of a siren picked up from outside. "This is the Saint Denis police," an amplified voice found them, chilled Arthur's stomach. "Stop what you're doing and come out with your hands up!"

Dutch ran to Arthur, his brown eyes wide and furious between his hat brim and bandana. "Where the hell is Tine? Did she rob us and send the law?"

She wouldn't do that.The words made their way into Arthur's mouth and died there unspoken, no matter how many times he tried to revive them, as the idea took hold in his mind and festered. He tried as they fled the city police on the very trolley system they'd tried to rob, that she had robbed. He tried when they were flung from the trolley after it hit a carriage, Dutch bewildered from a knock to his head. He tried as they stole a wagon and raced through a hastily-built barricade on the northwestern bridge out of the city.

Arthur tried again once they found themselves safe, concealed in the swamps -Tine wouldn't do that to us, to me- but imagined her surrounded by the money instead, in a plush hotel room, her fingers wound around a jewelled necklace and a coupe of champagne in her hand, laughing her taunting laugh.

Because he knew, he'd known all along, forgotten in weeks spent in a haze of her perfume.

She absolutely would.

Chapter 24: xxiv. The same or worse

Chapter Text

Tine's betrayal reverberated throughout the camp. It hung on the air, lived and relived through whispered conversations between the Van der Linde gang members, a tremor in the cadence of Dutch's voice when he spoke of what their next move might be.

The deaths of Sean and Kieran, Jack's kidnapping, the Pinkertons in their last camp: all of those had been upsetting to their leader, John wagered, judging by the way Dutch had pinched at the bridge of his nose at night, forewent dinner for a pensive cigar, was prone to snap at those who tested his patience. But this was something different. Tine's disappearance - with the trolley money, no less - had shaken Dutch's confidence.

So too did Arthur's prolonged reaction to her absence. He went from being Dutch's reliable gun, his right hand, to a sore drunk overnight. It was John, then, who was pulled away from rekindling his relationship with his family to Dutch and Hosea, to talk over the job they were planning to rob the Saint Denis bank, and talk over it repeatedly.

John was with them, again, leaning tiredly against one of the posts in the gazebo that stood off to the left of the big manse in Shady Belle. Hosea knelt in front of a map on its worn wooden floorboards, Dutch pacing around the large sheet of paper as if a new approach with assured success would present itself to him, if only he were looking at it from the right direction.

From the corner of John's eye, he saw Arthur stumble from the other side of Pearson's wagon, the neck of a whiskey bottle clutched in his fingers. He made his way haphazardly towards the gazebo, slamming into the post opposite John and pausing to take a messy swig of the booze.

"Arthur," Dutch said, his tone already one of warning.

"You should head on up to sleep, son," Hosea said, despite the evening's early hour, a concerned kindness limning his reedy voice.

Arthur merely laughed, wavered on his feet, supplied himself another gulp of whiskey.

"Reckon that's enough, now," Hosea said again, holding up a cautioning hand. "Whiskey ain't going to bring anyone back." No surprises on who "anyone" meant, to John.

Arthur's eyes narrowed, and an ungainly rock of his big torso forward put his nose right into Hosea's. "Bet you're right pleased by this, old man," he scathed, eyebrows knit together, a longer-than-normal beard on his face coupled with the stink of alcohol on his breath alarming to John, his older brother always in eerie control of his faculties, before.

Hosea only looked stung. "I'd never want to see you hurt, nor this gang fail," he said, a tremble in his voice. "Youknowthat."

Arthur held his gaze, still wavering where he stood, then gave a squinting glare to each of them, spinning on his heel and stumbling back towards the house. A long silence followed him, the three men in the gazebo staring after Arthur's completed progress into the front entrance of the manor.

Unable to bear the quiet any longer, John said, "I ain't ever seen him like this."

Hosea started, looking from the door to John. "He were like this when you first left," he said quietly.

John opened his mouth to speak and let it hang there. He knew Arthur had been mad at him, but, he'd thought, only because he'd failed to emulate his perfect likeness. He didn't think he could have affected him like this, nor Tine.

Would she have stolen the money?Maybe, thought John, if he were being truthful. He didn't think she'd do it without him, but who in the gang could he saythatto? And, it was more than possible she'd taken his reunion with Abigail badly to heart. He sat with a guilt he couldn't bear to name to the others, and news of Arthur's reaction to his own disappearance years before only troubled his thoughts further.

Hosea stirred, breaking John out of his sad musings. The man slowly made his way to his feet, holding a hand to the small of his back, his joints stiff. He suppressed a cough and said, "That's enough plans for tonight, gentlemen."

As if on cue, Molly rounded the gazebo, picked her way carefully up the warped stairs. "Come sit with me, Dutch?"

"Not now, Molly," Dutch dismissed, his eyebrows slung low over his eyes, sparing her only a glance before looking out over the swamp creek behind them. John hurried away from an altercation he felt as a current crackling between the couple, pounding up the steps of the mansion to nestle in next to a sleeping Abigail, her head under his chin.

But his guilt roiled, and unlike those of his family, John's eyes remained open, glassy in the moonlight.

*

Weeks passed. Arthur's beard grew longer and more unruly, as did the man himself; prone to pick fights with whichever unfortunate gang member found themselves in his path. John continued to meet with Dutch and Hosea, the plan for the bank job no more developed than it had been that day in the gazebo. Dutch kept doubling back on choices made days before, his legendary decisiveness a seeming thing of the past.

So John was grateful to be on guard duty one hazy afternoon, away from Dutch's second-guessing and the worry lines that seemed to deepen on Hosea's face by the day. Not to mention the litany of the camp's complaints about Tine; they suddenly all brave enough to voice their various displeasures without the glint of her knife in view.

He swatted at a mosquito who refused to give him peace, his guard repeater dangling from his neck, when a shadow on the path leading toward Shady Belle had him clutch it in alarm.

"Who's there?" He bellowed, his index finger finding the trigger by rote, squinting to try and see who might be riding towards them. His head did mental gymnastics, trying to recall all of the camp's members and what he knew of their whereabouts.

He saw the horse's pinto coat, first, then the shining golden braid of its rider; a stranger. "I mean it!" He shouted, still louder, drawing the repeater up to look through its sight.

The rider slowed their horse by half, raised both hands in surrender. "Don't shoot," came the rider's voice, gruff yet feminine, as the horse continued to approach John at a walk. "You probably don't remember me, your face was all messed up when I lived with y'all." There was something familiar about the woman's features as she continued to approach, John remembered those freckled cheeks by the light of their Colter fire, contorted into mourning, waywardness; nothing like the confident person before him.

"Sadie Adler," he said, remembering Arthur's stories about running into the woman here and there, the bane of Colm O'Driscoll.

"That's right," she smiled down at John, and he lowered the gun to once again hang from its strap. But her expression grew grave, as if remembering her place, and she nudged her horse to turn sideways, revealing a second rider slouched into her back, wisps of white hair.

"You got to find this one some help, I were on a bounty and found her same or worse as she did me. That Grimshaw woman still with you all to take a better look at her?"

Tine's face was mottled with bruises, some sickly yellow and others plum-red, fresh; her arm in a makeshift, filthy sling. She looked at John through eyes swollen into slits and heaved a sob.

"Help." The first time John said it, it was a whisper that forced itself from his throat, nearly closed in guilt and panic. Then, a shouted, "Help!"

Arthur was one of the first to the front of the camp, his mouth, barely visible through his overgrown beard, an agapeoof shock. "Help, dammit!" John shouted again, throwing the repeater to the dirt and reaching for Tine, pulling her carefully down from Sadie's saddle.

He carried her like a bride toward the house, trying not to look at her blackened, swollen eyes; a split lip crusted over. But there was nowhere on her to settle that hadn't been aggrieved; her blue suit tattered to rags and hanging off her, slip exposed, the hat long lost. He was aware of Arthur following dully behind him, a small, unbroken hiss coming from his mouth, one that only stopped for him to mumble, "y'can lay her in my room."

The camp's eyes followed their procession, mouths agape, as John climbed the steps of the front porch and gently manoeuvred himself and Tine through the door, heading for Arthur's.

He lay her in Arthur's small cot and arranged her limbs into a restful posture, noncompliant but - so he hoped - not broken, save for the one arm. He and Arthur stood over her, Arthur's hand over his mouth, the whiskey stink clouding off of him.

"What happened, Tine," John said quietly, grasping her hand in his.

Her mouth opened as if to speak but only winced, her chest rising and falling dramatically.

"Don't ask'r now," Arthur said through his palm, holding onto the back of his chair for support.

"Nn," Tine argued, her head shaking minutely from side to side. "B-Bronte weren't too pleased that I stole from him, the comb." John didn't know what she was talking about, but Arthur's head turned immediately and he followed. There was an ornate, jewelled comb on Arthur's table, a sparkling innocent amid such carnage.

Arthur wavered on his feet and then pulled the chair to sink clumsily into, his head in his hands. John turned back to Tine, wiping strands of hair from her forehead, leaking tears from her eyes.

"This was after the trolley money," he said, determined to sort through the truth.

"Nn," she shook her head, again. "Weren't any money, was a trap. Don't think they expected us to come separately." Every word was a labour, and John encouraged her along, his heart a throbbing ache that if it hadn't been for Sadie, they'd all but condemned Tine to die.

Rapid, squeaking footsteps preceded Dutch's entry into the room, a hand clapping immediately to his mouth. He composed himself, mediating his own expression and tugging on his vest before saying, "Miss Nilsen, I-we, we thought you was-"

"We all know what you thought, Dutch," Arthur seethed, his face revealed from his hands one of unbridled anger. "We could've been out lookin' for her all this time, if it weren't for you."

"Miss Nilsen needs rest," Dutch replied coldly, "we can have this conversation outside." Arthur stormed past Dutch, evidently ready to start talking right away. Dutch stalked after him. John looked back to Tine, thumbed gently along her upper arm, and whispered, "be right back."

When he caught up to the others, on Dutch's private balcony, Arthur was in the process of shouting Dutch down. The leader looked at the curious eyes of their gang members peering up at the three of them and hissed for Arthur to keep his voice down.

"She were all alone and we didn't even think to check, just assumed the worst." Through Arthur's fury John detected a throbbing guilt, one that he too felt.

"I don't recall you asking to go out and look for her, Arthur," For Dutch, defensiveness and scorn were often one and the same, and Arthur reeled back as if struck, chastised.

Then, he said, "Bronte needs to pay for this." John found himself nodding automatically, his hands clenching into fists.

Dutch heaved a sigh. "Miss Nilsen is... one of our own." Arthur lurched and John grabbed for him, holding him steady, feeling Arthur's muscle rippling and tending under his forearm. "She's one of our best," Dutch continued, his eyes simmering with a barely-contained anger of his own. "But we can't get distracted. Revenge is a fool's errand, my boys. We should be putting all of our energy on the bank."

They couldn't go after Bronte without the resources, and Arthur was wanted, anyway, after the failed trolley robbery. So they took turns sitting with Tine, instead, when they weren't going over the plans for the bank job Hosea now seemed reticent to do.

A sobered, groomed Arthur was extremely possessive, John hearing his low, rumbling voice on the other side of the closed door, talking to Tine for hours. But he found his moments, once watching Arthur ride off and seizing a can of strawberries and a spoon from the food wagon, slinking up the stairs.

"Hey, Tine," he greeted. The days of rest and a careful bath from Grimshaw had improved her appearance, but not much. Her face was still swollen and purpled with bruising, every word and expression an effort. John tried his best to do most of the talking. "Brought you these," he shook the can before her, "they're pretty easy to eat."

John opened the can with his knife and spooned a mouthful of the jammy fruit into her waiting mouth, stroked her cheek as she carefully chewed, swallowed. It was destabilizing to see her like this, his sharp Tine rendered meek and slow-moving, acquiescent.

He looked away from her face to the rise and fall of her chest, and then back to find her asleep, the spoon halfway out of her mouth.

He removed it, and she murmured, "I thought of you." He didn't know if it was directed to him but it wounded him anyway, thinking past the poisonous Tine, the lustful Tine, to the one who'd held him when he'd thought he'd lost his son, his friend when he was friendless, her nimble fingers picking the knots out of his hair.

Tine was still healing when the day of the bank job came, John and Arthur armed and ready to head out, saying a quick goodbye to her. She was more lucid, then, some of the older bruises faded, the swelling around her eyes down, revealing her keen, piercing irises, glaring at them both.

"Don't go without me," she ordered, reaching for each of their hands and holding them to her chest. John looked, startled, to Arthur, and he to him; the pair suddenly aware of each other as competition, or something like it.

Arthur tried to break the awkwardness, first. "You afraid of missing a party, Teeny?" He laughed, wresting his hand from her grasping fingers. Then, "we're gonna be just fine, you rest, now." Stealing another timid glance at John, he then bent forward, pressing his lips gently to her forehead before walking out.

John leaned into her as well, squeezing the hand that hadn't let him go, yet. "Don't worry, Tine," he whispered, kissing the warm spot where Arthur had moments before, "I'll be back before you know it."

Chapter 25: xxv. “Long enough to make friends”

Chapter Text

Arthur could hardly believe it. The bank job in Saint Denis was going according to plan. He smiled to himself in the vault, even let loose an incredulous chuckle, thinking of how he'd break it to Tine that they'd pulled off such an impressive heist without her nimble, greedy fingers.

The circ*mstances of her return to camp were gruesome - accompanied by a swing in his gut at the realization that she was a victim, not a perpetrator, of the trolley job. But, if she knew they'd thought she'd robbed them blind, she didn't let on. By way of apology, he tended to her nearly day and night, telling her stories, or whispering encouragement when she ate a few bites of dinner, or wet her lips with water. And when she slept, he forced himself to look upon her injuries; murmured apologies that had as yet done nothing to absolve his guilt. He had Tine's prized possessions - her knife and coin necklace - from Sadie Adler, and hoped to give them to her when she was more alert to appreciate their safe return.

It was a hope he still carried, finding them in his pockets just outside of the bank, when he'd hastily hung the coin around his neck and tucked the knife into the waistband of his pants. These, plus the riches now slung over Hosea and John's horses, were gifts worthy of Tine's forgiveness, benefactions to cure his lingering shame.

The Van der Linde men easily evaded the few law whose notice they caught, tearing out of the city's southwestern bridge on their horses. Bill whooped, pumping his fist in the air.

"That's enough, Mr. Williamson," Dutch scolded, but Arthur caught the smile at the edge of their leader's lips, an upward cant of his moustache.

Arthur traded a grin with Hosea; a rare exchange between them since Tine's disappearance and subsequent return. They'd been on the run so long, with so many catastrophes in their wake, that Arthur had forgotten fortunes could change for the better, too.

His lifted spirits changed, though, when he and Buster were the first to break through the treeline and arrive on the outskirts of Shady Belle.

He was confronted with Pinkertons.

Dozens of them; lining the mansion's porch and balcony, scattered about the lawn. A massive, barred wagon sat in wait, hitched to two draft horses. For them. He vaguely sensed Hosea, on Silver Dollar, appearing on his left, whispering a strangled "no."

"Welcome home, Van der Linde gang," came the smarmy, self-righteous voice belonging to Agent Milton, amplified through a brass speaking trumpet, he standing dead-centre among his fellow agents.

Dutch walked his horse up to Arthur's elbow, surveying the mansion. "Where are the others?" He demanded, provoking several of the Pinkertons to laugh. Their gang, capable and triumphant mere moments ago, now only seemed motley to Arthur; ragtag, uninformed, and severely outnumbered.

"Women, children, and old men," Milton scoffed, more laughter ringing out around him. "Not our concern."

"This isn't right," Hosea hissed to Arthur's left, and Arthur turned to him, taking in his face made blotchy, the man trembling, hands white where they gripped Silver Dollar's reins.

"Jack!" John's voice called out from behind Arthur. "Abigail! You OK?"

As if noting John's panic, Dutch called again: "Where are our people?"

"Not our concern," Milton's repeated words were cold, now, the laughter gone. "Nor yours, once you swing. Come quietly and I'll even promise not to pursue them."

"f*ck you." The fury in John's voice matched the anger in Arthur's heart. Grimshaw, who'd mended his clothes and himself, more times than he could count. Little Jack Marston. The giggling, starry-eyed women. And Tine, still clinging to life, still yet to give the full picture of what had happened to her. The coin hung suddenly heavy around his neck. Where had they all gone?

"John, no," Arthur heard Hosea croak. John had dismounted and was ambling forward, his wide-legged walk reserved for robberies, for intimidation, headed straight for the Pinkertons. Hosea soon followed, running to catch up with John, his hands aloft in surrender.

Arthur watched as if frozen, sat on his horse in a line of horses; John raising his gun to fire and be immediately met with a bullet in the shoulder, spun to the dirt. Hosea breaking into a run to shield him, and receiving several more shots, littering his chest, his body slumping forward. And then the horses of his fellow gang members rearing and turning to run, breaking into panicked gallops into the forest, bullets whistling through the leaves and slamming into the trunks of trees around them.

He retreated automatically, his thoughts buzzing with static and nothing but instinct pushing him on, but he took a clarifying breath and looked around. "The train bridge!" He hollered, startling himself, that he could muster the volume over the profound ache in his chest. He caught his fellows' attention and pointed back toward the city, the bridge over the water narrow and without guardrails. The whistle of the next train sounded in the distance, and Dutch raised his eyebrows, nodded. They changed course as one, a school of riders, surging toward the bridge ahead of the train, hoping the timing would work such that the Pinkertons would be a full train behind them, and then some.

Dutch, Javier, Bill, and Arthur thundered onto the bridge, but Lenny's cry out behind them signalled that the others - just he and Charles, how there had seemed to be so many of them, moments before - were not to follow.

So the four pressed on, ditched their horses once back in town, headed for the relative anonymity of the docks. Dutch ushered them onto a cargo ship and Arthur obeyed, wearily, wanting only to put the day behind him, to rest. Mourning Hosea, finding Tine, one or both for John; they'd all have to wait.

*

The details of the next month seemed inconsequential; the passing of the days only marked by Arthur's ribs becoming more prominent, Tine's coin burying its way into the growing hollow of his chest, as they made do with what food they could find on the small plantation island upon which they'd washed ashore.

Inconsequential, and yet, traumatic; Arthur had been fished from the ocean when their ship capsized, Dutch hauling him aboard their tiny lifeboat and clutching him, whispering into his shoulder the repeated invocation ofnot you, too; not you. Javier was captured by the local militia and they spent a tense day breaking him free, helping him limp to relative safety in their jungle hideaway. And the four of them, tunnelling through a series of caves to what they hoped would lead to their return to America, led by a local guide.

When they reached the ladder that would take them to the harbour, then off the island, the slender, dark-featured man leading them stopped, pressed his back in front of it, held out his hand in the universal gesture that read,give me money.

"We've already paid you," Dutch snarled, leaning forward to glare into the man's eyes. But he only closed his fist and opened it again, more forcefully, chattering something insistent to Javier.

"He wants more," Javier offered, as if their interaction could have meant anything else.

Arthur felt the knife still - miraculously - nestled into his spine suddenly grow hot, as if it were proffering its services. He pulled it without thought, holding its point to the man's neck as he'd seen Tine do so many times. "Let us pass," he growled, a bead of blood drawn from the knifepoint making itself known on the man's neck, quivering in the humid air.

Even threatened, the man persisted; a feeble shake of his hand imploring them for more cash. The frustration coursed through Arthur and he drew the knife across the man's neck with a groan, turning his face away from the blood splashing out. His companions stared at him, aghast, but he was so tired, too tired to care about their judgement, just wanting to get it done.

A vague part of him wondered how much of himself he'd lost in these last few months; but more pressing was getting on a boat bound for the east coast, hiding among the crates, preparing himself to pick up the pieces, of his gang and himself, upon their return.

*

They agreed to disembark separately, in different harbours, so Arthur clambered over the rocks bordering the salt-soaked, rust-covered town of Van Horn on his own. It was dusk, bordering night; the saloon the only lively part of the place, the rest cast in shadow.

Arthur remembered several prominent wagons had been missing from Shady Belle when they were confronted with the Pinkertons - Pearson's, Strauss's, his own - so he figured the gang wouldn't be there to greet him. He rocked on his heels, wondering where he'd go and, horseless, how he'd get there.

He meandered down the street, allowing himself a moment to savour being back on home soil, the temperature bearable and, even this close to the water, much more arid than it had been on Guarma; the heat there oppressive, weighing down on him. Arthur stood still to play with the coin hung around his neck, flipping it back and forth between his fingers.Where are you, Tine?

Arthur's thoughts were interrupted by a hard knock to his person, provided by a drunk man's stumbling right into him. "Watch where you're goin', friend," Arthur snarled, his eyes narrowing dangerously at the drunk. The man smiled at him - a gapping, rotten grin of yellowed teeth at odd angles - and then reeled forward, fist-first, aiming at Arthur's face. Arthur was hungry and exhausted, still a little green from being at sea, but side-stepped him easily, grasping around his collar and the waistband of his pants to sail him into the dirt.

Unfortunately for Arthur, the man had friends. He bolted from the encroaching gunfire, heading for the northern end of Van Horn, hoping to lose their line of sight among the buildings on the town's long pier. As he ran, a man he passed leaning against a lightpost lowered his newspaper - odd, to be reading a newspaper by lamplight, thought Arthur - to reveal himself as Lenny Summers, smirking.

"How long you even been in the country for, Arthur?" He chirped, starting into a run of his own and beckoning Arthur to follow him.

"Long enough to make friends," he groused back, smiling inwardly to have found the young man, to see a fellow Van der Linde. They dashed to where Lenny had hitched his little Mustang, Maggie, and Arthur climbed into the saddle behind him, pulling Lenny's revolver from its holster and firing on the few men sober enough to give them chase.

Once free, he relaxed in his seat, looking about him as Lenny steered his horse towards the planked roads outside of Saint Denis, heading into the swamps. "Best keep that gun out, hate riding 'round here at night," Lenny instructed quietly, his dark eyes liquid and shining in the dark.

"What happened, where are you all? Did you get John?" Arthur asked, giving Lenny a small pat to the shoulder - hoping it'd say what he didn't.I'm so glad to see you. Thank you for finding me.

"John's in jail, Sisika Island Penitentiary," Lenny said ruefully.

Arthur hummed. "And here I thought I'd be done with islands." For the rest of the ride, he told Lenny a selective history of what had befallen the four of them on Guarma; omitting the man he'd killed, the despair he'd felt. They pulled into a small fishing outpost fringed in stilted cabins, Arthur's heart soaring to see his Buster, and Tine's Darling hitched next to him.

He dismounted from Maggie with another pat to Lenny's back, hoping his gratitude was clear, and dashed for the largest of the outpost's buildings, smoke spiralling from its chimney.

As he burst through the door, Abigail whirled from her place at the stove to meet his eyes. "Arthur," she said, her voice tired, stepping forward nonetheless to embrace him. He rested his forehead against her shoulder a moment, her arms an immense comfort.

"I'm so glad you all are all right," he breathed, and felt her fingertips clutch against his back, realizing too late that not all of them were. He disentangled himself from her and said, "What the hellhappened?"

"We got wind of the Pinkertons coming," she said, avoiding his eyes. "Packed everything up, as much as we could, and ran for it. Some of your things are over there." She gestured vaguely at the back of the room, where he saw hammocks strung up, several of them occupied with sleeping gang members. "Found this place and Charles and Lenny joined us before long; don't take much time for Charles to track folks down."

Arthur smiled briefly. "Thank god he ain't a Pinkerton."

Abigail returned it, but her face soon darkened again, noticing Arthur's wandering eye. "If you're lookin' for Tine, she ain't here."

The news surprised him, he couldn't help his eyes from widening. "I saw Darlin' outside and figured..."

Abigail cut him off. "She left scouting to find y'all and never came back. Her horse was in Saint Denis, with all of yours." He remembered Darling had been missing since Tine had, and hadn't returned with her and Sadie. He felt a panic in his chest, one that intensified when Abigail continued, "Maybe she sprung John from Sisika and the pair of 'em took off."

"They wouldn't," he said automatically, his hand covering his mouth. He wasn't so sure, in truth. He'd seen how they sat together, whenever he left Tine's bedside. A surge of jealousy overtook him, and underneath it, a persistent, throbbing ache; his trusted guns were gone. Arthur cleared his throat and pressed on. "Anyone else missing?"

"We lost Molly; she weren't nowhere to be found when we packed everything up. And Hosea- he's dead, Arthur."

He felt a clutch in his stomach, and murmured, "Knew about him." He looked to the floorboards, but felt Abigail's hand on his wrist.

"We buried him."

"Thank you." The guilt he'd felt when Tine returned meant that he'd barely spoken to the man, the smile he'd offered him on their ride back from the bank their first friendly interaction in weeks. And now he was gone. He remembered Hosea's heartbrokenno, the camp rife with Pinkertons.

He couldn't bear to dwell on the loss, so he asked, "How have you all been getting on? Any trouble?"

Abigail sighed. "We're hidden OK out here, have Lenny to protect us, Charles has been goin' out hunting."

"What about Karen? She's a strong gun."

Abigail pointed out the window to one of the other cabins. "She's asleep, passed out, in there. She ain't been much of anything, lately."

The door next to them swung open, revealing Dutch, worse for wear but wearily smiling, his arms spread wide. Abigail rushed to him, first, then Tilly, and their commotion was enough that the rest of the gang awoke, embraced Dutch and Arthur, each. They revelled in their bittersweet reunion for a few moments, and then Dutch beckoned Arthur to join him outside, a cigar clutched in his palm.

The man lit the cigar and puffed on it a few times, the humid air around them filling with pleasant-smelling smoke, hazy in the early-morning light. Arthur's eyelids drooped briefly, lulled by the scent and the hundreds of late-summer crickets, chirping around them.

"We're going to get cleaned up, dressed," Dutch said, his words carefully chosen. "Get some rest, some food. Make sure Bill and Javier get back to us."

Arthur nodded after each order, all of it sounding right to him.

"Then we're going after John," Dutch continued. "Hosea's gone, and-" he sighed, leaning over the railing separating their dock from the swamps below. "I need my boys around me."

"Sure," Arthur nodded, hoping that when they did get to the prison - if they even could - John would still be there.

Chapter 26: xxvi. When he was alone

Chapter Text

In the prison, time started to run together. John gave up counting the days since he'd been nabbed by the Pinkertons on the front lawn of Shady Belle, shot in the shoulder; it was easier to let them blur, bleed into one another.

Stupid. The first few nights, curled onto his sleeping cot in a futile attempt to stave off the rats, John turned over his rush toward the battalion of agents in his mind. What had he been trying to accomplish? What was he thinking? It was too painful, reliving the bullet wound; Hosea bleeding out in front of him, a death the man didn't deserve to die.

Painful, too; trying to assess the whereabouts of the gang; Jack, Abigail. Sisika an island, a prison to him in more ways than one. The surrounding water a tomb he was buried alive in. John had blacked out shortly after being shot and had no idea what had happened to the men he'd been riding with, nor the people left at camp. He took small comfort in knowing that he hadn't seen Pearson, or Uncle, or Swanson around; maybe the Pinkertonshadignored them.

By the end of the first week, he turned his mind from it. If the gang were planning some grand rescue, surely they'd have come for him by then. He began to lose grasp on his name - no one called him by it here, just the number on his striped coveralls, 827 - and with it, his hope. He focused on survival; eating what little food they gave him, keeping his head down and away from his fellow prisoners, some of them prone to fighting at a moment's notice. He hadn't given up, he thought to himself, because that implied loss. He was numb, detached; another way his surviving took shape.

He hadn't lost everything of himself. After long days working the surrounding fields and gulping down a small, daily whet against his all-consuming appetite, lying on his cot, his mind gravitated naturally to the other time he was alone.

How Tine appeared like a lifeline, back then; equal parts gore and glimmer in the remote northern town they'd found each other in. How she'd reminded his ailing heart of the parts of himself and his history that he loved; the thrill of a robbery, his prowess with a gun, yes, too, his handsomeness.

They'd swarmed the stagecoach Tine had scouted so quickly it might have seemed to their marks that there was a half dozen of them, and not only two. They moved so fluidly they might have thought they'd worked together for years, instead of only meeting that same day. Of course, the pair were so terrifying, so bloodthirsty and effective in their robbing, that it was most likely the guards thought of nothing at all, save whether or not they were going to keep their lives. And, with a precise flick of Tine's wrist, her knife to their throats; a calculated few shots from John's gun; they soon learned they wouldn't.

John had been floundering on his own, and there he was; returned to himself in the course of an afternoon, the murderous blonde at his elbow to thank for it. He drank that night not to forget, but to reminisce on, embellish, even, their lucrative triumph over the stage.

The hotel they'd booked in a larger, neighbouring town to the one where they'd met was lavish, John and Tine sorely out of place amid its damask curtains and velvet furniture. They weathered the concierge's wrinkled nose until Tine plunked down the cost of their largest suite in cash, John snickering behind her. They'd already drunk themselves stupid in the saloon, but it didn't stop Tine from ordering a bottle of champagne, pulling the cork out with her back teeth and spitting it at the concierge en route to their room, her arm haphazardly thrown around John's shoulders.

They stumbled to the room and Tine launched herself onto the bedspread immediately upon entering, trying to drink straight from the bottle lying down.

"Can't believe all this money," John slurred, holding the wad of cash - his take - before his face and squinting at it. "You do this all the time, Tine? Robbing folks like that?"

She tried to answer and spluttered on the champagne, rose to sitting. Wiping at her mouth, she replied, "Not all the time. When the getting's good."

"It's good, girl, goddamn," John let out an incredulous laugh, waving the bills in the air before returning them to his pocket. Tine was staring at him, her hair lit to glowing by the roaring fire in the fireplace, surrounding her heart-shaped face. John didn't know when she'd loosed it from its ponytail, and it hung soft around her face. "You look like a goddamned angel, or something," he murmured, and then, embarrassed, quickly continued, "why they all callin' you Butcher, 'round here?"

She rose from the bed, padded toward him on the plush carpet, utterly silent. He hadn't seen her remove her boots, either, but there they were by the door, a dull shine to their brass tips.

"I've killed a lot of people," she said simply.

John laughed again. "I've done my fair share, didn't get a nickname over it."

"The way I did it, it weren't pretty." Something in the way she said it caused a sudden, sobering hum of fear in his gut. But her lips were so pink, so full; her eyes glittering in the firelight.

"You're pretty," he blurted, and she laughed, rolling her eyes, seizing his wrist in her fingers.

"And you'regreen, John Marston," she stressed, waving his arm back and forth. Her word from earlier that day rankled him.

"No Iain't," he hissed back, pulling her closer to him, anchoring her wrist with his free hand. He saw a spark in her eyes, her hand around his wrist clutched briefly.

"Realgreen," she teased again. "I just had the gun wrong on you, is all."

"And which gun was that?" Their faces were mere inches from each other, and John was all the more able to witness Tine's pointed glance downward, towards his co*ck.

"Ain't green there, neither." He couldn't explain why he was suddenly seething mad, nor why his co*ck was rock hard and uncomfortably insistent in his pants.

"Could fool me," Tine released him, then, stepping backward but holding his gaze, a challenge to fill the space she'd made. John did, his chest nearly pressing into hers, looming over her, their noses practically touching.

"Quit that," he demanded, and he saw, even in their close proximity, a quirking of her lip, a small raising of her eyebrows.

"I'm just calling it like I see it, and the way I see it-" she stepped back from him again, reaching up to pinch his cheek "-John Marston isgreen."

He slapped her hand away and pulled her face to his before she'd even reacted, his mouth on hers, teeth capturing her bottom lip. He felt her respond in kind; her hands braced onto his chest, a small moan came from her lips. John's hands travelled from her cheeks to trail down her spine, one in the small of her back, the other venturing further, taking a handful of her ass and squeezing.

"This what you want?" He demanded, panting, when they finally broke from each other. "You want me to take charge?" Heryeswas a word merely breathed into his ear, and it was enough.

He tugged at her shirt buttons until it hung open, untucked from her pants, a bloom of perfume escaping into the air. The open shirt exposed her breasts and a heavy gold coin hung between them, along with a network of fine white lines and small, circular scars. He brushed his thumbs over as many as he could see, kissing her neck and shoulders. Tine clung to him, her arms around his neck, and he found himself doing most of the work; laying her back down onto the bed, pulling her pants down and off, removing his own clothes.

He held himself over Tine, kissing down her neck and breasts, rolling his tongue over a peaked, pink nipple. From the corner of his eye, he saw her ball a weak fist, slam it down onto the mattress, felt the dull reverberation it created through his knees.

"Too much, darlin'?" He said softly, kissing her ear. "I can slow down."

Tine addressed the ceiling, a single word. "Bored."

John was equally incensed and stung, sitting back to stare at a languid Tine, writhing in slow frustration under him. Most of the women he'd been with to this point had been game partners, squealing and coquettish, or reciprocally sweet. Tine was petulant, intense; and it awakened something in him.

He reached forward and slid his arm under the arch of her back, flipping Tine onto her stomach and pulling her hips back until she was on all fours, in front of him, anohof surprise escaping her lips. He pressed the hard tip of his co*ck against the back of her thigh as he leaned over her, hissing, "you want it like this?"

She only hummed, but he saw her knees spread slightly, baring more of herself to him. He ran his fingers along her slit, wet and inviting, coated his own co*ck with her. Part of him wanted to turn her back around, kiss her while they f*cked, see her pretty face react to him. But the new part, hungry and dominant, snapped his hips for him, claiming Tine with a grunt.

She lifted one of her arms to pull her hair to fall down one side of her neck, revealing her flushed cheeks, mouth open. John's fingertips dug into her hips, pulling her repeatedly to him, trying to eradicate the spaces between their bodies.

He leaned forward again and caught her perfume unawares, the scent clean and fresh in contrast to their carnal sounds, and he came without warning, collapsing over Tine, panting into her silken hair.

The liquor caught up with him, fast; he felt himself roll off of Tine and sink into the mattress, spread-eagled, head spinning from drink and sex.

He'd awoken to the unforgiving sunlight streaming into the window, the bed empty next to him. John leapt from the covers and sought his balance before stumbling for his pants, checking his pockets to find the wad of cash missing, a sickening twist in his stomach. There was only the letter there, from Abigail, about the boy talking, that his family missed him. He perched on the edge of the bed and wiped at his eyes, wondering how far he'd sunk.

He mustered the courage to dress himself before crawling out the window and down the drainpipe, not wanting to look the concierge in the eye; someone else who knew he'd entered the hotel a pair and left it alone.

But Tine was there, standing by their horses, offering him a friendly smile as he approached. She reached into her pocket and held out the cash she'd taken from him, which he claimed in disbelief. "Didn't want to leave you passed out with that on you, I don't trust the ninny behind the desk."

"Thanks," he muttered, pocketing the money, his mind doing somersaults after resigning himself to being alone again. Tine scrutinized him.

"Where to now, cowboy?" She asked, and he returned her stare, as if trying to assess if she would stay with him for the long haul. The letter burned within his pocket again, prompting a guilty lurch in his gut.

"Maybe we head south over the Grizzlies," he pointed vaguely towards the mountain range, rising like jagged teeth on the horizon. Tine couldn't know it, yet, but he was steering them towards home.

"827!" A guard rattled the bars of John's cell with the barrel of his repeater, startling him from his reminisces. "Get up, you bastard. You're wanted out front."

"Brought the hangman, did you?" John gruffed, not budging an inch.

"I wish," the guard scoffed back. "It's your people, causing all kinds of trouble."

Chapter 27: xxvii. “Who’s waiting for you”

Chapter Text

After so long without him, Arthur was glad to be atop Buster's back, riding out toward the eastern coast in the hopes of springing John. Dutch rode beside him, looking equally at ease in the saddle of his longtime mount.

"We have to protect our family, Arthur, our own," Dutch called, over the wind whipping their faces. "The ones who've been there since the beginning."

Arthur wrinkled his nose. "Charles's been with us less than a year, he's been protectin' just about everyone this whole time."

Dutch nodded solemnly, looking over to Arthur. "Charles is a good man. But the others..." He trailed off, looked away.

"Who d'you mean?"

"The new folks I just ain't sure about. Molly, Miss Nilsen-"

"Women?" Arthur interrupted, failing to keep the grit from his voice.

"Nothing to do with women, my boy; Annabel-"

"-was an angel that would spite the saints, yeah, I know." It was something Hosea often said about his Bessie, and it twisted Arthur's heart to say, discovering again within its recesses that the man was gone. They rode on in silence, Arthur rankled despite their doing what he most wanted, to find John. He supposed Dutch's offhand comment about Tine's disloyalty had irked him, too.

They passed out of the swamps and onto the scrubby grasses on the Lemoyne-New Hanover border, when Dutch held out his hand as a signal to stop, the smoke of a lone fire near their intended launch point barely visible in the bright day. "Guns out," he whispered, climbing off of The Count's back.

Arthur nodded minutely, his brows furrowing in concentration. His finger curled around the trigger of his revolver, freed from its holster, ready to fire at a moment's notice. The two crept together toward the skeleton of an old fisherman's hut, avoiding the broken glass - and odd rattlesnake, curled among it - scattered about the ground. There were signs of a camp long pitched; a tent stood just beside the former hut, the fire before it, a makeshift clothesline with a pair of pants and a denim shirt hanging. A little brown Morgan horse snorted at their arrival, their scent on the breeze.

The tent's flap flew open and Dutch and Arthur raised their guns, Dutch's menacing "hands up" greeting the newcomer. Arthur took a few hasty steps toward the figure, blonde hair backlit and illuminated by the rising sun, then caught himself, stopped.

"Tee- Tine." He broke off the nickname, too intimate for this reunion, their circ*mstances.

"Boys," she smiled at them both, lowering her hands. Arthur noticed, to his left, that Dutch took a beat longer to lower his gun.

"You been here all this time?" Arthur asked.

"Yes," Dutch appended, before she could answer, "why didn't you come back to camp?"

Tine sucked in her lips to bite on them, something Arthur knew she did when she didn't want to admit to something. "Pinkertons," she said finally. "Picked me up outside of Shady Belle. I didn't say anything," she added suddenly, her eyes aflame, body straightening to face down Dutch. "Not a thing. But I was afraid to lead them back to the others without you all there to defend the camp. So I've been watching for John."

"Do we even know if he's still there?" Arthur asked, scratching at his neck. Beside him, he could feel the tension rolling off Dutch in waves, dissatisfied with her explanation.

"He's there, I've seen him," Tine reported, gesturing to a wide-bottomed canoe. "I just couldn't find a way to get in and out without getting killed. Hard to row with any kind of speed." Arthur noted her one arm was still crooked, bent and held to her waist.

"No time like the present, I guess," Dutch groused, making for the prow of the canoe. "Let's go."

Arthur trailed after him, followed by Tine. He looked over at her surreptitiously, feeling a sting of jealousy that she'd been sitting here for weeks, holding a solo vigil for John. He tried to quell the buzzing about his ears, pulling her knife from his belt and presenting it to her, handle-first. "This is yours."

She beamed, disarming him, the buzzing in his ears exchanged for a forgotten heat. Her fingers brushed his as she seized the weapon, turning it for a quick inspection before returning it to its favoured place on her belt. "Let's get this done," she said, calm as the placid river before them.

*

Surprising Arthur, Dutch opted to stay in the boat once they reached the shores of the prison island. "You two have this handled," he said, not quite meeting Arthur's eye. "I'll be ready to paddle like hell once you come back with John."

He was too unmoored to argue - that of course, three would be better than two with the odds already so impossibly stacked against them - so he tromped off after Tine, the land of the island uneven and soft.

The pair crouched in the tall grasses, Tine the first to point out a guard tower, the lone guard standing lookout conveniently doing so in the opposite direction.

"Be my guest," Arthur offered, motioning toward the guard. Tine shook her head, wincing as she lifted her arm halfway.

"Best you do it." She mumbled, Arthur unused to hearing her made unconfident like this. He stalked forward, dully realizing they were more like one and a half with Tine's bad arm. The bruising had faded away from her face, but not all of her injuries were healed. And she'd been alone to tend to them, again.

Arthur climbed the rust-pocked iron ladder to the tower and made short work of the man up top. Seizing the guard's discarded rifle, he peered through the scope at the labouring prisoners, in the field beyond.

"Any sign of John?" Tine's voice sounded from below. He swore he heard hope in it.And why shouldn't there be, you damn fool,he thought.It's why you're here too, if you ain't forgotten.He'd become so used to merely surviving on Guarma, he'd forgotten the mess of feelings he'd left behind.

"No," he forced himself to sound casual. "He must be inside. This just got harder." Arthur climbed down and stood next to Tine, she intent on the swath of prisoners working the land.

"How many guards on those over there?"

Arthur's eyebrows raised. "Just a couple."

She smiled, reached forth to grasp his fingers. "Just like us." He couldn't help but grin back, squeezing once, before he let go to unholster his gun, gesture for Tine to do the same.

"Let's get our boy," he said.

*

They freed John with a hostage. It was Tine's nefarious doing, but better still, a way to hide her arm, the wriggling man held firm in front of her by little more than her knifepoint to his neck.

Once John loped out, confusion evident on his face, Tine kicked the man in the back and ran, Arthur shooting John's shackled ankles so that he could do the same. They shot their way through scores of guards, Arthur running alongside Tine in case she fell on the uneven terrain, John behind them making exceptional work of the guards who gave them chase. Whatever complicated feelings Arthur had rediscovered, he delighted in this; his chosen three, together again.

Dutch was hunkered low in the boat once they arrived, so it was Arthur and John who seized each side and pushed it out into the water, Tine leaping into the middle of the canoe and firing on a few approaching guards, sending one careening to the ground with a shot to his knee, the other caught square in the chest.

With the momentum he and John had created, the canoe was already gliding towards the opposite shore when Arthur finally climbed into it, grabbing an oar and encouraging the canoe along. John, in the front of the boat, finally saw Dutch, who moved forward on his knees to embrace him.

"So glad we got you, John," he murmured, cradling the back of his head in a broad hand. Tine turned her head a quarter, and Arthur saw her mouth a sardonicwe?

But no matter; they'd made it. John saddled up behind Arthur and the four of them rode toward the Lakay camp. Dutch, his bravado returned, recounted to John and Tine what had happened to he and Arthur since the bank job, the island.

"What about Abigail, Jack?" John interrupted, stopping Dutch mid-sentence in his retelling of their exploits with the local Guarma rebellion. Arthur felt a small clench of John's fingers where they rested on either side of his waist. "They OK?"

Dutch forced a chuckle. "They're just fine, John, of course. Everyone's fine." John's fingers relaxed.

Arthur, on the other hand, pursed his lips, and Tine caught his eye from her new horse, squinted pointedly at him. He thought it best to change the subject. "You won't believe who's waiting for you, Tine, back at camp."

"Who?"

He neglected to answer, leading them instead over the planked path and past the macabre skeletons that marked the entrance to Lakay, towards the hitching posts.

"Darling?" He heard Tine's astonished hush behind him, and then saw her run past them, holding her hand to her Paint's minky neck and jowls, pressing a kiss to her nose.

Arthur chuckled, dismounting after John and tying Buster up. "Thought you'd be glad to see her."

"You thought right," Tine whispered, fishing in her pockets for a treat. Dutch and John made for the main house in the camp, the former trumpeting John's return, but Arthur was in no mood for joyous celebration, conflicted in all directions. He pulled a peppermint from his pocket instead and proffered it to Tine, who smiled gratefully and let Darling lip it from her flat palm.

They heard whoops and Jack's little voice from the house, their heads turning as one to the noise, then to each other. "You want to talk? Stay away for a bit?"

Tine nodded, giving one last pat to Darling's white forelock and then following Arthur to a grove of cypress, close to the camp but quite secluded.

"Hope I'm not ruining your welcome, bringin' you here instead," he said, head hung below his shoulders.

"Sure there wouldn't be much of one," she replied, no trace of bitterness in her voice.

"You was really lifted by Pinkertons, Tine?" His face grew serious, and as much as he tried not to, he stared at her.

"They didn't know it was me," she said, almost conspiratorially. "I was still all roughed up and in one of the girls' nightgowns; they just thought I was another one of them women picked up by the gang. Didn't have my horse or my knife." Upon mentioning it, she grasped at its handle as if for reassurance, her thumb travelling along the tang. "Thank you, by the way," she said, smiling at him. "Bringing them back to me."

"Reminds me," he said, fishing the chain out from under his collar and pulling it over his ears, presenting the coin to Tine. "This is yours, too."

She grasped at the coin blindly, her hand opening and closing on air a few times before finding it, her eyes instead on Arthur's exposed chest. "You've grown so thin," she said quietly, returning the coin to her neck with some difficulty, her bad arm giving her trouble.

Arthur gruffed a laugh, looked beyond the curtain of cypress towards the murky swamp water, green and semi-opaque. "Well, there weren't a lot to eat on that island." His smile turned into a grimace, remembering the man he'd killed with a turn of his stomach, realizing Tine would have done the same, in an instant,haddone the same.

Tine snorted, startling him. "Not a lot to eat on a tropical island? Certainly bodes well for Tahiti."

"Tine," Arthur warned, suddenly very tired. He lowered his head only to find it cradled in her palms, her thumbs stroking along his jawline. He opened his eyes to look directly into hers, soft in the shade of the trees around them.How can such cruel hands feel so kind, he thought, sinking his head into the crook of her neck, finding the perfume there.I don't even know what's right anymore.

Instead, he murmured into her shoulder, "you been waitin' for John, well, what about me."

She pulled back to search his eyes again, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Come on, Arthur, don't make me say it."

"Say it." He commanded, not knowing precisely whatitwas.

She climbed into his lap, pressed into his starved chest, angled his face toward hers. "Imissedyou," she whispered into his mouth, "I worried."

It wasn't the apology he was looking for, but coupled with her insistent grinding into him, the weight of her in his lap, her lips welcoming his own, it was enough.

Chapter 28: xxviii. Back into the fold

Chapter Text

When John had been frogmarched out of the front gate of Sisika Penitentiary and spotted Tine, her knife to a guard's throat, it was as if he'd summoned her. From that short distance she refracted the sunlight, dazzling to behold. He ran after that light, chased it, all the way to freedom.

Closer, though, when they'd managed to get themselves into a boat and after Dutch - Dutch, who'd been waiting for them - had released him from his embrace, the effect was gone. Tine was drawn-looking, with dark circles under her eyes. Her arm was crooked, with a smile to match when she'd briefly caught his eye. Arthur and Dutch looked similarly worse for wear; their cheeks hollowed and hair and beards longer than either would normally have allowed.

But none of it mattered, save for the safety of Abigail and Jack. Dutch spoke incessantly about their travels abroad after the bank job went south; another adventure about which John didn't care to hear.

"What about Abigail, Jack?" He'd finally interrupted, trying to keep his teeth from clacking with the gait of Arthur's massive horse, "They OK?"

Dutch's reply,they're just fine, buzzed against his eardrums until they arrived at the collection of shanties that made the gang's new camp, until he walked through the front door of the main building with Dutch's arm slung protectively around his shoulder.

"Look who I found," the leader announced, holding his arms up in a showman's flourish.

"John," Abigail's greeting was little more than a breath of relief, something John heard just before she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her forehead into his chest. Jack rushed his shins soon after, and John felt the tension leave his body, utterly surrounded by his family. He felt hands to his shoulders and back, the gang welcoming him back into their fold. He held Abigail in turn, kissed the crown of her head, tousled Jack's hair.

He wanted nothing more than to shed himself of his prison garb - that number, 827 - and curl into a private place with Abigail and Jack. But, the gang had other plans, desperate to catch him up, so he gamely held a coffee and listened to Pearson recount the gang's hurried move northeast - "Your Abigail caught wind of those Pinkertons somehow," he said, and at John's side, she smiled to herself, bashful. Tilly praised Jack on his reading, and Mary-Beth furtively whispered that something wasn't right with Karen. Jack crouched at John's feet, playing with his wooden train.

The train sparked John's memory. "Where's Tine?" He asked absentmindedly, slowly looking around him.

"God knows where," Abigail replied, rolling her eyes. "Took off near about a month ago."

"No, she's here," John stretched his neck to see over Charles, sat before him, "but she's nothere."

"What on earth are you saying, John Marston?" The question snapped out of Abigail, her previously serene expression soured.

Dutch cleared his throat. "Supposing this is news to everyone, we found Miss Nilsen on the way to you, John." John surveyed the room again, noticing half of his rescuing party - Tine and Arthur, both - absent.

"She's back?" Abigail's fingertips momentarily dug into his arm.

John loosed a nervous chuckle. "I didn't realize she'd been gone, but yeah. She came in with us. Just wondering where she went off to."

Dutch stood, then, cutting off whatever words were writhing behind Abigail's pursed lips, waiting to be unleashed. "We're a full house, or, nearly," he said, addressing the group, regret limning his baritone. "It's so good to have everyone where they belong. Of course, we've outgrown this place, as resourceful as you all were to seek it out."

The back door to the cabin screeched then, announcing its opening, and Arthur and Tine slunk in, Tine fastening the final button at her collar. She caught John's eye, raised two fingers at her hip in a discreet wave.

Dutch continued, unfazed. "We need to get ourselves away from the reach of the law while we plan our next move. We're going to move on to a place called Beaver Hollow, north of here."

A pronounced scoff sounded from the back of the room, and the gang's heads swung as one to look to Tine, Arthur beside her taking a half-step back, as if not to be affiliated with her outburst.

"Miss Nilsen, your thoughts?" Dutch's tone was cavalier, but John knew something was boiling under his surface, lines appearing between his eyebrows.

"We're not moving there," she said, "it's horrific. We've passed through there on jobs before. Disgusting." She'd gestured at Arthur when she saidwe, and he responded by stepping further away, flat against the window. "We'll scout somewhere else."

"You all know I'm open to suggestions," Dutch opened his palm, but it curled again into a fist. "But we're short on time. We need to move, now."

"What about a hotel in Annesburg?" Tine replied, "likely have enough money saved up to stay somewhere for months, if not buy someplace of our own."

Dutch's face darkened further, his brow casting a shadow over his carved-out cheeks. "That money's gone."

"What?" Unlike Dutch, Tine made no effort to hide her feelings. Her anger was palpable to John; he could feel it from where he sat, a small shiver in his tailbone.

"Someone took it," Dutch spoke slowly, as if to a child. "It's gone."

"So we're starting over."

"Yes."

"Again."

"Yes." Dutch cracked, a small hiss on thes. From his position against the window, Arthur shot John a nervous look. The room was silent, save for the wooden wheels on Jack's train traversing the uneven floor.

Tine, however, laughed, her eyes brightening, cheeks flushed. "At least that takes Tahiti off the list!"

Dutch ran his thumb over his knuckles. "That's still the goal, Miss Nilsen. Everyone, we need to stay focused-"

"You're fooling!" Tine cried, incredulous. "You all just came from a paradise, didn't you? How didthatgo?" Even Bill-" she lurched an unsteady point at the man, hunkered on a stool "-is skin and bones."

Dutch was seething, now, and John rose from his seat without precisely knowing why. Abigail joined him, slipping her hand into his. "We can no longer live by our ideals in America," Dutch said, the calm tone in his voice betrayed by the anger that rolled off him, causing Mary-Beth to clutch at Tilly, Susan to approach his elbow.

"Oh, the gentlemen outlaws who like symphonies, and books, hoping to build a better world?" Tine, on the other hand, was almost cackling, her blue eyes pale and sparkling, a dangerous white light to Dutch's darkened expression, pacing while he remained eerily still. "I know I haven't been here as long as the others, but the way I see things, I live by this gang's ideals every day. I rob, I kill, I make money so that we all can live. Those are the only ideals we practice."

"John didn't speak too well to them, then, when you was off by your twosome," Dutch said, and John saw Abigail's knuckles go white.

"I think John explained them perfectly," she said, her voice even, a small smile playing at her lips. She held Dutch's furious gaze and then stalked for the front door, through the attendant gang. "Arthur, Charles, let's go find somewhere to live."

Arthur looked to the ground, mumbled, "'M pretty tired from this mornin'."

Tine was unfazed. "OK then, Charles? I'll be with the horses."

The gang was silent after she left, most of them looking pointedly away from Dutch, stood in the centre of their circle. He laughed, suddenly and without humour. "Best not keep her waiting, Mr. Smith." Charles nodded and left the room, shouldering his bow as he did so. The gang dispersed soon after, leaving Abigail and John in the room with their son, John's palm against hers slick with nervous sweat.

Abigail threw his offending hand away and marched over to the woodstove, hauling a pot up and onto it. "Who the hell does she think she is? Comes back and has the gumption to throw her goddamn weight around, like anyone was asking her."

John scratched at his neck, looked down at Jack's rhythmic steering of his train. "She's right about Beaver Hollow," he said, halfhearted, remembering the macabre scene that greeted them there once, "from one prison to another if we ended up there."

"What are you defending her for, John? She's done nothing but stir up trouble, not even a day she's been back."

John supposed that was true, but snapped instead, "She broke me out of Sisika, Abigail, what more do you want? Rather I had a goddamned rope around my neck?"

The two stared each other down, the twinned fury and hurt on Abigail's face matching how John felt in his gut.

"Rope, Pa?" Jack asked, quietly. "What do you mean?" A tear rolled down Abigail's cheek; she hastily brushed it off and swept the boy into her arms, clutching him to her.

"Your Pa were just making a joke that weren't too funny, sweet boy," John heard her say as she stalked out, not sparing another glance at him.

*

Late the following afternoon, Charles returned to the camp, beckoning them toward their new home. The wagon train took the Van der Linde gang straight north, a few days' ride up through dense forest and then rocky valleys, the air growing drier and colder around them. John and Abigail achieved a shaky truce; sleeping with Jack between them in the bed of their wagon, a peace line.

They finally came upon a pleasant, if cool, clearing, swathed in vibrant lupins. A trickle of a stream ran along its edge, and a small cabin anchored the plot.

"Welcome," Tine greeted, rising from the scout fire she'd built. She was different, more like her old self; a supple fullness to her cheeks, an indigo tinge to her hair from the flowers all around them, clearly in her element. The sun hung low in the sky, bathing the new camp, and Tine in it, in golden, inviting light.

But the remoteness of the location had already caused mutterings along the wagon train, and Tine's remarks about their ideals hung heavy, if unspoken, over the gang.

Dutch, often one to make speeches, and especially when morale was shaken, instead said nothing. He gave Tine a short nod, a tip of the brim of his hat, and then went into the cabin, closing the door to all of them.

Chapter 29: xxix. “We’re spread thin”

Chapter Text

As exhausted as he was following the move to Fairvale, the isolated field in Ambarino Tine'd chosen for the gang, Arthur'd had a bad sleep.

Tine had approached him the evening before, after the sun had long gone down and all but a handful of gang members with it. "Hey, warm fella," she smirked, her fingers trailing along his upper arm, which he followed, astonished. "Was looking for you to take the frost out of my breath." As if to emphasize her point, she pursed her lips and blew, the vapour streaming from her mouth faintly visible in the firelight. And beyond it, Dutch, hunched in his overcoat, gazing into the flames.

Arthur sighed, conflicting feelings battling within him. "Maybe not tonight, Tine," he said, avoiding her eyes. "Things is complicated enough." He'd been so ready to claim her as his own just a short time ago, but that seemed another age.

He saw the flash of something in her eye, but it vanished just as quickly. "OK, then," she said, and walked back to her own tent without another word.

When day broke, he crunched through the dewfrost that had collected on the ground and lined every blade of grass, every lupin petal. It could have been that he was just used to the Lemoyne heat - to say nothing of his time on Guarma - but it was quite cold up here, where the sun took its sweet time to rise over the mountains. He thought of the women, Strauss, Uncle, Bill; many of them sleeping directly on the ground. They'd need beds, bedding, heaters. He knew what a disaster Beaver Hollow was, but saw problems with the site Tine had picked, too.

Arthur whirled at the hiss of a whisper behind him, spotting none but Lenny, hurriedly trying to pull his saddlebags over his Maggie's rump without notice. Lenny caught Arthur's bald stare and his dark eyes grew guilty, looked to the tips of his boots. Arthur stepped quietly over, his palms open as if to convey that he didn't mean anything by his quick movement.

"Where're you off to?" He said casually. Lenny's eyes glanced up again, then back down, liquid with regret. "Len?" Arthur asked again, resting a hand over the nearest saddlebag. It was packed full, bulging with Lenny's belongings. Arthur chanced a look back to where the young man's tent had been the night before, only to see it gone, a telltale square of frostless grass where it'd sat pitched. Shame filled Lenny's face, his lower lip quivered, once.

"I only thought-" Lenny began, and Arthur felt his heart lurch, moved his hand to Lenny's shoulder.

"It's OK, Lenny," he said, firmly, hoping to assuage him of his guilt at leaving.

"I mean-"

"You don't have to explain, it's all right."

Lenny gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. He forced himself to meet Arthur's steady gaze. "I just thought we wasdoingsomething, you know?"

I rob, I kill, I make money so that we all can live. Those are the only ideals we practice. Tine's words from the cabin in Lakay hung over them both. "I know," Arthur nodded, patting Lenny's shoulder before releasing him, making a waving motion back towards the road they'd followed in. "I don't hold it against ya. Be safe, now." Lenny saddled up and took off, a small dot against the rising sun that grew smaller, then vanished.

*

Dutch seemed in halfway decent spirits when Arthur met him in his little stone cabin, a fire crackling merrily in the little hearth, the smoke from a cigar parked in his fingers perfuming the air.

"How's everyone keeping?" He asked as Arthur shouldered off his overcoat, the air close in the small, single room.

"Cold, mostly," he tried to laugh, but the sound caught in his throat; he coughed instead. "We're gonna need pallets for folks, get 'em up off the ground. And, uh-" He hesitated, Lenny's guilt-ridden face burning in his mind's eye. "Lenny's gone."

"Lenny," Dutch repeated, his face screwing up. He forced it back to neutral, but his voice was tight. "Ain't that a shame. I will miss him."

"And me," Arthur nodded, leaning against a barrel to retrieve his cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

Dutch huffed a sigh, pitching the end of his cigar into the fireplace. "Can I trust you, Arthur?"

"Always."

Dutch leaned forward, weaving his fingers together between his knees. "I need you to watch that Miss Nilsen for me. Hosea weren't sure about her and I'm beginning to agree with him."

Arthur felt his eyebrows climb up his forehead. "You mean all that Bronte business? We know it weren't her."

"Maybe she faked it," Dutch said, and before Arthur could counter, added, "And don't you find itoddthat the Pinkertons are waiting at Shady Belle, and she's missing?"

"Then why'd she come back? It could have just as easily been Molly-" Dutch's careful expression soured at the mention "-she weren't there either." Arthur chuckled, trying to diffuse Dutch's befouled mood. "Hell, none of 'em were, they all had the good sense to take off. Thankfully," he added, quickly, at the end.

"And that outburst the other day, about the money, in front of everyone," Dutch continued as if Arthur hadn't spoken at all. He fixed Arthur with a stare, his irises almost black. "And you know she killed that woman, back in Blackwater."

Arthur's eyebrows raised further still, his mouth agape. Dutch nodded, sombre. "Weren't nothing I could do to sway her, Arthur. The devil lives in those pretty blue eyes." His gaze was steady and honest, but there was something malignant behind it. Whether it was lies or hatred, Arthur didn't know.

"You'll watch her for me." It wasn't a question, and Arthur felt he could do nothing but nod and leave the cabin, pulling his coat back on as he did so.

The camp was more lively then, a few members huddled together before the roaring campfire, numbed fingers wrapped around coffee mugs. Jack, bundled to his eyes, toddled around the camp, flopping onto the grass for laughs. Arthur spotted John and Tine in quiet conference at the mouth of her tent, smoking and looking furtively about them.

He made to walk by, but Tine smiled brightly, reached out and seized his sleeve. "We can trust Arthur with this, of course," she said to John, who pitched his cigarette into the grass.

"Trust me with what?" He tried to sound casual, his chest clenching at the conversation he'd just had, confronted with the very blue eyes Dutch had warned him against.

"We're after Bronte," she said conspiratorially. "Always pays to take revenge on a rich man."

"Neverpays, you mean," Arthur said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You can't be talkin' about this. We're spread thin enough as it is. Gotta focus on staying alive out here."

"Never felt more alive, Arthur," she winked.

"We should have gone after that bastard months ago," John added, standing taller. "You felt the same, then."

"Was before we had the Pinkertons on our backs, beforesomeonegot his ass in jail," Arthur retorted, a spike of aggressive jealousy at John and Tine's renewed closeness.

"Oh yeah? Why'd you break me out, then?" Tine's focus shifted back and forth between the men, amusem*nt building on her face.

"Glad you're enjoyin' this, Teeny," Arthur's use of the nickname was reluctant, but it brought a familiar comfort to him, and to her, a rosy blush erupting across her cheeks. John scowled. "I'll take you down to Saint Denis. If you're after killing Bronte, we best find out more about him."

He'd told Dutch he'd watch her, after all.

*

Arthur privately relished every mile south to Saint Denis, the cold increasingly behind them. They made camp just east of Emerald Ranch and, despite his protests the night before, shared a tent with Tine away from everyone else, her warm body ridding his bones of the last of their chill. But he woke up feeling guilty, like he'd gone behind the gang for his own comfort.

"You're quiet, cowboy," she teased the next day, turning in her saddle to smirk at him.

"Lot on my mind," he mumbled back. She pulled up on Darling's reins so that Buster naturally joined them on the trail, looked sidelong at Arthur.

"It's four," she said plainly.

"Ain't half-past nine, what d'you mean?"

"Two plus two, Arthur; it's four." Her smile was wicked, and he laughed despite himself, rolling his eyes.

The gravity of their undertaking hit when they approached Bronte's house, slinking along the side street as to avoid notice by his guardsmen.

"Won't be able to get him, here," Tine whispered. "Could try the brothel, instead? It's where they kept me."

The news, delivered matter-of-factly, winded Arthur all the same. There was still so little he knew about the time Tine'd been away from them, what she'd gone through. She'd taken to holding her bad arm to herself much of the time, her hand resting on her opposite shoulder. Even in the tent the night before, she'd angled it away from him, her back across his bicep instead of nestled into his chest.

He chose to nod instead of risking speaking around the lump in his throat, and they progressed towards a poorer end of the city, hitching their horses so that they could walk through an alley. A wooden door, unadorned save for the rose carved at eye-height, greeted them at the end of it.

"What's the plan?" he said, growing nervous at the door. Tine grinned.

"Say, 'I'm here for some pus-'"

"Good lord, Tine," Arthur cut her off, blushing scarlet as she laughed again at him, clutching at her stomach. "Be serious," he tried again, she almost immune to chastisem*nts. "We can't just walk in there, they know what we look like."

"Let's peek, then?" She pointed to where the wall halved, indicating a courtyard beyond.

"Can you climb up?"

"With help." Her face was determined, so Arthur pushed down the sickening feeling that surfaced when she painfully straightened her arm, reaching for the edge of the wall and accepting his boost up. He joined her soon after, her arm already returned to the shoulder, Tine panting disproportionately to the minor effort it should have taken her to scale the wall.

The two straddled the wall, hunched low. They were in plain view of the courtyard, but its few occupants were otherwise distracted; smoking from long, ornate pipes, stroking each other.

In a bay window overlooking the yard, they witnessed one coupling taking feverish place, a woman's knees up around a man's back, two well-dressed guards trying to look invisible - despite their large frames - in the corner of the room.

"Bronte," Tine hissed, pointing to where Arthur would much rather look away. The woman's arm wrapped around Bronte's slim neck and he hauled her up, in their full view. The flush across her apple cheeks obscured her freckles, but Molly O'Shea's red hair was unmistakeable.

"sh*t," Arthur said, leaping from the wall and beckoning for Tine to do the same. She hesitated a moment, looking back to the window a few times before following suit. Arthur caught her and slowed her fall, then the pair ran for their horses, in disbelief of what they'd just seen.

*

Tine had tried to joke about what they'd witnessed on their ride back to camp, by their small fire when they stopped for the night, but Arthur refused to be baited, a slow roil in his stomach. He'd been reckless enough leaving with Tine, and what he'd seen would do nothing for Dutch's temper. He'd been burdened with delivering a lot of bad news, lately, and wasn't up to much more.

They returned to camp by dusk, Arthur leaving Buster, and Tine and Darling next to him, to talk to Dutch and get things over with.

The leader took the news with eerie calm, his expression unmoved. "And you didn't kill her?"

Arthur spluttered in surprise. "Kill her, Dutch, I..." Dutch remained passive, grinding the remainder of his evening cigar into the log where he sat, then rose to standing, offering a friendly wave to a passing Mary-Beth and Tilly.

"You know the rules," he said. Arthur backed away, returning to his lean-to, trying to keep his horror to himself.

That night, he pulled his journal from his bag, hoping to look through it for guidance as he'd always done, to reconcile the various Dutches and Tines that battled in his memories and discover which ones were true, to trace the threads back to how he'd gotten here.

But he'd barely written anything in months; his drawing of the lace pattern on Tine's dress from way back at Clemens Point innocuous and damning on the page. The empty pages unnerved him, as did the very real possibility that Dutch had lied to his face about Blackwater, about Heidi McCourt.

Chapter 30: xxx. Cooler heads prevailing

Chapter Text

Much to Abigail's chagrin, John insisted on going back with Tine to Saint Denis.

"You realize what it looks like, John?" Abigail said, a tremble in her throat despite her doing her damndest to keep her voice steady.

"Sure, I do," he conceded, "But it ain't like that, I promise." He brushed his fingers against Abigail's arms, coaxing her to uncross them. "I just need to pay her back," he added, more quietly, "If going after Bronte is what she wants. She looked for me, twice."

Abigail nodded, looking across the campsite to Tine's lashed tent, then to Jack by the fire.

"Feed the boy, before you go?"

It was the least he could do. John pressed a kiss to Abigail's forehead and scooped a bowlful of porridge for Jack. He eased himself onto a stump, and Jack found him there, climbing onto his knee and wordlessly accepting his first spoonful of breakfast.

"Pa?" He piped, after a few bites. "What was jail like?"

John's brow rumpled. "Who told you I was in jail?" The boy didn't miss much, that was certain.

Jack ignored the question and asked instead: "Were you scared?"

John gave the question some thought. "Suppose I was lonely, that's for sure." He nudged Jack in his stomach with a knuckle. "Not much scares your pa."

"Momma does."

John laughed in surprise. "That's true." Back at their tent, he caught Abigail's smile, softening her entire face. He returned it, glad things were on the mend between them.

*

It was normally two days' ride into Saint Denis, but Tine brought out the recklessness in John required to get there in just over a day and a half, pushing their horses and racing each other through mountain valleys that turned into plains, then into swamps.

They entered the city through its northernmost entrance, bypassing the rich area Bronte called home in favour of the less-policed workers' neighbourhood. They hitched their horses outside of a saloon and headed in the direction of the brothel, wondering if they could find some information on Molly's whereabouts. "She'll be much easier to get to than Bronte," Tine had insisted, a dangerous glint in her eye. John knew whatget tooften meant, for Tine, and gulped.

But the day seemed almost pleasant, their errand notwithstanding; John stood tall next to Tine as they meandered down the narrow streets marking the city's poorer area, free of any danger of being recognized or nabbed.

"So," John broke the easy silence between them, waiting for the trolley to pass by. "Bronte and Molly, huh? Howcouldshe?"

Tine smirked at him, as if she were about to broach his own sorry track record of infidelity, but answered honestly: "Now, there's a woman who needs to be kept."

"Kept?"

"Needs a big man looking out for her, needs to feel pretty and wanted."

"Dutch didn't seem to give her much of that, towards the end." Tine tapped the tip of her nose in agreement. "I just hope she ain't talking." Arthur had told John the alarming calm with which Dutch had said he should have killed his former lover. He looked uneasily at his own hands, then nudged Tine to clear the dark thoughts that had clouded his mind. "What about you, Tine? You lookin' to be kept?"

She laughed. "I think we both know the answer to that."

"Hey, I ain't so sure," he nudged her again, in the cheek instead of the arm. "You get a certain kind of way, sometimes."

He'd been vague enough, but Tine still clued into which times he'd been referencing, and briefly leaned into him to whisper, "The flesh is weak." He shivered, and she laughed again, the sound petering out as her eyes, then head, swivelled to follow a passing group of people.

Tine made after them without a word, weaving through the current of pedestrians on the crowded sidewalk, John following behind a few yards, trying to keep Tine's bright braid in view.

"Unnskyld meg?" He heard her call, two of the rear members of the group slowing and turning back to her. The pair, a middle-aged woman and an old man, brightened upon seeing Tine and pulled the rest of their party - a teenaged boy and two young women - to turn around as well and start chattering away in a language John didn't understand. He hung back, suddenly shy, leaning against a lamppost and lighting a smoke.

He heard Tine respond, her voice slow and clumsy where she was usually clear, if not outright biting, in English. She spoke with the group for a few more minutes when the young women reached forward to brush a kiss to Tine's cheeks and the older woman - their mother, judging by their similar look - embraced her tightly. The men waved and the group continued on their way, Tine rubbing at the shoulder of her bad arm, oddly still among the bustle of people around her.

John threw his spent cigarette into the street and sidled up next to Tine, touching gently to her shoulderblade to announce his presence. "Who were they?"

Tine continued to stare after the departing party, only half-turning to address John out of the corner of her mouth; "Those are my people. Norwegians."

His eyes widened slightly. "No sh*t." They bore a passing resemblance to Tine, too, he realized; blonde, straight hair, blue eyes. "What did they say to you?"

She laughed bitterly, finally tearing her gaze away from the crowd, the family long since lost. She continued to walk and John loped along after her. "They said how nice it was that I made it in America, that they hoped to do the same."

John shrugged. "You have, kinda."

She squinted at him. "What life is this, John?" He thought she was being philosophical, and doubted his ability to counter, but she continued, "My arm doesn't even work." But the sentiment ran deeper, because she paused in the street, turned abruptly around.

"f*ck Bronte, he's not worth it," she said, avoiding John's eye. "It's a stupid idea," she said again, more loudly, as if convincing herself. "We'd have two seconds before his people were all over us, we wouldn't be able to take anything."

John nodded slowly, figuring his support was what she needed most. She raised her palm to her fist, balled at her shoulder. "We need to go back to what we were doing before; small, successful jobs."

"Sounds good," he replied, not wanting to delve into her sudden change of heart. "How about we plan one tonight, at camp?"

*

John and Tine did plan; a caught rabbit roasting between them on their small fire. They circled news items of interest in theSaint Denis TimesandNew Hanover Ledger, seeing that an heiress would be visiting Saint Denis later in the season, and that Leviticus Cornwall himself planned a trip to Annesburg, amid the usual ads for luxury stage travel between towns; a new pawn shop opening.

Tine slapped at the newsprint with the back of her hand, letting out a caw. "Thisis what we should be doing, John, see? It's all here for the taking."

He grunted, throwing the thighbone he'd been gnawing at into the brush bordering their camp. "Not Cornwall, though, right? Last time we crossed him we had guns to our heads."

"Gun to my head never bothered me any," she replied, smiling at him.

He didn't return it, insisting; "Not how I remember things. Arthur even said how worked up you got, that night."She cried, John, Arthur had said, on one night much like this one, Tine in her tent before the men had crawled into theirs.I didn't think she could.

Tine looked up to the stars spattering the sky above them, remembering, the smile fading from her lips. "He left me with those goddamned Germans, is what happened," she said. "Imagine four Strausses, nattering at you."She said it were Cornwall but I ain't so sure. Arthur had said that, too.

John cleared his throat, drank from the bottle of beer he'd bought in Saint Denis. "So, you never said why you were away from the rest, when you sprung me out."

"I was waiting for you, watching," Tine's gaze grew once again steady and assured, on even conversational footing. "Weren't just going to leave you there to hang."

John smiled into the mouth of the bottle, warmed by the thought that she cared. Thanking her would have only invited teasing, so he instead laughed: "Abigail thought we'd gone loose."

Tine didn't join him, her expression thoughtful. "I could talk to her, if you want, set things straight."

John laughed louder at the notion, doubling over. "That'd be terrible. A godawful idea." He coughed into his hand, grinned at Tine. "She barely let me out here as it was, could be hard to get out on these jobs we been thinkin' about."

"So we might not get out again, us two."

"Might not, yeah," John agreed, looking into the beer bottle, the words dawning on him. He was so focused he didn't notice Tine had moved to sit next to him, was smiling inches from his face.

"So we should be taking advantage, you're saying."

John's eyebrows flew up his forehead; he dropped the bottle to clunk dully into the dirt. "No," he stammered, "that weren't what I meant. I meant that Abigail doesn't trust me out here, with you."

Tine nodded pensively at this, the smile leaving, then creeping back onto her face, a mischievous sparkle in her pupil, wide in the dark. John felt her hand on his forearm, warm and pressing, "Course, if she's going to think of you as naughty John, anyhow." She trailed off, an expectant look on her face. It was the most forward she'd ever been, and he could barely stand it, the perfume at her neck lowering his defenses.

John shut his eyes tight, allowed himself to drift toward her for a mere moment, the perfume drawing him in, then hauled himself back, his eyes snapping open, his arm wrested from her grasp. "No, Tine."

"OK then, good night." She stood without ceremony, nor any acknowledgement of the state she'd left him in, blonde hair swishing after her into her tent.

*

John and Tine returned to the Van der Linde camp at dusk, unfamiliar men standing by the horses greeting them with little more than a squint. They wore hides, their dark, glossy hair long and braided.

The Native Americans parted to allow John and Tine's passage into the camp, their stern expressions prickling at John's back as he headed for Dutch, Arthur, and Charles, talking to an older man, his hair greyed but worn similarly, presumably their Chief.

"Rains Fall, this is John Marston, and Tine Nilsen, more of us," Charles made the introduction, a measure of deference in his calm voice.

"How do you do?" John greeted quietly, trying to keep his confusion from his face. Tine merely waved, a half-step behind John's left shoulder.

"Mr. Marston, Miss Nilsen," Rains Fall nodded to each of them. "I was just in the middle of asking your friends here for some help."

"And we will discuss it now, with your leave," Dutch said amiably, a polite gesture of his hand urging Rains Fall back toward his men.

Once they were alone, Charles filled John and Tine in on what Rains Fall wanted; helping the Waipiti people out of their troubles with the US Army stationed to their south. "They're practically our neighbours, out here," Charles finished, making clear how he felt. "And who's to say the army doesn't turn on us, next." He had the curious quality of making his questions into statements, giving an imploring look to each of them.

John was blindsided by the proposition; the thought of standing practically alone against an army regiment turning his stomach. Arthur, too, seemed grave, looking furtively between the group of Waipiti at the fringe of their camp and Charles. Dutch rubbed his chin, deep in thought.

"No, absolutely not," Tine said, breaking them all of their thoughts. "We need to be doing small jobs that make money and don't attract attention; this will do neither."

Charles opened his mouth to protest, but Dutch spoke first. "Now don't be hasty, Miss Nilsen," he said, his voice low. "If we do this right, won't beusgetting the attention."

Arthur and Charles's eyes widened simultaneously, but the latter's quickly turned to a scowl of disgust. "I can't believe you, either of you. I'm-" the anger left Charles's voice as quickly as it entered it. "I'm done."

They watched as Charles, the Van der Linde gang's hunter, provider, and coolest head prevailing, packed up his few possessions and bundled them under his arm. He paused in front of them all, fixing Arthur in particular with a look. "I expected better from you, at least." He stalked off to the collected men, his deep voice murmuring his intention to leave with them, and then he did.

John watched Arthur's shoulders slump, his exhale, a puff of breath leave his mouth in the icy air. Dutch turned away with a pronounced sigh and went into the cabin he'd claimed for himself, leaving the three of them to do little but look at each other.

Chapter 31: xxxi. “Don’t go off just yet”

Chapter Text

The Van der Linde camp at Fairvale, nestled among the lupins, continued to grow colder. The gang sat clustered together, conducting their tasks with trembling fingers. Dutch spent most of his time in his cabin, and the gang members took frequent audience with him; for the warmth more so than the company, bad-tempered as it often was.

For his part, Arthur tried to make up the deficit in hunted provisions that appeared when Charles left, as well as assuming the role of a debate partner for Dutch - once a province of Lenny's - but found himself lacking in both. His arguments were clumsy, studded with "ums" and "y'knows". And, any animal he brought back larger than a rabbit was riddled with bulletholes. His gun had a much easier time finding vital points on a man; not so much an elk or deer.

But Tine had come into her own, frequently shedding her coat even in the chilly air, her cheeks flushed with life. Even her bad arm crossing her chest didn't seem to take away from her vibrancy up in the mountains, her blue eyes picking up the lurid violet of the flowers around them. It had appeared to rub off on John, too, his own eyes twinkling with whatever possibilities the two were dreaming up without Arthur, his smile easy and conniving.

The pair were planning some job, Arthur came to realize, a newspaper covered in pencilled circles clutched in Tine's fist. She was excited as she told him about it, nearly dancing on the spot, John smiling from where he leant against a wagon. "It's aluxurystage, Arthur," she stressed, jabbing at the paper with her knife, "Just started, from Saint Denis to Annesburg. Going to be full of coal barons and their pretty wives, ripe for the picking." The knifepoint continued to prod at the newsprint and Arthur felt his stomach turn. He'd been avoiding Tine since Charles had left, the association Charles'd made between him and her difficult to sit with. Even when they were close, back at Shady Belle and before, Arthur had considered himself morally apart.

Arthur began to protest: "You ain't gonna-" when Dutch interrupted him, calling from his cabin. Arthur snorted his displeasure, before responding, "Yeah, Dutch?"

"I need to speak with you a moment." Dutch retreated back into the little house and Arthur looked between his younger colleagues; a small smirk playing on Tine's lips, John's arms crossed defiantly.

"Wait here a minute, don't go off just yet," he ordered, pulling himself away and stalking over to Dutch's cabin, throwing the door open more dramatically than he meant to. Dutch looked up from his place next to the fire, a newspaper of his own dangling between his open knees.

"Suddenly everyone's followin' the news," Arthur muttered under his breath.

"News from Saint Denis," Dutch said by way of greeting, holding up the paper. "Our friend Colm O'Driscoll's due to swing."

Arthur barked a laugh, remembering all of the times Colm had evaded the hangman's noose. "Wouldn't be the first time."

Dutch rivalled his smile, his eyebrows narrowing as he did it. "But it will be thelast. We'll make sure it is."

"You and me?"

Dutch laughed, but there was a joyless undercurrent to it. "Why, Arthur? You got something better to do?"

"It's John and Tine, they-" Arthur's explanation fell into nothing as he looked upon his leader, really looked at him. He'd seen a glimpse of it when Dutch had asked his help at Clemens Point, but it seemed to have become permanent: Dutch showing his age. "-Never mind. 'Course I'll come."

Dutch's smile grew more broad and his youth returned to him, reaching behind him to two paper-wrapped bundles, passing one forth to Arthur. "Old Josiah got these for us." Arthur picked at the twine bow until it unravelled, revealing a lawman's blue felt coat, shiny brass buttons.

"Put it on," Dutch encouraged. Arthur shrugged off his overcoat and pulled on the jacket, the felt stiff and new, tucking the collar of his worn blue shirt carefully under its black lapels. "My son, a lawman," Dutch mimed wiping a tear from his eye, and Arthur chuckled.

"Meet you by the horses." Arthur left the cabin and hustled back to John and Tine, who were fixing their weapons to themselves, looking deadlier by the minute. He pointed his finger between the two of them.

"You both will be fine without me?"

"Yes," John replied, exasperated.

"Don't do nothing stupid."

"We won't," Tine said, almost distractedly, her eyes roaming over his frame. Arthur clutched his arm to his chest as a reflex, protecting himself from her hungry stare, his palm finding the brass buttons.

"Don't look at me like that, Tine."

"Yes, officer," she saluted, winning a cackle from John. Arthur could only shiver involuntarily, the feeling of being studied by Tine distant but not unfamiliar.At least they ain't after Bronte anymore, he thought to himself, a small comfort.

"You ready?" Dutch was at his elbow without warning, wearing his own blue lawman's coat.

"Let's go," Arthur affirmed, realizing himself glad to be away from the two. But, as much as he thought his ride into the city with Dutch would be a respite from John and Tine, the two were what the leader chose to discuss when they camped for the night, their lawmen's jackets carefully hung on the branches of a nearby tree.

"What do you make of all of their canoodling, John's and Miss Nilsen's?" Dutch gruffed through the last bite of his dinner, leaning back on his elbows to lounge by their fire.

"Canoodling?" Arthur pretended to sound shocked, but he too had grown alarmed by their resumed closeness.

"Mmm," Dutch hummed, nodding intently. "After I rescued him, no less."

Arthur felt privately glad Tine was absent from hearing that, and offered instead: "John's sworn to Abigail these days."

Dutch shook his head sagely, pulling a cigar from his pocket. "I ain't so sure."

As much as Arthur hated to admit it to himself, he wasn't so sure, either.

*

Colm was due to be hung at eleven, so Dutch led them to the town square for quarter to nine. He was certain that Colm would have his own men in the audience, primed for his rescue, and Arthur was inclined to agree. He felt his heart thudding in his chest as other lawmen in the city nodded at him, forgetting that, as far as they were concerned, he was one of them. They entered the square and stood among the bloodthirsty citizens eager to see a hanging, glancing around for O'Driscoll boys among them.

"Fine day, officers," a woman greeted, dipping a curtsey towards him and Dutch, face obscured by the large bonnet she wore, tied securely under her chin. Arthur made to tip the brim of his own hat, until she continued, her throaty voice familiar; "reckon it'd be even finer if one of you was on the roof."

"Mrs. Adler," Arthur whispered, looking about himself before inching closer to Sadie, so as not to draw notice. "No figure you'd be here."

"Day like today, may as well be Christmas morning." She'd made a joke, whispering back, but her smile was grim. "Just here to make sure none of them O'Driscolls are here to ruin the party." She lifted the hem of the little jacket she wore, revealing the grip of a pistol tucked into her skirt.

"The roof, you said?" Arthur glanced behind him, noticed the flat roofed series of apartments opposing the square.

"Hell of a view, wouldn't you agree?" She nodded, turning her attention away from him and speaking from the corner of her mouth. "Wouldn't miss a thing from up there."

Arthur got the hint. He whispered to Dutch that he'd post up on the roof, to which the leader readily nodded. Arthur gingerly stole a rifle from a mounted lawman's saddle storage and backed off into the alley, taking a side staircase and hauling himself up the remaining few feet onto the roof.

A pockmarked man wearing a green bandana looked from where he'd been leaning against the half-wall, taken by surprise. Arthur rushed and tackled him, the back of his head hitting the gravelled floor with a wet smack. He spent a few minutes casing the roof for any others, but he found himself alone.

Arthur peered carefully over the half-wall through the sight of his stolen rifle, making sure his view to the raised platform was unobstructed. He looked for Dutch and Sadie next, stood close to each other but otherwise appearing as strangers; a lawman puffing on a cigar and a woman-about-town, flirting with the spectacle of death.

Before long, Colm O'Driscoll was marched out in manacles, escorted on either side by a lawman. A rope was placed around his neck before they removed his bindings, and an official read a litany of Colm's crimes out to the crowd. Colm seemed confident, breezy, even; laughing at parts, hamming up his own guilty conscience.

Through the sight, Arthur saw Sadie subdue a man, a gun pointed into his spine; Dutch's arm encircled another man's neck. Then he saw Colm, looking back at him on the roof, his face falling in the realization that his rescuing party was no longer. Arthur watched him grow fearful, the first he'd ever seen it, then watched it drop from view, the crack of his neck heard even at Arthur's distance.

A gunshot quickly followed; the man in front of Sadie falling to the ground. Dutch fired on his own man before pulling her by the arm to the eastern side of the park, seeking cover. The attendant lawmen sourced the sound and began shooting at Sadie and Dutch, forcing them both to return fire.

Arthur had to admit it: though Dutch might be looking older, he was still worryingly fast with his gun, a ferocity and conviction on his face. AndSadie. Arthur had guessed her effectiveness by the lack of O'Driscoll boys giving them hell in the months since they'd left Colter, but could see it with his own eyes, now, her vengeance exacted with every precise shot from her pistol. Between the two of them, Arthur picked off the remaining lawmen they missed, and it wasn't long before lawmen and O'Driscolls both were dead or dispersed, the hung Colm a silent witness to the carnage.

He rushed for the stairs and joined them in minutes, whistling for their horses and riding to the edge of town, not far from where Arthur and Dutch had found Tine's camp. The trio dismounted, eager to change into their regular clothes. Sadie moved with her own bundle behind some shrubs and Arthur recognized the Walker that was temporarily his, gave him a pat to his spotted nose.

"He's been good to me," Sadie chimed, returning in a blouse and pants, her face bright.

Arthur stepped from the horse. "I'm glad of it, Mrs. Adler." She joined him by the horse, stroked the Walker's jowl and neck.

In a lowered voice, she said, "You know, it's getting harder to maintain that free pass. Bounty board's nearly all Van der Linde folk these days." Nearby them, Arthur saw Dutch's ears perk up, his head make a quarter-turn.

"Well, I hope you'll find it in your heart to forget you seen us today."

Sadie snorted. "What heart?"

"Your purse, then." They chuckled, and Dutch's shoulders fell, at ease. But they rose back up around his ears at Sadie's next question:

"How's Miss Nilsen holding up?" Dutch tensed and walked off, and Arthur shrugged uneasily.

"That's a sore subject," he admitted, scratching at his neck. "So, what's next?"

Her face grew serious. "Well, if you wanted to help my memory forget y'all, I'm looking to get rid of the rest of the O'Driscolls."

"Then what?"

"Not sure; I could get the ranch goin' again, but it'll be tough to do on my own." She looked expectantly at him and Arthur laughed in surprise.

"That an invitation, Mrs. Adler?"

She made a show of sizing him up. "You look like you could haul a hay bale or three, it just might be." The smile vanished from her face again. "But the O'Driscolls come first. Anyone you can spare, you bring 'em to me. I'm riding on Hanging Dog Ranch in a week's time."

Arthur nodded, bidding her goodbye and joining Dutch for the long ride back to Fairvale.

*

On Arthur's ride home, he couldn't help but mull over Sadie's offer to join her on the ranch; it seemed like a dream, long days of honest, quiet work. But the gang was haemorrhaging members, and he couldn't find it in himself to leave those who'd remained behind.

As if to weigh further on his conscience, he spotted John and Tine by the fire when he and Dutch arrived by nightfall, hitching their horses and trading their saddles for more blankets.

"Did he swing?" John asked as he approached them, and Arthur nodded.

"Did he hang there, or did the head come clean off, insect like he was?" Tine chimed, her knifepoint picking under the fingernails of her weak hand, just under her chin. It was a tasteless comment, to Arthur, and it shivered through him. How she could still appear so deadly despite her bad arm folded into her was worrisome, otherworldly.

"Mrs. Adler needs our help," he said finally, and Tine sobered immediately, her face grave.

"Whatever it is," she affirmed, returning her knife to her belt.

"Just like that, Tine?" John asked, and she looked to him before fixing on Arthur.

"I owe her my life." With the irony and playfulness gone from her voice, Arthur felt a blossoming of hope about the woman he'd once been falling for.She weren't all bad, right?

Chapter 32: xxxii. Between steel and ice

Chapter Text

"Pearson said he saw scat, just over there." Abigail looked panicked, pointing beyond a small cluster of pines, the mountains silhouetted beyond them in the bright moonlight. John followed her finger reluctantly, his hand over his mouth. She'd been worked into a fervour over supposed signs of a grizzly around camp, and John didn't want to play into her fears; another move deeply unwanted.

"Maybe it were his own and he's embarrassed he didn't make the latrine," John joked lamely, and Abigail cuffed him.

"Could you care about your own son's safety for a goddamned minute?" She seethed, punctuating her question with another hit to John's head. "Tilly found tracks by the river, and there was fur in the burdock. And itwerebearsh*t, John."

John pinched the bridge of his nose, felt the scar there, hard between his fingertips. A million responses bubbled up in his mind but he severely doubted his ability to follow through with any of them, so he huffed a sigh instead, avoiding Abigail's furious eyes.

"Sorry, I know a bear 'round camp is real inconvenient for your outings with Tine," she said bitterly, turning from him. She had a point. Despite what he'd said to Tine on their way back from Saint Denis, they'd been out several times since, chasing the leads they'd found and, more often than not, returning to camp with fistfuls of cash and valuables, often the only additions to the gang's new contributions box.

He'd kept his word to himself, retreating to his own tent when they camped abroad. At times like these, when Abigail was breathing down his neck more than he liked, he gathered fistfuls of spent bottles and took them to the fringes of camp, shooting until the hot blood coursing through him subsided.

Not that his time out of camp with Tine was free of its own fraught conversations. Just the night before, they'd robbed that luxury stage successfully, descending upon it like wraiths, the glint of Tine's knife a sobering promise that led its passengers to readily fork over their belongings.

Once they'd put a good several miles between themselves and the ransacked stage and returned to the mostly-sleeping Van der Linde camp, John and Tine counted their spoils. They had a good number of fine jewels that Tine had frosted herself with, sparkling in the firelight, as well as a wad of cash that she counted with some difficulty; the bills held in her bad hand and flipped through with the other. John couldn't help but chuckle, the money so close to her lips and held carefully in both hands like a dear child to whom she crooned a lullaby.

The laugh broke her concentration and she looked to John, reminded of his presence. "Should we say the job was a bust?"

The question came out like a gunshot in the night, ringing in John's ears. "What?" He whispered, hoping he'd misheard.

"Should we say we didn't get anything and keep this for ourselves?" Tine said it slowly and clearly, leaving no room for misunderstanding. She rifled through the bills and held half out to John. "Sure this much'd even put a smile on Abigail's face."

"We can't do that." Tine frowned, looked at the money in her outstretched hand.

"So we give this-" she waved the bills "- to Dutch instead, for what? So he can go and lose it again?"

"If that's what comes to pass." It was such a simple idea - holding onto the cash from a job instead of spreading it among the gang - but John realized it had never once occurred to him. It was as if Tine had asked him to sacrifice a child; so foreign and barbaric it seemed.

"Fine, John," she shrugged, walking to the contributions box and tucking the money inside. She split what was left between them, pressing the significantly smaller stack of bills into John's palm. Her hand lingered there, and he felt the heat from it even with the money separating them. "But I've got your best interests at heart; it's time you do."

John had only a moment to try and decode Tine's placid expression when Arthur approached them, returned from Colm O'Driscoll's hanging.

He told them about the Adler widow needing help and Tine had signed them up without hesitation; so John found himself shouted down about a bear lurking around right when he was preparing for another long stretch away. He forced himself to place a hand he hoped was reassuring on Abigail's shoulder, held forth a rifle.

"I know you know how to use one of these, darlin'," he said quietly, pressing the rifle's smooth-worn barrel into Abigail's hand. "This one's loud enough to scare off most things, and powerful enough to kill the rest. I'll hunt that bear down soon as I'm back." He bent to retrieve his gunbelt and affix it around his hips, and found Abigail's arms encircling his neck, the gun abandoned, a soft brush of her lips to his scarred cheek.

"Be careful," she whispered.

"Will do," he replied, granting himself a stroke of her dark, silken hair before making for his horse to trail Arthur and Tine back west.

*

After several days' ride southwest, John, Arthur, and Tine met with Sadie Adler in a small birch forest on the fringe of Hanging Dog Ranch, her modest camp already packed up.

"Really appreciate y'all comin' over here," Sadie said, almost bashfully, after informing them of her plan to launch an assault on the ranch, the residence of the last remaining O'Driscolls still living. The widow was certainly dressed for it; twin bandoliers crossing her chest, a long duster coat concealing all manner of weapons she'd armed herself with, blonde hair squared away in a long braid. "You sure you'll be all right, Miss Nilsen?"

John, and Arthur next to him, turned to look at their companion. John reckoned he could sense why Sadie'd asked: Tine did not look the formidable Butcher she'd once been. Her bad arm curled into her chest would have provoked him to pity, if he hadn't seen - now more than once - what she could still do with the other one.

"While I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Adler," Tine smiled, drawing her knife and making a show of examining the blade. "It's a question better suited to our O'Driscoll friends over yonder."

Sadie grinned wickedly, and John and Arthur traded uneasy looks; two deadly women in their midst. "Onwards, then."

The four of them fanned out, Arthur and John on each the far left and right; Sadie and Tine up the middle. There were two men stationed at the entrance to the ranch, but a firebottle thrown in a graceful, flaming arc landed between them; Sadie's bellow heard over the explosion. "Remember me, you bastards?" She shouted, her voice hoarse, the pain in it clutching at John's heart. Arthur and Tine had told him of the scene they'd come upon in the Adler ranch on their way, and whatever doubt he'd had about following them to Hanging Dog had evaporated. This was the good that Dutch always claimed they were doing.

The four made quick work of the men littering the ranch grounds. Arthur and Tine rushed the barn; a sharpshooter in the hayloft abruptly killed by a sneaking Tine's knife in his back. John followed Sadie into the house. He was impressed by her fast, uncompromising gunslinging just as her increasingly desperate screaming dragged on his spirit. Why hadn't he gone after the bear, listened to Abigail? Hugged Jack before he'd left? Here was someone who'd lost their love, with the evidence of what it'd done to her. Her quarry, Tommy, was gasping for breath under her choking grasp, in Hanging Dog's dusty attic. John didn't know if he had the temerity in him to do the same - go to the ends of the earth for the people he loved - and was afraid to examine himself for the lack.

The large man in Sadie's grip stopped kicking, his face blue and bloated. Her hands sprang open and she fell back into a wooden chair with an exhale that knocked from her lungs, half her face buried into her palm. Sadie didn't stir when there were footsteps on the stairs, but John did, raising, and then lowering his gun when Arthur and Tine revealed themselves. They took in the dead man and Sadie sat across from him, quietly weeping, her shoulders shaking, with sombre expressions.

Sadie stirred herself, looking between the three. "Don't know why I'm cryin'," she said, an embarrassed grimace on her face, "Truth of it is, I feel hardly anything at all."

Tine stepped forward, sheathing her knife and taking Sadie into a one-armed hug, unusually tender. She held the woman until her quiet crying turned into loud, gasping sobs, until Sadie's own arms encircled Tine and clung to her. Arthur looked out the window, his discomfort clear on his face, so only John witnessed Tine's whisper into Sadie's ear, the woman's eyes opening wide in response, her expression dark.

"That ain't no way to live," she said, and Tine smiled ruefully, releasing Sadie and stepping backward.

"Suit yourself," she said in reply, a tug on Arthur's sleeve prompting him to follow her down to the ranch grounds and pick over the bodies they'd made.

John shuffled his feet, watching Sadie wipe at her eyes with a kerchief, staring in disbelief at the dead man across from her.

"What did she say to you?" He asked quietly, startling Sadie to his presence; she'd forgotten.

"Oh!" She dropped her kerchief, hastened to pick it up. "Sorry, Mr. Marston, I'd forgotten you was standin' there."

"That's fine," he said dismissively, "But, Tine, what did she say just now?"

Sadie looked again to the man, Tommy, then to the ground. "Ain't my place to say."

"It's important that I know," John said, the words bold and - he quickly realized - that they wouldn't hold up to any scrutiny.

A small smile graced Sadie's face; she looked instantly more beautiful. John realized she couldn't have been very old at all; a newlywed, even. "I know what she means to you."

"Who, Tine?" He was incredulous; how could this stranger know anything at all?

"The way you took her down from my horse, down in Lemoyne; she's like a treasure to you," her smile grew broader and she offered, "I know love when I see it."

A lump rose in John's throat, killing the protests that were weakly mounting there.

She's an old friend, that's it.

I'm with another.

I'm a father.

I would have done it for anyone.

None made it past his lips and he repeated instead, hoarsely, "What did she say?"

Sadie sighed, looking at the kerchief between her hands and then fixing John with a steady gaze, her blue eyes falling somewhere between Abigail's steel and Tine's ice. It was unnerving, as if he were facing down the two of them at once.

"She said-" Sadie faltered, the kerchief returning to her eye. "The emptiness is your armour."

John vaguely recalled wishing the widow well, descending the stairs, picking over the bodies with his companions, and riding away. He joked with Arthur and Tine as he always had by their shared fire that night, passed a bottle of whiskey between them, counted and recounted their spoils from the O'Driscolls they'd killed.

But Tine's words remained a thorn stuck in his side, as did Sadie's. It was hard enough to take that Tine might have been as unfeeling as he'd always suspected. Worse yet, and despite all of the promises he'd made, he loved her all the same.

Chapter 33: xxxiii. “How do you stop somethin’ like that?”

Chapter Text

"Arthur." Dutch's voice rang over his fellow gang members' heads, over the crunching, morning-frosted grass. Arthur, in the middle of returning his bowl to Pearson's wagon, instead stood awkwardly still and let the man come to him, striding across the camp.

Dutch opened his mouth to speak and then furrowed his eyebrows, murmuring, "Should discuss this with John, too," then, louder, "To the fire, Arthur, I see John there."

He trailed him obediently, on the tail end of yet another bad sleep at the Fairvale camp. On clear nights, much like the last one, the moon shone like an opal, lighting the camp in unrelenting silvers and inviting any wolves nearby to sing its praises for hours. Arthur was in no mood nor capacity for any arguments, and it was all the Van der Linde gang seemed to do, now. His time away from the camp to help the Adler widow was a brief, welcome respite - a reminder of how things had been when it was just he, John, and Tine. Dutch looked back to him, as if to check he was still following, and Arthur felt a pang of guilt. He had been daydreaming about a different kind of life - working for Sadie - since the pearl of an invitation had been offered to him.

But here he was, faced with his obligations: Dutch, feigning relaxation with a foot casually propped up on a stump; and John and Tine, sat shoulder-to-shoulder, nursing twin cups of coffee. Dutch stared at the pair of them before clearing his throat, and looked to the fire instead of any one of them in particular.

"I've settled on our next job," he began, pulling a cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it. Arthur wasn't sure when he'd run out of cigars, but he refused to request more when Tine offered to do the gang's next sundries run. Dutch stood unsatisfied as a result, the cigarette appearing unnaturally small in his ringed fingers; a chore over an indulgence.

He continued: "We need to go after something big, we can't stay here much longer. The women are upset, it's too cold and too far from the things we need most." Dutch squinted at the burning tip of the cigarette, frowning.

"Big, like what?" John piped from where he sat. Arthur noted the hint of a jeer in his gravelly voice, a minuscule flick of his eye to Tine's, and hoped that Dutch didn't.

"Like a train, John," Dutch replied. Tine straightened, the slight smirk on her lips giving way to wide, hungry eyes. "There's a big one coming though this way in a week's time. Army payroll, guns. Enough to get us out of here for good."

"An army train?" Arthur felt a pull on his heart, bringing it all the way down to his stomach. "How- how do you stop somethin' like that?"

Dutch smiled, as if anticipating the question. He flicked the neglected cigarette away from him and said, "It'll stop itself, my boy, if there ain't no bridge for it to cross."

"So we're disappearing a bridge?" The heart in Arthur's gut beat feebly, he suddenly very aware of the stew he'd eaten.

"Exploding, more like. We need the Bacchus Bridge gone when the train comes through."

A loud scoff punctured the silence, and the three men's heads swivelled to Tine, whose eyes had nearly completed their exaggerated roll. "You robbing for the money, or the headlines?" She said. "You don't need blown track to rob a train."

Arthur felt the dismay on his own face, and saw John's contorted into something of morbid fascination; but Dutch's could only be described as livid. He nearly trembled with rage as he said, his voice low: "You do for this one."

Tine stood and walked to stand in front of Dutch, her expression placid in contrast to the vein that was making itself known in Dutch's forehead. They stared at each other a moment, Arthur anticipating carnage - Dutch to strike Tine where she stood, or Tine to plunge her knife into his gut; both hideous outcomes - but she smiled instead, a chipper tone to her quiet "Good luck, boys," and made for her tent. Dutch watched after her, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

Arthur made a ruckus of clearing his throat and seized John by his shoulder, hauling him up to standing. "You got dynamite for this, Dutch?"

In seconds that felt like hours, he witnessed Dutch's hands unclench, his shoulders slacken. "See Bill after that dynamite. He's got everything you need."

*

"Ain't this something Bill usually does?" John gruffed, heaving a detonator another few yards along the underside of the Bacchus Bridge. The gorge below and around them was resplendent; the sky an otherwordly blue, deep-green pines stretching for it. But the beauty meant nothing to Arthur, his stomach permanently turned since the morning's conversation.

"Guess we're out here provin' ourselves," he said darkly, tying off another bundle of dynamite to a bridgepost and checking its wiring. John paused.

"Proving to who?" Arthur looked pointedly at him until John continued, "Dutch?" Arthur nodded.

John snorted. "Last, what, fourteen years weren't enough?" Arthur's nod turned into a rueful shake.John really had no idea.

"He's- he's got some thing over Tine, I think," Arthur said slowly. "Don't like how she's got her hands in everything."

John's expression grew dark. "She's near the only one still working, besides you and me. Shouldn't she get some say?"

Arthur had asked the question himself, to himself. One side of him leapt to Dutch's defense - he was their leader, shouldn't he make the decisions? - but the other wondered if his own advice would be heeded, anymore, indeed if any of their input was still welcome, or viewed only as a challenge. Tine's ideas just happened to be more unorthodox, and she more forceful about them.

John watched Arthur's inner conflict, the man's troubled bearing, and offered, quietly, "I wish Hosea were still around."

Arthur chuckled sadly, his face momentarily clearing. "And me."

The men finished their work in companionable silence, conducting a final check of their wires and then retreating to solid ground, detonating the dynamite. Arthur revelled in the explosion; the sick pleasure of seeing the iron trusses groan apart, the wooden deck splinter into millions of pieces. Arthur pulled at John's sleeve - he in his own quiet reverie at the destruction - and they leapt onto their horses and away.

At the fork near Fort Wallace, Arthur instructed John to head on home, mentioning he'd split off to see after some cigars for Dutch, a peace offering. He closed his eyes against the bright day, delighting in the sun on his face, at Buster's able, easy gait, taking him towards Valentine. It'd been long enough since the bank robbery, and felt longer still, so much had happened since then, the memory of bandaging Tine's arm distant even as it bubbled to mind. He reckoned it was safe enough to make a quick stop at the general store, maybe have a drink at the saloon.

Valentine in autumn was different; bushels of late-harvest fruits and vegetables teeming from the front of Worth's General Store, the muddy ground offset somewhat by a fine carpet of leaves from the neighbouring trees, the mountains in the distance blanketed in snow.

Arthur bought the cigars and a bottle of brandy for himself - the saloon too risky a prospect, after all - and, distracted by the late-season splendour of the town, crashed bodily into a man heading into the store.

"Watch where you're goin', partner," he said darkly, fixing the smaller man with a fierce squint, one that vanished when he recognized Thomas Downes, his face still grey but with a pinkish twinge to his cheeks, much better than he'd seen him all of those months before.

"You," Arthur breathed, and dropped his parcel in alarm, the cigars rolling in different directions along the boardwalk, the brandy bottle smashing at his feet, its sickly-sweetness blooming in his nostrils. He took a step backwards but Downes had grasped his wrist, his grip surprisingly firm for his size and ailments. This was a mistake.

"Hang on, Sir, please don't go," Downes said. "I've no ill-intentions toward you."

"You should've," Arthur croaked, shaking himself free and stalking towards Buster, hitched behind the store, hoping that the smashed glass hadn't attracted too much attention. Downes hustled after him, his short legs pumping to keep up with Arthur's long strides.

"But I don't," the man insisted. "Look at me, still here. I managed to turn things around."

Arthur didn't know to whichthingsDownes referred; the debts that had brought his family to near-ruin, or the mysterious illness that had hobbled him in front of him and Tine. "Good for you," he gruffed, pushing past Downes again for Buster.

Downes rested a hand on the horse's neck as Arthur climbed into the saddle, looking imploringly at him. "You can, too, you know. Anyone can."

Arthur loosed a dark laugh. "You and me, we ain't the same. No matter what you done in your life, I guarantee I've done worse." He could still smell the sweet traces of dynamite on his fingers as they gripped Buster's reins.

Downes seized Arthur's wrist again, fixed him with a benevolent stare. "There were some reservation in your eyes, even then. No one's all bad, you included."

Arthur pulled from his grasp and shook his wrist a few more times, as if ridding himself from Downes's touch. "You don't know me," he said, spurring Buster on towards camp, empty-handed and -hearted.

*

Arthur returned to camp in the middle of the night. It was a blazing city in miniature, the gang taking to keeping their own small fires close to their sleeping areas, to stave off the cold and the wildlife both.

Most of the gang was asleep, but he spotted the glow of Tine's hair by the main fire. She sat sharpening her knife in the curious way she'd taken to doing most two-handed things, the handle grasped in her bad hand close to her face, the whetstone in the other. She was distracted by the fire, in her eyes the familiar intensity that used to infuriate, then impassion him.

A twig snapped under his boot and she startled, meeting his gaze, the intensity giving way to a beaming smile that calmed his stomach.

"Can't remember the last time it was just you and me, cowboy," she said, patting the log next to her.

"Weren't so long ago," he said, accepting her silent invitation, feeling the warmth from the fire and from her thigh pressed into his. "But does seem awhile, don't it."

She abandoned her knife and lay a hand on his leg instead. "In lots of ways," she offered, sliding the hand towards him, his co*ck lunging to attention in his pants. He hastened to put his hand over hers, halting her progress toward his belt buckle. "You're right," Tine smiled, "no privacy here, come on."

Arthur didn't protest as she led him through the flowers until they turned into trees, the golden firelight giving way to silver moonlight, Tine's hair ghostly in it. His heart thudded in his chest, Tine's hand warm in his. She turned back to him, giving him another beaming smile, her teeth gleaming white.

"Teeny," he breathed, thumbing her cheek, his fingers along her neck. His eyes searched hers in the limited light, then closed, his heart full. How could he imagine being loyal to anyone else, with this woman before him? What was he resisting?

He leaned forward to kiss her but his lips met only cloth, Tine's smile vanished under her kerchief, pulled up over her mouth and nose. She squinted conspiratorially at him and then crashed through the trees, met with the road on the other side and on it, a couple in a wagon, terrorized at her sudden appearance.

"Give me everything you f*cking have," Arthur heard her growl, his heart sinking to his ankles. He heard the whimper of a woman and the stuttered protestations of a man. "Hurry up!" She demanded, firing a warning shot into the air. "I'm the goddamned Butcher of Rio Bravo, you ever heard of me?"

As Tine terrorized the couple out of their valuables, Arthur collapsed against a pine's resiny trunk, wiping his mouth of the feeling of Tine's bandana against it. The fullness of his heart gave way to a dull horror.

Whatever Downes believed, he'd proven himself bad, he thought. He'd cast his lot with it, and couldn't see a way back out.

Chapter 34: xxxiv. Decisions, decisions

Chapter Text

Arthur had all but ordered him back to camp after blowing the train tracks, but John had his horse gallop past the turn that would take him north to Fairvale and kept on riding. He found reasons to stay out; he collected the camp's mail, reshoed Old Boy at the stable. Even with those errands completed, he still pressed on, running his Halfbred in a neat circle around a small pond, accomplishing a few jumps, shooting at the crows that deigned to squawk overhead, poking a couple of their glossy feathers into the band of his hat.

Anything to stave off that same thrum of exhilarated fear he'd felt on the night he left the gang, a deafening, persistent buzz in his ears.I know love when I see it,the Adler widow had said to him. If he searched his heart enough, was there space for another? Did he want there to be?

On the one hand, Tine intoxicated him; could that have been what Mrs. Adler saw and mistook for love? He remembered the countless times he was left alone to collect himself, Tine brushing off his dominance after they f*cked like errant ashes from a fire she alone was warmed by. But he couldn't deny, too, her small kindnesses, dispensed when he least expected them; a brush of a kiss to his frozen cheek in the mountains, after he was sure he was dead, her gentle fingers combing through his hair, drunk in her lap. And when she held him to her, a lifebuoy in uncertain waters, when his son was taken and Abigail was too sick with him to offer any comfort.

But it didn't make him want to fight for Abigail any less. He lived for the sweetness that came naturally to her when he deserved it; for her beautiful face, especially when it was full of love for both him and for Jack, the son they'd made. He relished the crushing grasp of her embraces, how she clung to him renewed just as it seemed like she was about to let go, how she ran for the horses each and every time he returned from a job, to make sure he and Old Boy were among them.

It ain't a question of who I'm loyal to, but who I want to be,he thought. With Tine, John was the man he'd always bragged about becoming to Dutch, Hosea, and Arthur when he was just a boy; a fearsome outlaw who could drink, ride, and shoot with the best of them. And with Abigail, John was the man he dreamed of being when his boyhood self lay down to sleep, in cots and orphanages and one terrifying night right on the street, imagining instead that he was surrounded by a family who loved and counted on him. It was something he'd wished for long before becoming an outlaw, and still wanted, since. Resolution blossomed in his heart and he made for camp, the night sky waning for oranges and lavenders by the time he crossed into Fairvale.

John hitched Old Boy and had barely dropped off the camp's mail with Miss Grimshaw before Abigail thundered toward him, her beautiful features distorted with rage, each chestnut-brown flyaway on static end.

"Where thehellhave you been?" She hissed, mere inches from him.

"C'mon, Abigail, don't start," he said soothingly, placing his hands on her shoulders in the beginnings of an embrace. But, she shoved him off.

"Youdon't start," she said, and then, lower, so that only he could hear it, "Something's off about Dutch."

John rolled his eyes. "That ain't news, 'course there is. He lost Molly, lost Hosea. There's someone leaving every day." It wasn't an exaggeration. Strauss had packed up and left, the gang too far from civil society to moneylend effectively; the Reverend had been missing for days; Trelawny hadn't come around in over a month. And, he thought to himself, morale was pretty low among those who remained, Dutch included.

"No," she insisted, pulling him around to the side of their tent, for more privacy. "I overheard him talking to Javier and Bill. He don't like all the time you and Arthur are spending with Tine. He thinks you're working around him."

John sighed, remembering all at once that choosing Abigail, and the dependable man's life that went with it, was a hard path to travel. "So what's the solution, then?" He hissed back, anger flaring in him. "Stop working with Tine? Pay for Jack's things with hope, and good intentions? It's what you've always been anglin' after, anyhow." Abigail's scowl deepened, and John launched, "She thinks about you, you know. Said she'd tell you there weren't nothing untoward going on. Which thereain't."

Abigail's brow lowered still further, her mouth twisted in fury. "You two talk about me?" He'd misstepped. As the wheels in John's mind spun frantically, in the hopes of backpedalling, Abigail added, almost to herself, "Sometimes I wish we'd stuck around just a little longer, 'fore the Pinkertons showed up at Shady Belle. She couldn't have outrun them." She looked vindictive, but her eyes widened, and she blanched, when she saw the clouds form on John's face.

"How did you know they were coming?" He said slowly, quietly, the calm in his own voice terrifying to him. A rage unlike any he'd ever experienced bubbled up in his gut; that Abigail could have turned on them all for jealousy.

Abigail held his steely gaze and then shook her head. "John, come on, are you kidding me? I never would."

"I don't know," he said. "Sure seems like somethin' was planned."

"I didn't talk, John, I swear to you." Her voice was tearful and she clung to his shirt. How quickly their positions shifted, a small, detached part of him thought, one that seemed to hover over them both.

"What good is your word?" John held her wrists, and she looked from his hands to his face, impassive and dark.

"It's all I got."

"What if I told the others?" John threatened.

A sob burst from her. "You'd be tellin' them a lie, John, honest. With Jack there?" There was a truth to that, one that momentarily lightened John's expression as he considered it. She'd never put the boy in danger on purpose.

"Then how did you know?" He returned to the core fact, that she'd anticipated the Pinkertons coming there. Her face faltered and she looked to the ground between them.

"I can't say," she murmured, and John huffed, throwing her wrists away from him, stalking off in search of Tine. The ugly part of him relished being in the right, for once, and the anger in him hoped to celebrate it.

He marched past the other gang members, past Karen, lolling drunk at the fringe of camp, with Mary-Beth tugging at her elbow. Tine's white hair by the stream was a beacon to him, so far beyond the rest of them.

She was washing her hands and face in the crisp, cool water, and he felt the coolness on his lips when he hauled her up to standing and kissed her. His tongue probed her mouth and he felt her eyebrows raise against his forehead. He hadn't tasted her in some time, the cigarettes on her breath, the raw want underneath.

John broke off the kiss with a gasp and Tine wiped at her mouth, grinning. "Kissing, John? Have you ever gone soft, playing husband."

"Shut up, Tine," he spat back, grabbing her upper arm and leading her into a small copse of trees. She trotted along gamely, her eyes wide with interest.

"Shall I-" Tine trailed off, pointing to a tree. John pulled her to him and kissed her again, tangling his fingers into her hair and tugging it so that he could drink more of her in. He was dizzy with Tine and with the decision he made and just as quickly abandoned, and he broke away to instead hold at his forehead, panting, praying for his thoughts to slow and coalesce into something that made sense.

"My way, this time," he uttered, a few broken clauses, and as he said them it dawned that she'd always been the one in control. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, anywhere but her waiting mouth, and she stared at him quizzically. "I invited you with me because I knew I'd need a friend, coming back."

"John, I-"

He cut her off. "But you followed me because you did, too. And you never left, even though there were plenty times you could've." Her mouth puckered at the accusation, as if she found it distasteful, but he'd struck truth. "You didn't want to be alone, either."

John made for the buttons on her shirt but was obstructed by her bad arm, held crosswise in front of her chest. He looked for a long time at the arm, and then her face, bordering on concern, and just held her instead, his long arms wrapped carefully around her body, her head somewhere under his neck. He breathed heavily until he didn't, a calm finding him, Tine's perfume absent and in its stead, the gently animal scent of her hair.

"You can't have it all, John," Tine said finally from within his chest, and he held her at arm's length, just in time to see her wry smile fade. "I'm never- never going to be what you want." Her hand snaked into his, squeezed his fingers. For the first time since they'd met, he heard her voice break. "It's time you had your best interests at heart."

They stared, the sun finding them in the trees and casting Tine's eyes into a stunning clarity. They were startled from each other when they heard Dutch boom from the camp: "Mr. Marston, Miss Nilsen! This robbery is on its way."

Tine made to return but John held her fingers fast, squeezed back. It was time to play the fearsome outlaw, one more time.

Chapter 35: xxxv. “I never asked”

Chapter Text

The morning they were due to rob the army train, Arthur dragged himself from his cot, a small bloom of frost visible on his pillow, from his breath. He recoiled from the sight, whirling instead to the barrel that housed his shaving kit, which he ignored, too.

"You look like you've a mind to make up, Mr. Morgan," Susan said by way of greeting, walking over to him at her usual, clipped pace, a letter already extended towards him in her outstretched hand.

He took it with a nod of thanks, turned the flap of the envelope on itself to pull out the paper within. "Sure, Miss Grimshaw," he said.

"Would a coffee help?" She offered, and he mutteredalwaysin reply, grateful. She left him to unfold the letter, and his easy expression faded upon his recognition of the letter's handwriting. The letters - precise, yet prone to flourish - that only flowed from Mary Linton's pen. He coughed, as if the woman herself had startled him and he needed to save face. He read:

Dear Arthur,

I despaired over sending this letter, and its many older, discarded siblings litter the wastebin here, but I must share my feelings so that I can finally know peace.

I have had few bright moments in my life since Barry died, but I could count among them the two occasions that you had reentered it of late. Indeed, those two occasions had led me to dream the silliest and softest of dreams.

So silly that I had forgotten the core of who you are; a thief, a murderer, and above all, a charlatan. It was foolish of me to believe for a moment that I had broken your heart when you haven't one to break. It is only me left to repair mine once again, as I'd repaired it long before.

I enclose a ring you gave me many years ago, when we were both young. I loved having it on my finger and was once proud to be your future wife, but when I look upon it now I only see a cruel, empty promise.

I write this letter in the hopes that you'll remember a time in your life when you loved me back, though it's more likely a reminder that you should have loved me and never did. Perhaps there are those in your life who do know true love - my hope for you is that you recognize it for a thing of beauty, as alien as it is to your brutish way of life, and give this ring to them, so that it can become more than a pretty lie you once told.

Goodbye,

Mary

The exhale knocked from Arthur's chest involuntarily, as if he'd been punched in the stomach, and he felt a tear spring to his eye. He wiped repeatedly at his mouth.I chose Tine over her. The memory of what Tine'd done to the couple the night before was still raw in his mind, and he felt bile rise in the back of his throat.

"Mr. Morgan?" Susan again stood before him, a steaming cup of coffee held forth in both her hands.

His swallow burned and he violently cleared his throat, reaching for the coffee and taking a scalding gulp. "Thanks, Miss Grimshaw," he grunted, surreptitiously wiping at his eye. She remained in front of him, her brows knit together in concern.

"Everything all right, Arthur?"

He couldn't handle a minute more of any kindness, and rose from where he'd leaned against the barrel, gesturing her away from him with a mad sweep of his arm, spilling some of his coffee. "I'm fine, go on," he said overloudly, feeling a manic smile creep up on his cheeks.

She continued to stare as she backed off, only breaking her gaze once she'd reached Tilly. Then both women looked at him.Christ, he thought.

Arthur dumped the rest of the unwanted coffee on the grass and threw the tin cup back towards his wagon, hearing its dull clang against the wood. He drifted toward the small huddle that was Dutch, Bill, and Javier in front of Dutch's cabin, the three dressed for the cold morning and for a robbery, both; bandoliers crossing their chests under their thick coats, their shoulders and belts slung with weapons.

Dutch smiled widely at his approach and waved him forward, clapping him on the back. "There you are," he said, his voice as rich as Arthur's had become reedy, forceless. The words in Mary's letter read themselves to him over and again, burrowing into his temples as the cold mouth of a gun might.

"Now, where are those laggards?" Dutch wondered aloud, then called: "Mr. Marston, Miss Nilsen! This robbery is on its way." He, Arthur, Bill and Javier looked about them, realizing John and Tine seemed absent from camp. Then, Tine's hair, loosed from its tie and lit by the rising sun crested one of the low hills, John close behind her.

The reaction in Arthur's stomach was immediate and caustic, he leaned forward and spit onto the ground. There it was, coming toward him; his proof that he'd given up everything for Tine, and she'd remained mercilessly indifferent to his feelings.

"So good of you to join us," Dutch said, but his voice lacked the bitterness that had been present in it for much of their stay in Fairvale. He was almost buoyant, reaching for a handshake from John and smiling at Tine, who returned it uneasily, then gave a conspiring sideways glance to John beside her.There, again. The two of them together, he the third fool who'd thought of one as a brother and the other as... what? The wordloverose in his mind and he spat again, a rejection.

"Here's the plan, boys, Tine," Dutch continued, "Train's coming through Annesburg in three hours. Arthur, Javier, and Tine, you're comin' with me over that way, where we'll board the train and get the lay of things. If all has worked out the way we want it, they don't know we've blown that track yet, and they're going to get desperate right around leavin' the Grizzlies. Bill and John, you'll be waiting for us in the woods to back us up when they do, and start hauling our new fortune, of course." Dutch's dark eyes sparkled and he rubbed his hands together. "Does everyone know what they're doing?"

"Yes, Dutch," they chorused, Arthur's distinctly unenthusiastic. He and the other three headed for Annesburg made for their horses, Arthur thinking dully how many more of them there'd been on their train raid back in Colter, a formidable posse then, no more than a bridge game now. He mounted up on Buster, his lip curling at Tine, climbing up on Darling to his left. At least that was a similarity to Colter; he'd hated her then, too.

"Wish us luck!" Dutch boomed, looking impressive in black on his all-white horse, and the few gang members still around cheered asynchronously. Abigail ran toward John and tried to brush a kiss to his cheek, which he looked to merely tolerate, and Arthur rankled anew; there was another suffering John and Tine's callous behaviour. Dutch leaned forward in his saddle and said more quietly to Susan, Arthur just catching his murmur, "Best get this place packed up; suspect we'll be moving on once we're back."

The leader's bravado faded as they rode in single file toward Annesburg, mostly quiet, Dutch, then Arthur, then Tine, with Javier bringing up the rear. Dutch seemed to be abstaining from his tendency toward a rousing speech, crouched low in his saddle, his face set when Arthur caught glimpses of it.

They made it to Annesburg with a half hour to spare, and Dutch handed them each a clutch of bills to purchase their tickets, to give them a plausible reason for standing around the station. Tine flashed one of her bills at Arthur, pointing to a droplet of dried, dark blood on the dead President's cheek, whispering, "one of mine," with a wink. He forced himself to swallow where he would have spit again, his mood curdling further.

"You'll go with Miss Nilsen near the front of the train, take out some of those guards," Dutch said, his voice low, "Javier and I will be in the back." He could only nod, his fury at being paired with Tine burning behind his eyes.

I should have trusted myself, about her,he thought dully as he loitered behind Tine, her hair painfully bright in the sunlight. The two meandered to the northern side of the platform and sat down on a bench, Tine drawing her knife and wedging its point into a knot in the wood, trying to pry it out.

"Put that away, Tine," Arthur snapped. "Could you stop with the knife for ten goddamned minutes?"

"This was minute ten," she said, a sly grin on her face, but she sheathed the knife when his expression failed to lighten up.

And if not myself, then I should have trusted Hosea,his thoughts continued, his heart giving a sickly lurch at the thought of his kindly mentor, who'd only been looking out for Arthur when he'd warned him about her, recognizing that his own judgement was going unheeded. And now he was sat next to the Butcher of Rio Bravo, about to cause another litany of havoc.

"You know," he said, his voice cavalier but somehow limned in darkness, so much so that Tine's eyebrow raised and she sat straighter, her bad hand clutching at her shoulder. "After all this time, I never asked why they call you Butcher."

She relaxed slightly. "Guess."

He huffed a bitter laugh. "'Cause you kill women? Children?"

Tine straightened again, that she'd taken offence clear on her face. "What? Arthur, no. None that didn't deserve it."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Arthur," Tine's tone was defensive, and she'd turned to look at him fully, holding a supplicating palm towards him. "It means they had a gun in their hand and were shooting at me."

"Did Heidi McCourt have a gun?" Tine stiffened, her expression faltering, and Arthur leaned forward, feeling vindictive. "Don't make anything better if she did. You're still a thief, and a murderer. Abutcher. I can't wait to get this done and never see you again."

Tine's mouth gaped open, that mouth that had once been so inviting to him, and now he could only relish that he'd finally hurt her. He looked beyond Tine to Dutch and Javier at the other end of the platform, smoking, and past them, a locomotive making its way into the station,U.S. Armyemblazoned on its sides.

Chapter 36: xxxvi. The Ballad of the Butcher

Chapter Text

The office was well-appointed, if a little spartan in style, two guest chairs before a heavy wooden desk, one of them occupied. The clock on the wall made itself known with insistent ticks, ones that filled Agent Milton's many pauses. He paused whenever he stopped to sit at the desk, whenever he stood again, roamed around, his shoes on the ceramic floor clicking off-time to the clock.

"I'm glad you came to us, I know it couldn't have been easy for you.

"If it makes you feel any better, Miss Nilsen talked to us, too. We picked her up not long after you all hit the bank, but she changed her mind. 'Course, we didn't know what we had, then, even though we were certainly looking.

"She just looked like a little angel to us, all beaten up. That pitiful arm wrapped up in cloth. Another lost girl fallen in with you miscreants. She didn't even have that famous knife of hers.

"Probably shouldn't be telling you that even we make our mistakes, but there was one; it was only after she walked away that we did some digging, realized the Butcher of Rio Bravo had been right under our noses. Everyone's heard the name, you know, but few know what she did to earn it. It adds to her mystique, as I'm sure she figured out. She wasn't any cold-hearted killer, just a young girl in a family of hardworking immigrants on a wagon to the promised west."

Milton thumbed open a file and slid an old photograph across the desk, tapping the likeness of a small blonde girl on the fringe of a large, blond family, the father in a three-piece suit even in the desert climate depicted in the photo. Tine herself was blurred, children seldom still enough to sit through the long exposure times of photos back then. But the shock of white hair was there, the impish expression. "Her father was a smith, trying to ply his trade in America. They worked on farms, mostly, whoever would take them."

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"A gang of highwaymen slaughtered them all, save sweet little Tine. She was placed in servitude to them that killed her family, at their hideout in Fort Mercer. Suffered years of beatings, worse, as I'm sure you can imagine, lamb in a wolves' den like that." Milton smiled to himself.

"Despite it all she stayed a docile little thing, according to the witness we finally found. The men even taught her to use a gun so she could hunt for the camp, and she never once turned it on them.

"But one day, she was handed a knife to chop some vegetables for dinner, and instead she massacred those boys, every last one she got her hands on. Something must've snapped in her. The law that came up after hearing the screams just thought she'd escaped the carnage.

"The newspapers called her the Angel of Rio Bravo, pictures of her sweet face were posted all over the state." Milton slid a yellowed newspaper across the table with ginger fingers, the edges disintegrating. A doll-like teenager stared hauntingly from the front page, blonde hair wisped around her face.ANGEL OF RIO BRAVO RESCUEDread the headline.

"Eventually, she escaped the orphanage they took her to on a stolen horse, and she's been on the lam ever since, carving up the five states with that damned knife. The papers eventually changed their tune, Angel for Butcher."

Milton laid another paper atop the first one, this one with Tine's familiar wanted poster sketch, her likeness squinting meanly outward, the headlineTWO SLAIN - BUTCHER OF RIO BRAVO STILL AT LARGEscreaming from the top. He pointed at the headline, grunted. "It's the name we want. Make an example with a big public hanging, all the papers there.

"Like I said, everyone's heard of the Butcher of Rio Bravo. Same as most everyone's heard yours; that daring Sisika escape really clinched it."

Tick. Tick.

"Don't feel so bad. More of your people talk to us than you think. We talked to a Miss O'Shea in Saint Denis, but she gave us nothing and we couldn't tie her to anything, especially now, with her connections.

"Mr. Matthews proved disappointing when he said he could get the Butcher to us the first time around."Tick. "Well, you know how that turned out for him." Milton trailed off, looking out the window, before whirling back, his face vindictive.

"You've got a family, don't you? People counting on you. Don't be stupid." He slid a final paper, Tine's wanted poster, across the desk, where it was picked up by a trembling hand, swathed in gold rings.

"I can get you the Butcher," Dutch said, his voice bordering on a croak.

Milton smiled for a moment, but his mouth returned to a grim line as if by rote. "And Morgan and Marston?"

Dutch's eyebrows furrowed dangerously and he rose partway in his chair. "That weren't the deal."

Milton only laughed as Dutch became latently aware of the other agents surrounding him, another wolves' den.

"You're the biggest prize of all, Van der Linde. You're in no position to negotiate." He waited until Dutch collapsed back into his seat, holding his head in his hands. "Surely you understand. We can't have folks shooting up state prisons, rustling sheep, robbing trains and stages all over the country."

There was another pause, the clock ticking its passage. Dutch's chest deflated, he curled inward in the chair, peeling the fingers from his face.

"But the rest of us get to live?"

"Yes," Milton nodded. "If you keep your noses clean."

The clock continued to tick, but it might as well have stopped. Dutch heard nothing but his next damning word, reverberating in his own ears.

"Yes."

Chapter 37: xxxvii. “Somewhere in the middle”

Chapter Text

Arthur.

The train stopped before Arthur and Tine, she still gobsmacked, reeling at Arthur's frankness. The paused train hissed, emphasizing the new silence between the two.

A conductor in military dress passed them, announcing at no one in particular: "No boarding, no boarding, this is not a passenger train." As soon as they were out of his eyeline, they slipped on. Even with her arm held to herself, Tine was still stealthy as anything, her body flowing from one cover to the next. Arthur tiptoed after her through one cargo compartment, and then another. The car beyond was flat and open; they'd wait to cross it once the train was out of town.

Tine slouched against the wall of the car and slid down to seated. She drew her knife from her belt and pried open the closest crate, which was filled with sealed cans of coffee. Arthur looked on with interest until the useless coffee inside was revealed, then looked pointedly away out the small window cut into the compartment door, removing his hat and running his fingers through his hair. "No boarding, no boarding," the continued refrain of the conductor could be faintly heard through the compartment's metal walls.

After a quarter hour that seemed an age, the train rolled backward on its wheels for the briefest moment before lurching forward, picking up speed and taking them outside of Annesburg. Remembering himself, Arthur cracked the door and whistled for Buster to follow after them, and soon found Tine at his elbow, calling the same to her own horse. They traded looks until Arthur squinted and swung his head away, and Tine appeared stung, a dejected slope to her shoulders as she stepped out of the compartment and ran at a crouch toward the next closed car.

They slipped through the door to the next compartment, guns drawn; but there was no need. It was another cargo car, this one filled with a few gunnysacks of grain but otherwise empty of valuables or enemies. Beyond them, though, was a passenger car, and the prospect of it being full of soldiers gave them each pause.

Arthur and Tine huddled on either side of the door; he saw her swallow, readjust her grip on her revolver. "Ever fought the army, Arthur?" She asked.

He hummed in response, still no more inclined to talk to her any more than was necessary.

"How many do you think there are?" She whispered again. Was that nervousness, limning her voice?I don't care, the dark side of him thought.How many goddamned people has she unsettled in her life.

Tine watched him for a moment, as if he'd spontaneously respond, but he remained unmoved. She grasped the window ledge of their compartment door and hauled herself up to a standing crouch, peering through the glass. "I don't think there's anyone in there," she reported.

"What d'you mean?" He asked, forgetting himself.

"I mean it's empty." She moved aside, frowning, so he could take his own survey of the adjoining car. "Maybe they're going to pick some soldiers up, back north."

The empty car was unnerving; Arthur shook his head as if to rid himself of the sight of its unoccupied seats, cutting hard-lined shadows into the ones behind them. "Let's keep movin' back," Arthur gruffed, finally, pushing open the door and waving her through. "We'll try and link up with Dutch somewhere in the middle."

They progressed through the passenger car and then another, equally as empty as the first. On the landing between the second car and the next compartment, Arthur was startled by a lone soldier standing guard, and seized him by his lapels to hurl him from the train before the man had a chance to react. Tine held a hand to her heart, obviously surprised by the sudden appearance of the man as well. They watched the soldier pick himself up from the shallow ditch he'd landed in, unhurt but too far gone to get back onto the speeding train, and Arthur shook himself and pushed Tine forward.

The next cargo car also surprised them with people in it: Dutch and Javier, gathering canvas bags stencilledU.S. ARMY PAYROLLinto a single pile. "Arthur, Tine," Dutch greeted, glancing up at them and then back to the bag he was manoeuvring into the heap. "Would you look at all this."

"You seen the guns, too, Dutch?" Arthur asked, holstering his gun and moving to help with the next sack. "Only food back that way, sundries."

"No guns, just tons of these. An easier payday anyway." Dutch sounded satisfied, stepping back to survey the pile they'd made. "Miss Nilsen, your assistance?"

"Don't know if I can manage," Tine chewed on her lip, rubbing at her bad arm and looking away from Dutch's stern gaze, back out the window. Dutch made a derisive noise and continued on, sweeping the corners of the compartment to make sure they'd retrieved all of the cash.

"Dutch, Javier?" She asked, turning back to the three men, who were passing a flask between them. "Did you see any soldiers?"

"A few," Javier said, after a pause, "got the jump on them, though."

"Got one myself," Arthur nodded, his cheeks growing rosy from his nip of whiskey.

Dutch chuckled, suddenly, his laugh ringing throughout the compartment. "You wanted a firefight, Miss Nilsen? Disappointed?"

Arthur smirked and Javier laughed as Tine's frown deepened. "Obviously not, just... thought there'd be more, is all. All this money." Arthur followed her hand to where it gestured at the pyramid of bags, reluctant to admit to himself that she had a point.

Dutch cleared his throat and moved to take Tine's place at the window, peering out. "This is the Cumberland Forest, boys; Bill and John should be here any minute to help us unload." As if on cue, the train screeched to a drawn-out halt, the blurred trees outside taking shape, individual leaves visible and waving in the cool breeze.

Without the train's persistent noise, the compartment was suddenly silent enough for Arthur to hear Tine murmur to herself, "It just all seems a bit easy."

She stayed in the corner of the compartment, uneasily eyeing the pile, while the three men paced the car, waiting for their fellows. The compartment door slid open and Bill swept in, looking distressed.

"John's lost, Dutch, there weren't nothing I could do," he lamented, Dutch putting a hand to his shoulder as Arthur and Tine each started from their places, her "What do you mean, lost?" and his "Where is he?" overlapping each other. Bill looked between them, their upset faces, remaining silent.

"Lost as in lost, or lost as in dead?" Tine demanded. Bill closed his eyes, bowed his head.

"I ain't sure," he said, and Dutch patted his shoulder.John. Arthur felt a sinking in his heart, the unknowns overwhelming.

"It's OK, Bill, son, you did what you could," he soothed.

"How in the hell do we know that?" Tine shouted, moving to put her face into Dutch's. "You ain't sure because you left him behind, Williamson? Or because you're a stupid son of a bitch?"

"Miss Nilsen, calm down," Dutch said, "yelling ain't productive."

She shook her head, repeatedly, her eyes narrowed at the four men before her. "This was too easy," she repeated. She took a step backward and stuck her knife into the side of one of the sacks in a single motion, splitting it open to reveal wrapped stacks of newsprint. Dutch's face, pacifying a moment before, turned dangerous. Arthur, beside him, dropped the flask to the ground and grabbed at another of the sacks, releasing the drawstring and pulling out another fistful of plain, unprinted paper.

"sh*t," she said, her voice barely concealing a tremor, "We have to go after John."

"What's the matter?" Dutch said, eerily calm. "Things ain't going the way you wanted?"

"The money is fake and John might be dead, Dutch," she spat back, her eyes hateful.Dead. The word winded Arthur, the bit of whiskey he'd drunk burning in his gut. "Obviously they aren't." Tine's gaze met Arthur's and her expression changed, from anger to devastation, her mouth hanging open and trembling. Whatever was happening, he realized slowly, through a low hum of panic, she thought he was in on it.

"John is my son, or as good as," Dutch replied, a shimmer of anger on his baritone, "As is Arthur. And you have turned them against me."

"Now that ain't true, Dutch," Arthur spoke up, the words pulled from him. He found himself standing beside Tine, a hand to her arm. "We're ridin' beside you, same as always." He forced himself to hold Dutch's eyeline, the leader's dark eyes grown cold to him.

"I wish that were true, son," Dutch said, closing his eyes to him as Javier and Bill each restrained Arthur and Tine, the two caught off guard. Tine bit down onto Javier's forearm and he cracked the butt of his pistol against her crown; she dropped to the floor.

"Dutch!" Arthur called, twisting in Bill's firm grip.

"I hope you'll forgive me," Dutch said sadly, his back already to them, exiting the car. Bill pushed Arthur to the floor and his knee was immediately in his back, forcing him to stay down as he tied his wrists and ankles together, slipping one of the useless moneysacks over his head.

"Goddamned Pinkertons are late," he heard Dutch grouse, before a gun's grip found his own head. Arthur descended into blackness, vaguely aware of a collapsed Tine somewhere next to him, and a potential world without John in it, one that - as furious as he'd been with him that morning - he found ached too much to imagine.

Chapter 38: xxxviii. That which hurts worst of all

Chapter Text

John only half-guided Old Boy to pick over the uneven forest floor after the giant rump of Bill's Ardennes, distracted. He still felt a buzz on his lips from where they'd met Tine's, earlier that morning.

He'd watched her tack her horse, mostly one-handed, Arthur apparently embittered and refusing to help her. John's view was eclipsed by Abigail pressing a furtive kiss to his cheek, another whisper tobe careful.

It was that hissing voice that stirred John in his saddle, made him remember the task at hand. He perked up to his unfamiliar surroundings, squinting at the tall oaks looming around him, their thick canopy throwing their surroundings into darkness. The dappled sunlight cast by the birches he'd seen while riding to the train tracks with Arthur were conspicuously absent.

"Hey, Bill?" He called ahead, watching the large man quarter-turn in his saddle. "Don't know that these are the right woods."

"Since when do you read a map, Maggie-Ellen?" Bill said snidely back.

"Maggie-Ellen?" John halted Old Boy and slid out of his saddle, fishing for his map in his bag. "Do you meanMagellan, you horse's ass?"

He continued to look for the map, chuckling to himself at Bill's expense, hearing the man's boots hit the ground not soon after. "Oh, Prince Marston, all educated, my apologies," Bill groused, kicking at a rock in the dirt. "Things are changin', you know. You ought to be nice to me."

The map secured, John unfolded to where Fairvale was and traced their desired path with his finger, trying to locate the sun amid the dense leaves. "How about I'll be nice to you when you don't get us f*ckin' lost, Williamson-"

But the rest of John's complaints were cut short as he was tackled to the ground, a bag pulled over his head reminding him of what darkness could really be like.

*

Bill, that bastard.

John was tied up and thrown over the back of a horse - maybe Bill's, maybe not. He was unsettled by his circ*mstances, of course, but also the immediacy of his being jostled by the horse's hindquarters under him, not to mention the smell of being so close to its posterior.

He couldn't be sure how much time had passed in that shaky discomfort, his entire body tense and trying to stay on the back of his captor's beast without the use of his arms or legs. He used almost every available minute of the ride wondering how Bill, certainly thick-headed, could nonetheless turn on the gang; he easily the most loyal, too. John tried hurling insults from within the bag that he knew would rankle Bill into revealing himself, but the captor remained unmoved, only once reaching back to crack the butt of their gun into John's nearest shoulder.

The horse eventually stopped. John's insides seemed to slosh within him before also growing still. He felt himself hauled from the horse, then marched-dragged with his bound ankles along a hollow sounding surface. He could smell water, fuel; heard the cries of seagulls overhead. And then: "You got one, how about that?"

"Real nice," Said a man's voice, hovering by John's left ear. "They'll be collecting the others, soon."

"I hope so," the first man who spoke sounded like he was in front of John, and even through the dense weave of the bag over his head he noted the change in light - bright day for a dim interior. "Were the same two who broke this one out, the first time. Don't want to give them any opportunity."

Arthur and Tine. Defeat settled into John's chest, his head hung lower between his shoulders. So Bill had gone after them, too. Adding to his sense of defeat was an incessant thrum of guilt; that he'd accused Abigail. He was forced into a chair, his ankles tied again to its legs, arms pulled over its back.

Where he'd had plenty of time to think on the horse, he had almost none in his new surroundings; the bag was ripped from his head, caught momentarily on his nose and yanked unceremoniously free, causing John to blink tears of pain from his eyes, try to sniff his nose back to centre.

The face that coalesced in front of him as his vision cleared was that of Andrew Milton's, one John had seen only twice: at their camp in Clemens Point, then stern; and sickly elated at Hosea's falling body on the front lawn of Shady Belle. The Pinkerton looked similarly pleased, here, smiling over John.

John forced himself to look away, to get a sense of his surroundings. He spotted a lot of rusted old tools and propellers; a few smaller, dusty glass items collected into wooden crates. He was in some kind of boatshop, he gathered; the smell of the water even stronger here.

"Look at me, John Marston," Milton jeered, grabbing at John's chin in his gloved hand and forcing him to face front. "I want you to understand, really understand, that your way of life is over, and I'm the one who ended it."

John spat to his side and narrowed his eyes at the Pinkerton before him. "I'd give ya a hand if they weren't tied."

"Quiet, whor*'s son," Milton's hand left John's chin and returned to his cheek with a forceful slap, one John couldn't dodge and felt rattle his bones, rock him where he sat. But he spat again, chuckled lowly.

"You sure you ain't a whor*'s son too, Mr. Milton?" John said, "Sure hit like one."

"Enough," Milton grasped at the front legs of John's chair and flipped him onto his back; the wind knocked from John's lungs as he hit the knobbly wooden floor. He gave John a sharp kick to his ribs and then leaned over John again where he lay, adjusting his gloves. "I know more about you than you could even imagine, John. I know about Abigail Roberts. I know about Jack, a whor*'s son just like his father. I probably know more about them than you do. And I know about Tine Nilsen and Arthur Morgan, too. All the things you've done together."

John attempted to lunge from where he lay on the floor, his hands painfully pinned under his back, legs still bound uselessly above him to the chair. The blood began to rush around his temples, made worse when Milton crouched low to whisper into his ear: "You will not survive me."

He heard Milton's footsteps retreat to the front door, his barked orders thatno one leaves this post, then was left to the pain in his arms and cheek, the throbbing ache in his ribs, and his dark thoughts, which hurt worst of all.

*

"John."

His own name woke him, and in trying to move his body still bound to the chair, had all of his various ailments shout out at once. John hissed through the pain, his eyes adjusting to the dark; just a few stars visible from the window next to him.

"John, that you?" He hadn't imagined it, and soon felt a comforting hand on his pinched shoulder. The limited light afforded by the stars snuffed out in favour of the dark, shining eyes of Lenny Summers, hovering above him.

"Jesus, Lenny," John said, trying to keep the excitement, the noise, from his voice. "What are you doin' here?"

Lenny gently moved his hands under John's shoulders to tip him slowly up to sitting, then took his knife to John's bindings. John rubbed at his sore wrists, grateful. He stood and stretched once his ankles were free, his knees crackling their protest at finally straightening out. Lenny scratched behind his head, looked guiltily away.

"Been livin' here, Van Horn."Ah, Van Horn. John thought, the water and the gulls finding their logical places in his mind. "Came back after I left the gang," Lenny continued, his eyes downcast and shaded by his thick lashes, his face still decidedly boyish despite all it'd seen. "Didn't really know where else to go, and I'd spent a lot of time here waitin' for the men to come back; we all had our searchin' places."

John nodded, his elation at being freed from the ground at odds with Lenny's hunched posture, his entire being penitent and guilt-ridden.

"You like it here?" John ventured.

"God, no," Lenny said, "but it's what I deserve, leaving y'all behind."

John shook his head. "Len, no, you was good to leave when you did."

Lenny shook his head forcefully. "I wanted to come back when I saw the Pinkertons got Dutch, but never made it, and I never found him, neither." A single tear brimmed to the surface of Lenny's shining eye, trailed down his cheek.

"They got Dutch, too? He's here?"

"Two, three weeks ago," Lenny nodded solemnly, pointed beyond the door until his finger curled inward and he brought his arm to himself. "I'm so sorry."

"It's OK," John said automatically, his mind racing. Two weeks ago he'd been out at Hanging Dog with Arthur and Tine, helping Sadie with the O'Driscolls. Bill turning on John made a lot of sudden, sad sense, if Dutch were involved, too. John felt a hollow in his heart at the betrayal, the plot the three of them had found themselves in, and forced his face to neutral. "Really, Lenny, it's OK - you done good getting in here."

A small smile graced Lenny's face as he pointed to a gap in the floorboards. "One of these's loose, can come in and out of here as I please." Outside the building, they heard rapid footsteps; Milton's curt voice snapping orders at the guards.

"'Bout time you use 'em again, Lenny, go on," John urged, pushing him toward the dark gap in the floor, an absence in the limited light.

"I can help you here," Lenny insisted, but John shook his head even as he pulled Lenny's second pistol out of its holster.

"You already have, Len," John said kindly, then ordered: "and you've got to go back to camp, check on the others. Things ain't safe for them, and I don't know if I'm coming back. You hear me? You tell Abigail to get the boy and run like hell, and go with 'em, as far as it takes."

Lenny registered all of John's information with his brows furrowed, confused, and then nodded. "I'll go."

"Good man," John whispered, watching Lenny disappear from sight.

He took a steeling breath and faced the door, watched it swing open, revealing Milton, and his fate, beyond.

Chapter 39: xxxix. “What we deserve”

Chapter Text

Arthur awoke in the imposed darkness that was the canvas sack pushed onto his head, his breath uncomfortably warm and close within it, a dull ache on his crown, where he'd been hit. He'd been caught; literally and figuratively. He was furious at Dutch, but finally saw the value of the freedom he'd always waxed on about, now that he was trapped in the alternative. The thought of dying with his hands tied behind his back caused nearly every part of him to want to panic, and he railed against himself to keep calm, quivering on the floor of the compartment they'd been left in.

They. There was another. As if hearing his thoughts, Tine stirred somewhere close by him, her groan rising octaves, unbroken, into a whimper.

"Quit it, Tine," he gruffed, his voice muffled by the bag.

The whimper stifled. "It's my arm," she replied, a strain in her voice. If she were tied as he was, hands at his tailbone, arms nearly straight, she'd be in agony.

Who cares, the dark voice said again, and he grimaced, not knowing where to channel his anger. They spent more time in near-silence, Tine's careful, laboured breathing the only sound that reached him.

"What do you think all this means?" She said finally.

Arthur loosed a single, grim laugh. "Ain't like you to get philosophical."

He heard Tine sigh, felt her reposition herself through the vibration in the floorboards. "I mean, why'd they turn on us like this?"

"Probably thought it were us or them," Arthur said, remembering Dutch's final words to Tine:And you have turned them against me.She'd had that power once, over him, at least. Arthur thought back to their sticky embrace in his small bedroom, back in Shady Belle, a lifetime ago.Whatever you wanton his lips, breathed into being. He recoiled to think it, how taken he'd been.

"It's not right," she said, bitterly, "we don't deserve this."

Arthur didn't disagree, but couldn't let their conversation from earlier that day alone. If he were to be lumped in with Tine - captured with her, hung next to her - he needed to know. "Depends, what we deserve. I ain't been a good man in this life, nor you a good woman. But I never killed innocent people, least on purpose."

Tine scoffed. "No such thing as an innocent person."

"That woman in Blackwater Heidi McCourt were as good as, way I hear it." He felt Tine's fidgeting go still. He waited, but she said nothing, so he asked, directly, "Did you kill her?"

There was another long pause, and then he heard Tine say quietly, "As good as."

"No riddles or repetitions, Tine," he admonished, "I need to know."

She heaved a sigh, her voice grew sad. "I made her part of the equation."

Arthur felt his eyebrows go up, brushing against the interior of the bag. He'd seen it so many times, Tine grabbing someone and pointing her knife to them, manipulating a situation to get exactly what she wanted from it. But she'd been with Dutch, and he was more unpredictable. A variable in an equation she couldn't have calculated.

He stood by what he'd said - Tine was not a good woman, by anyone's account - but all the same, he'd been unfair. Not least because all of the things he'd judged her for were the things he grappled with most about himself. "Tine, I-" He began, but she cut him off.

"You were right to think it," she said, her voice a mere whisper, before a thump signalled she'd fallen back to the floor.

"Tine?" He called. "You OK? Tine?" The desperation grew in his own throat. He worried for her safety and even more, that he'd have to face their captors alone. Worse still, he heard the cascade of hoofbeats surrounding the compartment, a rumble of voices.

As the voices drew nearer Arthur noted them to be low and sonorous, too much so to be English. The bag was pulled from his head and he looked suddenly into the face of Charles, the darkening sky behind him in the wide-open side door of their compartment.

"Arthur," Charles said, his voice still level even at his most shocked.

"Oh my god, Charles," Arthur said, his heart leaping as the man helped him to sitting, cut the rope from his wrists and ankles. "What the hell are you doin' here?"

"We came down for the train, hoping to get some supplies, medicine; the army took it all," Charles said. A few of the Waipiti men peered into the compartment, mildly interested, but moved on at Charles' wave. Beyond him, Tine lay still on the floor, and Arthur rushed for her, pulling the knife from her belt to work on her bindings. "The train's empty, there's nothing in here," Charles continued.

"Don't I know it," Arthur said darkly, pulling the bag from Tine's head, revealing her corn silk hair, and twin tracks of dried blood running down from her nostrils and over her lips and chin.

He hauled her up in his arms, supporting the small of her back and patting her cheeks with his free hand. "C'mon, Tine, look alive."

Another thunder of hooves began its approach, distant but distinct. Charles stared at the two of them a moment, at Arthur's frantic attempts to bring Tine to consciousness. "We can't be here," he said finally, and Arthur met his gaze.

"I know, Charles, thank you, I-" he broke off, nodding to the man instead. Charles returned it and left, and he soon heard him and the other Waipiti horsem*n take off.

Which left him with Tine, once again, still hung limp in his arms. He was struck once again how small she was, compared to him, to any of the other men she rode with. That she bled, the smear of crimson on her face turning black in the limited light. Her arm freed and curled back into her even then, clinging to life.

"C'mon, Teeny, angel," he stressed. Her eyes opened to slits, tears glistening in them. She could cry, too. She'd loomed large in his mind that morning, but she was a petty criminal, and afraid, just like him.

"What can you do, honey, can you shoot?" He asked, his heart leaping for the second time in a few moments, a small glimmer of hope at their changing situation. He discovered his guns still at his belt, and Tine's, hers; perhaps the last slivers of respect Dutch still had for them.

Tine nodded in response, a minute tilt of her head, and he smiled encouragingly. "That's my girl, OK."

He took hold of his own gun, positioned himself on the opposite side of the compartment door. Tine crouched, shaking herself into readiness, her fingers wrapping and rewrapping over the grip of her revolver.

The last few hoofbeats of Charles and the Waipiti faded off, leaving only the approach of the Pinkertons or local law - both, Arthur guessed - to terrorize their ears.

A first rider - a Pinkerton, judging by his suit - breached the treeline, firing erratically, his gunshots bright flashes in the rapidly darkening night. Arthur knocked him off his horse in one hit, catching him square in the chest. The horse reared and quarter-turned, running off parallel to the train.

He caught a second, then third man, much the same way, then whiffed on the fourth. Tine fired next to him, a bullet to the man's cheek sending him spiralling to the ground. Arthur had never shot so sharply, even with bullets whistling by them, puncturing the walls of their compartment, sacks of useless paper exploding into confetti behind them.

But even then, the men kept coming. Arthur threw his first revolver to the floor and took up his second, and it wasn't long before his trigger pull was met with a hollow, damning click. Across the door, he heard Tine's do the same.

"I'm out," she said, trying to keep the fear from her voice.

"Me too," he replied, darting from his cover to sit next to her, closest to the door. He nudged her in the shoulder, a jarring but much-needed playfulness. "Don't suppose you have something for this?"

"Not this time," she spoke slowly, offering him a rueful smile, her voice breaking all the same. "Fresh out."

Arthur abandoned his second gun and reached out to hold her, instead, angling his body to shield her from the men that kept on coming. He'd guessed she needed it but knew he did; the touch of another at the end.

Hoofbeats, then footsteps grew closer to them, the clank of a boot sole against the stepladder leading into a compartment. Arthur cradled Tine's head in his hand, tucked her under his chin. A shot rang out, the pair flinching into each other, Arthur's eyes flying open to search Tine's face for injury, only to find her doing the same. A body - another Pinkerton - slammed into the floorboards, followed by the jingle of spurs.

"John," Arthur greeted, the disbelief clear in his voice, a happy clutch in his throat. John, very much alive, grinned at him, offered him a hand to standing, which Arthur took. "What are you doing here, it's all gone to hell."

"Don't I know it. Milton's dead," he reported, then embellished, "rat bastard. And I ain't leavin' anyone behind again. There's been enough of that." Arthur followed his eyeline to Tine, sat slouched against the wall, running her fingers repeatedly through her hair.

"And, it's 'thank you,'" John scolded with a smirk, accepting Arthur's embrace. "You know we was raised better than that." The two snickered, giddy with the realization that they'd made it through. Or, almost.

"Gotta warn you," he said, whispering to Arthur as they parted. "Yours and Tine's horses are laid out there." Arthur's eyes widened, and he stole another glance at Tine. He'd cared deeply for Buster, but couldn't imagine confronting Tine with the loss of her girl.

Of course, she'd heard John's whisper anyway, and leapt from the compartment, running to Darling on unsteady legs, her hand to her mouth at the sight of her girl lain still, her coat lit opalescent in the moonlight. Arthur and John pursued her, Arthur not knowing what to say, and laying a heavy hand on her shoulder, instead. Tine shook beneath it, she sniffed loudly.

Arthur cleared his throat. "Can't believe you found us, John, no guide."

John made an annoyed noise. "Why is everyone on my ass about this today?" Through her sombre expression, Arthur saw the shadow of a smirk on Tine's face.

"You ready, Tine?" He asked gently. "We best get on from here." She looked past Darling, to the strewn Pinkertons and lawmen scattered about them, and nodded. Arthur wrangled one of the dead men's horses and helped Tine into the saddle before climbing in after her. John too mounted up, and the three rode gently on, nursing their injuries and hurt spirits, seeking somewhere safe to last out the rest of the night.

They were alive.

Chapter 40: xl. Rest

Chapter Text

John, and Arthur and Tine behind him, found a campsite soon enough; hidden and sheltered from the wind. It was abutted by a small creek run with ice-cold water, where they washed the blood and dirt from their faces, their hands; John lifted his shirt to examine his torso, a blossoming bruise on his ribs that Tine touched gingerly with her fingertips.

The men elected themselves to set up the camp, leaving it unspoken that Tine was to rest. John pitched the tent from his saddle for Tine to sit beneath and Arthur wandered into the nearby trees to forage for wood and twigs, building a fire for her to warm by, for John to put a dinner together out of a few tins of food in his saddlebags.

Old Boy snorted when he went to retrieve his skillet and Tine started at the noise, staring wistfully at the big Halfbred. John connected the two, gave Tine a pitying frown. "Sorry about your girl, Tine, Darling." He said, remembering how proud she'd been of the horse when they'd first met, showing off the Paint's pretty features to John, the splotch of white on her minky flank, half-hidden by Tine's saddle.

Tine looked up and away, blinking heavily. "She was with me a long time," she said to the stars overhead, then forced herself to look back to the men across the fire, John's cooking abandoned. "Since the beginning, you could say. She took me out of Rio Bravo."

It was a part of Tine's moniker, letterpressed under her sketch on every bounty poster, but John had never put together that she'd actually been there, never given it a second thought. Next to him, he also sensed Arthur straightening out, his ears perk with interest; it was likely he hadn't heard Tine speak to her past, either.

"Took you out of trouble, you mean," there was a kind smile in Arthur's voice when he said it, but Tine only half-returned it, touching the handle of her knife before placing her hand on her knee instead. John watched it there, her fingers tensed, claw-like, hardly at rest.

"The worst trouble," she said, and onworst, John heard her voice catch.He wordlessly crossed their little camp to join Tine at the mouth of the tent, Arthur following soon after, so that she was sat between them, all three staring at the fire.

"I was just little when I lost my family, don't know how old," she said to the flames. "Don't know my birthday, as a matter of fact. Don't suppose you do?" She glanced at them both, the saccharine smile she gave at her own joke unsettling, but it faded without their reception. "Didn't think so."

She added: "I know how cruel those men were, though." Tine's voice broke, and she carried on in a whisper, as hers was the kind of story that could only be borne in whispers. John and Arthur took turns wiping the tears from her cheeks, holding her. John pressed his lips to the crown of Tine's head and looked to Arthur, his eyes shining, heartbroken.

"And that's when I found Darling. We rode out of town and never looked back." She concluded, glancing again at Old Boy and then each of them, laying backwards into Arthur's chest, her eyes sliding closed. John met Arthur's gaze before the older man fell into sleep, and he soon followed, slumber finding him quickly, safe among his gang of three.

*

Milton burst into the boatshop, his alligator's grin twisting into one of rage when he saw John not only freed from his bindings and upright, but armed.

"Impossible," he growled, raising his own sidearm to John.

"Maybe for you, friendless bastard," John said, tightening his grip on the gun Lenny'd left him.

"You have fewer friends than you think, John Marston," Milton sneered. "You've been running with Dutch Van der Linde since you were just a boy, and even all that history didn't stop Dutch from turning you in."

John considered telling Milton that was old news, that he'd come to it himself, but it was more satisfying to shoot him, so he did, perfunctorily, and with little joy in it.

John startled awake, the gunshot from earlier that night ringing once again in his ears. He exhaled slowly, calming his heartbeat, noting movement on the other side of the tent.

It was Arthur, stroking Tine's hair until she woke and turned her face to his. They kissed each other, Tine's face held in Arthur's massive, roughened hands like she were some precious thing; breakable china, a ring thought lost.

The pair were bathed in the limited light of the dwindling fire, amber-hued and treacly. John watched as Arthur helped Tine carefully remove her shirt, wind the one sleeve around her injured arm and off. He pulled her into his lap, kissing her more roughly, and John felt a heat grow around his collar, embarrassment and want all at once causing him to fidget where he lay.

It was enough for Arthur's gaze to snap to him, and Tine followed his eyeline, pausing on John with a smirk.

"You going to join us, John? Or just lie there?"

John gulped, looking from Tine to Arthur, afraid. In their youth they'd fought over women before, it seldom ending well for John. In the firelight, though, Arthur smiled slowly, his eyes heavy-lidded, but with a flash of startling blue just glimpsed through them.

"Don't she look delicious," he drawled, and John swallowed again, indulging himself a more diligent survey of Tine, bared to them both. She was a confection, white hair and skin made pale in their time in the mountains lit to honey, all of her extremities blushed pink.

John shuffled toward them on his knees and Tine fell forward into him, anchored in Arthur's lap but clung around John's neck. He kissed her hungrily, different from their kiss the morning before, what with all they'd come to know. John was somewhat aware of Arthur's hands rubbing along Tine's back and around to her thighs, but less so as they continued, Tine's small moans into his mouth much more deserving of his attention.

Arthur had begun to undo the buttons on her fly but John finished them, pressing her back into Arthur's chest and helping ease her pants over her hips, down her legs, and off. John captured her mouth again, relishing her thumb along his jaw, the small bite of her fingernails against his throat.

He kissed down her neck and sucked on a nipple before pressing his forehead into her sternum, marvelling at how differently they were behaving, how he'd always wanted Tine like this. He glanced up and saw her smile, almost bashfully, down at him, encouraging him along with the fingers of her good hand wound into his dark hair. But she didn't pull, or scratch his scalp. As if the three of them had silently agreed that after all of their brutality, it was time to be gentle to one another.

John continued kissing down Tine's stomach until he was level with the blonde thatch of hair under it, then bypassed it, teasing along her inner thighs, feeling her twitch under his lips. He glanced upward again, watching Arthur kiss against Tine's collarbone, her own lip held between her teeth and quivering. John smiled to himself, pressing his mouth against her and savouring the small jump in her hips, her stifled "oh!" of surprise.

He was heady with the smell and taste of Tine's sex so close to him, his stubble wet and chilling in the early-morning air. Tine moaned again - how vocal she was, he noticed - and John smelled tobacco, leather; the scent of Arthur's middle finger curling up and into her. She squirmed, balanced on Arthur's palm and looking to John for guidance, for support, so he broke off and kissed her again, holding her elbows to keep her upright.

Arthur had removed his shirt and his chest gleamed with sweat, a glazed look of contentment on his face to counter Tine's flustered expression as he added a second finger. She twisted, hurtling backward to collapse back into Arthur, turning her face to his. The pair of them looked so beautiful together, John thought, his heart breaking in one beat and mending anew in the next, remembering that he'd made Lenny promise to get his family out, that they were safe.

He caught Tine looking to him again, her hand reaching for him, felt the stroke of her thumb along his scarred cheek. Her mouth neared his for another kiss, but he pulled back, a tiny movement that she nonetheless caught, her eyebrows furrowing. John mirrored her touch, caressing her cheek.

"Arthur's got you, don't he, darlin'," he whispered, and even in the dim, he saw the tears spring to her eyes, both of them knowing what he meant.

Chapter 41: xli. “That were fast”

Chapter Text

John had withdrawn from them, sometime in the early morning, leaving Arthur and Tine to engulf each other. But he was back, Arthur noticed, sitting on the other side of Tine in the mouth of the tent, shoulder to shoulder, watching the sun rise over the treetops. John passed a packet of oatcakes along their row and Tine took one, holding the snack in her mouth so she could hand the remaining one to Arthur, her bad arm curled into her chest.

They ate quietly, Tine heaving the occasional, contented sigh between bites. Her cheekbones and the tip of her nose were still rosy, as they had been in the weak glow of their campfire, her hair still dishevelled, the tops of her breasts and the gold coin hung between them just visible from the neck of her blouse, still not all the way buttoned.

John's cheeks were red, too; evidently embarrassed at what had transpired between them, or maybe that things for him hadn't happened enough. Arthur reached across Tine's back and patted his shoulder, offered him a crooked smile. Tine looked between them, her head swivelling from side to side, and smiled too. How dear they seemed to Arthur just then, his two younger outlaws huddled beside him.

He was also reluctantly aware that they were dragging their heels. It was hard to believe that so much had transpired just the previous day. Dutch's betrayal, which had reduced to a dull throb in his heart, buzzed insistently to life. Arthur cleared his throat to speak but delayed the words still further, taking a drink from the canteen John had brought, affording himself one more moment of tranquil silence.

"I gotta go see after the others," he said, his voice gruff and vocabulary unpracticed, so limited it had been in the preceding hours to words of praise and want. Tine and John both looked to him expectantly, their spines straight. "Who knows how many more Dutch promised to the Pinkertons." As the words left his mouth he felt the urge to cram them back in, watching John's face fall. "Sorry John, but it's true," he added gently, giving his shoulder a squeeze, "Jack, and Abigail..."

"They're taken care of, I made sure of it," John replied, turning to look at his hands, suspended over his bent knees. "But I'll ride with you anyway. Fixin' to put Bill in his place. Dutch too."

"And Javier," Tine uttered, her placid expression growing angry.

Arthur pulled his hand from John's shoulder to cup Tine's cheek, fix her with a pointed stare. "Now you should go off, get safe, we can drop you someplace."

"To dowhat?" She scoffed, pushing his hand off of her and standing up, turning to face them both so that she was a silhouette in the sun, save for her flyaways lit brilliantly white, a nimbus surrounding her head. "It's three on three, this way. I have my own peace to make. And I won't leave either of you until you tell me goodbye for good."

She squinted at them and Arthur smiled to himself at her stubbornness.It's how she loves, he guessed, and who could fault her for that.

"Let's go, then," he said. "John, you got bullets on you?"

John nodded. "My saddlebag should have some."

They reloaded their guns and cleaned up the camp, finished dressing. A burnt circle of dirt was the only sign of the paradise they'd made, one Arthur kept in his vision until they were too far down the hill to see it.

*

Another burnt-out firepit greeted them when they pulled into the Fairvale camp, along with a few cans and glittering shards of glass, but nothing else. "They're gone," John uttered, Tine squeezing his upper arm from where she sat behind him in the saddle. Arthur turned his new horse - a grey Saddler - a few times on the spot, as if the gang were to jump out from behind the small cabin on the land, yell out in surprise.

"That were fast," he muttered to himself, scrutinizing the ground his horse trod over even as she snorted her displeasure, growing irritated at Arthur's circling. He saw faint wagon tracks heading south, the lupins stood crooked out that way, too. "Looks like they went south, whatever that means," he announced to the others, perched expectantly on Old Boy, Tine's chin hooked over John's shoulder.

"Great," John laughed derisively, "south of here is anywhere 'cept Colter, and we already know the gang'd never go there again." Arthur shared in John's laugh, the whole thing seeming hopeless, but Tine's face grew more serious, instead.

"They're in Beaver Hollow," she said, and John half-twisted in his saddle to look at her. "Dutch never let it go that we didn't head there, after Lakay." Tine gave a pointed look to the cabin, where their leader had done so much of his sulking after their move.

"It'd be real close to all them Pinkertons in Van Horn," John said, rubbing his chin.

"Closer to Dutch's friends, you mean," she scathed, and the men laughed again, a dark chuckle that was easier on Arthur's heart than the alternative, the recognition that the man who'd raised him had left him behind.

"We'd better ride, beat the dark," Arthur said, as it was easier than out-and-out agreeing, putting words to the brutal truth he'd accepted. He put his spurs to the Saddler's flanks and John surged after him, headed south for Beaver Hollow and all the horrors that awaited them there.

*

If the sunrise that morning had found Arthur at his most peaceful, the sunset that burned at their backs as they rode up the path to Beaver Hollow met his dread.

The three rode past Van der Linde gang wagons that sat unpacked, clustered uselessly around the entrance to the hollow, its namesake cave a dark, gaping maw that looked to swallow the remaining gang members whole. Bill, who'd been hauling a corpse of an underfed man in overalls and nothing else, dropped the man's arms and choked, "Arthur," before yelling, louder, "Arthur! John!"

Dutch emerged from between two of the wagons, his face twisted, Javier beside him looking similarly grim.

"Oh, thank god!" Susan shouted, running from where she was sat at the fire, flanking an unknown, filthy girl in a nightgown, who clutched at Mary-Beth, her eyes wide and fearful. "We thought you'd died," she added, arriving before them, administering a motherly pinch to Arthur's cheek as he dismounted, then a warm hug.

"Bet you did," he replied gravely, his face stony. Abigail too appeared and ran to the horses, clung to John, weeping into his shirt.

"What are you doing here?" John hissed, "Lenny was supposed to get you and the boy out."

"I sent him with Tilly," she hissed back, her eyes wide and pleading. "Weren't leavin' until I knew for sure." Arthur watched them embrace each other even as he helped Tine from the saddle, kept note of Dutch's movements in his periphery, laden with regret that they'd returned to what could only be bloodshed.

He forced himself to look away from John and Abigail - John tracing her lips with his finger, his eyes shining - and towards Susan, who still mooned at the three of them. "Who is that, by the fire?" His voice was that of affected casualness, fooling no one. Dutch and Javier moved closer still to them, Bill's corpse abandoned so that he could follow after them both.

"We found her here, Arthur," Dutch said, his voice the fatherly one Arthur remembered from his boyhood, when he'd done bad and needed scolding. Arthur grit his teeth, clenched his fists, moved so that Tine was behind him. "Those Murfrees had gone and done all sorts of awful things to her."

"That so," Arthur said, his voice barely level, trembling with anger. "Did they leave her to die?"

"Matter of fact, they did," Dutch said, his voice oddly light, as if he were commenting on the weather. It wasn't as cold here as it'd been in the mountains, but it was damp; Arthur felt it numbing each finger, ambling around in his mouth hung open, chilling his very breath.

"Heard them Murfrees were monsters," Arthur tried, and sensed John shed himself of Abigail's embrace to his right, Tine reveal herself from behind his back on his other side. With them at his elbows he felt braver, more solid. "Imagine, turning on your fellows like that."

Susan looked between them, the two parties of outlaws staring at each other, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Her blue eyes widened, though, at the arrival of still more people to the camp.

Dutch's serene expression gave way to fury, met with the Pinkertons that were ambling into the camp, repeaters slung over their shoulders. "What are you doing here?" He said, his voice dripping malice. "We had adeal."

"Deal's off, Van der Linde," said the lead agent, Ross, Arthur remembered. He gestured at Arthur, John, and Tine, a flippant wave of his hand. "Seeing as these three are back home like you wanted."

Dutch stressed, "I did what you asked," but Susan was at his side, her face unreadable.

"Deal?" The one word was so damning, when she said it, her gaze not leaving Dutch's.

"I needed to keep us safe," his voice was quiet, but it strengthened when he pointed a finger at Arthur and his companions. "They're working against me."

Arthur felt his eyes grow wet involuntarily, the burning hatred he'd been feeling giving way to bald rejection. "That ain't true, Dutch," he said, his throat feeling as though it would close. He felt Tine's hand at his back and thanked her silently for it, thanked John for remaining beside him.

"I'm sensing that you won't come quietly," Ross said, pulling the gang's attention back to him. He drew a pistol from its holster and fit in a magazine, pointed it squarely at Dutch. "Very well."

Unlike Milton, Ross wasn't one for pontificating; he fired without further warning. The pistol bellowed its shot and yet, Dutch remained standing; it was Susan who'd leapt in front of him, ever loyal, now gasping for breath where she'd collapsed, her front darkened with blood.

Ross's eyes widened by half and he raised his arm to fire again; it was all the gang needed to dive for cover, in the limited places they had it.

Arthur sensed their group had cleaved permanently, into two factions, if not more. But for the time being, they were an uneasy alliance focused on the Pinkertons before them, and he checked his guns and prepared to fight.

Chapter 42: xlii. Approaching sunrise

Chapter Text

John.

The Pinkertons continued to swarm the camp; the remaining gang members seeking whatever cover they could.

Abigail clung against a barrel's bowed side, and John crouched in front of her, his palm growing slick against the grip of his revolver. He was furious with her for not going with Lenny, and at the same time, overwhelmed with love that she'd stayed behind for him.

Arthur and Tine were sitting with their backs to a crate next to them, and further along, John could see Dutch, Javier, and Bill; all huddled together behind Pearson's wagon. Dutch winced as Agent Ross called out: "Come on out, Van der Linde."

"Can't you just let us alone." John heard in Dutch's reply the beginnings of him turning on the old charm, but it only roiled in the pit of his stomach; the same charm and scheming that saw him, Arthur, and Tine nearly facing the noose.

But it didn't seem to work, this time. "You know full well I can't," Ross said. "You actuallywrote it down, you idiots. "Wedding rings. Debts.Teeth. I know you didn't come by these honestly." John peered over the barrel's top to watch Ross thumb through the gang's ledger, which he hadn't remembered seeing in months. "Unbelievable. And sure are a hell of a lot of names in here contributing, more than I'd expected. We could do to take a few more of you all in."

Next to him, John watched Arthur's face turn grave, the man tighten his grip on his own guns. Dutch's reaction was more forceful, still.

Dutch grabbed the rescued girl and pushed the mouth of his pistol to her temple, holding her in front of him. She lowed, a horrible sound deep in her throat, and more tears carved clean tracks down her filthy face. "Wouldn't take me a minute, Ross," Dutch shouted. "Surely you'd rather do without a little more blood on your hands."

"Drop the girl," Ross sounded more annoyed than worried. "You and I both know your promises don't mean sh*t."

John could have sworn that most of the gang were watching the girl in distress, her eyes wide and animal-like in their panic, her slip in tatters her only modesty, but he saw Dutch, really saw him, in that moment. His expression went from angry to eerily calm, and he pulled the trigger. The girl collapsed to the ground and Mary-Beth shrieked, startling the gang and its Pinkerton onlookers and allowing them to scatter in all directions.

The dissonant crack of repeaters and pistols echoed all around them as they ran. John scrambled after Abigail, pushing her through the dense forest up the hill that crowned the cave at Beaver Hollow. The rifle he'd given her to fight off the bear - a seeming age ago - was slung on her back; he'd missed it before. To his left, he glimpsed a flash of Tine's bright hair and Arthur's blue shirt through the trees as they bounded down toward the creek.

John felt a tightness in his own heart, as much due to running uphill as it was to the sad state of the gang and its leader, and ahead of him, Abigail wheezed but dutifully continued her way up the hill. They reached its gentle peak and rested, hands on their knees, sucking breath, staring at each other.

Their peace was short lived; Arthur's strained voice yellingTinereverberated through the trees, reaching them at their sanctuary. John looked to Abigail in a desperation, his still-pounding heart sinking at the thought of another fight. But she surprised him, already running down the hill toward the sound, the rifle clutched in her fingers. He dashed after her, his feet wayfinding over tree roots and small pits in the ground, all of his focus on his three beloveds.

When he crested the treeline, moments after Abigail, the two of them were perched on the horsepath leading up to Beaver Hollow, overlooking the creek where Ross had Tine knelt in front of him, a gun pointed at her skull. Arthur stood before them, his hands in a placating gesture they all knew to be futile, his expression one of dull panic.

"Milton really wanted a hanging for this one," Ross said, his address only to Arthur before him. "But, you know, fool me once."

There was a gunshot and Arthur's awful, agonized shout; but it was Ross who fell down into the water, not Tine. Beside him, the barrel of Abigail's rifle smoked lightly, and John wanted to bundle her up in his arms and kiss her, were they not discovered by the Pinkertons down below. The two provided Arthur and Tine all of the cover they could; Arthur dashing to collect Tine from where she knelt, wide-eyed and bloodstained but very much alive.

John waited until Arthur and Tine were among the trees and then the four of them took off again, amid a deadly swarm of Pinkerton bullets, back up the hill towards the cave.

"Hell of a shot, Miss Roberts," Tine gasped, rocketing herself up and past a tree branch.

"Who says I weren't aiming for you," Abigail replied. But it was a joke, and Tine's favourite kind, the smiles on the women out of place given their circ*mstances but welcome to John, all the same, a grin pulling at the scars on his own face. He and Arthur let them run ahead, shot behind them at the pursuant Pinkertons, who fell off as the hill grew more steep.

Once again at the peak, John surveyed the campsite to see that it was now deserted, the body of the briefly-rescued girl the only one they could see down below. The remaining gang members had dispersed, the Pinkertons presumably after them.

"Let's get the horses, and one of them wagons," Arthur suggested. The four picked their way slowly down the hill, listening for any more approaching agents or law.And for Dutch, John thought, the unsettling feeling roaring back to life within him; that their enemies were more numerous and more complex, besides.

A few of the gang wagons were trashed; the wheels splintered and unusable, but Arthur's own seemed intact; and it was to this one that he hitched his Saddler and John's Old Boy, offered Tine his hands for her to step into as a boost up into the back. Abigail took John's own hand and was halfway into the back when Dutch appeared, leading his horse The Count. John froze, and saw Arthur at the front of the wagon do the same, both of their hands hovering over their guns.

Bill and Javier had disappeared; Dutch alone seemed world-weary, his skin ashen, a hunch to his shoulders John had seldom seen before. They stared at each other. Even though all of John's instincts told him to shoot, or get into the wagon and run for it, he found himself achingly still, looking into the brown eyes of the man he'd once called a father.

After an age, Dutch broke the silence, his eyebrows falling heavy over his eyes, his back already turning to them. "I really do hope you'll forgive me, my boys," he said sadly, climbing up on his horse and riding off into the forest. John watched after him, the swish of The Count's white tail visible the longest and then, too, absorbed by the dark.

"All them years," Arthur muttered, finishing his climb into the driver's seat. The spell broke over John when Abigail squeezed his shoulder, gave him a consoling smile.

"Let's get our son," she said quietly, and he nodded. He circled the wagon to join Arthur on the bench, and Arthur whipped the horses into motion, taking them away from their life with the gang.

*

It was fully dark by the time they made it to Copperhead Landing, where Lenny had taken Tilly and Jack; the distant glow of Saint Denis and the much nearer one of their small campfire the group's two beacons to finding them.

"Thank you, Lenny," John said, laying a hand on Lenny's shoulder as Abigail coaxed Jack awake, peppering the small boy's face in kisses that he batted off, giggling.

"Thank you both," she said, smiling gratefully at Tilly. "And it's with thanks that I suggest you get the hell away from us, we ain't safe to be around." John finally had the calm required to put it together; he and Abigail had killed the two Pinkertons responsible for hunting down the Van der Linde gang. He still wasn't sure what it meant for them both.

"Was plannin' on it," Tilly smiled back, "think I'll try my hand at the city life."

"I can take you there," Lenny chimed, "get you through the gators, at least."

"Obliged." John, Abigail, Arthur, and Tine watched the two make their way for Lenny's horse, Lenny's spine straight as he gallantly offered his hand to Tilly to help her up into the saddle. John thought back to the wrecked boy who'd found him in Van Horn and was glad to see some of his purpose returning to him.

Which left the five to find their own. Arthur gruffed, "get the boy in the wagon, I know where we can head."

John looked at Arthur and Tine and it was as if he could see their bounties printed across their chests, his own weighing heavy on his heart. He then looked to Abigail, stroking Jack's tawny hair and whispering something to him, the two of them curled into their own world, one to which he'd only been a visitor for so long.

"C'mon, John," Arthur said, pointing at the wagon again. John felt the tears sting in his eyes, but he blinked them back, kept his gaze steady.

"I think it's time I make my own way," he said, looking at his family again. He sensed an approach and turned to see Tine before him, smiling wryly.

"Oh, won't you join us, John?" Her teasing words from the tent found him and he blushed, even as he leaned down totskin her ear, drawing her toward him. "Goodbye for good," she added, somewhere in his chest.

"For now," he replied, even though he doubted it. He'd miss her, miss them. Tine kissed him goodbye, a chaste peck delivered to his scarred cheek, before stepping back to stand with Arthur, who only nodded.

John hoisted Jack up onto his hip, put his arm around Abigail, and headed for the wagon. He unhitched Arthur's horse before climbing up into the driver's seat, his family safely bundled in the back, the sunrise on the horizon.

Chapter 43: epilogue i

Chapter Text

1904.

Life on the Adler ranch, compared to what Arthur was used to, was tranquil. He loved caring for the animals, the hard work of sowing, tending, and picking the few Adler fields in the short growing season, the occasional bounty hunts he went on with Sadie to earn some extra money. Sadie liked the temperamental filly he'd taken that night beside the train, so they traded; he found himself back with the Walker he'd had in Colter, a horse for a peaceful man.

Arthur and Tine slept in the hayloft until the ground was soft enough to build a one-room cottage on the property. His words came back to him - sentences and images that burned in his mind until he found the free time to get them down - starting with a drawing of Tine and the horse he'd broken for her, not far from the ranch.

Tine and Sugar, two white hellions, read the caption, though it was written partly in jest, for there was a new sweetness to Tine, too. She worked dutifully to keep him and Sadie fed and helped out on the ranch where her arm allowed, and excitedly showed him things whenever he returned home from a bounty that she'd discovered: a hive of bees between the barnboards; a secret, second exit out of the cellar, fuzzed with cobwebs.

Regular meals and a busy-yet-unthreatened lifestyle led Arthur to fill out, the leanness around his middle giving way so that he was through-and-through broad. He felt self-conscious about it until he discovered that Tine loved him this way, both soft and solid, and then took it all for another point of quiet pride. Together they learned new ways of loving each other, not stealing away from prying eyes but in a place where they could take their time, a home. It was something he hadn't had in a long time.

A few happy years passed at the ranch in this way, tethered by the small routines they made. Arthur loved sitting by the hearth after a long day of chores, Tine's fingers at his shoulders or her body warm in his lap. He loved watching her placid, sleeping expression by the low light of their fire at night. He thought there was a certain, underrated dignity in taking a morning coffee indoors, at a table with Tine and Sadie, passing the occasional newspaper between them, procured on a bounty hunt or at the supply station.

It was also one of these mornings, though, where Tine began to flounder. "What's with you, Miss Nilsen?" Sadie had chuckled, waking Arthur from his daydreaming. The women had continued to use these formal addresses for each other, Miss Nilsen and Mrs. Adler, even after Arthur and Sadie had long dispensed of them, a long running in-joke. But there was nothing funny about the way Tine's fist looked clutched around the side of the newspaper, her face white, when Arthur looked over to her, and he circled the room to stand behind her and read over her shoulder.

SAINT DENIS MOGUL ATTENDS CORNWALL REFINERY OPENINGthe newsprint blared. Below it sat a photo, the faces blurred by the printing process but still unmistakably of Leviticus Cornwall, with Angelo Bronte stood next to him, Molly on his arm. The paper crinkled angrily, Tine's fist balling tighter around it, and he put a soothing hand to her shoulder, only to have her whirl around, eyes wide and wild.

"It's OK." Arthur's voice was merely more than a whisper, but Sadie still caught it, her eyebrows narrowed as she looked between them. Tine's face grew red and she excused herself, sweeping out of the ranch's main house, still gripping the newspaper.

Arthur forced himself to sit down and finish his breakfast, even offering Sadie a conciliatory smile. But as soon as he'd cleared his and Tine's forgotten plates and cups he made out for their cottage, hoping to stave off whatever dark mood of Tine's the article had implanted in her.

The cottage was empty when he arrived, the bedding still rumpled from where they'd left it earlier, a quick, lighthearted tumble that seemed like it had happened in another age. His heart pounded and he next made for the stables, heartened to see Sugar in her pen, to hear human movement in the hayloft.

He climbed the ladder and found Tine knelt before the photo, pinned to a rafter by the point of her knife. Beside her was another stack of newspapers, rescued from where they kept them by the fire for kindling, and in which she furiously circled any mention of Cornwall or Bronte, or anything that might be remotely related to them; coal, shipping, crime in Saint Denis.

Arthur made shushing noises from his lips until he'd crawled the short distance to Tine, and took the papers gently from her, gathered her into his lap, pressed his lips against her crown. She shuddered within his arms, momentarily soothed from the intrusion of their former life.

But the damage had been done. Tine started picking at her tasks, only coming alive when she and Arthur lay together in the evenings. And even then, she became petulant and demanding, most of her found sweetness gone. Or maybe, as Arthur reflected in his journal, it had always been temporary.

He started to notice things he'd ignored before; how Tine greeted him and Sadie cheerfully when they returned from bounty hunting but then spent long stretches of time by herself, claiming headaches or tiredness. Or worse, her fingers itching at the handle of her knife whenever the distant whistle of a train found them.

One day, the train once again heard distorted and echoed over the mountains, she asked him baldly: "Don't you miss it?" There was no question in his mind as to whatitwas, and it made him all the more reluctant to answer, kicking the toe of his boot into the fresh snow that had fallen the night before.

"My favourite part were always by the fire with you, and John," he answered finally, fixing her with an imploring look. "Ain't it that way for you?" He heard the hope in his own voice, even though the sadness on her face said more than she ever could.

It was just days before the year was due to turn over, the ranch thick with snow, that Arthur woke alone, a heavy gold coin on a chain weighing down a note on his nightstand.

If you're ever in the mood to do a train, find me.

He left the cottage with the coin in his palm, cold and damning, and made for the main house, only Sadie at the table. They shared a knowing look, but he ran for the barn anyway, confirming Sugar, the beautiful white Arabian he'd found for his beautiful Tine, was also gone. Tine had left Arthur and Sadie to their ghosts.

As the year turned from 1903 to 1904 he continued diligently working, bounty hunting when they needed a little extra money for supplies. He was determined to keep up the same level of conversation he would normally - which granted, wasn't much - as well as his and Tine's share of the work, ever-grateful to Sadie for his chance at a quiet life.

But he drank at night to ignore the empty space in his bed, rattling around the cottage by himself, the coin hung heavy around his neck, the newspaper headlines that seared into his mind in the first half of the year.

SAINT DENIS MOB BOSS DEAD: Angelo Bronte and lover found stabbed in carriage.

CORNWALL MURDERED: Legacy Uncertain.

BUTCHER RIDES AGAIN? Terror of the five states - thought dead - seen at high-profile killings.

He was scouring the newspaper once again - as much as any mention of Tine dragged on his heart, he couldn't help himself - when Sadie spoke, increasingly odd for them in the mornings despite his best efforts to be friendly.

"You know that man, Arthur?" She said, pointing through the window to a man coming up the front path to the ranch, finely dressed for their rugged surroundings in a suit and hat.

"No," he replied, taking in the man's proud chin, dark eyes, the satin band on his bowler hat shining in the sun.

Chapter 44: epilogue ii.

Chapter Text

1909.

While he, Abigail, and Jack were in the Canadian Rockies, where they'd hoped to evade the law, John learned through newspapers that Tine had murdered Bronte and Molly; snuck in and out of their stagecoach while it was moving, so reportedly stealthy that it was the driver who found them dead, miles out, their throats cut.

When their evasion attempts failed, and they were crossing back into the United States through Montana, he'd read that Tine had got Cornwall, as well. She'd met him in Annesburg as he was descending the gangplank of his yacht, peppered him with bullets and took off on horseback, a white streak in a coal-flecked town. It was clear that she'd only become more murderous, just as he and Abigail were desperately trying to shed or outrun their reputations, with mixed luck. Tine's haunting gaze followed him from her wanted posters, encountered in general stores and liveries, saloons and telephone poles, the price on her head growing every few months.

He'd also learned, through the papers, that the newly-formed Bureau of Investigation had found Arthur. He'd had too much heat on him to stay hidden for long. He'd swung in Saint Denis, read the story, one that John scanned and then clutched at his stomach as if he'd been punched, his mouth open and panting in stunned, immediate grief.

The need to live a crime-free life took on a new, frantic urgency, and on credit, John bought the land for a ranch outside of Blackwater and the materials for a house and barn in a sort of fever, Abigail watching him with wide eyes.

He had no way to pay for them, and no knowledge of how to build anything more complicated than a birdhouse, so he sought the only legal work he thought he could do to pay down the debt while the wood rotted in the yard, while he encouraged Abigail to take Jack and leave, tears in both their eyes. He could only hope he'd suffer the brunt of their debt, Abigail shielded by her different name.

John asked for work from the very Bureau agents who could have been responsible for Arthur's death, and that same night he drank himself into a stupor, waking in an alley behind the Blackwater saloon, both of his eyes blackened. He set off southward in search of his first Bureau target bruised and hungover, a stale whiskey stink seeping out of his pores.

There was some ease on his conscience in that the first target was Bill Williamson, whose snide comments the day of their betrayal John still remembered. But chasing Bill to Mexico brought him to Javier Escuella, the next on his list, whom he'd always liked.

All the same, the work made him feel even more distant from his family, self-censoring his brutal exploits against their banal day-to-day life, itself filtered through Jack's reading and writing. And the money he made turning on his former fellows wasn't enough, was never enough. He realized too late that his employer and moneylender were one and the same; two halves of a sinister whole, and before long they wanted him after Dutch.

John found his former leader atop Mount Hagen, living a hermitlike existence. Even for someone who never partook himself, John noticed that Dutch had let up on his meticulous grooming, his hair grown out and greyed where it'd been jet-black, his moustache softened by dotted stubble.

Dutch's eyes lit up when he recognized John, waved him into his cabin, closed the door. "Come in, son, can't believe you've found me out all this way."

John scratched behind his head. "It ain't exactly a social call."

"Hmm." Dutch looked discouraged as he puttered about the cabin, pouring coffee into two mugs and offering one to John. "It ain't as good as Hosea used to do," he said as if bashful, a small smile visible through his moustache.

John took a sip and stifled his grimace at the bitterness, set the cup down on the corner of Dutch's small table. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell Dutch why he was there - he'd practiced on the long ride up, none of the words quite right - but he remained silent, gawping at Dutch as the man settled onto the small stool by the fire, tugging on the knees of his pant legs as he did.

"I- I heard about Arthur," Dutch spoke to the flames, not to John, his arm made thick in its bearskin sleeve braced against the low mantel. John heard the tremor in Dutch's voice. "Horrible business. In Valentine all alone like that." John had read Saint Denis, he was sure of it, but the core fact devastated, no matter the details. He held himself very still, watching Dutch as he turned around, silhouetted against the fire, hunched forward with his forearms over his knees, tears beading in his dark eyes.

"You know John, I try often to add up my mistakes, to recreate that chessboard, move by move. But we had a white queen that were ruthless, and most of our other players were grey." John was never one for chess and somewhat lost in the metaphor, but it was unmistakeable to him who Dutch meant by "white queen."

"Lot of ruthlessness goin' around, those days," he said slowly.

"That there was," Dutch said, nodding, fixing John with a stare. "Same as now. Guessin' you're here to kill me." John opened his mouth to refute him, but Dutch had pulled his pistol from the inside of his coat, pressed it to his own temple. "Let me save you the trouble."

John didn't think, just rushed him, grasping the pistol and wrenching it up and away from Dutch, so that he felt the sear of the bullet as it travelled through the barrel, burning his fingers. Dutch's body had thinned out, impossible to see in the large coat he wore, and John held the man as he shook uncontrollably, feeling tears spring to his own eyes, that things had broken so irrevocably between them. He brought Dutch down from the mountain and handed him in to the bureau alive, intending to watch him swing but finding he couldn't bear it, after all.

Through all of his kills and captures John had become a legend. He heard his name whispered around him when he padded through towns, heard it through Blackwater as he went to meet Agent Fordham at the government's offices, hoping that delivering Dutch Van der Linde to their clutches would finally absolve him of his debts. He passed a quartet of Tines on his way into the government building, her multiplied eyes staring unflinchingly at him, nestled within the print declaring herWanted: Dead or Alive.

"I'm here for my money, Fordham," John gruffed, hating the agent and his office so much that he'd dispensed with all pleasantries early on, so as to get out of there as soon as possible.

But Fordham tutted, stroking at the cleft of his chin. "Van der Linde escaped, John. We don't owe you sh*t."

"That ain't my problem." John felt the fury rise in his chest. "I delivered him to you."

"Dead or alive implies inpossession. If you needed the money so bad you should have asked to be paid up front."

John's fist clenched and he held it at his side, imagining instead that he was lifting his gun into Fordham's face, pulling the trigger. "Who's next, then?" He asked through gritted teeth. "Want me to hunt down my missing son? Think he stole a caramel, once. Or maybe I can dig my dear mother up and kill her? How about that?"

"Love the enthusiasm, John," Fordham's smile was wicked, his eyeteeth visible. "But I think you'll have an easier time going after your old friend, the Butcher." So John's list would end with another legend. He didn't react, just sighed tiredly, swept yet another bounty poster from Fordham's desk, folded it and put it in his pocket.

John hadn't seen Tine since he'd left her and Arthur at Copperhead Landing, nearly a decade before. All he knew was that four years earlier she'd murdered Leviticus Cornwall in Annesburg. He bought a newspaper and took it to his rented room at the Blackwater saloon, where he'd drank himself nearly blind those years before.

There was only a small item on a latter page that seemed promising: a tycoon by the name of Jones had had his new automobile ransacked on his first drive, also in Annesburg, terrorized by a masked woman on a white horse. It was the man's photo that clinched it for John, a bald pate and face he vaguely remembered as lecherous and then full of fear outside of Fort Brennand, Tine playing the lost, inexperienced newlywed and making him and Arthur laugh.

He headed to the tailor's for warm clothes, having been severely underequipped for Mount Hagen, and set out for a long ride northeast. His search took him to a field swathed in lupins, colourless skeletons of their former summer selves and covered in snow, familiar to another time.

John came upon a small stone cabin, smoke spiralling out of its chimney, a small fire burning in a pit set before it. He stalked for the cabin and, just as he was about to push open the door, felt cold steel pressed into his cheek.

"D'you come to kill me, John?" Tine sounded friendly, not angry, and he saw her amused expression out of the corner of his eye, as well as her crooked arm, visible within her open coat. "Heard you've been busy. Bill and Javier, huh? Good for you."

"Could say the same about you," he tried, his hands up around his ears. "Bronte, Cornwall." He saw Tine squint at him momentarily, and then she nodded as if to herself, holstered her gun, motioned for John to join her by the firepit. She put two cigarettes between her lips and lit them both, handing one to John, who accepted it gratefully, remarking on his exhale, "even that Jones bastard."

"Mmhmm." Tine smiled brilliantly, proud he knew so much.

"Why'd you kill Molly?" He blurted. "She didn't do nothin' to you."

Tine darkened. "She stole all of that money,ourmoney. Think of how different our lives could've been."

She looked vindictive and remorseless, and John felt a pang in his heart for the sides of Tine he missed, her hidden kindnesses absent here in her snowy kingdom. "Arthur's gone." The statement pulled from him and, a small comfort, he saw Tine pause, her expression soften.

"Now, that is something I do regret." Her voice was quiet and she reached out to him, held his hand.

He remembered the three of them, how he'd pulled away at the last moment, that night in the tent after they'd almost died.Now one of us has, John thought, his heart aching.

He was brought back to the present with a gentle squeeze of Tine's fingers. "Now, John," she started, "I don't begrudge you your choices, but would be more than glad to offer an alternative." She released his hand so that she could take a drag on her cigarette, and leaned in toward him, exhaling out of the corner of her mouth. "What if I were to tell you I got the money in Blackwater?"

John spluttered on his own inhale. "How?"

"Because, I'm thebest," she stressed, her smile back. "And I'd give some to you, if you can forget you saw me out here."

John's forehead rumpled in thought, he chewed on his lip. "If you got all that money," he said, "why are you way out here, sleeping rough? You ain't in some fancy hotel or anything." A fleeting memory passed his mind of the pair of them in the lap of luxury, a kiss sweet with champagne, their first.

"I chose this place back then, remember," Tine broke his train of thought again. "It speaks to my blood. I feel free out here." She did look at home. Her cheeks were rosy, eyes bright, hair still as white as he remembered, nearly of a kind with the snow around them, if not for the hint of blonde in it.

"They could come back after me, Agent Fordham and them, same folks who's after you," John asserted, still unsure, but Tine merely waved her hand dismissively.

"You can go anywhere you want with what I'm prepared to give you." She rose from her seat and dug in a lockbox at the side of the cabin. Soon she stood before John, holding out an unfathomable stack of money pincered between her fingers, her hand stretched to its limit.

"Tine," he breathed, standing to join her, his gaze darting between the money in her hand and her face, genial and expectant.

"What's a little money between friends," she whispered, stepping toward him to hug him to her. As their chests pressed together he felt the familiar coin, an old memory, cold where the rest of her was so warm. A small wisp of perfume rose up from her collar and he breathed it in.

John looked again at the money, remembering how miraculous it was that this woman was so adept at getting it, and hesitated. But she only waggled her wrist, making the bills flap in the air, and he seized them from her and nodded. The sudden urge to run for it was hard to ignore, like he was getting away with something,and he fast-walked back for Old Boy and saddled up, his wave goodbye no more than just a small tip of his hat.

Tine stood by the fire, steps from the cabin, watching him mount up and leave. After a few moments, she lit up another cigarette, blew the smoke through pursed lips, and said to the air, "he's good for it."

A figure in black emerged from the cabin to stand beside her, to watch John's silhouette disappear down the path. Arthur had grey around his temples and in his beard but he was no less formidable, trim in his jeans and shirt and black coat to match, a born enforcer.

"You still don't think I could have come out and said hello to old John," he murmured, laying a massive hand on her neck and fishing the coin out of her collar to dangle in front.

"Couldn't have him coming back to us."

"You think he would've?" Tine's eyes remained on the path a moment longer before she pulled her gaze away, turned to Arthur.

"If he saw you, yes."

Arthur grunted, kissed her forehead. "Still ain't used to being dead."

It was his familiar grumpiness that coaxed her smile out. "You won't have to be just yet, but we should be moving on, soon."

He smiled back. "Where to, Teeny?" Her grin broadened, the old mischievousness coming to the surface.

"Hear Tahiti's nice." Arthur grabbed at her waist, clutched her to him, hissing "bad girl" in her ear.

"What about Oregon?" She said more seriously from within his embrace, fingering the buttons on his shirt. "Wouldn't mind seeing the coast." They disentangled from each other, and Arthur followed Tine into the cabin, where the newspapers declaring Arthur's death - listed in Saint Denis in theBlackwater Ledger, in Valentine in theNew Hanover Gazette, in Strawberry in theSaint Denis Times- were tacked up to the walls, a testament to Tine's expert scheming. He glanced at the papers, then back to Tine, where she sprawled in their armchair by the fire, the brass tips of her boots waving back and forth, her knife turning over in her fingers.

"Whatever you want," he said, and she beamed at him.

End.

* * *

I'd rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes I would
If I only could
I surely would
–"El cóndor pasa", Simon & Garfunkel

With this book I initially set out to write a story where a "girl Micah" who never betrayed the gang would change the story, though it didn't change as much as I thought it might, whether from my own lack of imagination or that a lot of those first decisions - the train robberies, the Grays and Braithwaites, even the Saint Denis bank job - are made largely without Micah's input.

Where things really change is Arthur's redemption; that he becomes content to be a right hand to wrong-doing forever, as opposed to a hero's death or even the smallest glimpse of the life he really wanted. Tine is a bastard but she's also a hurting person, and you could say she loved Arthur selfishly as she loved John selflessly. I loved having Sadie be a sort of fringe character in this who is such a contrast to the paths Tine chose. And I loved exploring Dutch in this version, where he doesn't have a sycophant in his ear but instead is desperate to keep the gang together only so that he can still be in control of it; I don't think he'd ever see his tip-off to the Pinkertons as a betrayal if it meant preserving the gang with him at the helm.

This wasn't really a love triangle either, more just a horny mess, oops. Hope you liked it anyway. I know there was at least one John stan in the comments and if it's any comfort, I had three different endings in mind that I struggled between, but this is the one that won out in the end, it seemed the truest.

Swapping points of view between Arthur and John was a game-time decision and inspired by writermelodycrowand her ficsBirds of a Feather (parts one and two). She does all of the perspectives ofallof the gang members impeccably, even the random ones I forget about (sorry, Swanson). Her other fics,Widow's Second Chanceand its sequel, are also so sweet and fluffy - probably a good brain bleach after reading Tine's twisted ways. And the inspiration to try smut was from the masterdutchvanwinkle(even if I chickened out of the really good stuff). If on the offchance you haven't read her work yet, go for Dutch at his hottest/daddiest and stay for the free therapy.I'm so thankful to them both for sharing their generous comments on this work when it was first published and their immense writing talents.

And I'm so thankful to you all for reading, too! Lots of love and gratitude from goodbyelisahoney 😘