Archive of Our Own

The first time Charles sees inside Arthur’s journal, he tries not to think much of it.

Over the months, over the journey from Blackwater to Colter to Horseshoe Overlook, Charles has gotten to know Arthur more than he has ever known most people.

Aside from Taima, there hasn’t been much consistency in his life. He journeys from one place to another, meets people and waves them goodbye weeks later. The Van der Linde gang had been a gamble, something he had never been a part of and had no idea what it could bring. Surviving on his own had never been easy, but it had felt safer than relying on people again: people who could get too lost in drink and turn on you after a bad day, people who could use you for their own gain and then threaten to lynch you later on, people who could act friendly in the day and rob you blind in the night.

It took its toll eventually, though. Too many nights watching over his shoulder, too many days listening in on every conversation around him to make sure he wasn’t being made for a fool. When Dutch van der Linde and his men had offered him a place, Charles said yes.

Even so, Charles is something out an outcast in the gang. Uncle always offers him a drink and Tilly happily mends his clothes, but he isn’t oblivious to the whispers and hushed words behind his back: Sean always confused as to how a man can prefer the silence to a party, Javier sighing that Charles should learn the meaning of fun at some point, Bill muttering that quiet people are always the first to turn on their family.

Arthur is… different.

Arthur doesn’t mind Charles’ taciturn nature, in fact he prefers it. He’s always up for a hunt even in the cold mountains of the Grizzlies and listens patiently when Charles corrects his technique with the bow. He doesn’t force Charles to join in on any parties, just brings him a beer at the end of the night and sits with him until his guard shift is over.

Charles has shared more than he is used to with Arthur and, in turn, Arthur has done the same.

Charles knows Arthur loves Hosea and Dutch like his fathers, John like his brother. He knows Arthur has had his heart broken in the past, even if he doesn’t know by who. He knows he wears his hat like a suit of armour and tugs it down whenever he’s feeling vulnerable.

He knows his journal is his most prized possession.

So the first time Arthur leaves his journal in plain view of Charles, it stumps him a bit.

They’re hunting in Grizzlies East, holed up in a cabin that they’ve used a couple times before. They had been on their way back to camp from a job when they stumbled onto a woman whose son had been attacked by a vicious beast of a wolf. “The damn thing stalks those forests like a demon,” she’d cried to them. “Won’t give me one night of sleep with its wailing and howling! Oh please, can’t you do something about it?”

Charles had agreed straight away, rolling his eyes when Arthur asked for payment first. Arthur would always put the gang and its needs first, but sometimes it got ridiculous. He had kept his eyes on Arthur’s back as they rode away and waited for the man to turn around.

“What? I still agreed to help, didn’t I?”

“We could have done it for free.”

“Could have.” Arthur waved the tiny pouch of money with a grin. “Couldn’ have paid for a bath down in Valentine, though, now could we?”

Charles had snorted and followed him into the trees.

The cabin is small but sturdy. There’s dust lining the shelves and any food has rotted away, clearly abandoned a long time ago, but the lack of blood and struggle allows Charles to think the owners left of their own, peaceful accord. It’s probably not true, but it’s better to think about than the alternative. It’s just one room split apart by half-walls and empty bookshelves, a tiny bed in the corner and a kitchen table in the middle. The bed is too small for either of them so they usually just place their bedrolls beside each other on the floor.

Charles is sitting at the table with a cigarette when he notices it.

He looks away from bird-watching in the window to glance idly around the cabin, and then sees the journal on the table. It’s wide open and upside down from his point of view, but he can still make out distant trees and a beautiful mountain landscape and frozen clouds – it looks exactly like the view from the cabin’s front door.

Charles looks around the room, feeling like he’s invading Arthur’s privacy. Despite how close he and Arthur have gotten over the past months, Arthur has never let Charles look at his journal. From what he’s heard around the camp, it seems like nobody has seen inside that book. Even Hosea had lamented that he’d like to see Arthur’s drawings at least once – the man had just blushed, tugged at his hat and said they were not much to look at anyway. As far as Charles knows, the closest person who's gotten to Arthur's journal is Mary-Beth, who sometimes receives gifts of drawings, sketches pulled from her latest romance or her proudest mystery.

And here it is right now: sitting in the middle of the table, not guarded in the slightest, in full view for Charles to look at.

Arthur is outside brushing down his horse, so it’s not a stretch to think he might have simply forgotten it. He’s left his satchel in here, too, only taken one of his guns, but it’s still almost… unbelievable.

Charles pauses for a moment, leans forward to close the journal, then shakes his head and decides to write it off.

Arthur comes in a few minutes later, looking tired and sweaty. His hat is in his hand instead of on his head, fanning at his face. “God, that is one temperamental horse,” he laughs as he walks in. “Guess who went and rolled in the dirt right after I finished brushin' her?”

Charles smiles. “Taima used to do that when she was younger. She grew out of it eventually.”

“Well, I’m sure hopin’ mine does that too.” Arthur sits down at the table and puts his hat down. He sees his journal on the table, blinks, then tucks it into the pocket of his satchel. Doesn’t even think about how odd it is to have left it in Charles’ presence. He looks up at Charles and says, “so, you see any wolf pass by the cabin while you were broodin’ in here?”

Charles waits for a moment for it to click. It doesn’t, so he gives Arthur a playful look and says, “I’m not the one who broods.”

“Sure you do! Look at you, frownin’ and glarin’ at me – you’re doin’ it right now!”

Charles snorts. “That’s called thinking.”

“Ah, makes sense why I wouldn’ recognise it, then,” Arthur grins. Charles bites at his cheek, feels an urge to tell Arthur to stop talking about himself like that, but he doesn’t know if they’re close enough for that yet. He doesn’t want to cross any boundaries he won’t be able to mend. “So, what’s the plan for this wolf?”

They kill the wolf later that night, sell its pelt and meat to a trapper and assure to frightened women it’s dealt with. At camp, Dutch is happy with the money they bring back and the pair of rabbits they stopped to hunt, and for a while that’s the end of it.

Then, a few weeks later, it happens again.

This time, it’s not just the two of them alone. Javier invites Arthur on a homestead robbery in New Hanover, and Arthur grabs Charles when he walks past them and drags him into the conversation. “Things always go to hell when it’s just you and me,” Arthur tells Javier. “We can’t stay out of trouble. Charles should be enough keep up us in line.”

That’s a pretty tall order, Charles thinks, but in front of Javier he just nods and goes to tack Taima up.

They set up camp as they wait for the sun to set. The homestead isn’t empty like they’d hoped but it should be quiet by the time night falls. Charles is inside the tent idly working away at some wood with a knife, deciding whether to go for a fish or a bird. Beside him, Arthur is buried deep in his journal, the book balanced on his knees and hidden from all eyes as it usually is. Javier had gone outside to set up some kind of trap, but eventually he calls:

“Arthur, can you help me with this?”

Arthur looks up from his journal with a huff. “Can’t you take care of it yourself?”

“No can do, compadre. Now get that stick out of your ass and come over here!”

Arthur groans. “I’ll show him where that stick is goin’,” he mutters under his breath, setting his journal down and leaving the tent with a huff.

Charles rolls his eyes at their antics – sometimes it’s hard to believe that these men have stayed with one gang for so long, but then he sees them bicker like siblings and it becomes all too easy. Charles is ready to return to his whittling when he spots the journal out of the corner of his eye and pauses.

It’s open again. This time, it shows a variety of plants and flowers, all drawn in beautiful detail but small enough to allow writing at its sides. There’s ginseng and sage and milkweed – the angular leaves of oregano, the flat bodies of ram’s head, the colourful flowers of orchids. There’s concise notes at the side, plant names and where to find them, what they’re used for and the preparations they require. Charles wonders where Arthur learnt of all of this, is wistful for the first time in years for his mother’s calming voice as she had taught him about herbs all those years ago.

It feels invasive, like last time, but… Arthur left his journal like this. Open for Charles to see. Is it some kind of sign?

Later that night, they rob the homestead and make out with a decent bit of money. It should be enough to get Miss Grimshaw off their backs, who has been harping on Arthur in particular for not donating as much as he could. Charles knows that’s not true and would have defended Arthur if Karen hadn’t jumped in first – he’s glad to know he’s not the only one in Arthur’s corner.

It’s as they’re riding back to camp, their horses doing their best not to stumble in the dark, that he decides to broach the topic.

“Arthur,” he says, and the man gives a hum to show he’s listening. “Can I ask you something?”

“Course,” Arthur says without hesitation, and Charles sees Javier glance at them from the corner of his eyes.

He ignores him. “When did you start writing in journals?”

Arthur blinks and turns toward him. “Jeez, ain’t that a question,” he mutters to himself. “Since I was a kid, I guess. Dutch was teachin’ me to write, kept runnin’ out of newspapers and posters for me to write on. Ended up buyin’ a few sheets of paper which I used up in a couple of days,” he chuckles. “Then Hosea figured I’d need a proper book and bought me my first journal. Said there weren’t many folks 'round who could write, and that I should keep practicin’. Kind of became a hobby after that, I suppose.”

Charles nods, then asks, “and when did you start drawing?”

Arthur freezes for a second. A deep blush comes over his cheeks and he tugs at his hat. “Drawin’? Well, uh, shit, I don’t even remember. Used to draw as a kid, though I was never any good at it, course.”

From the front of the line, Javier snorts. “That’s no exaggeration, trust me. I’ve seen some of his first drawings.”

Arthur frowns. “You have? How the hell…”

“John showed me,” Javier smirks, and Arthur sinks into his saddle with a curse.

“Goddamn rat! Last nice thing I ever do for that little—”

“It’s cute!” Javier says, his tone full of mirth and a bit of condescension. “I think it’s very sweet you gave John a drawing of him for his first birthday in the gang. Even if it did look like the backside of a horse.”

“Was a faithful rendition,” Arthur grumbles, a hand rubbing the back of his neck. “’Sides, I was a kid myself. Didn’t exactly have much practice yet.”

“Are you saying you’ve improved since then?”

“I remember when you first started playin’ guitar,” Arthur shoots back, and Javier grimaces at the memory. “Sounded like you were stranglin’ a cat, but you don’t hear me botherin’ you about that, do you?”

“That’s because I’ve gotten better,” Javier says with a smirk. “You can hear that at the campfire every night. How do we know you’re not still drawing blocky stickmen in that journal of yours?”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be like this if you let people actually see what you were drawing,” Javier says. “You stare at people or things, and all I can think in my mind is that shitty drawing of John from fifteen years ago.”

“My drawin’s are none of your business, Javier,” Arthur growls. “Leave it alone.”

Javier huffs but quiets down, likely knowing any more and Arthur will seriously snap. Charles has yet to see Arthur get truly angry, not beyond deeply annoyed or incredibly frustrated – he usually takes himself out of camp before anyone can see it. The closest he gets it when he talks to Micah, which Charles definitely doesn’t blame him for. Micah’s presence in the gang puts a sour taste in Charles’ mouth, one he had hoped to never taste again after Dutch’s offer to join his gang. He had been foolish to hope for anything different.

Still, he takes Javier’s lead and resists asking Arthur any more questions. They pick up the threads of an earlier conversation and it seems, for now at least, the comments are forgotten: when they hitch their horses at camp, Arthur pats Javier on the shoulder and gives him his share of the money. There’s no linger hurt or bitterness, only the comradery of brothership and comfort of men who have lived together for most of their lives.

Arthur is like that, Charles has noticed. Rarely does he let metaphorical wounds fester. Arthur will snap and argue with those he calls family, but an hour later he is offering to help with chores or sharing about a job he heard. The only people he can’t seem to forgive as easily are the leeches of the gang, and even there he’s lenient. Reverend Swanson is helped back to his bed no matter how many times he stumbles out of it, and Uncle is accompanied on jobs no matter how ludicrous they are.

Hours later, when Charles has returned to his tent and decided to while away the time by cleaning his guns, he sees Arthur approach a recently-woken John. They speak for a moment, their heads lowered, and before Charles even has time to blink Arthur has thrown John to the ground in a choke-hold.

Hosea, walking past, rolls his eyes and says, “grow up, boys!” and walks to Dutch’s tent looking like he has a complaint or two on his lips. Javier sees them wrestling, too, and plays a fast-paced tune on his guitar as though it’s the sound-track to a silent movie. “Put up or shut up, Arthur!” He laughs at them. “No seas gallina!”

“You’re next,” Arthur says threateningly, then returns to choking his brother.

Charles watches with a confused yet amused tilt to his mouth. He has often wondered if he has missed out on anything by being an only child, but judging by how Arthur and John act – as adopted brothers, even – he is confident in saying that, whatever he has missed, he is glad for it.

Still, it strikes him once more that while Arthur is wrestling John for daring to share an old drawing of his, he hadn’t even blinked when he returned to the tent to find the journal open next to Charles. Again.

The third time it happens, Charles is almost convinced Arthur is doing it on purpose.

Unlike the other times, the air is not peaceful and their limbs are not loose with leisure. Instead Dutch has just given the order to pack up camp: he, his sons and Strauss have returned from what was meant to be a simple job in Valentine bloody and angry, and the camp is chaos in seconds. It is a painful reminder of Blackwater. This time, at least, the camp is not on fire and the Pinkertons aren’t already circling them. They have time, Dutch says, to pack up and think and plan.

“Charles, come with me,” Arthur says, walking out of Dutch’s tent. “We got work to do.”

Charles smirks. “Now where have I heard that before?”

His amusement fades, however, when Arthur explains their mission. “We’re packin' up and movin' on,” Arthur says, and Charles can’t help but express his shock at not only moving so soon, but moving south of all places. Dutch, the leader of the fearless outlaws, is fleeing to the south. Towards civilisation and cities black with smoke. Towards confinement rather than freedom.

It also troubles him to hear their new camp is one suggested by Micah. Anything out of Micah’s mouth has Charles immediately suspicious, and he can see Arthur thinks the same – they don’t say anything, though, because now is not the time to question Dutch’s authority. They’re about to set out when a loud crash from behind them sounds. They turn to see one of the crates Tilly had been lifting break, its contents spilling onto the ground in waves as Miss Grimshaw growls in anger.

Arthur takes one look at it and sighs. “Get my stuff, would you, Charles? Grimshaw’ll pack up my tent but I threw my satchel across my bed and all my stuff went everywhere.” He gives Charles a quick nod before stepping away to help Tilly gather all the loose items.

Charles doesn’t hesitate to march across camp and into Arthur’s tent, doesn’t let the odd feeling of being in Arthur’s personal space slow him down. He’s seen the tent from across camp a dozen times, closer when he’s dropped off arrows he’s made while Arthur is out of camp, but this is different. This is his first time inside. It’s messy, which somehow fits with Arthur’s character. The bed is unmade and the pillow is punched unevenly to one side, and across the table an array of memorabilia are scattered: photos, flowers, cigarette cards. As Arthur said, his satchel looks like it’s been thrown across the bed and half of its contents have fallen out. There’s food and cans, a dozen more photos, some bullet cartridges and, in the middle, Arthur’s open journal.

Charles stills, raises his head to the chaos of the camp, then looks back down.

It takes Charles a few moments to recognise the drawing, but once he tilts his head it clicks. It’s the church in Valentine, the walls old and rotten and the cross at its tower tall and righteous. In front of the building are vague shapes of people, like Arthur had sketched it in a spare hour with the Valentine population moving too fast to draw in detail. There’s text beside it, too, long and spindly, but when Charles leans forward to read it a pair of hands clap in front of his face and say, “no time to dilly-dally, Mr. Smith, get a move on!”

Charles sends Miss Grimshaw an apologetic look and gathers everything into Arthur’s journal, already mourning the single moment of peace among the noise of the gang. For a second everything around him had faded and quietened. In the wake of the outside world, Arthur’s journal had seemed quiet and solemn. Then Miss Grimshaw had interrupted and Charles was thrown back into reality.

When he meets up with Arthur again, the man has helped Tilly carry a newly-filled crate to one of the wagons. “Those old ones needed replacin’ anyways,” he says to Tilly, whose normally steely gaze looks to be on the edge of panic. Arthur reaches for her wrist. “Hey,” he says quietly, almost too quiet to hear. Tilly seems to calm from just the tone alone. “We’ll find some place new for us. Just focus on gettin’ everythin’ packed away, alright?”

Tilly smiles small. “If I can resist killing Grimshaw,” she says, and Arthur sends her off with a grin.

He watches Tilly go for a moment, then turns to see Charles standing behind him. “Get all my stuff?” he asks as he reaches his satchel, and Charles simply nods as he waits for Arthur to say something. He doesn’t. “Alright,” Arthur calls as he strides towards their horses. “Let’s check out Dewberry Creek.”

They reach the creek and it gets complicated from there. A German family who doesn’t speak a lick of English, a man they have to rescue, a hide-out more suited to the gang’s needs than Micah’s suggestion. Charles doesn’t think it’s a coincidence. For as long as he has known Micah, the man has brought small gains for large rewards. The smallest of tips gain the biggest thanks from Dutch even when he expects twice as much work from everyone else. Charles doesn’t doubt Micah did the barest work when looking into Dewberry Creek as a camp, or that he even suggested it knowing it would leave the gang vulnerable. Why Dutch can’t see it, he doesn’t know. Why nobody else brings it up with him, Charles can’t fathom.

Seeing Arthur dismiss the German family unsettles Charles’ stomach. There is a good man, he knows, in Arthur Morgan – but Arthur seems determined to fight that man every step of the way. Charles has watched him gentle his voice around Jack, bring Mrs. Adler food when she’s too tired to stand. He’s seen the man give spare change to blind men on the street and ride for miles in the wrong direction just to get a lost woman home. But it is often hard to see which man is the real one: the gentle giant he catches glimpses of in rare moments, or the callous brute he sees more often.

Charles has felt this displacement before, but this time it’s… more. It’s when they’re settled at the new camp, their tents shifted about and the ground still unfamiliar under their feet, that he realises it’s because of the journal.

Seeing that open page had put a stop to the chaos of camp for more reason than one. Sure, because it had been a direct contrast to the rush and bustle of the gang, a calming freezeframe of a sunny day that put the distress of the gang into perspective, but also because it had been yet another glimpse into that gentle side. Across the camp Arthur had been covered in blood, limping from a bullet wound in his leg he’d dug out with his own fingers. But here in the journal that man had disappeared. In his place was a person who spent hours sitting in the shade of a building, staring at an old, decrepit building so he could commit it to memory.

For a moment, as he sits in his tent watching Arthur help Pearson stock his wagon, he thinks Arthur did it on purpose. Left his journal open, has been leaving his journal open, just to mess with Charles’ head.

Charles dismisses the thought with a shake of his head. He remembers the aggression he’d shown Javier, the way his cheeks had flared at the mere mention of his drawing.

“Hey, Charles!” Arthur calls from across camp, and Charles looks up to see him struggling with several sacks of potatoes. “Mind givin' me a hand?”

Charles is moving to stand even before Arthur finishes his question. Whatever Arthur may be, he is not deliberately causing Charles’ torture. That, he thinks as he walks across camp, he is doing all to himself.

The next time, Charles sees Arthur drawing before he sees the sketch itself.

Charles doesn’t take jobs as often as the others, both because he’s not as experienced and because he simply doesn’t want to. Joining up with a gang had called for sacrifices: no more quiet nights, no more full meals. His years alone hadn’t conditioned him to being cared for by twenty strangers and, in those first months, he had dealt with the stress by clamping up and refusing to talk. Bill’s probing questions had gone unanswered. Uncle’s teasing had met cold silence. Even Abigail, who brought Charles soup during his midnight shifts and encouraged Jack to be nice to the kind man, why don’t you bother him when he’s more awake, hun?, had gotten used to awkward nods and stilted sentences.

Besides learning to talk when he didn’t feel like it and sharing his resources with an entire family of people, Charles had also learnt to put aside his morals to feed said family.

Once upon a time, killing had not come easy to Charles; that isn’t the issue anymore, but he likes to think he’s a just killer. Kills those who deserve it and nobody else. Kills quickly and efficiently, minimising the pain of even the most dangerous animal or depraved human (though, often, the two were the same thing). Living under Dutch van der Linde’s roof meant different rules, however. It meant robbing young mothers and shooting guards doing their jobs. More than that, it meant doing all that and not spending any time to apologise over their dead corpses because the law was right behind you.

It's something Charles has come to terms with, but he still doesn’t like it – so, when he can, he passes on jobs to sit in his tent and dry leather, or takes Taima out hunting the way he knows best. As a result, most days he can be found around camp or in the surrounding wilderness, ready to be called upon for help but making it clear where his true allegiance sits. With nature, not with man.

The time allows him to study his gangmates in depth. He’s always been good at people watching and here he thrives. As he sharpens his knife, he watches men come back from the job, spies who deposits the gang’s share in the money box first and who lingers reluctantly. As he cures leather, he figures out who buries their woes in drink and who goes to Reverend Swanson for morphine. As he cleans his gun, he memorises all the spots Arthur sits in to draw.

The most common is his tent. Arthur likes sprawling across his bed with his boots off and his ankles crossed, his journal spread across his leg as he picks something to sketch. After that is the beach, where he’ll sit on a log for hours at a time, lost to the world unless you yell right next to his ear or start playing his favourite campfire song. He sits amongst the horses, sometimes, when he can chase Kieran away with his scowl long enough for some piece and quiet. On rare occasions, Arthur leans against the tree in the centre of camp and can’t be unburied for the whole day.

Today, that’s exactly where Arthur is. Charles is sitting at the campfire stringing a new bow he made at the request of Sadie, who’s growing more bloodthirsty by the day. She had promised to repay his labour but he waved her away, saying as long as he could teach her to shoot right that was all the payment he needed. A few feet away, Sean and Lenny’s attempt at playing dominoes is quickly devolving into arguments.

“But it makes no sense!” Sean insists, knocking over one of the tiles in anger. Lenny rights it without a blink. “I put the damned dots together, why're you scoring more than me?”

“Because I won the last round.”

“So?”

“I got your remaining dominoes,” Lenny says, putting down another tile. “Your points went to me.”

“Well, that’s bullshit—”

“Also, you have to draw from the boneyard.”

“Fuck this shitting game!”

By the tree, Arthur snorts. He has plausible deniability – he never raised his head from the journal – but Sean still whirls on him with a glare.

“The 'ell you laughing at, English?”

“How you gonna become a good shot if you can’t even play dominoes right?” Arthur laughs into the page, steers his pencil wrong, then corrects it with a swipe of his thumb. “Just be thankful you’re up against Summers and not Jackson.”

“Hey,” Lenny turns, offended. “I’m good at this game! I got taught by Hosea, thank you, and he’s unbeatable at this game.”

“Until he went against Tilly,” Arthur smirks. “And she’s the one who taught me.”

“Think you’re better than us, Morgan?” Sean asks, picking up one of the tiles and throwing it at Arthur. The man looks up briefly to glare and Sean chortles. “Can’t even unbury 'imself from that diary of his and thinks he can beat us! You writing a letter to your girlfriend, Arthur?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, returning to his page. “Your mamma says hi, by the way.”

Charles listens to the ensuing argument with a grin. Being with the gang isn’t easy, but moments like this often make it worth it: the steady hum of a family at his back, familiar chatter that untenses his shoulder at the end of a day. In a way, all these men are strangers. Charles knows little about Sean’s past, doesn’t know what Lenny gets up to when he’s not on a job, and is still conflicted over what kind of man Arthur is. But they’re also the closest – friends (Charles is hesitant to say the word, unused to it as he is, but there is no other word to describe these men) he thinks he’s ever had. Sean snores loud enough to wake the whole camp up. Lenny spends more time reading than practicing with his guns. Arthur… well, there’s a lot Charles knows about Arthur, perhaps more than he should.

Sean must see Charles’ smile because he suddenly drags him into the conversation. “Well, would you look at Mr. Smith over there – what’s so entertaining in the world of legendary sad-sacks, I wonder?”

“Leave him alone, Sean,” Arthur grumbles, sending Charles an apologetic look over his journal.

Sean rolls his eyes. “He’s a big boy, he can stand up for 'imself.” While Charles agrees, he doesn’t like the smug tone in Sean’s voice. Sure enough, a moment later Sean kicks out at Lenny’s chair until the man squawks in alarm and almost falls off. “What’dya say, Smithy, fancy a game? There’s got to be someone worse than me at this game.”

“And you think that’s me?” Charles asks.

Lenny whistles lowly, getting up from the table like he’s clearing a bar before a fight. He seats himself next to Arthur, who rearranges his legs so Lenny can’t see his journal. “Think we’re about to see a catfight?” he asks in a mock whisper.

Arthur snorts. “Bearfight, more like. Two bucks says Charles wins the first round.”

“Deal.” Lenny shakes Arthur’s hand and then points a finger at Sean. “My two dollars are on the line, MacGuire – watch yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sean says, making a half-hearted attempt at rearranging the tiles before giving up and letting Lenny do it. “C’mon 'en, Charles. Or are you too chicken?”

Charles knows he shouldn’t, but he barely hesitates before walking to the table.

Ten minutes later, Lenny is reluctantly handing Arthur his two dollars and Sean is cursing up a storm. Charles sits at the table satisfied as Sean demands to know what witchcraft he performed. “No witchcraft,” Charles says, “just counting. You do know how to count, right?”

“It’s a sore spot,” Lenny laughs, clearly joking. He rubs Sean’s shoulders like one might do to a wrestler in a fight. “What do you think, Sean, had enough of losing today?”

“This isn’t over,” Sean says as he gets up from the table. “I’ll win one of these stupid games if it’s the last thing I do!”

“Keep dreaming,” Arthur says, then rustles his newly-acquired two dollar bill loudly.

Weeks later, they’re on another hunting trip in New Hanover. The unpleasant climate and attitude of Lemoyne has started grating on Charles’ nerves and he could use a break, so he asks Arthur if he’s free for a hunt and they wait until he has a few days free from any jobs. They camp in a clearing and cook their catch over the campfire, setting aside the fur and leather for Pearson.

They’re trading stories, Arthur drawing and Charles whittling, when Arthur looks up and sighs. Charles follows his gaze to the star-spotted sky.

“Ain’t much prettier than this,” Arthur says. “’Sides maybe a dollar bill.”

Charles laughs. “I didn’t realise I knew a poet,” he teases, taking the opportunity to watch Arthur closely. The man is staring up, up, up, his neck stretched and his spine slumped. There’s a relaxed stretch to his body that only ever comes out during hunts like this. Across his legs, his grip on his journal has loosened enough for Charles to see inside.

It’s an exact replica of the scene a few weeks ago: Sean and Lenny sitting at the table, a set of dominoes between them. Sean’s mouth is half-open and his eyes are ablaze, while Lenny looks to be mid eye-roll, a sardonic twist to his lips. The game between them is blurred in the way the faces in the church drawing were, probably moving too fast for Arthur to draw anything concrete. Distant trees and tents frame the two men in the forefront. In the background, Charles thinks he can see himself slumped over a newly stringed bow.

“You’re right,” Charles says, and when Arthur drags his eyes from the Heavens he’s smiling. “Pretty.”

The next time it happens, it’s been so long Charles almost forgot that he was privy to this.

Arthur disappeared for three days and came back with a hole in his shoulder. Sean’s dead and they’ve moved camp again. Jack went missing and John, Dutch and Arthur met Saint Denis’ most dangerous man to get them back again. Molly’s wailing across camp can no longer be ignored and seeing the bottle in Karen’s hand only half-drunk is a good day.

Shady Belle is a detestable place. It isn’t just the heat and the swamps, which is bad enough – Charles hasn’t sweat like this since he lived in the western deserts by himself, and getting in and out of camp turns into a nightmare once you have to dodge alligators. Sure, folks now have a proper roof over their heads, but Charles isn’t one of them. Not that he resents that, it's rightly the women and children Dutch took inside first, but he can't help but notice the Gang's old guard - Arthur and John, Hosea, Dutch himself - get the best rooms even if they're the least vulnerable. Charles has vague memories of his mother sleeping on the floor so Charles could have a mattress under his back. Dutch cannot live without his gramophone and his velvet vests, and has clearly gotten too used to living in four walls to give it up for the more needy. Meanwhile, Swanson has to ride out his morphine-induced fevers on his bedroll.

The bigger issue is that it’s further south. Dutch promised when he joined that they would be going west – “In search of law-free lands,” the man had said, “like we deserve.” – and while Charles hadn’t believed him, the words had been nice. The promise of freedom and justice and protection. Charles’ priority has been getting enough food and drink to survive, and he had felt at the time that Dutch’s speeches were more for his own benefit than Charles’, but the broken promise feels bitter all the same. They are further in Lemoyne than ever, and on clear days Charles can see the smoke from Saint Denis in the distance. Some freedom.

Arthur has plenty of his own complaints about the place, though one in particular Charles hadn’t considered. “Goddamn swamp is too dark for drawin’,” he grumbles over his morning coffee, sending a mournful look toward his journal. “Have to ride out into that ungodly heat to see if my pencil’s even touchin' the page.”

As a result, Arthur hasn’t drawn in a while and Charles hasn’t seen his drawings in a while. They’re both a bit too busy to put any effort into it. Hosea, despondent and frustrated these last few weeks, begins to grow cheerier at the prospect of a bank robbery. His and Dutch’s grand plans take up all of Arthur’s spare time so that he barely has time to eat and shit between being sent on errands. Charles, in the meantime, takes an interest in a nearing Indian tribe called the Wapiti whose leader he meets in Saint Denis and finds endlessly wise. The two men spend hours talking at their first meeting alone. It strikes Charles that for people who lead such different lives, both the gang and the tribe are in the exact same situation: endlessly chased by those in power, driven off the map by so-called civilisation.

It's in a rare moment of spare time that Charles finds Arthur sitting in the gazebo behind Shady Belle. He’s just gotten off guard duty and is about to go to his tent to catch up on sleep when he sees Arthur sitting alone, for once not taken up by Dutch’s speeches or Hosea’s plans. He abandons the idea of sleep far too readily.

“Hey,” he says as he approaches the gazebo.

Arthur is bent over the table in the centre, his pencil resting on his journal idly. “Hey yourself,” Arthur says, putting the pencil down – but not closing the journal, Charles notices. “You just get off guard duty?”

Charles hums. “Been up since five o’clock.”

Arthur looks through the gazebo at the sun high in the sky. He whistles. “You’re sure bein’ worked hard. John pullin’ his weight too?”

“Course he is,” Charles says. In reality, John has been working less to spend more time with Jack and Abigail. The woman has let him into her room but not yet her heart, or perhaps John has always been in her heart and is now trying to earn that. Bill sometimes complains whenever he sees John sitting with his son rather than guarding, but Charles and Javier are quick to head him off. John has already lost years of his son’s life, and he shouldn’t be punished for trying to right that.

Maybe Arthur reads that in Charles’ face, because he simply quirks a brow instead of pushing further. Charles tries to remember when he was last so close to someone they could read his thoughts off his face. “Hosea’s closin’ in on the bank robbery, thinks it’ll be a few weeks before we’re ready to go.”

“You think that’s wise?”

“What’dya mean?”

“I mean,” Charles starts, then sighs. “Is this really what we should be doing right now, on the run from the law in nearly every state and the Pinkertons combined?”

Arthur stares at him and Charles sits through it. Again, his mind flicks back to when he first joined the gang, how he avoided most people’s eyes, how he barely looked at anyone unless he was speaking directly to them. Now here he sits, being stared at like a bug under a glass, and he’s used to it. He doesn’t mind. Not with Arthur.

“I don’t know,” Arthur says. “Truth be told, I don’t know anythin’ anymore. Normally I’d agree with you but this is Hosea we’re talkin’ about. Dutch can get in over his head a lot, I’ll admit, but Hosea’s always been the more level-headed one of the two. If he’s leadin’ the charge, then maybe—”

Arthur’s words are disrupted by a cough. The cough turns into another, then another, until Charles digs into his pockets and brings out a handkerchief Arthur takes with a grateful wheeze. Charles waits for the fit to subside, his shoulders tense, his jaw clenched.

When Arthur finally settles down, Charles lowers his head. “You okay?”

“Peachy,” Arthur says, wiping his mouth. “Must’a caught somethin’ in Saint Denis, God knows I’m over there enough for it. City’s the worst blight I’ve ever seen, I’m tellin’ you.”

“Hmm.” A part of Charles wants to push Arthur on the cough, ask more, maybe offer to get medicine, but something makes him hesitate. Maybe it’s the tired glint in the man’s eye. Maybe it’s the fact that this is the first conversation they’d had in days. Either way, Charles bypasses the serious discussion to instead say, “I’ve been inside a few times, mostly to pick things up for Taima. It’s… noisy.”

Arthur perks up. “Right? Damn town-criers won’t shut up about their newspapers and there’s a boy round every street corner peddlin’ nonsense. And the carriages.” Arthur groans. “They give me a headache every time I step one foot in the place.”

Charles grins. “Who’d have thought the great Arthur Morgan could be brought down by some noisy carriages?”

"Well, I must be something," Arthur huffs. "Five thousand dollars on my head and countin’.” Then he adds, “saw a poster of you in town the other day.”

Charles looks down at his hands. He knows. He's seen a few of them himself. “I never thought I would end up here,” he says, his voice hushed. “When I first ran away from my father, I knew I wouldn’t get a happy marriage and forty acres and a mule, but I never thought I’d end up being wanted by the government.” He laughs. “I wonder what he’d think of me now.”

“Well, I know what my daddy’d think of me,” Arthur says. “He’d probably be mad he didn’t get the chance to shoot me before the Pinkertons did.”

Charles smiles and points to the scar along his face. “My father would probably be mad he missed.”

Arthur hisses. “Your old man did that to you?”

Charles shrugs. He hasn’t thought about the scar in a long time, and the man behind it even longer. “He dropped a bottle and blamed me for it. I managed to duck in time so it wouldn’t hit my face, but it got me when it broke on the floor anyway.” Charles points to Arthur’s chin. “How’d you get that one?”

Arthur grins. “Ooh, you sure you ready for that story?”

Charles blinks, amused. “Well, now I don’t know.”

“It’s pretty scary – gave John nightmare first time I told him 'bout it.”

“I think I can handle it.”

“Suit yourself,” Arthur shrugs. “Just don’t come cryin’ to me when it keeps you up at night. This big, ugly scar on my chin? Got it from the scariest of beasts out there. Had to fight for my life bare-handed just so it wouldn’t blind me, but it left me this reminder to make sure I never forgot my lesson. And I never have.”

Charles can’t help it. He leans forward, intrigued, and lowers his voice as though in secret. “What was it?”

“It,” whispers Arthur, “was a squirrel.”

Charles waits a beat. Then he bursts into laughter.

When he subsides, Arthur looks far too proud of himself. The man is smirking self-satisfyingly, his chest puffed and his hat tilted to one side. It’s a good look for him, ruggedly handsome, and Charles has the thought that he would give anything to look upon Arthur like that until they both died.

“A squirrel?” Charles asks, his voice a tone higher amidst his chuckles.

Arthur nods. “Had the bright idea that I’d catch the critter and take it home for my dog, but the thing gave as good as it got. Beard won’t grow over the scar so I’ve had to make up stories to sound more impressive.”

“Right,” Charles laughs, then rewinds the conversation. “John had nightmares?”

“He was, like, sixteen.” Arthur shrugs. “I told him squirrels avenge other squirrels and that they might go after him 'cause we hung out so much. Got him to stop botherin’ me for a few days before Hosea found out.” Arthur chuckles at the memory. “Good times. Kid didn’t let up about it for years before he got his own cat scratches in Colter. Now the bullyin's only fair.”

“He got attacked by a wolf," Charles says incredulously.

“Like I said,” Arthur grins, “cat scratches.”

They lapse into silence after that, natural and comforting. Arthur stares out at the water, his eyes narrowed in thought, while Charles stares at Arthur. He categorises all the differences in the man since he’s met him: the way his beard is thicker, his nose more bent after the Valentine bar fight, a new haircut he got a few weeks ago. His hat has bitemarks from when Jack thought it was a bright idea to give Cain a toy, and his clothes have patches in them from the girls tutting over bullet holes and knife slashes.

Arthur’s chin is in the palm of his hand, the other playing with his pencil idly. Between his arms lays the journal, upside down but easy to read: it’s the smoke that’s the most recognisable, a dark, ugly spot against the white-yellow grain of the page. Saint Denis stretches across the paper in broad strokes. It’s a skyline, a few recognisable buildings like the theatre and the factories, and the windows are left in white with little heads scratched inside. Beside it large script declares the city’s name, and under it a bold comment, underlined three times: SHIT HOLE.

Charles snorts. Arthur looks up. “What’s so funny?”

Charles’ head shoots up, and he waits for a moment to be caught out but, like always, Arthur hasn’t noticed. He hesitates. Should he…? “Nothing,” he says, then slowly adds, “what are you drawing?”

Arthur’s eyes flicker down to the page and he freezes. His hand jolts out as though by instinct, then his face cramps as he forces the hand to lower back down to the table. He swallows, then says, “uh. It’s Saint Denis. I, ah, I ain’t a big fan but… the smoke’s pretty easy to draw.”

“It looks good,” Charles says, and Arthur sends him a long look.

“Thanks,” he says eventually, and then seems to lose control of his hand. It snaps the journal shut with a resounding thwick! then lifts to tug at Arthur’s hat roughly. “I don’t really – just… thanks.” Arthur’s cheeks go bright red and he ducks his head.

Charles waits a moment, then decides to risk it. He gently knocks Arthur’s legs with his own and watches as the man looks back up, eyes as wide as a new-born deer. “No need for thanks,” Charles says, his voice soft. “Like I said, it looks good.”

Arthur smiles. Charles smiles back. The journal doesn’t come back out for the rest of their time on the gazebo, but their legs stay entwined.

After that, the moments grow smaller but more frequent.

Arthur catches him watching, sometimes. In camp with a lantern at his side, squinting angrily as he tries to see what he’s drawing, or during a spare second on a job where he spreads his journal out over his legs. He’ll look up idly and see Charles watching him, and he’ll grow red and flustered but say nothing. Sometimes he grows shy and puts the journal away. Sometimes he lowers his head again and gets back to drawing, the hint of a smile on his lips.

The bank robbery is a disaster. In hindsight, Hosea’s excitement is bitter in his mouth; the man is now splayed across a street in Saint Denis, his chest draining of blood. Lenny goes down and Charles has to run past him without stopping. He watches Arthur crouch down, his hand stretched as though he might grab Lenny and shake him away, before the rest of the boys run past and wake him from his trance.

Then they go missing. Arthur, Dutch, Javier, Bill and Micah all disappear and Charles watches the harbour for hours. When he returns to Shady Belle, he finds Abigail hysterical and John missing. They’ve taken him to Sisika Penitentiary, he finds out, and there's no way to get him back.

Telling the gang of the failed bank robbery is one of Charles’ most painful memories. He has grown to care for these people over the last months and now he has to break their hearts and spirits. Mary-Beth cries. Reverend Swanson prays. Jack is a bit too young to understand what’s going on and just holds onto Abigail’s skirt tighter.

Charles finds an unlikely ally in Sadie. They’re both determined to keep the gang safe and whole in Dutch’s absence, and they arrange an exit from Shady Belle with haste. There isn’t much elsewhere for them to go but south. Lakay is swampy, dark and unfamiliar but it’s hidden. Right now that’s the most they can hope for. When Charles needs a moment away from the despair of camp, Sadie covers him and allows him an hour or two of freedom. When Charles has to go into Saint Denis to speak to Rains Falls, Sadie distracts the gang and takes their worries upon herself. When the grief gets too much, she helps him cut his hair.

Charles misses Arthur. He misses all of them, if he’s honest – Javier’s skilled music, John’s voice of reason, Dutch’s unending determination. Even Bill and Micah’s absence leaves something empty in their place, a hole nobody in the gang can or even tries to fill. Hosea and Lenny are missing, too, but here Charles tries not to think of them. The others may still be alive, may still find their way home – he saw Hosea and Lenny go down himself.

Missing Arthur is something else. He finds himself mourning tiny details he didn’t even know he’d noticed: the reassuring scratch of Arthur’s beard in the morning, the wrinkling of his nose when he sniffs Pearson’s stew. They haven’t had much time to sit and talk these past few weeks but the knowledge that Arthur was there if he needed him was enough. Now, there’s something like a hole in Charles’ stomach and he reads the papers every day for news of five deaths at sea.

Then they return. Thin and grizzled but alive nevertheless. They’re moving and running before they know it and their new camp at Beaver Hollow is somehow worse than Shady Belle. Charles remembers Arthur saying Dutch would never hide in a cave as they rode away from Horseshoe Overlook and laughs. The more time passes, the more Charles does not recognise the man leading his gang. He wonders if he’s been blind to the growth of a monster before his very eyes, or if the monster had always been there, lurking under Dutch’s skin, and Charles was just too naïve to notice.

The journal returns though Charles doesn’t see much of it. That’s because, more often than not, Arthur isn’t in camp. He does what he can for his people and deposits more of his share than he needs to, but after that he’s gone. On jobs or hunting or simply so he doesn’t have to stick around camp. Charles doesn’t blame him. When Arthur lingers in camp, his eyes are haunted and he watches the gang with an immense sadness that twists Charles’ stomach.

When Charles approaches him about going on one of their hunts, the man laughs sardonically. “Maybe later, Charles,” he says, coughing into his fist. It comes away bloody. “Ain’t exactly in the best shape for trackin’.” His tone is wry and his grin wide, but Charles’ worry grows.

He sees the journal when Arthur stays in camp. Most days he lies on his bed, a handkerchief at the ready for any bloody coughing fits. He spends hours drawing and drawing until someone needs him, where he leaves his journal with a mournful sigh and returns to it as soon as possible. Sometimes he sits below trees and draws what’s in front of him, but the debris is bad for his lungs and he usually ends up too red-faced to focus.

If Charles is honest with himself, Arthur is the only reason he hasn’t left. Tilly and Trelawny have already disappeared in the middle of the night, and Pearson is beginning to look shifty and nervous. Charles has been talking with Rains Falls. There’s a place for him with the Wapiti, he knows, if he wants it. They could use a man as strong and seasoned as he is. Sadie and John can take care of themselves without his help, but Arthur is dying. Charles knows. Arthur hasn't said anything but he knows. And watching Arthur wither away, his shoulders growing thinner and his face gaunt, Charles considers the offer more and more. But he can’t leave. Not yet.

The journal is left open a few more times. On his pillow when Charles ducks by his tent to talk. On the ground when Charles finds him in the forest sitting in silence. Arthur tucks the book away whenever he sees Dutch, like the man has desecrated even the holiest of things. It makes Charles’ chest burn because he knows for a fact that there are dozens of sketches of Dutch in the journal. And now Arthur is almost scared of the man.

On a late night of guard shift, Charles finds Arthur sitting by the campfire. Pearson left a week ago and Strauss had been kicked out last night. Charles hasn’t seen Arthur that angry and distraught in a long time. Now, he sits by the campfire over his journal, his face lit up by the flickering firelight. He nods a greeting when Charles settles beside him, closes his eyes as Charles brings out his harmonica and plays. It feels almost sacrilegious to play such a beloved instrument in a time like this, but the look on Arthur’s face makes it worth it: peaceful, calmed, serene. For a split moment, he looks like he doesn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulder.

“’S a pretty one,” Arthur says when Charles finishes. These days, his voice carries a heavy rasp. “Shame Sean ain’t here to dance to it.”

Charles hums. “He sure would have made this place a lot more fun.”

Arthur laughs. “Yeah. I ever tell you the time he got into a drinking contest with an O’Driscoll without realising?”

Arthur spins stories like second nature. After listening for months, Charles recognises the cadence and pace as Hosea’s, and wonders how many other things Hosea taught the man. If Arthur learned to shoot before or after he joined the gang. If he learned to shave on his own, like Charles did, or if he had help. He wonders if it hurts the man to walk around a Hosea-less camp, if the way Dutch is now makes him ache for his father-figure even more. It does for Charles.

The journal in Arthur’s hand is too dark to see properly. The firelight is flickering and moving too much for anything beyond vague shapes and blobs. He hesitates before pointing to the book. “What are you drawing?”

Arthur looks down at his journal for a long time. Then, to Charles’ surprise, he offers him the page.

Charles takes it carefully. He studies Arthur’s face for regret or fear, but Arthur seems more tired than anything else. He pulls his knees up and places his head on their caps, closing his eyes with a gentle tug on his hat. Charles turns back to the journal.

It’s an assortment of drawings. Most of it is people: Abigail drinking coffee, Lenny’s head buried in a book, Molly powdering her face. All the gang is in it, someway or another, and between their portraits are small sketches of animals and plants, everything from cats to lions and yarrow to trees. It’s all shaded in carefully and drawn with a fine tip Charles isn’t used to seeing in his work, like Arthur spent more time on this page than all the others combined. At the bottom, Arthur’s name and the year 1899 is signed.

“Gonna give it to Jack in the morning,” Arthur says, and Charles looks up to see he has one eye open and trained on him. “Figure the gang ain’t gonna be around for much longer, so if I wanna give the kid somethin’ now’s a good time. We ain’t got a photograph and I sure as hell ain’t givin’ him the bounty posters.” He taps the page. “This is the next best thing.”

Charles looks it over one more time. “It’s beautiful,” he says. “Jack will love it.”

Arthur grunts and puts his head back on his knees. “I just hope he gets far away from this.”

Charles hums. He can’t help but agree. He knows the gang did their best raising Jack, that Abigail wouldn’t keep him here if she had another choice, but it’s no place for a child to grow up. Nowhere where violence rules freely can be, Charles knows by experience.

The longer Charles looks at the drawing, the more details he notices. There are freckles on Mary-Beth’s nose he’d never noticed in real life and John has a scar on his brow Charles didn’t know about. The sketches are in black and white but Arthur still captured the silk turn of Trelawny’s suits, the golden glow of Karen’s hair in the sunlight. The drawing of Dutch is hesitant, quick, short strikes a dozen times over the same line. Charles almost startles to see it: it’s not a drawing of Dutch as he is now. This Dutch doesn’t have dark eyes and furrowed brows, a cruel tilt to his mouth whenever he speaks. Instead, this Dutch is noble and faithful and passionate. It’s the Dutch Charles first knew when he joined the gang. The fact that Arthur still remembers that man, that he still knows him well enough to draw him so well, makes Charles’ chest clench.

He lifts a finger to the corner of the page and waits. Sure enough, Arthur’s eyes snap open. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even move his head, but there’s a tension to his body that wasn’t there before. He looks desperate to ask Charles to put the book down and too afraid to say it. Charles thumbs the corner with his finger for another second before passing it back.

“Thanks,” he says, and he doesn’t imagine the immense relief in Arthur’s eyes as he takes it back. “Like I said, it’s beautiful. I’m surprised you still find time to draw in such detail. It seems like Dutch won’t give you a spare second whenever you’re in camp.”

“Yeah, well.” Arthur shrugs. They both know the only reason they’re talking is because Dutch is out on a job with Micah. If he were here, Arthur would have already been pulled into his tent either to discuss money or to simply be berated for his lack of faith. “Drawin’s as natural as breathin’. Guess I gotta make time for it or else I go crazy.”

Charles smiles. “I feel that way with whittling sometimes. On bad days, it feels like the only thing that keeps me from going insane.”

Arthur hums and flickers through his journal. He finds a page, pauses, then stretches out his hand. The drawing is of Jack sitting on Abigail’s lap, a book in his hands. Beside him sits Hosea. The sketch cuts off at the man’s chin, but Charles recognises the wide shoulders and frail chest. He holds one corner of the book up for Jack, who squints down at the page and points his finger at a word. His tongue is stuck between his cheek and Abigail is smiling softly.

“Drew this back in New Hanover,” Arthur tells him. “Hosea was helpin’ Abigail teach Jack to read. Kid’s still not all the way there so Abigail’s been helpin’ him in her spare time. I was…” Arthur grimaces. “I was thinkin’ of giving this to him, too, but it’s creepy, right? Getting’ a drawin’ of yourself when you didn’t even know someone was watchin’ you?” Arthur scoffs at himself. “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinkin’.”

“I don’t think it’s creepy.” Arthur sends him a look and he laughs. “Perhaps it is a little strange but it’s a compliment, too. I doubt Jack will remember this years later, and to think you’ve captured the memory for him…” Charles shrugs. “I know I wouldn’t mind.”

Arthur lets out a quiet breath. He tugs on his hat and closes the journal. Under the firelight, Charles can see his cheeks flush pink. “Then I’m glad to hear it. I mean – that Jack’ll be happy with it, course. Probably shoulda just bought him a toy or some new clothes, but.” He shrugs. “I bet Abigail’ll ring my hide for not doin’ that instead.”

“Jack will like it,” Charles says again. He knocks their shoulders together. “Trust me.”

“That I do, Mr. Smith,” Arthur says, and moves so he’s resting against Charles. “That I do.”

The last time he sees Arthur’s journal, John Marston is holding it.

The past few years have been busy. After the gang fell apart, Charles left with the Wapiti. He spent a few weeks guiding the tribe past the Canadian borders before the distance got too much. “I just have to check if any of them are alive,” he tells Rains Fall. “I’ll be back soon.”

Rains Fall says nothing, only hums and nods with a knowing look in his eyes. Charles suspects the man knew then and there that Charles wouldn’t return.

He buries Arthur and Miss Grimshaw. He looks across the east for John and his family but he can’t find them. He considers chasing after Dutch and his new gang, except what would that do? Arthur died trying to get the rest of the gang to safety. The least he can do is respect his wishes.

He spends years travelling the country in search of work and people in need. He stays in towns weeks at a time, hides in cities for months on end, but he always ends up back in the east. He visits the Wapiti tribe a few times in between. Rains Fall welcomes him with open arms and doesn’t hesitate to call on him for help. He checks the post office every week to see if he’s gotten a summons; the American government has not let up on Indian tribes, instead has gotten more cruel and vicious. Tribes lose land, buffalo and numbers. There is little Charles can do to help, but every time he brings them medicine or horses or contracts, he feels a little bit better about his purpose in the world.

Meeting John in Saint Denis is a surprise, but a welcome one. Living nomadically without a gang to support you has its limits, and Charles isn’t proud of what he’s become but it isn’t the first time. He takes John and Uncle’s offer happily and leaves Saint Denis the same day.

“He gave me his satchel,” John says as they go to pick up Charles’ baggage. “With some of his things in it. Remember that journal he always drew in? I got it.”

Charles smiles. “I’m glad.”

They build John a house and get Abigail back. Sadie finds them and leads them on a mission to Dutch and Micah. They only kill one of them, but both John and Sadie seem satisfied; they dance at the Marstons’ wedding and drink beer late into the night. Charles fills his day with looking after the animals and entertaining Jack, who has grown from the little boy Charles used to know. He is endlessly curious about the days of old, the gang John and Abigail never talk about, but Charles follows their reticence and doesn’t say a word – if the Marstons want to raise their son without any idea of his past life, he will respect that.

After everything has settled down and they’ve found a rhythm between the six of them, John finds Charles brushing down the horse. “Hey, Charles!” he calls across the pen. “Come here a sec?”

“Give me a minute.” Charles pats down the mare and slips an oatcake to his new horse, a beautiful spotted Nokota called Falmouth who is quickly growing spoiled. Losing Taima was difficult but Falmouth has plenty of personality to make up for the loss.

When Charles climbs out of the pen, John is holding something in his hand. “Need my help with something?”

“Nah, it’s not that.” John sighs, then brings whatever he’s hiding into the light. It’s Arthur’s journal. He holds it out to Charles. “I think you should have this.”

Charles blinks. “Arthur’s journal?”

“I’ve read the thing front to back like five times,” John says. “I can probably recite half of it in my sleep. Tried my own draftsmanship for a while but they look like kid’s drawings next to Arthur’s.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re giving it to me.”

John sighs again. “I think you should have it. I don’t know if Arthur would have wanted you to have it, but…” He holds it out again. “Take it. You’ll see why.”

Charles knows for a fact Arthur wouldn’t have wanted him to have the journal. In the year he knew Arthur, one thing that remained unchanged about the man was his privacy. They went from strangers to friends to something more – not that they ever put a word to it, not that they ever spoke about it, but they both knew it. Charles didn’t have to kiss someone to know they loved him – and all the while Arthur never let him page through his journal. Occasional looks were fine, the rare shown drawing a gift, but Arthur always had to have control. He always had to have the option to take the journal back.

If Charles were a good man, he would decline John’s offer. But Arthur is dead and Charles has nothing of him left. He’s a bad man, he knows – he has done and seen things most people think unspeakable, and unlike the others in the gang he has yet to be punished for it. He has taken good out of the world and replaced it with bad. What’s one more sin, right?

Charles takes the journal but he doesn’t open it until later that night. John and Abigail have retired to their room, Jack is staying up late reading a book, and even from across the hall Charles can hear Uncle’s snoring. Sadie is outside somewhere, walking or building or shooting. She can’t sit still and Charles doesn’t blame her for it. Most days, he feels like he’s waiting for the world to wake up and enact the justice upon him he has denied to so many others.

It feels… strange to touch the pages. He can hold the journal with two hands now, tuck it into his chest and pour over every detail. He doesn’t have to worry about Arthur coming back to catch him or take it back once he’s done feeling vulnerable. The pages start in Blackwater and continue through the next year, entries about everything from gang missions to strangers Arthur helped. He reads the dozens of encounters Arthur lived through, all the people he helped without a second thought. He reads his conflicted feelings about Dutch and his desperation to save his family. In the end, Charles is glad to see the true man inside Arthur was the gentle giant all along.

The final page is simple. There are no drawings or detailed sketches, only four lines of text:

John, protect Abigail and Jack.

Rains Fall, save your son as you could not save your people.

Dutch, start listening to them as really loved you.

Charles, go find a new family.

Charles wipes away the tears on his face and goes to flick through the journal again.

He didn’t miss it the first time, but his mind had been racing too fast to think about it properly. Now that he’s reached the end of the journal and Arthur’s story, he can pick apart the details. He flips back to the first drawing of himself.

The journal is filled with them. Charles sitting by the fire, Charles chopping wood, Charles playing his harmonica. Charles tries to remember these times and finds he can’t. He tries to remember Arthur drawing him and finds he can’t. He spent months watching Arthur draw other people, animals, places, and yet he knew never Arthur filled his pages with Charles. He feels angry with himself.

There’s a sketch that strikes Charles harder than any of the others. It’s the cabin they used in Grizzlies East, the interior achingly familiar, dusty and cluttered with both their things and the people who used to live there. In the centre sits Charles, his chin touching his chest and his hat skewed. He’s asleep. At some point during one of their hunts, Charles fell asleep and Arthur brought out his journal just to draw him. There are no other sketches from that trip. Only Charles.

The pages start to grow blurry and he realises he’s crying. A tear lands on the journal and smudges the ink, and Charles feels like tearing himself apart. Arthur is dead and gone and his journal has been left to Charles, and here he is crying over it and ruining the pencil.

Towards the end of the book, amidst the drawings of Beaver Hollow and an angry Dutch, there’s a sketch of Charles standing guard. His gun is held high and his eyes watch the distant trees. Across the page, spindly and winding text:

There he is, our very own Charles Smith. Wouldn’t know what to do with myself without him. I’m gonna have to, though. I see how he looks at Rains Fall and his tribe. Only a matter of time now. I remember Mary leaving me hurt, but I honestly have no idea how I’ll get through this. I just have to think that he’ll get a happier life away from all of us. Besides, he deserves better than a man already half dead. I hope he finds himself a wife and has 2.5 kids and a white picket fence. If God is real, that (and the Marstons’ safety) is all I ask for.

“Idiot,” Charles cries into the paper, trying and failing to stifle his sobs. He knows across the hall Uncle can probably hear him, but he doesn’t really care. “You should have told me,” he whispers. “You should have said something. I don’t deserve any better than you.”

The journal doesn’t answer.

In the morning John finds him sitting on the porch, Arthur’s journal tucked away into his pocket. He hasn’t put it down since last night. John sits in a nearby seat with a creak of his knees and offers a cup of coffee. “You got up early today.”

“I didn’t sleep,” Charles says.

They sit in silence for a while. Then John gestures to the lump in Charles’ jacket. “So you read that, then?”

“Yeah,” Charles nods. Then he turns to John and says, “you know he calls you an idiot in it, right?”

John scoffs. “And then some. Some brother he was, insulting me every other page. Calls Uncle a parasite a few times, too, and Sadie a maniac. Abigail’s the only one who got off scot-free.”

“It’s strange… seeing all his thoughts.” Charles thumbs the journal through his jacket. “He was always so private unless he was angry. It’s odd seeing what he really thought of everything that went on.”

“Disagreed with Dutch more than he said,” John agrees. “I just wish he said something sooner.”

“We all should have,” Charlies argues. “It wasn’t one person’s responsibility.”

John drinks his coffee in response.

They watch the sun rise. The sky is bright and clear, which means working in the baking sun for hours on end. Water runs will have to be delegated to anyone other than Uncle, who becomes useless the minute the sun reaches its peak. John finishes his coffee but doesn’t go inside yet, still waiting.

Finally Charles speaks. “Did you know?”

He doesn’t have to clarify. “He didn’t say anything,” John starts, “but that was Arthur’s way. He never said anything. But yeah, I saw the way he watched you. Saw how he always called on you for jobs more than anyone else. Christ’s sake, I got attacked by wolves and almost freezed my ass off in those mountains and he was still worrying more about your burned hand than me.”

Charles laughs. “I forgot about that.”

“Well, I didn’t,” John huffs. He grows quiet again. “Arthur didn’t say anything, but I knew.”

Charles thumbs the journal again. “I just wish he said something.”

“It wasn’t one person’s responsibility,” John says, and Charles snorts at the sudden wisdom.

He trains a playful glare on him. “Since when did you get so wise?”

“Since Abigail left me to get my life in order,” John says, standing as he sighs. “Had to grow up real fast after that. I’ll be in the barn but let me know when Abigail makes breakfast, alright?”

“Sure,” Charles agrees, and watches John leave the porch.

He reads the journal another hundred times. He flicks through it when he’s bored, when he needs a break, when he’s missing Arthur with a pain he’s never known before. When he leaves Beecher’s Hope for Canada, John doesn’t even mention taking it back. Charles reads it on the train across the border and in the new-fangled cars the cities are filled with now. When he meets back up with Rains Fall, he shares a few drawings Arthur made of the old man and Rains Fall touches the pages with a soft reverence. On his yearly visit back to Arthur’s gravestone, Charles picks a random page and reads it out to the grave. He thumbs the one of him sleeping in the cabin so much the graphite at the bottom has grown smudged.

Still, he reads and reads. He can’t bare to leave Arthur behind no matter how many years it’s been and he likes to think, if their situations were reversed, Arthur would have done the same.