blessed are the peacemakers // young arthur morgan
//hello friends i've been thinking ab 15 year old arthur morgan killing a man for the first time a lot. enjoy. havent done a lot of writing in a while so feedback is deeply appreciated but not necessary
//cw: violence, blood
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The bank was sweltering, even on the inside, and as Arthur passed a stick of dynamite to Hosea beside him he resisted the urge to lift his bandana and wipe the sweat dripping down his jaw. His narrow, cold eyes scanned the room behind them, the bank tellers ducked with their hands in the air and the patrons laying flat on the ground, and he felt a surge of pride. Blessed are the peacemakers, he thought to himself, for they will be called children of God. Arthur didn’t think himself much as a child of God, but he did think of himself as a peacemaker, and so he let the label stick.
“Hurry it up,” he’d mumbled to his father behind him, his eyes still held on the dozens of people scattered across the floor of the bank, “only got so much damn time.”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Hosea shot back, his voice clipped, dropping gold bar after gold bar into Arthur’s satchel, “don’t you worry about me; you’ve got bigger things goin’ on.”
Dutch craned his neck to see out the front window and he turned. “Law’s comin’!”
The three of them became a synchronized machine just then: Hosea kicked the back door open and Arthur lifted his satchel with all of his might and Dutch fired a shot into the ceiling and there was a shocked gasp that hushed the entire room as he boomed at them to “keep their goddamn mouths shut.”
Hosea held the back door open as the law sprung through the front; he groaned, reaching for his revolver in its holster. Arthur did the same. Dutch had just gotten it for him weeks ago, a fifteenth birthday gift. He had only shot at birds and cans and bunnies so far.
He watched with wide, frantic eyes as Hosea lifted his arm sharply and one, two, three gunshots made his ears ring with the sound of the bullets firing, and he grasped his own revolver in his hand, the weight of it feeling… right. Like it was meant to be there his entire life. The engravings etched into the side glinted nicely in the sunlight.
And then the bank teller jumped at him.
Arthur hadn’t even recognized the trigger in his finger, the bang in his ears, the recoil in his shoulder, not until blood splattered into his eyes, causing him to wince and wipe them clean.
It was warm, hot, even, and as it sprayed back into his face he couldn’t help but flinch and stumble backwards, his eyes flying open in terror. The man folded and crumpled to the ground and suddenly there was blood everywhere. Everywhere. Comprehension slipped away in an instant as it started to pour from the man’s mouth, his nose, the gaping hole in the back of his skull. It pooled at Arthur’s boots, the leather turning a sickly, dark color, and instinctively he stepped back to try and avoid it. A sound of shock escaped him as a droplet dripped from the sole of his boot.
In an instant his throat was dry and he wanted to go home. There was once something inside of him that had yearned for this, the power, the exhilaration, the feeling, but now that the feeling was chasing him down like a pack of wolves he wanted to outrun it more than words could convey. In a moment of guidance he turned around to catch his father doing just the same as him, revolver clutched tightly in his rings and his black hair whipping around to frame his face most evilly. Another set of gunshots rang out. Another set of lawmen crumpled to the bank floor. For the first time in many, many years, Arthur screwed his eyes as tightly shut as he could and he covered them with his hands and he begged for God to take him somewhere else. Anywhere else. He had just killed someone’s son and he could feel the weight of his sin crawling all over his body.
Deafened by the sound of his own gunshots he was startled when Hosea grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him back to coherence, the same brand of terror coursing through their veins. “Are you okay? Arthur. Arthur, are you alright?”
“Fine,” he forced out, and when he opened his mouth to try and fit another word he leaned over and threw up.
Hosea stepped back a bit uncomfortably, letting out a soft noise. “Oh, Arthur…”
Arthur was deafened by the sound of his own vomit and paralyzed by the blood clinging to his skin. He’d bled plenty of times before, felt the saccharine stick of it in his arm hairs or down his back, coating his skin like sweat… but this was different. So much different. Arthur had never seen the inside of someone’s body before. He had never quite watched the light drain from someone’s eyes, someone’s face. The man gurgled painfully once before falling still, his grey eyes burning in the sunlight, unblinking, cold, dead.
Hosea took him by the shoulder and tugged him away, though Arthur’s gaze was stuck on the man and despite the bile burning his lips and throat he couldn’t quite remove it. “Arthur, come on,” he’d managed, pulling the boy along with him, “we- we don’t have time-”
Arthur gagged again, his hand covering his mouth pathetically as he lurched, and Hosea began to drag him out the back door, whistling for Silver Dollar like she was going to save his son from the horror of what he’d done. Hosea had seen something like this before in himself. He was more of a talker and less of a fighter. Arthur wasn’t much of a talker, but after this, Hosea wasn’t sure he was much of a fighter, either.
“We’ve got to go!” Hosea shouted through the open doorway, frantically glancing between his husband and his son gripped in his hand as he stumbled and spat, looking frighteningly pale for someone of his complexion. “Arthur, we’ve got to-”
“Fine,” he managed again, yanking his arm free and kicking off of the stairs to sprint up the hill he faced and into the trees further down, where he’d tied up Boadicea and where she stayed waiting for him. Seeing her was like seeing his mother again.
He crawled up into the saddle and tugged on the reins harder than he meant to, and she cried out. So did he. Every move that he made felt tainted with the weight of what he had done. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’d sobbed, wrapping his arms around her neck and nuzzling his face into her ear, “just take me home, I-I’m so sorry…”
He didn’t even glance for Dutch or Hosea, just tugged on her reins until she reared and whinnied, dropping to barrel through the trees with her hooves bumping rhythmically against the mud. Soon they were flying through the woods, his hand pressed to his hat in fear of losing it in the wind, his tears soaking into the white of her mane. It wouldn’t stop. Something deep inside of him said that he was a goddamn coward and he should spit and dig his toe into the dirt and turn around but something deeper within him told him he was a horrible, evil, crook of a man like his father, and the thought made him want to throw up again. Was he right or wrong? And would he ever be able to weigh it without that sickening, heavy weight that crushed him to nothing? Was he a child of God if this was the peace he'd make?
After a while Boadicea trotted to a stop, and Arthur lifted his head for the first time. He blinked, wiping away the tears and snot that had accumulated on his face. He’d stopped crying long ago but somehow couldn’t find the strength to open his eyes just yet. Now that he had he was almost shocked to see that the world was just the same as it had been before. There stood his tent, and in the far corner Dutch and Hosea’s, too. The fire was crackling and as he caught his breath Copper barked and jumped at his feet. Everything was just as it should be. Except that he had the blood of an innocent man on his hands.
He heaved. The image of the man’s cold, dead eyes were still burnt into his eyelids.
“Arthur?” Miss Grimshaw pushed her way through the flap in her tent, her eyes widening as she saw him lurched over Boadicea’s side, gagging and coughing before he’d slipped off of the saddle, stumbling like a drunkard. She rushed to cup his face and lift his hat to comb her fingers through his hair, pulling him close to his chest as he began to cry again. “Oh… what happened? What’s the matter, Arthur? Did something happen?”
Oh God. Even the thought of the words coming out of his mouth made him want to vomit again. He shook his head and he pulled away, reaching for his hat and wiping his face. “Nothin’… ‘s nothing, I swear it… nothin’...”
“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” she’d mumbled at him, her eyebrows furrowed in concern, “is everything okay? Everyone?”
As if she had willed them back into existence the pounding of The Count and Silver Dollar’s hooves came rising through the woods, and the two of them, still intertwined, turned their heads to greet them.
“What happened to you?” Dutch swung his leg over the saddle and strutted to him with an urgency that Arthur had never seen before. He spun Arthur around and cupped his face in his palms, inspecting him for any damage. There was nothing wrong with him, except for his red, bloodshot eyes and his chewed lip, still pulled between his teeth. “Did you-”
“I killed him,” grunted Arthur, his voice strained and broken. Miss Grimshaw made a sound and it made his eyes fill with tears again; what a horrible, horrible man he was. He was unsure of how his father did this every day. Arthur had seen the dead, but he had never taken the life itself. “He was- he scared me, and I-”
Dutch clapped both of his hands onto Arthur’s broad shoulders, looking at him with a solemn expression, and yet, it looked right through him. “That’s what you have the gun for, m’boy,” and he patted him a few times, “it’s alright. Relax. It’s alright, no one’s gonna find ya. You just stay here for a while and it’ll die down eventually…”
Arthur’s ears began ringing, drowning out Dutch’s speech or talking to or whatever the Hell, because he had a strange, sickening realization in that moment. Had Dutch ever thought about the life of the human being that he had killed? Had he ever felt remorse at any other time than when the law appeared? No, his regret had nothing to do with the man with his brains spewed across the street, no, or his family maybe–his wife or his son waiting for him to come home and here comes a Sheriff with his hat in his hand and a solemn look on his face... oh God, Arthur was making himself nauseous just thinking about it.
He swallowed the thought, avoiding the urge to vomit again. It felt like his insides were going to come out of his mouth.
“...and it'll only get better from here. You're a strong one. I know you're goin' to be okay.” Dutch clapped his hand onto Arthur’s back. “ You did alright son,” he assured, and he did it again when Arthur bent over and heaved once more, “you did alright.”
Arthur furrowed his eyebrows, wiping the rest of the bile from his lips.
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