The Meaning of the Scar.
Chapter 2: Rescued
3.2k words. 13 minute read. TW: blood, animal death (mention), detailed injury (not graphic).
(← previous) (meaning of the scar masterlist) (next →)
tag list: @photo1030
Inside the bunkhouse, Arthur sat on the couch, periodically glancing at the baseball game on the television as he wrote in his journal.
In it housed everyone who worked the ranch but didn’t sleep in the main lodge. They lived and slumbered there, making it a home of sorts. It had become a cozy hodgepodge of their personalities and the lifestyle they lived. A pool table, western regalia, posters, spare saddles, books, a couple guitars, and plenty of hats were strewn about. Of course, there were several sets of bunk beds, and after a glance around each space, one could make out who slept in which.
Arthur and John shared a set, Arthur on the bottom and John on the top. Arthur decided he had had enough of trying to hike it up the ladder after a long day, and finally made John switch with him several months back so he could have the bottom bunk.
Arthur glanced over at their bunks, both empty. He rolled his eyes. He couldn’t decide what was more annoying: John being out late and not getting enough rest, therefore making the next day's work longer and harder for everyone, or the idea of John lazing about in his bed. A rowdy cheer from the screen caused him to divert his attention.
Hosea had been the main baseball fan and made sure they never skipped a game. It was between the Astros and the Rockies at the Astros’ home turf. Good thing, too, considering the local weather in Colorado. They currently led 5-3 against Houston, and Hosea was in a good mood.
Arthur had long washed the dishes from dinner, but not without a few snide remarks and grumbles throughout the process. Between changing the teams in the field, Hosea stood up and went into the kitchenette to get a drink. Reaching into the washed dishes, he noticed that they were already dry.
“Arthur…” Hosea tossed back.
“Yeah?”
“Say, how long ago did you wash the dishes? They’re all pretty much dry…”
Arthur sat and thought for a minute.
“If I remember right, I finished them just before the game started. What inning are we in?” he asked.
“The seventh. The seventh inning.”
Arthur looked over the couch at Hosea, where he stood. “Ok, so about two hours ago then?”
Hosea stiffened as his hand clasped around a glass.
“John still hasn’t come back from the back pastures…” Glancing at the clock, he locked his jaw together.
“Awww, he’s fine, probably went on a joyride or something. You know how he is.”
Hosea put the glass back in the cupboard and shut the door.
“No, something doesn't feel right. I’m going to take a look down there.”
“Really, Hosea, he–“
“Come with me, Arthur?” Hosea asked.
Arthur could never say no to Hosea. Be it the way he’d ask or the respect Arthur held for him, he could never say no to a request or a favor.
Petulantly, he shut his journal and walked it over to his bunk, setting it on the shelf. “Fine. Let’s get going then. Good thing most of the storm has passed by now.”
The men walked through the bunkhouse, Hosea grabbing some keys while Arthur fetched his hat. Stepping through the door, they made it out onto the paved lot between the bunkhouse, barn, and main corral.
Hosea spotted Javier sitting just inside the barn playing his guitar. He walked closer to the sound of music.
“Javier,” Hosea approached. Javier stopped playing and looked up to see Hosea.
“Hey friend.”
Hosea cleared his throat. “Javier, would you come with us? John has been out for quite some time, and we want to go check on him.”
“Sure.” Javier set his guitar down on a hay bale with care. He began to trek towards the large, sleek truck the ranch used for hauling trailers.
“This better be worth our while,” grumbled Arthur as he hopped in the cab.
Hosea chuckled. “Always is. It always is.”
Javier climbed into the back seat. “Where are we heading?”
Hosea turned the key in the ignition, and the engine turned over. “Out to the back pastures. Arthur said John was checking the back gate last time they spoke.”
Javier’s eyebrows rose upward. “That’s three miles out…. It’s eleven now. What time did he go?”
“Nine.”
“We better get out there then.”
Stepping on the gas, the truck began moving forward past the main buildings on the sprawling property. The rain had died down to a small patter on the pavement.
Arthur gazed out the passenger window at the rolling fields as they drove by. The dark storm clouds that had taken their vengeance on the land had already moved out towards the horizon. Clear skies had been left in its wake, and tiny stars shimmered about like a trail above.
“So, which truck did he take? If he took a ranching one, he’d have a spare tire and such,” Arthur pondered.
“No, he took the old utility truck,” Hosea corrected.
“You mean that dumbass took the worst, unsupplied truck we own, three miles out of the ranch and into a thunderstorm?”
Javier sighed. “…this is John we are talking about.”
“Jesus! I know he doesn’t always think things through, but really?”
“Arthur,” Hosea chimed in. “To be fair, John wasn’t doing any work, just checking the gate. He wouldn't have thought it necessary to bring a proper ranching truck.”
“Might as well be bringing a hearse out here just in case with his luck.”
Hosea slammed the brakes of the truck, launching Arthur and Javier forward. Javier bounced into the back of Arthur’s seat, but Arthur, with nothing to hold him, whipped forward, his nose inches from the dash.
“You know damn well not to say that in front of me, Arthur! Knock it off!” It wasn’t often that Hosea yelled, but when he did, it was deserved.
The tension in the air had become incredibly thick, incredibly fast. One second, casually sitting, the next second adjusting the seatbelt that had harshly dug into his collarbone. Arthur didn’t know how to fix it. He wasn’t thinking when he spoke. He shouldn’t have been so careless with his words. As Arthur’s mind raced for a way to amend things, Javier broke the tension.
“Ow! If you want to taste the dash, that’s up to you, Arthur, but hello? Casualty?”
“Hosea, I’m sorry… I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—“
As he choked his way through his pathetic apology, Arthur realized mere words weren't enough. It was silent for a long moment. Hosea finally sighed.
“I know Arthur, I know… It’s just… even with as long as it’s been, it still hurts. Especially on this road.”
Arthur stared at Hosea's face, both of their eyebrows turning up and inwards.
“Let’s just keep going, ok?”
Once again, they continued down the road. Arthur looked down at his feet on the floorboard as he continued to think.
“How much farther out, Hosea?” Javier asked.
“We’re just about halfway. Another mile or so.”
They turned around the corner, leading out to the back barn. The headlights painted the road, and a wall of fog presented itself. Hosea released the gas just a bit, slowing down as the mist enveloped them. The tires wobbled under the suspension as they took on the gravel road.
“Ugh, I don’t like this.”
As they kept driving, something sparkling caught Arthur’s eye in the distance.
“Hey, wait, what’s that?”
As they drove closer, the shape was easier to make out. The smashed red pickup, the giant oak that covered it, and the driver's door that sat on the ground.
Hosea gasped upon looking at it. Arthur could feel the shoulders of his seat move as Javier gripped them hard.
“No… that’s the truck John was driving!” Hosea stared in shock.
Arthur unbuckled before he knew what he was doing and threw the door open. He took off running to the truck.
“John! John!” he screamed into the mist.
Approaching the truck, he saw the carnage in detail. The way the windshield was missing, how the tree took the engine out, and that the passenger's side had been completely flattened. Arthur shuddered at the thought of John having been on the other side of the road when the tree came down. His stomach ran cold as it filled with dread.
He looked out in the distance and saw nothing but the dark blue sky and rolling grass. A few hundred yards out, a large buck was grazing the land. It quietly raised its head to look at Arthur.
“Well, Arthur, where is he?!”
Arthur broke out of his thoughts and looked back at Hosea for a fleeting second. He froze as he realized he hadn’t yet looked at the driver's seat. That’s where…
“Arthur?”
Arthur swallowed and forced his eyes to glance over the driver's side as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to see the details. Just a figure would be bad enough. As he spun his head around, though, he didn’t see anything in the driver's seat. With the tiniest sense of relief, Arthur dared to look at it head-on. John wasn’t there, but Arthur did notice tiny blood spots painting the fabric of the seat.
“He's… he's not here. But he's hurt. We need to start looking. He couldn't have gotten far…”
“Here!” Javier tossed Arthur a flashlight. “You’ll need that! We’ll meet back up here!” Javier took off, jogging down the road, towards the barn where John had come from.
Arthur watched Javier run down the path for a second before turning to look at Hosea, who was finally out of their truck. He had been silently staring at the mangled vehicle in front of him.
“Hosea?” His arms had fallen to his side, limp. Arthur could read his face; he was there again.
“Hey, hey, hey. It's going to be ok, alright? John is young, and clearly, he got out of the truck… Hosea, we are going to find him.”
Hosea breathed in shakily. Looking up at Arthur slowly, he began to nod his head, “Ok. Ok… It's just…”
“What?”
“The shells…” Hosea pointed at the two golden shotgun casings on the ground just next to the driver's door.
Arthur's sense of hope immediately diminished at the sight of them. What did John fire two rounds at? And why wasn’t he here? Arthur turned back to the truck and looked in the backseat, the best that the broken glass would allow—no shotgun in sight.
“He took the shotgun with him. That means he could walk and shoot. We haven't got any time to lose. C’mon then.” The two began trekking into the field, each with a flashlight in hand.
“John?”
“John!”
They walked for five minutes, each yelling out his name, sometimes it coming out as a question, other times as a demand. The plains beneath their feet had grasses that reached mid-calf. They rolled around them in the wind, ignoring their presence.
Arthur continued yelling every twenty seconds, determined to find John. He knew he couldn't go back empty-handed. Abigail and Jack. Oh, Jack. How do you look a four-year-old in the eyes and tell them their daddy is gone? A concept a four-year-old doesn't even understand, how do you tell them that has happened to their dad? Arthur wasn't going to be learning how to do it anytime soon. And Abigail? Arthur would hate himself for doing it, but he’d have to watch a woman break into pieces before him without any idea of how to help her. Sure, she and John had their issues, but they had a child together, and despite those issues, they did what they could for the boy. He would never purposely hurt her.
As Arthur and Hosea kept walking, Arthur’s foot caught on something in the grass sending him straight down.
“Agh, damn stick!” His back flat on the ground, he looked towards his feet for the culprit.
“Arthur,” Hosea pointed at the object, shocked at its appearance.
Hosea reached his hand out, helping Arthur to his feet. Arthur grabbed the shotgun and examined it.
“This is the truck's gun. The issued shotgun? This is it…”
Arthur raised his eyes to meet Hosea’s. Without saying anything, they had a full conversation.
Arthur slung the gun over his shoulder, Hosea handed Arthur his flashlight, and they both took off running across the grass in the dark. Flashlights bouncing across the prairie, screaming out John's name, they bounded.
Arthur was faster and got ahead of Hosea. He yelled for Arthur to keep going, to not slow down. Sprinting, Arthur pushed as hard as he could. He ignored everything: his need for air, his burning muscles, Hosea's light growing faint behind him.
After running another two hundred yards, Arthur saw it in the grass—a red and white piece of fabric.
“Oh dear god.”
Arthur had found John. Head rolled to the right, lying in the middle of the field, unconscious, bloodied, in the wet and cold.
“I found him!”
Arthur dropped to John's side, ready to tap the side of his face. Arthur rolled his head to get a clear view when he saw the damage; the gaping wounds on his face. Two, long, deep gashes across his cheek, one running down over his lips, and another on his upper brow. As if that wasn’t bad enough, John had somehow also badly scraped the other side of his face, too.
Arthur's throat swelled hard. He couldn't breathe for a moment. He could only stare. He felt his face sting and tighten.
He'd be the one to tell Abigail, of course. He couldn't let anyone else do it. He'd also try to explain to Jack in what little way he could that John wouldn't be around. He'd then contact a paving service to finally fucking pave that back road, and Arthur himself would cut down every tree so close to the road that it could fall in its path. Arthur's jaw clenched tight as he continued spiraling.
How could this have happened? He stared at the blades of wet grass behind John's black hair, thinking of the last moments that must have happened as he wound up here. He hated the idea of picturing them, but at the same time, he needed to know what had happened.
A choked gasp broke through his thoughts, and Arthur looked to his left. He could see the shallow rise and fall of John’s chest.
“John? Hey! I'm here, I'm here…”
John slowly managed to open his eyes. His sclerae were a bright red; his left iris was indistinguishable from his pupil due to bleeding. A small smile crept across his face before he winced from pain.
“Never thought I'd say this, but it's good to see you, Arthur Morgan…”
His voice was hoarse and weak. It didn’t at all surprise Arthur that John’s gut reaction was to downplay a bad situation. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or to punch the idiot for making him think he was dead.
Hosea finally caught up to Arthur, gasping for breath.
“Is he alive?!”
John tried to cough. “J-just about.”
“You don't look so good.”
John's eyes closed and stayed shut for a moment before he groaned and opened them again.
“Don’t feel too good, neither,” he rasped.
“Come on, we're gonna get out of here.” Arthur took John by the arms and began to lift him from the ground, hoisting him over his shoulders. Hosea took his phone out, raising it to his ear.
“Javier, we've found him. We need the truck. Directly right from the road where the accident is, you'll see our lights.”
Despite having John over his shoulder at the current moment, Arthur was able to stand a bit taller. John had been found—found alive—and they were going back to the ranch.
“John, what the hell happened?” Arthur finally managed, desperate to know the story.
John sighed, his voice fading in and out, as his stomach pressed against Arthur’s shoulder.
“I was driving back from the gate when a tree hit the truck. Crushed the engine and passenger side, and broke the door. Then, the wolves came…”
“You used the shotgun…” The way Arthur said it was almost like a revelation.
“Was all I had. All the ammunition was trapped in the glovebox ‘cept for two rounds. I took two down with those, but of course, there was a third. That one got me.”
“Where did it go? And why did you leave the gun in the field?”
John groaned as Arthur hoisted him higher on his shoulder.
“Yeah, I uh, I beat the shit out of it with the gun. Wasn't pretty. It ran off. I tried to get away from where it last had me.”
Arthur continued carrying John towards the road. “And your face?”
John was silent. Arthur frowned. Had he asked the wrong thing? John hung over Arthur's shoulder, arms dangling down, swinging with each step, staring at the ground.
“John, you ok?”
“Oh, yeah…. Yeah, I'm ok.”
He didn't know how to elaborate. It's hard to explain the moment when you are so sure you're going to die. The moment you stare your regrets in the face as your own face is taken from you. John focused on his breathing for a moment.
“That last wolf got me. Revenge for its brothers, I guess. It sulked off after I gave it a good beating. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were around here somewhere…”
As Hosea, Arthur, and John continued their way across the field, Javier drove across the grass towards them.
“You found him! How’s he doing?”
“He could be better, but he’ll be all right.” Hosea opened the truck doors. Arthur began the process of transferring John from his shoulder to the back seat.
John hissed at the movement. “D-don’t tell Dutch.”
Hosea set his phone down in the center console. “I’m afraid he already knows.”
“You- you- you!” John struggled to think of a proper insult. “Why would you do that? Now I’m gonna look stupid!” he whined.
Arthur laughed. “Your face already looks stupid, Marston.”
“I really don’t need you making fun of my injuries right now.”
“I wasn’t talking about the cuts.”
As he laid on his side, John kicked Arthur while he slid into the backseat next to him.
“Bastard. Why do you—“ John stopped mid-sentence to catch his breath. His fatigue was already catching up with him, as adrenaline faded away. “I don’t have the energy to argue.” He slumped into the backseat.
John, now on his back, left his legs resting over Arthur’s as Hosea began driving. His left arm dangled down to the floorboard as his right rested atop his chest and bloodied shirt. He focused on his breathing and not passing out as he grew increasingly weak.
Hosea glanced at Arthur through the rearview mirror. “Dutch says to take him straight to Mary Beth. We don’t need to explain to a hospital that we killed land reserve wolves on the ranch’s land tonight.”
“Right. She’s got enough painkillers for those horses. She’ll have something for him, stitch these gashes up.”
Arthur looked down at John and held his hand over his knee, keeping him steady over the road’s bumps.
“Just rest, John, we’ll be there soon enough. Just breathe.”
One look would show Arthur that John was already drifting through unconsciousness again. His face, despite its condition, revealed that he was swimming through the void of black, rather than the blinding scarlet of agony.
The scarlet of future scars to heal.
