Teaching The Young
Masterlist
Charles Smith x Young reader (gender neutral)
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You turn to see Charles with a bow approaching you. You smile and get up to greet him.
“Hello Charles, what can I help you with?” You greet
“I know that you’ve been stuck around camp, so I decided that I’m going to take you out hunting.” He says
Your mood rose as you grab your rifle and bow before following behind him to the horses.
“Have fun y/n” Abigail says before dragging John to the lake
You mount up and head out right behind Charles.
“What are we hunting?” You ask
“I’m going to show you how we hunt buffalo.” He says
Immediately you perk up more. It had been a dream you wanted to make a reality since you first saw one, but Arthur had always told you to stay away from them.
Looking back on it, you were only 14 when you asked. Also you rather learn from someone who knew more about them than someone who didn’t.
“Our people rely on these creatures for everything. They provide food, shelter and clothing. Our tribe used to follow wherever they went so we could survive. We’re only killing one, as it’ll provide a lot for our camp.” Charles shares
You took mental notes as he continued talking about the symbolism of buffalo. You were impressed with how much you were learning about a certain species.
“Look at them all, they truly are a fantastic creature.” He says in awe
I stared in amazement as the heard grazed on the lush green grass.
“I’ll heard them up, while you take a shot. Remember only one shall be harvested.” He says as he pushes his horse forward.
You pull out your scoped rifle and begin to scan the heard. There were so many big ones, ones that could easily feed a camp for a couple of weeks. Picking out a big bull out, you lined up your sights and took a headshot as Charles rounded the herd up.
After the herd safely migrated, you joined Charles by your big kill.
“Well done. I see all that training with Morgan and Marston paid off.”
You smile as Charles shows you how you skin the big creature. You look up when you heard vultures, when Charles noticed this, he too looked up.
“Looks like they found their own dinner.” He says before going back to skinning.
You pulled out binoculars and looked towards the vultures, you saw two carcasses that were indeed two buffalo. Scanning across the plains, you saw two more far off.
“We have trouble.” You say
Charles became alerted and you handed him the binoculars before pointing the bodies out.
“NO!” He says as he mounts his horse.
You quickly store the pelt on your horse before chasing after him.
Charles was furious by the time you caught up to him.
“Look here. There are bullet holes.” He says
“They look like been here for maybe half the day.” You analyze
“Let’s go check out the others” he urges
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“Fresher kills. Who would do this!?” He yells as you analyze the buffalo
“Maybe an hour tops. The body isn’t hard yet.” You say before looking for clues.
Looking through the grass, you caught hood prints. Easily a horse. Followed by boot prints in the soft clay.
“Charles, we got horse tracks here. Look as old as these kills” you say
“Let’s track them then” he says as you lead down the hill.
“Look, smoke!” Charles says
You both ride up the rocky hills to the campfire, it’s obviously been abandoned, but conveniently in the location of the buffalo.
As Charles gets off to examine the fire, I look up and see more bison carcasses in the distance.
“Charles! Look!”
He looks over to where I point before cursing and mounting his horse.
“Let’s go. They should still be in the area.” He says as we race towards the dead bison.
“This is a slap in the face to my people. Whoever did this, had bad intentions and I don’t plan on letting them live for what they done.” He growled
“I don’t either. That’s completely disgusting and unnecessary what they’ve done.” You reply
As you dismount, you notice the bison trail leads further than you wish. Six more bison littered the field and trails.
These poor creatures…killed for nothing and left to rot in the hot sun. You just hoped that these animals were in safer pastures in their new life.
“Look! Another camp!” You point out and Charles rushes off towards it
He dismounts angered and a gun drawn as you both approached the two men.
“Did you shoot those bison?” Charles ask
The two men ignore him as Charles gets more angry.
“Did you shout those bison!?” He yells
“What’s it to you?” The one guy snickers
Charles snaps and shoots his shotgun at the one as you grab the other and beat the answers out of him.
“We were paid to shoot them and blame it on the Indians! Please don’t kill me! I got a family” the guy begs
“Kill him, y/n. He doesn’t deserve to live” Charles hisses
You do exactly what Arthur taught you and pushed down on the guys throat and killed him.
“Bastards. I hope they’re burning in hell for this.” Charles says before mounting his horse.
“I’ll see you back at camp.” He says before leaving.
You nod and begin looting the corpses just like John taught you when you first came to camp. You also found some cash and ammo that you stuffed in your satchel.
Picking any valuables like rings even a pocket watch was a good find. Arthur always told you, that you look for the fancy ones and they’ll have the best loot.
————
Returning home to camp, Dutch was there to help you off the horse and Kieran helped bring the hide to Pearson. Arthur looked up and smiled, but frowned when he saw you came back alone.
Before he could say anything, Charles came in and dismounted before heading to his cot.
“What happened?” He said as Charles stormed by him.
“Poachers. Killed a lot of buffalo and left them for dead. Charles was furious.” You say quietly scared of what Charles might say.
“Well you know him. They mean a lot to his people, so he should be furious.” Arthur says before leading you to get stew.
