Limpanyâs burning was a lot more than meets the eye. Deception, greed, and murder follow everyone touched by Leviticus Cornwall. A story where the Van der Linde gang gets even more inescapably involved in Cornwallâs dealings, with the widowed survivor of the massacre at the heart of it all. Slow burn. Pre-Blackwater and beyond.
Arthur Morgan x F!OC, longfic, slow burn, explicit.
Latest Update: July 11, 2026
Four times Abigail and John were reunited, and one time they weren't.
John Marston x Abigail Roberts Marston, explicit.
Latest Update: March 27, 2026
They were just little trinkets, you thought. Nothing more than items to get a few bucks at a fence. You and Arthur uncover more than you bargained for when you find two unassuming figurines and unite them.
Arthur Morgan x F! Reader, explicit, supernatural elements.
Latest Update: July 10, 2026
Whiskey is supposed to go down smooth, he muses, but you - youâre like the damn hooch that burns on the way down. Â
Arthur enters into a fiery sexual relationship with a fellow gang member. Things proceed swimmingly - until he finds himself in a role he never figured heâd be in again: expectant father.
Escapades ensue.
Arthur Morgan x F!reader, explicit.
Complete, August 2025.
When a run-in with an OâDriscoll leads you to a fate worse than death, itâs up to Arthur to pick up the pieces. The road to healing is long, fraught, and difficult. Arthur Morgan x F!Reader. Explicit, heavy themes.
Complete, December 2024.
Because if one thing is true, it is that Arthur Morgan is a sinner. Pure, organic, non-GMO smut. Someone catches feelings along the way.
Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, explicit.
Complete, April 2023.
They were just little trinkets, you thought. Nothing more than items to get a few bucks at a fence.
You and Arthur uncover more than you bargained for when you find two unassuming figurines and unite them.
Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader
Smut, Supernatural Elements
MDNI (18+)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
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For a little while, the river cools you.
You stand shin-deep in the San Luis, skirts gathered in one hand, your bare feet sunk into soft silt and smooth stones. The current slips around your ankles, tugging gently, as if the river itself has hands. The sun has tilted lower now, all its brightness melting into gold over the water, over the scrub, over the reddish distant line of Mexico on the far bank.
Mexico.
The word still glows inside you.
You can see it so plainly. The hidden pass. Wagons moving under cover of dawn. Dutch forced, finally, to listen to something sensible. Hoseaâs sharp eyes narrowed in thought. Abigail holding Jack close. Arthur alive somewhere the law cannot reach him so easily.
Arthur.
Your heart lifts at the thought of him, then falters.
He had gone up toward the cabin not long ago, his voice low and strange when he told you he would be right back. You had barely had time to answer before he was walking away, his shoulders tight, obviously tense.
Something had been wrong. Bothering him somehow.
You step farther into the river until the water curls around your calves. The cold bites pleasantly now, steadying your thoughts. You close your eyes and breathe in the smell of cottonwood, mud, horse, and dry grass. For a few blessed moments, your body feels like your own again.
Then the pulse comes.
At first, you think it is your heartbeat.
A low throb. Deep. Distant. So soft it might be imagined.
You open your eyes.
The river keeps moving. The horses stand grazing near the bank, tails flicking lazily at flies. The little cabin sits behind you, weathered and quiet beneath the afternoon light. Nothing moves.
There it is againâanother pulse.
You turn your head.
It is not coming from the river.
It is behind you, up on the bank where the bags lie near the grass, where your travel things sit in a careless little heap beside Arthurâs satchel. You stare at them, breath held, a strange awareness tightening through your body.
Another one.
This time it answers somewhere low in you.
Your thighs press together under the water. Heat stirs, sudden and unwelcome, so at odds with the chill of the river that it nearly steals your balance. You grip your skirts tighter and look toward the cabin, half-expecting Arthur to step out, to say something gruff and practical.
The pulse comes again.
Your breath catches.
You wade back toward shore slowly at first, then faster, the river sucking at your steps. Water streams from your calves as you climb onto the bank. The grass scratches your wet feet. You should put your boots on. You should dry your legs. You should call for Arthur, perhaps.
Instead, you walk straight to your bag.
The little stone woman is inside.
You know it before your fingers find her.
She is wrapped where you left her, buried among folded cloth and spare things. The moment your hand closes around the bundle, warmth blooms through the fabric. Not the warmth of the sun. Not the warmth of a stone resting in a bag all day.
Living warmth.
You go still.
The pulse travels into your palm. Once. Twice.
Your whole body answers.
The ache that rises in you is swift enough to frighten. It spills through your belly, your chest, your limbs, turning your breath shallow. You unwrap the figurine with trembling fingers. The little goddess rests in your hand, curved and crude and heavy with purpose.
The statue pulses again.
Your knees weaken.
You should drop it. You know that. Some clear, distant part of you understands that this is not right, not ordinary, not desire born cleanly from your own heart. But the thought drifts away before it can become action, carried off like a leaf in fast water.
Another pulse answers from Arthurâs satchel.
Your gaze snaps to it.
The leather bag lies half-open in the grass where he tossed it down before hurrying away. You stare at it for one heartbeat, then another, your own breath growing louder in your ears. Something inside it calls without sound.
The stone woman warms in your hand.
You take one step toward his satchel.
Then another.
By the time you crouch beside it, your fingers are no longer steady. You tell yourself you are only looking. Only checking. Only trying to understand what is happening, because surely Arthur would want to know if something strange has gotten into his things.
You reach inside.
Your fingers close around stone.
The moment you pull it free, the world seems to narrow.
The second figurine is slightly heavier than the first, carved in the same crude hand, unmistakably its counterpart. A man. Broad, blunt, made with the same shameless intention as the woman in your other palm. Its cock juts from its stone-hewn hips, strange and old and almost foolish, but there is nothing foolish in the way the air changes when you hold them together.
The pulse becomes a drum beat.
You sit back hard in the grass, breath breaking.
The statues throb in alternating rhythm, one answering the other. Your hands move before you decide to move them. You turn the pieces. The hollows and shapes align. Of course they do. They mirror life. The coming together of pieces, of body parts.
The moment they lock together, you cry out.
It tears from you before you can stop it, sharp and startled, half pain and half relief. Heat rushes through you in a brutal wave, so sudden and complete that your body folds around it. The river, the cabin, the horses, the wide gold sky, everything bursts bright and then blurs.
The joined statues lie in your hands, caught in a crude, unmistakable pantomime of sex.
And you burn.
Not gently. Not like the simmering want you have carried for Arthur across miles and nights and too-small tents. This is wildfire thrown into dry grass. It catches everywhere at once.
Your hands fumble at your clothes.
âArthur,â you gasp.
His name feels dragged out of you by the core.
No answer comes.
You pull at buttons, laces, fastenings. Your fingers are clumsy, frantic, half-useless in their haste. Fabric loosens around your shoulders. Your breath comes fast. The air kisses newly bared skin and only makes the ache sharper.
âArthur!â
This time your cry is louder.
His horse lifts its head nearby, ears pricked.
You should be ashamed. Some part of you is ashamed. It flickers dimly beneath the flood, a candle trying to survive a storm. But the spell, or curse, or whatever hungry thing lives inside the stone, swallows that too.
You drop back into the grass.
The linked statues tumble from your hands and land beside you, still fitted together, still pulsing.
The world pulses with them.
You twist beneath it, half undressed, shaking, one hand clawed in the grass and the other pulling open your shirt, baring your breasts to the open, as if that could give you some relief.Â
âArthur,â you sob, and do not know whether it is a plea or a prayer.
Further upriver, Arthur hears his name.
At first, he can barely hear it over the sound he has just made, muffled under the harshness of his own breath and the rush of water around his shins. He stands there in the river with his pants unfastened, cock out, shirt clinging damp to his back, shame still hot in his throat.
He is trying to breathe.
Trying to gather himself.
Then you call again.
âArthur!â
His head snaps up.
Everything in him goes still.
That was not memory. Not fantasy. Not the wicked echo of his own want throwing your voice into the wind. That was you. Crying out.Â
His hands move fast, rough and clumsy as he shoves himself back into some semblance of decency. The water surges around his boots as he turns, nearly slipping on the slick stones beneath him. He grabs for balance, curses, then drives forward through the shallows.
You call again.
This time, the sound is broken.
Arthur runs.
He crashes out of the river, boots heavy with water, pants still loose at his hips, belt hanging open. He doesnât care. Branches whip at his sleeves as he pushes through brush and reeds, heart hammering.
âHold on,â he breathes, though you cannot hear him. âHold on.â
The closer he gets, the worse it becomes.
At first, it is only the same terrible heat rising again, coiling low in his belly. He snarls under his breath, furious at himself, furious at his body, furious at the impossible timing of it. But then the sensation sharpens into something larger than him, something that does not ask permission.
It moves through his blood like a command.
He stumbles.
For a second, the world tilts. The path, the grass, the cabin, the glitter of the river, all of it bends around one fixed point ahead.
You.
He sees you in the grass near the bags.
Your clothes half undone. Your body trembling.Â
Arthurâs mind empties. He stops only when he sees the statues.
They lie beside you in the grass, fitted together.
Stone against stone.
Locked in some obscene little union.
Pulsing.
Arthur stares at them, and understanding does not come, not cleanly. It arrives in fragments. Your strange heat after Van Horn. His own sudden madness in the mountain cold. The look in your eyes by the river. The thing he found in the cabin was crude, old, and warm in his hand. Needing to run away and take care of himself.
The two pieces, together.
âJesus,â he rasps.
You turn your head toward him.
Your face is flushed, eyes dark and wet, mouth parted around his name. The sight of you hits him harder than any fist ever has. Your skirt is hiked up immodestly, and you are naked from the waist up. Shamelessly, your hand rubs at yourself through your drawers as you pant, wild-eyed. His knees nearly buckle.
âArthur,â you whisper.
That is the end of whatever restraint he had left.
He moves to you with a strangled sound, falling to his knees in the grass. His hands hover for one wild second, as if some last decent part of him is trying to remember how to ask, how to speak, how to make sense of the spell pulling both of you under.
âAre you hurt?â he manages.
You shake your head, âNo.â Your hand leaves your cunt and catches his sleeve and pulls, weak but desperate. âNo. I need you.â
When he moves closer to you, it isnât graceful. There is nothing polished in the way you collide. You reach for him at the same time he reaches for you, and then his arms are around you, yours around his neck, and the first contact is a shock so fierce it leaves you both gasping.
His mouth finds yours.
The kiss is nothing like the soft goodnight at MacFarlaneâs Ranch. This is answer, hunger, and terror all tangled together. He kisses you as if he has been starving in silence for years. You kiss him back with the same wildness, your fingers digging into his shoulders, his hair, the damp collar of his shirt.
The statues pulse beside you.
Arthur groans against your mouth and breaks away only to drag in air.
âWe shouldnât,â he says, but the words are wrecked.
âI know,â you breathe.
Neither of you moves away.
His forehead drops to yours. His breath shakes. Your hands slide down to his chest, feeling the thunder of his heart beneath damp fabric.
âThis ainât right,â he says.
âI know.â
His eyes open. They are blown dark, the blue almost swallowed whole. âTell me to stop.â
The command hangs between you. But the statues pulse, and your body arches toward his.Â
âDonât stop,â you whisper.
Arthur breaks.
Not into violence. Not into force. Into surrender.
He kisses you again, and the world vanishes down to hands, breath, grass, and heat. His hat falls somewhere beside you. Your fingers find the buttons of his shirt and fumble them open, one after another, your knuckles brushing the warm skin beneath. He shudders so hard you feel it through your palms.
His own hands are careful despite the storm in him. That is what makes your chest ache, even now. Even under whatever power has seized you both, Arthur is still Arthur, trembling and trying to be gentle with hands made for murder.
He peels loosened fabric from your waist, pausing whenever you gasp, watching your face like it is the only map he trusts. You push at his shirt in answer, frantic with the need to feel less cloth between you, less world, less anything.
The shirt goes first, thrown blindly into the grass.
Then his pants hang open, damp from the river and the exertion of his run, and your hands press to the hard warmth beneath, just above his hip. He makes a rough, helpless sound and kisses you again, deeper, his hands sliding to your waist as if he needs to anchor himself or he will be swept away entirely.
You are already half out of your clothes, but not enough. Nothing is enough.
The spell pours through you both, relentless as floodwater.
Arthurâs belt slips loose. Your remaining fastenings give beneath desperate fingers. Fabric catches, tangles, resists. You laugh once, breathless and almost broken, because the absurdity of it flickers through the haze for one impossible second.
Arthur huffs against your mouth, the sound jagged but real.
âDamn clothes,â he mutters.
You help him. He helps you. Neither of you knows where one fumbled motion ends and the next begins. It becomes a fevered choreography of undoing, all straining fabric and shaking hands, boots kicked aside, wet skirts dragging over grass, his damp clothes falling in a dark heap with yours.
The air touches more of you, more of him.
Every newly bared inch feels like flint struck against steel. You do not know what to call what is happening. You do not know whether either of you will forgive yourselves when the spell loosens its grip. You only know that beneath the unnatural heat, beneath the stone-born compulsion, there is something that has been waiting in both of you long before the statues ever touched.
The last of the clothing falls away.
The grass is warm beneath your back, the evening sky huge overhead, the San Luis whispering nearby as if it knows magic older than the two of you. Arthur is above you now, around you, with nothing left between your skin and his but trembling breath and the terrible, glowing need rolling through both of you.
Beside you, half-hidden in the grass, the joined statues throb like a second heart.
Limpanyâs burning was a lot more than meets the eye. Deception, greed, and murder follow everyone touched by Leviticus Cornwall. A story where the Van der Linde gang gets even more inescapably involved in Cornwallâs dealings, with the widowed survivor of the massacre at the heart of it all. Slow burn. Pre-Blackwater and beyond.
Chapter I: Limpany
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V
Chapter II : Diablo Ridge
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V
Chapter III : Owanjila
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VII
Interlude: Saint Denis, 1888
Chapter IV : Dewberry Creek
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII
â”Related Artâ”
Calluna
Warm Prairie Breeze
Under the Cypress Shade
Like So Many Times Before
Intertwined
Ruth
Ruth II
Together [NSFW]
Ruth III
Gentle
Bashful
Privacy [NSFW]
The Gilded Cage
Blossoms
Peace [NSFW]
Ruth IV
In Your Arms
In His Tent [NSFW]
Old rivalries stir in Scarlett Meadows as the gang searches for opportunity. Back at camp, Ruth makes a choice that may prove more dangerous than it seems.
Pairing: Arthur Morgan x FemOC/Reader POVÂ
Tags: Longfic, Slow Burn, Smut (18+), Violence, Canon-Typical Injuries
taglist: @thorst, @reverendofdespair, @arthurmorganist, @appalachiancowboy99, @blueskies664, @ultraporcelainpig, @pinescent-and-gingerbread, @honeymaltgelato, @newest-obsession, @mrsarthurmorgan7, @arthurstinmug, @blueskies664, @v3lv3tf0x, @emerald-ranch, @redwritr, @photo1030, @kisblle, @honeycoyotes, @globetrotter28, @abducted-cowz
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Rhodes pretends it is far grander, more historic, and more genteel than it actually is.
Angus Carmody decides this within two minutes of stepping off the train platform, one polished boot sinking ankle-deep into red dust, his collar already damp from the low, wet heat of Lemoyne. The sun hangs over the place with a stubborn cruelty. It burns the whitewashed fences bright, makes the clapboard buildings shimmer, and turns every window into a hot, blind eye.
He takes out his handkerchief and dabs at the sweat gathered beneath the brim of his bowler hat.
âChrist,â his second, Beck, mutters beside him, squinting down the road. âItâs like walkinâ into a goddamn mouth.â
Carmody slides the handkerchief back into his pocket. âThen keep your fingers away from the teeth.â
Beck says nothing more.
That is one thing Carmody likes about the man. He knows when silence is preferred to conversation.
Rhodes is small enough to search on their own. It has a train station, saloon, gunsmith, general store, church, jail, and just enough misplaced Southern pride rotting under painted boards. Carmody has been through enough towns in the service of rich men and frightened governments to know when the ground under his feet is soft.
He has started west of here, in Blackwater, with ferry ledgers and hotel clerks and the memory of a dead lawyerâs widow standing in a doorway with blood still drying on the floor behind her. He has followed thin whispers east. A blonde woman. A widow. A woman traveling alone, then perhaps not alone. A woman who might have boarded a ferry, but did not. A woman who vanishes between Blackwater and the wide open spaces of New Hanover.
Ruth Shaw.
Or Calluna Shaw, if the documents from Chicago are to be trusted. Carmody doesnât care much which name she prefers. He just remembers the fear in her eyes when he showed up at her door those months ago, and how often he has heard it from his boss that he royally fucked up letting her go.
How he should have bound her wrists and dragged her to Blackwater instead of swatting her ass and making her flee into the night. He would hear about that until the end of his goddamn career.
Carmody enters the train station first.
The clerk is a narrow-faced man with ink on his fingers. A face full of patchy hair. Carmody gives him the story in its cleanest form. Estate matter. Recent widow. Delicate concern. Mister Cornwallâs legal representatives wish to locate Missus Shaw before matters become difficult.
He has learned that the more vague the concern, the more respectable it sounds.
âBlonde, you say?â the clerk asks, adjusting his glasses, his voice high and intrigued. âPlenty blonde women come through here, sir. German families, Scotch families, some of them girls from the saloon down the road.â
âThirty or so,â Carmody responds. âTraveling under distress.â
The clerk gives a quick, tart laugh. âSir, most folk cominâ through Rhodes are distressed one way or another.â
Carmody does not smile.
The clerk looks past Carmody at Beck, then back across the room at the passengers waiting on trains. âCanât say I recall her.â
Next, they stop in the saloon. Two men at a table look up when Carmody enters and look down again when they see his badge. The bartender continues to polish a glass that has likely never been clean in its life until Carmody places a dollar on the counter.
âA widow?â the bartender repeats. âYou law?â
âPinkerton Detective Agency.â
That earns him a sideways glance from another patron. Not fear. Dislike.
Carmody is used to both.
âLooking for a missing woman,â he says. âFamily matter.â
âFunny,â the bartender says, sliding the dollar from the counter. âWomen usually go missinâ because of family.â
âBlonde,â Carmody continues. âBrown eyes. May have been wearing black, gray, or travel-worn clothing.â
The bartender scratches his jaw. âMightâve seen someone like that. Might not. Been a lot of folk through since the Grays had men in from Caliga Hall. Braithwaites, too, from the Manor. Everybodyâs got cousins in this county, Mister Pinkerton.â
âDid she travel alone?â
âCouldnât say.â
âWith men?â
The bartender looks past Carmody to the batwing doors and shrugs. âMost women who travel alone donât stay that way long.â
Carmody leaves another coin on the counter, though he knows he has bought nothing with it.
He moves through the town methodically, leaving Beck to check the general store while he crosses the street to the sheriffâs office. Red dust clings to his trouser cuffs. A hound sleeps beneath the porch steps, snoring softly in the heat. Two men lean outside the office, hats low, rifles close, expressions bored.
One of them straightens as Carmody approaches.
âHelp you?â
âSheriff Gray in?â
The man looks him over. âWhoâs askinâ?â
Carmody tilts his coat aside enough for the badge to catch the light.
That changes the air.
The man spits into the dirt. âInside.â
Carmody steps through the door and finds the sheriff seated behind a desk that looks more decorative than used. Leigh Gray is a handsome man in the broad, polished way of local authority. Large fish in a small, fetid pond. A trim mustache, fine waistcoat, a clean shirt despite the heat. His badge sits bright on his chest. Behind him, framed certificates and a photograph of some gray-faced patriarch.
Sheriff Gray looks up from a paper. âAgent?â
âCarmody. Pinkerton Detective Agency.â
âLong way from Chicago.â
âBusiness travels.â
âSo does cholera.â Leigh leans back. âWhat brings you to Rhodes?â
âIâm searching for a woman. Missus Ruth Shaw. Recent widow. Her husband had dealings requiring legal settlement.â
âLegal settlement,â Leigh repeats. âThat a new term for stealinâ money?â
âIt's a legal settlement.â
The sheriffâs mouth twitches at Carmodyâs refusal to take the bait.
Carmody pulls a folded paper from his breast pocket. It is not a proper likeness, only a written description. He lays it on the desk. âBlonde. Brown eyes. Slight build. She may be passing under her Christian name, Calluna.â
Leigh does not pick up the paper. His gaze merely drops to it, then back up to Carmody. âPretty name.â
âHave you seen her?â
âNo.â
âHave any of your deputies?â
âNot that they mentioned.â
âWould they?â
That smile comes back, thinner now. âAgent Carmody, I do not make a habit of reporting every distressed widow to private police.â
âOf course not.â
âThis woman in danger?â
âYes,â Carmody says.
Leigh watches him.
Carmody watches back.
âFrom who?â the sheriff asks.
âThat remains uncertain.â
âConvenient.â
âVery.â
For a moment, the only sound in the office is the lazy buzz of a fly circling near the window. Leigh finally picks up the paper, reads it, and sets it down again. âRhodes is a respectable town.â
Carmody glances at the armed men outside the window. âIt certainly has that ambition.â
The sheriffâs eyes narrow. âIâll ask around. Quietly.â
âThat would be appreciated.â
âWould it?â
Carmody retrieves the paper, refolds it, and places it back in his pocket. âGood day, Sheriff Gray.â
He steps outside into the red glare of the street. Beck waits near the hitching posts, shaking his head before Carmody even asks.
âNothing?â
âStorekeeper says a blonde woman bought thread three days ago, but she had two children and a husband with a limp. Unless our widowâs been busy.â
Carmody exhales through his nose.
At the far end of the road, three riders come into town at a slow trot. One large man on a light colored mare, another bulky and slope-shouldered on a huge Ardennes, and a younger Black man whose eyes move over the town with sharp caution. Carmody barely spares them a glance. Rhodes has no shortage of rough men. Some are local. Some wander in like burrs caught in wool at the mills down the street.
Still, the large one turns his head as he passes, just enough that for half a second, Carmody catches the line of his jaw beneath the hat brim.
Recognition does not come. Not yet.
Carmody turns away and walks toward the station.
In his notebook, beneath Ruth Shawâs name, he writes:
Not confirmed in Rhodes. Continue inquiries east and south. Question: plantation roads, ferrymen, stage drivers.Â
Beck mounts his horse. âWhere to next?â
-
Arthur Morgan does not like Rhodes.
He has not liked it from a distance, and he likes it even less every time he needs to come into this silly little town. It sits low and red beneath the Lemoyne sun, all painted storefronts and old pride, pretending civility while every porch seems to hold a man with a gun and a grievance.
Bill, naturally, thinks it looks fine.
âNot a bad little place,â he says, rolling his shoulders as they ride past the saloon. âBet they got decent whiskey.â
Lenny glances toward a cluster of men outside the gunsmith. Their conversation stops the second he rides into view.
âSure,â Lenny says. âReal hospitable.â
Arthur looks over at him. âStay close.â
âI know how to ride through a town, Arthur.â
âDidnât say you didnât.â
Lennyâs jaw tightens, but he gives the smallest nod.
Bill snorts. âAinât nobody gonna start trouble in broad daylight with three of us ridinâ together.â
Arthur looks at him. âYou say that like trouble keeps office hours.â
They hitch the horses outside the saloon. Dutch has sent them in smiling, which means Arthur is already in a bad mood. Hosea has called it reconnaissance. Dutch has called it opportunity. Arthur calls it sticking his boot in two beehives to see which one has honey.
The Grays and Braithwaites. Two old families, both rich once, both bitter still, both apparently sitting on money, liquor, land, horses, influence, or some combination of all of it. The kind of people that Dutch loves best: rich fools with cracks in their walls.
Arthur has never trusted cracks much. Too often, something crawls out of them.
Inside the saloon, the light is dim and brown with tobacco smoke. A few men turn to look. Bill walks to the bar with the confidence of a man who believes size can substitute for charm. Sometimes, aggravatingly, it can.
âThree beers,â Bill says, slapping coins down.
The bartender looks from him to Arthur, then to Lenny, then back to Bill. He pours two beers first.
Arthur leans both hands on the bar, the veins in his forearms prominent. The bartender pours the third.
âMuch obliged,â Arthur says, voice flat.
Lenny takes his glass without drinking. A man at a nearby table chuckles into his cards. âYou boys lost?â
Bill turns. âWhatâs that?â
âJust askinâ. Rhodes ainât usually where strangers come unless they got business.â
Arthur takes a slow drink. âThen I guess we got business.â
âWith who?â
âDepends whoâs askinâ.â
The man stands. He is narrow-faced and sunburnt, with pale eyes and a gray hat that looks too fine for the rest of him. Another man at the table stands too. Same nose. Same chin. Same inherited arrogance.
Arthur knows kin when he sees it. Same blood makes men bold, if only when they are in groups.
âCalvin Gray,â the first man says. âThis hereâs my cousin, Boyd.â
Bill smiles like an idiot. âGray, huh? Heard that name.â
âMost people have.â
Lenny takes a drink now, slow and careful.
Arthur keeps his eyes on Calvin. âWeâre looking for work.â
âWork?â Boyd Gray repeats, gaze dragging over them. âWhat kind?â
âKind that pays.â
Calvin smiles. âYou ride? Shoot?â
âBetter than most,â Bill says.
Arthur bites back a sigh.
Boydâs eyes move to Lenny. âAll of you?â
The words are nothing by themselves. It is the way he says them. Lenny goes very still. Arthur sets his glass down. Not hard. Quietly. The kind of quiet that makes Bill glance at him.
âCareful,â Arthur says.
Boyd blinks. âPardon?â
Arthur turns just enough to face him fully. âI said careful.â
Calvin lifts a hand, still smiling. âNo offense meant.â
âThen none ought to be taken,â Lenny says, and his voice is calm enough that Arthur knows he is furious.
Calvin looks at him, and something ugly moves behind his eyes, but he has the sense not to draw it into daylight.
âSheriff might know of work,â Calvin says. âLeighâs always got need of men who can handle themselves. Roads ainât safe. Braithwaites got their trash wandering all over, and thereâs worse besides.â
âBraithwaites?â Bill asks.
Arthur shoots him a look.
Calvinâs smile sharpens. âYou boys really are new.â
They leave the saloon with Calvin and Boyd leading the way on their horses. The sheriffâs office sits down the road, white-painted and smug. As they approach, a man in a brown suit and bowler hat crosses near the station, walking away with purpose. Arthur barely notices him. There are enough suits in the world, and most of them stink of money or law.
Sheriff Leigh Gray stands on the porch by the time they reach it. He looks Arthur over first, then Bill, then Lenny, lingering just a breath too long.
Arthur shifts half a step.
âSheriff,â Calvin says. âThese boys are lookinâ for work.â
âAre they?â Leigh Gray says. âAnd who might these boys be?â
âArthur,â Arthur says.
Lenny looks at him but recovers smoothly. âLenny.â
Bill opens his mouth.
Arthur steps lightly on his boot.
Bill grunts. âBill.â
Leigh smiles. âJust Bill?â
âJust Bill,â he says, glaring down at Arthurâs foot.
âWell, Rhodes can always use steady men. But we are particular about who we invite into our troubles.â
âTroubles pay?â Arthur asks.
âSometimes.â
âWhat kind of troubles?â
Leigh moves down the porch steps. âYouâll hear folks speak of the Braithwaites. Old family south of here. Used to think themselves kings and queens of Lemoyne. Some still do. Theyâve been known to move liquor, horses, and stolen goods. Poison the county from that manor of theirs and then call it breeding.â
Arthur glances toward Lenny. Lenny is watching the sheriff with the polite expression he uses when deciding how many exits a room has.
Bill scratches his chin. âSounds like you need deputies.â
Leigh looks amused. âDo you even know how to pin on a badge?â
Bill straightens. âI wore a uniform once.â
âArmy?â
âLong time ago.â
Arthur wishes a sinkhole would open up beneath him.
Leigh seems to like that answer. âThen you know discipline.â
Bill looks pleased with himself. Arthur nearly laughs.
âMaybe,â Leigh continues, âthereâll be something for you boys. Small thing first. A delivery watched. A road checked. A gun pointed in the right direction.â
âSounds vague,â Arthur retorts.
âMost things are.â
Calvin laughs. Boyd does not.
Leigh nods, but his face has gone measuring again. âWell. If youâre around Rhodes tomorrow, stop by. I may have honest work.â
For a moment, Arthur thinks Boyd might say something else. He almost hopes he will. There is a mean itch behind Arthurâs knuckles, and Rhodes has given it a face.
But Leigh only smiles.
âEnjoy our town, gentlemen.â
They cross back to the horses in silence. Bill waits until they are mounted and halfway down the street before speaking.
âI think that went well.â
Arthur and Lenny both look at him.
âWhat?â
Lenny shakes his head. âNothing, Bill.â
Arthur nudges his horse forward, eager to leave the town behind. At the edge of Rhodes, where the red road bends toward fields and trees, Arthur slows enough to ride beside Lenny.
âYou alright?â
Lenny keeps his eyes ahead. âNo.â
Arthur says nothing.
âBut Iâm breathing,â Lenny adds.
Arthur nods, jaw tight. They ride on. Behind them, Rhodes sits bright in the hot southern sun.
-
Hosea Matthews stares down the long, shaded road to Braithwaite Manor with caution.
The great white house rises at the end of the long drive like a monument to something already dead. Live oaks line the approach, stirring lightly in the suffocating heat. The lawns are trimmed, the windows tall and watchful. Every inch of it declares refinement, lineage, and permanence.
Hosea looks at the peeling edges, the tired paint, the servants moving too quietly, and sees rot hidden behind lace.
Beside him, Sean MacGuire lets out a low whistle. âNow ainât this somethinâ. If I had a house this big, Iâd lose myself before breakfast.â
âThat would be a mercy to all involved.â
Sean grins. âYou wound me, Hosea.â
âI keep trying.â
They are stopped before the front steps by two armed men who look them over with the suspicious boredom of hired muscle. Hosea gives them his warmest smile, which has emptied many pockets and softened many doors.
âHarlan Winters,â Hosea says. âHere to speak with Missus Braithwaite regarding a matter of transportation and mutual advantage.â
Sean tips his hat. âAnd Iâm his associate, Mister OâCallaghan.â
Hosea closes his eyes briefly.
The guard frowns. âYou Irish?â
Sean spreads his hands, gesturing a sort of surrender.
Somehow, and Hosea suspects because God likes a joke as much as any man, they are shown inside. Hosea is sure to kick Seanâs boot on the way in, mouthing quiet to the younger man.Â
The manorâs interior is cool and dim, smelling faintly of old wood, flowers, and something medicinal. Portraits of stern men and long-necked women line the hall. Their painted eyes follow Hosea as he walks, each face looking more offended than the last that strangers have entered their mausoleum.
Catherine Braithwaite receives them in a parlor bright with lace curtains and hard sunlight. She sits stiff-backed in a chair that might as well be a throne, dressed in black despite the heat, her hair pinned, her face sharp as a hatchet. Age has not softened her.
âSo,â she says, not offering them seats, âyou are Mister Winters.â
âYes, maâam,â Hosea says pleasantly.
Sean coughs into his fist.
Catherineâs eyes cut to him. âAnd this creature?â
âMister OâCallaghan,â Hosea says. âA useful man in matters requiring nerve.â
âThen I assume he has no shortage of employment. Nerve is cheap in Lemoyne.â
Seanâs grin widens. âMaâam, Iâm wounded twice in five minutes. This house is livelier than it looks.â
If looks could kill, Sean Macguire would have a bullet hole between his eyes, courtesy of one Hosea Matthews.
To Hoseaâs surprise, Catherineâs mouth twitches. Only once. Barely.
âWhat do you want?â she asks.
âConversation,â Hosea says. âPerhaps commerce. We have associates moving goods through Scarlett Meadows. Certain roads are watched more closely than others. Certain families seem to command influence over where wagons may pass unmolested.â
Catherine leans back. âYou mean the Grays.â
âI mean anyone who mistakes a county road for a family heirloom.â Hosea quips.
That pleases her more than Sean has.
âThe Grays mistake many things,â she says. âAuthority for breeding. Theft for governance. Mud for blood.â
Sean rocks back on his heels. âThatâs a fair lot of mistakenâ.â
Hosea keeps his attention on Catherine. âWe were told the Grays hold the law in Rhodes.â
âThe Grays hold a badge. There is a difference.â
âAnd the Braithwaites?â
She lifts her chin. âWe hold history.â
Hosea thinks of old bodies under old trees. âA heavier burden.â
âDo not patronize me, Mister Winters.â
âWouldnât dream of it.â
âNo. I imagine you dream of profit.â
âOn my better nights.â
Catherineâs eyes narrow, but not with anger. With interest. Good, Hosea thinks. There is the door.
âMen like you do not come up my drive unless they think they can get something,â she says. âSo tell me what you think is here.â
âOpportunity.â
âWrong. Opportunity is what fools call a trap before it closes.â
Sean chuckles. âIâm startinâ to like her.â
Catherine ignores him. âIf you want to move goods through this county, you will learn which roads belong to which names. The road to Caliga is watched. The road west of Rhodes is listened to. The road past our land is respected.â
âBy choice?â Hosea asks.
âBy memory.â
âAnd if men without memory travel it?â
âThen they learn.â Catherine narrows her eyes.
Hosea smiles gently. âYou know, Missus Braithwaite, I believe we may be able to help one another someday.â
âSomeday is a cowardâs word.â
âToday, then.â
She looks him up and down. âHave you spoken with the Grays?â
âNo.â
âYou lie well.â
âThank you.â
âIt was not praise.â The old woman spits back.
Sean leans toward Hosea and mumbles. âSounded a little like praise.â
Catherineâs gaze returns to Sean. âYou. Irishman.â
âGuilty, madam.â
âYou drink?â
âWith dedication.â He guffaws.
âYou shoot?â
âWith plenty of that dedication.â
This time Catherine laughs, one dry, humorless crack. âMister Winters, your associate is either an idiot or a genius.â
âI have wondered the same thing.â Hosea glares at Sean, who has obviously forgotten the order he gave on the way in.
Sean looks delighted. âTwo compliments in one afternoon. I oughta move in.â
âNo,â Catherine snaps.
The word lands so quickly that Hosea nearly smiles. She rises from her chair. The audience is over because she has decided it is over. Men like Dutch end meetings by filling the room. Women like Catherine Braithwaite end them by withdrawing oxygen.
âIf you wish to do business in this county, Mister Winters, do not mistake the Grays for the winning side merely because one of them wears a star. Their roots are shallow. Ours go deep.â
âDeep roots can still rot,â Hosea says.
Her eyes flash.
âCareful.â
He dips his head. âAlways.â
They are escorted back outside beneath the dripping moss and the white glare of the house. Sean waits until they are mounted and safely down the drive before he speaks.
âSo. We robbinâ the old dragon or workinâ for her?â
Hosea looks back once at the manor.
âThat depends.â
âOn?â
âHow much treasure that dragon keeps beneath her floorboards.â
Sean whoops with laughter and kicks his horse into a trot. Hosea follows more slowly.
They scarcely reach the end of the great drive when Hosea glances back over his shoulder.
The manor stands gleaming beneath the afternoon sun, white columns catching the light so fiercely they almost hurt to look at. It is a grand house, determined to convince the world it had never known hardship.
He then notices movement.
A young woman emerges from a side path, a pale blue dress stirring around her ankles as she crosses the lawn with a book tucked beneath one arm. She could not have been more than twenty. Blonde hair pinned neatly beneath a broad-brimmed bonnet. She walks without hurry, following the brick path toward a vine-covered pergola overlooking the lake.
She never looks toward the road.
Never looks back toward the house.
She simply seeks the little pocket of shade beneath the climbing roses, as though she had made that walk a hundred times before.
Sean follows Hosea's gaze.
"What's caught yer eye?"
Hosea watches the young woman settle onto the bench beneath the pergola, opening her book with the quiet contentment of someone stealing a few precious moments from the expectations waiting inside the house.
He thinks, unexpectedly, of Ruth.
Not because the two women truly resemble one another. They did not. One wears silk, the other homespun. One belongs to a plantation, the other to nowhere at all. Maybe just the curls of blonde in the Lemoyne humidity.
Sean shrugged. "Maybe she likes readin' in the garden."
"Maybe."
Hosea gathered the reins.
"Or maybe she's wondering what the world looks like beyond those gates."
He gives Silver Dollar a gentle squeeze with his heels.
"I hope, for her sake," he said, almost too quietly to hear, "she gets the chance to find out."
Sean looked back one last time before trotting after him.
"You're a sentimental old devil."
Hosea smiles to himself. "No," he says. "Just old."
-
The heat has made everyone stupid.
That is what you decide sometime around midday, when Pearson complains for the third time that no one appreciates the difficulty of stretching three rabbits, a handful of carrots, and a sack of meal into dinner for twenty hungry sinners. He waves his knife in the air while he says it, cheeks flushed, apron stained, sweat rolling down his temple.
You stand beside the wagon and chop onions harder than necessary.
âSome of us served in the navy,â Pearson says, as though the onions you are chopping have personally insulted his maritime service. âSome of us know discipline.â
The knife strikes the board.
Thock.
âSome of us know how to make do.â
Thock.
âSome of us do not complain when given impossible tasks.â
Thock.
âSome of us,â you interrupt, âcomplain constantly while others are holding knives.â
Pearson pauses.
Across camp, Karen barks a laugh.
You do not look up.
Pearson clears his throat. âWell. I only meant to say it ainât easy.â
âNo,â you say, sweeping the onions into the pot. âI reckon very little is.â
The words come out sharper than you intend. Everything has been coming out sharp today. Your voice. Your hands. The way you tie laundry to the line until the rope snaps, sending one of Uncleâs union suits into the dirt. The way you scrub at a shirt until Mary Beth gently takes it from you and says the stain is gone, Ruth, it's been gone for five minutes.
The camp feels hollow with so many of the men away.
Arthur, Bill, and Lenny have gone into Rhodes. Hosea has taken Sean south. Javier and Charles are hunting somewhere up past the creek. John has ridden off with Dutch at dawn. Even Grimshaw is away from camp for a time, having taken Tilly with her to look into supplies.
You should be glad.
Fewer men means fewer eyes. Fewer voices. Less shouting. Less boot-stomping, gun-cleaning, card-cheating, and drunken boasting. Yet the quiet does not soothe you. It stretches your nerves tighter.
Because Arthur is gone.
That annoys you most of all.
Not that he has left camp. Men ride out. That is what they do. They ride out and come back bloody, or rich, or angry, or donât come back at all. You have learned that in pieces.Â
No, what annoys you is that you care.
You hate caring where Arthur Morgan puts himself in the world. Hate listening for his horse returning. Hate noticing his empty space beside his wagon. Hate that some part of you, foolish and soft and apparently determined to ruin the rest, feels safer when his scowl is within sight.
You slam the knife down.
Pearson jumps. âGood Lord, woman.â
âSorry,â you mutter.
âYou sure you ainât feverish?â
âIâm fine.â
Karen laughs again from the shade. âThat means run, Pearson.â
Mary Beth looks up from where she sits mending a tear in her skirt, a needle between her fingers and interest brightening her face. âShe does look fit to bite through leather.â
âI said Iâm fine.â
âThatâs the leather talkinâ,â Karen says.
You give her a look.
She raises both hands. âIâm innocent.â
âYou have never been innocent a day in your life,â Mary Beth cracks at Karen.
Karen grins. âAnd I thank God for it.â
You walk away before you can say something cruel. Cruelty has been sitting on your tongue all morning like the bitter aftertaste of Pearsonâs shitty coffee. The shade near the womenâs wagon is thin but better than the sun. You sit on a crate, pull a shirt into your lap, and begin working a needle through a torn seam. The thread snarls almost immediately.
âDamn it.â
Mary Beth reappears beside you like a song changing key.
âWant me to do that?â
âNo.â
âWant me to leave you be?â
âNo.â
She smiles faintly and sits on the ground next to you, folding her legs beneath her. âWell, that narrows it.â
You sigh and press your thumb against the knot in the thread. âSorry, Iâm not good company today.â
âOh, I noticed. Youâve got the spirit of a wet cat.â
Despite yourself, a laugh escapes you, small and unwilling.
Mary Bethâs smile warms.Â
âDonât be sweet. Iâll feel bad for being hateful.â You mumble to her.
Mary Beth leans back against the wagon wheel. âMaybe you need to be hateful for a minute.â
You look down at the shirt in your lap. It is one of Arthurâs. Blue, worn soft, patched once already at the shoulder. You have not realized until this moment.
Of course.
You throw it aside as though it has burned you.
Mary Beth follows the movement with raised eyebrows but says nothing. That is one of her better qualities. She can see a thing and choose not to poke at it immediately.
âIâm tired of sitting here,â you say.
âI know.â
âIâm tired of laundry and stew and everyone deciding when Iâm useful.â
âI know.â
âIâm tired of men riding off and coming back with plans Iâm expected to obey.â
Mary Bethâs gaze sharpens. âThat one I really know.â
You look at her.
She plucks a blade of grass and twists it between her fingers. âYou need a job.â
âA job?â
âA job gets money. Money gets drinks.â
âThat sounds like outlaw arithmetic.â
âIt is. Iâm very advanced.â She smirks at you.
You snort.
Mary Beth leans closer, lowering her voice. âListen. Most of the men are gone. Grimshawâs gone. Dutch ainât here to make it grand. Hosea ainât here to make it clever. Arthur ainât here to make that face.â
âWhat face?â
Mary Beth dips her chin, deepens her voice badly, and mutters, âThat donât sound smart, ladies.â
You burst into a laugh before you can stop yourself.
âThere,â she says. âBetter.â
âNo, it isnât.â
âIt could be.â Her eyes dance. âWe do a small job.â
Your smile fades. âWhat kind of job?â
âRoadside.â
âNo.â
âYou ainât heard it yet.â Her eyebrows crinkle defensively.
âIâve heard enough.â You remember, acutely, getting backhanded on your last job at Blackwater, months ago.
âYou have not.â Mary Beth shifts onto her knees, excitement gathering in her like wind in skirts. âNothing big. Nothing dangerous.â
âThat is what people say immediately before something big and dangerous.â Your eyebrows furrow.
âYou and me by the road. Respectable-like. Maybe a broken wagon wheel if we can get Pearson to part with something useless.â
âPearson has never parted with anything useless. He treasures useless things. It is how he maintains self-esteem.â You retort, some of your bitterness leeching out.
Mary Beth presses a hand over her mouth to smother a laugh. âFine. No wagon. Maybe weâre lost. Maybe Iâm cryinâ. Maybe youâre my poor widowed sister who needs help gettinâ to Rhodes before dark.â
âNo.â
âYouâre very good at saying that.â
âIâm getting a lot of practice.â You say flatly.
She ignores you. âA man stops. They always stop if they think thereâs a pretty girl and no trouble. I keep him talking. You get close too. I lift what I can. Wallet, watch, maybe a billfold. If thereâs a wagon, we see if thereâs a lockbox.â
âI donât know how to rob a lockbox.â
âI do.â
âOf course you do.â
She beams. âI contain multitudes.â
You lean back, staring out across camp. It is quiet enough that you can hear Uncle snoring somewhere in the shade. Reverend Swanson mumbles to himself near a tree. Pearson curses softly at the pot.Â
âAnd when this helpful gentleman decides he wants payment?â you ask warily.
Mary Bethâs brightness dims, but only a little. âThatâs why we need muscle.â
âNo.â
âYou donât know who Iâm gonna say.â
âYes, I do.â
Mary Beth glances across camp.
Micah Bell sits near Dutchâs tent, chair tipped back, hat low, one boot propped on a crate. He has not gone with any of the men. He cleans his revolver with a rag, slow and fond, like a man petting a beloved animal.
âNo,â you repeat, hissing.
Mary Beth sighs. âHeâs here.â
âSo is a case of cholera, if you dig in the wrong ditch. That does not mean we invite it.â
âHe can shoot.â
âSo can half this camp.â
âMost this camp is gone.â
You fold your arms. âI would rather take Uncle.â
âUncle would sell us for a bottle and fall asleep before collecting.â
âI would rather take no one.â
Mary Bethâs expression softens. âRuth. If someone gets rough,â she says, âwe need somebody hidden nearby. Thatâs all. He donât come near unless we call.â
âMicah Bell does not understand boundaries unless they are marked with bullets.â
âThen we mark âem.â
You look at her. âYou are serious.â
âI am.â She sits back on her heels. âYouâre angry. I am bored. The box needs money. And the men think theyâre the only ones allowed to go out and come back useful.â
That lands.
You glance toward the camp funds box near Dutchâs tent. Its little ledger. Its little demands. Its quiet accusation.
You have been fed and sheltered by this camp. Protected by it in ways you do not like to admit. Dutch has made it clear that everyone contributes. Grimshaw makes clear every day that womenâs work is a contribution, right up until money is counted. Then somehow clean shirts become invisible.
You look toward Micah again.
He is already watching you with that hungry gaze of his.
A chill creeps up your back despite the heat.
Mary Beth notices. Her jaw sets. Then she rises, brushes dirt from her skirt, and marches toward him.
âMary Beth,â you hiss.
She does not stop. You stand so quickly that the crate scrapes behind you. Karen looks over from the shade, suddenly interested.
âThis oughta be good,â she murmurs.
Mary Beth approaches Micah with the sweet, dangerous smile she uses on men at train stations and hotel bars. âMister Bell.â
Micah looks up slowly. âWell now. What can I do for you, Miss Gaskill?â
âWeâre planning a job.â
His eyes slide past her to you. âAre you?â
Mary Beth shifts just enough to block his view. âRoadside. Small take. We need someone watching from the trees.â
Micah leans back farther in his chair. âThat so?â
âMost of the real gunmen are gone,â Mary Beth says lightly. âBut I figured you might do in a pinch.â
Karen makes a strangled sound behind you.
Micahâs smile freezes. Then widens.
âYou figured I might do?â
Mary Beth blinks at him with theatrical innocence. âUnless youâre busy polishinâ that gun all day.â
He stands.
You hate how your body reacts to it, every nerve remembering he is dangerous before your pride can pretend otherwise. Micah holsters his revolver and steps closer to Mary Beth, too close. âCareful, girl.â
Mary Beth does not step back. âCareful is why weâre asking for muscle.â
His gaze moves to you again. âAnd the widowâs goinâ too?â
You lift your chin. âThe widow has a name.â
His grin sharpens. âOh, I know.â
Mary Beth looks between you, sensing something she does not understand but does not like. âItâs simple. Ruth and I draw some gentleman in. You stay hidden. If he gets mean, you come out and look ugly.â
âNatural talent,â Karen calls.
Micah does not look away from you. âAnd whatâs my cut?â
âEqual share,â Mary Beth says.
âNo.â
âFine,â she snaps. âThen stay here and polish yourself blind.â
He laughs, ugly and delighted. âYou got a mouth on you, girl.â
âAnd you got ears when it suits you. Equal share.â
Micah rubs his thumb along his lower lip, still looking at you. âIâll do it.â
âNo,â you say.
Mary Beth turns. âRuth.â
âNo.â
Micahâs head tilts. âScared?â
There it is. The hook. You know it. You see it. You could step around it. Instead, your temper closes its hand around the line.Â
âNot of you,â you say.
His smile changes. Not vanishes. Changes. Something private and mean moves beneath it.
Mary Beth claps her hands once, too brightly. âWonderful. Weâll look at the road.â
You want to refuse again. You want to walk away. You want Arthur to ride back into camp and scowl at the whole arrangement so you can be furious at him instead of frightened for yourself.
But Arthur is not there.
Just you, Mary Beth, Micah, Karen watching from the shade, and the long red afternoon leaning toward evening.
Mary Beth finds a stick and crouches in the dirt near the womenâs wagon. You follow slower. Micah comes too, boots dragging, spurs chiming softly.
âHereâs camp,â Mary Beth says, drawing a rough circle. âHereâs the road toward Rhodes. We donât go too close to town. Too many eyes.â
She draws a line, then a bend.
âHere,â she continues. âTrees. Good cover. Wagons slow down coming around the curve. If we look stranded, theyâll have time to see us and stop.â
Micah crouches opposite her. âBetter here.â He points with the stick he has taken from her hand without asking. âRoad dips. Horse has to slow whether he wants to or not.â
Mary Beth frowns, annoyed that he is right.
Your wedding ring rests beneath your blouse, gold warm against your skin.
Micah leans closer, his shadow falling across the road Mary Beth has drawn.
âWell now,â he says softly. âAinât this gonna be fun?â
The shadow swallows the bend in the road. You see it happen. And still, you do not step away.
They were just little trinkets, you thought. Nothing more than items to get a few bucks at a fence.
You and Arthur uncover more than you bargained for when you find two unassuming figurines and unite them.
Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader
Smut, Supernatural Elements
MDNI (18+)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
â” AO3 Link
â” Fic Masterlist
â” Previous | â” Next
Arthur leaves you in the river, sunlight catching around your ankles.
He does not mean to look back more than once, but of course, he does.
He tells himself this as he walks up from the bank toward the cabin, boots pressing into sandy soil and dry grass, hat brim low against the afternoon glare. The San Luis moves behind him, water sliding over stone, reeds moving at the edges. He can still hear you laughing softly to yourself, splashing like the world has given you something precious.
It is a sound he wants to remember, keep tucked away in his heart.
Thatâs the trouble.
He has started collecting pieces of you without meaning to. Your laugh. Your stubborn chin. The way your eyes shone when you pointed across the river and said "Mexico," as if it were not a place but salvation itself. The way hope had lit you from within until Arthur could scarcely stand to look at you.
He pushes the cabin door open with one hand.
The old, rusted hinges complain loudly.
âYeah, yeah,â he mutters to the wood itself, âI hear you.â
The old place has not weathered kindly. Dust lies over everything. The air inside is dry and stale, warmed through by years of heat trapped in wood. A narrow cot rests against the far wall, its blanket stiff and useless. A table tilts on one stubborn leg. A broken chair keeps company with a cracked wash basin. The corners are cobwebbed thick as old lace.
Still, it is shelter.
Arthur steps in, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. He has slept in worse. He has healed in worse. He has bled into dirt that showed less hospitality than this.
âCould do for a night,â he says, mostly to himself.
He sets about it because work is easier than thinking.
First, he shoves the door wide to let air move through. Then he drags the broken chair outside and tosses it near the woodpile with a sharp clatter. He takes the blanket from the cot by two careful fingers, grimaces at the smell, and shakes it outside until dust explodes into the sunlight. He coughs, swears, and throws it over a low rail to air out, though he doubts anything short of setting it on fire will improve it.
When he goes back in, he uses his boot to push aside old leaves and rat droppings. There is a broom in the corner, bristles worn down to almost nothing, but it serves well enough. He sweeps the center boards clear, each stroke raising more dust than it removes. The work steadies his hands. The plainness of it steadies his mind.
Sweep. Check the window. Test table.
Do not think about you in the river.
Sweep. Clear cobweb. Kick mouse bones beneath the wall.
Do not think about your bare feet in the water.
Sweep. Look anywhere but the open doorway where sunlight flashes off the San Luis and your pale skirts catch against your calves.
He fails, of course.
He looks.
Through the doorway, beyond the weeds and scrub and down the bank, he can see you standing mid-shin in the river. Your shoes sit abandoned in the dirt. Your skirts are gathered up enough to keep them from the water, one hand holding fabric at your thigh, the other stretched out as you test the current with delighted caution.Â
Arthurâs chest tightens.
Love, he thinks again, and the word is still too new to feel comfortable.
He turns away sharply.
âClean the damn cabin,â he grumbles, as if he needed to remind himself.
The table is more trouble than itâs worth. One leg has warped, so he wedges a flat stone beneath it and presses down until it sits mostly level. The cot creaks under his hand, but it holds. Good enough. He checks the small fireplace next. Old ash sits cold. No nest. No snakes. He scrapes it clear with a bit of broken plank and nods to himself.
A night, maybe two, if they need it.
Not that they really need it.
They should ride back. Tell Dutch. Tell Hosea. Explain the pass, the river, the way around Blackwater. Make a plan. A proper one.
But all he can think is that you looked happy in the water, and he cannot remember the last time he saw you without a care in the world like that.
He moves toward the chimney, checking off in his mind that folks usually will hide valuables there. He reaches up, blindly, and feels something solid. Grunting to himself, he pulls it out, a small cloth-covered object.
Inside, wrapped in brittle cloth, is a little stone figure.
Arthur stares at it.
Then he snorts, âWell, now.â
He lifts it carefully, holding it up in the dusty bar of light coming through the window. It is crude, old, and surprisingly heavy. A male figure carved in dark stone, broad through the chest, hips thrust forward with no modesty whatsoever. The cock between its legs has been shaped with blunt intent, thick and obvious, proud as a rooster in a churchyard.
Arthur chuckles despite himself, low in his throat.
âAinât you somethinâ.â
The little figure says nothing, of course. It only sits there in his hand, smug in indecency.
He turns it over, studying the base. There are marks carved along one side, worn nearly smooth by age. Not letters he recognizes. Not anything useful.
âCould get a few dollars for you,â he says.
He should leave it. That is the sensible thing. It is a strange, dirty trinket in an abandoned cabin at the edge of the country, and Arthur has lived long enough to know strange things tend to gather consequences.
But he is not thinking of the consequences.
He is thinking of fences. Of money. Of one more small thing to bring back to camp and toss in the box. He is thinking, too, that you might laugh if he showed it to you, and the thought of making you laugh feels dangerously close to something he wants more than he should.
So he wraps the little figure back in its cloth and slips it into his satchel.
The leather flap falls shut.
For half a second, there is warmth against his hip.
Arthur stills.
He looks down at the satchel.
Nothing moves. Nothing changes. The cabin remains dusty and quiet. A fly drones at the window. He waits a heartbeat longer, frowning.
âToo much sun,â he mutters.
He finishes tidying the cabin with a little more speed after that.
The cot gets dragged closer to the wall. The old basin gets carried outside and rinsed with water from his canteen. He wipes the table down with a rag until more wood than dust shows through. He checks the roof by eye, looking for holes large enough to matter. Not perfect, but dry enough if the weather holds. He finds a couple of empty bottles beneath the cot and tosses them outside too, where they clink together in the weeds.
By the time he is done, the place is still poor, still lonely, still filled with the staleness left by whoever abandoned it.
But it is usable.
Arthur steps into the doorway and brushes his palms together.
He means to call down to you. He means to say the cabin will suffice for the night. He means to ask if you want coffee, or food, or if your feet have gone numb standing in that river like some little fool.
He sees you.
All thought leaves him.
You are bent slightly, one hand skimming the surface of the San Luis. Sunlight runs silver over the water and breaks around your legs. Your skirts are damp at the hem now, clinging darker where the river has kissed them. A strand of hair has slipped loose and lies against your cheek. You look warm. Open. Alive. Joyful.Â
Arthurâs body reacts before his mind has any say in it.
Need tears through him.
Not desire as he knows it. Not the slow, shameful want he has been carrying for weeks, not the ache he has learned to bury beneath discipline and distance. This hits like a thrown match into gunpowder. One moment he is standing in the doorway thinking of coffee and shelter, and the next his cock is hardening so fast it hurts, thick and immediate in his pants.
He grabs the doorframe, suddenly lightheaded from all of his blood rushing southward.
Arthurâs breath catches. You straighten in the river, turning as if you feel his gaze, and smile up at him.
It ruins him.
The smile is not coy or knowing or sensual. That makes it worse. You are simply glad to see him, glad to be here, glad to have found a road south that may save the gang from iits precarious situation.
Arthurâs cock throbs so hard he nearly grunts aloud.
âHell,â he whispers.
You call something to him, but the riverâs bubbling takes half the words. He only catches his name.
Arthur.
Said in your voice.
His hand tightens on the doorframe until the wood groans.
He cannot stand here. He cannot let you see him like this. He cannot walk down to you with his pants straining obscenely, with heat simmering under his skin, with thoughts in his head that would make him unable to meet your eyes for the rest of his life.
The satchel feels too heavy now, pressed against his hip.
Arthur tears it off his shoulder and tosses it hard into the dirt just outside the cabin. It lands with a loud thud next to where you tossed your own bag, not terribly far from the horses.
You blink at the sound, still smiling but puzzled now.
âArthur?â
âIâll be right back,â he calls, too fast, too rough, âGot- gotta piss.â
Your expression shifts, concern beginning to crease between your brows.
He does not wait for the question.
Arthur turns and moves.
Not quite running at first, because some stubborn scrap of pride still clings to him, but close enough. He strides behind the cabin, through dry brush and down a narrow game trail cut between rock and mesquite. The burning heat in his blood does not lessen with each step away from you. It grows. It bursts into something blinding, dampening his skin with sweat beneath his shirt even though the breeze off the river is cool.
His cock strains against his pants, heavy and furious, every step dragging fabric over the swollen length of him. The friction is torture. His balls ache. His belly tightens. His jaw clenches so hard it hurts.
âGet a hold of yourself,â he growls, as if his cock would listen to him.
His body answers with another savage throb.
The river bends farther upstream, hidden from the cabin by scrub and a low shelf of stone. Arthur half-stumbles down the bank, boots sliding in loose dirt. He catches himself on a cottonwood trunk, breathing hard through his nose, then looks back once.
No sign of you.
Good. Good.
He yanks his hat off and drops it on the bank. His gunbelt follows, each movement rough and urgent. He does not undress fully. He canât even think that clearly. He only wades straight into the San Luis, boots and all, until the water reaches his shins and curls cold around his boots.
The shock should help.
It doesnât.
If anything, the cold makes the heat more obscene. It sharpens everything. The water rushes against his feet while his body burns like a fever above it. Sun glints off the river. The current breaks around him. Somewhere downstream, you are standing in this same water.
That thought nearly makes him drop to his knees.
He fumbles with his suspenders.
âGod damn it,â he breathes.
The hook fights him. His fingers are too clumsy, too desperate, but finally the metal gives. He gets his pants open with a harsh tug and shoves the fabric of his union suit aside, freeing himself into the sun-warmed air.
His cock springs hard into his hand, swollen and flushed, the tip already wet. The sight of it makes shame cut through him, but the shame is nothing compared to the need.Â
Arthur wraps his hand around himself and groans.
The first stroke nearly has him come.
His head bows. His shoulders hunch. Pleasure runs up his spine in a white-hot flash, too sharp, too immediate. He squeezes at the base, trying to force himself to slow down, to take control.
But control feels far away at this moment.
He strokes again, firmer this time, dragging his palm up the hard length of him. His breath comes out in a ragged pant. The water curls around his boots, his free hand grips the front of his shirt, twisting the fabric in his fist.
He thinks of you in the river.
Your bare feet on wet stone. Your skirts gathered in one hand. The bright look in your eyes when you pointed south. Your voice saying there, that is the gangâs salvation.
He imagines stepping into the river behind you.
No.
He shuts his eyes hard.
That only makes it worse.
In darkness, the fantasy burns bright in his mindâs eye.
His hands on your waist. Your back against his chest. Your breath catching when he bends his head near your ear. The wet drag of river water against both of you, the world narrowed to sunlight and skin and your voice saying his name without concern, without shame, wanting him there.
Arthurâs hips jerk forward roughly into his fist.
âGoddamn,â he groans.
He strokes faster.
The sound of skin on skin is nearly lost compared to the rushing of the river, but he hears enough to feel filthy for it. His palm moves rough and sure, slick now, sliding from
He tries to think of anything else.
Horses. Guns. The route back. The pass. Dutchâs face when Arthur tells him there may be a way south. Hoseaâs careful eyes.
You, smiling.
Always you.
The thought of you will not leave.
It changes. You are not just standing in the river anymore. In his mind, you turn into him. Your hands come to his shirt. You look at him with the same fire that had filled your eyes during the dance at MacFarlaneâs, the same softness from that goodnight kiss that had nearly given him a heart attack.
He imagines you rising on your toes.
He imagines your mouth at his.
A hoarse sound tears from him.
He plants his feet wider in the river, bracing himself against the current and against the force of his own body. His fist moves faster now, rhythm broken by urgency. The ache in his balls draws tight. His belly knots. Heat gathers low and brutal, dragging him toward the edge with frightening speed.
He should stop.
He should stop before he barks out something, before the river carries some sound downstream, before you wonder where he has gone and come looking.
The idea of you finding him like this sends a fresh surge through him, shame and need tangled together.
You would see him. See what you do to him. See the thick length of him in his fist, see his pants open, see how badly he wants you. He imagines shock on your face. Then want. Then your eyes dropping, your lips parting, your hand reaching.
Arthur snarls under his breath and strokes harder.
He is close. So close.
His breath stutters. Every inhale burns. Every exhale comes with a low grunt he cannot swallow. His hips thrust into his fist now, short and helpless, water splashing around his boots as his body chases release with a desperation that humiliates him.
Arthur Morgan bows forward, fist tightening around himself, and comes hard into the river.
Pleasure slams through him, fierce and bright, dragging a broken groan from deep in his chest. His cock pulses in his grip, spend spilling hot into the cold rush of water, white pulled away almost instantly by the current. He shudders with it, hips jerking, shoulders trembling, his hand working through every harsh wave until there is nothing left but aftershock and shame and the pounding of his own heart.
For a few seconds, Arthur cannot move.
The river keeps going around him as if nothing has happened.
He stands there with his head bowed, breath ragged, water tugging at his boots, his hand still wrapped loosely around his still-hard cock. Sunlight is warm across the back of his neck. The trees whisper. Somewhere downriver, you are waiting.
They were just little trinkets, you thought. Nothing more than items to get a few bucks at a fence.
You and Arthur uncover more than you bargained for when you find two unassuming figurines and unite them.
Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader
Smut, Supernatural Elements
MDNI (18+)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
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Morning is much quieter on MacFarlaneâs Ranch.
First, the lanterns go dim. Then the voices fade into sleepy murmurs. Then the last of the party disappears into the pale wash of dawn, leaving behind trampled dust, overturned cups, and the faint, sweet smell of woodsmoke clinging to the air. The world looks softer in the first hints of morning light, stripped of fiddle music and whiskey laughter, but you can still feel the night inside you when you wake.
Arthurâs hand at your waist.
The turn of his body with yours.
The brush of his mouth at your kiss.
You tell yourself not to think about it. Naturally, that means it is the only thing you can think about.
Arthur is quieter than usual as he checks the horses. Not cold, not unkind, simply careful in that way he becomes when he is trying to pretend nothing important has happened. His hat is pulled low, his coat dusted at the hem, his hands moving with that steady competence.
You stand near your horse and pretend not to watch him.
It works poorly.
Your travel bag hangs from the saddle where it spent the night. Somewhere inside it, wrapped in cloth and tucked among ordinary things, the little stone woman waits. You have not touched it since before the party. You have barely thought about it, not with so much else crowding your mind.
The pass. Mexico. Arthurâs eyes in the lamplight. The kiss.
You reach for your saddlebag to tighten the strap.
The moment your fingers brush leather, something answers.
A pulse: low, warm, and intimate.
You freeze.
It moves through the bag and into your palm, not quite a vibration and not quite heat. A slow throb, steady as a heartbeat. Your breath catches before you can stop it.
The feeling vanishes.
You stare at the saddlebag.
Nothing moves. Nothing glows. It is only a bag. Only leather. Only cloth and supplies and one peculiar stone trinket you ought to have sold the first chance you got.
âSomethinâ wrong?â
Arthurâs voice comes from behind you.
You turn too quickly. âNo.â
His eyes narrow.
You smooth a hand over the bag as if that proves anything. âNo, nothing. Just making sure it is secure.â
Arthur studies you a second longer, then nods. âWeâll ride south. See if this road gets us near the river.â
âThe San Luis?â
âShould, if the maps ainât lyinâ. We make sure thereâs water, make sure the country ainât crawling with law, then we head back and tell Hosea what we found.â
Hosea. Dutch. Camp. Wagons. The whole impossible machinery of the gang.
You nod, but your chest pulls toward the south.
The word Mexico sits in you like a secret door. Salvation. Hope. A land wild enough that even Javier with his bounty could disappear into its sand and rock and go unnoticed.
Arthur swings into the saddle first, settling with a creak of leather. You mount after him, adjusting your skirts carefully, gathering the reins in hands that feel less steady than you would like.
The ranch begins to fall behind you.
A woman from the night before lifts an arm from a porch, her hair pinned loosely, her face soft with morning. âSafe travels, you two!â
Arthur gives a short nod, still too polite to be anything else.
You wave back. âThank you.â
The woman smiles wider. âCome back anytime, Missus.â
Arthurâs shoulders stiffen.
You bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from laughing.
The road spares you both the need to answer.
You ride south beneath a sky so wide it seems like thereâs no beginning or end. Henniganâs Stead rolls out in dry folds of land, its grasses pale and stubborn, its scrub brush silver-green in the sun. Dust follows the horses. Far off, ridges rise in blunted shapes, sun-baked and quiet. There is no soft mist here, no damp green hush like Big Valley. Everything is sharper, barer, sunbaked, more honest.
Arthur rides beside you for a while.
Not ahead. Not behind. Beside.
The morning stretches. The heat gathers. Your horseâs gait becomes a steady rhythm beneath you, familiar enough to soothe. Hooves strike the earth. Tack creaks. Leather shifts. The world narrows to motion and sun and Arthur at the edge of your vision.
For a time, nothing strange happens. Then the saddlebag pulses again.
This time, you feel it through the horse. Or through yourself, you canât tell.
It begins low behind your hip where the bag hangs, a faint throb that seems to move through leather, saddle, skirt, skin. A soft insistence. A warm, secret pulse. You straighten in the saddle, startled, and the movement shifts your seat just enough that fabric drags against your most sensitive skin.
The sensation is immediate.
You inhale sharply and look away from Arthur.
Heat blooms low in your belly, sudden and heavy. Not the faint wanting you have been carrying since last night. This is something more physical, more urgent, rising up through you as if called from underneath the earth itself.
No.
You grip the reins tighter.
No, not now. Not here.
Your body answers before your mind can forbid it.
Warmth gathers between your legs, slick and humiliating, soaking into your drawers until every movement of the horse makes you aware of it. You shift, trying to find some position that does not press fabric against flesh, but the saddle offers no mercy. The rhythm of the ride becomes unbearable by degrees, each step sending a small, maddening friction through you.
You stare fixedly at the horizon.
Arthur glances over. âYou alright?â
âYes.â
The word comes out thin.
His brow furrows. âYou sure?â
âJust warm,â you say.
It is not entirely a lie.
Arthur looks at the open country, then back at you. âAinât too bad yet.â
âIt is to me.â
A faint crease appears beside his mouth, concern evident. âWe can slow down.â
âNo,â you squeak, too quickly. âNo, we should keep moving.â
Because if you stop, you do not know what you will do.
The thought arrives fully formed and wickedly clear: Arthur dismounting, coming to your side, his hands at your waist to help you down. His thumbs pressing into you through your dress. His body close enough for you to smell tobacco and dust and the warmth of his skin under his collar.
Your thighs tighten against the saddle.
A small sound escapes you, but at the last second you turn it into a cough.
That gets his attention, of course.
You do not look at him.
The land rolls on. The sun climbs higher. A hawk circles above, somewhere to the west, a coyote yips. Ordinary sounds. Dry-country sounds.
The pulse comes again.
You feel it like a hand pressing insistently at the very core of your body.
Your breath trembles. Dampness spreads, mortifying and undeniable, your drawers wet enough now that the cling of them against your skin makes your face burn. Each rise and fall of the horse pushes you down into the saddle, and the pressure is so precisely wrong, so nearly right, that it turns your thoughts molten.
You wish Arthur could help.
The thought is so naked, so plain, that shame flashes through you.
Not just touch you. Not merely kiss you in a dark little room and leave you trembling for hours afterward. Help you. Ease this terrible, blooming ache. Put those careful hands to some use less decent and far more merciful. Let you lean into him and stop pretending your whole body has not become one long, desperate plea.
You glance at him before you can stop yourself.
Arthur is watching the road ahead, jaw shadowed with stubble, shoulders loose but ready. Sun catches the line of his nose, the edge of his cheek, the tawny ends of his hair beneath the brim of his hat. He looks carved out of the country itself, rough and steady and doomed to be wanted by you.
You imagine telling him.
Arthur, something is wrong.
Arthur, I need you.
Arthur, please.
Your face heats so fiercely you have to look away.
He notices anyway. Of course he does.
âYouâre awful quiet.â
âSo are you.â
âThat ainât unusual for me.â
âIt is not unusual for me either.â
He gives you a look.
You lift your chin. âI can be quiet.â
âSure,â he says mildly. âWhen youâre sleepinâ.â
Despite yourself, a laugh slips out. It helps. Barely. The sound breaks some of the tension in your chest, and for a few seconds you can breathe like a normal woman riding through Henniganâs Stead with a normal man beside her and not like some cursed thing burning alive from the inside.
Then the saddle shifts beneath you.
Your laughter catches and dies.
Arthurâs expression changes at once.
You force your gaze forward. âHow far to the river, do you think?â
He lets the question sit, but you can feel him deciding not to press. âFew hours, maybe less. Depends how direct this road stays.â
âGood.â
âYou that eager to see it?â
âYes,â you say, and that at least is true. âIf there is a crossing, or a place to rest, or any sign the route is passable, then it means something. It means we did not come all this way for a dream.â
Arthur hums low in thought. You look over at him.
He keeps his eyes ahead, but there is something softer in his voice now. Something that remembers last night whether he wants to or not.
You ride.
The hours stretch long and strange.
At times, the pulse quiets until you can almost believe you imagined it. Your body settles into a simmer, still too warm, still too slick, but manageable. Then, without warning, the saddlebag gives another slow beat and the heat rises again, dragging you back under. It leaves you gripping the reins, staring hard at dry grass, praying Arthur cannot notice what you are certain must be obvious.
The country begins to change as you move south.
The ground slopes gradually downward. The scrub thickens in places, then gives way to patches of open dust. The air grows warmer, but beneath it comes a cooler thread. You taste water before you see it. The horses seem to sense it too, ears lifting, steps quickening.
Arthur notices.
âRiverâs close.â
Relief and excitement rush through you so swiftly that for a moment, they overwhelm even the ache between your legs.
You sit taller in the saddle. âReally?â
âSmell it.â
You draw in a breath.
There it is.
Water. Mud. Green things. Life cutting through the dry.
The road dips, curves around a low rise, and the land opens.
The San Luis River appears below you, wide and glittering under the afternoon sun.
For a moment, you forget how to speak.
It runs like a ribbon of hammered light, broad and slow, the far bank shimmering in the heat haze. Beyond it lies Mexico. Not the idea of it. Not the word carried in your chest like a charm. The true thing. Earth and brush and distant rise. A country across the water, close enough to point at, close enough that it feels impossible you have not already crossed.
Your horse stops because you pull the reins without meaning to.
Arthur reins in beside you.
Neither of you speaks.
The river moves below, patient and ancient, unconcerned with gangs, warrants, Pinkertons, Blackwater, or Dutchâs plans.
Then joy hits you so hard it almost hurts.
You laugh.
It bursts out of you bright and breathless. Arthur turns toward you, startled, but you are already urging your horse down the slope, all caution loosened by the sight of that shining water.
âEasy,â he calls after you. âWatch the ground.â
âI am watching!â
âYou ainât watchinâ a damn thing.â
But there is no anger in it.
You reach the flat near the river and slide down before your horse has fully settled. Your boots hit the earth, knees shaky from the long ride and from everything else you refuse to name. You barely care. You gather your skirts and hurry toward the water.
The old place stands nearby, weathered and quiet.
Old Bacchus Place, if Arthur has the name right. A worn little cabin sits back from the river, its boards faded by sun and age, its roof sagging just enough to look tired. A few scrubby trees lean toward it, offering thin shade. It feels abandoned in the way frontier places often do, as if someone once meant to return and then the world swallowed them whole.
You hardly spare it a glance.
The river has you.
You drop onto a flat stone and begin tugging at your shoes. Your fingers fumble in your haste, and you let out a frustrated little huff as one lace knots itself tighter out of spite.
Arthur dismounts behind you. âWhat in Godâs name are you doinâ?â
âTaking my shoes off.â
âI can see that.â
âThen why did you ask?â
âBecause I was hopinâ there was a sensible reason.â
You pull one shoe free and toss it aside. âThere is. The river is right there.â
His mouth twitches. âThat ainât a reason to take your shoes off. Thatâs just geography.â
The second shoe comes loose. You peel off your stockings next, less gracefully than you might like, and leave them in a heap beside the shoes. The earth is warm beneath your bare feet. The sensation of it grounds you, real and simple after hours of maddening pressure.
You lift your skirts and step into the San Luis.
The first touch of water makes you gasp.
It is cool enough to cut through everything.
Cool enough to make the heat in your body falter. Cool enough to make your breath rush out of you in relief. The current curls around your ankles, then your calves as you wade deeper, tugging gently at your skin, washing dust from your feet and the hem of your skirts.
âOh,â you breathe.
Arthur stands near the horses, holding both sets of reins, watching you like he has forgotten whatever he meant to say.
You turn in the water, laughing again, and lift your face to the sun.
âArthur,â you call, voice bright. âCome here.â
He does not move. âIâm fine where I am.â
âYou are impossible.â
âBeen told that a few times.â
You splash a little water toward him. It falls woefully short.
He raises an eyebrow. âThat your best?â
âFor now.â
He shakes his head, but there is warmth in him. You can see it. The wary line of his shoulders has eased. His eyes, shaded by his hat, stay fixed on you with a strange softness that makes your heart trip.
You turn away before the feeling can become too large and look across the river.
Mexico. You lift one hand and point.
âThere,â you say.
Arthur follows the line of your arm.
For a second, he says nothing.
You can feel the moment catching up to him.
âThere,â you repeat, stronger now. âThat is it.â
âMexico,â he says quietly.
âYes.â
The word comes alive between you.
You wade a few steps farther, water tugging at your skirts. âDo you understand? The pass brings us out west of Blackwater. This river gives us the south. If we follow it, if we find the right crossing or keep to the hidden routes, the gang could get through. We could bypass Blackwater entirely.â
Arthur walks closer, leading the horses to a patch of shade before tying them off. His eyes scan the bank, the cabin, the slope, the land beyond the water. You know that look. He is mapping it in his head. Measuring trouble. Counting risks.
You keep going because if you stop, you might burst.
âThey wonât expect it. The Pinkertons are watching the roads, the ferries, the obvious places. They think we are trapped east of everything that went wrong. But we arenât. Not if this works.â
Arthur steps down to the riverâs edge.
You turn to him, skirts gathered, hair loose from the ride, water flashing around your legs.
âThis is the gangâs salvation,â you say.
The words tremble because you believe them.
Not fully. Not foolishly. You know there will be danger. Wagons do not move like dreams. Children and wounded men cannot cross mountains on hope alone. Dutch may argue. Hosea may worry. The law may shift. The world may find new ways to close its teeth.
But still.
For one shining moment, salvation stands across the river in sunlit dust and distant hills.
âWe can use the mountain pass to bypass Blackwater,â you say, breathless with it. âThen come south. Find the San Luis. Cross into Mexico if we must. No Blackwater. No ferry. No walking straight into a noose.â
Arthur looks at the far bank.
Then at you.
Something changes in his face.
You do not see it at first, not reallh. You are too full of the river, of the plan, of the wild hope leaping in your chest. You turn in a half circle, water rippling out from your calves, and laugh again because you cannot help it.Â
Arthur sees you.
Not just looks.
He sees the dust on your dress and the sun in your hair. Sees your bare feet planted in the San Luis like you have claimed the river with joy alone. Sees the way hope transforms you, how it lifts your face and loosens your mouth and makes you seem lit from somewhere no lantern could reach.
He thinks, very suddenly and with no mercy at all, that he is in love with you.
The realization does not arrive gently.
It strikes through him and leaves him still.
Arthur has known wanting. He has known fondness, regret, hunger, loneliness. He has known the ache of looking at something good and knowing his hands are too stained to hold it. But this is different. This is not just the desire that has dogged him since Van Horn, not just the memory of your kiss or the fit of your hand in his while dancing.
This is worse.
This is tender.
This is the sight of you standing ankle-deep in river water, pointing at a country neither of you knows, and somehow making him believe there might be a life past running.
A life where you laugh like that more often.
A life where he gets to hear it.
A life where salvation is not just survival, but you looking over your shoulder and calling him toward the water.
His chest tightens.
He looks away because if he keeps looking, he fears something will show.
You do not notice.
You are still pointing across the river, explaining routes with your whole body, hands moving, voice bright. âIf we can mark the way back through the pass, we can tell Hosea. He will see it. He will understand what this means.â
âHosea will,â Arthur says.
You pause, hearing something in his tone.
âAnd Dutch?â
Arthurâs mouth pulls slightly.
You understand.
âThen Hosea first,â you say.
That earns you a quiet huff of laughter. âSmart.â
âI have my moments.â
âYou got plenty.â
The words are low, almost too soft to hear over the river.
You look at him then.
For a heartbeat, the ache returns, not from the statue, not from the saddlebag, but from him. From the way he stands at the riverâs edge, hands resting near his gun belt, hat shadowing his eyes, expression roughened by something he is trying not to show. Your body remembers the ride. The pulse. The humiliating wetness still cooling between your legs beneath your skirts. The wish that he would help you.
The river runs between your ankles and does its best to keep you sane.
Arthur clears his throat and looks toward the cabin.
âWe should stay here a night.â
Your pulse jumps.
âWhat?â
He nods toward the old place. âWeâve ridden hard. Horses need rest. You found the river, and Iâd like to look around proper before we head back. Make sure there ainât some patrol tucked nearby or a road we missed.â
It is practical.
Entirely practical.
Naturally, your mind makes it dangerous.
A night here. By the river. Alone with Arthur. The old cabin just close enough to shelter you both. The saddlebag on your horse, with the little stone woman inside, quiet for the moment but never quite innocent.
You swallow.
Arthur watches you carefully. âUnless youâre set on headinâ back.â
âNo,â you say, perhaps too quickly. âNo. Staying makes sense.â
âAlright then.â
The words settle between you.
A whole night.
The thought moves through you, warm and uncertain.
Arthur turns toward the horses, busying himself with the reins. âIâll take a look at that cabin. See if itâs fit to sleep in or if itâs full of snakes and worse.â
âWorse than snakes?â
âPlenty worse than snakes.â
âI ainât sure I like the sound of that.â
âYou stay by the water,â he says, glancing back. âDonât go wanderinâ.â
You raise a brow. âYes, sir.â
He gives you a look, but the corner of his mouth betrays him.
âI mean it.â
âI know you do.â
Arthur unties one of the bedrolls and slings it over his shoulder. He checks the horses again, then starts toward the cabin, boots crunching over dry earth and scattered stone. He moves with that familiar wary ease, one hand free, shoulders alert, already half in the world of tracks and threats and broken floorboards.
You watch him go.
The ache in you stirs again, quieter now, threaded with something softer than before.
Arthur reaches the cabin porch and pauses, looking back.
You are standing in the river with your skirts gathered, bare feet pale beneath the clear moving water.
For a moment, neither of you moves.
Then he tips his head toward the cabin, as if reminding himself of his purpose, and disappears inside.
You let out a breath.
The river keeps running.
You turn back toward Mexico, letting the current wrap around your calves, letting sunlight glitter over the water in bright broken coins. Your shoes and stockings wait abandoned on the bank. The horses crop at sparse grass behind you. The old cabin creaks softly as Arthur moves within it.
They were just little trinkets, you thought. Nothing more than items to get a few bucks at a fence.
You and Arthur uncover more than you bargained for when you find two unassuming figurines and unite them.
Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader
Smut, Supernatural Elements
MDNI (18+)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
