Under The Eyes of The Wolf (an rdr2 Arthur Morgan x oc story)

9-Bullets In The Belfry

                              ~ten days later~

Arthur finished chopping wood and headed for his tent off of the side of the weapons wagon. Before he got there he was stopped by Strauss....

"Oh! Herr Morgan, there you are. I wanted to tell you that you were correct on your hesitations in concern to Mr. Downes. I sent Micah to attempt to collect on the debt and he came about an empty homestead. Upon further inquiry about town he discovered that Mr. Downes died about four days after your visit." Strauss disclosed with a somewhat humored tone.

"Is that so? On account of what?" Arthur questioned.

"On account of the information that the undertaker was happy to share with him. Apparently he had been expecting it for a while seeing as how the town physician had diagnosed him with tuberculosis sometime ago. So I guess you were right, Herr Morgan!" Strauss chuckled, finding the whole situation humorous.

Arthur glared at the Austrian man. It was requiring every bit of his restraint to not break the slimy little loan sharks face right there on the spot. "And you find that funny? You slimy no good weasel?"

The color drained from Strauss' face as he heard the rage in Arthur's voice.

"That little uninformed mission you sent me on could've cost me my life! Not to mention already costing me the friendship of....ya know what? Never mind. Get outta my sight you pathetic leach." Arthur growled at the terrified banker. Strauss scrambled off into hiding in hopes of avoiding Arthur's wrath. Arthur headed to the cliffs edge of Horseshoe Overlook and paced back-and-forth. He decided to go for a ride in hopes of distracting himself from shooting Strauss.

                            ~two weeks later~

Kay scoured the terrain a short ways outside of her camp in search of more oregano to restock her stores. She'd been doing everything she could to stay busy and keep her thoughts from drifting back to Arthur. Over the past year and a half she'd grown accustomed to being alone and having no one to talk to besides Tacoma and Orion. Simple interactions with the store clerks, stable hands, or the occasional conversation with a barkeep or fellow poker player but anything beyond that she'd been overly careful to avoid. However when she came to this place it was only supposed to be for a few weeks, a month at the very most. Things went wrong and here she was, 19 months, one week and five days later, still stuck here. The original stipulations would have been easy if everything had gone right. Since it hadn't she was struggling to keep it together.

After the brief time spent with Arthur she realized just how lonely she was. Now, she filled her days with gathering herbs and samples and notes throughout nature, staying on track with her original tasks she'd been assigned when she first came here in her attempts to keep her mind occupied.

Suddenly she heard gunfire off in the distance. It sounded like it was coming from Valentine. She dropped her arm-full of various plants and herbs and ran to her tent grabbing her Carcano rifle and bolt action rifle then quickly mounted up on Orion who was thankfully still saddled and seemed grateful for the sudden excitement and chance to run. She raced towards Valentine and in the span of five minutes she was approaching the noise of what sounded like hundreds of gunshots going off back-and-forth from all points across the small livestock town.

She pulled Orion to a halt just outside the skirts of town on the north east side, just up from the church. She hung her hat on her saddle horn and pulled out her long cloak and tucked her hair up tight close to her head. She masked up and tied the cloak around her neck and midsection covering herself up. After grabbing her rifles she ran to the back of the church and entered into the foyer and found her way to the church bell tower ladder. She climbed up and looked out across the layout below to find a war zone.