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

50-Signed, Sealed, Delivered

As the days went on Arthur continued to look for K. Charles, as well as other members of the gang, would frequently help him look for her at first but as time passed, the others gave up (with the exception of Charles). Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years.

5 years had gone by since Arthur had last seen the love of his life. The gang had built a ranch where they provided lessons for the wealthy tourist community on how to ride horses, herd cattle and all of the other things that real farmers and ranchers did, in a society where that sort of thing was becoming less and less of a common knowledge. Arthur had stopped searching for K for the most part, beyond the occasional now and then. Caring for the horses was all he had to keep him sane through it all so he buried himself in his work. The hair around his temples and in his beard had started to gray slightly. The worry lines etched across his face became a bit deeper set, understandably. The gang rarely saw a smile on Arthur's face since they'd moved to California. He was glad to have left the outlaw lifestyle behind but beyond that his life now was not what he'd imagined for it. Not what he and K had dreamed about. Not their happily ever after.

One afternoon as Arthur was brushing down Buell in the horse stables, Hosea came out looking for him.

"Hello my boy. How are things out here with you? Feels like we hardly ever see you up at the house anymore. Although I suppose you've always preferred spending all of your time out here with the horses since we've been here." Hosea recalls.

"Sure. I find that horses make better company than people usually do. They don't find the need to constantly fill the silence with meaningless banter."

"I suppose you have a point there." After a minute or so of silence Hosea speaks up again. "Not to bring up painful memories for you son but I was thinking about K earlier today."

Arthur stills in his movements for a brief moment as he sighs a heavy breath before continuing with his task, remaining silent.

"Thinking about her got me thinking about her uncle Francis. Then I got this crazy idea, it just kinda came to me. Now, I don't know what the odds are that it might actually work but I at least thought I would run it past you."

"Is that so. Alright. Go on. what's yer crazy idea?" Arthur huffs.

"How about you try writing him a letter?"

Arthur let's out a humorless chuckle. "I don't think the post office is quite yet capable of delivering a letter that far."

"Why not?" Hosea asks in full seriousness. "Hear me out-you write a letter to him explaining how she never showed up here, despite her machine being gone and ask him to look into it. Ask him to somehow get news to you if she ended up their with him, or something along those lines, then address it to him, post dated for whatever date it was that he returned home to when he left here. Then take it to the post office with specific instructions on where and when to deliver it. Just be sure to pay them whatever extra is required for their trouble."

Arthur stood there taking in what Hosea was suggesting and Hosea could see the gears turning in his head as he tried to imagine it playing out.

"It's tough to say if it would ever actually make it to him that far down the line but it's at least worth a shot. It's not like we have any better ideas at this point." Hosea points out.

"As crazy as it sounds, yer right. It might work. And like you said, I ran outta ideas a long time ago so it can't hurt to try. I'm gonna do it."

Hosea sees a familiar spark in Arthur's eyes that he hadn't seen in years as he watches him mount up on one of the saddled horses before heading straight for the main house.