Cowboys and Angels

Chapter Ten

This chapter's song is "You Save Me" by Kenny Cheseney. I'll link it above.

Arthur and Adeline had ridden all the way out to Emerald Ranch to collect a few debts. They had just collected the third of that day and only had one more left. So far, they had followed the same routine for all three collections. Adeline would go in first and ask nicely for the money, she was way better at being nice than Arthur was. Then, once that Inevitably failed, Arthur would go in wielding liberty and justice- his fists. Adeline usually tried not to watch that part and Arthur usually tried to hide it from her. However, he couldn't hide to cries of pain as he beat the debtor and he certainly couldn't hide the blood on his knuckles once he was finished. It wasn't the side of Arthur that Adeline liked to see but she understood. He had explained to her how his 'camp' worked and how Dutch had saved him when he was a boy. She knew that he had to follow orders and pull his weight in camp.

"Where to next?" Adeline asked as they mounted their horses, finally getting their payment.

"Thomas Downes. Preacher, farmer, do-gooder." Arthur scoffed.

"I know the man you're talking about, you've complained about him at least twelve times today but I'm asking where it is we are going?"

"Oh, a few miles that way," Arthur pointed to what Adeline assumed was the west.

Adeline nodded and pulled some corn bread out of her saddlebag. She took a bite before remembering her manners. "Want some," she asked Arthur, though it was muffled by the bread in her mouth and it sounded more like "wah sah?"

Arthur shook his head and laughed, "I thought you was raised by high society grandparents?"

Adeline swallowed her bread before speaking this time. "I was. But I'm riding with the outlaws now. Doesn't seem like a good place for manners." She nodded her head at his knuckles that still had blood on them, trying to show that he didn't have much to show for manners either.

"Fair point."

"This is it," Arthur said as they approached a little cabin with a small farm next to it. They pulled their steeds to a stop near the house and Adeline dismounted first. The man working in the fields must not have seen them because he kept his head down. She assumed this was Mister Downes.

"Mister Downes?" Adeline asked, gently.

The man in the field looked up and smiled at her before seeing Arthur nearby and frowned. "H-how can I-I help y-you?" He stuttered.

"You borrowed some money from a Mister Strauss and I'm just here to collect it. I don't want any trouble." She explained, staying calm and sweet.

"P-please, I don't have it just yet. I-I just need m-more time." He begged. He took out a handkerchief and coughed into it. Adeline wasn't a doctor or anything but she was almost certain you weren't supposed to cough up blood.

Arthur was already approaching. He quickly grabbed the man by the collar before Adeline could stop him. "You're gonna give us that money, one way or another."

"Arthur, stop!" She shouted at him. He turned to look at her before ignoring her and turning back to Mister Downes. "Arthur, I'm serious, he's sick. Step away from him."

Once again, Arthur ignored her and proceeded to threaten Mister Downes again. He reeled back to punch the man and before Adeline knew what was happening, she had grabbed Arthur's arm and jerked it back, keeping him from throwing a punch at the dying man.

He turned to her with a glare. "If you couldn't handle this, you shouldn't have came," He sneered.

She was fed up with his hotheadedness. She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the sick man. "Arthur, listen to me, you fool," she growled. "He has tuberculosis. If he coughs on you, you will catch it and you will die." She got in his face and poked him in the chest.