Arthur Morgan's Journal rdr2

Clemens Point

Found an odd looking corpse. Something stuffed into the mouth. Couldn't make sense of it.

Met an idiot hunting for treasure. Bought a map off him. Wonder if I'll find anything.

This fella I took to talking with at the train station told me that I could get decent money if I collected complete sets of cigarette cards and sent them to him. We shall see. Sounds harmless enough.

Another body that seems linked somehow to the previous one. More paper in the mouth. Maybe directions to some place. I don't know.

Finally, we have achieved a state of true insanity. For the first time in my life, I'm a deputized lawman. We went off with some moronic dupe Deputy, working for the alcohol drenched Sheriff Gray pursuing some moonshiners. Dutch is convinced this will somehow lead to riches beyond compare. Seems the one powerful local family, The Grays, ex Scots, is warring with another, proud English family, the Braithwaites, like some long running dispute from the border country.
Apparently there's gold or women or something at the root of this, and if it's gold, we want it.

Either way, we are so deep in the swamp and so entirely lost ourselves, I hope it will take the Pinkertons and their like a long while to find us. We shall see.
In the mean time, a new career path in law seems to await. Seems like amongst our other perils a gang called "THE LEMOYNE RAIDERS" won't take too kindly to outsiders or anyone who ain't living in the distant past.

I've met some charming woman in my time. Catherine Braithwaite, the mother hen to that particular bunch of roosters ain't one of them. A sourer old jug of piss and bullshit I ain't never met. Even Hosea's charms were lost upon her. She refused our offer of selling her back her shine and instead got us to give it away to annoy the saloon owners in town.

Hosea put on quite a show until we got interrupted by the bastards we robbed when grabbing the stuff. We just about escaped. On the other hand, I met this poor bastard Gray boy - BEAU - and his forbidden love - MISS PENELOPE - quite the most alive creature we have met down here.

Suddenly, I'm marching as a suffragette. The looks of loathing on the faces of the locals delighted me, while their leader - a Mrs. Calhoun amuses me. I don't know much about good causes, nor the joys of democracy, but I enjoyed my little experience riding alongside them.

World is certainly changing fast.

Saw an old church, found it interesting. Not sure why.

Sent him the location of those odd carvings. Now he wants me to go see him.

Something real odd happened to me. Went to see Francis Sinclair. Only he weren't there. But a lady was, nursing a baby called Francis, with the same mark on his face and yet she'd never heard of an adult with that name and was acting real odd. She must have been treating me for a fool which perhaps I was for getting involved in this nonsense. Someone had made the carvings into an odd symbol. I don't know what to make of this at all.

Stumbled into this old drunk on the streets of Rhodes. I don't know quite why he made an impression. The world is full of self-pitying drunks. Hell, I hope to grow into one myself. But something about this fella, Jeremiah Compson. Blamed everyone else for his plight. Lost his career and his home. Wanted me to go find a few trinkets at his home, Compson's Stead, just north of Scarlett Meadows. Maybe I'll head over there some time.

We went horse thieving, our greed getting the better of us.
Believed a yarn spun us by one of that Gray family, the patriarch, Tavish, a particularly unpleasant one of what seems a reasonably unpleasant family.

He had us believing that the Braithwaite woman owned some highly prized thoroughbreds or Arab chargers or whatever they was supposed to be, and imagined we was going to be wonderfully rich. At the end of it, we felt like prize idiots, so I guess at least some prizes was being handed out.

Charles and I went looking for Trelawny, who was staying in Rhodes. He'd been accosted by some bounty hunters who was looking for him and a means to getting to us.
Whole thing turned nasty and he'd been treated pretty bad but we got him out of there. He seemed worried that there might be more following on their wake, so came back to camp with us.

There always seems to be more, bounty hunters, Pinkertons, lawmen.

Everywhere we go, there's more and more civilization. Perhaps this is it from now on. We shall see, I guess.

This whole place is beginning to give me the creeps - I want to get back in the open country of the West or what's left of it, but even that ain't the way I remember it.

Went to the house. Don't feel so bad for him now. Feel like a fool. Bastard was a slave catcher.

Went to see nice Mr. Compson again. Burned his valuable ledger right in front of his eyes.

I have been recuperating after an interesting encounter with Colm O'Driscoll. Dutch got it into his mind to meet with the bastard, to somehow end all this lunacy. Only Colm did not share Dutch's sense of honor amongst thieves. Whole thing was a set up, to kidnap me, then lure all of the rest of us into a trap so we could get arrested and Colm could disappear away, us somehow carrying off his sin along with our own to the gallows. Seems like Colm is enjoying this modern world even less than we are. More by luck than judgement I escaped and somehow got back here, more dead than alive, and collapsed into bed for a few feverish days — after much nursing from Miss Grimshaw and Miss Tilly and much guilt ridden apologies from Dutch over his stupidity, I survived and seem okay - my shoulder where I was shot ain't come down with gangrene and I will live, if even uglier than before.
Things is getting even more insane with the local population. My sense is neither the Grays nor the Braithwaites have a pot to piss in, but I ain't spent too much time with the landed gentry. Whatever else they is, they don't make one believe in the nobility of the aristocracy.

Sean has been killed.

I'm more sad than I can admit. I loved that little loud mouthed wretch more than I knew - he was like an annoying little brother to me. What fun we had riding together - and now, he's dead. His head shot half off in an ambush. What a goddamn mess we are making of things. Still NO Confederate GOLD, but a shit load of trouble.