Arthur Morgan was truly a simple man. He liked bourbon and whiskey, enjoyed a cigarette, his repeater carbine, and his horse. The finer things in life he enjoyed were of course a game of cards and tasty food. However, he was able to understand all of these things based on their purpose. They each had a purpose, each meant for pleasure or practicality.
What he could not understand was the loveliest of creatures, Mary Linton. Her beauty surpassed any other, her gentleness, and her love for him was both terrifying and almost threatening. She was an enigma in a cruel, dark, and broken world. She was like a light in the darkness, but he knew she could not guide him home. He accepted that.
He heard her soft voice in his head after his tuberculosis diagnosis, he could see her eyes almost beg him before boarding the train. She wanted him, but he made a choice long before they met. "There's a good man within you…but he's fighting a giant." He could feel her lean on his arm as they went into the theater. He could smell her perfume, the scent lingering long after he said goodbye to her.
He could see the letter she left, the ring he gave her all those years ago felt like a millstone tied around his wrist. He left that ring to John Marston, as well as all the other items he carried with him. In his memory, he could see the picture of himself and Mary, young and perhaps happy, which seemed too much like a distant memory. Arthur Morgan knew what he had lost the moment he accepted the life he chose. The paths he forged were inescapable.
As he lay there, upon that rock, coughing, bleeding, dying, he saw the sunset one last time. He wasn't religious, but he prayed for peace, he prayed for redemption. He prayed for Mary. As he took his final breath, all he could see were her hazel eyes.