Chapter 11: All You Have Is Your Fire
"What if we already are
Who we've been dying to become?"
- Sleeping At Last
'Four'
1
Arthur was able to take Kieran back to Shady Belle a couple weeks later. The rest of the gang went back to camp the night of the incident, not keen on leaving their belongings out in the open overnight, especially in Lemoyne territory, but Arthur stayed in Valentine and by Kieran's bedside the entire time. Kieran wasn't going to suggest going back to his house by Little Creek River, knowing Arthur needed him by his side, and there were still loose ends to tie up with the gang.
The last thing that Kieran expected was the welcome he received when he arrived. He had his own tent pitched up close to the water and a campfire party waiting for him when he got back. He especially didn't expect to be offered a beer by Bill Williamson.
"He should be drinkin' water." Susan nagged.
"Man got shot, Miss Grimshaw." Bill said. "I think having a beer to go with it is the least of his worries. Hell, after all this? I think Kieran is owed all the beer in the camp."
"Well then I suppose I better stock up the stash for myself." Uncle mumbled, picking up enough beers he could fit in his arms before John stole one from him, almost making them all fall to the ground.
"It's good to see you alive, Kieran." John said. "Guess we've both been pulled away from the jaws of death by Arthur Morgan."
"I save your life every time you step into water that goes up to your waist, Marston." Arthur replied.
"Are you ever not gonna make that joke?"
"Learn how to swim and I'll start using past tense, but that's as good as it'll get."
"You see, Kieran?" John gestured to Arthur. "Be careful. This is what you signed up for."
"Oh, I'm aware, sir." Kieran smiled. "It's real nice that y'all did all this."
"Yeah." Arthur agreed. "But they look for any excuse to get drunk. We celebrate every time Marston can go in another inch of water before calling for hel—"
"Arthur!" John chastised, but his smile didn't seem to mind. "Take it easy, Kieran." John patted him on the arm before joining some of the others by the fire. Kieran looked around the camp, seeing everyone happy for the first time since he met them. It was then, for the first time since the death of his parents, that he felt at home.
2
"Not drinkin' yet, Dutch?" Arthur asked, approaching the man rustling through papers in his tent.
"Don't care much for the taste of alcohol right now."
"Well ease up, you're too tense." Arthur said, patting the man on the back. "Colm O'Driscoll is dead. If that ain't a reason to grab a bottle, then there ain't a reason at all."
"Guess it's just brought up old memories."
"Drinkin' is for forgettin' as well as celebratin'."
"Don't feel like I've been thinkin' about Annabelle enough as of late. Losin' Sean, almost losin' Jack, this whole mess with Kieran, it just… it makes me miss the quiet sometimes. It's strange to think we've only just brought them all justice."
"And you're all right with Micah being the one to do it?"
"Well," Dutch said, voice faltering for a moment. "I sure wish I was the one to put the bullet in him, but I suppose it ends the same."
"Where is Micah?"
Dutch looked like he didn't want to speak, which was rare for the man. Even when he knew he was wrong, he always had something to say.
"I spoke with him a few days after the incident. I told him that he can't come back." He said. "It's what had to be done. He put Kieran's life in jeopardy, and I know he would do it again should the time ever come, and I sure as hell hope it won't. Even with all my hatred for Colm O'Driscoll, I wouldn't put a bullet through you or anyone else in this camp in order to take him down. It's not how we do things here. Micah, he… he's not one of us. He never was."
"Well I'm glad you see it that way, even if it is a little late."
"And for that I apologise." His faced seemed genuine to Arthur. "But please, don't worry about this no more. Enjoy the party, and make sure Kieran does too."
"You sure I can't grab you a beer?"
"Maybe a little later."
"All right." Arthur patted him on the shoulder once more, and the hand lingered. Forgiveness was in the works.
3
"Ain't no shame in askin' for a little help now and then, Kieran." Abigail said, coming up behind the younger man. "Especially when you're healing from a bullet wound and all."
Kieran stood up straight after leaning over the stew pot, pouring himself a fresh bowl.
"I don't wanna be sittin' around too long."
"Well take it easy at least."
They stood together for a minute, watching the group around the campfire sing and laugh, patting each other on the backs and sharing food and drink.
"Arthur sure is glad to have you back." Abigail assured, laying a hand on Kieran's shoulder for a moment. "And so am I. We're finally all where we belong."
"I love him." Kieran said, out loud and out of nowhere. He felt like in all the years that he had lived, that anyone had ever lived, time belonged to no one, but in that moment, speaking those three words out loud, that was his time. He didn't want to wait to say it. He knew it then for certain, and he wanted the words to be out there.
"It's about time you realised." Abigail laughed. Kieran supposed that mothers always had a way of knowing.
"Is it wrong?"
"To love Arthur?"
"To love a man." Kieran asked. Abigail just took in a breath like she was contemplating her answer, looking into the fire like the flames and smoke would spell out the reply for her.
"Kieran, we're living in as modern of a time as it's ever been. What you're experiencin' ain't unheard of. You hear about it more and more it seems. People fightin' for rights in more ways than one; and that's a good thing, mind you. Whether you love a man or a woman, no matter what you are, ain't no business of mine or anybody else's. People like us? Outlaws? We risk gettin' killed just going into town to do some shoppin'. People always wanna kill us. So what should it matter what we do if it ain't gon' make anyone like us any more or any less? But people like Micah? Bill, even? I don't know how they take to that sort of thing. That I'd be mindful of. But me?" Abigail raised a hand to her chest. "I'm a mother, Kieran. I love my son. I'd do anything for my boy. I'd steal for him, I'd lie for him, and I'd kill for him. I have stolen, and lied, and killed for him. You think that just because he should grow up to love someone else's son that I aughta lay down my gun and stop protectin' him?" She scoffed. "Please. There ain't nothin' my son can do to disappoint me. He can be whatever he wants. And if I can feel that way about my own son, then I can feel that way about you. Arthur is a fetching man, Kieran. I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't the first man to look at him in such a way. Besides, I have no room in my heart for hate on people who just want to love. Your question shouldn't have to be whether what you're feeling is right or wrong, but rather whether he feels the same way back or not."
Kieran turned to look at Arthur, laughing amongst his family. He looked content for the first time in a long while. A genuine smile on his face, at ease and happy.
"I think he does." Kieran mirrored the same look on his own face as Arthur had. "I really do."
4
The celebrations of getting Jack and Kieran back and the fall of Colm O'Driscoll went on long into the night. The campfire blazed on, dancing along to the drunk singing and bubbled laughter of the gang. Javier clinked his drink with Kieran, and they shared a lingering look. They both knew what it meant. They knew that their mistakes were just that. Mistakes. They smiled at each other, letting the other know that they all made them, and that they were behind them now.
John almost stumbled on his way to get another drink, but Arthur caught him, laughing together like it was the funniest thing in the world. Arthur patted John on the shoulder, and the man practically beamed at him. Smile bright and eyes happy.
But it didn't last.
John's gaze turned to look over Arthur's shoulder, and the smile faded away, sobering up in a blink of an eye. Soon the rest of the gang started to see what John saw too, and the lively atmosphere of the party died out, leaving nothing but the sound of nature, the spitting fire, and a single pair of footsteps crunching into the ground.
"You…" Micah growled. "You all are traitors."
The man wasn't able to walk in a straight line, almost slumping left and right as he approached the group, although he didn't have a drink in a hand, he had a gun.
"Every, single, one of ya!" His face burned more and more orange as he approached the campfire, circling around it as he pointed to each member of the Van der Linde gang.
"Micah, what on earth are you doing?" Hosea asked, reaching out a hand without touching him, but it did nothing to stop the man.
"This group aint nothin' like it used to be." The look on Micah's face was one of disgust, anger, betrayal, the face of a child who's parent told them that they don't love them. "We used to be somethin'. Outlaws. A real gang." Micah began circling the campfire like a tiger stalking it's prey. Defensive and offensive at the same time. "But you all lost your taste. You all got weak. Lost your nerve."
"You don't know nothin', Micah." John fired back, taking a step forward before Abigail's hand on his shoulder held him back.
"Don't act so tough now, Marston. You're poisonin' your son's mind with these ideas of a good life. Making him think you could ever do somethin' for 'im. Well let me tell you somethin', kid." Micah leaned down towards Jack, eyes peering under his hat, bulging wide and utterly crazy. "Daddy's filling your head with empty promises. Your life ain't gon' be nothin' more than what it is now. Sleepin' on old horse shit and livin' on the brink of starvation for decades upon decades until you die alone in some cave while coyotes chew on your legs."
"Stop it! You're upsettin' the boy!" John shouted, ripping his shoulder from Abigail's hold and shoving Micah back, stumbling and almost falling into the fire pit before motioning to the scared group around them. "Is this what you wanted? Huh?"
"What I wanted, Marston, was to stay as we were. But that just wasn't good enough for you now, was it? You and your fairytale dream of living on your own damn ranch and leaving your true family for these two selfish assholes. Some woman and a child."
"They are my family." John said, voice above a whisper, threatening and deadly. "These people are my family." He motioned to everyone once more. "But you're no family of mine."
"I know more about family than you ever could. Who was it that left this group for a whole goddamn year? Oh yeah. It was you."
"Don't push it, Micah." Arthur weighed in, voice low and threatening.
"Oh!" Micah shouted, laughing into the night air. "We can't forget about Mister Cocksucker over here. To think you couldn't bring any more shame to the group than you already have, you pull the ultimate betrayal on old Dutch and spend your lonely nights with dear old Kieran 'Dumb Fuck' Duffy."
"Back off." Arthur spat.
"But that didn't do much for you now, did it? Your little plan to divide our group came back around and hit you on the head. You…" He began laughing hysterically, the flames casting shadows on his face that made him look like the devil himself. "You actually thought that the kid gave a single shit about you? He's a goddamn O'Driscoll! Not only that, but he abandoned you! And you had to be the biggest idiot in mankind and fall for it! You must be a desperately lonely man, Mr Morgan. So low that you can't find yourself a woman and that you would have to go for someone half your age, and a man no less." Micah whispered the last sentence, like he was afraid the wildlife would hear him and maul him alive.
"Shut your goddamn mouth!"
"I can't believe that you call yourselves a family! I can't believe that Dutch think that any of you are loyal! And I can't believe that—"
A shot rang out into the night and nearby birds flew away in defence. Everything stood still, and for a split second everyone thought that they had gone crazy and had possibly imagined the noise.
But then a single stream of blood caressed its way down Micah's forehead, and straight between his eyes, still scrunched up in his rage, before the liquid slipped under his lip and between his teeth.
Arthur stared into the eyes of the man, his own face turning from fury to shock. Micah swayed on the spot for a moment before his feet had held their final stance and grew weak. The lifeless body collapsed down to it's knees and dropped face first into the blazing fire.
A silhouette was standing behind where the monster just was, and Arthur looked up to see Dutch holding a revolver up at arms length, a wave of smoke dancing out of the barrel of the gun.
"Oh my god." Someone muttered, it sounded like a woman but it didn't matter who it was. They all felt it. Abigail gathered little Jack into her arms, shielding his eyes and turning her own away from the burning body.
Arthur's eyes stayed on Dutch's, who kept his own on what became less and less of Micah. His face was contorted into one of disgust and betrayal, but also a hint of sadness and loss. He knew that the Micah lying in front of him was no longer the Micah he had grew to care for as family. For the first time he saw what everyone else had seen for months.
"Micah is no more." Dutch's voice was nothing like what it had always been. Even in the man's lowest moments no one had heard him sound so… broken. Defeated.
The camp turned silent. Everyone thinking about everything and nothing. They'd all killed many people, some guilty, some innocent, but never before had they killed one of their own.
"Leave him to burn." Dutch said, turning his back to the fire and decaying corpse. "We don't bury our enemies."
The group watched as Dutch took almost crumbling steps towards the water, reflecting the stars and moonlight. Their once strong and fierce leader was hunched and frail, using what was left of his energy to push the boat by the dock out onto the water. John was the one to break the silence.
"Dutch."
He got no reply, and he didn't expect one. He knew the man needed time. They all did. At this point, it was all they had.
That, and each other.
If that.