Sounds of laughter, shades of life
Are ringing through my open ears
Inciting and inviting me
Limitless, undying love
Which shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe
- The Beatles
That night, as she sat cross-legged and rigid in the hard, tacky little bed in one of the rooms of the saloon, the sounds of faint roughhousing and piano music still faintly audible downstairs, Rane Roth opened Arthur's journal for the first time.
A good thirty minutes passed as she thumbed through it, starting at the very beginning and turning each page with a delicacy that bordered on reverence, her face very still and focused. It started with his journey through Ambarino, some four years prior, after the job at Blackwater had forced him and the rest of Dutch's gang to flee. His handwriting - something she had never seen before, had never even considered - was lovely, lilting and elegant, detailing the gang's comings and goings, their bereavements and triumphs, their losses and gains as they migrated across the country. And most astonishingly of all, these entries were accompanied by drawings, amazingly detailed drawings of people and places and animals and plants. She had never known, never even suspected that Arthur had possessed such talent, and he had never told her, never even hinted at it. The thought made her terribly sad, somehow. It was like she had missed out on an entire chapter of him. Just another thing that had been robbed of her when he had died, something the years they could have spent together ahead might have revealed in the fullness of time.
Rane turned a page, smiling a little, having just read about the gang's erstwhile habitation of Clemens Point, and suddenly - shockingly - she was looking at her own face. It was an incredibly accurate sketch, done with haste but detailed nonetheless, showing her profile, her hair slung over one shoulder, laughing at something. Next to this was a drawing of her sword, accompanied by a half-assed rendition of the Tengwar inscription of her own name that had been carved into its blade when it was forged.
Rane stared at this for a long moment, her heartbeat quickening a little, realizing slowly that she was now about to read things about herself, perhaps about she and Arthur's relationship. This idea was so large and frightening, so dangerous, that she almost stopped right there. To keep reading was to tear open that wound inside her and bleed fresh. And there was no booze in this little room to numb it away. For a second or two she considered closing the little journal. Maybe throwing it across the room for good measure.
The voice of her father, chiding and amused, sprang to life in her mind for the first time in ages: Don't be a chickenshit, Rane. I didn't raise up a chickenshit.
So she read.
Today I have done something foolish (well, more foolish than usual I mean!). That woman that I helped away from the Pinkertons is becoming a thorn in my side. I brought her along with me to rob Braithwaite horses to help our ledger but on the way back, we holed up in a cave and against my better judgm judgment we made a stitch. I am torn how to feel about her or this, due to MARSTON who is causing me trouble as usual! He is sweet on her and if he knows I made love to her he will be MAD AS HELL. Even so I have never felt this way for a woman (not even MARY). She is a good fighter so I know Dutch will want to keep her. I think that I have never met a beau prettier girl. SO strange though! She uses not a gun but a SWORD and a WAND which can make strange things happen. I have not yet decided if she's just CRAZY!
Rane turned the page, noting the thumbprints on the edges of the parchment where Arthur had turned them once himself. Christ, this was awful. Her breath was hitching a little.
Spent the night tied up in Colm O'Driscoll's camp after DUTCH made another bad decision! Why can't he keep us out of trouble? Somehow I managed to get shot bad in the shoulder and I did not expect to see daylight again, but Rane got us away with her wand. And I have gone and done something VERY foolish and finally TOLD her I am in love with her. She ran quick as a jackrabbit when she heard that and now I'm feeling very unhappy. No wonder! I am an ugly old bastard and she is too lovely for the likes of me. God damn you, Arthur Morgan! You should have kept your idiot mouth closed for once!
Another page past this and Rane was looking at an incredibly rendered sketch of Hostas as seen from the window where she and Arthur had spent the night against their will on Guarma. Beneath this, hasty and without details, was another drawing of her, this time lying on one side and facing away, her hair pooled beneath her and the slim dip of her waist covered with a thin sheet. An image presented itself to Rane with hideous, heartwrenching clarity; Arthur, next to her in bed, watching her sleep and sketching her in the little Elven bed they had shared. For a moment he was closer to her than he had been since he died, and that was when the tears began to fall from her eyes at last.
We are holed up in a strange place. A shipwreck, a bank robbery and now this! WHAT have I got myself into? It's a good thing John wasn't with us because he would have surely DROWNED.
Rane snorted at this in spite of herself. Arthur never lost an opportunity to rail John Marston about water.
We lost Hosea and young Lenny in Saint Denis. Seems to me the Pinkertons already KNEW we would be at that bank and that makes me damn suspi uneasy. I can hardly believe Hosea is really gone. I have known him since I was a young man and he was always good to me. TWELVE YEARS! Seems we just cannot stay out of trouble lately.
Met with a strange fellow called LEEM DOOR (?) who took in me and Rane and gave us food and drink (and I am DRUNK!). Still not sure if I trust him though. We spent the night here together and talked and enjoyed each other. Even though I worry for Dutch and Bill and I am sad about Lenny and Hosea, I feel happier than I have ever been. I still barely believe that she could love a man like me and that I could still love somebody back as much as I -
Rane dropped the journal onto the bed for a moment and covered her face with both hands, moaning low in her throat. For a few seconds she remained that way, tears running between her fingers, hiccuping, willing herself to harden her heart and keep reading. At last she straightened, sighing roughly and wiping at her eyes with the heels of her hand, and continued.
I still barely believe that she could love a man like me and that I could still love somebody back as much as I love her. Feels like a dream sometimes. Tonight I had to tell her I was sick and dying and it was the hardest thing I believe I have ever had to say to somebody. I never shed a tear for a woman before but I sure did tonight. Feels as if my heart is broken right in two. If only things were different, and we were not so tangled up in this way!
The next two pages were full of sketches, one of Bill Williamson and Javier Escuella sitting beside a bonfire, another of some sort of tropical bird on the wing, still another of what Rane thought might be the view from the deck of the ship they had departed Guarma aboard. And once again, Rane was looking at her own face rendered by Arthur's hand, this time lying in what was almost certainly the cot she had occupied after Limdur had put his sword through her chest, her face penciled with meticulous detail right down to the dark turn of her thick brows and the lines at the corners of her mouth. She could picture, with haunting clarity, Arthur Morgan sitting slumped in the little chair that had occupied that room, journal resting on his knee, sketching, eyes cutting up to her as she lay there insensible. Even while she was unconscious he hadn't left her side. It was another knife through her heart, and a part of her - not a small part, either - cursed John for dropping this damned thing into her lap in the first place.
Things with Dutch are worse than ever. Seems he has changed and not for the better. He is acting so odd. Talking all manner of nonsense and making more foolish decisions. TWICE he has put Rane on the razor's edge and both times it burned me up. He sent her after Javier against two dozen ARMED men all alone. Lucky for us she had no trouble at all. Watching her use that sword is REALLY SOMETHING. So fast you can barely even see it! We made it back to dry land after Guarma and if I never see another boat as long as I live it will be TOO SOON. I guess that I am no sea dog.
Some nasty fellers are after Rane and tonight they caught us in the open. She killed one and knocked the other two out, but not before I was CURSED. Felt awfully strange, warm and empty and sort of nice. I wish old skeptical Hosea was still around so I could tell him about THIS!
Rane snorted laughter through her tears at this, shaking her head. "Arthur Morgan, only you would get your memory wiped by an auror and then write in your fucking diary about how cool it felt. Why am I not surprised? Why am I not even surprised?"
Ran into Mary Linton of all people as we were riding from Saint Denis on a couple of stolen horses tonight. Rane did NOT seem pleased to meet her. She is far too temperm headstrong sometimes and it doesn't take much to get her cussed (and when she gets mad she gets REAL MAD!) I have never felt so embarrassed. Mary said to me "I HOPE SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE IS GETTING HERSELF INTO" and although I pretended it didn't that made me feel real bad. (She would know better than anybody after all!)
As I write this I am laying beside Rane at Shady Belle and she is not so much asleep as PAST OUT (drank me clean under the table this evening). I was hoping that the rest of us were holed up here but it seems they must have moved on after the bank job went sour. Tomorrow I reckon that we will need to go looking for them.
I proposed tonight right here in this bed and she said YES. A part of me feels foolish because it has been a very short time and Rane was drunk as Cooter Brown. I guess that we will just have to see. Somehow it suddenly feels like I am right where I belong.
Rane stared at the little heart that Arthur had sketched at the end of this entry for a long moment, feeling strangely aghast by it. Something about it seemed to summarize the whole batshit thing. She'd turned up out of nowhere, quite literally, and somehow gotten tangled up in the lives of these strangers, and one of them . . . one of them had gotten tangled up enough to unironically say something like that. That Rane Roth, the reckless, fatalistic, misanthropic shitshow of a woman that she had become in the past decade of her life, was someone worthy of that sort of accolade? That she could make a man who had spent his entire life on the fringes of society feel like he belonged someplace?
She dug into her jeans pocket, suddenly a little frantic, and pulling out her flask popped open the cap and polished off what remained of her cognac, sucking her teeth at the bitterness and coughing. She sat there for a moment, relishing the warmth that bloomed in her chest, then turned the page. The sounds of rowdy bar patrons downstairs was beginning to fade away at last. It must have been close to two in the morning.
A drawing of Dutch Van Der Linde, so accurate it could have been a photograph, capturing even the handsome lilt of his posture and the cavalier glint of his gaze. Another of Micah Bell, glaring off into the distance, with his name scribbled just beneath and underlined twice, under which Arthur had written "A REAL JACKASS" in all capitals. Two tacked horses tied to a hitching post, one suspiciously reminiscent of Old Boy. Lagras. Beaver Hollow. And then . . .
Rane breathed a long, low sigh, her eyes skating over the page before her. The last drawing in Arthur's journal was an almost full-page sketch of Arthur himself, clearly looking into the little round shaving mirror he'd used to keep near his cot. He had captured himself to the life, and for a moment Rane simply stared at it, the tears rolling down her cheeks with renewed fervor now, her mouth screwed up. His hair was slicked back from his angular temples, his face freshly shaved and a gentle, lopsided little smile on his face. It wasn't a photograph, but it was the next best thing. Rane knew at once when he'd drawn it, too; he had been left at Beaver Hollow while she and Sadie had gone to rescue John from Sisika, and she would have bet her life that he had done it then, perhaps sitting on his bunk and glancing into that mirror for reference. He looked fantastically handsome, and healthy, and happy, and she realized with a jolt that she had nearly forgotten what he looked like, so many years had gone by. How could she have misremembered the way his eyes turned up when he smiled, or that little scar on his chin, or the mole on his right cheek, or those eyes, those eyes that seemed to refract every whim of his soul, sometimes against his wishes? In that moment he was close enough to touch, and a sob racked her body, mollified not at all by the liquor in her belly.
There were words written on the opposite page, and after Rane had looked at Arthur's face long enough to sate her immediate appetites, she turned her eyes there. At the top, writ large, was her own name, underlined twice and gone over several times in pencil.
RANE ROTH
This next part is especially for you. If you are reading this I am likely already gone. This ain't for nobody else. So if you are reading this Marston, FUCK OFF!
Rane laughed, choked, still crying, and read on.
I drew MYSELF (even though I am ugly) in case you wanted one more good look at me! (who would? Ha-ha!)
As I am writing this, I am sitting on my cot at Beaver Hollow, and Dutch has gone crazy. Some moments I do not even think he recognizes me anymore. I have known him since I was FOURTEEN YEARS OLD and he has been the only father I ever cared to know, but when I look at him now it's like he is a flat out stranger. I cannot express how sad this has made me. I mourn him as if he were already dead which I am certain he will be soon. These feelings have made me uncertain and weak. I am sick as well and not the man I once was.
I believe things are about to go badly bent. I have a feeling in the very bottom of my belly that you told me once about. You call it Oom Bray in that language you speak. I don't know what to call it but only that it feels terrible and I am afraid for us all. I think that my death or the death of us all is very soon now and the idea frightens me only because I know that you will suffer if you survive me. Six months ago or even two I would not have been nearly so unhappy to know I would buy the farm. Now that I have you, I don't want to go anymore. In a way it is almost funny! Just a couple weeks after that doc told me I was a goner and suddenly something to live for! If there is a God he must have a real fucked up sense of humor!
You must get away from Dutch and from this gang even if I am gone. I want you to live a long and happy life even if it is without me. John MUST get away with his wife and child. Please help them if I am gone before you get back to me. They deserve freedom and hap happiness. I care for John more than I have ever let him know. He is my BROTHER.
I have never been happy in all my life but I was happy for the first time while I was with you. My heart has not stayed this glad in all the years I have been alive. If I live through this I will love you for the rest of my life. If I do not, I will love you for the rest of the Lord's eternity. There will never be another.
One day after I am dead I feel certain you will read this and for much of the time these days I feel that I will be dead very soon. I am sicker every hour. If this is the last thing you hear from me Rane, I love you more than life itself and I will go to whatever comes next thinking only of you.
"The heart can't lie" and mine never did.
Your husband sincerely,
Arthur Morgan
Rane turned the page. It was blank. This was the last entry Arthur had posted before they had fled Beaver Hollow.
She shut it slowly and pushed it away from her. For a long moment she simply stared at it, at the scuffed leather cover and the crude little hook that kept it closed. The thought of it, clasped in Arthur's hands, occurred to her abruptly, and something about this image - of Arthur pouring his thoughts and feelings into this little book when no one was looking, indulging in his gentler nature when his harder, more austere one was not required - broke her entirely, for the first time in some years. She dropped her flask onto the wood floor with a clatter, bending over, clutching her midsection and crying hard, her sobs loud and echoing in the little room.
