Chapter 2

Another One

Arthur Morgan:

It was a peaceful night, it was proven by the light peeking through the thick trees above. Nothing dared move through our small camp, not while we stood vigil. The embers of the fire glowed with what fuel it had. It shined as I stared at its final moments.

Truthful to what was said last night, I watched the first and John watched the second. Then I watched the third watch. It went about same as the first. Guts was part awake, part asleep. A skill like that was hard to come by, also sad to find in someone so young.

Probably doesn't have a friend in the world.

I sat up to throw more wood on the fire and gave a wakeup call.

"John, Dutch. Best be getting up if you want breakfast. I laid out some traps last night and I need to check them-."

A howl interrupted my speech. It was sharp as it rushed through our ears.

"That ain't no animal I've ever heard…"

It was John who spoke first. I laugh at his remark, "You don't say?"

It howled again, but it was words this time.

"Help!"

…

All of us looked at each other, including The boy who was now fully awake (Dutch was still asleep.)

Each of us rushed for our weapons and went to the sound of the voice.

Our run wasn't too far from the camp. The pleas became louder and louder. And they seemed familiar too but I couldn't put it where I recognized it from.

"It can't be!"

"John! You know who it is?"

"Yeah but-."

"JOHN! JACK! ABBIGAIL! ANYONE! GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!"

We went around one more tree and saw an unusual sight. An old man was hanging upside down in a trap I had set with my rope last night.

"UNCLE!"

"JOHN! THAT YOU?! GET ME DOWN FROM HERE! BLOOD'S RUSHING TO MY FACE AND IT HURTS LIKE CRAZY!"

"HOLD ON, I'LL GET YOU DOWN! Arthur! Help me with this!"

"On it!"

I loosened the knot around the tree and eased the flailing man.

"HURRY UP WOULD YOU?!"

I rolled my eyes as I was going as fast as I could without dropping him.

"Alright Old Timer! You're coming down!"

He was brought down gently from the rope and John worked on getting him right side up.

"That voice, sounds familiar."

"Come on, don't tell me you forgot me."

"It's Arthur, Uncle."

John started to let Uncle down on the ground.

"Oh, right. I forget you two are like broth-... PUT ME BACK UP THERE!"

As soon as he saw my face he held on to John tighter in fear. Nearly making John lose his balance.

Aww no…

While this interaction happened, Guts deadpanned at the sight with his sword mounted over his shoulder and simply stated, "Another weirdo, great…"

"Uncle, it's alright!"

"Easy for you to say! You's been dead for twelve years! Dead in the grave!"

John interjected, "Yeah?! I could say the same about you!"

Uncle looked up to John who held him.

"What?!"

"... Think Uncle, what were we doing before you woke up…"

The old man hesitated…

And while he thought, I took a look at the man I once knew. Age wasn't kind to him, he shrank some and grew in the wrong direction. His yelling was irritated, something that didn't change at least.

After a while, Uncle answered in defeat, "I died… didn't I?"

John held back some emotions, even so they crept out anyhow.

"Yeah… So did I."

"... Abigail? Jack? Did they get away?"

"I hope so, I got them on a ride and told em to not look back."

"... Sorry, John."

"Don't be."

John let Uncle go, the later then walked up to me, "You's just like I last saw ya… No way you would have aged if you wasn't living."

I laughed, "So you believe then?"

"Not yet. An who's this kid?"

As he looked over the boy, his eyes bugged out at the size of the old weapon on his back.

The teen's snarky attitude bubbled up, "This 'kid' doesn't have time for this."

He walked off before we could stop him.

Uncle looked at his lifelong friends.

"You'd find more cheer in a cemetery."

I chuckled, "That's where we'd been, and we're just fine…"

"Oh! Stop that, ain't no good testing our luck! And what is any of this? I don't remember dying in no forest! Where are we?!"

John consoled the man again, "Easy old timer, we want to know the same. But Arthur here just got us signed up for a job."

The cranky old man was baffled, spewing out mumbled gibberish and spewed spit in my direction as he spoke.

"What'd you go and do that fer?!"

I tried my best to reason with him with my hands outward in a motion to settle him down.

"Now Uncle, we are more than just a little lost. We are in the neck of the woods where nobles are a thing."

"Nobles?! What are you talking about?! This ain't England or some fancy European country, is it?!"

"No… No, I don't think so. But we're gonna find out with this job. Now before that, I'm gonna check these other traps. John, if you want to take Uncle back to the camp you can."

"Yeah, I'll do that. Come on, Uncle. I'll show ya another old friend."

I wagged my head as they walked off, wondering if things weren't gonna get weirder. Deep down, I knew it was.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Unfortunately, the only hog we captured was the old man. None of the traps caught anything, so I disarmed them so that we wouldn't have a repeat of the incident this morning. Despite the bad luck, we still had some meat left over from last night. And I rationed it out to everyone. Uncle looked like he was gonna complain about what he got, but John set him straight with his stare. Of course Uncle introduced himself to the kid, Guts didn't care. He kept his distance from us, despite being next to us. A couple hours later, we followed the swordsman out of the forest to an open field.

It was beautiful. Almost reminded me back home, while nothing was familiar at the same time.

Our guide led us down a nearby path.

"So how far away is this pow wow?"

He sighed, "We should be there well before the sun's high. Once there, we'll receive instructions and our roles in the fight."

"Alright."

Uncle voiced his concerns, "Uhh, there wouldn't happen to be a place in the back for me, is there? This walking is doing a number on my Lumbago."

Guts gave a quick confused glance at the man, I did the same.

"Lumbago?"

John sighed, "Ignore him."

Guts answered anyways, "It depends on what you bring to the table. Bow and arrows, swords, and axes. Whatever gets the job done."

Uncle spoke up after picking up his only weapon on him.

"I got this rifle here, not much else on me other than this whittling knife."

"A knife is good for cut throating any downed enemies. But I've never seen your other weapons before."

John interrupted.

"You really never seen a gun before? Well it shoots out lead the size of a small stone and penetrates the person on the other end."

He then gestured to a lever underneath his action rifle.

"And this allows me to reload the chamber for repeated action. Can hold about a dozen rounds."

"... Are you sure you guys aren't nobles?"

I chose to answer for John,

"Is it really a big deal if we were or weren't?"

The boy thought about it for a moment before stating, "Guess not. Just that I've never heard of nobles who would be eager to join in this kind of fight."

"Not eager to fight, but willing to do anything to find our way home."

After this the rest of the trip was mostly quiet, aside from Uncle's grumbling about a lack of a horse. As for me, to bide my time walking, I watched the scenery with great interest. Looking at the local wildlife. Taking notice of rabbits, field mice, and funny little insect people.

… Wait, What?

I turned around to look for what I thought I saw. For a moment, in my eyes, I had seen what looked like a tiny golden hair girl with a white dress with white butterfly wings.

Instead, what was there was just a daisy.

Even so, I paused for a moment and crouched down to see it. It was odd seeing one in the middle of the field with no other flowers around. All it was doing was standing there alone.

"Arthur?"

John's voice pulled me from my observation of the flower. Everyone else was further along, while I was looking at flowers. At my age even…

"Sorry, I thought I saw something."

"Like what?"

"I thought… Nothing. It was nothing."

John gave me a funny look, but then quickly shook his head and caught up with the others.

I took another look at the flower, feeling a pull in a way. It was nagging me in the back of my mind enough that I decided to pick it up by the roots and put it in my pack and rushed back up with the group.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

An hour later, we arrived. We arrived…

We arrived….. At an old looking village, at the center of it was a large group of men gathering around shouting orders and whatnot.

Only my brain couldn't wrap its head around completely to what I was seeing! It was like one fancy party except we were under dressed. Except everyone had on metal plated armor, chainmail, leather limb braces! And instead of guns, there were a variety of weapons. Crossbows, axes, swords, clubs, and even a ball with spikes attached to a metal stick by a chain!

It was almost as if we walked into little Jack's fairytale books… The only thing missing were the magic and creatures in them.

"John, did you ever seen a sight like this?"

"No…"

As we neared the group of armored hoodlums, they took note of us. They didn't bother looking at the kid in the lead, but they chuckled at the sight of us. Whispering amongst themselves poorly,

"Get a load of these old-timers."

"I think some farmers got lost!"

"None of them are carrying any swords. Wonder if we can pawn anything of their corpses."

Everyone is the same everywhere I suppose…

We paid no mind to the taunting. Finding a way home was the main priority and it was what pulled us through the gathering.

"Next!"

The shout of a man drew our attention, he was at a desk, fat and hobbled. Writing with a quill into a notebook, eyes glued to his work. Beside him was a man sitting in a more regal seat. He looked bored while adorning fine clothes and an ornate necklace.

Must be a noble I've been hearing about. Nothin special.

Guts went forward to the man working away at the desk,

"Name?"

"Guts."

"A group or alone."

"Alone."

"Placement request?"

"Front lines."

The man looked up from his book to look over the boy. His eyes squinted onto his equipment and nodded.

"... Very well, as per the agreement, you will be compensated one silver for a botched siege. Upon victory you will be given at least three pieces of silver. If you do more, further payments can be negotiated. Sign here please."

Guts scribbled down something in the book and walked off away from us. Not a word, not even a word.

Hope the boy does alright.

"Next!"

I was about to take a step forward when I was stopped by a familiar click and a familiar voice.

"Well! If it isn't John Marston!"

I turned to see the sight of a man aiming a revolver at John's face. Instinctively, my hand rushed to my side when another click and the feeling of a barrel to the back of my head. Orders were called out, "Easy there Amigo. Drop your gun."

Seein as I had no choice, I obeyed.

"Turn around and face me before I kill you."

As he spoke, I started to recognize the voice and accent. But I wasn't too sure until I saw his face. again it was all too familiar, just older. And just the same as my surprise, his stupor made him hesitate pulling the trigger. After all, to him I was a ghost. If I was gonna die right here, the least I could do was mess with my old friend with a big smile on my face.

"You plan to kill me? And after I made it all the way back, Javier!"

End Chapter

A/N: Looking for Co-author for this story. Having one would speed things along. PM me if you are interested.