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He’d found Grimshaw first. Buried her with a half murmured song falling past his lips, a cross bare of much else but her name. Undeserved, perhaps, for a woman as severe and unyielding as herself, and Charles felt unfit as the sole host at her vigil.
She deserved more, yet then again, so did a lot of people in this life, and in the lives to come.
He stood for a moment after, and gazed back at the ruined campsite. Torn about by Pinkertons or by Dutch and his loyal tyrants, who could say.
Arthurs wagon was a shambles. Ripped apart, the canvas fluttering gently in the evening breeze. He had avoided it so far, but now made his way over. He hoped to be prepared, but the heartbreak at seeing the photo of Arthur, so much younger with a boyish gleam in his eyes rendered him breathless for a moment. He went to pick it up, hesitating briefly over the two other men in the photo; one, a man who had beckoned him into the gang with his honey sweet words and lacklustre promises, and the other, a grounded, patient man, who knew the burdens of violence and the wealth of a kind word. And in between it all, Arthur, with a serious countenance bereft of the fatigue and hurt from years on the run. A snapshot of a man who he hadn’t truly known, yet grew to cherish.
There were tracks. He’d noticed them, of course, but his immediate priority had been the rotting flesh of the camp matriarch. Now, he crouched and observed. Multiple horse tracks at a gallop, impossible to make out whose, whether Pinkertons or outlaws, and yet his only lead. He mounted Taima and followed as well as he could. The trail was about a week old, but the weather had been surprisingly dry with little fresh mud to tarnish its lead.
It wasn’t long before he saw the tracks begin to peter off, clearly the pursuers had lost their main targets. Yet, Charles was good at what he did and he knew it. He dismounted, sweeping his eyes close to the ground. Dirt and bracken and hoof-prints filled his vision, until, there. Blood, a week old, and heading to the right, up a ridge. He followed, the trees thick but the sudden smell of rotting flesh thicker. It wasn’t long before he came across the two horses, and even with the clear traces of carrion birds and scavenging animals, he knew intimately who these horses were and what they meant.
He paused, offering prayers of comfort to the loyal beasts before eyeing the remaining tracks. Upwards, they went. Upwards, he must go.
He followed, climbed up and up. Blood and bullet marks scorching the earth, a final showdown, a firestorm of government and revenge.
The smell reached him again before he turned under the overhanging precipice.
He couldn’t move for a long time. He knew, realistically, what he needed to do, what Arthur needed of him. He wasn’t shocked at finding the corpse; had seen the decay of Miss Grimshaw and the horses close enough to know that any other similar deaths would be equally rotten.
And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen corpses of those he had loved before. His own mother, pale and placid on the bed, eyes wide open from the fever dreams she hadn’t managed to shake before her last breath was taken from her. His father, leant against the side of a shack, bottle of whiskey in one hand and a shotgun in the other, the majority of his brain resting against the wall, some dripping into his lap.
He had grieved and screamed and cried as only a boy on the cusp of manhood could when he saw the remains of his parents. Now, he was merely silent, unable to voice even a fraction of the emotions he could feel railing at the spectacle before him.
He had often enough been taken aback at the colour of Arthur's eyes. He found that the they would shift from deep blue to the most brilliant greens, flecked with gold when the sun hit just right. They had been so emotive, regardless of what facade Arthur had put on that day. He had always given too much away in his eyes if you were close enough to look, to really see into them. Charles had always known how to look deeper and see the truth in that sad, blue gaze.
He couldn’t now. Vultures had pried them out long ago.
Nothing remained of Arthur's eyes but a congealed crimson void. The rest of him was hardly better, lips pulled back in deaths snarl as his skin tightened in rigor mortis, chunks of flesh missing across his arms and legs. His torso had been ripped open, flies lazily humming about the feast of half mangled organs. Something crawled out of one socket and Charles had to turn away for a moment.
He knew what would be the best thing to do. Find the closest patch of earth, dig down the bare minimum until he was sure Arthur’s corpse wouldn’t be dug up for further feasting or washed away by a storm. It made sense, was the most logical course of action.
…Still.
Still.
He looked west, and made a choice.
…
Carrying Arthur's rotting corpse across the Grizzlies would haunt him over the years, up until the day he finally joined him. It would prey on him sluggishly and achingly in his saddest dreams at night and wake him equally slowly, a clawed hand around his heart pressing until he would gasp to full alertness, wiping absent-mindedly at his freshly wet face.
And yet, he took solace in knowing that he had given a good man a good rest.
He went further than he meant to, never finding exactly the right spot he wanted. By chance he came across the strange earthen house after having to ward off some wolves trailing him once the congealed blood began to stain Taima’s back.
After fending off the last of them, he noted the strange abode, and unconsciously thought of how well Arthur would have been able to capture its likeness on paper.
He gazed around him at the vista, noting the mountains to the west, whose shadows would stretch black with the evening sun and light the sky up in an orange burst, a final explosion of colour as a farewell to the day before night would engulf them.
He looked up at the cliff face above the house, dotted with wildflowers clinging for survival amongst the rocks, giving small and inconsequential bursts of colour as they overlooked the fields full of thriving flora.
And he thought, now that’s a decent view to have for eternity.
…
It wasn’t exactly easy to dig through the hard earth on the cliff, but the monotonous sifting of dirt and rocks was relaxing, allowed the sting and stretch and sweat of his muscles to coat him and silence the buzz in his head. He went through his next steps as methodically as possible.
He ensured the depth was at least six foot.
He heaved the body off of Taima’s back.
He ignored the rust red cloying blood that stuck to his shirt.
He placed the body in the grave, gently, upwards facing.
He allowed himself a pause, his hand across the body’s chest, more brown coating the white linen.
He raised himself, grabbed his shovel, threw the dirt upon the body.
The body.
Arthur's body.
He wasn’t crying, and yet he felt tears fall down his face. His expression remained stoic while his vision blurred, but that didn’t hinder his progress.
After, he sat with a knife in his hand, whittling wood. He couldn’t seem to be able to make something simple, which may have been more appropriate considering that Arthur himself would have likely been happy with a simple unetched piece of wood, or even an unmarked grave.
This was something Charles wanted. Maybe it was selfish of him, to want to make something a little ostentatious, something Arthur would have shown clear discomfort in. Well, sue him. Arthur was dead and Charles was erecting his grave. He thought, maybe he was allowed to be a little selfish.
And so he whittled and he etched and he wrote words which he hoped wouldn’t give away too much of his heart.
He planted it above Arthur's head, took a moment simply to memorise the view and his friends final resting place, before he mounted Taima and rode on.
He rode and he rode and ignored Taima’s displeasure and the pelting rain and the abusive slurs from passerby’s and he rode.
And when Taima would eventually too leave him he would carry on, he would walk and he would fight and he would drink and he would fuck and he would continue on and on.
He would never visit the grave, would only travel west again for a friend from another life, one who had been granted his life by the death of a brother.
And until his last breath was pulled from his lungs, he would always carry with him those blue eyes.