Chapter Text
“Oh, here he goes,” Tilly muttered to Karen as both ladies cautiously eyed Arthur, not wanting to be next in his line of fiery insults.
Arthur could be heard from across the camp, raucous voice cutting clear through the bark of Uncle’s laugh and Jack’s yelling for Cain.
“Little Greasy Johnny Marston,” Arthur said. “So oily even the wolves spat you out.”
Tilly nor Karen could hear John’s reply, but both saw the stiffening of John’s shoulders as he stood and walked away, his hands up in a gesture of innocent appeal.
“I hate when he gets like this,” Karen said, turning her attention back on Tilly, who was busy sewing a button back on one of Bill’s shirts.
“What you mean? He’s always like this, there ain’t no gettin’ to it,” Tilly retorted.
“Oh, watch out and move Tilly he’s coming this way.” Karen hurriedly warned before she turned and ducked behind their wagon. Tilly wasn’t as quick.
“Good morning to you, Miss Jackson,” Arthur called in passing.
“Good morning, Arthur,” the young girl smiled.
Arthur said no more but bowed his head in response as he continued to his tent.
“He is a man that has got so much hate in him,” Karen said, reappearing from behind the wagon.
“I don’t know. Mary-Beth says he has a rough way with people, cause he ain’t had a good life,” Tilly said, watching as Arthur disappeared behind his wagon.
“Well we all ain’t had good lives, we all ain’t living no good lives neither; he ain’t so special.” Karen said, picking up a bottle of whiskey.
Arthur sat on his bed with a thud, his journal making its way into his hands. He untied it, and let the pages fall open. He flipped to the next blank page. He started to draw the badger he had seen earlier when he had gone hunting, the little feller had turned and looked at where Arthur was crouched on the ground feet away, its beady little eyes blinking a few times before scurrying off.
“Soups up,” Mr. Pearson yelled a few hours later from across camp. Arthur had added some deer and rabbits to his drawing of the beady eyed badger, not wanting him to feel alone on the white page.
As much as Arthur didn’t want to get up and get some of that god-awful stuff Pearson called soup, his stomach protested. With a heavy sigh Arthur bound his journal tightly with the leather strap and tucked it away into his satchel.
Arthur heard Abigail before he saw her, back up against a tree as she had a finger pointed at Marston’s chest.
“…then, you might just raise a man,” Abigail sneered. Arthur watched with a cocked smile, waiting for whatever dumb remark Marston would say back.
“Just like your momma did? Raise a real man, like you?” was Marston’s reply, and Arthur almost laughed out loud; he knew Marston was a fool. Abigail reared back and slapped Marston on the cheek, and with that, Arthur let out the laugh he had been holding in.
Abigail glared at Arthur as she marched passed, but the heat behind her eyes belonged to Marston.
“Arthur, do you mind?” John’s voice was gravelly as he raised his arms, waving the older man off with both hands.
“Marston, you fool,” Arthur laughed, shaking his head as he ignored the eyeroll the dark-haired man gave him.
The soup Pearson served was, as expected, pig shit. But Arthur ate it anyway, because food was food and he’d take what he got. Warm food was better than cold food, and food at all was better than no food, and he’d be a fool to waste anything that would fill his stomach.
Arthur sat on the ground around the campfire, next to his empty bowl of soup, back against the log and a bottle of whiskey next to his propped-up leg and watched as the fire burned the logs to ash. He watched as Uncle wandered over to the campfire and sat next to Marston, the younger man scooting a little further way when the old man leaned a little too close.
The two talked about something amongst themselves, and whatever it was had Marston laughing. Something stung Arthur in the chest a little from watching the two. He had been sitting around the fire for quite some time, and no one wandered over and talked to him. Not that he cared. No, he didn’t care.
“How many times you pissed yourself today?” Arthur asked Uncle through a chuckle once it got quiet. Uncle let out a long sigh before looking over to Arthur.
“Well, ain’t that charming,” the old man deadpanned.
“Not this again,” Marston drawled. “Stop it, Arthur.”
“Ain’t no point in with bothering with him when he’s like that,” Abigail said as she walked by the campfire, two bowls of soup in her hands. Arthur laughed silently as he shook his head. He knew why no one wanted to accompany him. But he didn’t down right give a damn.
He got up, leaving his bottle of whiskey where it had sat next to him all night. He wandered over to the shore of the lake and took a seat on a rotting log far enough away from camp to not be able to hear a thing.
He opened his journal to a blank page. What a bunch of sad, sorry bastards, he wrote, and began drawing Marston through the flicker and flames of the fire, laughing.