Chapter 2
Arthur steps outside with his already-cold tin cup of coffee and feels the cold air already stinging his face. The snow had died down, finally—he takes a deep breath, takes in the stillness and the silence, the smell of woodsmoke against the clean brisk of the air. This was, lately, a too-rare moment, between the mess of Blackwater and the close-call of the escape into the Grizzlies. So Arthur takes another breath before finding Dutch and Hosea around a dying fire a few yards away.
He makes his way over to them—skips the morning pleasantries. "So, any plans to speak of? How long are we gonna be hidin' out here?"
"Slow down, Arthur," Dutch says. "Mornin' to you to."
Arthur breathes through his nose impatiently. "Mornin'. So—you two decided anything yet?" He looks over at Hosea.
"Good morning, Arthur," Hosea says, smiling tightly. Arthur nods back. "I hear we picked up a guest last night in the middle of all this commotion."
Jesus Christ, Arthur thinks.
"Willa," Dutch jumps in. "Says her name is Willa. Don't know where she came from, but she didn't have anything on her—don't know how she made it here, in that weather."
"Yeah, Dutch," Arthur starts. "I was meaning to talking to about th—"
"Arthur, maybe you should go check on her," Dutch nods towards the barn, then turns to Hosea. "Strange girl. Insisted on sleepin' in the cold."
Arthur sighs.
"Sure," he says, shoving his coffee into Dutch's hands. "Why not."
"Well," Arthur says, stepping inside the cabin where Dutch sat by the fire, Micah standing a few feet away. He shakes the snow off his coat. "She ain't there."
"What?" Dutch stands up.
"She ain't in the barn. I saw some footprints leading out—ain't nothin' left in the barn but the hay and some books in some language."
"What?" Dutch repeats, shaking his head. "Did she take anything?"
"A horse," Arthur says. "And a bow and some arrows, I think, from Pearson's table."
"You said she left somethin'? Maybe she'll be back," Dutch says.
"Books, Dutch. She left books. In some funny language."
Micah looks smug in the corner, jumps in the conversation.
"Well, I don't mind goin' and lookin' for her, draggin' her back here," he says. "Horse or not, she couldn't have made it too far from here."
Arthur rubs his forehead with his hand, lets out a breath.
"No," he says. "No, I'll look. But if she's not anywhere close, there's no use goin' after her. We got too much else to worry about."
Arthur shakes his head as he steps out again.
And wouldn't you know.
He sees her, about fifty feet away—trotting in on Lenny's horse like she owns the damn place.
Goddamn it.
By the time he reaches her, she's already off the horse, making her way to the barn. He catches up to her, and grabs her.
"Where did you go?" He motions up to the horse. "And what made you think you could just make off with one-a our horses?"
She looks at him blankly.
"I'm sorry," Willa starts, "I just took it for a bit," she holds up a dead marmot. "To find something to eat."
Arthur stares at her. She pulls her arm out of his grasp, moves past him, into the overhang attached to the barn—watches her as she carefully places the marmot on a table in Pearson's makeshift kitchen, pulls out a knife from her pocket. Arthur thinks: Managed to steal that already, too.
"I didn't want to keep—to keep relying on you all. After last night, I mean." She pauses, the knife hovering over the fur around its neck.
Arthur sighs, his voice softening for a moment. "You know how to skin that?"
She glances up at him. "Yes," Willa says, quietly. She looks down at the small animal on the table, one hand covering its eyes. She was thinking too much on it—how much of a chance encounter it had been. How the only reason it had come out so early before the thaw anyhow was because it hadn't found enough to eat before, in the summer, and how that was because maybe its mama didn't teach it to look for the right plants in the right way, or maybe it was too small and too slow from the get-go, couldn't get to the food before the others took it all—thinking too much on how quickly things get away from you, how maybe they're never yours to begin with.
"Here," Arthur says, walking over and removing her hand. "Let me do it."
She stills for a second, and then lets go, moves away—starts to leave from the overhang, but Arthur stops her.
"Hold on," he says. "I ain't done with you yet." He starts slicing through the skin. "Dutch had me lookin' for you."
Willa stops. He hears her sigh, then leans against the wall, her back to him.
Arthur looks at her for a moment, at this girl who came outta nowhere, before he turns back to the animal—notices the single kill shot through the marmot's eye, how she must have carried that thing in her hands the whole way back as it lay there, eyes blank and bleeding out.
"I found her," Arthur says, pushing her forward slightly as he lets go of her, the bow still in his other hand. "She was—off huntin'."
Dutch stands up from his chair, eyebrows raised.
"Now," Arthur says from behind her. "You're gonna talk."
She glares back at him, quickly—blink and you'd miss it.
"I'm sorry, sir, for taking the—"
"No," Arthur says. "Not that—tell us what the hell are you doin' here."
She glances up at Dutch, her cheeks pink from the cold or the attention or both.
"I'm—well—are you familiar with any gangs up Northwest?" she says, quietly.
"Sure," Dutch says. "I know a few."
"OK, well—well, I'm looking for—well, for these brothers." She's got her hands clasped together, fidgeting with them. Her voice shakes—almost. "Two of them. By the name of Skinner. They have a small posse, I think, from what I could gather—not a large following, no. They're from up north, I think, almost by the border even, but that thing's been moving up and down so much who can tell anymore."
Dutch glances over at Arthur, standing silently behind her.
She continues: "Anyhow. I'm looking for them. Is all."
"Well," Dutch says, brows furrowed, mulling it over. "No, I don't reckon I've heard of any Skinners. But we haven't been that far up north in a while."
"Yeah," she says, breathes out. "That sounds about right." Just her luck.
Dutch opens his mouth to ask her something—she thinks, probably to ask her why—but she doesn't know how to explain anything anymore, at least not yet, so she jumps in.
"I was thinking–" she starts, "that I might stay with you all, just for a while. I won't take anything, anymore—it's just—see, I don't—well I don't have a horse or money or—or anything really anymore and I've been thinking on it all morning and if it's alright with you all that I might—well, that I might stay. With you all. For a while. Is all."
Arthur notes her supreme discomfort at this—at asking for help, acknowledging that she needs it.
She starts again. "I can even–I can even help hunt! I'm an alright shot and—"
Dutch holds up his hand.
"Miss, it's fine," he says. Arthur's not surprised, but still looks on in disbelief at how quickly Dutch dismissed her story, let her stay with them till God-knows-when doing God-knows-what. "You're more than welcome with us. We're not much," Dutch laughs lightly, "but you're welcome here."
She nods, gratitude soft on her usually stoic face.
Dutch looks at Arthur again.
"Weren't you and Charles about to go lookin' for some food, anyhow?"
Arthur, reluctantly: "Yes, but—"
"Well, there you go. Another capable hand," Dutch motions to Willa. "Take her with you."
Arthur sighs.
"Alright," he says. "Let's go." Arthur is about to take her by the arm again, but she dodges him, steps forward in front instead, shoots a quick look back at him and walks through the door.
He sighs, again.
Arthur watches her make a path through the snow, trailing behind her small footprints. He picks up his pace.
What the hell is she doin'?
"You mind explainin' to me why you're leadin' the way if you don't know where you're goin'?"
She stops, immediately, turns sideways to look at him. Arthur catches up with her, throws a quick glare as he passes her, shoves the bow back in her hands, stands a few paces in front of her.
"This way," he says, motioning behind the barn. "We're meeting Charles by the horses."
Arthur looks at her, in her torn-up coat, layers and layers of thin clothing peeking through, a damp scarf wrapped around her neck.
Jesus, he thinks. How did he end up here—on a frozen mountain, on the run from the law, babysittin' some kid who rose up outta nowhere. He shakes his head. Willa furrows her brows at him.
"Wait here," Arthur tells her, and goes back into the cabin, emerges with a shearling coat.
"Here," he says, roughly, shoving it into her arms. "Before you freeze to death." Don't know how she hasn't already, he thinks. "It ain't gonna fit you right but it's better than what you got on."
She holds it up, gingerly. He can tell—from earlier, how much she hated asking to stay—that she's considering throwing it in the snow and telling him she doesn't need any favors, but he sees the pink in her face, how she moves quickly and with frigidity. This kind of cold will have you taking anything you can get.
"And take that goddamn wet scarf off," Arthur motions to her neck, then looks away, out into the trees. "Unless you wanna get sick or somethin'."
Willa does as she's told, remove the top layers of her coats—Arthur catches a look at her from the corner of his eye.
Who was this girl? Dutch seemed alright with leaving things where they were, with her bare-bones story about chasin' after some brothers, but Arthur couldn't. Last night, he thought she was just some girl out on her luck, maybe runnin' away, but then this—waking up before everyone else, taking a horse and a bow, finding a marmot in the middle of this weather. How she even made it here in the first place. He's thinkin' now it's much more likely someone else was runnin' from her.
And Arthur doesn't like that one bit.
Charles had already been waiting for them when they walked up—had introduced himself quickly to Willa. No questions. She decides, then and there, that she likes him.
"I think it'd be best if we split up." He motioned towards them. "It's too damn quiet here, and we'll make too much noise. Cover more ground, this way, too."
Arthur nods—"Sure"—and watches as Charles gets back on his horse and moves, northwest and onto higher ground.
Willa looks at Arthur for a moment, and then starts to move away, too, but Arthur grabs her, quickly.
"No," Arthur says, gruffly, pulls her back to him. "You're comin' with me."
She frowns, starts to protest. "I'm more than capable of going on my o—"
"Oh, I know," he says. "I aim to find out exactly what you're capable of."
Willa's confusion deepens on her face, and she tries to wrestle out of his grasp.
"I ain't Dutch," he continues, tightening his grip, his voice low. "And while your ol' big-eyed silent act might-a worked for him," he pulls her closer, "you're gonna answer some-a my questions now."
They rode in silence until they reached a stretch of land by the lake. Arthur stops the horse, doesn't say anything—lets her get off first, on her own.
He slides off, gets his own gun from the horse's satchel, starts walking forward.
"Come on," he says roughly.
After a few paces, she talks.
"Did I do something wrong?" she says, her voice small, and for a moment, Arthur feels almost-bad for talking to her the way he had. Who knows how long she's been like this, on her own. But he remembers the state they were all in and how they couldn't spare any risks, even ones that were barely over five feet tall—not now. He stops and turns towards her.
"I don't like you wastin' my time with all this, that's what." he says. "I got bigger things to worry about than thinkin' about whether you're up to no good or not."
She stops walking. "Oh," she says. "Like I said, I—"
"I know, I know—you're trackin' someone, not runnin' from somethin' but to somethin' and all that—you only talk in riddles or somethin'?" He shakes his head and looks at her. The large collar of her coat and its fur lining pushed her cheeks up slightly, mouth hardly visible and voice muffled, her loose hair just a tuft peeking through—making her look even more like a child. Arthur sighs. "Just tell me where you're from."
"Oregon," she says. She brushes a few snowflakes off her head. "Or—Washington, now, maybe. Who knows what they're calling anything up there anymore."
"That far, huh?" Arthur furrows his brow. "And runnin' around snowy mountains with no gun or supplies or anything else worth speakin' of—that an Oregon thing? Pilferin' through people's things?" He stares at her, sizes her up again. "You even know how to survive on your own? Or did you just coast here on sheer luck?"
She looks away.
"No, I—I do," she pauses suddenly, the change in her tone abrupt. "I can't believe—you think I'm an idiot? You're the only one who knows how to do anything? Fuck you." She glares at him. "I made it here. On my own." Her small hand makes a fist at her side, involuntarily.
He's taken aback for a moment—the harshness of that word in that flat schoolteacher voice of hers, when she's standin' there in that coat lookin' like a damn bear cub.
Willa sees him open his mouth and she cuts him off.
"I had a gun," she continues, "but—well, the way I got here was—I hopped train to train make it here from out northwest—I don't have any money, haven't for a while—and got caught a few times. One time I got caught—I don't know how long ago, really, anymore—and they tried to make me pay with the money I did not have, or throw me off, and so—I guess they just settled for taking everything worth anything off my back instead."
"And you let them?"
"And what was I supposed to do? Take on the whole damn train with my rusted old revolver?" She shakes her head. "None of it mattered, anymore, anyway. I couldn't even think, then—or now." She looks down. "All I knew was that I had to keep moving."
He wants to ask what the hell happened to her, ask her why she's after those brothers, why she can't sleep with everyone else back in the cabin. But he remembers how she looked at that dead marmot today, one trembling hand over its face—how she looked that first night in the barn, almost grey from the cold and exhaustion—and he knows he can't, and shouldn't. Not yet. Not here.
She continues: "The last time—that's how I got here, stuck in the mountains. I know I said that—well, I said that I tracked them through here, but. Well, that's not true. Since you're starting to seem like the type that values honesty." Arthur bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling at her sarcasm. "I knew this train was going east, through the mountains, and that's where I needed to go—they found me once they had already gone up into the peaks, and threw me off."
"Threw you off into the snow? In the middle-a this?"
"Yeah, well—I don't know if you know this, Arthur, but—Americans, especially out here, aren't exactly known for their kindness."
She scratches her cheek. Continues, a small smirk on her face: "Well, except for you all, of course. You, especially."
The corner of Arthur's mouth twitches into an almost-smile. "So you're stayin', then?"
"Don't have much elsewhere to go. Unless you know of some other gang of misfits taking in new recruits off the street around here." She motions to the snow-capped forest.
"Alright, then," Arthur says. "Let's go."
Willa watches him as he moves forward, into the snow, wondering how she got here—no longer just her own thoughts rattling inside her, her own voice made imagined in the solitude. There she was—always in the wrong place in the wrong time, and then this: Stumbling upon Dutch and his gang, upon him. Nothing had made sense to her in a long while, but she feels it even more so, right now in the middle of all this—before, she had some kind of clear logic to things, always one foot in front of the other, always forward—and now—
"Alright," she says.
And she follows him.
This is longer than most of the chapters are going to be — I'm envisioning smaller vignettes!