It's been about a week or two since I've found myself in this little village of Farfort. It's a nice place really, but I really need to get off my ass and get on outta here. It'll be sooner or later, the law or whatever will come knocking. I don't deserve these people's kindness. That kid, Donnel, he's kind of grown on me. Could just me gettin soft, but who gives a damn. He's a naturally curious feller and he gets himself in trouble a lot, but nothing too dangerous by the look of things. Still trying to learn how to ride a horse by himself with only worded instructions by me.

I still can't believe magic is real here, also dragons apparently, but that's a stretch for me. Somethin weird is goin on here, they don't even know what a gun is. I can't wrap my head around any of this, but I doubt it would be easy.

….

Arthur finished up his latest journal entry and got off the fence post he leaned on. It wasn't because he was done, but there seemed to be a commotion in the middle of the street by the Tinhead residence. Donnel got off the horse he was practicing with and ran towards his home. Arthur casually strolled on down, things may turn ugly.

He noted three buff and shirtless men with crude axes as he walked closer. Their voices sounded just a stupid as he imagined them to be.

"Boss says you ain't payin enough tribute these last few weeks."

Arthur casually shifted through the small crowd that began to gather. The voices in the crowd recognized them and identified them as a usual occurrence.

"Please, partner, we haven't been gettin much lat-"

Mr. Bucket was interrupted as one of the brutish men grabbed him by the collar, "I ain't your partner! Boss says you been holdin out, then you been holdin out. He says scouts see you bring in a lot more lately and givin us the same amount."

Arthur sighed and shifted his hat. He decided to wait and see what would happen for now, usually people like these reveal too much information on the wim. As much as he would like to help Mr. Bucket, he'd just have to take some of it.

"Those fellers-"

"Don't try anything, Donnel."

"But Pa!"

"Pa's right, Donny."

"Ma… okay."

He didn't mean to overhear the Tinheads, but he did.

"What do you want? We'll give you whatever you want."

"Give us, what the boss says, eighty percent of your resources. Plus a new woman every month, it doesn't matter where she comes from."

"That-that's absurd! We can't stan-"

Mr. Bucket had his face punched. Hard. His nose began bleeding and it looked like a tooth fell out. The crowd fell silent as the shirtless man pushed him to the ground.

"What the boss says, the boss says. We'll take a woman right now and have that be an apology for my poor hand."

Arthur remained stoic with the emotions that bottled up within him. The shirtless men looked around the crowd, before grabbing the arm of a young lady and forcing her out of the crowd.

"This one will do, a young one."

"Keri!"

"Mama!"

Arthur didn't like this, but he just needed to follow them back to their camp and put an end to this. He'll have enough supplies and whatever else to go back to traveling. It should be his last act of kindness for a while.

He saw Donnel suddenly burst from the crowd and give out a shout, "Let her go!"

"Damnit, kid." Arthur sighed as he forced himself a bit further in the crowd.

He punched one of them in the jaw and caused the man to noticeably stumble back. The man smiled as he cupped his cheek, "Ooh, we gots a fighter. Come here, boy. Try for another shot."

Donnel backed away a bit as he noted that the other one without the girl in hand approached him slowly, a smile etched on to his face. He couldn't process what happened immediately after as he was kicked in the chest by one, then tackled to the ground by the other. The man raised his fist, ready to beat the poor kid senseless.

"Now, ain't y'all just the most ugly sons-a-bitches I've ever seen in my life!"

Arthur slowly approached the men with a simple frown on his face.

"Who're you?"

"I'm about ta be your goddamned daddy on a drunk night."

"Clever one ain't ya?" The only man without a person in hand and tried to approach Arthur threateningly, "What're you gonna do to me?"

Arthur shook his head, "Nothin too much." He slowly reached for his back.

"That yer best threat, skinny weakling?"

"Naw."

Arthur quickly pulled out a knife and stabbed the man in the stomach, he shifted the knife downward and pushed in even deeper. He pulled out as he felt the man limp and twirled the knife around. It wasn't as light as a throwing knife, but it'll do the trick. He launched the knife towards the man pinning Donnel and got him right in the head. The last man scampered off without the girl as quickly as he could. He was out of sight as soon as Arthur crouched down right next to Donnel.

"Ya alright, boy?"

"Yeah, thank ya," Donnel looked around to see the two dead men that lay in the middle of the street, "Ya killed these men."

"Sorry, but they were going to kill you first."

Donnel shook his head, "No, no, Ma and Pa said that someone's going to end up dead sooner or. Just glad it ain't me."

"Donny!" Mrs. Tinhead latched herself onto her boy and checked to see if he was okay. While that was going on Mr. Bucket approached Arthur.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Kilgore. I don't understand why they're doin this now. So far they've been all bark and no bite. They've just gotten crazier recently."

"How long has this been happenin?"

"About a year or two now. We're no fighters, Mr. Tacitus, and we wanted to avoid that for a while now, but I guess we're gonna have to take up defense."

Arthur shook his head and looked down, "Sorry fer makin it worse."

"No, it was bound to happin sooner or later. It's my fault for not standin up to them earlier. I guess I'll round up the men to keep a lookout and stage a defense. See ya-round , I don't think you'll need trainin. You don't even have to defend us, since we got ya into our mess."

Mr. Bucket walked away and tried to gather some men to setup a defense. Arthur swore under his breath. He knew he shouldn't have gotten involved right then and there, but that boy, Donnel, was going to die too young.

Arthur looked towards Donnel, who tried to follow his father, who followed Mr. Bucket, but Mrs. Bucket denied it.

"But I want to fight, Ma!"

"It's too dangerous. Yer gonna get yourself killed fightin men like that! Look what happened when you tried to do it now!"

Arthur let them settle their problem by themselves. He walked off only to be approached by the mother whose daughter, Keri, he just save."

"Thank you so much, Mister. If you hadn't intervened, then my daughter.."

"Don't worry bout it Mrs."

The woman extended a hand filled with a small sum of gold, he would've grinned in excitement at the sudden patronage of gold, but then he remembered gold was the equivalent of a dollar here. Still it was nice to have some money.

"Take it, if I had all the gold in the world, I would give it to ya for savin my daughter."

Arthur graciously took it and put one half in one hand and another half in the other. He gave one of the halfs back to the woman, "Save some fer yerself. I'd honestly recommend gettin on out of here, before trouble starts back up."

"May the Divine Dragon bless you, Mister."

Arthur lowered his hat and watched as the woman walked away, probably to get on out of the town for a while.

"That Dragon's gonna need to save that fer someone else."

….

Donnel spoke up after they were out of earshot of the town. He and Arthur were going to gather the traps Donnel had laying about just to be on the safeside. They were on one of the horses that the town used.

"I don't get why Ma, doesn't want me ta fight."

"Seems understandable to me. What mother would want to see their child die in a fight. And fer what? Just so some bandits can raid a town and take a bunch of women for unmentionable things."

"It can't be that hard ta fight. I want to be right there when the action goes down. Defendin Farfort. You showed that it takes a few strikes to get em."

"I doubt you can easily pull that off, Donnel. I've have more than enough experience to easily do that."

"You must've gotten it from that big wide world out there somehow. I heard it's dangerous out there."

"Ya don't understand, boy. I have that experience cause I am not a good man."

"What?"

"I'm only tellin this cause I like ya, Donnel. I've robbed people, beaten people, taken what little they have. I killed people good, bad, and innocent! Hell,Tacitus Kilgore ain't even my real name."

"Pa suspected that ain't your real name. Ya seem kind enough. I haven't seen ya kill or beat any of the townsfolk."

"Are ya that naive?"

"Naw, Mister. You've been actin like a good man. Ma and Pa have told me that even bad people can always change."

"How do ya know I ain't just gonna kill y'all after this is done?"

"Because yer an honest man! Or at least your actions would tell us if yer plannin to kill us. Pa said that bad people can be seen from capital. Yer not a bad man.. At least, now you aren't."

Arthur smiled and looked back a bit, "Guess yer a lot smarter than I thought you were. Could've used that when you were tryin to go against those bandits."

A brisk silence passed between the two for a couple of seconds, "Ya mind tellin me yer real name? I won't tell the others, promise."

"Morgan. Arthur Morgan."

"Whoa."

"If I didn't know any better, I would've assumed yer a knight."

"A knight?"

"Yeah! It sounds way better than Tacitus Kilgore."

"Hey, now don't go insulting my name."

"But isn't it fake?"

"Still it's a good name."

The two shared a chuckle as they continued on to the location of where Donnel's traps were. They approached the general location, but a wagon without any horses laid dormant on the road.

"Go get yer traps. I'll handle this."

"Okay Mr. Morgan."

Donnel got off the horse and sprinted off into the woods. Arthur got off and slowly approached the wagon. Looked like a standard model supply wagon. He judged from the spears pointing out that it was probably a weapon wagon. He reached for a gun that wasn't there, but then reached for a knife.

"Hello? Anyone here? I ain't gonna hurt ya!"

Arthur didn't bother to rephrase his words as he moved closer to the wagon and no one popped out, "I mean I might have to hurt ya if ya just pop out and attack me. You and I both know that we won't like that."

Arthur saw a pair of arms shoot up from the wagon, plus a tuffle of red hair. From the way the person was stretching it was obvious that they were yawning. Were they asleep in the back of a horseless wagon? The hair obviously belonged to a woman as she turned around and had a somewhat bright smile appear on her face.

"Hello, I'm Anna. A humble merchant. Would you like to browse my wares. There's a special discount for early birds."

Arthur sheathed his knife and walked towards the woman slowly, "Yer, settin up shop in the middle of nowhere?"

"Not exactly, my horses ran off yesterday and I doubt they're gonna be back?"

"Whadja do to them to make them run off?"

Anna almost looked offended at the statement, "I never mistreat my horses, Mr…"

"Kilgore. Tacitus Kilgore."

"Mr. Kilgore... You might want to come up with a better fake name than that."

"And what happened to yer horses?" Arthur didn't have time for this.

"These things came up in the middle of the night and spooked them right off the wagon. Don't know what they were. I killed them and they just dissolved or something like that."

"You expect me to believe that ghosts came and spooked yer horses?" He honestly wouldn't discount it, he's seen some supernatural stuff in random houses. He's seen ghosts before.

"They aren't ghosts if I killed them."

Arthur shook his hand in front of his face and looked at the horseless wagon.

"Do you mind hooking up that horse over there. It must've been the one you came on. I was actually heading to a place called Farfort."

"I wouldn't be headin over there anytime soon, Miss. It seems some bandits are about ready to pillage the place."

"I do have weapons for sale."

"Seriously?" Arthur couldn't believe that she was possibly going to sell weapons in a danger zone, especially with a warning ahead of time.

"Sure thing. Some bandits aren't going to dissuade me from making a profit."

"To each of their own I guess. If you die, it ain't my problem."

"Excellent, shall we depart when you finish hooking up the horse?"

"Naw, we gotta wait for a buddy of mine to come back with some traps."

Arthur hooked up the horse to the wagon. It was only one horse, but it should be enough to pull it back to town. He can probably rush it, if he wanted to. Donnel arrived shortly after and was introduced to Anna. There was nothing caught in the traps.

Only small talk was made as they made their way back to Farfort, there was an undoubtable dread that filled the air. Arthur knew he should've left earlier, now he's stuck with this mess.

...

Slowly getting into this. See ya next time.