Arthur Morgan's Journal rdr2

Horseshoe Overlook

Finally, a thaw in this god awful weather. We got off the mountain, and rode east into some pretty enough country called The Heartlands.

Ain't been this far east in many a year. Hosea seems to know the country a little.
Ain't been much of a spring. Now holed up at a place called Horseshoe Overlook, outside of some dumpy little cattle town, name of VALENTINE.

Dutch seems a little better. His eyes are sparkling once more and I can see he's thinking a little clearer.

I think we all feel a little happier, in spite of Blackwater and that whole mess.

Met some old drunk in Valentine. Claimed he was a shootist. Seemed more like a clown. Some poor fool was writing a book about him, or trying to. Levin was the name of the writer. Jim Calloway was the killer. Apparently Levin needs more information. Asked me to find a few folk who have spent more time in publicity than me and knew old Jim back when he was a real killer. Their names are Emmett Granger, Flaco Hernandez, Billy Midnight, and Black Belle. Sound like a troupe of clowns. We shall see what kinds of people those who want to be famous murderers is. My hopes are not too high.

Met Emmett Granger. I cannot think of a single man I have enjoyed seeing dead more than this bastard. Pig shit and hatred and he still threw a knife at me.

Found Flaco Hernandez for that silly book. Killed him. Bastard jumped out of the way but I still got him. Didn't seem like the type I was going to befriend, anyway.

Guess Billy Midnight never escaped his past. Guy was deranged about shooting some fella in the back or in their sleep or something else very sensible in my opinion. Anyway, guilt had consumed him, so like a real proper gentleman, he tried to kill me.

Black Belle - what a woman. If she was younger and I was in the market for a woman to go killing with, what a pair we could have made. She told me old Boy Calloway was a poseur and a liar. Big surprise.

Colm O'Driscoll slipped through our fingers once more and I saw my own life slip through mine. That gentle buffoon we kidnapped up in the mountains took us to a cabin. We were planning to kill Colm but he had just gone elsewhere. We shot a bunch of his boys and one was about to end my life when Kieran shot him. This FEUD, it's bled out from Dutch and Colm's mutual hatred into a loathing that permeates all of us and all of them.

Still, I found quite a shotgun in the cabin.

Took a day off and went off hunting with Hosea. He really seems to be getting his strength back a bunch, although he was lucky not to die as this big bear he'd been after turned on us.

I thought when we was stuck up in the mountains that the cold and the misery would kill him, and we'd bury him like we buried Jenny and Davey. But, he's pulled through and he'll live a while yet.

I love Dutch like a father, but in many ways, I love Hosea even more. He's kind and fair and like a human being.
Dutch is something else.
This bear was also something else. Size of a god damn hotel, it was and mean with it.

Got into some god awful fight in the town saloon.
Bill started it. He's wound so tight about something I reckon he'll start hitting himself soon enough. I was stopped from beating some big yokel to death by a local do-gooder.

I could not tell if this made me pleased or real angry. The local crowd seemed to want to see BLOOD however.

Afterwards Dutch accosted me with old Josiah Trelawny, back and quite as slippery and confusing as ever.

He'll come and go again, no doubt and leave none us any the wiser as to who or what he is.

Trelawny told us that Sean had not been killed in Blackwater, but was a prisoner there, held by scalp hunters awaiting payment. Charles Smith, Javier and I met in Blackwater and rescued that loud mouthed maniac. Before we'd even cut him free from the tree he was mouthing off at us.