Chapter Text
Public hangings have a certain small town charm to them, you decide.
Back in San Francisco (or St Denis, even), hangings are so commonplace that it takes an axe murderer to draw a crowd. The usual audience will be there, of course — old men with nothing better to do, horrified tourists, etc… but unless the crime is particularly sordid or the criminal especially notorious, the residents tend to treat the hanging schedule like the weather report. That is, something to check every week, but nothing to go out of your way to pay attention to.
Here in Strawberry though, hangings are infrequent enough that almost everyone in town’s gathered in the street. The offender is a local — some idiot who shot several people in a bar fight. He’s weeping openly on the platform, and the crowd is jeering at him with all the enthusiasm of a group of children at a circus.
People are jostling each other to get a better look at the accused, so you’re forced to shove your way through the crowd, squeezing through the throng and holding your arm in front of you to clear the way. Without looking, you carelessly knock your shoulder against someone’s back.
“ S’cuse me,” you say, glancing backwards and throwing up a hand in apology .
The man grunts and makes brief eye contact before he -
Wait a second.
Dark blond hair. A set of scars on his chin. A look in his face so suggestive of a barely restrained brutality that it triggers an instinctive urge to flee.
Arthur Morgan.
Don’t panic , you urge yourself. He’s not going to recognize you. He was barely even conscious when he saw your face.
You give him your best immigrant smile, the one that puts most Americans at ease when they begin looking at you with suspicion. A deferential and cheerful turn of your lips, eyes wide with a hint of confusion. Just another foreigner who doesn’t speak a lick of English. Harmless.
“Saw-ree,” you say, affecting a heavy accent. You wave sheepishly.
The man raises his eyebrows, but there’s no spark of re collection in his eyes. He turns away to give his attention back to the gallows .
When you finally free yourself from the sea of spectators, you heave a sigh of relief and start walking briskly back to your hotel room.
Slightly shaken from the chance encounter in the crowd, it’s with Arthur Morgan still on your mind that you take a quick shortcut through the narrow alley between the saloon and the gunsmith.
So it’s ironic then , that it’s Arthur Morgan who grabs you from behind the moment the main road is out of sight, his hand over your mouth as he yanks you against him, your back against his front and his arm wrapped securely around your waist.
“If you scream,” he says, “I’ll snap your neck.”