bakerstreet | pic prompts.

Khan wasn't as fast as Edelweiss but Arthur noted how steady he was as he came up on the O'Driscoll, and didn't shy at the gunfire neither. But he'd go over how those great traits would pass on at some other point. He had an O'Driscoll to catch.

When they got within range, Arthur let his rope fly and he snagged the man around the waist and yanked. The man let out a yelp as he was pulled off his horse and they all came to a stop. Arthur hopped down and hogtied the bastard in practiced motions.

"We get'em all?" he asked John, looking around, spotting the palomino slowing down some yards ahead, the other horses scattered about "We need to round those up" he said. Horses loaded with gear would draw suspicion. Before, they'd be content with letting them go without issue but they couldn't alert the town at all that there was another gang in the area right under their nose.

He then hauled the O'Driscoll up and propped him against the foot of a tree. "Alright, talk. What the hell are O'Driscolls doing way up here? Is Colm still alive?"

"Right." John went to go fetch the horses, having to pull out the lashes to do so. It was a pretty damn good steal, all things told; four, five new horses for their ranch, on top of some information. He was still furious, and it was a damn good thing Arthur was taking care of the little chit-chat, because he would have been extremely glad to take the man's head off the moment he said one word.

The O'Driscoll, a man about Arthur's age, glared daggers up at Arthur, then a look of recognition came over his face. "They said you was dead! That you was hung!" But more to the point - and he got to it - he growled, "We was scoutin' up this way on account of we heard there was good pickin's, easy marks! Colm ain't up here, I swear!"

"Swear all you like," John said, on his way past to round up one horse which had escaped in this direction, then shouted behind him as he galloped past, "We know you're lyin'!"

"Well as you can see, I ain't dead. But you will be if you don't talk." he growled right back, letting some of the bear shine through to press the threat

He listened intently, glancing at John when he rode by but focus was on the man, trying to figure out if he was lying. Might be...

"Where's Colm then? What's he up to?" he asked

There was something in Arthur's eyes, the wildness, the aura of being much, much larger than he was that made Colm's man's voice crack and him stammer over every word, but he managed to spit out, "Colm's not here!"

He wasn't very good at this whole telling the truth thing.

John managed to have two horses rounded up, lashed them to a tree, then went after the other two which had bolted the opposite direction. It'd take a little bit, but he was more than happy to do something other than sit on his hands. These horses were fine specimens, too. There was one that John had only seen the kind just once before, a cracker horse, used by cowboys in the southeast. The stallion was a deep chestnut brown with a blond mane and tail, pretty as a picture. The other three were standardbreds.

"Damn, ain't you a pretty one," he said as he rounded the big boy up, and trotted him over with the rest. "We're glad to have ya, friend."

The fourth, however, was nowhere to be found. That was a shame. Well, one loose horse was better than four. Now it came time to move the bodies off the road. John decided hell, waste nothing had always been the method, and went through the dead men's pockets, taking out the money, taking off the rings. All of it would be coming home with them, along with the contents of the horse's saddlebags.

It was a mess, but it kept him busy.

Arthur growled again, curled a fist, and struck him hard in the stomach to knock the air out of him.

"The more you lie, the more pain you'll be in." he warned, then drew his pistol and held it to the man's balls. "Or I can just start shootin' them jewels and let you bleed out for the wolves to find."

Colm's man coughed a few seconds, squirming against the binds of the rope, curling inward towards the pain of the blow to his stomach, "He's... He's south'a here," came the agonized words of the man, "Lake Walcott. Took over..." He was interrupted by a few brutal coughs, "Took over a farmhouse."

John discarded the saddlebags off the horses, once he packed what was in them into Peggy's. The saddles themselves were plain, but fair enough to keep, and definitely worth a good amount of money, especially the one on the cracker horse. John hopped off Peggy, leaving her with the others as he went about soothing the whole lot, hushing and patting them, brushing the dust off their coats while soothing them and lashing them together so they could come home with Arthur and him.

Arthur listened to him wheeze, pressing the tip of his pistol against the man's gut until he got what he wanted.

Satisfied with his answer, Arthur shot him in the heart without another word and made sure his body was off the road before rejoining John.

"Bastard is here alright. South, Lake Walcott." he said shortly, mounting up on Khan. "Let's go" he took the leads on two of the four horses and led them behind him and they rode out.

Irritation and anger now burned white hot in him. They'd left the Heartlands and West Elizabeth behind along with the fire of a gunfight. To make and have a life, a legitimate life. Colm being here was bringing out the worst in them all over again.

This had to end.

"Dammit, figures." John didn't have much to say other than that. He lashed the other two up to Peggy, admiring the cracker horse again as he did, then followed quickly along. "You see this horse? Don't know how an O'Driscoll managed to get one. Could probably sell him outright and make enough money to feed the whole damn ranch, animals and all, for a month. Don't know if we'd find another cracker horse up this far north, but he'd be one hell of a sire." He wouldn't apologize for losing his mind over such a fine horse, but he needed something positive to think about before he dug himself into a mental state he didn't want to ever find himself in again.

He was also wondering if the two of them could take on Colm and his closest men, but then he reminded himself that Arthur was a bear. If they couldn't shoot their way through, he definitely could tear through what was left.

John shook his head, "We was over and done with all this. Whaddya plan to do about Colm? Take him out, or take him with?"

"We'll have to figure all that out when we get back, for now keep them close." he said, mind having shifted entirely to dealing with Colm and his men. The horse John was fawning over was nice and quite a prize but they'd have to be careful selling these horses, and without paperwork they wouldn't get what they were truly worth. They'd have to sell them in Aberdeen or further north if they ended up not wanting to keep them.

For now, they had O'Driscolls to hunt.

"We see how many men he's got. We can't risk him or any of his men getting away with the knowledge we're up here. But if we're way out-numbered, I'd rather come back with a couple more guns." While he could and probably would shift for the fight both to provide a distraction and for maximum advantage, more men than they could keep their eyes on meant more likelihood of one recognizing John or himself and getting to the authorities.

"Try to take Colm alive, gotta find out why he's up here." he advised.

Well, at least he'd tried. Seeing Arthur so dead-set, so ready to put the whole thing to rest brought him back down into a serious frame of mind, and John set his jaw, making sure the horses stayed with them.

Soon enough, they broke out into a clearing, farmland that spread far ahead. John decided to hitch the horses to one of the trees, and got back on Peggy, to start riding slowly, slowly enough not to draw attention, but fast enough that if they ran across anyone, they'd only have a quick glance.

The large farmhouse and surrounding farm had at least thirty horses in front of it that he could see, a couple wagons... "That's a lotta 'em. Thirty or more." He looked over at Arthur, deferring to him for this one. Arthur knew what his limits were, or at least John hoped he did. "My thought on it's that this ain't a two-man job."

Arthur was indeed eager to put this to rest. He was through with O'Driscolls and Pinkertons and wanted nothing more than it all to end. But the horse and cart counts were too high to risk just them going in.

Still, he had a look around with his binoculars, seeing if he could spot Colm and at least confirm he was there. Didn't recognize any of the men milling about, a sign of how many the man went through, but eventually he did land on a familiar dark brown horse he'd seen when they fought his men near Colter. Colm was here.

It was a long tense moment before Arthur put his binoculars away. "We have to come back with more folk."

He nudged Khan back towards the other horses. "We get back to the ranch quickly, let Dutch know and we come back immediately. If the O'Driscolls we just killed are noticed to be gone too long, Colm might bolt."

John nodded and turned his horse around, following Arthur with a sour look on his face. "Dutch ain't gonna be too happy 'bout this. Paranoid as he is, he's gonna probably get it in his head that he's gotta get gone." It was something John had been clinging to in his mind, what Arthur told him. Dutch didn't want to stick around, and this was just the excuse he'd need to leave.

He shook his head and took the lashes off the low branch he'd hitched the horses on, and they made their way back, with John being silent, but clearly thinking everything over. Making plans of his own, tactics, how to approach the farmhouse without getting caught. There was corn growing high around the farm, that would give them sufficient cover. The farm was a fairly open spread of land, with very little cover to hide in. It would have to be a night job.

Job. The word curdled and turned in his mind. Would he ever be anything but an outlaw? The look of disgust crept onto his face without him realizing.

"If that's what he wants to do, then that's what he's gonna do. Nothing we can do to convince or stop him. But that ain't important right now." he reasoned, having a slightly more even head in this than John. Whatever Dutch wanted to do after this, he didn't care. Dutch had gotten them here and they'd settled in well into this life, his position as leader though was no longer needed.

They arrived back at the ranch in good time, fortunately encountering no one on the road.

Lenny greeted them, "More horses? Ain't we got enough?" he joked but noticed the looks on the two men's faces. "What's wrong?"

"We got trouble. Put them in the paddock and get your gun and a mount for yourself" Arthur ordered, giving the reins of Khan to John before running to go get Dutch. The commotion quickly drew everyone out from what they were doing. Kieran went to help Lenny with the horses.

"We got a big problem and its name is Colm O'Driscoll." he said soon as he was within range of the older man. "He's holed up south of here along with at least thirty men."

John held onto the reins of the big stallion, and patted his horse's neck, grabbing out treats for both Peggy and Khan, feeding them and telling them they've been good. Abigail came out at the commotion, and then looked at John. It wasn't much of an argument. The look on his face was stony and gravely serious, and there was no talking to him in moments like this.

Sean came up to him and he repeated what Arthur told Lenny. There was trouble and it had to come to an end, tonight, no matter what.

Dutch looked up at the driven man before him and the immediate shift on his demeanor was almost frightening. The very name of Colm O'Driscoll made his blood boil. He stood, jaw set. "Hosea, hold down the fort, look after the women. Ain't gonna be long." There was little that would get Dutch out of his ivory tower, but the chance at getting Colm was the most effective. "Come on, gentlemen, we ain't gonna hear the end of our old lives until the ghosts of it are laid to rest."

It wasn't long before everyone was back on their way. It wasn't nearly as large a party as Dutch would have liked, but he didn't have much room to be choosy at a time like this. He let Arthur and John lead, since they knew where this common lowlife bastard had holed himself up. It was almost a palpable presence within both himself and John at least, the driving fury and righteous anger.

Back on the road and past the town, John explained, "There's cornfields around the farm, easy cover to sneak up, but the farm itself's open ground. Ain't gonna leave us a lotta defense. Lenny, Sean, you're gonna pick off the runners."

Dutch agreed to that, and then said, "You boys cover me, I'll take Colm. This ends tonight."

Dutch, John, Lenny, Sean, Kieran, Pearson, and himself, Arthur observed. Seven versus over thirty. What he'd give to have the rest of the gang as back up at this moment, hell, he'd even take Micah, bastard though he was, he'd been a good gun. But there was no choice. They couldn't wait as the possibility of discovery, or an ambush, was far too high.

So, it was just them. Six men, and a bear.

They'd be fine. He hoped.

"I'll go in on the flank, draw their fire and cause confusion, while their backs are turned you come up on them from the corn" Arthur said. While he could get kills more easily with his gun, everyone outside the buildings would have eyes on him, giving the rest a chance to come up behind. Worked for the train job, would work again.

"Don't kill Colm if you can help it Dutch, we have to find out why he's up here. I'm convinced it ain't no coincidence" Arthur reiterated to him, knowing perfectly well how much he longed to put a bullet between that man's eyes.

"That's not a promise I can make," Dutch said, looking ahead at Arthur, but he appreciated the sentiment. He knew that there was need to know what the hell brought Colm and his band of miscreants up this far, but ultimately, it didn't matter. Colm was going to die tonight.

It wasn't long before the seven of them made their way to the clearing, hiding their horses within the tree line. As they made their way into the edge of the cornfield, John led the way, motioning for the men to break off into groups, Arthur and himself covering Dutch, Lenny and Pearson to take one end of the farm, and Sean and Kieran to take another.

They weren't even halfway through the field when there was a commotion from the farm. Gunshots rang out by the dozens, and then there was an explosion, catching the farmhouse on fire. Yelling could be heard, one was a clear "GET TO THE BARN!"

"Christalmighty, what now?" John hissed, and stood up to look at what the hell was going on.

He couldn't see much, but what he could see was carnage. Another explosion went off, and the groans of dying men started to ring out and echo through the fields.

John patted Arthur on the shoulder as he ran ahead, figuring if they were already so occupied with whatever was going on, the O'Driscolls were distracted enough not to see their speedy approach.

He'd expected thirty men, but he saw somewhere leaning closer to fifty, or what was fifty, but was now more to the tune of 35, as they all were facing the other direction, and then he saw the darting figure of a slender woman dashing between cover and shooting.

John's brow furrowed in disbelief, his face illuminated by the light of the house fire.

Dutch, who was right beside them, was very much in the same state of shock as he muttered, "Sadie Adler."

"Well, we oughta go help her, don'tcha think?" John said as he ran out, both his guns drawn, picking off a few of the men farther back and covered from Sadie's gunfire. It was cue enough for the rest of the gentlemen walk out to start firing, coming out of the field to open fire.

He gave Dutch a look. "Try" he said shortly. While they all wanted him dead and all of this over with, it was important to know why he was way up here and so close to them. If there was even the slightest chance the man was hunting them for the law or had struck a deal with Pinkertons, they had to know. The gang's future depended on being kept out of the spotlight of the government.

Everyone got into positions, working as orderly as they had in months past. A well oiled machine.

Arthur was about to break off and shift form when the commotion rang out and he saw it was indeed Mrs. Adler.

"I'll be damned" he laughed. He stepped out with the rest and raised his rifle, picking off O'Driscolls as they scattered, shooting others on fire to put them out of their misery all the while keeping an eye out for Colm.

It wasn't a very fair fight, now that they had eight, and one of them was hellbent as ever. John could see Sadie's surprise that lasted about two seconds before she just went with it, and kept going with what she was doing. "THE HUGE GUY IS MINE," she commanded.

John, with his attention drawn to her, was tackled down, his shoulder dislocated, and he was punched in his face. It was a struggle for him for a moment, but he shot the man in the head just after his wrist got pierced by a razor-sharp hunting knife. Before he could do anything else, he had to tend to that before he bled out. Ripping the shirt off the man who'd stabbed him, he used his good arm to twist the torn fabric around his arm, tightly tying it off, before getting back to work.

Dutch, for his part, was doing a damn good job keeping the fire off his boys, and drawn away from Sadie. "WHERE'S COLM," he shouted. It was only a few seconds later that a horse dashed out of the barn with a rider on it, and there was Colm, about to get away. "SHIT," Dutch glared daggers at the passing horse and rider, and ran to find another horse so he could give chase.

Kieran and Lenny weren't far behind when they saw where Dutch was headed, stealing a pair of horses and going after the two gang leaders, giving Dutch backup.

It was chaos.

Arthur saw John go down but he was up and wrapping his injury before he could get to him. He then saw Colm, then Dutch and Kieran take off. He could tell them to hold back while he went after the man, but as a bear he'd not be able to catch up with Colm on even a half decent horse, and he didn't know the roads well enough around here to figure out a path quick enough to cut through and cut him off.

He just had to trust they'd be alright while they cleared out the rest-

Arthur cried out as he was shot in the shoulder, distracted for a few seconds too long. He turned and put a bullet in the man who'd hit him and then closed in with the rest of what remained of the gang and Sadie, wound already healing up, though his jacket had a nice bloody hole in it now.

"Fancy meetin' you here!" he said over the noise to Sadie as he took cover with her, taking a moment to reload.

"I wondered when we'd cross paths again," Sadie said, still working through the few stragglers, before she kicked the barn door open. "Get out here, I know you're in here, big fat ugly bastard!"

The ones who weren't taken out were left in the barn, and John met up with Arthur and Sadie. "All right?"

"I'm fine. Go tend to that wrist. You comin' with, Arthur?" she said, looking over her shoulder.

Meanwhile, Dutch managed to eventually catch up with Colm and drag him off his horse. "And just where do you think you're goin', mister O'Driscoll? I think you'n me have some talkin' to do. Why're you here."

"The Marshalls," Colm said breathlessly, genuinely rattled, "They think I took documents I didn't take."

"Fancy that. C'mon, old friend," Dutch said, hoisting Colm up by his collar, "I was persuaded not to kill you on sight. We need more information than that."

With Colm hogtied and on the back of his borrowed horse, Dutch rode back to the burning house, victorious in his posture, and maybe just a little bit up on himself.

"Where's Arthur and Sadie?" He asked John, who was leaning against one of the wagons, looking at the barn. There were a couple gunshots that way.

"Take a guess."

Arthur had a quick look at John, injured but alive. Sadie was already moving and he decided to stick with her. He looked to John however. "Make sure Dutch don't kill Colm until we've talked with him" he said before following Sadie into the barn to find more O'Driscolls to kill.

Lenny and Kieran looked at one another when they caught up with the two men, perhaps a little afraid they'd need to hold Dutch back from killing Colm immediately. But it seemed he was showing restraint and they accompanied him back without incident.

John, for what it was worth, was doing his best to ignore the horrible pain shooting up his wrist and making his dislocated arm throb. "Pearson, c'mere, help me with this." Pearson walked up and helped with his arm, getting John's arm back in its socket (With John growling out in pain,) then started to look at the wound. At least it didn't cut cords, though the blood that was soaking the rag of the shirt that John had put around it wasn't a good sign. "Let's get you outta here," Pearson said, leading the younger man away.

"Abigail's gonna finish the job," John joked, shaking his head as he walked away and back towards the horses.

Colm was pitching a fit on the back of the horse on which he was stashed, and Dutch, impressively keeping his temper - barely - simply gagged the man with a bandanna around his mouth. "You're gonna talk, friend, just not right now." He looked over at the rest of the gentlemen, assessing their damage. John seemed to be the only one with more than superficial wounds, and that wasn't half bad, given their usual run of luck. "You boys join Pearson and Marston, take our esteemed guest with you," he said, nodding over to Colm.

Sadie was beelining towards her intended target, who was tucked up in the hayloft in the barn. Ascending upwards, she left the few men in the lower level to Arthur. What she knew was this farm full of assholes weren't the last of them, but they certainly were the lion's share.

Kieran worked to secure Colm to the horse, make sure he didn’t fall off on the ride home before retrieving their horses, and helping get John mounted. Lenny opted to stay and make sure Dutch, Arthur and Sadie were okay. While they waited for their unexpected eighth member and their bear, Lenny rounded up what O’Driscoll horses he could and began undoing any gear on them to set them free. They had more than enough back home, best let them go. The farmhouse was a lost cause, Lenny only hoped the owners had either run or gotten a quick death.

Arthur followed Sadie up, hot on her heels, gun at the ready but it seemed she had things well under control. They cornered her prey, Arthur knocking over and shooting another guy who’d tried to hide with her target.

Sean helped Lenny with his task of freeing the horses, laughing that this certainly didn't go to plan, but he wouldn't argue the results, and Dutch slowly, carefully approached the barn, and called out "Pretty sure we're clear out here, we got Colm. Finish up here, and meet us back where we got the horses."

The trouble with O'Driscolls was that there were always too many of them, and nobody could be sure that there weren't more on their way. Which was why, when Dutch turned to walk towards the field, out towards the horses, two shots rang out, hitting him. One grazed his neck, but the other lodged itself into his thigh. He spit out a loud, "Dammit!" and fell, one hand immediately on his neck. This wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to him, not by a mile, but it still always hurt like hell. Before he could receive any more fun future-scars, he shuffled himself into cover, looking in the direction from which the shots were fired, drawing one of his guns once more. Listening around him, he heard someone running up to him and he aimed, immediately bringing his finger off the trigger when he saw Sean. "Careful, son," he hissed, pulling him down with his free hand to hunker down next to him.

"ARTHUR! GET OUT HERE," Dutch commanded, his voice gone reedy for a second.

Sadie seemed to have everything in order here, or rather, she could handle herself, as she brought out her knife and started going to town on the huge hulk of a man, screaming at him every last sin he'd committed against her.

Arthur watched her go to town on the man, stabbing, swearing and telling him al he'd done to her, but he was quickly distracted by the gunshots outside and then Dutch's call.

"Ah Christ yea been hit Dutch!" Sean cried the obvious, but the hidden gunman kept him from peeking out. "Yea foolish O'Driscoll! Yea got nowhere to go! Surrender or die!" he yelled out in the direction where the gunman was.

Arthur poked his head out the window, looking around the area to see what was going on. Dutch and Sean were in cover together with more red than the man usually wore on him, and Lenny was hunkered down behind a cart.

Movement caught his eye and he spotted the lone O'Driscoll. He pulled his rifle off his back, took aim...He whistled to get his attention, when he looked up, Arthur fired, striking him in the head. He dropped to the ground in a pool of his own blood.

He gave Sadie's shoulder a squeeze as he passed, the corpse of her victim gutted like a sloppy slaughter job. "Come down when you're ready" he said and went to go see how hurt Dutch was.

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