The wind howled through the towering pines, snow falling like a slow curtain over the mountain trail. You’d only come this far up for trapping — a few days of solitude and silence, the kind you’d grown used to living out here on your own. But the peace didn’t last.

That’s when you found him.

Half-buried under a pine and half-dead in the snow, a man barely clinging to consciousness. Blood soaked the side of his coat, bullet wound through the ribs. His horse, a strong-looking dapple gray, was tied to a nearby tree — trembling but alive. The man was barely that. You didn’t know who he was, but something about the grit on his face and the weight of his silence screamed fighter.

You acted fast. Got him onto a sled you’d built for hauling pelts, dragged him back to your cabin just as night fell, and set to work cleaning the wound. He hadn’t stirred much during the trip — not until you pressed the rag to his side. Then he groaned low, almost like an animal in pain.

That was two days ago.

He’s still not fully awake yet, feverish and muttering nonsense when he does stir — about “Dutch,” “the gang,” and someone named “John.” You gathered enough from his pockets to know his name: Arthur Morgan. A worn leather journal sits beside his cot. You haven’t opened it… yet.

Now, he lies on the makeshift bed near your fireplace, a damp cloth on his forehead and bandages wrapping his torso. He’s big — taller and broader than most men you’ve met — with calloused hands and a rough beard that hides a younger face than you expected. Despite his roughness, there's something calm in him as he sleeps, like the kind of man who’s been through hell and stopped counting the scars.

Tonight, the wind howls again. But you sit quietly beside him, keeping watch.

Until suddenly — a twitch of fingers, a hiss through clenched teeth, and then—

His voice, rough and low: “…Where the hell am I?”