Tuberculosis had ravaged the man's body. His face was flushed with a sickly red, his lips cracked and caked with blood.
To him now, the very air was like knives, churning violently in his lungs; every breath was an immense agony.
Arthur lay prone on the ground, his body broken, his strength ebbing away with the blood flowing from his numerous wounds.
The gunslinger's eyes were glazed and unfocused. Great swathes of darkness surged towards him, and Arthur knew this darkness was his death.
But there, just ahead of him, lay a gun!
Get it! Just get it!
Even though Arthur was fading fast, if he could just reach that gun, he could take down the traitor behind him before he died.
The gun in his hand would mean a bullet in that bastard's body.
Even now, at death's door, weakened to his absolute limit, he still had that confidence.
The gun had never betrayed him. The best gunslinger in the West would use his final bullet to settle things with that traitor, Micah.
The ground was littered with hard, sharp-edged gravel, scraping Arthur's body raw.
His hands were already a bloody mess, the nails torn away from straining against the rocks, exposing pale, raw flesh.
Behind him, the traitor stirred. They had fought on the cliff edge, tumbling down in their struggle.
Although Arthur had regained consciousness first, his physical condition was far worse than the traitor's.
He had to move faster.
The excruciating pain, both inside and out, did nothing to shake Arthur's resolve. Perhaps there were many things left undone in his life.
But here and now, he only wanted to kill that damned traitor.
This grudge had to end. Arthur would use his life to stop it, to prevent this hatred from spreading any further.
Finally, his hand fell upon the gun.
A momentary surge of relief nearly plunged him back into darkness. Arthur gasped sharply, forcing the blackness from his vision.
Mustering his strength, just as he almost had the gun in his grasp, just as he was about to seize the chance to end it all—
His hand was stomped on.
Black riding boots, suit trousers. Arthur knew who it was.
A tumult of emotions shook this man of the West, so violently that for a moment, he lacked the courage to look up—
Everything he had fought for, everything he had held onto his entire life… was wrong!
His heart plummeted into an abyss. The pain of disappointment, of betrayal, lay on his heart like a heavy weight.
He thought of those who had died for the gang. Their faces, their final moments, flashed before his eyes, one by one…
It all seemed so tragically sad now, sad and laughable.
Life's greatest joke on him was letting a man he saw as a father lead him step by step to utter ruin.
"It's over… Arthur, it's all over."
A firm, confident voice came from above Arthur, sounding to him like a complete negation of his entire life.
With great effort, he lifted his head, his body rolling onto his back as he did so. Dutch's face came into Arthur's view.
"Oh, Dutch…"
This man, as the gang fell apart, had firmly chosen a traitor.
His head fell back limply; he couldn't muster an ounce of strength anymore.
He didn't understand.
What had happened to Dutch? That traitor had only been with the gang for two years, and had gotten so many killed.
Why?
As the gang's leader!
Why would he stand by that man's side, believe a traitor?
Gritting through the searing pain in his chest, even speaking required Arthur's utmost effort now.
"He's a rat, Dutch… You and I both know it."
Just then, Micah stumbled over.
His right arm hung limply, probably dislocated in the fall from the cliff.
Of the three, Dutch had become the sole key to deciding how this would end.
"Dutch, he's sick, and he's crazy. He's dying, spouting nonsense."
Micah drew closer, trying to win Dutch over to his side.
The Pinkertons, the men hunting them, had this place surrounded.
If he could stick with Dutch, his own risks would be much lower.
Both Arthur and Micah waited for Dutch's reaction. The air grew still, filled only by Arthur's ragged, heavy breathing.
"Dutch, I gave you all I had… I did…"
Watching Dutch, seeing the complicated expression on his face,
Arthur suddenly understood everything.
Some things, perhaps, only become clear when you're staring death in the face.
Maybe Dutch had known all along who was the rat, who was loyal.
Maybe he simply didn't care. Traitor or loyal, it made no difference to him.
Dutch had once roamed the West, fancying himself at the top of the food chain, reveling in the power to command everything.
But under the wheel of progress, all his fantasies had turned to dust.
That disparity had driven him mad. He cast everything aside—principles, morality, emotion, all the things he once took pride in.
Turning everyone around him into mere pawns to restore his shattered dream.
Dutch walked away without a backward glance, followed by that incessantly scheming traitor.
Though they walked off in different directions, Arthur knew they were ultimately the same kind of people.
No one paid any mind to Arthur lying on the ground. A terminally ill outlaw, left to die on his own.
The cliff, the horizon—the pale light of dawn filled the sky. To the east, at the world's edge, brilliant crimson rays followed the half-risen sun, spilling over the dense treetops below the mountain.
Struggling, he propped himself up, leaning back against the rock face. The warmth of the rising sun could no longer reach him; death was eroding this man's life.
Swallowing the blood that kept welling up in his throat, his arm trembling, he pulled a letter from inside his coat.
Thanks to Arthur's crawling, the letter was battered and stained, almost soaked through with his blood.
It was a farewell letter from his sweetheart, a final goodbye.
For the sake of the gang, he had refused her request to run away together, severing her hopes completely.
With fumbling fingers, he gripped it, tearing it slowly, piece by piece.
His body would likely be found by the Pinkertons. He couldn't leave any information for those mad dogs, lest it cause trouble for the people he cared about.
An outlaw like him probably didn't deserve love anyway.
Clutching the fragments in his hand, Arthur threw them out over the cliff.
In the distance, footsteps approached. Probably the Pinkertons closing in.
Those mad dogs never let go once they sunk their teeth in you.
But none of it mattered to Arthur anymore. Before his eyes, the darkness representing death spread rapidly, both terrifying and serene.
This was death. Some feared it like a tiger, while others faced it as calmly as visiting a friend.
"Heh, fate…"
Arthur mocked himself inwardly.
Death spread through him like warm water, enveloping him completely.
The footsteps grew nearer, but no one paid them any mind now.
"Yes, this is fate."
A man in a crisp, proper suit and a black top hat came to a stop before Arthur's body.
He looked nothing like a Pinkerton agent. His black suit was immaculate, and he spoke words that made little sense.
"I've come to say goodbye, old friend.
Though you don't know me, and strictly speaking, I don't know you either.
But I must speak fairly on behalf of Fate. Don't you complain about it.
There is no such thing as fate in this world. Nothing is fated. Everything is the result of your choices."
On the cliff, with no other living soul around him, the top-hatted man stood facing Arthur's corpse as if conversing with him.
Though a sane person probably wouldn't hold a conversation with a corpse.
Muttering to himself, he paced closer to Arthur, removed his hat in a gesture of respect.
"Anyway, farewell, friend.
I hope you get to write a new fate."
For a person, true darkness is the cessation of thought.
When it is about to envelop you, when one becomes aware of impending death, even the strongest will finds their heart filled with sorrow.
The collapse of life is irreversible, but who can truly say they have no regrets?
But Arthur's death was filled with irrationality.
He could see nothing – that was normal. But being aware of it was not.
Though surrounded by utter darkness, unfamiliar memories and emotions constantly flooded his mind.
For a moment, it was as if he had lived another man's life.
A cowardly, silent man.
A life filled with violence and discrimination, like a rag doll tossed in a dump for others to vent on at will.
His drunken father's magnified fist; the sneering smiles on his classmates' faces; being surrounded in a dark alley by people with garishly colored hair.
And he showed no will to resist, as if by closing himself off, the bruises covering him would cease to exist.
So he just watched quietly, watched the fists fall on his body, listened to the venomous insults, was stripped naked and thrown onto the street.
He watched as the violence inflicted upon him grew worse – fists turned to clubs, turned to chairs and furniture; insults turned to spit landing on his body.
The world's malice is fluid. It flows like water to the lowest point, eventually concentrating on certain individuals at the very bottom of society.