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Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Ain’t nothin’ fair, he’ll tell you that.
Those that hold power - they like to say they were lucky. That anyone else could be them if only the dice had rolled that little bit more, they’d tried a little harder, if, if, if. Which was total bullshit, of course. Luck didn’t work that way - luck could be bribed, could be bought, could be won.
The dice were weighted. The ones who won, who were rich, who came out alive, they loaded the dice, did something to turn things in their favor. Bribed, prepared, did something - there was no such as luck, he knew that now.
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
Their fight is over, he won’t tell you that.
And they've lost. The dice have landed at his feet, a pair of ones peering back at him, and damned them all. They’ve fought - and they’ll keep fighting - but they’ve won some battles and lost so many others, and they keep losing, and the war was lost, he knows it, he won't tell you that but he can see what's in front of his eyes, they call him blind but he can see as well as any other man.
The fight was fixed. He had an army twenty strong - and an army he is afraid to lose. Family, he calls them, and sometimes they are even more than that. The army - a true army, and all those others he fought, they didn’t care, had countless at their disposal, warm bodies that were replaced before they cooled on the dirt. When one of his falls - and they do, eventually, inevitably - they are buried, and mourned, and their loss felt dearly, and he has no one to replace them with.
Though they have something to fight for - freedom, family, fortune - they only have so much. So much ammo, so much supplies, so many people.
The war is over, but they’ll keep fighting.
They have no other choice.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Things ain’t fair, he’ll tell you that.
They’d been Robin Hoods, once upon a time. When they could afford to be. When it had been safe to be. Before he’d realized the futility of it all. Of stealing from the rich to give to the poor - the money only poured from the poors’ hands, gone quick as it was given, spent on cheap boots that would go bare before the year was out, on so much food that would mold as they had nowhere to store it. And the rich would curse, and cry, and call for their necks, but it would change nothing, they’d have their money back and more in a weeks’ time.
And they were the poor now, the needy, the hungry and thirsty and desperate.
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
He’s slipping, he won’t tell you that.
Folk are bailing, running, scattering like rats from a sinking ship, leaving him behind. People he’d once called family, trusted them to be behind him always. But blood is up to his ankles and water is nearing his nose and though he manages to keep above water he never can catch up to them.
He tries to be who he used to be - had he used this word? or that one? But the speeches he can find don’t read like him, he can hardly remember writing them like through a thick fog, and the speeches he give don’t hold their attention anymore and he knows he’s lying, pretty words that wilt before they leave his mouth, that crumble to dust in his family’s ears, and they know it but he has to say something or the rest will trickle through his fingers as so many grains of sand, every morning he wakes up and someone else is gone and he can’t lose them too.
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Things have changed, he’ll tell you that.
They used to be family, tighter than blood can bind. Just a look and they’d be riding out together, gun to gun, side by side, not a question needed. But now a single word can spark an argument, even a glance and they’ll be at each other’s throats, Charles and Arthur having to break up more fights than he can ever remember them having to do so before. And where before a drink shared between brothers or sisters could mend the bond as well as any needle and thread, resentment festers and grows with every argument, with every word, with every breath they continue to draw.
He read in a book once, a place described as ‘a graveyard full of ghosts who don’t yet know they’re dead.’ and on some days, his lucid days, his honest days, he looks at their faces: the sad ones, the hangdog ones, the black eyes, the sleepless ones, the bloodshot ones and tearstained ones, and thinks that Beaver Hollow could well be that graveyard.
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows
They’re struggling, he won’t tell you that.
Someone burned the ledger, smashed the tithing box, and though Micah and Joe and Cleet had dug through everything, had turned the camp upside down, Dutch had even checked their stash just in case it had gotten added to it somehow, the money that had been inside was gone.
Dutch doesn’t know who, but he’s sure it’s one of the people who left - taking the money Micah and Arthur and everyone else worked so hard to contribute, the supplies as well, to fund their new life, to start out on a high note, to begin with weighted dice and a cushion, to not have to begin again and to leech off other’s hard work.
When Micah shows up with his guns newly engraved only a few days later, Dutch has already forgotten.
Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Oh, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knows
There’s a rat in the gang, he’ll tell you that.
He’s not sure who - it could be anyone, he thinks, though some days he has his suspicions of some people more than others; some days he’s positive he knows who it is and others he hasn’t the faintest clue, more often than not he’s positive he knows it’s not Micah and then some days, his honest days, he thinks “Maybe…?” but those days are becoming fewer and far between, and maybe it’s one of the girls but they haven’t left the gang in ages and Javier is always on guard so maybe it’s one of the girls and Javier is in on it, or maybe it’s Javier himself? Or maybe it’s Arthur, some days he’s certain, the man has always been faithful, loyal, sometimes too much so, willing to throw himself down on a spike-pit if it would help the gang, but people change - Dutch would know, after all, Hosea had changed towards the end, he’d lost faith and become a coward (and on his honest days he’s horrified at those thoughts) - and the man is so rarely in camp, “Around” he always says when Dutch asks, gets frustrated when he’s pressed, has taken up with Smith and is fighting the wrong war.
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
When you've done a line or two
John was dying, he won’t tell you that.
He was sprawled on the tracks, silhouetted with blood, and he was so far gone when he found him that he’d been gasping ‘Pa,’ not ‘Dutch,’ and he hadn’t had the heart to put him down or watch him die so he’d turned The Count and ridden back - it had hurt, to leave him to rot, but his family needed the money more and they could always go back to bury him later.
If they left the money it’d be long gone, while an outlaw’s corpse would be untouched.
Sometimes you have to be a leader, not a father.
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
Jack’s an orphan, he won’t tell you that.
Abigail… well, he hates to leave her behind, but he ain’t gonna risk the safety of the gang for a woman. One, he thinks, might be a rat - because how was it she survived being captured by the Pinkertons in Saint Denis when Hosea had been killed? She’d not been discreet in her distaste, in her distrust, in her want to leave with their boy.
And they’d be retrieving a body, besides. The Pinkertons didn’t show their captives any kindnesses - even women. Knowing Abigail, they’d have done away with her quickly, and it might have even been a mercy.
And he wasn't going to risk his family to retrieve a corpse.
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
His boys are traitors, he’ll tell you that.
Arthur’s talked to the Pinkertons - he says he did so while saving Abigail, but can he really trust his word anymore? And John’s alive, swearing Dutch left him behind but he’d been dying, he hadn’t had a choice, can’t he see that? And they’re pointing their guns at their family, breaking the number one rule of the gang, and he wants to tell them to put their damn guns down, to leave, he doesn’t want to kill his boys but they have a rule about traitors, they have laws for a reason, and as much as he hates it his boys aren’t exceptions to them.
And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
Everybody knows
His baby boy is dying, he doesn’t want to tell you that.
But there’s no denying it. His fingers crunch beneath his boot, and he’s been around death his whole life, knows that look in his eyes, the fading, the dulling, the greying that’s already starting but won’t become obvious for another hour or more. The yellow tinge that’s already starting under his paper-pale skin, and his breathing, his breathing is worse than ever, that gurgling rasp as his body forces him to breathe against his will.
“Oh, Dutch…”
and his voice is unrecognizable, the rasp of a breath over failing vocal cords, and his baby boy is dying, and he remembers when he was only twelve with ruddy cheeks and scuffed knees, scared and suspicious and too small, sure that there was a catch when they put food in his hands and a blanket around his shoulders. His hair is the same - as dirty as it had been then, and god his face is as skinny as it had been back then, starving and curling around the bowl as though they’d pull it away from him, his eyes sunken in his face as he’d had to resort to stealing sips from horse troughs before being chased away and he can’t look at Arthur without seeing that little boy, and what has he done?