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Arthur was struggling to keep a straight face. He was a big, bad outlaw with multiple kills under his belt and a poker face to kill for…
But Dutch didn’t make it easy when he was livid, pacing in front of the entire camp, a special cigarette in his hand, demanding to know whose it was. And if Arthur cracked, Dutch would know it was his… well, his, Javier, and John’s—but they would surely deny it if he broke first.
“Marijuana,” Dutch spat, glaring at the half-gone joint. “Half of you should be on watch, and I doubt the other half didn’t smell it! You’re covering for each other!”
John’s face was giving in, having to bite his cheek to hold it together.
It was just so stupid. Dutch had a weird thing against pot ever since the boys were smoking together, offered him a hit, and he took it too hard. And by the general nature of marijuana, everyone laughed at him when he nearly coughed up a lung and had to lay down.
Dutch stared Javier straight in the eye, the Mexican not breaking. “Who was it, Javier?”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” he replied slowly.
“THE HELL YOU DON’T!”
Hosea cleared his throat, trying to wave Dutch over to him. He had just emerged from his tent, fed up with the noise level over something so ridiculous.
“Dutch, what the hell is the problem?”
Dutch held up the joint. “We have a liar among us.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Hosea sighed. “It’s fucking marijuana! It’s harmless!”
“Tell that to Pearson’s stew,” someone stage-whispered.
The sober members of the gang began to giggle, and Arthur knew his straight face was cracking with each giggle.
“C’mon, Dutch,” he spoke, already regretting bringing attention to himself. “How do you know that’s not a regular cigarette? Have you even tested it?”
“I’m not testing it,” Dutch spat, the new information rolling in his head. “You try it. I can’t trust these people,” he hissed out, turning to glare toward Javier and John.
Someone in the back mock-offendedly asked, “What do you mean ‘you people’?”
Arthur’s eyes lit up and he was glad Dutch was too focused on glaring down Javier. “Yessir!” He grabbed the joint too enthusiastically and lit it against the campfire. It was too late by the time Dutch realized what he’d done: given permission to someone to smoke what he assumed to be weed. Arthur was already deeply inhaling the joint, too far gone to stop.
Dutch snatched the remaining joint, surprised to see how far Arthur smoked it down in that moment unsupervised. Arthur couldn’t exhale fast enough and coughed as he shrouded himself and Dutch in a smokescreen. Dutch tried fanning it away, and by the time it cleared, he could see the affects it had on Arthur. The man was no longer trying to hide his giggles, his eyes were red and his lids were low.
“Yeah, Dutch, it’s marijuana. Some good shit, boah.”
John then lost it, unable to even pass off his raspy laughter as someone else. Dutch beelined for him, John raising his arms, throwing Javier under the bus in his stoned panic. “It was Javier too, don’t hit me!”
Javier cursed in Spanish.
Dutch held out the joint. “You are going to SMOKE ALL OF THIS and learn your lesson.”
Arthur began to cry, laughing so hard his guts hurt. “That’s not how it works,” he wheezed, reaching out to Hosea for support. “Oh my god.”
But Dutch never learned. He assumed it would be like tobacco, making them sick. Instead, Javier and John joined Arthur in his laughing stupor and all three had to be relieved of guard duty.
God, was guard duty boring.
The men spent the rest of their high sitting around Arthur’s tent, giggling like school girls, laughing about how insane Dutch looked, and how for a moment John feared for his life when he saw Dutch come his way, forgetting he was a full-grown adult capable of self-defense.
“That vein in his head is gonna pop one of these days,” Arthur said between laughs.
An evil glint bounced off Javier’s eyes and he leaned close to the boys, an evil plan stewing in his brain. “Dutch really hates this stuff,” he commented, stating the obvious. “Would be a shame if… Someone replaced one of his cigars’ tobacco with…”
John stared at Javier, the implication not hitting him for a solid minute. It was clear when the hamster wheel in his brain finally began spinning again and he let out a childish chortle.
“Glad to see you’re not too foggy up there,” Arthur teased, John putting on a pout.
“Shut up, Morgan, Dutch made us smoke that entire thing fast.”
Arthur giggled again. “Hehehe… when will he learn?"
The answer was never, since the very next time Dutch found an abandoned joint, he screamed for the usual three suspects to come to his tent, forcing them all to smoke it again.