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He doesn’t need to tell her anything, Bessie knows her husband well enough to know what’s rattling around that beautiful head of his. He’s always looking out the windows, stares wistfully into the surrounding forest. He perks up every time a set of hooves can be heard passing by, shoulders sagging once he realises that, no, it isn’t him.
It hurts her, it really does. Not because she feels inadequate or unloved, no, quite the opposite. Bessie knows she has Hosea’s heart, feels the warmth spread throughout her body whenever he looks at her with those soft, adoring eyes of his, feels herself smile every time he presses an affectionate kiss to the top of her head, or her shoulder or lips or abdomen or thigh.
No, Bessie has never been more loved in her entire life, knows Hosea feels the same. Hosea has, on many occasions, confessed to thinking himself undeserving of the love she gives him, and Bessie – without fail – smothers those thoughts however she feels Hosea needs them smothered. Sometimes with laughter, sometimes with quiet moments together, other times with moans. Either way, she finds a way to put his mind at ease.
But the one thing she cannot ease is Hosea's nature. She doesn’t want to ease it either, would rather die than smother it, that wild, rambunctious nature of his. And that’s the problem. It hurts to see her husband, her love, so uneasy and restless.
“You can’t fight nature,” she tells him one day, standing behind him where he sits, a gentle hand on his shoulder. He’s been sitting on the front porch for the better part of an hour, fiddling with the pistol he hasn’t used in months. The sun is setting, the sky picturesque and pretty with its pink and orange hues.
Hosea stirs, caught in his own thoughts it seems, and chuckles, a nostalgic sound. His hand comes to rest upon hers, his thumb running back and forth on her skin in a soft caress.
“I know,” he sighs, “But you can’t fight change neither.” Silence stretches between them. Then, with a voice as fragile as glass, barely above a whisper, he asks, “What do I do when change goes against my nature?”
Bessie feels her brows furrow, an involuntary gesture. “I don’t think I know what you mean.” It’s a strange admission, misunderstanding foreign to their relationship. They’ve always felt complete together, like two pieces to a very easy-to-solve two-piece puzzle.
Hosea shakes his head. “I don’t know what I mean either, but maybe…” He doesn’t finish his thought, but Bessie can do it for him, knows what he’s thinking of – who he’s thinking of.
Bessie has always – without fail – made Hosea feel at peace with himself, with what he has and has not done. She’s pressed a kiss to the back of his neck for every sin he’s committed; She’s held his head in her hands as he lays on his knees in front of her, lamenting his past.
Most of all, he clings to her hands like a lifeline, as though the feel of her fingers beneath his is enough to steady him, keep him grounded, like the roots of a fragile flower in the dirt.
His hands are larger than hers, rougher, small nicks painted across his palms. When Bessie comments on it, which she does from time to time, their fingers intertwined, Hosea laughs and – with some theatrics – says, “I know. Aren’t I the luckiest? To so easily fit my hands around yours, to have that which I hold dearest in the entire world in the palm of my hands.”
Bessie swats him on the shoulder, half-heartedly attempting to withhold her giggles.
They come to visit, eventually, Dutch and Susan rolling in with a few horses and what looks like a new wagon. Hosea is frowning, looks between Susan and Dutch and the expensive-looking vehicle, but his grimace evaporates the second Arthur comes galloping into sight, older and stronger than ever before. He’s 17 and healthy-looking, and Bessie can see that her dear husband hasn’t realised – until that very moment – how much he’s missed the boy. She supposes he’s technically a young man now, feels fondness bloom in her chest.
“You been doing your reading?” Hosea asks Arthur after their initial hug, one that’s almost as warm and long as the one shared between Dutch and Hosea moments before.
Arthur looks sheepish, opens his mouth to respond, but Dutch interrupts him.
“He’s been here all of ten seconds and you’re already pestering him about reading,” he says as he gives Bessie a tight hug, his embrace as strong as it’s always been. Bessie can’t stop the laugh from bubbling up her throat. “Give the boy a break.”
Dutch has let his beard grow out a bit, the beginnings of a mustache on his upper lip and coarse-looking stubble across his jaw, and Bessie feels compelled to poke a little fun: “I see you’re trying a new look.”
He rubs his chin. “You don’t like it?”
“No, no, I think it looks lovely.” Bessie smiles, easy, a flicker of mischief in the curve of her lips. “Certainly much better than your clean-shaven look. A little stubble always suited you.”
“I agree!” Susan yells from within the wagon, a sack of something thrown over her shoulder.
Dutch blushes.
That night, after everything has calmed down a bit, Arthur outside tending to the horses, Susan and Bessie sit in the living room, exchanging stories and gossip like they used to back in the day. Like Hosea has missed Dutch, Bessie has missed Susan, though their friendship came to them slower than their partners’.
Apparently, they’ve been circling from settlement to settlement, going after bigger scores than they used to. And Susan, well, she’s worried, tells of the way Dutch has grown bolder – reckless since they left.
Bessie asks if she wants some water and Susan says, “Please,” all refined and polite.
The door to the kitchen is cracked open, low voices flowing from within, a dim line of light thrown across the floor. Bessie pushes at it, as quietly as possible, doesn’t want to disturb the men in their reminiscing. It has, after all, been months since they last spoke face to face.
However, any plan on entering crumbles when her gaze falls upon the scene before her, sitting at the kitchen table.
Dutch’s large hand is wrapped tightly around Hosea’s smaller, his thumb running back and forth on his skin in a soft caress. They’re talking, gentle murmurs exchanged between them, heads lowered, foreheads nearly touching. Hosea says something that elicits a chuckle from himself but only makes Dutch’s grip on him tighten.
At that moment, she feels like a stranger in her own home, as though she’s invading on something she has no right to see. She doesn’t understand; She’s seen them in that very same position countless times, under sharp rays of sun, in the shadow of an oak older than the both of them combined. Yet, something about this seems more… significant. A silent sigh brushes past her lips – she will never fully understand what they share. However, she can’t deny the fondness in her heart or the way it swells as she observes them.
Then, she smiles, a quiet, melancholic thing, at ease, the truth dawning on her like a braided crown of fragile flowers pulled from the dirt: He’s already gone.
His heart is hers, always has been, always will be. She knows this. She also knows, with no uncertainty, that he can’t ignore his gut – his nature.
Susan grumbles a bit when Bessie returns empty-handed but ultimately lets it go.
They leave a few days later, embraces passed between them once again.
“You be good, my dear,” she tells Arthur, kisses him on the forehead as she used to when she and Hosea were still with the gang.
It’s not quite the same since, instead of bending down, she has to stand on her tippy toes in order to reach her target. Arthur still blushes though, a quiet scarlet dusting across his cheeks – some things never change.
“I love you,” she tells Hosea that night, lying in bed, fingers intertwined.
“I love you too,” Hosea responds, as easily and naturally as breathing.
“I love you no matter what.” Hosea doesn’t say anything. “No matter what.”
The real words, her actual thoughts, go unspoken, because she can’t quite articulate them, knows her dear husband feels much the same way. He has doubts, she can sense that; His grip on her hand tightens, a silent admittance of confusion and uncertainty.
Outside, the wind has picked up, a quiet whistle piercing through the walls of their bedroom like a needle through satin, and Bessie recalls the first time she saw Hosea; Alone against the sky, running a hand through his hair unruly hair, lips curving into a shit-eating grin when, finally, Dutch had run up to him. The two of them together – it made him look less lonely.
They make love, sweet and tender, breaths and moans mingling in the air, smothering his doubts. Bessie feels as though she’s been lit on fire, burning bright like the stars, and she knows she’ll eventually die down, the flame nothing more than a dim burning ember. However, at that moment, she feels as though her heart may burst from the tenderness of it all – that, in the end, everything that has happened is worth the inevitable.
In the morning, she will ask him to come and visit every now and again, and he will promise her that he’ll do just that – tell her that his heart could not bear to be apart from her for long anyway.
It’s the truth, Bessie knows, feels content and warm as she watches Hosea spur his stallion on, leaving a trail of dust in the air.
He keeps his promise – without fail – until his promise is absolved.