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The train robbery didn’t go exactly as planned. It should have gone without saying it wouldn’t end well—Sean was trying to take the lead and prove himself. It started with Sean, Lenny, John, Arthur, and Charles riding along the train, ready to jump on and start robbing.
Arthur was the first to stand from his horse and hop onto the flatbed between train cars… the surface slicker than it looked and not allowing for Arthur’s boots to connect with the wood before he went sliding. Arthur fell flat on his back, cracking his head on the siderail of the cart.
“Fuck, abort! Abort!” Sean cried out, discouraged by the dramatic fall of Arthur. Arthur was trying to right himself on the slippery wood, pulling himself up by the rail. He barely had himself lifted back over the side when someone ran out of the sidecar.
Arthur flung himself over and the rest of the gang kicked their horses out of the way to not trample him. The train sped off and they seemed to have been largely missed by the train passengers. The gang circled back around to see the end of Arthur rolling down the small hill away from the track.
They were quick to dismount their horses and rush to his side. He had been crumpled on the ground, silent as he held in groans of pain. Arthur felt disoriented, dizzy—and pain burst from his head. He gasped as he pushed himself to his hands and knees, sharp pains shooting up his wrist. His head throbbed and made him nauseous.
“Arthur, shit, are you alright?!” Sean cried out, guilt covering his face. Arthur couldn’t respond, he was too busy clenching his teeth and breathing through his nose to hold back the bile threatening to rush up his throat.
“Clearly he’s not alright, idiot! Would you back up and give him some space?” John’s raspy voice screamed, the volume echoing in Arthur’s raddled head.
Charles and Lenny were by his sides, grabbing his arms to help him up. They tried to take a step toward the horses, only for Arthur to put weight on a foot that apparently had broken toes. Charles held his arm tight to keep him up and Arthur’s face burned with embarrassment as he limped between the two young men.
“We need to get out of here,” John cautioned as they helped Arthur get back onto his horse. “Might be law coming through.”
Arthur grunted as Charles finished pushing him up on his horse, shutting his eyes tightly against the searing pains.
“Can you ride, Arthur?”
“Yeah,” Arthur bit out. He wanted to get home and lay the fuck down. He was humiliated to take such a fall, ruining the robbery before it could even begin. His pain and nausea was growing exponentially and was drowning out the embarrassment.
They rode back to camp with Charles and John riding behind Arthur in case he were to fall off his horse. They didn’t have time to check him over but he didn’t look good. He was bleeding from his head, his skin was paling, and there was an awful bruise forming under his boot. They could all tell Arthur was in pain by his rigid movement and tight face.
Bill and Javier had been on guard duty and surprised to see the crew return so quickly. Bill was calling out to them, teasing them for already fucking it up. It went ignored as the men rushed to the hitching post and stayed by Arthur to help him down.
This time only Charles was assisting Arthur in walking, the younger man supporting his weight as he avoided walking on his broken toes. Heads were turning and Sean was running off and calling for Susan and Hosea.
Arthur groaned when Charles finally got him to his tent and sat him down. He hunched over, holding his head in his hands. His head felt like it was about to explode, his stomach was adamant he didn’t need to have anything in his stomach.
Charles had barely stepped out of the way to wave over medical help when Arthur’s stomach jerked and sent him retching on the ground between his boots. The gagging made his head throb harder.
He could barely register the voices beside him of Charles explaining he slipped and fell.
Arthur let out an embarrassing whimper when Susan grabbed his face and wiped his mouth and chin with a cloth.
“Open your eyes, Arthur,” she commanded softly. “I need to see your pupils.”
He swallowed hard and opened his eyes as much as he could tolerate—the surrounding light was like mace to his retinas.
“He was limping,” Charles told Hosea as the Reverend sat a bag full of pain killers on one of Arthur’s tables. “I think it’s his foot, not his leg.”
“His head’s bleeding,” Susan stated. “He’s concussed—he needs to stay awake,” she directed toward Reverend Swanson. “Don’t put him out.”
Arthur yelped when someone grabbed his boot and began tugging it off.
“Sorry, son. What hurts?” Hosea asked.
“Toes.”
Suddenly the Reverend was at Arthur’s side and pushing his sleeve up, lining up a needle with the crook of his elbow. The deep pinch was nothing compared to his head or his foot.
The pain dulled out and a warmth spread through Arthur’s body. He felt himself relax, allowing all the hands on him to pull his boots and shirt off.
His left foot was swelling up and a deep purple bruise was forming on the top of his foot, under the last two toes. Hosea gently prodded at it, seeing if he could feel anything out of place. The pain was tolerable for Arthur and was more of a pressure thanks to the pain medicine kicking in.
“Can you bend your toes?”
Arthur flexed both his feet, doing the same motions to bend each set of toes. Hosea noted the way Arthur’s broken toes didn’t bend, barely even moved at all. He sighed and wrapped the toes together before wrapping the foot a bit as well, immobilizing it as best as he could.
Susan wrapped Arthur’s head and inspected his scraped wrists, deciding to wrap them for stability when Arthur whined at the bending and poking.
They finished and left Charles with Arthur to keep an eye on him in case he was concussed like they suspected. Arthur wanted nothing more than to lay down and get to sleep but Charles kept flicking his arm or talking louder to keep him up.
“Fucking hell, Charles,” Arthur finally snapped. “I’ve hit my head before, I’ll be fine, just let me sleep!”
Charles rolled his eyes. “The more you’ve hit your head, the more dangerous it is, you fool.”
Arthur whined, this time it was out of pure frustration.
“Give me your wrists,” Charles commanded, not waiting and gently grabbing one. He held it and used both hands to stroke the skin, working deeper in the meat, massaging away the soreness. It was pretty nice, so Arthur allowed the man to keep relaxing the skin and even doing it to the other wrist.
It would keep his wrists feeling decent for a while, but it also kept Arthur from complaining for nearly ten minutes… Then Sean showed up.
The Irishman stood at the opening to the tent, nervous air surrounding him. Arthur looked up and raised an eyebrow.
“The fuck you want now, MacGuire? Gonna push me off the cot?”
Sean nervously chuckled. “Glad to see you didn’t break your sense of humor!”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“Or maybe you did—look, big guy, I’m sorry it went down like it did. I feel terrible, I do.”
Arthur hummed and feigned forgiveness. “Well, Sean, I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now. It must hurt something fierce. I can’t imagine the pain you’re in—hell, I’m lucky to only have broken toes, huh?”
Sean looked side-to-side, looking for a reason to run off.
“Sit your ass down, boy.”
Sean sat down in an empty chair left from when Susan and Hosea were working on Arthur. The older man reached his arm out to grab Sean by the collar, unable to quite reach with the pains stretching across his torso.
“Sean, help me out here.”
The Irishman leaned in, even lifting his own shirt collar for Arthur to grab it easier.
“Thank you, son.” Then he gripped the fabric tight and jerked Sean’s neck forward, tone changing. “Now you better get your sorry ass out there and do every fucking chore I can’t do now, and I want you to thank me for the opportunity. You hear me, you little redheaded piece of shit?”
“Crystal clear,” Sean nearly stammered. Even crippled, Arthur was terrifying.
Arthur let go of the collar and gently slapped Sean’s cheek. “Alright, good talk. Don’t be a jackass.”
Sean stood and left, muttering goodbyes and something about needing to go feed the chickens.
Hosea and Dutch made their way to Arthur’s tent to check in on the boys. They more than trusted Charles to keep an eye on their son and hoped to see Arthur resting himself and not acting a fool.
Arthur had such a bad habit of acting like a little shit when he was concussed.
“Arthur, son!” Dutch called out, eliciting a wince from Arthur. “How you feeling, big man?”
“Feeling like I got too drunk and a grizzly fucked me into next year, how do you think I feel?”
Confusion was dripping off Charles’s face as he tried to understand what Arthur just said.
Hosea took his empty seat from before, sitting beside Charles and across from Arthur’s cot, wrinkling his nose at the remains of Arthur’s retching that couldn’t be cleaned from the dirt. “Concussion in full form, Arthur?”
Arthur grumbled, “I don’t even know what that means.”
“Well, you know the drill. Stay awake.”
“Stay awake and Dutch will let me get a dog.”
Dutch held a hand to his own face. “Arthur, I never said you can have a dog.”
“Yes-huh, back when we robbed two banks in one day and I hit my head jumping off my horse.”
Hosea and Dutch exchanged a look of absolute shock.
“Arthur, I said that twenty years ago!”
“And I’m still waiting on that goddamn dog!”
Charles broke out into a laugh. Arthur had been acting kind of like a brat with him, but now he was acting like a complete child with Hosea and Dutch.
Arthur turned his attention to Hosea. “Can I go to bed yet, Pa?”
Okay, it had been a minute since Arthur called either of them by fatherly names. It made sense since Arthur was sore and frustrated and still a little nauseous. He wanted his dads.
Hosea looked up to Charles, who didn’t need to be told to scatter. He got up and quietly said a goodbye to Arthur before slipping past Dutch.
“Not quite yet,” Hosea said softly, reaching a hand out to rest on Arthur’s forearm. “But why don’t we go get settled in Dutch’s tent and spend some time there until it’s bedtime.”
Arthur sighed. “Fiiine.”
He allowed Hosea and Dutch to help him stand with vice grips on his biceps. He made the mistake of taking a step with his bad foot. Moving his foot tensed it in a way that sent sharp pains through his toes. He yelped out, not falling thanks to his dads.
“Keep that foot off the ground, we got you,” Dutch instructed. Arthur bent his knee and lifted his foot. He had to consciously tell himself not to try to flex his foot or move his toes—something he never had the urge to do (or ever noticed) until it caused ridiculous pain.
People around the camp watched while Arthur was helped to Dutch’s tent, hobbling and going slow.
“It’s just a fucking toe,” Micah was sneering from the campfire. “What a delicate lady, that Miss Morgan.”
Unfortunately for Micah, John was also at the campfire and had been in a tense mood since the robbery went south. He was full of pent-up frustration and nobody stopped him when he stood up, approached Micah, and popped him right in the nose.
Micah cried out, grasping at his face. Blood was flowing from his crooked nose and he was stomping the ground in pain.
“It’s just a nose, Miss Bell,” John mocked. “Stop being so delicate!”
“You broke my fucking nose, you—”
“Mister Bell, stop whining,” Hosea called out from Dutch’s tent, his head popping out the closed flaps for a moment. “And John… go wash up, you got blood on your hand.”
Micah gaped at the tent as Hosea receded back. “Nobody’s going to say shit to Marston?”
From the campfire Charles rolled his eyes. “Hosea already told him to wash up.”
Micah stormed out of the camp fuming and with a crooked nose.
They had Arthur reclining on Dutch’s cot with his bad foot put on a pillow to elevate it. They thought it was a good sign that the pain wasn’t constant, only when movement was involved. But regardless of that, Arthur wouldn’t be doing any running for a while, and he would likely be forced to stay in camp and to use a crutch. Dutch hadn’t decided yet.
For now Arthur was in bed, leaning his head against Hosea’s shoulder. Dutch sat nearby in a chair and spoke softly with Hosea. Arthur wasn’t really there, but he was awake, and that was good enough for Dutch.
Hosea ran his hand through Arthur’s hair, careful to avoid the reddened part of his head bandage. Arthur hummed, pleased with the contact.
Susan popped into the tent with a folded blanket in hand. “How are you, Arthur?”
Arthur blinked his heavy eyes open. “Sleepy.”
Hosea scratched at his scalp. “Just a little bit longer, then you can sleep.”
“Fucking bullshit.”
Susan sat the blanket down beside Arthur’s feet. “Mind your manners, boy.”
Arthur yawned. “M’sorry, Pa.”
Susan shot a look to Dutch before ducking out. She hadn’t heard Arthur use that name since he was a boy.
As much as they tried to talk to him and keep him awake, Arthur finally slipped into a heavy sleep. He couldn’t be jostled awake, not even by Hosea and Dutch laying him down on the cot and messing with the padding under his foot.
Dutch and Hosea sat together on the other side of the tent and thought about how they would fare in camp with Arthur not being able to walk quite right. They’d be fine, and it would only be for two months at the most, but they knew Arthur would get cabin fever by day two.
Dutch had broken a few toes back in his youth and he remembered how frustrating it was to break such a small thing and be put out by it. It was just a toe but it left him limping and hobbling until finally finding a cane to support some of the weight.
He remembered how he had to walk on his heel, foot askew, just to find a gait without pain. Then there was the way he’d bend his foot unexpectedly and pain would rip through his appendage. How even the stirrups elicited fiery pain when he slipped his boot in.
“He’s not going to like resting that foot,” Hosea mused. “Probably going to walk on it anyway.”
“We could break his other foot, make sure he can’t walk.”
Hosea snorted. “Yeah, that’ll go over real well. I’ll have to stop in town and see if I can’t find a cane or pair of crutches for him.”
“You think he’d actually use those?”
“No, but I’ll smack him across the knees with it until he does.”
This time Dutch laughed. “We raised a brat, Hosea.”
“That we did, Dutch.”