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John sits quietly at the table in Beaver Hollow, reading the paper even though he already knows what it says. Van der Linde Gang Still at Large. He can't stop thinking about Hosea, how if Dutch had just listened to Hosea about the bank job being a bad idea, he might still be here. If Dutch had listened when Hosea told him the ferry job was a bad idea, Davey, Mac, and Jenny, and all they've lost since then might still be here.
Hosea told John time and again to wise up, to think of his family, and Arthur has been telling him, too. Since moving to Beaver Hollow, Arthur has had one hell of a cold. Between the constant upkeep of the camp, his lack of sleep, one awful trip to Guarma, and chasing Dutch around between jobs, it's no wonder the exhaustion caught up to him.
The man truly needs a break.
Maybe, just maybe, it really is time for John to take his family and go, and he can drag Arthur with him—kicking and screaming if he has to. Things between them have improved while everything else has fallen apart around them. John can only hope his brother would take his own advice.
Talking to Charles about it helps sometimes. Arthur always says Charles has the most realistic outlook on the gang, that he's the hardest worker among them. The reality there is that Arthur thinks too little of himself, but John figures he and Charles will be much safer keeping that information to themselves. Arthur doesn't like attention anyway, not the way John craved when he was a boy. He prefers a quieter approach, gratitude without overt expectations of said gratitude ever being accepted or even acknowledged.
Humbleness is not a common trait among the gang, especially now with so many dead.
"You think I don't know what you're saying to people?!"
John glances toward Dutch's tent, wondering who the target of his most recent fit of pique is and backing swiftly away when he realizes the target is him. Dutch looks angry enough to come to blows, his chest puffed out and a righteous scowl plastered on his face. John would go further, stand his ground outside the range of Dutch's immediate reach, but he's penned in by Cleet or Joe or whoever the hell it is that Micah brought into the gang.
While he doesn't know, not really, what Dutch is talking about, John bites back, not caring that his lack of denial sounds as good as a confession. "I just don't know why we're doing any of this."
"Why?" Dutch fumes. "Why?! Because I say so!" he spits, as though John is a kid again, asking why he can't tag along after Arthur on a robbery. "I am done explaining myself to you!"
John leans away from the spittle flying from Dutch's mouth, confused. What exactly did he do to earn such vitriol? He doesn't know. None of them do, for all they try to work it out. Even a blind man could see things in the gang ain't the same as they once were, but Dutch is acting like this is the way it's always been, like they always followed him blindly without regard for their lives. Once upon a time, Dutch wanted them to live. He wanted them to be free.
All the way back in Blackwater, John saw the truth; Dutch has become someone unrecognizable.
"You want to be the general?!" Dutch hollers. "You don't have the grit!"
John can't help his frown. Since when did he say anything about commanding? Even if he had, since when did Dutch consider himself a general, as if this was an army of drones for him to order around and send to their deaths at his every word? "Grit? That's what you call this?"
Dutch raises his hands defensively, as if John had a mind to attack him. That's a bit excessive. "How did the Pinkertons know about the bank job in Saint Denis, John? You wanna tell me that?!"
What that has to do with any of... whatever the hell Dutch is talking about now, John has no idea, but he's not about to take baseless accusations. If he informed on them, one would think he wouldn't be the only one of them to be caught and put on death row. "If you really think that, you are gone in the head."
"This," Dutch sneers. "This is why I told them to let you rot in jail!"
The words hit John square in the chest. There it was: the truth. Dutch did intend to leave him to die, no matter what he said about his plans or any of his promises to never leave him behind. "Rot? I was gonna swing, Dutch! They was gonna hang me! You know that!"
"Then, maybe you should've swung."
"That can be arranged," Micah's voice hisses.
Before John can react to his sudden presence, a rope loops around his throat. His hat falls into the dirt. He yelps in alarm, fingers snapping to his neck to keep the lasso from choking him. Micah's goon grabs his wrists, squeezing hard enough to bruise and twisting until John is forced to let go. John manages half a breath to scream before the rope cinches tight. He's knocked to the ground, hands bound and feet kicking. Micah and his cohorts drag him backwards.
Dutch watches all of this, face frozen with ire and dispassion.
Panic races through his veins. He cries for help, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. He struggles with all his might to get loose. Where is everyone else? Surely, they wouldn't just let this happen. Then, he remembers. Most everyone else is gone. Bill and Javier are on guard duty over the ridge, and the women who remain went down to the river to wash only ten minutes ago.
"Dutch!" he wheezes. "Please."
The man who raised him stays where he is, not so much as lifting a finger—as if there were no doubt in his mind John deserves this.
"Begging already, cowpoke?" Micah taunts. "No wonder them Pinkertons got to you so easy."
John gasps for air, his eyes stinging with tears when he realizes no one is going to save him. He's alone, and the man who once pulled him off the gallows, dirty and scared, is going to let him hang. For all he fights, he can't escape.
"Up you go!"
The crushing pressure John tried so hard to forget as a child takes hold of his neck with ten times the force it did when he was young. John tries to scream, shout, cry, anything to let someone know that he's about to die, about to be murdered in the middle of their makeshift home, but he can't get a breath in. Hysterically, he wonders if it would've been better for Arthur and Sadie to have left him in Sisika. At least then, it might've been quick with a broken neck. He kicks, reaching for the ground even knowing he won't find it.
John suffers there in the strangling embrace of Micah's lasso for an eternity it feels, then, slowly, his limbs turn leaden, and darkness crowds the edges of his vision.
Please, God, don't let Abigail and Jack see me like this.
As the last of his vision fades, John feels sunlight on his face and glimpses the silhouette of a familiar hat. Four cracks of gunfire split the air and his feet hit the ground, followed swiftly by his knees and chest. John whimpers pitifully, hardly able to move. With the weight of his body off the lasso, John manages to gasp in meager breaths, but what little air he can catch is stolen away by wheezy coughing, each one barely a squeak. Tears stream steadily down his face. He doesn't have the capacity to be ashamed of them.
"How. Dare. You."
Blurry-eyed, John watches Dutch fall to the ground, an unclear blob of black and red a short distance away. Unconscious or dead, he doesn't know. Something warm and wet oozes against his cheek.
"Johnny boy," a voice says, and suddenly there are hands on his neck.
John jerks away from the touch.
"Easy, John. Take it easy. Look here," the voice soothes. The hands that belong to it grab hold of his sleeves and pull him upright, tipping his chin so he can see their owner.
"Arthu-" John wheezes, only managing about half the word before hot, scraping pain erupts in his throat. With the coughing making his tears worse, it takes a minute for him to blink his brother into focus, and an even longer minute to realize Arthur is still talking to him. By the time he makes out anything comprehensive, Arthur once more has his fingers on the noose. John doesn't fight him.
Screams erupt all around him, and he doesn't understand why. Everything hurts.
Arthur folds him against his chest, one hand at his back, rubbing ginger circles, and the other protectively cradling his head. "Just breathe, Johnny boy. Breathe for me."
"What in fresh hell happened here?!" Miss Grimshaw demands.
"I don't know," Arthur answers, his voice just shy of snarling. "I got back from hunting and Micah and his boys had John strung up. Dutch didn't even try to stop 'em."
"Is John all right?!"
"Far from it, but he'll live." Arthur rubs his back when he succumbs to another squeaking coughing fit, knives carving painful lines in the back of his throat. "Regardless, we can't stay here no more, not if Dutch would let somethin' like this happen. Fold up John's tent and pack my wagon while he's still out."
Miss Grimshaw glances down at Dutch's unconscious body, then at John, and nods. "Girls! You heard him!" She spits on something behind Arthur. "Tell me what you need, Arthur."
"What's left of Hosea's collection of herbs and his cinnamon tea."
"All right. Get him up on the table, would you? It'll be easier for you to work on him there."
Arthur hums, and before John knows he's going to, his brother hefts him off the ground and situates him on top of the wooden table he'd been sitting at before all this happened. For the first time since being shot down from the noose, John gets a good look at what took place when Arthur arrived in camp. Joe, Cleet, and Micah all lie dead on the ground, a hole in each of their foreheads—four shots.
One for the rope.
Three for their betrayers.
"Lay down, Johnny boy," Arthur asks, helping him lean back on the limited surface. He places John's feet on the stool next to his knees, grounding him. "I know it ain't easy to breathe this way, but we need a look at your neck, all right? Here."
John tries to smile when Arthur folds up his coat to put under his head, but considering the perturbed grimace Arthur offers in response, it probably doesn't look like one. Then again, perturbed grimace is Arthur's natural state. John lifts a hand to feel the damage, but Arthur stops him before he gets that far.
"Don't touch. Dumbass."
Knowing that's Arthur-speak for him being pretty torn up, John nods. He stiffens when Javier and Bill run back into the hollow, only relaxing when he sees Arthur's gun in its holster. Arthur is the fastest draw he's seen in his life, and he's certainly a better shot than both Bill and Javier. Instead of worrying about them, John busies himself with wiping the tears and what is most certainly someone's blood off his face. Arthur doesn't judge when the tears keep coming.
The man they both saw as a father nearly let him die—again. This time, he was right there, had no need for a plan or an improvised rescue mission, and he still did nothing.
"Why are there no camp guards?"
John tries to sit up at the sound of Abigail's voice, but Arthur holds him down, a frown firmly in place. His brother takes several glass jars of herbs from Miss Grimshaw as she returns to his side, examining the labels. John is forced to wait for Abigail to come to him.
"Arthur, what the hell happened?!" Abigail cries, and her footsteps swiftly approaching. "I only took Jack a little farther downstream to skip stones when we heard the gunshots and the screamin'. Is-.... John!"
Reaching for her hand, he fights back an instinctive cringe when she sees his neck and covers her mouth in horror.
She takes it, inching closer and getting just shy of touching. "How did this happen?"
"Micah and those bastards he brought into camp tried to hang him. I heard Dutch hollerin' way back in them hills, and by the time I got up here, John was strung up, damn near turnin' blue. Dutch just stood there and watched." He looks at Javier and Bill where they hover around Dutch, a severe expression on his face. "We'll be taking our leave now. If you've got a complaint about that after this, want to talk about faith and loyalty, then you can talk it out with my irons."
Javier swallows. "I don't.... I don't understand. This isn't Dutch."
"No," Arthur says solemnly. "Not the one we knew anyhow."
Bill doesn't look so convinced. "What if he really was the rat? Maybe that's-"
"You remember the last rat we had, Bill?" Arthur snaps. "No. You ain't, because you weren't here. None of you was but Miss Grimshaw, Miss Tilly, Johnny and me. Dutch may have saved you, but he raised us. Our Dutch would handle it clean if he knew anything for a fact, end it with a bullet himself. This ain't him, and any of you fool enough to believe otherwise will end up in the dirt with the rest of our dead." He jerks his head toward Micah and his fallen cohorts. "Those were our rats, and they've dug in so deep we don't need to jump ship to hit water."
John swipes at his face again, sucking in a sharp, painful breath when Abigail takes over for him. He watches carefully as Arthur picks herbs from the stores and rifles through his satchel for a few missing components, doing what little he can to distract himself from his pain. Already, he can feel his throat beginning to swell. It'll be difficult for him to so much as eat and drink in the coming weeks, let alone speak.
"Here, Mr. Morgan. I'll take over. I've got a more delicate touch. Why don't you and Abigail go grab a couple bags of food from the cave for the trip ahead. I'm not sure where we'll end up, but we'll need it."
"Sure."
Arthur and Abigail share a meaningful look before disappearing, leaving him at Miss Grimshaw's mercy as she tends to the tender flesh of his neck. John grimaces when she reveals the cup of tea she brought with her. He doesn't know if he'll be able to swallow it.
"Try, John," Miss Grimshaw coaxes. "I know it hurts, but Arthur's right. This will keep your swelling from getting too much. I'd hate to have to tube-feed you later because you didn't at least try this first."
He manages exactly three agonizing sips.
"Just hold this one on your tongue a little while," Miss Grimshaw says, drizzling the tea between his lips with all carefulness. She disinfects his wounds next, quieting him in that rare motherly fashion of hers, and spreading the poultice Arthur mixed over his skin. It stings like a son of a bitch, but he doesn't complain—can't, really.
It's all a blur after that, but he knows Javier packs up his things to come with them and that Bill stays behind. He knows they pack Arthur's wagon with everything they possibly can. Sadie and Miss Grimshaw keep folk together in a rare act of collaboration between the two.
Unlike the usual guard position John would take up around the caravan, he rides in the back of the wagon with Abigail, Jack, Tilly, Mary-Beth, Karen, Swanson, Pearson, and Miss Grimshaw. Charles guards their left while Javier takes up John's post, looking terribly upset perched on Boaz's back.
Arthur stays back with his wagon, hollering directions when Sadie needs them but otherwise staying right behind them where he can keep an eye on everyone.
John can't remember much from the trip after that, only that there was a train involved for a grueling portion of it, but somehow, they end up in the middle of nowhere in Utah along the Colorado River.
Like Dutch planned to years ago, Arthur settles them on a ranch. Where they got the funds for the trip or the land, John has no idea.
Three weeks later, when John's throat has healed some and his crackle-hiss of a voice is slowly returning to its usual rasping tones, John bumps Arthur's shoulder with a grim smile on his face. "Thanks for savin' my sorry neck," he croaks.
"I'm sure we'll both live to regret it, but you're welcome. Just... hate that it had to come to this. I thought we'd be in it with Dutch until the end, that either he'd die or we would."
John hums, rubbing his throat under the red necklet he's taken to wearing. His neck aches. "Me, too."
"You been doin' well?"
"Healin' anyhow."
Arthur nods, resting his arms up on the edge of the paddock full of horses he picked out to breed with the towering black reverse-dapple thoroughbred he's ridden since coming down from Mount Hagen. John knows they're fine animals. Arthur always could pick the best of any herd. If his Bo' were still here, he probably would've gladly let her bloodline continue. She'd been a powerful animal.
"You think we'll be happy like this?"
Arthur snorts wryly. "I think we're all just happy not to be dead."
That's a fair point.
John doesn't quite know what to say in response. He settles for silence. His throat's already getting tired and this is the first time he's spoken all day. Miss Grimshaw tells him his lethargy and periods of low energy will fade over time. She didn't need to tell him. He remembers well enough.
"I told myself I'd get you out of this life," Arthur says suddenly, his voice low.
"What?"
"You've got a family, John. The gang ain't no place for that, especially the way it was when we left. I was gonna get you out no matter how things went down. Didn't necessarily expect to bring as many with us as we did." Arthur's gaze falls on Javier across the series of new paddocks. "Him, especially, but... I'm glad for it."
John lifts a lazy hand in a wave when Javier catches their gazes. "Agreed. It's been hard on him."
"On everyone."
"I-" John eases in a breath, his struggling voice threatening to give out. "I know."
Arthur nods and spares him a sidelong glance, a silent agreement and a warning to shut up at the same time. They both know John's voice was already irreparably damaged during his hanging as a kid. Neither of them want to risk it now. John don't much fancy learning how to live as a mute. Still. There was one other thing he wanted to share.
"I'm gonna ask Abigail to marry me."
"Shut the hell up, John."
"Seriously."
Arthur scowls, but the gleam in his eye tells John he don't mean it. "I can tell you're bein' serious, dumbass. Blind, deaf drunk could tell you was serious. Just quit your jawin', unless you want to be givin' your vows in writing."
John rolls his eyes and perches his chin on the fence. Asshole.
"Dumb git."