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Arthur exhaled a sticky sigh as he rode back into camp, holding back a breath to suppress a cough. His mare stamped her foot as flies flocked to them, hovering over Arthur as if he was already dead meat. If he ignored the flies, and the heavy, wet heat, and the swampy stench of the Kamassa River, and the brown bloodstains left lingering on the rocks and the little fragments of bone they never bothered to clear away and how the whole place felt like death, then Beaver Hollow could be beautiful. The golden sunlight bounced off verdant leaves and splashed onto the rocky floor. Bright ferns sprouted up from between the cracks. It was all very, very green but that was about all he could say for it.
He dismounted Sundance and led her over to where the other horses were grazing. He’d wanted to keep them all around but Silver Dollar and Maggie were good as gone after the robbery in Saint Denis and Ennis and Branwen had wandered off by now. Kieran had done a good job of… just about everything when it came to taking care of the horses. Now they stood around listlessly with scraggly manes, huddled together, anxious. Arthur carded the brush through Sundance’s mane. He patted her neck, warm and sweat-sticky, then grabbed the dead jackrabbit he had hanging from her saddle. It had gone cold. The sunlight rolled over its beady black eyes as he walked it to Pearson’s table.
Arthur let the rabbit thump down on the wood. Usually Pearson would be there the moment he saw someone coming, but today he was slumped down on a log behind the chuckwagon, a bottle in hand. A crate of whiskey sat open and half-empty beside him. Arthur cleared his throat. “I left somethin’ on your table for you, Pearson,” he rasped.
Pearson raised his head. He looked around for a moment as if confused. “Oh. Thank you, Mr. Morgan.” The old man’s voice was thick and slurred. “Say, you don’t sound too good, can I get you anything to help—?”
“I’m fine, Pearson.” He turned and trudged towards his tent. He needed to sit down. Somehow, he felt out of breath already. And he didn’t much feel like sitting around the campfire with the others. Javier, Bill, and Micah’s cronies were gathered around it. Micah himself was probably somewhere hunched over Dutch’s shoulder spitting venom straight into his ear. Sadie and Abigail were with Jack as the little boy napped. Reverend was drunk; Karen was drunk; Uncle had drunk himself into a stupor judging by the overwhelming stench of booze and the snoring coming from behind Arthur’s own tent. Mary-Beth and Tilly were doing the wash, Susan hovering over them like a wary mother hen. Charles stood nearby whittling something. Strauss was bent over his table reading the paper. Arthur was relieved to see everyone in place. Except John. His chest tightened as he realized it, just as he sat down. It had been less than a week since him and Sadie had gotten the poor idiot out of Sisika. Arthur hadn’t spent a moment without worry. He’d been to jail before, but never more than a few nights, and never in a place like Sisika Penitentiary. Never anywhere so damn awful.
He found John leaning against a tree on the edge of camp, one hand hugging his side, the other holding a bottle of his own. He stared straight ahead. There was a look in his eyes Arthur couldn’t name but didn’t like. “How’re you holdin’ up, Marston?”
John jolted upright with a disgruntled yelp. “God damn , Arthur,” he huffed. “Don’t sneak up on me like that next time.”
“I’m sorry,” Arthur said. John took a drink and said nothing else. Arthur looked him up and down. He looked thin, tired, like a bag of bones — not that Arthur looked that much better himself. But they may as well have starved John in Sisika. His ribs protruded through his shirt and his collarbones looked like they were trying to escape his skin. Bruises scored his gangly arms and legs. Arthur hadn’t seen him so thin since he was a kid — since the first time he nearly got hanged. “How are you feeling since Sisika?”
“Bad.”
“Any better?”
“Of course,” John sighed. “My neck’s not broke. I’m home again, even if I didn’t get much of a warm welcome. At least I’m livin’.”
“That’s all we can ask for, huh. You been eating good, John?”
“Trying to.” John took another drink. He was quiet for a long time. There was a tremble in his hands and shoulders and lower lip as familiar as it was worrying. He could almost sense the tears coming, could almost see the scrawny, filthy little boy scratching at an imaginary noose till his neck bled. “I don’t think I was ever so scared in my life. I get nauseous just thinking about it,” John admitted.
“It’s not the first time there’s been talk of hanging you.” Arthur chuckled. It was dry, weak. The laughter contorted into a cough.
“It was scarier this time. When I was twelve it didn’t matter if I lived or died. I had nothin’ to live for anyway. Now I got Abigail and th-the—“ John’s breath hitched in his throat. “—our boy to come back to. And I didn’t want to leave you thinking I’ve run off again.”
I wouldn’t blame you if you did , Arthur thought, but he didn’t voice it out loud. He watched as John absently traced a faded old rope burn scar before continuing.
“It’s strange. The first time it— I didn’t drop from anything I just dangled. I don’t even know for how long I was up there but it was a long time, Arthur. You can kick and scream for a while but then… your chest gets so tight you think it’s gonna burst open or something. Like someone’s pushing down on you. And then it gets dark and you can’t kick no more and you’re just spinning around on the rope. It burns — the rope, I mean. Well. All of it. It’s worse than drowning.” He pawed at his neck again, squeezing lightly. “Dutch cut me down but I could still feel it afterwards for weeks. I guess it’s good to know he wouldn’t do that again.”
Arthur patted John’s back, unsure of what to say. John flinched away from him again. “It ain’t gonna happen again, John.”
“I hope not. I don’t know.” He finished off his beer and set the bottle down by the roots of the tree. “It was still worse this time, even if they never got the rope around my neck in the first place. And I know it’d be over quicker if it went right but it would all be in front of a crowd. I don’t want my body… gawked at. I don’t know what they do with those bodies either, or if they just leave ‘em there to hang and rot.”
Arthur shuddered. It brought to mind his own father’s execution: the sickening crack of his neck as the trap door fell through, his bulging, wet eyes, the redness in his face, the gaping of his mouth, the way his body twitched for minutes afterwards. He never knew if his father got a grave. He didn’t know if he deserved one. “You ever seen one of those?”
“In passing. I mean, I heard one. I looked away but I heard the snap. And I heard everybody cheer, and I heard a lady wailing for the man’s life. I don’t want that to be Abigail.”
“I wouldn’t want that man to be you.” And Arthur didn’t want Jack to be in his situation either. “You should think about running away again, John. Get some meat on your bones, get some money, and take your family and get out of here. Go anywhere. Maybe back to Montana. Maybe that place Dutch had us staying at last year is still for sale.”
John looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m not leavin’, Arthur, and I don’t even know how we’d get up there, or what we’d do. I’ve never been good at anything but stealing. I can’t imagine a life other than this.”
“Well, it’s about time to go straight,” Arthur huffed out. “Maybe it’s time for you to learn.”
John went quiet. He stopped and stared again. Beaver Hollow was on a plateau. They could see where it dropped off from here. The winding Kamassa River formed a little valley, the slopes on each side broken up by rocks and the worn path on their side of the river. The path was overgrown. They were probably the only people that used it. The gully was overwhelmingly green, the water itself blue but still murky. The woods seemed to go on forever. Massive cliffs rose in the distance but they were engulfed in a deluge of greenery, too.
“Would you come with us if we left?” John finally asked, looking at Arthur. His gray eyes looked like roiling storm clouds, welling with moisture. His voice was subdued, like he was scared someone would catch them.
“No. I’m gonna see this all through.” He’d get John and his family out of here, then the women, then anyone else still in camp who wasn’t deluded enough to want to stick around. He’d pay for their tickets out of here with his own money if he had to. There was no donation box anymore, and no point in donating, so his own pockets had swelled. “I don’t think I have much time left anyway. None of us will if we stick around here too long. We’re doomed. I think Dutch knows too. Just remember it’s worse than drowning, John. You don’t all have to die this way.”
John didn’t reply immediately, as if he hadn’t heard a word Arthur said. “I’m gonna get something to eat,” he announced.
“Good,” Arthur said. He rested his hands on his gun belt. He looked down at the river, watched the water move, crashing white over rocks, lapping at the thin rocky shores. He knew what was coming to swallow them whole.