Chapter Text
Camp is quiet. Tucked away from the trail, he hears only the wind rustling the leaves of late summer and distant sounds of travel on the dirt trail that cuts through this neck of woods.
It's a little eerie to be on his own again. Arthur believes that they will be back at some point today or tomorrow, but there is no smoke lingering save for what the fire puts off and no bickering to be heard and everything feels wrong, somehow, despite having spent so much of his life alone. Hosea's often rattling breath and Dutch's constant mumbling are idleness he's grown accustomed to, if not comfortable around.
He's on the cusp of being old enough to understand that sometimes, men don't have the choice to come back. His closeness to that ledge might be part of why he feels this black anticipation in his gut.
The cusp of it only, though. It'll be another year or two before he understands — and is haunted with regularity by the fact — that death is everywhere. He knows that jail exists, because Lyle spent most of his free time there; he knows that men carry guns and he is well aware of what guns do. But while they both tell Arthur he's intelligent, that's just what men say to boys who do not argue and girls who do not speak.
Arthur does not argue, and he rarely speaks. He knows how to say a lot of things, contrary to what Dutch thinks, but he sees no use in it yet. They tend to listen to him, though they are the first. Granted, he's not had many adults around him since Lyle died. He is not unconvinced that the scarcity of his words might be the only reason they care to hear them, anyways, and Arthur's not apt to throw away an advantage when he finally has one.
Somewhere just past the cusp of understanding danger lays the realization that he should quit treating socializing like gambling, too.
He's only fifteen, and he doesn't know much of anything. He started the fire this morning and cooked breakfast, and he knows how to put up and tear down camps. When he is bored or feeling destructive, Arthur sits and imagines tearing down and re-posting the their two tents until he is so frustrated with it that he must move onto to feeling some other emotion, lest he go insane. He knows flat ground is better, as is high ground, and he knows what will burn best in a firepit. Sometimes he organizes these things in his mind, too, to waste time.
He doesn't know how to read more than a quarter of a newspaper and he's yet to figure out how to tell if someone's angry with him or not. Usually, he assumes that they are. Dutch always sounds aggressive, so he assumes that he's never all that angry. It makes sense to him to think of emotions as some sort of tangible sand that balances out eventually, though he often miscounts the grains. Arthur hasn't got a clue about talking to girls, though Hosea and Dutch say that that one is a life-long affliction they also suffer from.
Nonetheless, Hosea tried to tell him once — when he refuted that he was smart by saying he cannot read, or by listing one of the other bountiful things he doesn't understand — that intelligence is more than just knowing a lot of different things.
"It can't be counted," he had said. "Smart's a way of bein', not a skill."
Arthur still doesn't know what that means. He accepted the accidental confirmation of his bias in silence and asked Hosea if he thought Dutch was smart instead of pushing the matter further. He answered that Arthur is not only a genius, but a comedic one.
The praise felt nice enough that he forgot he was ever sad that he could be a late bloomer. Hosea has a way of making him forget he's upset without solving the real issue. He both likes and hates it, because being okay with being okay must also be a grace that comes to boys a few years older than he is. So much lays out of his reach that, at times, he doesn't see a point in growing up.
Even in the absence of the two men, while Arthur should be enjoying kicking rocks on his lonesome considering he tucks himself away so often, he finds the boredom inconsolable and the quiet to be alarming. Mostly quiet, anyways, there's always this faint noise that he always hears still drifting around. Dutch never hears it and Hosea teases that Arthur hears ghosts, so he must not be able to hear it, either. He's yet to have it disappear, so it must be the air or the earth or God or something else that supposedly never goes away.
Because he doesn't know any other name to call it by, Arthur calls it silence. Being looked at strangely for saying he can hear silence has been the least of his troubling interactions with anyone, let alone Dutch or Hosea, so he talks about it even though the latter insists he must have something wrong with his ears.
It isn't like they could ever take him to the doctor to have it fixed, anyways— it costs too much. By the time they've accrued enough to spare it's time to flee, and that sum usually only lasts to the next town.
Arthur's overheard Dutch saying they'll take him to the doctor when they hit it big enough. Hosea had said something like are we his parents now? in an indecipherable tone of voice.
He's unsure what to make of the idea himself.
It's not a concept he's familiar with, parents. Ma died so soon that he often forgets that other people have mothers, even though he knows everyone needs one. Pa died so tangibly that he cannot forget everyone else has a father. Arthur's yet to realize that parents also have children, because he has never felt so prized as to be a son. He thinks he will be parentless forever, and he's alright with it; he's lived, so far.
An hour after noon, the quiet breaks with the sound of hooves on dirt. Only one pair, which he finds strange but doesn't question. Arthur doesn't like to give the idea that he has been waiting nor pondering, so he pretends to be drawing in the journal Hosea gave to him a month ago.
He was, earlier, but for the past twenty minutes he's been staring at it and trying to sort out what's wrong with it. Something, anyways.
"Arthur," Hosea barks, and that jolts him to attention quicker than anything could've. Still, he doesn't drop the journal; just snaps up to see Dutch behind him and a broad sweep of crimson seeping through his shirt sleeve. He can't make sense of it before he's saying: "You're gonna learn somethin' today," as if whatever the lesson is, it was planned out.
That jolts him enough to stand up from where he had sat cross-legged on the ground. Hosea's not the kind to plan.
Why farce?
Apparently because Dutch, who looks as displeased as Arthur has ever seen him look, is hiding a gunshot beneath his soaked sleeve. He can see the mangled flesh through the torn fabric, off-white discolored with burnt, frayed edges. He grimaces when Hosea helps him off the back of Sawbuck and has to hook his hand into his armpit to keep him steady while he tears a bag off the horse's saddle.
Arthur stands awkwardly a few feet away, brain embarrassingly blank, until Hosea tosses him the saddlebag without so much as a catch. "What happened?" He finally asks.
"Horse got shot," Dutch grunts, sounds livid and exhausted. His voice is rough, as if he's been shouting.
Arthur opens his mouth to say that's not what he was worried about, but Hosea catches his eye and shakes his head at him. Don't, it says, so he doesn't.
"So did you," he reminds Dutch, more or less hauling him over to the dwindled campfire's side. Sawbuck paws at the ground and Arthur reaches out to pat his neck before following hesitantly after the men.
Dutch stumbles the short walk, looking half-resistant and half-sluggish. Cannot or will not, both seem true. "Really?" He says, gives Hosea a nasty look. Each of the next words is carefully said, meant to be understood through his labored breath: "I fucking forgot."
Hosea ignores him and guides him to sit on the ground more roughly than is probably apt. Arthur immediately dislikes where things are going before he even speaks; he would've been less anxious if things did not feel so under control, because it is usually only when they feel wild that any of them has a handle on the situation.
"You're gonna patch this asshole up." When Arthur doesn't move, he motions him closer. "C'mon, he don't bite."
"I don't know how to," Arthur says, even as he's moving. In fact, he thinks Dutch very well might bite one of them, though it probably wouldn't be him. He doesn't know what to do with the bag, so he holds it at arm's length as if he will be reprimanded for touching it.
"Whole point o' learnin'," he says, slaps a hand down on his shoulder and gives a shake that rocks him back on his feet. He's not paying attention to his strength. To Dutch: "Can you get that shirt off?"
With Dutch now occupied and therefore presumably conscious enough to look away from, Hosea takes the saddlebag back and digs out a rolled up cloth, laying it out on the ground. Inside was what few medicinal things they have: bandages and old clothing cut into rags; bottled shots of whiskey and moonshine that Arthur thinks he's seen them drinking while more than healthy; a knife that looks disquietingly sharp; and a sewing kit that Hosea's struggling to open.
"Why can't you do it?" Arthur asks anyways. The responsibility is already heavy, but the desire to scatter is what pins his feet down.
And, Dutch looks exceptionally angry as he works on peeling the sticky red shirt sleeve off his bicep. Angry, and a little disgusted, as if it's not his own blood poured over his sleeve.
Hosea pauses fiddling with the sewing tin's latch to hold out his hands. They're trembling wildly, much more than he noticed at first. Even his thumbs are twitching when he tries to hold them steady. "Would y'want me stickin' a needle in you?"
"Guess not."
"S'why." Hosea gives up on the tin, apparently deciding it'll be Arthur's job, and thrusts towards him a handful of the rags. "Gotta clean it out first. Get the crust off, all the," — he waves a hand and sighs, foregoing a proper explanation — "Jus' clean it." He sounds almost as out of breath as Dutch, nudging Arthur towards him with a hand on his back.
It's, again, too strong; he stumbles onto his knees beside Dutch. Arthur decides that the anxiety is not going to help him here, so he focuses on doing what he's been told to. The bullet must not be in his flesh, but it cut a good chunk out of his bicep when it skimmed. As well as he can tell through the steady beat of blood seeping out of his arm, anyways, the drum following his heartrate.
Dutch breaks his concentration, probably takes his eyeing of the wound as apprehension. "I don't want you doin' this either." Dark eyes look at him from their corners, his face turned away as if there's something embarrassing on it. All Arthur sees is pain and fatigue.
"It wouldn't feel nice no matter who was doin' it," Hosea says from behind him. "Go on, Arthur. He ain't gettin' any younger."
He goes on. Dutch hisses as he does, and he can feel the air strung tight where Hosea is watching him. The first of the rags soaks through quickly as he pats it over the wound, then tries to clear away some of the crusted blood. That really makes him grumble, the skin pulling along as he picks at it, but Arthur sees why he's doing this. Singed, melted fabric from his shirt comes away with some of the largest congealations. The work stains his own hands. Dutch's arm is beaten red, but he doesn't know whether it's surface stains or if there is simply irritation all along the underneath of his skin, blood welled and throbbing around the gash.
He doesn't talk as he works. Hosea will tease him later for having poor bedside manners. Now, he's merely talking too fast for Arthur to comprehend any of it until he's handed the next object and told what to do with it. Still, Hosea has a way about him that's more present than it ought to be for as stressed as his face looks— he can tell that he already went through why he's got to pour alcohol on it, but he says again that it'll soften the rest of the dried blood and clean it all out. He's measured, even.
Surely they've dealt with worse. He doesn't take the time to consider why this is any different.
Arthur pours too much and Dutch breathes out loudly before biting into his opposite fist to stifle a pained groan. Better his knuckles than Arthur's head, which he seems ready to take clean off for no reason besides him being the closest living thing to share some pain with. He amends his judgement over them seeming frantic; being shot probably doesn't feel any better the tenth time than it did the first.
He's barely paying attention to his tension, sopping up some of the moonshine with a rag while Hosea grabs the bottle from him to pass off to Dutch, who throws back what is left. He sounds animalistic, and he'll be drunk enough once it hits to think like one, too. Arthur wonders briefly what happened, exactly, to Duke. He had always liked the horse.
"You know how to sew," Hosea says, as if he's got to reassure Arthur. The tin is open when he glances back at him, looking for his next step, with his palm pressing a dry cloth to the gash — he knows that much, that he should keep pressure on wounds when he's not doing anything else useful to it — and Hosea is quickly passing a leather needle through the dwindling campfire before giving it to Arthur. "The end's hot. Careful when you thread it."
He slinks in to put a larger hand over his, trading spots so Arthur can thread the needle and Hosea can comfort Dutch the way only he seems to be capable of, even when they do not look very pleased with one another. What, exactly, happened to Dutch is another burning question, but it's not worth trying to get a clear answer to now.
Hosea stays in front of Dutch, his knees around one of his. The more points of contact he keeps, the calmer Dutch looks. Arthur notes it, but he isn't sure what to do with the information.
He tunes their words out as he stitches Dutch up. As well as he can with the man flinching, anyways, his injured arm twitching every time he pulls the needle through the skin and Hosea scolding him for each one. When he glances away, he sees his fingers turning red where Dutch has his hand gripped with the one on his good arm, the knuckles bone-white. "Gonna pop 'em off," Hosea's saying, and Dutch makes a face that might be a smile if he weren't in mild agony.
Arthur turns back to the gash and swallows the threat of bile raising in his throat. It's no prettier cleaned and stitched. It might even be worse to look at, now that's he futzed with it and made the already inflamed skin scream some more.
Still, tying it off gives him some sense of accomplishment despite how Dutch is just as frenzied and tense as he was when they rode into camp, and how uneven the stitches are. They're bleeding, the thick thread meant for saddlebag repairs slowly turning crimson as it seeps, so he improvises with another clean rag while Hosea is occupied with distracting him. It must be the right thing to do, because he's not yelled at for it; Hosea tells him to wrap it up tight.
"S'all we can do for him," he says. He passes a hand over Dutch's head the same way he's started doing to Arthur when he walks past him.
He doesn't know he phrases it so dire. It'll probably be fine.
Gangrene is a distant idea that he's not yet acquainted with.
Lyle had plenty of scars that he now knows must've been gunshots like this one, considering how broad and deep they were— and when it finally heals, this one will look all the same. Arthur's learned a lot about what his father did not tell him since they came along: what knife wounds look like; that the scars on his calf Lyle insisted were from a cougar were actually a dog bite, because Dutch has ones just like them; that his hat is in such poor shape for few reasons more glorious than that he didn't take care of the leather.