Chapter Text
It’s been an hour since Dutch and Micah returned.
An hour since that stupid parley Dutch was so keen on despite Hosea’s many insistences it was a trap. Three hours since three riders left, their horses kicking up the Lemoyne dirt until Hosea’s favorite blue waistcoat almost looks purple as he watches them go. An hour since Arthur had twisted around while sitting on Hestia’s broad back and touched his hat with his fingers. He’d given Hosea a look the old man assumes he must have meant to be reassuring but all Hosea could see was how tired his boy looks. How he’d coughed a little in the dust the horses stirred up and it sounded a bit like Hosea’s.
Arthur Morgan is only thirty-six years old, but he sure as hell doesn’t look it some days. And that’s what worries Hosea the most, truth be told.
He gets up from the crate he’s been sitting on and folds the newspaper he hasn’t been reading since they left this morning. Tucks it under his arm. Walks to Dutch’s tent at a fast-paced clip and a tightness to his mouth he can’t remember wearing since Bessie got so sick or when Arthur went missing for a week after he found out what happened to Eliza and Isaac. Anyone who gets in his way is quick to get out of it the minute they see his face.
Dutch is smoking one of his cigars and watching the plumes float high into the air, threading between the branches of the old oak Uncle likes to nap under. Micah is, as he has been since he got back, nearby. Sitting on a chair and cleaning his revolver. If Hosea didn’t know better, he’d half think Dutch had decided to take up with Micah instead of Miss O’Shea, but that’s never been how the arrangement has worked before and besides that, Micah doesn’t seem like the type. Still, he never sees the leech go far from Dutch. And bizarrely enough, Dutch allows it.
“Dutch,” Hosea says, once he’s close enough not to need to shout.
Dutch’s eyes flick down to him. There’s still some warmth in them that normally would make Hosea feel like the years that weigh so heavy on his chest aren’t there. That they’re still younger men, ambitious and eager to make the tiny bit of difference they could in the world. To make it better, like Dutch had sworn to do all those years ago.
“Hosea,” the younger man says warmly. He flicks some ash off of the cigar. “What can I do for you?”
“He ain’t back yet.”
Dutch blinks. “Arthur’s not back yet?”
“No sign of Hestia either. I’ve been waiting for them, near where the herd grazes.”
“Probably just takin’ the long way back,” Micah supplies and it takes everything Hosea has not to snap his newspaper against the greasy man’s face for the way he sneers.
Knowing Micah, it’d probably just stain the paper.
“He’ll be back soon enough,” he continues. “He likes to wander, y’know.”
Of course I know that, you pigeon-livered piss-stain, Hosea does not say aloud. I’m the one who suggested to Dutch we let him roam around to his heart’s content in the first place when he was sixteen!
Dutch on the other hand, seems to relax at Micah’s words. He nods once and turns back to Hosea. “It’ll be fine, old girl. You know how Arthur is.”
“I do,” Hosea says.
He shifts his weight to one leg. His paper is still firmly tucked under his left arm.
“And you and I both know,” he says slowly. “That Arthur would never take off like this after a mission. Not without checking in with someone first, to make sure they were fine and to tell them he was going in the first place.”
“He’s not a child anymore, Hosea,” Dutch says. “Hasn’t been for quite some time.”
“That doesn’t matter!” Hosea snaps. “And you know it. If this was anyone else—”
“But it’s not,” Dutch says flatly.
His dark eyes have grown cold and hard and he takes a step forward, almost threateningly. His free hand is clenched at his side and perhaps if Hosea was anyone else, he might feel afraid but he’s not. Hosea knows every single gang member’s tells, and Dutch has always been the easiest for him to read since that night they met on the road outside Chicago. Dutch is unsure, but trying to pretend to be the confident, suave leader he’s always been.
“Arthur will come back,” he says firmly. Like he’s trying to convince himself. “He always does.”
“Then you won’t mind me going out to look for him,” Hosea says. “Just to make sure.”
“You don’t need to do that.” Dutch waves his hand in the air, trying to be dismissive. “You know if you go to track him down, he’ll get all moody about it and go off sulking for at least a week. He doesn’t need a nursemaid, Hosea. He’s fine.”
Hosea scowls slight. “Fine then,” he says. “I’ll give him another hour. And if he’s not back by then Dutch, I’m taking Silver Dollar and riding out to look myself. With or without your blessing.”
He turns on his heel and stalks away, back to his crate. Once again, the gang stays out of his way but he notices they look worried too. More worried than Dutch does, certainly. He finds John smoking a cigarette close to his post, watching the trees with some distant look on his face. He’s donned his hat and jacket, repeater slung over his shoulder.
“Hosea,” he says, eyes flicking down to look at him.
“How’re your scars feeling?” Hosea says, forcing his voice to be more cordial to his other boy.
John doesn’t deserve his ire, after all.
“They’re fine,” John says, shrugging. “Put some of that poultice on ‘em last night, since they were feelin’ a bit tight. But they’re fine now.”
Hosea hums. “Glad to hear it.”
He sits down with care on the crate, lays the folded paper across his knees as he looks back to the trees. Strains his ears for any hint of the thunderous hoofbeats of Arthur’s Aredennes, any hint of a blue shirt or bay roan coat. Hosea hasn’t smoked since Bessie told him she didn’t like the smell but he almost wants to ask John if he could have one, if only to give his hands something to do other than trace over the same worn wood grain over and over again for another hour.
“Arthur’s not back yet,” John says.
“No, he’s not.”
John hums. Shifts his weight. “Did Dutch say anything about looking for him?”
Hosea barks out a quick, bitter laugh. “Dutch says we shouldn’t be worried. Claims he’ll just waltz back in, like he always does.”
John is quick to scowl at this, scars tugging on the skin of his face. He looks down at Hosea, face lit up by his cigarette and the fading sun. “He said that?”
“Yes, he did.” After a moment, Hosea adds, “If Arthur doesn’t come back in an hour, I’m going to find him. Something’s not right about this.”
“No,” John agrees. “It’s not.”
He kicks at a rock on the ground, sighs and sits down next to Hosea, shoulder leaning against the crate.
“I’ll come with you,” he says, long after Hosea thinks he might’ve fallen asleep. “When you go, I mean.”
Hosea glances down at him. John’s older now, but Hosea can’t help but see the same scrawny twelve-year old Arthur shot down from an impromptu gallows. He can remember every fight and argument and moment he felt proud as he grew up, turning into the young man he is today. Maybe he isn’t perfect and maybe there’s a lot Hosea wished he’d take more responsibility for.
(A young boy with his father’s nose and sharp chin and his mother’s kind eyes comes to mind. He’d held that baby mere moments after Abigail had given birth and something in his heart had grown then, some odd feeling of love and remorse and something indescribable when he realized that this was John’s boy. He half wonders if this is what all grandfathers feel when they meet their grandsons.)
But this is still his boy. His the same way that Arthur is his, in the same way that he and Dutch raised these boys and goddamnit, shouldn’t it be Dutch saying he’d ride out with him to track down their boy? Hosea knows he would have, once upon a time.
Still, he cannot afford to reject help right now. Not when he doesn’t know what might’ve happened to Arthur. Not when Colm O’Driscoll is involved. A man far more vicious than a rattlesnake, more hungry for money and power than a spring grizzly. A man who hates Dutch more than anyone else in the world, more than even the government.
(”We don’t deal in the business of revenge,” Dutch had once told Annabelle, and it had been true back then. Only Hosea knows how far he’d stretched that statement once she’d been killed. Or how he could hardly begrudge him his petty ways of getting back at Colm, what with how they’d found her.)
He lays his hand on John’s shoulder and squeezes it gently. Notes in the back of his head, in that worried way he’s had since Dutch brought home not one, not two but three children at separate times for them to raise, that he should try to get John to eat a bit more, with how skinny he still is.
“Thank you, John,” he says, his voice low. “I’d appreciate that.”
John nods his head once and turns to look back at the trees. There they sit, waiting and hoping that perhaps for once, Hosea will be wrong about one of his gut feelings. That Arthur Morgan, son and brother, will return atop his horse with a deer strapped to the back, that old black gambler hat shielding his face from the setting sun.
Hosea doesn’t even have to get Silver Dollar ready by the time he’s left his paper next to Lenny’s bedroll and made sure he has enough bullets on hand for whatever he needs to face. Kieran’s saddled up the silver Turkoman and is just leading Old Boy around by his bridle when John joins him. He watches as Charles approaches on Taima’s back, his bow strapped to his back and his sawed-off in it’s holster.
“You ridin’ out to find Arthur?” he says.
“Yes,” Hosea replies. “We’d be glad to have another pair of hands if you’d be happy to spare them.”
“Can I come?”
Hosea bites back a groan as Sean pops up out of nowhere, similar to how weasels often do in the winter. He doesn’t hate Sean in the slightest, but jobs did tend to derail with him around. He’d be the first to admit to being surprised at how well the train heist had gone, given that John hadn’t really factored Sean’s presence in to the equation. Still…Hosea’s not sure he wants the kind of chaos Sean can sow if they’re going out to find Arthur.
“We ain’t goin’ out on a job,” John snaps. “We’re goin’ out to find Arthur.”
“I know that! Christ, d’you think I’m some kind of eejit?” Sean scowls. “I wanna help.”
“We don’t have time to keep arguing about this,” Charles says, his voice low but firm. “Either get on Ennis or go back to the fire.”
Ennis, who’s been tied to a post on the other side of camp but fortunately, is still saddled, seems almost as ready to go as his rider. He keeps mouthing at the bit as he prances from hoof to hoof, barely restrained by Sean pulling his head back.
“That everyone?” Hosea says.
“Sadie asked to come earlier,” Charles said. “I told her she should stay here, in case he comes back.”
“Good thinking. Much as I’d appreciate her skills, I don’t think any of the camp Morgans would take her.”
Hosea pulls himself into his saddle, coughing into his arm for a moment as his stupid lungs clench up, like they’ve been doing for nigh on a year now.
“This isn’t going to be like when we do jobs,” he warns the three other men, once his coughing has subsided. “We’re trying to track down a man, when night has fallen and doubtlessly will make it more difficult to find him. Charles, I think you ought to take the lead when it comes to the tracking. I’m no slouch myself, but you’re our best man for the job.”
Charles nods his head once, straightening up where he sits on Taima’s back.
“You two, keep your eyes peeled for anything. And try not to make too much noise.”
He directs this last bit to Sean, who salutes him half-mockingly. It makes a stark contrast between his uncharacteristic expression and his tendency to prefer jokes to seriousness.
“Let’s ride. Hyah!”
He presses his heels into Silver Dollars sides quick before the Turkoman stallion is leaping forward into a gallop, with Ennis and Old Boy hot on his heels. Taima and Charles bring up the back of the group as they ride out into the night.