Chapter Text
John showed up in the early hours of the morning. Hosea could hear him speak quietly to Arthur through the door, jolting him from the doze he had fallen into. He was half-laying on the bed, over the covers, with his back against the frame; Kieran was curled up to his left under the covers, snoring slightly. The first rays of dawn were just beginning to seep into the horizon, the sky still mostly dark. Hosea was just starting to quietly slide off the bed when he heard John’s footsteps fade down the stairs.
Hosea stepped out the door, closing it quietly behind him. “John here?”
Arthur nodded glaring at the ground, “Wanted to hear the story from our side,” he murmured.
“What did Dutch say happened?”
Arhtur’s jaw clenched, lip curling. “It don’t matter. Most of the camp don’t believe him.”
Hosea chuckled. “That bad, huh?”
Arhtur just grunted. Apparently he didn’t find it funny.
Silence. Hosea thought of Kieran. “So, what did you tell him?” He couldn’t imagine Kieran wanted the whole camp knowing...
“I didn’t go into specifics,” Arthur seemed to understand Hosea’s worries. “But he’s with us, and most of the gang too. They’re afraid Dutch and Micah won’t let ‘em leave. They wanna meet us in two days.”
Hosea hadn’t expected so many.
They couldn’t see them in the thick morning fog until they were only a hundred or so yards away. He, Arhtur, and Kieran waited on the outskirts of Saint Denis, close enough to a police presence that Dutch wouldn’t cause trouble and far enough away that their meeting wouldn’t be too conspicuous. He thought he was seeing things when the wagons came into view.
Jack was the first to them. He hopped off the moving wagon, much to Abigail’s frustration, and sprinted the final distance, wrapping his little arms around Hosea’s legs. Hosea picked him up and hugged him back, laughing. Charles was the second to them and padded Arhtur’s shoulder, smiling softly. “Almost everyone decided to come along. We couldn’t leave secretly like we planned.”
Shawn grinned and waved, standing up on the wagon. Mrs. Grimshaw pulled him back down by his belt loop. Javier tipped his hat aloofly. Uncle just looked annoyed to be awake that early.
Almost everyone was in the convoy. Bill, Reverend Swanson, Micah, and, of course, Dutch, were the only ones that didn’t ride away that morning.
It was overwhelming at first. Everyone looked to Hosea to lead. To decide where the convoy would go next. Surprisingly, no one seemed to connect Kieran to his and Dutch’s falling out except John and Arhtur. Hosea hadn’t meant to start a damn coup; all he had wanted was to get Kieran to safety. It was a position in which he never thought he’d find himself, but there was no use getting all worked up about it. He would do his best for his people; it was all he could do. He climbed onto Silver Dollar and led the convoy with Arhtur on his right and Charles on his left. He didn’t plan on ruling an autocracy like Dutch: he’d listen to his advisors. He wasn’t alone.
They laid low, covered their tracks. Did a lot of small jobs rather than a few big ones. No more train heists, bank robberies, or anything like that. Their goal was to survive and stay out of the lawmen’s sights long enough for the storm Dutch had brought down on them to blow over. They actually did rather well, and, slowly but surely, they were able to make their way westward.
Then Arthur started to cough. Then he got sick. Then he got sicker.
It was awful. Hosea lay awake all night in their temporary camp listening to him wheeze and cough, choking and hacking up phlegm. He almost regretted sending a grumbling Arthur to the doctor when he came back, much quieter, with news that almost knocked Hosea off his feet. Tuberculosis. That there was no cure. All they could do was hope and let him rest as much as possible. After that, he lay awake all night listening to his son die. He lay awake all night praying to whatever or whoever may be out there to let him live.
But praying never helped much of anyone as far as Hosea knew, and they had a whole camp full of people who were willing to do a hell of a lot more than pray. Everyone pitched in to take care of him. Nearly all of the money from the lockbox went to pay for medicine. Hosea worked on tonics tirelessly and near forced them down Arthur’s throat. One of the girls was always at Arthur’s bedside, both to watch over him and to make sure he didn’t sneak off to work. Lenny and John stole what medicine they couldn’t afford. Charles was able to get some herbs from the reservation after helping their chief. Even Uncle got off his ass and went into town, somehow coming back home that night with a smug smile and several doses of powerful sedatives.
It was the worst month of Hosea’s life, but, somehow, they got through it as a family. It took time. It took effort. It took money. But Arhtur, the stubborn workhorse he was, started getting better. He started sleeping through the night. Then he stopped wheezing. Then he started eating more. Then he started gaining weight back. Hosea felt himself getting more and more cautiously optimistic. Hope began to grow like a delicate flower after a long winter. It wasn’t until he watched Arthur playing a game of tag with Jack that Hosea felt himself breath easy. Arthur had beaten the odds and recovered. At least, as much as a tuberculosis survivor could. The doctor said the tuberculosis would affect him for the rest of his life. His days of being the camp workhorse, at least when it came to manual labor, were over. Not that anyone really worried too much about that; they were just relieved that he was alive. He would have flare ups from time to time, but, with enough rest, he should survive those too.
Hosea’s son lived. The gang stayed together, more or less. They laid low. They avoided the lawmen. Hosea shuddered to think how this would have turned out with Dutch breathing down Arthur’s neck all the time to get more money. If Dutch’s greed had pushed the gang into more trouble. If the gang had been on the run so much that Arthur wouldn’t have time to rest. If the gang had taken risks, lost people. If Arthur had suffered injuries due to Dutch’s carelessness. There was a very real possibility that Arthur wouldn’t have survived. Dutch would have worked him to death. Dutch would have worked them all to death.
The Mathews Gang was never famous like the Van der Linde Gang; In fact, very few lawmen ever even knew of its existence. Hosea understood that the make of a good, of a sustainable, gang was not its infamy, but its lack of reputation. The best outlaws weren’t just never caught: they were never even suspects. They kept moving. Started going westward. Kept their heads down. Didn’t make a fuss. Eventually, they somehow scraped enough money for a small ranch. It wasn’t much, but it was a place to call home and honest work... mostly.