"Well to Hell with him, then!" Dutch declared. His voice boomed in the still air over the receding rumble of the cart and there was no doubt Arthur heard the curse.
Damn right, John thought. To hell with Arthur Morgan. Goddamn hypocrite.
"Mighty fine night to pay a social call," Micah observed, fingering the custom-carved skull grip of his blackened steel pistol.
A shuffling and a murmur rippled through the gang as they stood, scattered around Dutch in the growing dusk. John did not lend his voice. True, he felt a little hot from this whole mess, but this...
But Hosea rounded on Micah. "Don't you even think about it, you goddamn fool!"
Micah chuckled, throwing his hands up. Not for the first time that night, a tense silence fell upon them. Hosea looked at Dutch, and the edge to his voice was sharp and serious. "Arthur isn't a threat an' you know it!"
"Men do funny things for a honey pot," Micah chimed. "Funny things, indeed. And that sour old bear is probably starvin'." The hitman chuckled at his own joke, though no one else laughed. "For all we know, she might push him to turn us all in."
I sure as hell never would, John thought. No woman would ever force John to abandon the men who plucked him from the gallows. No. John had seen too many cons and fleeced too many sheep to give up his God-given freedom.
"Hosea's right," Dutch finally agreed. He started walking back into camp, toward the main fire, and they all followed as he spoke. "Arthur may have his priorities skewed right now, but he ain't a rat."
"I'd feel safer if we didn't have any loose ends," Micah pressed.
"He doesn't know a damn thing about what we're plannin'," Dutch reasoned with a dismissive wave of his hand. "He made certain of that himself. And even if he did, there is nothin' he can do to stop us. Besides..." Dutch paused a moment and allowed himself a chuckle. "Can you imagine the look on his face when he hears about this? He'll be begging for a piece of the action."
Micah's smile disappeared beneath the long blond mustache. "If you say so, Boss," he grumbled.
"I do," Dutch said. By now, they had reached the center of camp, near the lavishly furnished tent Dutch shared with Ms. O'Shea. Dutch stepped up on an empty, overturned apple crate. "Now listen! All of you!"
And the faithful gathered around him. They could all see him, the fire in his eyes and it made John feel better. "We ain't got time to worry about the faint of heart or the weak-willed. Tomorrow, we make history!"
"Sounds like you gotta plan," Uncle said.
"Of course." Dutch smiled. "We're hitting an Express team heading for St. Denis. Banknotes marked to pay for all that there progress we're seein' in Blackwater. Me, Micah and Javier will board that ferry. While these fine gentlemen take care of the Express guards, I'll relieve them of the lockbox."
"You're really going through with this?" Hosea asked. "After what I told you?"
"It'll be easy," Micah said.
Dutch nodded. "Fortune favors the bold."
"It don't feel right," Hosea pressed.
Dutch stared a moment blinking. "This is good information, Hosea. And with this crew beside me? We can accomplish anything." Dutch looked to the gathered members. "Jenny and Karen!" he shouted. "You girls will board the ferry as ladies, taking up positions to cover our ferry team. Think you can sidle up to them guards?"
Jenny batted her lashes. "Sure as a honeybee finds flowers, Boss. How you want 'em dealt with?"
"Knock 'em out, dump 'em in the drink... I don't much care how you do it, so long as they are taken care of."
Karen crowed with delight. "You got it, Dutch!"
"John!"
"Yeah, Dutch?"
"John?" Hosea asked. "I thought John was with me."
John looked between the two, torn. He had promised Hosea he would help with the confidence scam. But this ferry job. Dutch kept saying a job like this came but once in a lifetime. And when Dutch started talking with this sort of passion it became a catching thing. A wildfire that spread quick and consuming.
"Not no more," Dutch said. He pointed his cigar out towards the darkness. "Your help just rode off to domesticated bliss."
Hosea's mouth twisted and though the silver conman shook his head he muttered; "Fine." Dutch smiled and turned his gaze fully upon John.
"I need you, son," he said in all seriousness. "Now more than ever."
"An' I got yer back, Dutch," he said. "Always."
"You, Mac and Davey hold that dock. No one, you hear me? No one boards that ship once the action starts. Secure it and keep those damn lawmen pinned down in their station."
"An' what about us?" Sean asked. "Are we not gonna get a piece o this action then, eh?"
"Of course, my boy," Dutch said, his tone as soothing as Abigail conceding candy to Jack. "You, Bill, Charles, Lenny... I need you boys to have the horses just a short distance up the street. Once that dock is secure, and we're off the ferry, you bring them up and we'll ride off into History."
Micah grinned. "This is gonna be a mighty fine job, gentlemen," he declared.
They worked out the details. The times that they suspected the Express company would try to move the lockbox and where the best choke points would be. Jenny and Karen planned to flirt their way in and Sean and Lenny were all too happy to play the role of fool guards, play acting as Grimshaw and Molly put together the finery. "Turnin' these sow's ears into silk purses," Molly said in her charming brogue.
The morale in camp should have been high on the eve of so grand a design.
But once the plan had been set, they went their separate ways. Dutch to his tent and the gang dispersed. Sitting around the fires, in a sort of stunned stupor. The fire filled the spans of silence with its own monologue. Crackling, popping, hissing. It was easy to simply stare at the hypnotic licking dance and not say anything at all.
Any smart fella was happy with the freedom of camp life, John thought. He certainly was. So why did Arthur keep wondering what was beyond the horizon? Even after Mary, Arthur wondered and wandered beyond and, in the wandering, seen strange things and met strange folk.
"I have seen great beauty and great ugliness in men, and all things in between," he had said once. They were sitting around a similar campfire in a different place then. Further north, and still west. One of the rare moments since John's return that Arthur was not growling at him. "You ever wonder," he then asked. "About the money we take. That the people we take it from might... I dunno... need it, maybe?"
"Rich folk," John had said. "At least we steal it honest."
Arthur leaned forward then, bracing his elbows on his knees, the bottle of ocher rye whiskey in his large hands. John could remember how the light etched the lines of his face and lit his eyes. Arthur had nodded in agreement, but he stared into that fire. "I had to collect off a maid today."
"And you call me lucky?" John mused. He laughed. "Sounds to me like you're the one gettin' all the easy work."
Arthur did not share in his mirth. He did not even spare John a glance.
"She certainly weren't rich. Just a young girl who thought her boss loved her."
"Then she must have been stupid," John remembered saying. Only stupid people fell prey to old Leopold Strauss. "What are you gettin' at?"
Arthur had shrugged and took a long pull of the rye, still staring into the flames. Finally, he said: "I got the money."
"You really think this a bad idea, Hosea?" Lenny asked, breaking the spell.
Hosea poked at the fire with a gnarled, charred poking stick, thoughtful. "Maybe," he said as sparks broke and shot up on the heat. He sighed. "Or maybe I'm just getting too old for all this. Time for me to step aside and allow you young guns to decide our course."
"Maybe," Mac said. Gruff, blunt, but not in a jeering sort of way.
Hosea nodded, getting to his feet. "Yes," he concluded. "Well. Make sure you all get your rest for tomorrow. Good night."
"Good night, Hosea," John said.
"Dutch ain't ever led us astray," Davey added once Hosea was away.
"But we ain't ever done something like this without Arthur," Javier said.
"And?"
"I dunno know," the rebel said with a shrug. "Just seems... unlucky, I guess. A bad omen him leavin' like this."
"Well I can't believe it," Bill finally said. He, like all of them, had looked to Arthur. Despite suffering the enforcer's sarcastic criticisms. "I had thought better of Morgan. He always said loyalty were everything."
"It is," Uncle confirmed.
"Then what the hell is goin' on with him?"
"He's finally over that dreadful Gillis woman," Mary-Beth chimed in gently. "I'll miss 'im, sure, but... well, I mean... we're all gonna leave eventually, aren't we? One way or another?"
"You're an idiot," Ms. Grimshaw snapped.
"That's not very nice," the girl protested indignantly.
"I call a spade a spade," Grimshaw added. She rose from her seat and glared at Mary-Beth over the fire. "After everything we've done for him, there ain't no reason this new woman of his can't do as Ms. Roberts is doin'."
"Yep, it's been just dandy," Abigail said, unsmiling. John looked at her over the fire.
"We're his family!" Grimshaw continued in a pleading way. "What if... well, what if she turns out to be just another Mary?"
"Oh, I'd bet a bottle on it," Karen said. "Mark my words. Morgan'll come crawling back in no time."
"Yeah," Uncle agreed, confidently. "He'll be back."
Abigail stood then. "Good night," she said plainly before slipping away. The abruptness worried John, and he quickly followed. He caught up to her, near her canvas lean-to. Perched on the edge of camp, as far from his own tent as possible.
"Abigail," John said.
She slowed but did not turn to look at him. "What is it, John?"
"Uh, how's Jack?"
Abigail was still looking to her spartan living space, where they could both see Jack huddled on the ground in a nest of hunter green wool and red flannel. "Sleepin'."
Right. "That's good," John said, nodding.
Abigail sighed and turned to look at him. "What do you want John? I ain't in the mood nor am I drunk enough to play with you."
"I... no, I wasn't thinkin'-," he said. Abigail seemed so worn out. Hands limp at her side. Shoulders sagging. No longer the fun, vivacious little thing that followed Uncle home five years ago. Babies sucked the life out of girls.
"Then what is it?"
"You went to see Arthur."
She sighed. "Yep."
"And?"
"And what, John? Will you stop beatin' around the bush so I can get to sleep?"
"Why you so mad?" he asked hotly. "All I wanted to know was what you saw."
"What I saw?"
"Yeah. Or what was said. You talked to him, didn't you?"
"Of course."
"So?" John prompted. "I can't make hide or hair of why he's leavin'."
Abigail looked down at the ground. "Ain't it obvious?" she asked.
John stared at her, thinking and nothing came to mind. He shook his head.
"He..." Abigail looked over John's shoulder to the camp. More quietly she said; "He loves her, John. He's gone and put a ring on her finger and a roof over her head and they're... Hell, he'll have a bun in that oven in no time."
John nearly choked. "Arthur?"
"Why are we all so damn shocked?" Abigail huffed. "With how he was constantly nippin' after you an' Bill an' well... anyone who loafed or were constantly in the sauce. Wanderin' off fer days at a time, probably to get away from all the bickerin'. An' how he is with Jack. Anyone with eyes should be able to see that this sorta thing means more to him than killin' or whorin' or hooch."
"What are you goin' on about?" John asked, now thoroughly confused. "Arthur hates civilization and everything that goes with it. He's always bitchin' about what a nag you are and all the attention Jack needs. And you're tellin' me he's seeking this aggravation? For himself? Because of a woman? After that whole mess all them years ago?"
Abigail glared at him. "You're a fool, John Marston."
"I'm a fool?" John demanded. "After all that nonsense about how lucky I am that everyone took me back? All his damn blustering and griping about trust and loyalty? No. Arthur's the fool."
"You are a goddamn fool and an idiot besides," she confirmed. "He weren't ever talking about the gang!"
"Start talkin' sense, woman. Loyalty is all he ever talks about. I thought for sure he'd never-"
"He meant to us, John. Me and Jack!"
"What?"
"Arthur envied you!"
John blinked, unable to process it. "What?" he asked again.
"I mean, sure he did mention, often, that leavin' like you did was wrong..." Abigail conceded. "But all that 'bout you bein' lucky and a fool?" Abigail looked up at the sky, now the colour of a deep bruise. She laughed mirthlessly. "Even I didn't understand it. It seems so obvious, now that it's too late."
"You're sure Jack ain't his?" John asked instead. It had always been easier to imagine Jack were fathered by some other member of the gang. How could so bright and gentle a kid come from his loins anyway? Maybe... maybe Arthur wouldn't need this damn woman after all. Maybe he'd stay. Despite all the grumbling, John wanted him there, in some way.
But Abigail looked at John for a long moment. She did not flare up. Her eyes misted over, and she looked, instead, like she might actually cry.
"Damn it, John."
"Look... I ain't tryin' to shame you," he said.
"You don't have to try," she said, emotion threatening to cut off her voice. "You do it so much you got me wishin' it! If I knew then what I know now. That you'd humiliate me, and hurt Jack, time an' time again... You finally got me wishin' it weren't you. At least... if I could, I would wish it were Arthur! At least he would have taken care of me, treated Jack right. Maybe have a bed for my son and a roof over our heads!"
Abigail stopped, sniffling. It stunned John how much it hurt to hear it, and this strange mixture that followed. The feelings of relief and shame and even a touch of betrayal. She took a steadying breath, gathering herself up again. Girding herself in her steely determination. "There. I've said it," Abigail said, more composed now. "If there were even a ghost of a chance... but there ain't. Arthur knows it, and I know it and we're both of us loyal to you, so here we are."
John did not know what to say.
"I know I love you, John," Abigail said, her voice raw and her words under-cooked. "Fer all the good it does me, I love you. Is there any chance maybe...?"
John looked at her, this tough woman who claimed to be the mother of his child. He felt something for her, didn't he? When she was stripped so bare and so brutally honest. But especially when she smiled. How she laughed when she trounced people in dominoes, sore winner that she was. John certainly did not want to see her with anyone else. He wanted to kiss her.
But what did he know? John never knew his own mother. Only that she was some poor prostitute who died bringing him into the world. His father spoke more of his hatred for the English than he ever spoke of the woman who bore him a son.
What the hell did John Marston know of being a husband and a father?
"I don't think I got that in me," John said. He was many terrible things. He drank too much and ran his mouth faster than a thoroughbred could do a quarter mile, but he was also honest.
Abigail's hand connected with his cheek and John welcomed the sudden sting.
"Who needs ya," she cried. "Don't know why you even bothered to come back!"