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When the sickness had taken Bessie, Hosea had begged God to take him too. What a cruel joke it was, then, when the cough refused to move faster than a crawl. What a cruel, cruel joke, for the rattle in his lungs to only get dangerous years on. For it to take its time with him.
But nobody ever gets what they want in this life. He learned that a long time ago, when he came back, hat in hand, after a year away with Bessie. Their failed attempt to make it straight. Not their failure. His.
That had been the point of thought he’d spent so long ruminating over at the bottom of a bottle, draped across the ground on the outskirts of camp every day and night for about a year. His failure. Couldn’t even let Bessie die in a nice place, he’d think and then verbalize, words coming out as a slurred mutter to himself as he staggered around camp, looking for something easily destroyed. Had to die in this shithole with us. Us good for nothing pieces of shit.
It occurred to Hosea, in his moments of sobriety during that miserable, lonely year and the ensuing mildly kinder ones, that Dutch got some kind of quiet satisfaction out of Hosea’s misery and loneliness. It wasn’t necessarily that he wanted to see Hosea suffer (though that possibility could never be ruled out — spite for Hosea leaving him for Bessie once and then once again, when they departed from the gang to get married), but more that he liked being needed by Hosea. Liked being his favorite again, even if it was because Hosea had no other options.
Of course, Dutch had hated himself for it. Hosea knew that because on one occasion he admitted it. “I can’t do this to you, Hosea,” he had said. “It’s not right.”
“What’s not right?” Hosea had questioned, accusatory and unsteady as he always was that year. Dutch hadn’t responded, had just shaken his head and taken to hiding in his tent for a day. The week after that, he went out of his way to avoid Hosea. It felt like being dragged over a bed of hot coals and drowned and all sorts of other unpleasant tortures and slow deaths. It had ended with Hosea burying his face in the crook of Dutch’s neck and sobbing uncontrollably, barely able to string the please-don’t-leave-me together through the drool and the snot and the tears. Dutch had patted his back awkwardly and then with a little more conviction, hugging him in near-silence, interrupted only by quietly hushing and reassuring Hosea.
They’d done that dance the whole year. An ebb and flow. Hosea had gotten back on his feet, of course. Tilly, if nobody else, needed a gentle hand, one that Dutch wasn’t quite capable of. John was too enthusiastic and besides that, it had only been a year or so since his last escape attempt. They’d found him on the ground outside a church, arms folded. “What took you so long this time?” he’d asked, hiding the shaking and the sniffling behind a veneer of snark. Dutch had taken him into his arms and held him tight, telling him not to do that ever again. Tilly’s attempts were more fruitful, managing on one occasion to cross the state line (though they had been relatively close to the border) but fewer and far between once Hosea spent some time with her.
She’d been one of the first to notice the cough. Even Hosea had attributed it first to lingering cold from the winter, then to some kind of late-in-life allergy, then to dust, until he had fainted while reading to Tilly, body pushed past the point of low oxygen it could manage. He had woken up a few seconds later, having keeled over, rattling still in his lungs and Tilly looking like she’d seen not just a ghost but a whole parade of the undead.
“It’s alright,” he’d said, wheezing slightly and sitting up. Holding his hands out to soothe. “I’m alright. I’m okay. See? Just a, a, a,” and he’d lost the words, something that didn’t happen often. He’d rubbed her shoulder and pulled her close. “I’m sorry,” he’d said quietly in lieu of not being able to lie his way out of it. They’d sat in silence for a minute before Tilly spoke up.
“I don’t reckon allergies or dust does that,” she’d said, and it had made Hosea laugh, then cough, then laugh again.
“Ahhh,” he’d responded, voice taking on the resignation that would define him for the next decade or so, “no, Tilly. I don’t reckon they do either.”
If Dutch had pulled away during that awful drunken year, he nearly smothered Hosea during the sick one. No cons, no jobs, not even the dignity of being given guard duty. No. Hosea was to sit and recover. Never before had he felt such resentment for the man, like a precarious arrangement of stones on a mountainside, waiting for a hiker to make one wrong move and come tumbling towards him.
“I’m not an invalid, Dutch,” he’d growled out after Dutch offered, god help him, to assist in bathing.
“I’m not saying you are. I’m just trying to help, Hosea,” Dutch had said, and the saccharine tones of sweetness and care were too much for Hosea, and he had balled his hands into fists and punched Dutch in the mouth. The general chatter of camp had gone silent the instant there was the impact of skin-on-skin, everyone stopping and staring wide-eyed at the spectacle.
“Don’t you ever,” Hosea had said, voice barely restrained, trying desperately not to allow his tone to break into screaming, “ever, try and help me without me asking for it. I’m not frail. I’m not weak. I’m not one of your—“ And Hosea had stopped himself here, chest heaving, acutely aware of John and Arthur’s eyes on him. Dutch had stared at him with real shock and real traces of fear that moment, and then with anger and resentment for the next two weeks. It didn’t matter. It got him off Hosea’s back. Good thing, too. Not too long after that, it was the business with Eliza.
Arthur was always too much like Hosea for his own good. What could be done? They sat and drank and talked about lost loves and lost children.
Not one of your lost sheep to be saved, he’d wanted to say when he’d hit Dutch. Not one of your endless parade of doe-eyed women taken in by your talk and your sway and your big ideas.
But he was, wasn’t he.
He was worse than all the rest because at least they had the illusion that Dutch was someone respectable. Look at him, in his rings and his vest, with his acolytes trailing after him, regurgitating his (mostly stolen) philosophy. Look how he holds himself, chin all high, shoulders back like a soldier, thumbs in belt loops like there’s not a thing in the world that could shake him. Like this world, this country (this godforsaken country), was made for him to mold to his vision.
Hosea had met him when he was nothing more than a 21-year-old trying to achieve the appearance of grandiosity, but dressed in cheap clothes. Alone, more than anything else. A runaway since 15, intolerable to almost everyone that knew him. Fewer rings back then, but it had been enough to make Hosea think he had something worth swiping. He was a fool to be taken in by a man like that. Worse than all the rest.
Hosea had thought he was crazy when they first met, he really had. The way Dutch said things about having grand new ideas, about wanting people to listen. Hosea should have abandoned the con and run for the hills, but he didn’t. He pressed on valiantly, pushing the faux-French accent until it nearly broke and he got caught trying to sneak something out of Dutch’s bag. Dutch had taken his revolver, and was pointing it and his own at Hosea’s face when he turned around.
It does funny things to a man, staring down the barrel of his own gun.
Hosea could have died right there, but he didn’t. He’d broken into laughter instead, nervous and disbelieving. It had taken Dutch off guard, evidently, as he’d started laughing too. Food and rings and money and guns had been returned back to their rightful owners, and that had been that. Hosea hadn’t even tried to look back. He’d just leaned on his elbow and listened to Dutch talk, watching him move with wonder and amazement. What a curious man. What an amazing thing he was. Something special.
Of course, Dutch wasn’t as confident back then. He was just coming into his own as a free thinker, but Hosea was so starved of purpose, of direction, that even a man just pretending to know the way was like a lighthouse, a map, a guiding angel of the Lord. The Lord himself on Mount Sinai, heralded by fire and clouds.
Oh, Hosea’s mother had gone white when he’d told her, no older than eleven, that he wanted to be a priest. She’d laughed afterwards and he’d stared at her in that cabin in the White Mountains out East. She’d kissed him on the forehead and explained that people like them, they aren’t priests. Not anymore, at least, not for a long time now.
“People like us?” he’d questioned.
“People like us,” she’d said, rubbing his hair. “Priests are for Catholics. Or Christians, anyway.”
“Oh,” he’d responded, and then had been pulled into her lap and kissed on the cheek. It had made him laugh.
“People like us get to do other kinds of things,” she’d said.
“Like what?”
“Ohhh…” Mother’s eyes had rolled and she’d smiled like she was thinking. “We get to fix things.”
It wasn’t until he was later in life that he’d learned another thing people like them get to do is search for meaning. Abraham, wandering, giving up his friends and family and all he knew. Leave your father’s house, God commanded. And so Hosea did.
Abraham’s search had brought him to the division of The Land of Israel. It had brought him fantastical wars, the covenant of circumcision. It had brought him a people and a Lord.
What had it brought Hosea?
“Prophet of doom,” he’d told Dutch when they’d first met. “That’s what I’m named after.”
“How grim.”
“Oh, like you’re one to judge on the topic of names.”
Dutch had laughed. Hosea would have done anything to make it happen again.
Prophet of doom indeed. Hosea thought of himself more like Cassandra these days, but that’s mixing pantheons. And still, he stayed. Where would he go? Where would Abraham wander after Hebron? Oh, Hosea could wrestle with angels, yes. But that didn’t mean he’d win.
Did Abraham, on that solemn march up the mountain, hand in hand with Isaac, cry out for answers? Did he weep? How many times did he stop and turn around, only to continue down the path? Did his hands shake when putting the chains on his son? Or did he not want to frighten the boy? Was he stone-silent, resolute and determined? Resigned to his fate? After all, when God is the one asking something impossible of you, who can you turn to for intervention? What can you do but comply?
Go forth, God said. Go out and make some money.
He watches Dutch take Molly’s hand and spin her, and he feels sorry for her. God was never kind to women. God was never kind to anyone He loved.
He turns his eyes back to the fire and tries to imagine Abraham confident that his God would not really ask him to slaughter his son. Abraham, trusting.
God, worthy of trust.
What an idea.