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“We should set up camp here,” Hosea announced as he and Arthur rode into a small clearing.
“You sure?” Arthur asked him. The sun hadn’t set yet and he would rather cover as much ground as possible before settling down.
“It’ll be dark soon, we might not come across another spot as good as this one,” Hosea reasoned.
“True,” Arthur begrudgingly agreed. “You need any help setting up the tents?”
“I would certainly appreciate it,” Hosea responded, already dismounting Silver Dollar. Arthur followed suit, dismounting Sentinel and giving the stallion a sugar cube before he began helping Hosea set up a temporary camp.
They easily slid into a routine, talking and occasionally taking playful jabs at one another as they worked. It was so familiar that something deep within Arthur’s chest ached with longing. He missed the days where it had just been him, Hosea, and Dutch. Moving from town to town, robbing folks at night and disappearing by the time morning rolled around. Back then, it had felt like they were the kings of the world. They answered to no one, didn’t have to look after anyone but each other. It had been close to perfect, more perfect than Arthur had ever hoped to dream of before he’d met the two men.
“Arthur? Everything alright?”
Hosea’s voice pulled Arthur out of his reminiscing. He chuckled sheepishly and replied, “Yeah. Just…thinkin’, y’know?”
Hosea nodded. “Yeah, I know.” After a brief pause, he added, “I miss those days, too.” A wet, hacking cough followed his sentence. Arthur glanced at him with concern.
Noticing Arthur’s look, Hosea frowned. “Don’t look at me like that,” he reprimanded Arthur rather sharply.
Arthur blinked innocently. “Like what?”
“Like I’m about to keel over dead,” Hosea grumbled. “You’re as bad as Dutch.”
“We’re both just worried ‘bout you.”
“Don’t be.”
After that exchange, they fell into a silence that wasn’t necessarily tense but felt far from comfortable.
Once the tents had been set up, Arthur wandered to the edge of the clearing to collect some firewood while Hosea went to tend to the horses. As he was collecting, Arthur found himself wishing he had brought an axe along. Hopefully the sticks he was gathering would be enough to start a proper fire for a little while.
A hacking cough sounded from where Hosea was looking over the horses. Arthur grimaced but continued his work, knowing Hosea wouldn’t take kindly to him running back to worry over him.
It was obvious that Hosea was suffering from an illness. Not something simple like a cold. Nothing that could be chased away by a good night’s rest. Hosea’s illness was the kind that sank its claws in and didn’t ever let go again, not until the man it clung to was nothing but a corpse. It terrified Arthur. He’d had to witness Hosea’s cough worsen over the past months, the constant stress of running from the law doing his health no favors. Hosea never acknowledged that he was sick, always dismissing any concern expressed about his well-being with a wave of his hand and a loosely related piece of wisdom. But Arthur knew it was bad, much worse than Hosea would admit.
Hosea coughed again, harsher this time. Arthur paused, not turning around but still listening all the same. It was only when the coughing didn’t stop that he turned, his worried gaze instantly zeroing in on Hosea.
He was standing next to Silver Dollar, leaning against the horse’s flank as his body shook with the force of his coughs. He seemed unable to stop coughing long enough to take a breath, and Arthur’s concern spiked when he saw the older man’s knees buckle.
“Hosea?” Arthur called out. “Everythin’ alright with you, old man?”
Hosea turned to glance at Arthur. Even though Arthur was a considerable distance away, he could still spot the unconcealed fear on Hosea’s face as clearly as though the man were standing only inches away from him. Arthur felt frozen, a horrible feeling of dread creeping down his spine at seeing such an emotion in Hosea’s eyes.
Then Hosea fell to his knees, clutching his chest with one hand as he was racked with awful, painful sounding coughs.
Without thinking, Arthur dropped the sticks he had collected and raced to Hosea’s side. He dropped to his knees at the older man’s side, hands hovering uncertainly over Hosea’s back as panic began to set in.
“What…what do I gotta do?” Arthur asked frantically. “You gotta help me out here!”
Hosea’s only response was a tortured wheeze that had Arthur’s own lungs aching in sympathy.
“Hosea, I…I don’t know what to do,” Arthur pleaded. He hadn’t felt this terrified in a long time. Terrified and helpless. He felt like a child again, trembling as he waited for some sort of instruction, an order, anything to make him feel like he was something other than useless.
But Hosea was in no condition to give him any orders. The man couldn’t even breathe, let alone speak.
Suddenly, Hosea’s arm shot out and grabbed Arthur’s wrist so hard he thought it would break. The older man managed to lift his head, and his eyes were so full of desperation and fear that Arthur forgot how to breathe for a moment.
Hosea’s coughing had subsided, giving way to breathless, tortured gasps and wheezes. Arthur found himself simply staring, frozen by panic as Hosea continued to all but choke right in front of him.
The grip on Arthur’s wrist loosened as Hosea slowly slumped over onto his side, a horrific, strangled sob sounding in his throat as he tried and failed to take a breath.
The sight of his oldest friend, his father, sagging bonelessly into the ground finally pushed Arthur into action. He wrapped his arms around Hosea and pulled him into a sitting position. Not knowing what else to do, he gave Hosea a hefty slap on the back.
“Come on, old man,” he whispered. “Don’t you die on me. Not like this. Don’t you do it, you bastard!”
Hosea was making a soft sound, somewhere between a whisper and a wheeze, and it took Arthur a moment to realize that he was trying to speak.
“…’gain,” Hosea gasped. “H…hit…”
He was telling Arthur to hit him again.
Arthur complied, hitting the same spot on Hosea’s back again. This time, Hosea let out several forceful coughs that shook his entire frame. Arthur hit him again, and finally, finally, Hosea drew in a real—albeit weak and trembling—breath.
Neither of them spoke as Hosea slowly regained his breath. Each time he was interrupted by a cough, Arthur’s heart sped up, beating painfully against his ribs as he waited for Hosea to draw in the next breath.
It was only when Hosea’s coughs had faded into a faint rattling in his chest that Arthur finally spoke.
“You scared the shit out of me, you know that?” he grumbled, because he didn’t know what else to say.
Hosea had no dry, witty response—or perhaps he was simply too out of breath to utter one.
They both fell back into silence. Arthur realized that he still had his hand resting on Hosea’s back, but he didn’t dare remove it. He needed it. He needed to feel Hosea’s back rise and fall, needed to reassure himself that Hosea was still breathing.
“I’m sorry,” Hosea suddenly murmured. His voice sounded rough, speaking undoubtedly painful. Yet he continued on. “I didn’t…I didn’t expect it to get that bad. It usually only happens in the winter.”
“You know damn well it ain’t a seasonal thing no more,” Arthur snapped, sounding more bitter than he intended to. “It ain’t been about seasons for a while. You’re sick, Hosea.”
The and you ain’t getting better hung like a dark cloud over their heads, unspoken but all too present.
Now that Hosea was no longer actively dying in front of him, Arthur’s panic was melting into anger. Anger at himself for freezing when Hosea needed him, angry at Hosea for insisting on this hunting trip despite being ill, angry at whatever cruel twist of fate had left Hosea with this curse that was slowly gnawing away at his lungs.
“What if you had died?” Arthur whispered. “What the hell would I tell Dutch? He needs you, Hosea. We all do.”
“I’m not dead yet,” Hosea murmured.
Not dead yet.
Listening to the rattle in Hosea’s chest, Arthur didn’t find those words comforting at all.