𝘍𝘖𝘙𝘎𝘐𝘝𝘌𝘕𝘌𝘚𝘚 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘙𝘌𝘛𝘙𝘐𝘉𝘜𝘛𝘐𝘖𝘕 | ʀᴅʀ

Chapter Twenty-Four

1895: Texas

Rosalie sat at a picnic table in camp with Hosea, Dutch, Arthur, and Javier. It was early afternoon, the smell of Pearson's stew filling the air as the girls made mindless chatter on the opposite side of camp as they did their chores. Richy was caring for the horses, Davey helping him by bringing over a rather large bale of hay as he spread it out to the munching animals. Mac stood near them as he smoked a cigarette.

Rosalie's hair was braided out of her face, black cowboy hat on her head and shielding her face from the harsh, sweltering sun as she sat at the table, in the middle of a card game with Hosea. Her dark blue button-up was rolled to her elbows and had a few more buttons undone at her neck than what was proper, but with the intense Texas heat, she was in desperate need of any relief she could get.

She took a drag of her cigarette with a contemplative expression as she eyed her hand of playing cards, before pulling one and discarding it into the pile. Hosea hummed happily as she laid the card down and took it for himself. He placed it on the wooden table with a collection of cards in the same suit, increasing his points once again, when Rosalie had next to nothing laid before her.

"Ugh, really?" Rosalie groaned, throwing her hand up as he once again used something she discarded, thinking it to be nothing more than junk.

Hosea flashed her a cheeky smile. "I didn't fancy you a loser! You gotta keep up."

Rosalie snorted. "I'm not going to lose."

She turned her attention to Arthur. He sat beside Hosea with his back turned as he brushed through Copper's thick coat, the clumps of fur falling off his back with each stroke of the brush as the pup adjusted to the summer temperature.

"Arthur, you gotta play," Rosalie insisted. "I can't lose."

Arthur snorted and looked over his shoulder. "I ain't gonna play this stupid game so you can beat me. Jus' suffer through it with Hosea." He said.

Rosalie grinned. "Ha! So you know if you played, you would lose!" She insisted, thinking she had backed him into a corner and would trick him into playing.

Arthur gave her a deadpan look. Rosalie's grin didn't waver, even at the sight of his unimpressed expression.

He sighed and shook his head, continuing to glide the brush through Copper's coat, his tail wagging as he panted happily from the attention.

"If you both are still playin' when I'm done, I'll join." Arthur agreed.

"Yes!" Rosalie cheered.

Dutch gave her an unimpressed look for interrupting his lesson with Javier. "Miss Klein, I know you are properly enthralled with that card game there, but could you keep it down?" He asked with a raised brow.

Javier and Dutch were elbow to elbow on the opposite side of the table as Dutch tried to teach him English over a newspaper.

Rosalie gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry."

As Javier had come to and seemed to gather more of his strength, most of his time was spent with Dutch as he tried to learn English to communicate with the rest of the gang properly. Javier seemed to be doing alright so far, but he had been practicing for only a couple weeks now, so the improvement wasn't grand. He had basic communication under his belt, and Rosalie had to say, she was a bit impressed with how quickly he was picking up the language. This was probably due to his eagerness to learn, along with the need for survival, but he was doing a great job.

Though sometimes, it was obvious that he was frustrated with not being able to pronounce certain things, especially when it came to reading certain English words or understanding strange phrases, as while it was common knowledge to someone like Dutch or Arthur, it was strange to someone who had never seen it before. English did have some confusing rules.