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Jack urged his horse to run faster.
The sun was setting on the horizon, but Jack finally knew where to find Ross. He had to make his move now or he could lose him for good.
He had to avenge his father.
John Marston may not have been the best man, but he hadn’t deserved to be betrayed and shot down like that. Not after all that he had done to provide a new life for his family. All that he had done to provide a future for Jack...
Jack’s hands tightened on the reins of his horse. He had to keep going. He had to go faster. He had to get there and make things right-
His horse suddenly slowed and began to rear up. It neighed loudly in a panic, and Jack slid off. He hit the ground with a loud thud and heard his horse run off.
“Ugh...” he groaned. “What the hell...?”
He sat up... and stared.
Silhouetted against the setting sun was a man. Not just any man. It was a man that Jack remembered in his distant memories. But he had to be seeing things. The fall had to have knocked something loose in his head.
Because the man before him had died years ago...
“Look at you,” the man smiled. “God, you look just like John. Just like your Pa...”
“Un... Uncle Arthur?” Jack said slowly.
It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t!
But it was... kinda. There was something off about him. Something that didn’t make him seem real. Some sort of... ethereal glow to him.
Jack shook his head as he stood up. No, he was seeing things. He needed to find his horse-
“I’m glad I managed to catch you,” Arthur said. “I was wanting to talk to you. And this is a conversation that we need to have...”
“You’re not real,” Jack said. “Where’s my horse?”
“You call him back, I’ll spook him again and we’ll just keep going in circles until you listen,” Arthur moved closer. “Now, I came back so that I could speak to you about something important. Least you could do is listen. John said you could be stubborn, and I dunno why I didn’t believe him. Especially since both your Ma and Pa were stubborn as mules...”
“What do you even need to talk to me about?” Jack said as he started to look around for his horse.
“I know what you’re doing,” Arthur followed after him. “You’re going after Ross. You’d gonna kill him, aint you?”
“So what?” Jack didn’t look at Arthur. “You think he shouldn’t pay for what he did?”
“I’m saying that revenge is a fool’s game,” Arthus suddenly appeared in front of Jack.
Jack yelped and stepped away. Maybe this was some sort of manifestation of his conscience. He’d read about that before. The heroes of his stories seeing their deceased loved ones and speaking to them. Maybe that’s what this was. He was just... afflicted by the fall from his horse...
“If this is real, then why isn’t my Pa here?” Jack asked. “That’s how it goes in the books.”
“Your Pa’s a bit... busy,” Arthur said. “So he asked me to come instead.”
Jack huffed.
“Of course,” he said. “He was always busy. Always running-“
“He’s helping your Ma, you little brat!” Arthur snapped.
“Ma?” Jack’s attitude shifted. “She… she just died not long ago.”
“Yeah, and she was scared and confused, so John went to help her,” Arthur explained. “Sent me here to talk to you for him.”
Jack pressed his lips into a thin line, willing himself to not cry over the thought of his mother. It had been so unexpected, and he still didn’t know what had caused it. She was just… gone one day. So he buried her next to John’s grave.
“What else am I supposed to do?” Jack asked. “I have no one left, Uncle Arthur. Uncle’s gone, Pa’s gone… and now Ma’s gone. Ross was the one who did this. I can’t just-“
“You can and you will,” Arthur said. He put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Listen. There was no saving your Pa and me. We were too far gone, dripping with blood and sin. Society wanted us dead, and there weren’t a thing we could have done. But you… you aint got that. You’re fresh and clean like a daisy in Spring. You aint gotta look over your shoulder all the time like we did. You aint gotta worry about people learning your name from a wanted poster. You can go out there and you can make your life whatever you want it to be. That was all your Ma and Pa wanted. For you to be free.”
“I thought we was free back with Uncle Dutch,” Jack said.
Arthur sighed and shook his head.
“That weren’t freedom,” he said. “It may have seemed like it, but we was always in a cage of the law’s making. And if you go out there and kill that man… you’re gonna be right back in that cage with no one to help you out again. You really want that?”
Jack didn’t. He didn’t want to go back to living like that. While he didn’t remember much of it, he remembered some things. He had been too young to realize his situation, but he knew now that had been no way to live. Especially not for a child…
“Uncle Arthur… I’m… I’m afraid…” He finally said.
Well, if that didn’t sound familiar to Arthur…
He had said those words after learning that his life was all but over. Was that how Jack felt now? He didn’t blame him one bit, being alone like this. And he was still rather young. Barely even a man. He bore his father and his mother’s crosses on either shoulder, and the coyote within him was calling for blood.
But Arthur couldn’t let him do this. Arthur could not let the coyote win.
“It’s ok to be afraid,” Arthur said. “I was afraid in life. I once felt the world collapse around me. But I wasn’t strong enough to dig myself out of the rubble. You are. You can dig yourself outta this, Jack. You always was a smart boy, and I know you’ll make the right decision. You may be John Marston’s son… but you got the blood he had in his veins, not the blood he had on his hands.”
Jack took a deep breath. This was all getting to be too much for him. He was starting to feel dizzy, and his exhaustion was starting to catch up with him. The sun was even lower now, and night was threatening to swallow it.
“There is someone you can contact,” Arthur continued. “You remember Mr. Pearson?”
Jack blinked, searching his memories.
“The cook?” He asked.
“Yeah, him,” Arthur smiled. “Your Pa ran into him some years back. He runs the store in Rhodes now. Maybe he could use an extra pair of hands in the store. You could try sending him a letter.”
And just like that, Jack had another option. It was a small one, but… it was something.
“What if he don’t?” Jack asked.
“Like I said, you’re a smart boy,” said Arthur. “You could find work somewhere else. You got experience living on a ranch, after all. There’s plenty of ranches over there in that area.”
The last rays of the sun were shining now, and Arthur glanced at it with a sigh.
“Just… make the right decision,” he said. “It’s what they want. It’s what we all want…”
Jack looked up and saw that Arthur had vanished in the dying light of the sun. He then flinched when he heard hooves. Turning slightly, he saw his horse approaching. It made a low noise and waited patiently for Jack’s next command.
Jack thought about Ross. He thought about the gun in his holster. He thought about his family…
Jack then mounted his horse and took off… in the opposite direction.
A week later… there was a letter waiting for Simon Pearson in the post office of Rhodes.