Chapter Text
Jack has been digging Uncle's grave for forty-five minutes. He’s dug past his ankles, his hands are blistering and the shovel he’s holding onto like it’s the last thing he has is digging splinters into his palms. He still has to dig his fathers grave, he still has to bury them, he still has to make their grave headers, he still has to write to uncle Charles and aunt Tilly and Sadie and tell them they need to crawl out of their homes to come say goodbye to his already dead father and Uncle, he still has to help his mourning mother.
The only thing she could stomach was to bring the white blankets into the barn to cover John and Uncle's bodies. Jack told her to go lay down when she almost threw up once she saw the white sheets become stained with blood.
Rufus, being the good dog he always has been, laid next to Uncle's growing grave with the look dogs get on their face when they recognize their owner is sad and they pretend to be sad too. Part of Jack wanted his dog to be inside with his mother so she wouldn’t be alone, but the other part didn’t want his dog to leave, he was too afraid of being out of reach with another living creature for too long. And maybe he was selfish for that, maybe he should be inside with his mother, maybe if he had been able to shoot a gun better than at the very least Uncle wouldn’t be dead. But he couldn’t stand to hear his mother crying and he was still learning to shoot. He didn’t want to talk right now and he didn’t even know if he’d be able to if his mother tried to ask him to stop digging.
As Uncle’s grave got deeper, his hands, arms, and back ached more with each shovelful of dirt he lifted. The rawness of their death placed an ache in his chest he couldn’t understand, but it made it hard for him to breathe and at the same time hard to cry. He knew she didn’t like to talk about it, but his mother had gone through this kind of worry and pain with his father too many times, this time it was just permanent. He wasn’t going to come back down from the snowy mountains and he wasn’t going to come back to them with a bullet in his shoulder, still alive nonetheless.
There was no noise except Jack's huffing breath and the shovel digging into the packed dirt. He wanted a bath already and he wasn’t even done with Uncle’s grave. He knew there would be a struggle inside of him when the time came to begin digging his fathers grave, he knew he’d have to drag Uncle and his fathers limp, bloody bodies out of the barn all by himself and put them in the ground without a coffin, the thought made his stomach jump into his throat. He wanted to ask his mother if she wanted to come out and watch when the time came to bury the men, he knew it was cruel but he also knew it would be the very last goodbye.
He stopped digging the grave when it came up to his hips, he had half the mind to lay down in the grave and rest for a moment. But his tiredness would overtake him and he’d sleep in like a dead man in the grave he dug and nothing would get done until he woke up. The sun had set, he hadn’t eaten in hours and he knew his mother probably hadn’t either, he was going to finish this tonight because if he didn’t his mother would want to help him and she’d surely break down. He put down the shovel and pushed himself out of the grave, his legs shook underneath him as he stood up straight again. His shirt stuck to his body and he wiped his raw hands on his dirty pants, he picked the shovel back up and thrust it back into the dirt a few feet away from Uncle’s grave, starting to dig his fathers grave. Rufus still laid there, looking up at Jack and whining slightly.
There was something in him that was begging to run once his father was finally in the ground. But staying and leaving felt wrong. The house would be quiet with just him and his mother, he’d take care of the animals and fix the fences and she’d clean the house and cook, they’d both still be mourning. Abigail wouldn’t know what to ask and Jack wouldn’t know what to say. And if he left… he couldn’t imagine what it would do to his mother and he didn’t want to stomach the thought, there wasn’t anywhere for him to really go either. There wasn’t another place on the whole earth as horrible and welcoming as Beechers Hope.
Dirt piled up next to Jack as he dug deeper into the ground, and there’s this horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’ll have to go through all of this again with his mother. And hopefully that day won’t come for a very long time, hopefully he’ll have someone here to comfort him when she’s dead. Or maybe he’ll die before she will. But he couldn’t decide what was worse, having to bury his mother or his mother having to bury him. And inside of his mourning, there’s anger. Because he wouldn’t be up at this hour digging two graves in preparation to bury his family if it weren’t for the dead army men in Jack's yard that he still has to do something with. But the army wouldn’t have come if it weren’t for his father, and his father wouldn’t have had to do what he did if he weren’t in a gang over a decade ago. There were so many ways this could’ve been avoided, but Jack cannot fully place the blame on one person in all of this except maybe the man who killed his father.
Jack places the shovel outside his fathers grave, leaning against its dirt wall for a second to catch his breath as he chokes back a sob. His hands are burning and he feels like what he has done is wrong, like he’ll walk back down the hill and John will give him the look he always has on his face when he doesn’t understand something Jack has said or done, and Uncle will be passed out on the porch with a beer in had and his mother will call them inside for a late dinner. But no one calls his name as he climbs out of the grave, his yard is still full of dead men he’ll never forgive and his father is still dead.
Rufus follows him back down the hill and across the yard and to the wood shop at the back of the house. He finds his mother inside, slouched over the workbench sanding down wood as she cried quietly. Jack sighed, coming up behind his mother and putting a hand on her shoulder, she stopped sanding the five small planks of wood she had in front of her and went silent under her son's touch.
“Mama, go lay down.” Jack told her. She inhaled shakily and swatted her son's hand off her shoulder, looking at him with tears in her eyes that were barely being kept back.
“No I- Let me help. I’m not lettin’ you do this all on your own.” She insisted.
“Mama-”
“Jack.” There was a beat of silence, Jack exhaled and backed away from his mother. He watched as she finished sanding down the wood and nailed the pieces together into two crosses. She let out a defeated sob and backed away from the crosses so Jack could engrave them. She couldn’t write the names herself and Jack felt afraid to, like he’d somehow forget how to read and write and would mess up the writing and neither of them would be able to tell. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to carve it with, he’d do it with his fingernails if he had to, but he settled for a nail on the workbench.
When he was done, his mother took the crosses for him, trying to read them but ultimately failing. She turned to Jack with her mouth open like she was about to ask what they said, but stopped when she saw the distant look in his eyes.
“I’ll draw you a bath when this is all over.”
“Alright.” Jack shrugged. She left without another word, Rufus following after her and leaving Jack alone in the wood shop. Jack rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as he went back outside and thought about going into the barn and tearing back the bloodied white sheets, thinking the longer they sat there, the more rotten the bodies would be. But he knew they wouldn’t be, and he knew his hands would sting as he’d haul their heavy bodies up the hill and put them in their graves.
The ground in front of the barn doors was still soiled with John’s blood. It had only been a few hours and the blood had completely dried, it was almost offensive to Jack. Jack hesitated for a second when he opened the doors, it smelled so rancid inside the barn, worse than Uncle had.
Jack pulled back Uncle's sheet first, not yet ready to face his dead father. He dragged Uncle out of the barn by his wrists, digging his feet into the ground with each step he took up the hill. Abigail had left the crosses in between the graves, like she didnt know which one was meant for which, but she was nowhere to be seen. Jack set Uncle's body down next to his grave before lowering himself down into it and pulling Uncle down into the now cramped space. He looked down at the dead man for a few seconds before he tore his gaze away and got back out of the grave, ready to repeat the process with his father.
Jack stared at his fathers sheet-covered body for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and tearing the once completely white sheet back and revealing John’s body littered with buletholes, blood soaking his clothes. Jack immediately looked away, bracing himself against one of the stalls pillars and vomiting up whatever was in his stomach, allowing him to choke out a few sobs. He wiped his mouth off on his sleeve before making his way back to his fathers body and hauling it out of the barn by its wrists, like how he did with Uncle, Abigail had taken his hat earlier. Only this time he was tripping over his feet and taking in shallow breaths as he looked down at his fathers body.
His mother came out of nowhere, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and just holding him for a second, he leaned against her and cried for just a moment before he tried moving the body again. She tried to help him and he had harshly pulled his fathers body away like it was only for him, like it was only his job to take care of. This wasn’t his first death, but his sister's death was nothing like this. He wanted to help this time, he didn’t want his mother to cry, he wanted to do this on his own and have the graves look pretty for her and pretend that her husband had died in his sleep and wasn’t drenched in his own blood.
Neither of them spoke. She picked up the body by his ankles when Jack let out a broken sob, he let her help this time.
He pulled his fathers body into the grave and was out not a second later, not saying anything as he grabbed the shovel again and began to dump the dirt back into the graves, trying not to look at their faces. Abigail laid the rocks she had gathered around the graves, Jack slammed the crosses into the ground with the shovel.
And it was done. He had buried his father and Uncle on the hill overlooking their home. Rufus laid where he had earlier with the same look on his face, not pretending to understand the gravity of this. Jack's body only ached more and there was a tenderness in his heart that he had never known before, different from the kind that he had when his sister died. But he and his mother stood up and it was Jack's turn to hold her as she cried over her husband's grave. He wouldn’t allow himself to cry again, not right now. Maybe when he was in the bath or in his bed, or maybe he just wouldn’t cry and he’d hold this in and finally let it resonate when he’s able to avenge his father. And he knows his mother will want him to rest, leave her to take care of some things and whatever she can’t do, he will. It’s just him and her now, alone on the ranch. Neither of them will get over this, but they’ll pretend they did.