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Jack Marston was certain that if his folks, or his uncles and aunts ever saw him, they’d call him a fool. A fool to forget all the blood, hurt and betrayal brought by guns and violence. A fool to throw away all the hopes and dreams banked on him as someone literate and learned. To give up becoming a lawyer, or a teacher, or whatever civilized man his folks had imagined him becoming.
Well forget his folks because they weren’t here. None of his uncles and aunts were either. Whatever Jack Marston was supposed to become in their stead, what did it matter anyway?
The future had lost all its meaning years ago. When the Marston family finally found routine and a sense of normalcy, but their past had caught up to them. The Bureau of Investigation had showed up on their front porch one day while Jack's father was out. The Bureau - kidnapped Jack and his mother, kept them in an unfamiliar house in the city as hostages– 'guilty by association' –and threatened his father. They ultimately put a leash on the family man wretched outlaw at last.
They paraded his father around the cities like he was some lion in their cruel circus show. They sent his father off like a dog, sicced him upon his former brothers-in-arms across the countries. They even had him fight in a war. Word had spread fast across the countries, his father making front page in papers the Pinkertons intentionally left out around the place.
-----
"Once dissident John Marston, now under government agency- Bureau of Investigation?"
"Reprehensible Javier Escuella finally confronted!"
"John Marston- former member of 'Van der Linde gang', finally leashed and tamed?"
"Marion 'Bill' Williamson the wretch gunned down in Mexico!"
"White savage - infamous criminal outlaw John Marston - now civilised!"
"Dutch Van der Linde now confirmed dead after decades long pursuit!"
-----
The people rest easy believing the West, and even the South was finally on the turn of proper civilisation. What the people didn’t know was that John Marston was at the government’s beck and call only because there was no other choice. What the papers didn’t publish was that John Marston was a father, a husband. That John Marston would do anything for his family.
But then his family was restored. His father returned after he had fulfilled his (forced-upon) duties. Jack was relieved, but less than excited. Things weren’t wrapped up right. The Bureau weren’t going to let his father go free after all that. It was too clean, too simple for an organization formed and led by Edgar Ross. John Marston had been a loose end for years which they then used in a circus show of a power play for society. The Bureau weren't going to let John Marston keep on living. Not when he was a source of embarrassment in their careers. Not when he was a past Ross couldn't let go even when it had been more than ten years already.
-----
"Let's just run away, find someplace else, far away from here. We can do that. We've done it before, haven't we? The Bureau aren-" and he was interrupted, like always.
"Your father is back, Jack. He's finally back, and we're finally together again. And where are we even going to go when this ranch is all we know now... Ain't it?" His mother's tone turned sharp as she gave a pointed look to his father. The man nodded quickly.
"Right, right- She's right, son. Just farming, fishing, and hunting, are our livelihoods now." His father added, "This is what's right for us, Jack. Let the dogs... keep on sleeping?" Jack sighed.
"The saying is 'let sleeping dogs lie', pa." He grumbled.
"Same thing, son." His father huffed, lips quirked up into a fond smile.
-----
So he let sleeping dogs lie. It was an inevitable confrontation his stubborn parents refused to acknowledge in favor of returning to their idea of normalcy.
Very soon, the Bureau came back, guns drawn and trigger-happy.
Jack was running away leading his mother and himself to safety when he heard it. Distant overlapping gunfire so rapid and prolonged, Jack could almost mistake them for fireworks. Some illogical part of him, naive and foolish, hoped the agents had put their guns away. That maybe, the BOI were celebrating his father’s coerced contribution to society by setting off fireworks, just like Blackwater did every Fourth of July. Jack wouldn't have realised that the noises had ceased if it weren't for his mother’s begging.
It squeezed at Jack's heart, to hear his mother's voice break the way it did. Just like he heard years ago when he was small, when they were told that John Marston was dead and they had to leave. Believing those words, they had fled then. But John Marston wasn't dead then. Against all odds, he wasn't dead then. John Marston was a lucky bastard, too stubborn to die, someone had said before. What could be different now? Jack yanked at Rachel's reins, and they turned back.
Jack felt like he was being held up by his mother's trembling hands alone as Rachel galloped back onto ranch grounds. A distant figure on the ground, surrounded by so much red. Jack felt cold dread flood into his body as he lead Rachel to a stop.
His father's corpse laid in front of the barn, riddled with holes, in a pool of his own blood. His mother practically slid off the horse and fell to her knees, and her hands hovered over his father's unmoving body. His mother put her head to his bloody chest, maybe hoping, that John Marston could defy death once more. Sobs wracked through his mother's frame. Jack felt himself stumble to the ground beside his mother, his own hands reaching for her shaking shoulders in an attempt to comfort, or search for comfort, Jack didn't know.
A feral beast in the eyes of society until the end, John Marston had been culled by a firing squad like an animal.
They destroyed his family in the name of 'goodness' . They destroyed his life, his sense of normalcy. His mother mourned so deeply that it pulled her into an early grave. Just three years after her husband's passing, she laid on her own deathbed, begging Jack to be different.
-----
"You're smart Jack." Her lips formed a smile that didn't quite reach her glassy eyes. Jack reckoned she was too tired. After a few weeks of bedrest, she was suddenly normal. In the morning, his mother practically jumped out of bed, went around the ranch, to check on the crops, the cows and sheeps. In the afternoon, she dragged Jack to town to do shopping, and take portraits. Now daybreak, back in bed, it was almost like she had exhausted all that she had left.
"You're the best of us, my bright young boy. I just know you'll do good for the world- For yourself, for us." She whispered in a voice so soft Jack had to strain his ear to pick up the reassuring tone. Abigail Roberts Marston fell asleep that night with her hands wrapped gently around her son's, and never woke up.
-----
Jack Marston needed to move on and live. In his mother's stead. In his father’s stead. In his aunt’s and uncle’s stead.
Nineteen, orphaned, the burden to live was placed on Jack’s shoulders. Almost a dozen people from his past- they had high hopes for him- and Jack could make them proud.
It was meaningless.
There was no point to keep promises made to dead people. Jack felt like his entire life had been burned down before he even had a chance to put it together and there was one man Jack could pin the blame on. Jack couldn’t do nothing about that.
So call Jack Marston a fool because he'd gladly be one if it meant killing Edgar Ross.
-
With nothing to lose, Jack was quick to right things. Edgar Ross was a dead man. Ross was finally dead.
Hunted and shot down on the Southern bank of the San Luis River.
-----
Jack was on a trip by a river some time ago. He was not with his father, but with his Uncle Arthur when they were interrupted by men in suits.
Edgar Ross and another man. When they approached, Ross intentionally held his rifle against his shoulder, Uncle Arthur was quick to stand big and tall in front of small Jack.
Jack stuck to hiding behind his Uncle Arthur, clutching tightly onto the man's pant legs. Words were exchanged, and he remembered his Uncle Mac being mentioned, but Jack couldn't really pay attention. Not when Ross was pointing the rifle right at Uncle Arthur's face. Not when Ross was levelling his beady eyes down at him with an ugly smirk.
And when the men retreated back to their horses, Ross left the final words. Not to his Uncle Arthur, but to him instead.
-----
As Jack stared down into the man’s glassy eyes. He could place the once-malicious gaze that had bored into him that day. He could hear the words in the predatory tone they were uttered in. Jack settled on spitting on the corpse, and ignored the disgust at his own behavior in favour of echoing, "Enjoy your fishing, Ross."
After letting the moment pass, Jack swallowed down the reality of what he'd just done.
It felt like he was missing something. Staring at the rigid corpse of the man who destroyed his life, Jack felt nothing but the wind in his coat and the sweltering New Austin heat. There was no catharsis, no lightening of his shoulders or his mind. Though there was still that buzzing, bothersome feeling under his skin and it threw him off. But maybe it was the liquor he had downed after he buried his mother. It couldn't possibly have been guilt.
His father's old cattleman revolver sat heavy in his palm, his thumb tracing the 'J.M' that had been engraved into the old wooden grip long ago. The metal had rusted all over. It was a curse miracle the gun hadn't jammed like Jack had expected it to.
-
Jack didn’t know what to make of himself after killing a man- nevermind that Edgar Ross was a bottom of the barrel scum. Jack had grown out that phase of wanting to become an outlaw, but there was no point in trying otherwise. It only felt wrong because he was meant to be best of them- his mother's 'bright young boy'. But over the years, he convinced himself it was right. That he was just going back to his roots after so many years of denial. What else than to follow in the bloody footsteps of his father? To feel the recoil of his rifle, hear the ringing in his ears, and see men drop like puppets with their strings cut. Luckily for Jack, there was no time for guilt amidst his constant bar fights, shootouts, and flight from the law.
One could only shut away their own feelings for so long. Some days, Jack would feel unlike himself. Everything becoming off-kilter, from his aim, to the way his bones felt sitting in his skin. He'd drown in that terrible feeling, crawling like a hurt animal into saloons and running through bottles of alcohol until he couldn’t remember which year it was. The liquor would almost make him feel real again, or at least, make whatever he went through feel real. Because only in a drunken haze could Jack really feel the burden of living heavy on his shoulders, and the weight of his memories in his mind. Jack would ruminate in a past he'd otherwise consciously ignore when he was sober. Using the muted chatter of the busy saloon, he could imagine himself back in time. Back at his ranch, sitting on the porch with a book in his hands and Rufus by his side. Somewhere in the house, his parents were arguing for the umpteenth time that day. It was likely over some small disagreement they had last week, just like always. The heated exchange echoing through the thin wooden walls of their home, the Marston name was yelled out in irritated fondness, instead of terror or anger Jack had grown used to hearing. And of course, there was Uncle, a few bottles deep himself, his slurring words spurring on the fight and flaring his mother's anger as usual. Jack could almost confuse the warmth in his gut for nostalgia.
But some time through the night, soft hands would paw at his shirt, sultry voices would whisper in his ear, trying to convince him to pay for ‘something more entertaining’. Or he’d find himself in the middle of a bar fight and be thrown out with the rest of the crowd. The whole fantasy would fall apart as quickly as it had appeared. Laying in the dirt, sobering up, Jack would have to confront reality time and time again. No more hunting trips with his father, or nightly storytelling to his mother, or the dramatic retelling of a bogus anecdote by Uncle.
Jack Marston was all alone.
He was a terrible liar, even to himself. He was an idiot who thought the warmth from liquor could fill the pit in his soul and help him feel like a person again. But Jack simply didn’t know how else to live.
-
Jack was by Armadillo, laying low after being responsible for a small massacre up in Northern Amabarino - when nobody bat an eye when tribes of natives were killed and pushed out of country, why care when a bunch of white people were? - when he finally caught up with world affairs in the papers. He first noticed the year - 1917 - how much time had passed. The Allies and Central Power were at war with each other. Revelation about some German telegram to Mexico. The American public opinion on war was quickly changing despite initial neutrality. It was up to the U.S to make their own declaration of war.
It wouldn't be long until conscription called Jack to the front lines. And it made no difference to Jack- To die in a blaze of glory in the middle of gunfire, or to die in some dingy saloon from a barfight. Jack knew that death put the same look in everyone's eyes. But the more he thought about it, the more he dread becoming a soldier.
In war, he'd be fighting on someone else's orders, and dying on someone else's words. Like his father. That just wouldn't do.
-
Jack Marston found himself at the banks of San Luis River again after years of avoiding the body of water. Rachel nickered, nudging her head into Jack's shoulder, snapping him out from his daze.
"C'mere, old girl. Must be real heavy for you, yeah?" he found himself cooing, always mumbling away to her through his long journeys. Jack pulled at her reins gently so she trotted closer. He took the bit out from her mouth before raising the reins over her head. Slowly, he pulled the saddle off of her back and laid it down by the side with a huff. Never staying in one place for too long, Rachel bore the weight of most of his items in saddle bags and holsters. It was only right Jack let her off the reins now since he was planning to rest. He treated her to a sugar cube as his other hand patted her strong neck.
Jack sat down by the saddle with a crack of his knees and a muttered curse. Rachel snorted as an automatic response. His hands dug through the saddle bag and his fingers wrapped around a wooden grip. Jack pulled out the familiar cattleman revolver. The gun was more rust than metal compared to the last time he had it in his hands. His father would have had his head if he could see the state of the revolver. He traced the engraving on the old wooden grip with his thumb. Wood slightly rotted the intials were illegible.
Jack pushed the revolver's rusty cylinder out, bits flaking off from wherever he touched.
Jack nodded to himself. He loaded in a single bullet and pushed the cylinder back in place, swallowing down the cold dread washing over him. Rachel, always too smart and perceptive in her nature, came up from behind and nudged his - his father's - his hat off. Jack pushed her away gently, but she kept persisting. Frustrated, Jack pulled the hammer back and shot at the ground by Rachel. The old thoroughbred jumped at the harsh sound, and reared back with a squeal. She trotted away but stayed close, her eyes boring into Jack's. Rachel let out a displeased groan.
"Get lost, old girl." Jack yelled with a wave of his arm. The clever horse would usually flee with the order, but that time, she simply stared him down before grunting.
"Go! Shoot- get lost!" He tried again, louder, but Rachel didn't move, didn't look away. It didn't matter. Jack took in a shuddering breath before turning away from what he imagined to be an accusatory gaze. The rusted cattleman revolver laid heavy in his hands. Jack swallowed. His numb fingers pushed the rusty chamber out.
Shaky breaths.
In and out- Load the bullet- Sweaty palms tight on the grip- line the barrel
Cold metal digging into skin- inhale- pull the trigger-
-Click-
.
.
.
A sharp exhale in disbelief-
Click! Click! Click!