Arthur always said his big mouth would get him killed, if his stupidity didn't get him first.
Now John was laying in the hot dust of New Austin with burning ribs and a dry tongue as he stares at the sky above him.
It was 1908 and he was hunting Micah Bell. He'd gone alone since Abigail and Jack had left him without a trace and Sadie was busy with bounties back in New Hanover. Adler would want a piece of this pie but John- John was angry.
Ever since realizing Micah was the rat that tore them down, he'd been mad. Hell, since the day his father first struck him he'd been mad. That feeling had only grown over the years, and had hardly calmed when Jack was born or John got kind touches from working girls or Abigail.
That rage hadn't subsided much, given his impulses had him and his small family running halfway across the country in search of sanctuary and hopes.
John lays on his belly at the top of the canyon and loads his rifle as his thoughts go haywire.
He caused enough mess, let enough people get hurt. Arthur lived, but only just. Tried sacrificing his life for a stupid little boy with a bastard son and a woman he couldn't love properly.
Maybe with this he could clean it all up.
Micah's men are faster.
They're better killers than John with sharper eyes and instincts. With the way they move, John can guess that they're ex-soldiers, well collected murderers that cover each other's backs and move in waves like battalion's.
Too many bullets hit him, too many gunshots wrack his body.
John falls back and believes he's dying.
At least he's dying valiantly.
Marston feels blood trickling out of his ribs as he takes shots into the canyon, shooting down a few henchmen before bullets crack the rocks next to him and graze his hair.
If anyone were to find him after this, he'd be a god damned mess.
Micah's men wouldn't let him survive- it wasn't in their nature. John would make too good of a trophy for Bell to be let go, so they'd run up that canyon trail with their guns blazing and pick him apart like the vultures in the sky.
John doesn't remember running. He doesn't remember watching the sky turn blue to orange to black, or listening to the crickets start to sing. Gunfire has ceased completely but he doesn't know where he is, or what happened to his horse.
All he has is his hat, his gun, and himself.
Poor company.
Marston shuts his tired eyes in the shade of swaying branches and utters a quiet curse under his breath.
=
Fuck would have made good last words.
Instead he's alive, though painfully. His ribs feel broken and bashed and his head is pounding. His stomach growls in hunger and any movement to his limbs feels like a fight under dead weight.
Maybe he'd been buried.
John pulls his eyelids apart to find that he has not. That he's laying on a foreign mattress in a strange bedroom with taxidermied elk watching over him. He curls his toes under the thin blanket and pulls his dry lips apart with some struggle before touching his ribs softly. They feel like they've mostly healed, but as he sits up, his head spins and the flare of pain from his side sends him back into the pillows.
"I don't recommend movin' yet." a woman's voice tells him. It at least sounds like a woman. "You got real shot up back near Two Crows."
John curls his fingers into his palms and looks blearily at the arm that reaches over his face. A soft palm touches his forehead and he squints at the lady above him, vision slowly shifting to show him blond hair and calculating eyes.
"How do you feel?" she asks.
He swallows and manages: "Like shit."
A small smile crosses her features and melts some of the dissatisfaction from her face, like she hadn't housed a good for nothing outlaw in her nice home.
"That's to be expected." she pulls her hand away and places it on her side instead. "We found you halfway in the middle of nowhere with buzzards tryin' to pick at you. After we got you put up, you started a fever. Almost scared the doctor half to death."
"I weren't tryin' to cause trouble, ma'am."
She waves it off and lets out a gentle sigh. "Don't you worry. That bandit's men ain't easy folks to cross. Almost nobody survives 'em."
John remembers in a heartbeat why he was in the desert in the first place. He starts to sit up again.
"Micah-"
"Hey," she sets her hands on his shoulders as he hunches over his legs. "I already said you've got to be careful."
John touches his skull as a throbbing headache begins behind his eyes. "I gotta- he hurt my family."
"You get revenge later." her voice has grown softer, an arm coming around his front as she fusses with the pillows behind him. This woman helps him lay back against the cushions at an upright angle, soft hands setting his arms over his stomach. "I'll tell the boys to get you a meal and fresh water from the pump."
"Ma'am," she stops from turning away. "Thank you."
Her fingers squeeze his. "You're welcome."
=
Her name is Bonnie MacFarlane.
John comes to find this the day he starts walking again. His legs are shaky and by the looks of his body, he'd been asleep for a while. Thinner than he'd ever been, meals forgotten while he slept. And someone took care of him the entire time, within the confines of a tiny cabin on MacFarlane Ranch.
He squints at the sun as he shambles towards the general store.
"-we've also got the foreman's office right there." Bonnie points towards the red brick building across from them, her other hand steadying him. "That's where we lock up bad outlaws such as yourself."
John smiles softly. "I'm pleased with the accommodations I got right now, miss."
Bonnie helps him up the step and on to the store patio. "Better than sleepin' rough in the woods?"
"Most of the time." he moves to get the door before she does, pushing it open and gesturing for her to enter first. "When I don't have a nagging voice in the back of my head."
She elbows him very lightly as she passes and brings him in to show him around the store. John gets canned fruit and salted meat, then a packet of cigarettes to fill that want in his lungs. He'll smoke them when his ribs don't hurt as much and when his senses don't get overloaded, causing migraines in his skull.
In the meantime, he works to get his strength back around this ranch. Mucking stalls, milking cows, collecting eggs from chickens. Moving shipments from the train and into the general store, cleaning his room on the ranch.
It's the easiest life he can remember living.
Sadie rides into MacFarlane's Ranch with the kind of fire in her eyes that has John scurrying for cover behind the chicken coup. She swats at him like Grimshaw used to do and something pulls at his heart, at least when Adler isn't tugging at his shirt to draw him closer.
"I heard what you did from Johnson!" she lets go of him and the shove lands him against the closest wall.
"Leigh?" she nods. "He weren't supposed to tell."
"You shouldn't have given them your real name!" John shrugs and adjusts his shirt around his front. "Arthur would have smacked you upside the head whether you were healin' or not."
Marston smiles softly. "He alright?"
Sadie leans against the wall beside him, taking wary glances at the ranch hands who have resumed their work. "Fine, I guess. He and Charles seem to be doin' alright out west. You're lucky he ain't here- boy, he was talkin' 'bout takin' the train this way to find you."
"He won't have to." John motions towards Bonnie in the pasture. "Miss MacFarlane's been a real help and with Sheriff Johnson, I'll be ready to attack Micah the second time around."
"You should have gotten everyone the first time, John." Sadie meets his eyes. "Including me. It ain't up to you to make up for everything that happened all those years ago."
"I wanted to do the right thing."
"What about your woman and boy waitin' on you?" she asks.
John swallows the guilt that bubbles up from his stomach. "I ain't been much to them anyways. And things with Abigail-" he crosses his arms. "-things are complicated."
"How so?"
He meets her eyes again and curls his fingers into fists. "We ain't really in love no more."
=
Leigh Johnson sends Marston on a fool's errand.
Getting West Dickens to help ends up having them being chased out of Plainview with bullets going for their skulls, and Dickens promises Briars, who enjoys digging in graveyards on his days off. And Irish- Irish wasn't too helpful either.
But in the end, John has them all.
Each and every motherfucker he needs to help him bring down Micah Bell.
Micah has taken Fort Mercer as his solitude and has henchmen patrolling it at all times. Scouts sleep out in the surrounding land and look out for people to ambush or for lawmen to report. Past the scouts are gatling guns with ready men and on the outer walls of the fort are sharpshooters. Within it is reported that there are upwards of thirty killers camped inside, most of whom are armed to the teeth and with protection.
Upon those downsides is the fact that there are innocent folks living inside as well- mostly working girls and their children who needed a place to stay and unfortunately ran into Micah.
John had been hoping that they could use the weapons Irish supplied to plan out a full assault on the fort, but the innocents complicated that. If the scouts heard them coming, then they would send out a warning and the gatling guns would be armed, and if the gatling guns had any time to start firing, they'd all be shredded.
Marston feels like he's at a dead end.
Sadie informs him that she's going to go check on Abigail and Jack for him and John doesn't question how she knows their location, but he doesn't. The most he knows is that they're northwest, given Adler's trajectory on the back of her warhorse.
Instead, he goes back to cleaning horse, cow, and chicken shit and sometimes takes hard rides down to San Luis to get the blood pumping and his lungs stinging.
Bonnie finds him at that abandoned cabin near the water and tosses her lure into the river.
John says nothing.
"That Adler woman sure is something." Miss MacFarlane says.
Marston reels his line in slowly. "Didn't know y'all talked."
"Well-" she sniffs. "-I was curious as to who was assaulting one of my ranch hands."
"She's an old friend. From the time where Bell hurt my family."
"I picked up on that. She told me 'bout your wife."
John blinks and lifts his head. "That ain't her business to spread. It's complicated anyways... that's why I ain't told you 'bout Abigail."
"She's got a sweet name." Marston hums softly. "I ain't taking on a woman beating, cheating man, am I?"
"No." he responds flatly, tiredly. "Just a bad man with a shit-stained past hunting down a killer as a self appointed bounty hunter."
"You sure ain't boring." Bonnie starts reeling in her catch. "Was Abigail there at the time your family was hurt?"
"Yeah." John thinks of the day Micah tried persuading Jack to go away from camp with him. "Her and our son are some of the few that survived him. But that family- we did bad things but we weren't bad folks. Not all of us. In the end, Bell... he convinced the man who raised most of us that we were turning against him. Ran that old man into insanity and becoming a killer. My brother believes that it only made that old man into more of what he truly was, but..."
Bonnie loses her catch. "Yeah?"
"I ain't sure. I don't like thinking that he was always horrible, 'cause what he gave us compared to what we used to have was practically heaven. Food, water, shelter, clothes. Some kind of love. The man who was truly our dad got shot in a bank robbery 'cause our heads got too big and the law surrounded us real fast. And Dutch-" it's the first time he's uttered that name in years. "-he snapped. Like losing Hosea helped poison him."
If Bonnie is worried about having an ex-Van Der Linde gang member at her side, she doesn't say anything.
"And I weren't perfect. I still ain't. I'm a rough, rude piece of shit who's forced my only son and a good woman in circles 'cause I can't calm down. That's what had me bleeding out in the desert, trying not to die- my impulses and anger. I was there because I wanted to watch him suffer the same way he did to so many people.
Like I was trying to redeem myself through killing."
Bonnie is quiet for a few moments as she throws her lure back out. The atmosphere isn't as bad as John had expected it to be, like she's merely considering instead of judging. John deserved judgement, punishment, and repentance for what he'd done, but Bonnie had seen a better side of him.
She hadn't been through what Abigail had suffered.
Bonnie hadn't seen that immature little boy running out on his only kid and starting fights with strangers to prove something to a man who never truly cared.
"Sounds like you got a lot of hurt to work through." is what she answers with. "Ain't nobody on this planet that don't, and if they try to say otherwise, then they're lying. All I wish is you'd been a little more open, but I see the circumstances. I'm a stranger."
John shakes his head. "More like a friend, but I ain't none too good at talking about my feelings. Even with people I care about."
Bonnie nudges him with his knee and he sways lightly where he sits hunched on the sand.
"You care about me?"
It's a humorous tone, but John answers seriously.
"Yes. And that scares me."
=
John ran away after confessing.
He told her he cared, then turned his back like he didn't and took the long road to Armadillo, passing Lake Don Julio and considering jumping in to hide his embarrassment. But he didn't want Bonnie to have to save his life again, and he didn't want anyone he was "close" with to get any more bad news.
So Marston gets drunk in Armadillo saloon and saunters over to Leigh Johnson's jail to book a room. The sheriff puts him in the furthest cell at his request and John lays on his side to face the wall dramatically, huffing with every breath as he tries to remember the song Bessie used to sing he and Tilly when they were scared.
The words are lost in his muddled brain.
Marston goes to Two Crows that following afternoon and finds it deserted. Only the winds of the desert can be heard as he rifles through the buildings in search of... what, exactly?
His pride and dignity, he supposed.
Arthur would laugh at him if he saw the state of his little brother. More likely, he'd take his time to listen and they'd talk it out before Morgan teased him and John shot back. Then things would go back to normal and John might have a chance to speak again.
Those easy times were long gone. The days where they were free, fighting across America with their wits and their guns, robbing the bad and giving to the good.
But maybe those days just never existed. Or they were shorter than John remembered. If he lived long enough, he might find out.
He's slow to head to Blackwater. Skinner Brothers have caught a family camping in Tall Trees and the assault took a chunk out of John's day. Further across Great Plains he found himself stopping to admire a herd of bison grazing peacefully before a shot rang out across the valley and hoots could be heard.
Everyday white hunters who only wanted the horns and the hide and wasted everything else.
The rest of the herd panicked and ran away.
John arrives to Blackwater with tension in his back. The Pinkerton agency is partway finished now and he thinks he feels eyes on him when he moves. But striking out would land him in jail, or worse, so he holds on to his feelings and finds his way through Blackwater's streets to the pier.
A boat is sailing away from the docks with waving figures standing on it's back end. On the pier stands a clump of bodies conversing or waving back, noticeable faces sitting within.
Abigail hardens her face when John meets her eyes across the road and Sadie eases her arm away from the other woman. Jack holds his own when his father approaches and the two of them have a quick greeting before Marston passes his worn knife to the boy. Nothing great, just something he'd had for a long while. Had his initials on the base of the blade, so they'd match Jack's.
The boy looks up at him in confusion and John can't tell if he's done the right thing or not.
"It's dull." he promises when Abigail gives him a look. But she doesn't look fully angry, just passive before she offers her arm to him.
John hooks his own through it and guides her in the direction of the tailor's as a wagon rumbles past with workers in the back. Sadie remains with Jack on the pier while the two of them ease the tension from their muscles and swallow their pride to talk.
"The knife was a good gift." she promises quietly, almost begrudgingly. She doesn't want to think about her little boy having to fight to survive, having to use that knife on anything bigger than an animal. "It'd help him with skinnin'."
He nods slightly as they stroll down the road. "My thoughts exactly."
There's a gazebo in an empty lot between the neighborhood and the shops. Usually occupied, it remains empty before John leads Abigail inside and sits on the bench across from her. For comfort and well-being, he supposed. Better to leave things up to Abigail than to force her down the wrong path again.
She wipes her palms across her lilac skirt and John starts tapping the underside of his seat with his short nail. Panicked, worried, anxious... he wasn't sure where the two of them would be after this conversation.
"I heard you went after Micah alone." she tells him.
John nods and swipes at his cleanly shaven face, done special for greeting Abigail and their boy. "I've done stupider, but yes. I ain't proud of it."
"Sadie said she talked some sense into you." Abigail squares her shoulders. "Doesn't mean you need to do a thing like that again."
"I know I been immature, Abigail," John shifts on his bench and brings his hands to his knees. "But you don't have to try and discipline me anymore. That's what's been tearin' us down for so long."
"What has?"
"Me."
Abigail looks past him to watch the rippling water of Flat Iron. His words were true, but maybe too harsh for Abigail to want to face. He did love her, but perhaps not in the way he thought. Or the circumstances that they fell for each other simply were not adequate for their needs, wants, dreams, and wishes. They thought having another kid might save them, that carrying a baby to full term would rekindle the flame.
But it felt like there never was a flame to begin with, spare for Jack's conception and birth. Having that boy was like having a blessing but John was too blind for too long, and the loss of their daughter was too rough to handle.
They simply weren't meant to be.
Abigail reaches out to take his hand and its in that moment that John realizes she has tears in her eyes. Marston squeezes her fingers and shifts on his bench to draw himself closer to her.
"What have we been holdin' on to, John?" she asks while she turns her gaze to him sadly. "Why have we been doin' this to ourselves for so long?"
He shakes his head. "I don't know. For Jack, I guess. Or 'cause we're the only thing we've both had for so long and through so many things."
She swipes at the corners of her eyes quickly and takes in a long breath.
"I do love you." she promises. "You've been a real good friend to me."
"That ain't true." he mutters. "I sure as shit ain't been a good man or husband, and for that I apologize. I'm tired of makin' excuses for myself."
Abigail breathes easy and sighs. "I pushed you around a lot too, John. It ain't only on you."
"You just wanted the best for our son." the corners of his mouth lift into a smile. "And you've done real good raisin' him given I been absent most of the time."
She breathes out a laugh and squeezes his hand, but the smile passes from her face and she looks him dead in the eye. "If we part ways, I want you to promise something to me, John. A few things, really."
John nods and scoots closer to Abigail.
"Treat the next person you're with better than you did me in the past, promise to visit Jack more than enough, and give your future kids the love they deserve."
He tenses his jaw as the tears fall from his eyes and he nods to her, breathing out I promise before she leans over to hug him.
=
John spends the next three days with Jack getting to know his own son before the mother and son head back across Flat Iron for Abigail to get back to her job.
Sadie joins him through Great Plains and New Austin to Armadillo where Leigh Johnson greets them with the whole artillery. Fighters, soldiers, volunteers all armed to the teeth to take on Micah Bell. John jots down his thoughts on a piece of paper before they go and leaves it on Leigh's desk, his mind on the past and the harsh fall off of the back of a train as they ride.
Assaulting Fort Mercer begins.
The scouts are picked off quietly with arrows and the men on the gatling guns are killed after. Those who can climb scale the walls using the crates and boxes left out and use their knives to slice the throats of any of Micah's men on the second level.
John sees Micah's henchman Joe as the big fucker rushes him when his ammo runs out. The wide body bashes into him and sends him into the stones before Marston unloads his revolver into him and the man falls heavily in response.
Micah has been alerted but there's no sign of him, only Cleet shoving folks out to get killed in his place.
Sadie comes up behind him on the ground as John and the others clear the courtyard out and it's by mere luck that she doesn't get shot. Marston joins her in the dirt courtyard after the shootout to hear her demanding answers from Cleet that he offers in fear.
She snaps his neck and drops his body against the dust before informing John that Micah was going to Gaptooth Ridge.
"What's that?" John asks as she storms away from Cleet's corpse. Sheriff Johnson joins them beside their startled horses.
"An old abandoned mine," she answers as she slings herself into her saddle. Sadie meets Johnson's eyes and sits a little higher in her saddle. "You got any deputies near Tumbleweed you'd be able to round up?"
Johnson shakes his head and points west. "There's only squatters and criminals hidin' out there ever since Sheriff Freeman retired. Might be where Bell's headin' too anyways."
Sadie lets out a half grunt, half growl as John climbs on to the back of his horse. "He might be collectin' more men out there then."
"Probably." Johnson stretches his arms and grasps his reins. "I'd usually say that we need to regroup and collect others, but I know you Miss Adler. You want to go get him."
"Better that than let him go." Sadie looks to John. "You ready?"
He nods. "Been ready since 1899."
Tumbleweed is crawling with vermin. Rats and snakes of the human kind spitting tobacco on to the ground and playing poker lazily in the sun. Most of their guns are forgotten at their sides but John saw Baylock trotting behind one of the buildings when he and Sadie climbed up on to the cliff edge.
Wherever Baylock was, Micah was.
The most fortified building in Tumbleweed was the jail, still standing upright with it's heavy stone walls and barred windows. Beside that, was the saloon who held strong for the drunkards and those who wanted a quick fix when they weren't busy killing in the desert.
John settles beside Sadie as he watches the other half of their battalion sneaking up on the west side of the abandoned town.
"I'm guessin' Micah's gonna be in the old jail." he whispers. Sadie is surveying the ground below with her binoculars.
"Or, he managed to get up to that old mansion on the hill."
John looks through the binoculars and sees the very slight form of a person in the window before cursing under his breath.
"I thought we had them on this end!"
"It'll be alright. The boys down there are too fuckin' drunk to shoot straight." Sadie raises her gun and looks at John. "Micah's not gettin' out of this alive."
The shootout in Tumbleweed is messy. The boys below are drunk, sure, but that don't mean they forgot how to fire a gun. Bullets take out pieces of the buildings around them and folks get hit with stray shots. Sadie gets one to the gut halfway to the mansion on the hill and John drags her behind cover as the sharpshooter clips his hat from his head.
Sadie pushes her hand against her wound and grits her teeth as John turns away and focuses his breathing and heartbeat, everything easing before he knocks the sharpshooter on to their back with a single shot.
With that covered, Sadie tells him to move on and John races across the dirt field towards the mansion, dragging himself up the incline and into the doorway before Micah shoves him back out with his shoulder.
John lands on his back and rolls over his own head, stopping himself on his knees. Bell stalks out with his pistol's raised and Marston notices the new lazy eye the other man is sporting, a nice gift from Arthur during their last fight.
Marston tenses on the ground and glances to where he's dropped his gun, wondering if he could reach it in time to kill Micah.
"You ain't got a chance."
He pushes himself on to his feet slowly and glares at Bell.
"You see how many fighters I got with me?" he asks. "You're not getting out of here alive, Micah."
Bell looks past him with fake interest and then chuckles, cocking his pistols and taking half a step closer.
"None of them are going to hit me from that distance. Not even widowed Mrs. Adler."
He raises the barrels of his guns and John focuses his energy on slowing his mind, reaching for the throwing knives on his belt before a shot comes from ahead of him.
Micah hasn't blown a hole in him.
Instead, the other man stumbles over his feet and his guns fall from his hands to land in the dirt. The front of his shirt goes red and he cups his hands over the wound in his chest with a shocked expression on his face before looking up at John and grinning.
Marston throws the knife in his grip at the other's nose and it hits the man sharply in the eye, his neck going slack before he drops to his knees and lands face first in the dirt, pushing the knife deeper into his head.
John lets out a shaky breath and steps back slightly, feeling a hand supporting him before he falls. Looking over his shoulder, he finds Sadie with him, her other hand still on that wound in her stomach as the volunteers they came with race up the hill and into the mansion to search it for more criminals.
He's only a few feet away when he hears the shots from indoors, of someone fighting back against the hoard of volunteers. Screams are next, then angered shouts before silence follows. The two of them have lifted their guns in alarm and John quickly raises the barrel to take a shot at the man running but the angle of his nose, the curve of his head, the ferocity in the dark eyes.
He could never shoot Dutch.
John lowers his gun and turns away easily. Leigh Johnson rides past with his remaining deputies and Marston slips his arm around Sadie to guide her to her horse in order to have her injuries looked at.
Later at the doctors he will find out that Dutch threw himself off of the cliff at the back of the mansion and that he took five people down with him. John will lie and say that his gun jammed and no one but Sadie will know the truth.
=
Micah Bell and Dutch van der Linde have been brought to justice.
Sadie has a healing wound on her ribs that lands her in Bonnie's ranch for a while to recuperate, a place with good people and good work where she won't go fully crazy while she heals. John greets Abigail and Jack at the train station before watching Abi go running to Sadie to check on her, skirt lifted so she doesn't trip and boots hurrying across the dirt.
John blinks a few times and looks at his son, finding Jack looking up at him with big eyes.
"You killed Micah?" he asks.
He lays his hand on his son's shoulder and starts to lead him to the corral.
"It's over now, Jack." he says. He feels like he's speaking the truth.
For a boy that used to be so uninterested in animals and ranching, he sure holds his attention when looking at the MacFarlane goods. From the horses to the cows, and especially the chickens, he's got a fondness for everything there. The foreman passes him a wrapped candy at John's permission and it has Jack's eyes shining in a way he could never get the boy's to before.
He feels like he's only going to mess up again, that Jack didn't need to suffer with a dad like him, but as Jack genuinely smiles at him when they crack jokes to each other in the general store, he feels like things are gonna turn out alright.
There's familiar laugher coming from the MacFarlane porch and as John rounds the corner with Jack, he finds Abigail, Sadie, and the MacFarlane's seated together with coffee.
"There you are!" Bonnie greets as the laughter dies down.
He glances between them warily. "What're y'all laughin' about?"
Abigail shakes her head and he resumes his climb up the stairs with Jack, but a single snort sends the entire group into another laughing fit.
John has a feeling that it was about him.
Jack introduces himself to Bonnie and Drew with confidence John had never seen before. He sits easily and speaks respectfully, only takes things when offered, and calls his seniors by their proper titles until Drew tells the kid to ease up.
They were practically family.
Drew sets out a mission to teach Abigail and Jack how to make a good roast chicken so John, Sadie, and Bonnie go on patrol together at sunset. It's easy conversation most of the way, a little bit of scaring coyotes back and then teasing each other about their shots. Chatting with Sadie is easy, but talking with Bonnie is... nice. Nice in different way than he'd ever had with someone before, where his chest feels warm and his face feels hot and his spine feels like it's tingling.
Sadie is giving him a funny look when he glances at her and John nudges her heavily, then receives a shove in return and the two of them race around trying to catch one another. It felt like a good sibling rivalry, the same shit he had with Arthur and similar antics he'd once seen his big brother and Sadie getting up to when they were both drunk enough to let off some steam.
Dinner is set when they arrive back and the group dines together over chicken, green beans, and some family recipe for gravy that Drew knew by heart. Drew sits at the head of the table and has Jack sit on one side, Sadie on the other. Abigail is next to her and Bonnie across that, John beside Miss MacFarlane and cutting up a slice of chicken.
Bonnie wipes her mouth with her napkin as Drew spins a tale about building his barn. It's a simple act of hers; she dabs it across her soft looking lips and lowers her napkin back in her lap. He wouldn't have thought anything of it if her hand came back up to grasp her fork, but instead her fingers are easily trailing across his thigh and her palm is flattening against the muscle he's built-
John eases his leg open and feels her grasp him.
He feels like a foolish little boy again, being naughty where he shouldn't be. He'd done things like this with strange girls when he was young and usually received a harsh stare from Hosea for being a dumbass, but this...
Marston knocks their knees together and lets her continue as he chews on his chicken. He savors the flavor and meets her eyes slowly, sees the burn in her gaze and the way she squeezes him just right.
He drops his fork and when he dives under the table to get it, he sees Sadie feeling up Abigail's thigh like they were alone.
=
"These rooms have been empty far too long, Miss Roberts." Drew explains from the second floor. A door closes after him and John assumes that he's helping the women set up their bed for the night, or at least trying to convince Abigail that it was no issue.
Jack was already reading in bed and Sadie had just finished washing herself up. The three of them would be staying in the main house for tonight before possibly moving on the next morning. They were good company, and it was nice for John to have this sort of relationship with Abigail and Jack. Drew said they should buy that property Abigail had mentioned with the money from Micah, that he'd be more than willing to help them start their own ranch up.
John just wanted to find Bonnie.
He circles the ranch a few times before he sees her horse far across the field, a speck of white in the dark. Marston rides over in fear that she's been hurt and unholsters his gun as he rounds the thick tree, finding Bonnie merely looking at the view of Mexico and the San Luis River below.
She smiles softly at him as he calms himself and eases out of the saddle. Pushing his gun in its holster, he wanders over to the edge of the cliff with her and looks at the incredible rock faces so far away.
"I didn't think you'd let me do such things at the dining table, John."
He smiles at the ground and turns his eyes to her. "I didn't think you'd do such things with your father right there."
Bonnie shrugs and looks back at Mexico.
"Life gets boring for an only girl on a ranch. I guess it was good you were as stupid as you were. Meant I got to have some adventure in my life."
John keeps his eyes on her. "I'm real glad you saved me, Bonnie. And that you kept me around like you did."
She glances at him and lets her eyes rake down his face to his scarred lips, then up again.
"Me too." she leans in. "Me too."
Marston starts to lean down and Bonnie takes his collar, dragging him in for a kiss. It's open mouthed and messy, passionate and filling every bit of love John ever wanted. He slides his arms around her and holds her firmly against his chest as she deepens the kiss, dragging a hum out of the back of his throat.
=
John worries at the front of his shirt as he checks himself in the mirror. There is a group downstairs waiting for him and Bonnie, folks they called friends and family. On Bonnie's side was Amos, Drew, and other friends. Waiting for John were Abigail, Sadie, Jack, Tilly, Pearson, Uncle, Charles, and Arthur.
A knock sounds on his bedroom door and Marston turns in haste as it opens partially.
It's Arthur.
"What're you doin'?" The older man walks into a stream of sunlight and it shines in his grey hairs.
"Gettin' ready!"
Morgan hums and crosses his arms over his chest. "Looks more like you're worryin'."
John sighs heavily and pushes his hair away from his face.
"I just wanna look nice for her."
"Well," Arthur turns John to face him and fixes his tie, then begins adjusting his vest. "She agreed to marry ya. Seems like she found something nice to look at somewhere."
In four years, John and Bonnie will welcome twins and a whole heap of new ranch hands. Patrick will finally visit from New York and meet his brother-in-law as well as his niece and nephews. Drew won't retire in that time but he'll complain about his back pain more often even though he keeps giving the babies rides on his shoulders like a young man.
Abigail and Sadie will have a wedding on their property of Beecher's Hope. They'll have Rufus as their ring-bearer and Jack as their officiant. It will be attended by all survivors of the Van Der Linde gang and the party following will last days.
John will keep good on his promise to Abigail. He will love Bonnie with everything in him and he will be a good father to his young kids and to Jack. He'll bond with his oldest and prove that he didn't love the younger ones anymore than his first born and he'll learn to be interested in his son's things.
He'll shed a few tears when Jack gives him a real hug. He won't admit it, he'll hardly even admit to himself, but he was grateful that he had proof that he was doing alright as a father. His twins will find him on the back steps of the MacFarlane home and pile on to him to cuddle. They'll touch the scars on his cheek and ask for the story and John will tell them a watered down version of what happened.
In a few years, the Pinkertons will start chasing Bill Williamson. Edgar Ross will try and find John Marston with no luck, because he has been missing since killing Micah Bell in 1908. Ross will drive through the MacFarlane ranch regularly with no idea that the man he was searching for was either out on the range with his wife, or keeping his kids company inside the main home.
Micah Bell will be rotted in a shallow grave in the desert. Dutch van der Linde's body will be given a half-kind burial at an anonymous donor's request.
Arthur Morgan will continue sketching scenic life far west of his worst sins. His husband, Charles, will live comfortably alongside him and they will support themselves on hunting, trapping, drawing, and caravan escorts.
The two men will go gray together and receive images and letters of their niece and nephews.
1899 will only be a bad memory, but those that passed away will always live on.