So I've been playing Red Dead Redemption again and decided to write this short piece. This fic was inspired by an entry on Red Dead Redemption's fridge brilliance page about why Jack acts so mean to his horse a lot of the time. I took the idea from there, made it a tiny bit more self-loathing, and ran with it. Hope you enjoy! I don't own Red Dead Redemption by the way :)
Jack Marston had not always hated horses. When he was young, he had wanted nothing more than a horse to call his own. It would prove to his parents that he was responsible and grown up, something they always seemed reluctant to believe. When he was still a boy, Ma and Pa left behind their old lives and got the ranch, and after a few years, he was allowed to have the chance to take care of a horse of his own. His Pa entrusted a beautiful Pinto to him. He loved that animal and took perfect care of him. He knew his Pa was proud of him for how well he cared for the horse.
But then, after years together, his beloved horse failed him. It had thrown him off when he went after a grizzly and tried to flee, leaving him behind. Despite its desperation to get away, the grizzly still killed it and nearly killed Jack as well. Had the horse not panicked the two would have been able to get away together.
Jack ignored the little voice in his head that said it was his fault the horse had died and his fault the grizzly nearly killed him too. His recklessness and desire to prove himself to his Pa had led to the death of his beloved companion.
Just a few days later it was a horse that took Jack away from his Pa when the military men were storming the ranch. He was forced away from his Pa when he was needed most. Had he stayed maybe he could have helped his Pa fight them off. Jack had pushed his replacement horse as hard as he could in an attempt to reach Beecher's Hope after he and Ma heard all those gunshots. But he did not reach the ranch in time. Pa was dead by the time he and Ma got there. Jack told himself that if the horse had just been able to go a bit faster he might have been able to save his Pa, or at the very least, he and Ma might have had the chance to really say goodbye.
Again, Jack ignored the voice that told him that it was his Pa who had sent him and Ma away in order to protect them and that with all those wounds there was no chance of ever reaching the former outlaw while he was still alive.
Jack knew that his Pa would not approve of the life he now led. John Marston had wanted his son to make something of himself, to become a respectable rancher that he could never truly be. Jack had abandoned that path in order to avenge his father, and after Edgar Ross was dead, he continued to aimlessly drift throughout the state, desperate to avoid the scene of his father's murder. At times, Jack could swear he felt his father's disapproving gaze on him as he killed dozens and stormed gang hideouts, half hoping that one of their bullets might actually kill him. In his desperation to escape that gaze he often rode his horse to near exhaustion, drank himself to sleep most nights, and continued his life on the edge of the law.
So Jack yelled at his horse, cursed the beast too. He focused every feeling of loathing he had on it. Hating the horse was just a bit more bearable than hating himself.