tell me when you hear my heart stop;
there's a [possibility] i wouldn't know.
It was in the midday sunset, the time where the sun is a droop, unconsciously hidden by somber clouds. The clock would tick laboriously into shadows, mosquitoes and night crawlers climbing through the air and dirt for their feasts. The ranchers would slap at necks and sleeveless arms while the women carried their fans, trying to breach all the sweat dripping without taking an inch off their skirts.
It was not quite for dreaming, it was not quite for attention.
But it was time, and Bonnie, reaching for the rein of her horse, saw a silhouette against the archway. Underneath the entrance of the ranch was a rugged looking man, aged well and placed in a stance that spoke volumes. He looked so much – he leaned so much – he was so much –
"John?"
But it wasn't. It wasn't. She knew it before she said it, and all she could think of to say was his name. She hadn't said it for a long, long time.
He pushed off, trudged forward mechanically, swaggered in such a way. "Jack, Ms. MacFarlane," he greeted, tipping his hat. "You're lookin' mighty swell." He glanced around him. "I reckon as swell as your ranch."
She wiped her hands on her pant legs, giving him a tilt of her head. "As do you, Mr. Marston. Why, didn't you grow up?"
His face was open as he said, "I'm afraid I have."
And with that, they stared at one another, for the longest moment. It was hard to speak – harder than it was to swallow, and because of that, they found the silence could not be as awkward to them as it seemed to everyone else.
"Ms. MacFarlane – "
"Oh, Lord!" she shouted, stomping her foot. "Call me Bonnie. Bonnie." She wiped sweat at her forehead, hands slightly trembling. "What is it with you Marstons? Always sayin' my name like I'm only a mere acquaintance."
"My apologies ma'am," he said, almost smiling. "I was raised to be polite. I don't even notice it anymore."
She looked away from him, biting her lip. His voice was a quaver less of a scratch, and it wasn't created in halves by cigarettes or tobacco. A few more years and a few more deaths, a few wistful decisions, and it still would never be a quaver more.
The clock was ticking, ticking away somewhere. She could hear it, all those beat-thumps of her heart.
Bonnie chanced a gleam at his attire, full bred, dying cowboy breed, born and raised. There was that feather on the bond of his hat, bullets cresting up and around his chest. It was a different shade, different tints and slants – and Bonnie wanted it to remain that way.
"…Bonnie – " he hesitated, scuffing his boot. "I think – "
But Bonnie raised her hands and surrendered, already aware, waiting, but not quite ready. She'd never really be ready.
"I know, Jack," she said. "Hold your horse. I'm coming."
"Didn't think I'd see you round these here parts, Mr. Jack," Bonnie called over, following Jack's stride. His stallion was an America thoroughbred, the rarest ebony in all the pit stops of colors. It had belonged to someone else with more experience and less youth, but it seemed to suit him just fine. "It's been a long while, hasn't it?"
"Yes'm, Bonnie. Please hear out my apology – it's been a rough time these past few years." Jack curved his mount above the yellowing hill, turning his head a slight angle to the side.
Bonnie scoffed, waving, "What'd you think I was sayin'? I don't mean it as a reprimand. Bless your little heart," she said. "I just want you to know that you can find a home with me any time you'd like."
Jack gazed at her then, big, beautiful, disastrous brown. "I really do appreciate that, Miss Bonnie. And you know I'm gonna take up that offer. It's like my Pa always said – "
Bonnie held tight.
"A man'd be stupid to pass up a true woman's offer. And there ain't a theory that works when arguing with women 'bout anything anyway," he smiled.
She held the glued-on straight face, grinning at the road, but directing it towards Jack and John and all the witticisms he wouldn't be able to educate the world with.
"Sounds about right," she answered. "Guess you were listenin' to that old buffoon after all."
"Wasn't a thing that I'd miss – I took it all in for fear he'd leave again," he said, a dark filter backing up his words. "I used to be a scared little boy, Bonnie. Real, real scared. And maybe I still am. But I haven't met anyone without those lines on their face."
She could have reached up and felt those lines framing her right then, could have told him that she hadn't met one person in her entire life either, but that would only be to reinforce what she already believed to be true.
So Bonnie waited for him to continue. He remained silent.
She understood enough to know not where to encourage.
They arrived in a hush, their horse's hooves pitter-pattering like tiny, little flecks of dust. The sun was still in its favorite droop, a stand still for Bonnie, Bonnie only, and the wind and the tilt of the clock ceased to be known for a second more.
The hour of approach, the reckoning – it had remained blithely untouched for three years. Though, it appeared as if nothing had happened inside them, and the earth, as Bonnie knew it, would never change until she inhaled all the past dew. She would choke on it – she would choke and choke until she couldn't breathe.
But there were some things that deserved the recognition of choking, of falling, of, perhaps, dying. This moment had waited for her, and it was no exception.
She sidled off her horse, and she came upon the crude crosses and rocks. The dirt clashed with all the lively grass, and Bonnie guessed that it always would. Death was something no-one grew accustomed to.
"Never changes," Jack whispered. "No matter how many times I visit."
His voice carried as they stood there. They stood a long time.
Jack had kneeled, once, and he had touched all three of them, one by one. It was a slow process, like a sun-warmed ritual with no tears on his cheeks, no water drops staining any of his memory, and whatever he had told them – whatever this display held – it was only love. It could only be love. There was not a word stronger.
He walked away, then, pulled up on the horn of his saddle. She heard the huff of his horse and a few, brief pauses from Jack that were the epitome of uncertainty.
Bonnie tilted her head toward him. "I'll be fine, Jack."
Her conviction stopped him from asking her with words, and his indecision seemed to settle. "I'll be at the ranch, Miss...Bonnie." The horse started to move, then stalled. "I'm gonna come lookin' for you if you're gone too long."
And as the stamping faded into the distance, into the black, inky night sky, Bonnie realized that the hour had disappeared into her skin.
Her breath hitched, her stomach tightened into taut, individual knots, and her knees collapsed into the hill. The soil was soft, humming with life and night crawling thieves, and it seemed to embrace her instead of push her away.
It was what, Bonnie concluded, made her choke. It punched her stomach, and she couldn't breathe when she felt the tears break and fall away, down, up, across, away from her.
"You – you," she fumbled. "You goddamn bastard! You didn't even – you didn't even – "
She grabbed a fistful of the wood, and it shook and shook with tremors of white and black and a hideous gray. The man never was a hero, never showed morality in the most conventional of ways, but there was a reason Jack was alive. And Bonnie knew she had never encountered one quite like John, gun or no gun – bleeding on the street or patched and limping.
"You stupid – stupid man."
There was a reason for everything about him. But there was no reason Bonnie could find that related to her fear.
"You…never could call me Bonnie, could you?" She wiped her eyes roughly. "Had to – fill in to be a friend without being a friend, didn't you?" She glared at the letters sketched into the cross. "Had to save the barn and the horses. Had to go and act like somebody when you waited the last second to save me like a damsel. All for the theatrics, though you never admitted it. Weren't you, Marston?"
He answered with silence.
"My presence got you struck even beyond the grave? Figures, you dumb, old goat."
But perhaps the fear did not stem from him.
She glanced away, and she turned to the other. "You're one lucky lady, Miss Abigail. Must be celebratin' up in Heaven, ain't y'all? Watching us and laughing at all the things we try to do so perfectly," she said, fumbling with her hands. She puffed out a sigh and deflated a bit. "I do wish I knew you more, Abi – John loved you so much."
And it was then, in her most unguarded state of address, that she was able to understand. Perhaps the fear stemmed from the falls – from the blood, from the chance she had taken, bringing him into her home and listening to his smiles. She had watched him easily, as easily as he had done things no-one else had ever tried to do.
She kissed her fingertips reached over to place them on his name. Then Bonnie pushed off her knees, lingered a glance, and swiftly strode to her horse.
"I think you knew me best, John," she said.
In the end, the fear – the feeling – it did not matter. The only thing that could matter, in the midst of peace and death, was the acceptance.
And acceptance, Bonnie knew, would take her back into a sunset that was not drooping, not hidden behind somber eyelids, but embracing and open in its place.
an; 'I love you' is overrated.
thank you for reading~hope you enjoyed it.