Prologue

What was a man to do when his entire family died, leaving him to tend a ranch on his lonesome?

Initially, Jack Marston's response to this was to wander around the countryside and drink, picking up odd jobs to support his habit, occasionally getting into a fight here and there that just might end in someone lying in a pool of blood outside of a saloon.

This he did ritualistically for a good few months, having more or less given up on life and not yet come across the gumption to just do himself in. He figured an adequate amount of time being purposeless and stupid would eventually gift him with that.

But one Mrs. Bonnie Mulligan (nee MacFarlane) was having none of it from the son of John Marston. She tracked him down one morning when he was holed up in Armadillo with a hangover that would make angels cry, threw him out of bed, and gave him a good scolding -half of which he no longer remembers- before throwing him in a wagon and dragging him back to the MacFarlane Ranch. Sometime later, after having slept off the night before, he was again reamed out by Drew MacFarlane and that was the official end of his listless days.

It was made apparent to Jack in the coming week that he spent at MacFarlane ranch, more or less being kept hostage while he worked, that his life was in fact not purposeless, not so long as Beecher's Hope stood strong. His father, he was reminded, had worked hard to keep the ranch up. It was not in his possession for long, granted, but it had meant the world to him and it would have been a dishonor to his memory to lose it on account of drinking sadness away.

Besides that, Jack had nothing of his family left aside from the ranch. It would forever be the only standing reminder that his parents had once existed, had once tried, in vain, to get away from the life they once lead, had once hoped that they might live as normal, law-biding folk do.

Jack honestly wasn't sure if he was normal, if he was really the law-biding type, if he was worthy to be a ranch owner. What he was sure of, however, was that he had a standing promise to John to always keep after it no matter what happened to any of them. He had a duty and a responsibility, both of which he was currently doing a fantastic job of shirking.

So as soon as Bonnie and Drew had confirmed that Jack had successfully reached his come-to-God moment, they sent him on his way back to Beecher's Hope with no more than the additional knowledge of ranching he had gained in that week on top of a wish for good luck. He suspected they were somewhat eager to get rid of him anyway, given that they already had three year old Hank to worry about on top of the second child Bonnie and Amos were expecting at any time. A 20 year old man in addition to that growing family was not exactly a welcome thing, even if he was helping out with the ranch work and earning his share of the food, by all means.

Truthfully though, Jack was just as eager to get gone and start work where it needed to be. The ranch had no doubt fallen into some state of ruin in the time he had been gone -a little less than a year- and he found when he arrived that he was more or less correct in that respect. But the truth of the matter was that he had tended the ranch on his lonesome back when his mother had fallen ill, so he knew that it was not entirely a feat out of his range of capability.

Still, he didn't neglect to quickly hire on help in the form of 12 year old Henry, the boy of a family who lived on MacFarlane Ranch. Henry was young and a little bit weak, but he asked for a meager salary and knew enough about ranch work to compliment Jack well. Together, the two of them began to rebuild Beecher's Hope back into the place it once was, a task that was easier talked about than done.