September 1st, 1916

Dear Ms. Bonnie

I write to you from the Blackwater jailhouse. I have been falsely accused of murder.

Again.

There is no need to post my bail or come for me if you were so inclined. Though I doubt you will believe it this was, in fact, not entirely my fault. I was taking part in a game of poker at the hotel when a Mr. Joseph Burrow burst into the lobby looking for me and wielding a double barrel shotgun. Some cretinous bastard not only told him I was in the hotel but where to find me. You'll remember Joe Burrow as the man who we delivered grain to about a month and a half past. Has a horse farm out in Lemoyne. Burrow was stark raving mad thinking I had slept with his wife.

Truth be told I had, but he even admitted his wife hadn't told him as such and that he had only heard of the events second hand. It was that surly ranch hand Mr. White who put the idea in his head. I think he had feelings for Mrs. Julia himself and didn't take kindly to the eyes she was making towards me.

Hand to my heart and in front of God himself I tried to talk the poor man down as soon as he burst through the door and up until his final moments. He looked a ghost of himself and had obviously not been sleeping. Burrow was an honest man of raising horses. Entirely too soft for gunfighting, but he raised that shotgun towards me nonetheless. I had no choice but to put him down.

They had called the local constable and I surrounded peacefully right away. I figured two nights in the jailhouse before they determined it an open and shut case of self defense, what with a table full of witnesses. Little did I know how sour my luck had turned.

Those damnable agents of the supposed Federal Government were in town hunting down the last of the bank robbing gangs in these parts and that rat faced Agent Beckham was at the jailhouse. He got one good look at me and immediately set about disrupting the facts of the case.

Beckham set his screw to the witnesses. Not hard to threaten men who were playing an illegal poker game during the events of a murder. How I could be held to blame for shooting a man that had traveled across three states with a shotgun to murder me I will never know. Beckham found a way.

Me and him both know what this is about. Ross. He was still cross about not getting to solve that one. I don't know what he was still mad about he framed up those two Wapiti young men and put them to the rope. I guess he was denied his great inspector moment of cracking the case and impressing all his superiors. To this day he swears to a witness in Blackwater seeing a man fitting my description and asking about Ross. Ms. Bonnie you know my mother and you know her standing on revenge. Revenge is a fool's errand that leads to only more hardship on those that seek it. I would have never sought that man out and certainly not killed his innocent wife and brother. Beckham never believed it and wanted to hang me on the spot. If not for Agent Archer reining him in and you providing an alibi I would have swung for sure. But here we are two years later and I am paying for that evil bastard Ross's death regardless.

Archer is away in Washington so no help from him this time. That man had always seemed oddly sympathetic and did not seek to pin his partner's death on me indiscriminately. To no avail now. There will be no need for an alibi this time Ms. Bonnie.

I think now is the point in this correspondence that I should assure you I will not be hanging from the gallows. No the powers that control this vast and confusing earth have a much more ironic fate for me.

Irony. I remember explaining the word and the concept to mother. She thought it a useless exercise and arrogant to boot. Imagine her surprise to see me wearing the uniform of the United States Army, the very men who gunned down my father and Uncle not 7 years ago. I am happy she is not to see it. Surely she would cry.

This is not of my own decision. Beckham wanted executed day of like back in the old days when the law of the land was, well, lawless and any old fool with a star on his chest could kill a man for any manner of reasons. Unfortunately for him the local prosecutor and judge are men of the law. The actual law as it were. I was brought before them with Beckham expecting a haste execution order and instead found a momentary salvation if you can call it that.

If I can be bold enough to bring the word irony back again so soon, the prosecutor for the county is a man named Augusta Gray of the Lemoyne Grays and he served the honorable Judge Cornelius Braithwaite of the same parts. Apparently they had no time for the past ignorant misgivings of their families and now worked together, on my behalf more or less.

Luckily neither of them have had an education on who John Marston was, what he had done in his life, or who he was the father of for if they had this certainly would not be the case.

Instead they were two overtly and loudly southern gentlemen overtly and loudly at a mind to enforce the letter of the law. They informed all men gathered in the courtroom that they were men of the modern time and the modern law. Multiple times. The lawyer assigned to me was too drunk to say much of anything and never even gave me so much as his name.

Mr. Gray was outraged that no witness in a murder that had reportedly been committed in no less than 5 citizens was willing to come forward. In a modern trial there must be witness and evidence as we were no longer under the burden of frontier justice. Judge Braithwaite loudly agreed and said more or less the same thing. They were certainly fine with swinging me from my neck on false charges but only after the full circus and performance of justice had run its course. My lawyer laid his head upon the table. It seemed a good time to argue in my favor but I was not allowed to speak and he seemed unable. I told them he hunted me across three states because he was under this misconception I slept with his wife, well, you know Ms. Bonnie. I was told to shut my mouth while in the judge's court but then he directly asked Beckham if this was true. Beckham was aghast. He called me a liar but was unable to provide proof of my life. Apparently every player of that ill fated card game had fled town including the dealer. No witnesses to discount my version of events. Beckham was a victim of his own enthusiasm it seemed. The Prosecutor mused that a man traveling such a distance to be shot down could provide an adequate self defense case even in an advanced and orderly society such as ours. My esteemed attorney offered no point on the matter and gagged in his seat.

The three noble men of the justice and order that governed our society huddled in front of the honorable Braithwaite's bench and argued in a loud and punctuated murmurs about what was to be done with this obvious murder. Fortunately for me they refused to hang a man without due process. Unfortunately for me they still wanted their pound of flesh.

The honorable Judge Braithwaite gave me an ultimatum. I was to be remanded to the United States Military to serve our great armed forces. The great war overseas is all the talk in the papers and we are soon to be a part of it. It seems as if there is a great pressure to recruit and fill out the ranks with as many men as possible. Judge Braithwaite offered that I would accept this admission into the armed forces or remain in custody until a witness could be produced. So either the uniform or the noose.

I had nary a chance to open my mouth before he slammed his gavel and decided for me. I was to provide service to our country. Apparently according to Prosecutor Gray and Judge Braithwaite a sentence to serve in the army is an appropriate application of modern justice to resolve a murder trial. It seems ridiculous. I was dragged out of the courtroom as my attorney snored.

Beckham did not like it one bit. Though he set about reminding me the whole way back to the jail of the stories coming from overseas about a bloody and never ending war. Once in my jail cell he departed and a Deputy Comer assured me that as soon as our great nation entered the war it would be over within a week. I find him a doubtful source of international politics but he did provide me with paper and pencil to form this letter to you.

Ms. Bonnie by the time this reaches you I will almost certainly be on a train East in shackles to be trained to be a soldier like the men who shot down my family. I am sorry to burden you with this tale and all of my stories. I simply have no one else to tell it to.

Long ago I found Uncle Arthur's journal and how my father had continued in it himself. My father a man who hated all books it seemed had helped fill two full binding with adventures that would sell for a dime across the states. I guess I write to you now hoping that someone will know a bit of my story. I can't fully explain why and I'm not sure if it is of any use.

I know that I may seem a spoiled and reckless man that brings more trouble than he's worth but I will always be thankful for the home that you gave me and my mother following what happened to my father. If it pleases you I will continue to write and if not know that you have the gratitude of one worthless rancher's son who plays bad cards too often. I do ask that you wish me well on this upcoming journey ill fated as it may be.

I wish nothing but happiness and peace for you and your husband and all those at MacFarlane Ranch.

With gratitude

Jack Marston.