A/N-Again, sorry. I'm a terrible human being, I know. I have no excuses for how terrible I am so I'm just going to skip ahead to thanking you for being infinitely less terrible than me. Scribblez: as always, thanks for your existence. I can't wait to catch up with Maddie after this ^^ Pollardinator: thanks for your criticism, I really do love when people help me improve. Also, the brutality of the lawmen will be explained in a couple chapters in the future. I have a plan for everything so please bear with me for now. Blazer: I know I've probably really frustrated you with my laziness but THANK YOU for sticking with me this long :) Guest: I'll do my best! ArkhamQueen: thanks for your analysis, I feel a lot better about the tax thing now. I thought it was accurate but I took regular history so I wasn't sure _ I won't fail you! DarkDivide: you're super cool! McLean, Bubbline, and StoryofHonor: I'm sorry for making you wait but at least the wait ends now! Enjoy this oddly written but somewhat revealing chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever own Red Dead Redemption or any of its characters. The only parts of this story I own are the plot lines that come after the ending of the game as well as my OC characters. The content of this story was not meant to insult anyone in any way, shape or form. Rated T for violence and coarse language.
Chapter Track: Oats in the Water -Ben Howard
Chapter 12: Memories of Ghosts
"Here." he says the word softly, kneeling down beside one of the graves that dot this place like crooked teeth in a pair of gums. My heart beats faster as I approach him and my breath catches in my throat. Why am I like this? Finding something so insignificant that I hadn't even thought of looking for it until I happened to ride through Tumbleweed should feel like nothing to me. Jack, at least, is the very definition of calm and collected, knee-deep in dirt and dust and sitting on bones that are much older than he is. He has always been this way; my emotional opposite in every aspect of our life together.
"Carolina DeWitt." I whisper the name somewhat fervently. Her birth and date of death are written below that along with an epitaph so worn that I can't quite make out the words.
"Who was she?"
He's looking up at me expectantly and I'm not sure what to say. She could be anyone, a teacher, a parent, a lover…but knowing Jack that's not what he meant. He's asking what she is to me.
"Grandmother." I say after several long moments, "I think. I'm goin' by the date."
DeWitt was my mother's last name, a fact I remembered by complete accident when I saw the Tumbleweed Church for maybe the second time in my life. Most of the citizens of New Austin tend to avoid this deserted town and I know why, (it's hard to spend much time in a place that makes you feel like pissing your pants) but I recall that it didn't always look like this. It bustled with life once and it is the place where my mother was born. Where many DeWitts were born, it seems.
"Whoa," Jack breathes, "So this is pretty big, huh? Like a family reunion or somethin'."
I laugh a bit at this and move closer to place a wary hand on the cold surface of the gravestone. The old thing is surprisingly smooth despite having been left untended for so long. I look around the fenced-in cemetery, my eyes skimming over our horses and the dilapidated buildings that mark the center of what Tumbleweed once was, and come to a rest on the ancient-looking church beside us. I want to go inside. I don't know why, or what I even expect to find in there, but I want to go inside.
"You okay if I go poke around in that church?" I ask my companion, gesturing towards the withering orifice on my right. He shrugs and allows my absence with a noncommittal sort of wave. He seems uncomfortable with the idea of me going in there alone and I realize that he must sense the ominous atmosphere of this town in his bones as well. Jack and I wouldn't have gotten as far as we have if we didn't feel danger instinctively.
The church is just as small and withered within as it was outside. Rows of rotting pews line the aisle that leads up to the pulpit and the windows that line the walls are too little to let in any real light. I wonder if it was made this way on purpose or if Tumbleweed just had a truly terrible architect. That unstoppable net of curiosity catches me once again and I find my feet walking down the aisle towards the pulpit of their own accord. I have just enough time to remind myself that Collette will be walking down an aisle much like this one in less than two months before I arrive at my destination. A rusted candelabra is balanced on the edge of the podium and I grip it for support as I make my way up there. Strange. The sun is hitting the wooden surface in such a way that it almost looks like there are words scratched into it.
I lean forward, ever-curious, and try to make out what the lines on the pulpit form. A second later a shiver runs up my spine as I realize that they are words, and very eerie words at that.
The devil has got into that beast.
At this moment I hear floorboards creaking nearby and jump about a foot into the air, catching my arm on the corroded end of the candelabra. I'm fairly certain that the wretched object has drawn my blood but my heart is beating so fast that I can't focus on my injury at all.
"Shit!" a familiar voice curses from beyond the pulpit and I realize that the creaking sound was only Jack. Relief washes over me as my friend races across the church and grabs up my bloodied forearm.
"This is bad."
He's looking down at my broken skin with an odd mixture of worry and confusion, blood running down my wrist and over his calloused fingers. Jack is right. The adrenaline rush my fear had brought on prevents me from feeling the true pain of my injury, but I can already tell that it will need to be stitched.
"Shit." I echo what he'd said earlier.
"Ladies don't curse." he reminds me facetiously. He's trying to distract me from the true gravity of my injury and I feel a fresh wave of affection for his thoughtfulness.
"Right, sorry."
After several minutes of arguing over whether or not we should go to Rathskeller Fork for a doctor Jack reluctantly agrees that I would be unable to make the two hour journey with a ripped up wrist. I can tell, though, that he's avoiding saying what we're both thinking: that this amount of bleeding might kill me if given enough time. I consider the idea of waiting here while Jack fetches a professional and find myself flinching away from the thought. I really don't want to spend another five minutes in this run-down old church, let alone an hour or more.
"There ain't another way," Jack says eventually, rolling up his right sleeve as he speaks, "I'll have to do it myself."
"You? Stitchin' me?"
My surprise is due only to the fact that it's usually me stitching Jack up instead of the other way around. He's never done it before. I'm really not sure he even knows how to.
"Yeah. I've seen you do it enough, Effie."
He removes his hat from his head and runs a wary hand through his hair and I can tell he's nervous. I'm a bit put off by the idea too, but he's right. We're out of options. Jack begins to search his satchel for the remnants of our first aid kit when another thought pops into my head. I reach for his free hand with my handicapped arm, forgetting for a moment what had happened to me, and yelp a bit when his fingers close around my cut.
"Sorry!" he exclaims, releasing me at once. I shake my head, teeth clenched together to block another shriek, and try to focus on my request.
"Not in here, please." I gasp as soon as I can speak, "I hate this place."
When I say this, I can tell that Jack doesn't understand. He's just not a very superstitious guy. He'd be completely willing to shoot a criminal inside a holy building (not that we're in that situation now), but I, raised to go to church each Sunday, could never do that. Even so, he complies with what I ask and we relocate to the creepy mansion up the hill instead. This place sends shivers up my spine too, but at least I can curse loudly here when Jack shoves a needle into my skin without worrying about sins and whatnot.
I begin to feel the pain in my arm as Jack sets about sterilizing a sowing needle in whiskey and it's immediately obvious that it's worse than what I was prepared to handle. The most life-threatening injury I've ever had was ramming my head into a rock that day Jack and I almost got eaten by a bear, and even that felt like nothing more than a dull ache on my scalp. I can't believe that Jack deals with this sort of pain all the time in complete silence. I can't believe how much stronger than me he always proves to be.
"Your grandma…," Jack pipes up, trying to distract me probably, "What do you know about her?"
I watch Jack dip the last of our supply of catgut into the bottle of whiskey, making sure I can speak without screaming, before I answer him with the information my nanny had once shared with me.
"Clara told me she was some sort of beauty queen so she married rich and had tons of kids. Most of them died, though. Seems to run in my family somehow."
I suck in a pained breath as Jack strings the needle and leans closer to me. His hat is on the floor beside us and his hair is pinned out of the way with one of the hairpins I usually use, so I can see the expression on his face more clearly than usual. He looks scared, but confident. He believes he can do this. I, for one, have always trusted him with my life. This is nothing.
"Are you talkin' about all your aunt Bonnie's dead brothers?"
I nod, screwing my eyes shut as the cold needle touches the skin beside my wound just slightly. I'm braced for the pain but it doesn't come. I blink and realize that Jack is frozen, his eyes fixed on my still-bleeding cut.
"There's metal in this." he says abruptly.
"What." I say blandly. My stomach is starting to feel a little queasy.
"Metal shards."
He puts the needle down and pulls my arm up gently to get a closer look. He doesn't look so confident anymore as neither of us have had to remove pieces of anything from each other's wounds before. I try to keep calm as I pull out a very small, thin knife from my pack. I usually use it for killing the animals we've caught in traps without damaging their fur (no one likes buying holey rabbit skins).
"We d-don't have tweezers," I stutter through a fresh wave of pain, "You'll have to use this to get them out."
He takes the knife from me and I can see how badly he wants to refuse it. He doesn't want to do this and I really wish that he didn't have to.
"I don't wanna hurt you."
Jack says these words as an apology more than anything else. Those metal shards are more likely to kill me at the moment than his knife work. He's actually sort of an expert at five-finger fillet.
"I'll be fine." I whisper. I feel the cool edge of the knife press down on my skin and then slip beneath it. I scream. There are no words for how loudly I scream as the blade moves around inside my flesh. I forget everything, that I'm sitting in the ravaged living room of some ancient mansion, that my screams are probably distracting Jack, until my pain is all I am. I'm despicable.
I'm not screaming for long, though. Jack doesn't even manage to get out the first shard before everything starts to go black. The walls are fading from my sight and I have to wonder if this is what death looks like.
It's so cold. I shiver and sneeze in the darkness, but I'd still rather be out here than back inside with him. He's asleep, I know that, and even so I can't look at him. I'm too scared.
When he'd told me he loved me earlier today, I wasn't surprised. I'd known it for a while. What surprised me was the strange mixture of warmth and joy and discomfort that flushed through my body at his words. What is love, anyway? Is it even real? If it is, why did my father sleep with a prostitute? Why does West Dickens care more about money than anything else? And moreover, how can Jack Marston at the age of 16 understand love any better than me? He's three years older than me but even that doesn't seem like enough time to solve the enigma that is love.
I make my way around the Marston house and up a small hill that overlooks the ranch from the north. I should be asleep right now but my bed is next to his and being anywhere close to him is too confusing for me to handle. He sleeps like a rock, fortunately, so the only person who'd noticed me silently making my way out of his room was Rufus. I bet Rufus never has to deal with stupid ideals like love. Even thinking of the word feels a little too sappy for me to handle.
I try to consider Jack objectively as I pick out constellations in the night sky above me. He's so kind. I've never seen Jack be intentionally cruel to any other living thing (outside of scorpions. We both hate scorpions.). I'm sure he's at least somewhat attractive because of the annoying way some of my friends eye him whenever we're in Blackwater. He's definitely smart; I was the best writer in my literature class and my work still pales in comparison to his. Most importantly, I love being with him. If I was someone who hadn't witnessed what "love" was really capable of, I'd probably have fallen for him long ago.
A gust of wind whips past me and my shivering renews. I've always been a fan of snow, but not so much the cold, empty nights that lead up to it. And I really don't like how lonely I feel. It's so quiet out here that I'm starting to miss the sound of Jack breathing in his sleep.
Footsteps crunching on frozen grass. Warm hands on my bare shoulders. I should've known he'd notice I was gone, we're as accustomed to each other's presence as his parents are after so many years of marriage.
"What're you doin' out here?" he mumbles, his voice tired. It looks like he's still half asleep.
"I couldn't s-sleep." another shudder passes through me as I speak, and he notices. Jack shrugs off the vest he'd put on over his night clothes and drapes it over my back.
"Thanks." I mutter, but I can tell that his mind is already on other things.
"It's 'cause of what I said, ain't it?" he says, looking me square in the eye, "It's botherin' you."
I bite my lip, wondering how to phrase this so his feelings won't get hurt. The moon has come out from under its sparse cloud cover, and there's enough light to see his face by. He doesn't look angry or upset, merely thoughtful.
"I just don't know how I'm supposed to feel," I begin warily, "Or how I really do feel. Or what that feeling even is. The only thing I know for sure is that recently, I can't be happy unless I'm close to you. It's kinda annoyin', really."
To my surprise he smiles at me. A low chuckle escapes from his lips and his arms are around me before I can ask what he's so happy about.
"That's enough for me."
My hands extend upwards to return his embrace as naturally as my lungs expand to take in air. I don't know what love is just yet but the fluttering of my heart tells me that someday I will.
"Promise me somethin'?" his voice is slightly muffled by my hair. I pull my face away from the crook of his neck long enough to get a good look at him.
"What?"
We're just standing here, two kids on a hill in the dark of night, and his hands are on my back and mine are still around his neck and I've never felt more content than I do now. I get the feeling that I'd promise him a lot of things just to prolong this moment.
"Let's always stick together, alright?"
And this is too easy to agree to because I'd been planning on doing it anyway.
"Right. I promise." I answer him too quickly. His grin is back when he speaks to me again.
"I promise too."
At this moment my body betrays me by forcing out a little sneeze through my nose. I'd been looking down so the germs avoid hitting Jack directly, but he still gets the message loud and clear.
"Let's go back in before you catch pneumonia."
Sniffling, I take his hand and follow him back towards the house. I don't want to ever let go.
"Please Effie, stop moving."
The words are muttered in a harsh undertone, but I can barely register them. It is taking all I have in me to not yank my arm out of what feels like harm's way. Little knives delve into my skin like they were forged to torture me until my untimely death. Something is holding me down, something warm and strong-too strong for me to throw off. What can I do? What am I doing?
Some part of me remembers that I need to hold as still as I can, that I need to stop screaming or I'll hurt both of us. Both of us. The person stabbing me is someone I care about and I need to trust him to not tear me apart. He's saving me.
Lucidity is still too faint for me to grasp. The pain knocks my brain into overdrive and I'm forced under once again.
He's so still, standing here on this familiar hill, that for a moment I'm sure he's turned into stone. Mrs. Marston had managed to choke out that he hadn't moved for hours. He looks like he could be frozen like this for days. Fresh tears gather in my eyes as I spot the grave marker beside him, knowing that under it lies the best man I ever knew. It's not fair. It's not fair. I find that a part of me wishes that fathers were exchangeable, that mine was buried here in the ground today instead of Jack's because I know which one of them deserved to live more. I could heal over time if my father had died. Looking at Jack now makes me think he might not.
He's not crying. In fact, there isn't a single trace of tears or puffiness on his face to suggest he'd cried at all. His eyes are fixed on the grave before him with concentration so resolute that an angry grizzly might even have been unable to break it. Most of the time Jack is so easy for me to read, like an open book. Today he is steadfastly closed. Perhaps it's better this way because I'm sure his thoughts are a tangle of different pains and regrets that I couldn't fathom even if I wanted to.
"Jack?" I say at last, my voice floating out between us like a taut string. He alone has the power to snap it. To snap us. I'm scared, truly scared, for the first time in a long time because the expression on my friend's face makes him look like someone I've never known.
He is unresponsive. His eyes flicker from the grave marker to my face for a split second, but he doesn't communicate with me beyond that.
I reach forward, almost desperately, because I suddenly need to touch some part of him. I need affirmation that he has not simply turned into a statue upon this hill; a monument to all in the world that is unfair or unjust. To my surprise he moves at just the same moment I do. As my hands stretch out to touch him, his wrap around my wrists and restrain me. His eyes have still not moved from his father's grave and yet he is aware enough of his surroundings to hold me away from him. I begin to cry in earnest then, acidic tears that wash away my uncertainty and threaten to poison my blood.
"I'm so s-sorry!" I manage to choke out in between sobs, "I should've b-been there, I could've helped h-him!"
His grip on my forearms tightens and I wince slightly at the pain. I wipe my tear-stricken face on my shoulder and my vision becomes clear enough that I can see that the Jack statue is breaking apart. His lower lip quivers with what I imagine must be rage.
He releases me and I take advantage of his allowance and wrap my arms around his wiry figure. My hands clutch at the back of his shirt and my tears leave tracks on his front where they fall, but he does not move. Eventually he twists around and returns the embrace, needing me as much as I need him. As much as we'll ever need anything. He does not cry even now, but his body shakes with the effort of keeping his pain withheld. I know this is meant to be some sort of poetic moment but my hurting is only doubled by my realization of his.
"I l-love you," I whisper into his collarbone, "I loved him. I am so, so sorry."
Jack lets out a strained breath. His voice cracks as he speaks.
"Me too."
Those two words are all I can get out of him for a long time. Those two words are enough to convince me to not give up on him.
Things are different when I come to again. My surroundings are less hazy this time, more corporeal, my thoughts are straightforward and uncomplicated by my pain. The sting is still there of course, but it does not threaten to pull me under again.
I let out a groan as I try to push myself up with my good hand. Before I can make much progress, someone else shoves me back down onto the makeshift bedding beneath me.
"Stop."
It's Jack of course. Beside me yet again, protecting me without explaining why. Suddenly, I hate him for it. How can he be so calm when he knows I'm in love with him, when I'm plagued by all these memories of how things used to be, how he loved me, and he just forces me to keep it to myself? It doesn't matter if he's like this or the way he was before, he is mine. And refusing to hear me out is the worst thing he's ever done.
"We need to-" I break off as my sudden recline hits me with a head rush. Jack waits patiently, seated on the floor beside me. His hat and outerwear are laid out next to him and I take notice of the light filtering through the filthy windows on the walls around us. A glance up at the rotting ceiling makes it very clear that night has become day.
"We need to talk." I force out. I try in vain to sit up again but he's still holding me down.
"Then talk."
He turns away from me to grab my canteen and stuffs it into my unwilling grasp. As I take a drink I try to catch his gaze again, but it seems as if he's now avoiding looking me in the eye on purpose. With a final gulp, I pull the flask away and manage to sit up without being stopped.
"I can't do this anymore."
This gets his attention. He seems a bit miffed as I try to make my point more clear.
"I told you I was in love with you and you blew me off," my voice is firm, strong, "I still love you. I can't just sit here and pretend I never said it."
His jaw clenches immediately and I can already tell that this will be a repeat of last time. I don't care. I can't keep going on with the same question in my head all day, a question that the man beside me refuses to answer. He can say no, if he wants to, and that will be it. I will back down. I'll be fine just being with him as a companion but not unless he answers my unasked question.
"We've been through this." he says harshly, twisting his body so his back is to me. His tone is probably meant to scare me but it only serves to make me more furious.
"No, we haven't. I just want a straight answer, Jack." my voice softens of its own accord because I am pleading with him, "Please. I need you to tell me what-"
"I won't."
The statement is simple, but final. I've only begged twice before in my life and it's obvious that I was a fool to think it would have any effect here. Jack is a rock, a frozen statue. He covers it up better now, but some things never change. I take a deep breath, clearing my mind as best as I can, before I push myself off the thin sleeping roll beneath me. Jack turns his head to watch me as I move over to the decaying sofa where he'd gathered our belongings at some point during my unconsciousness. I sling my bag around my shoulder and holster my pistol.
"Where're you goin'?" he asks as I bend over to pull on my boots. He does not stand up, makes no move to stop me.
"I don't know."
"Are you comin' back?"
"I don't know."
My hand is on the doorknob, only a thin plank of wood between me and the outside world. I need to get away from him before I start crying or shooting or worse and it hurts so much more because he's not even attempting to stop me.
With a twist and a shove, I'm outside. I breath in the dusty air, letting the door swing shut behind me. Right before it closes I hear him utter a soft command.
"Be safe."
War is so much faster without that other, unnamed horse chasing after him. He's freed from his shackles just as I am, but I can tell neither of us is very happy about that fact.
Even though I wasn't lying when I told Jack I didn't know where I was going, I find myself on the path to Armadillo yet again. All roads lead back to Armadillo. Elizabeth, at least, will be happy to see me. Our friendship bloomed as easily as wild Feverfews grow around Thieves' Landing.
Somewhere along that path I stop for a brief rest. Somewhere along that path I am knocked out and tied up. I ride away on the back of a horse that isn't mine.
