When the Pinkertons came, she was old.
But though she may have been old, she had sworn she'd change the Marston's fates, and she never broke a promise.
Every day for years, she had patrolled the homestead. Had paced along the fence, observing every person who rode by, looking for that familiar, ugly hat, that gleaming badge. And, though her hips had weakened and stiffened until they cracked and hurt with each step, and her hearing dulled, she never stopped. Had to stop more and more often, rest in what shade she could find, and more and more often she found herself having to be carried back to the house by John or Jack or Uncle, one of them going out to find her when it got dark and she hadn't returned to the house.
But she'd sworn she'd give them all a much better future than she'd seen them have, and that started with stopping Jack and Abigail from being kidnapped by the Pinkertons. That wasn't all, of course it wasn't, Ross wouldn't stop just because John had been alerted of his plans too early and he'd lost some of his men. No, their futures wouldn't be fixed until Ross himself was dead.
That, though, wasn't something she could assure. At least, in the beginning. Maybe if John caught on, dug deeper. But she hoped that he'd get them out of there after being attacked by the Pinkertons, or that he'd step up and get to the bottom of things—and she hoped he brought her with him, he'd learned early on to trust her and her 'intuition', but she wasn't half the dog she'd been even a handful of years ago, so she could only hope he'd figure things out on his own.
Of course, she could always nudge him in the right direction. Leave little 'clues' out, that would plant the idea in his head. She'd done it before, after all, even if he hadn't put it together until much, much later.
And it all paid off.
Though it had been a very close thing. The sun had been setting, and she'd been stretching out under the sprawling branches of one of the few leafed trees on the homestead, trying to work the twinging out of her hips. It was almost the time when one of the men would come looking for her and, though it always damaged her pride, she ached so that even walking back to the house, though it wasn't far from where she lay, seemed an insurmountable task.
It was then she heard the hoofbeats.
The ground thundered with them, and even though her hearing had dulled so that she hadn't heard John calling her from the house while she'd been by the barn a few days before, she could well hear the rattling of the wagon wheels that accompanied the horses. She scrambled to her paws, ignoring the way her hips twinged and creaked, squinting into the light as the horses and their riders crested the hill.
And then she was running, too, with a speed she hadn't had in a very long time.
Though they'd been silhouetted by the sun, there was no denying who they were. Those bowler hats were unmistakable and, though one or two could have been dismissed, every rider she'd taken the time to see had worn one, and they'd been four abreast, with many more behind them from the sound of it, so she wasn't risking it.
She fled for the house, opening her throat on a bay she hadn't sounded in a very long time. She never barked, had never been one for it, so even before she was to the door it was banging open, a startled John clutching a shotgun, asking "Gin?" as she staggered to a stop in front of him, Abigail then Jack then Uncle close behind.
She didn't start barking, instead looked very pointedly at John, then back at where the Pinkertons were rushing down the path, heading towards the opening in the fence where John had been meaning to install a gate for well gone four years. They were easily forty strong, and while the people in the wagons were too far away for her to make out, something about the shape had her uneasy.
John's eyes widened, and he lowered the barrel of the gun with an "Oh, shit!," while Uncle groaned "Dammit."
"Jack! Abigail! Inside!" he was quick to command, while Uncle, for once without having to be urged, waddled off to retrieve a gun—she swore to keep an eye on him, she knew what would happen to him a few months time and didn't intend to ever let it come to pass.
"Jack, get under the bed, grab your pistol," she could hear Abigail commanding Jack, "Come on Rufus! Ginny!" and then was the sound of a door being barricaded,
'Over my dead body,' she snorted, and looked back up at John, who was settling his gun belt on his hips, slinging a rifle across his back. Rufus bounded passed, and she moved to let him, while Uncle hurried out with a shotgun in his hands and a revolver at his hip.
"Inside, Ginny." John commanded, and she looked up at him, raising her eyebrow as best she could. She thought he knew her better than that, but apparently not.
What an idiot.
"She ain't goin', John," Uncle chuckled, and that was that. They didn't have time to deal with her, not with the Pinkertons that were charging passed the fence. The first shot was fired, a bullet that flew wide and lodged deep in the side of the house, but it broke the slight peace and everything went to pot.
The air exploded in a rain of gunfire, and they dove for cover. Uncle overturned a patio table, the only thing large enough to cover him, while John ducked behind a pillar and she jumped clear off the patio, disappearing into the flower bushes that Abigail had planted only a month or so before. Dead, brown and cracked, her sand-and-pepper fur blended in well.
She wanted to leap up and help, to jump into the fray as she used to. But if she bolted forward, ran towards them, she'd be shot dead before she got anywhere close. So she could only wait, crouched down, as John and Uncle fired their guns, one, two, three Pinkertons falling free of their saddles and crumpling to the ground. Others leaped down, bolting for cover, while others chose to remain mounted, beginning to circle the homestead like so many wolves, cracking off shots.
Now that, though, she could help with.
She waited for a long moment, timing their movements, trying to get a feel for when the best time to move would be. They looped and looped, one, two, falling off their saddles, but the ones that had jumped down were of more concern to John and Uncle, and none of the ones on horseback were getting close enough for her to act, so though she wanted to stay in the relative safety of the dead flowers, she slunk forward as fast as she dared to the nearest cover, then the one after that, a bullet thudding into the dirt near her head but she breathed deep—she'd suffered worse—and kept going, until she could have reached out and brushed her nose against the horses' hocks, but that wasn't quite her plan.
One horse went around, and then the next, and she lunged forward, darting out of her cover to snap her teeth just behind their fetlocks with an overdramatic snarling bark, and the horse screamed, leaping up and arching its back to dump its rider on the ground before fleeing, nearly slamming into another horse-and-rider pair. But she didn't have time to be amused, the thrown Pinkerton was already struggling to his feet, wheezing as he tried to gather the breath that had been knocked out of him by the force of his impact on the ground, and so she moved before he could act.
The alarm in his eyes set her heart thrumming in her ears as she lurched forward to pin him down, throwing the full force of her weight on him. She wasn't as heavy as she'd once been, had lost a great deal of her muscle mass and arthritis had eaten away at her bones, but she was still big of frame and build, and kept him down easily. His hands flew up, grabbing her scruff and trying to shove her away, but she set her teeth into his throat and clenched, blood filling her mouth as flesh split and his jugular crunched beneath teeth that had dulled over time, but were still plenty sharp enough.
A pain burned, suddenly, in her shoulder, and she yelped, releasing her grip and scurrying away from the dying man, ducking under a nearby wagon and twisting to lick it, grimacing at the taste of gunpowder. It hurt like hell, but she could feel sorry for herself later, and slunk forward on her stomach to watch for a horse's hooves to go thundering by, lunging forward to snap at it. The horse screamed, reared and lost its balance, fell over backwards and landed on its rider, cutting off the man's scream abruptly. "Heh," she laughed, tongue lolling out, that had been easy, and poked her head out to look around, trying to figure out where to hide next. As she watched, another rider dropped from his saddle, a spray of blood shooting out from the back of his head, and she took a moment to look over at the house, checking on John and Uncle. Uncle had moved to duck behind a wagon, and John was peering through his rifle from inside of the chicken coop.
Adrenaline thrummed through her, and she felt no longer like she was old. Felt as though she were the dog she'd been when she'd come to this world, her bones healthy and whole, strong and hale, able to leap around and fight like the best hunting dog to be bred. She'd be feeling it later no doubt, be laid up for days, maybe even a week or more, but it'd be well worth it.
So she surged out from her shelter, barking loudly, grinning in that doggish way of hers as she got John's attention and began to run through the horses' legs, weaving and dodging stomping hooves, throwing many off their saddles, merely putting others off balance. John and Uncle were quick to dispatch them, the horses fleeing in panic as their riders fell from their backs, blood splattering on their necks and their rumps.
"Nice shots!" she cheered, though of course they couldn't understand her, skidding and tumbling into the chicken coop, crashing into John's legs with a yelp.
Despite himself, John barked a laugh, "Good girl, Gin!" it had been ages since they'd fought together like this, he hadn't even been taking her hunting, at some point he'd started taking Rufus and leaving her home and never taken her again, and here she was with her muzzle dripping blood, chest fur matted with it. He was reminded of when they'd fought those Skinners that had been fool enough to try and attack their home, and had died for it, Ginny fighting just as hard now as she had then.
And then, of course, a maxim gun started to fire. She yelped, flinching down, and John did the same. He poked the barrel of his gun out, trying to level a shot at the man sitting in the back of the wagon, crouched behind the massive gun. But a flurry of bullets landed where his head had been moments before, and he'd have been shot if he hadn't jolted back as fast as he did. "Gin…" he looked at her, she looked at him, and they communicated in that wordless way of theirs.
"If you get me killed, you owe me a steak."
And with that, she took off from the chicken coop at a dead sprint. Her hips tucked under her, practically under her shoulders, she ran like her tail was on fire, and it might as well have been with the heat the bullets threw up at her heels. Fire punched through her hip, and she yelped, but if she slowed she'd be killed and adrenaline urged her to keep running, so she shoved the pain into that corner of her mind that she'd made years ago that she was pretty sure a therapist would have salivated over and kept running.
There was the crack of a different gun, and the bullets stopped. She twisted, moved to dive behind the silo, found herself face to face with a startled Pinkerton, and tore out his throat without a second thought. "Jesus," she grumbled, dropping the corpse and shaking herself, licking her lips clean of the blood and grimacing at the metallic taste, eying his dropped gun and wishing she could wield it—though even if she could, she didn't know how, but it would be nice if she could fight from a distance.
She poked her head out from the silo, sighing as another maxim gun began to fire, looking around and nodding, well, that'd be the last wagon and, hopefully, the last maxim gun. They were heavy as hell (she would know, after all, she'd tackled one once on a lark in hopes of knocking it over to try and make it non-functional and Charles had had to put her shoulder back into place and her ribs had been sore for a week) so it would be nigh impossible to haul them around without a wagon and she hadn't heard any cars, and even with her poor hearing she could hear them coming from a mile away.
So she barked, caught Uncle looking at her, bolted out and ran towards the wagon. Bullets began to fly at her rapidly, and she dodged as best she could, dirt flying up around her, but there was an awful punching sensation in her side that left her gasping, but she couldn't stop or she'd die, and more importantly John and Abigail and Uncle would end up dead and her Jackie would end up with a horrible future, and her adrenaline was pumping so she focused on lunging for the draft horses at the front of the wagon, snapped at their legs and dropped to her stomach as they reared and kicked, and then the rapid shots stopped abruptly as Uncle cracked off one, two, three shots before finally landing one.
She darted back, hips screaming, as the horses brought their front legs crashing to the ground, not quite fancying having those trash-can lid sized hooves slamming into her skull.
A look around, and she lolled her tongue out in a grin. There weren't many more Pinkertons that she could see, and her heart soared. She was doing it, she was doing it! Jack and Abigail weren't going to get kidnapped, John wasn't going to have to hunt down Bill and Javier and Dutch (though something did need to be done about poor Bill, she felt awful about him knowing it wasn't his fault, that he'd been terrified of this happening and yet it had, that it had been something in his blood, what sounded like Alzheimers or Parkinsons or Dementia or some combination of the three, but it wasn't John's issue anymore).
And then—she could have died laughing, what a fool!
There was Agent Ross himself, sitting atop, what else? a white horse (and though she'd never been one for the bible, she'd listened in a few times when Abigail had dragged the family to the church for a holiday or special occasion, a verse came to mind then, "And behold, a pale horse, and he who sat on it, his name was Death. Hades followed with him. Authority over one fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine, with death, and by the wild animals of the earth was given to him." and how fitting was that? His horse stood far away, practically in the middle of the gate, and he watched the skirmish with a deep set scowl on his face.
Her eyes widened, and she dropped to her stomach, slinking behind a nearby tree.
This was it.
This was her chance.
Ross was the one who started it all.
Ross was the one who ended it all.
It was all Ross's fault.
And now… if she did this…
She could end it before it began.
She wouldn't have to try and lead John to realize that it was Ross who had sent them to attack him. Wouldn't have to try and help him figure it out. Wouldn't have to spend nights praying that she lived long enough to see this through to the end.
She could put an end to this here and now.
The idiot didn't even have his gun drawn, she realized as she slunk closer, poking her head out from behind that rock John never got around to moving. It sat on his hip, his hand in his lap, loosely holding his stallion's reins (and of course he didn't geld his horse, why would he? it wasn't like it would make the horse unpredictable and wild). She grinned, slinking closer, and could practically taste his blood on her tongue. Normally, she hated killing, tried to stun them, or cripple them, or send them running, leave them for John to kill to ease her conscience if she had to.
With Ross, though, she wanted nothing more than to feel his skin split beneath her teeth, his jugular crunch between her jaws, watch the life drain from his eyes.
His startled shout as she leaped clear of the bush she'd slipped into was beyond satisfying, taking him to the ground and sending his horse running with a terrified scream. He thrashed beneath her, slamming his fist into her shoulder, grabbing her ear and wrenching her head back, and she yelped as the barrel of his pistol slammed into her temple, stars dancing behind her eyes. She lunged, teeth snapping at his nose, spittle splattering across his face, and then there was a bang! and she yowled in agony, jolting back. He scrabbled in the dirt, fingers digging furrows in the ground as he tried to pull himself free, but she was too heavy and determined, and though agony throbbed in her head, raced through her and stole the breath from her lungs, she lunged forward, only a hand digging into the wound in her chest, sending white hot flashes of agony through her blood keeping her from tearing into his throat, and then another bang! and she screamed in that shrill way only a dog can, jerking back, shaking her head, whimpering as she lunged forward and, even as her head whirled with pain, set her teeth into his throat and clenched.
There was a loud pop, and a familiar gurgling in her ears as warm blood filled her mouth.
He twitched beneath her as she released him and then, for good measure, pissed in his hat.
John panted, lowering his gun as the last Pinkerton dropped to the ground, spooked horses rearing and slamming their hooves into the ground. Blood and brains stained the dirt, and as he walked to the patio a few of them still lay twitching.
"Y'alright?" he asked Uncle, the man flopping down to lay against a pillar. The fat-man panted, dropping his gun down besides him, but nodded,
"Fine," and so John barged inside, Rufus running after him, bolting for his and Abigail's room, yelling
"Abigail! Jack!" banging on the door as hard as he could, "Y'all two okay?"
"John? John!" feet bounded towards the door, "We're fine, are you? That sounded horrible!"
"Yeah," he panted, finally letting the barrel of his gun drop to point at the ground, Abigail and Jack working to clear the barricade behind the door with loud scrapes and banging. "No one got hurt, 'cides from them," he chuckled sardonically, flashing a wolfish grin. He'd been doing his best to be a farmer for years, to be a new man, as Abigail had wanted, had only used his gun on the Skinners and Del Lobos that threatened their home years ago, and wolves and cougars and bears and foxes and coyotes after that, and while hunting of course. But these people had threatened his family, would have succeeded if Ginny hadn't warned them.
"Oh, John!" the door banged open, and Abigail threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck as Jack clung to them with a call of "Pa!", Rufus jumping up and barking as well, all of them (aside from the dog, of course, to him it was a big game) shaking. That had been too, too close.
"Let me look you over," Abigail insisted, stepping back and running her hands over his arms and sides, John doing the same once she was done, turning to Jack and grabbing his face, looking him over. His eyes were wild and wide—last he'd seen anything like this, he'd been eleven and back at Pronghorn Ranch, and it hadn't been half so many people, just a small handful attacking them while returning in their wagon—and it had resulted in his Ma taking him and running.
"What was that?" Abigail asked once she was sure he was unharmed, "Who were they?"
"Was a buncha Pinkertons," John growled, shaking his head, "No idea what the hell happened there, but I'm goin' to figure it out. Somethin' ain't right there."
"Pa?" Jack interrupted suddenly, sounding as rattled as he looked, "Where's Ginny?"
And… well, that was a good question. She'd been in more than her fair share of fights, always barreling out to chase off coyotes that got too close to the Hope, or helping John send away a bear or cougar, even fighting off a wolf pack once or twice. And always she'd come back to the house immediately after.
But though Rufus danced at their heels, Ginny was nowhere to be seen.
John frowned, looking down at their feet as though she'd suddenly appear there, or that they'd somehow missed that she was standing with them, but she wasn't there, and a look through the door he'd left open showed that she wasn't sitting there, either, or looming over the dozing Uncle. "I dunno, Jack,"
"Is she okay?" he asked, and the frown that had made a home on John's face etched itself deeper. Ginny may have been 'just a dog', but she was as much a member of the family as Abigail or Jack or even himself. She'd helped him build the house, had saved their lives more times than he could count. So her not coming back to the house after such a big fight, in which she'd helped him take out a man handling a maxim gun, in which he'd seen her darting back and forth (and it had been, admittedly, impressive, considering he'd seen her hips give out while she walked up the three steps of the patio and he'd had to carry her inside the day before) and taking out her own fair share of the Pinkertons.
"I'll go look for her, son," he sighed, though he wanted to take a rest before going out and burning the corpses, he needed to make sure their dog was alright.
"John?" Uncle snorted awake, blinking up at him.
"Gin's missing, get up and help me you lazy bastard," he kicked the underside of his boot, and Uncle groaned before standing, leaning on the fence.
"My lumbago is—"
John walked away before he could hear about Uncle's 'terminal lumbago', keeping a tight grip on his gun, making sure it was loaded as he walked to the barn, Uncle lumbering off towards the abandoned crop fields, and Jack holding his pistol as he walked behind the house and towards the silo.
"Pa!"
John whirled on his heel, shoving the barn doors open and taking off at a sprint, heart pounding in his ears, mind leaping to every emergency, from the most mundane to the most outlandish.
Jack, getting bitten by a snake. Attacked by a cougar. Savaged by rabid wolves. More Pinkertons showing up, or one he'd missed. The Skinners coming back, Del Lobos taking advantage of the chaos. Uncle dropping dead of a heart attack.
His boy sat, kneeling, near a corpse (and one that looked familiar, though he was sure last he'd seen that face it had been far less wrinkled and his hair had been much less grey, although his name escaped him), though it wasn't the corpse that caught his attention. His son's arms were covered in blood, lips peeled back in a horrible grimace, and for a moment his heart dropped into his stomach and then lower, looking him over and searching for a wound.
"Pa, help her," and then he saw Ginny.
"Jesus," he dropped to his knees next to the dog, her head cradled in Jack's arms. If it wasn't for those uncanny green eyes blinking slowly, he would have thought her dead.
John reached to run his fingers through the fur on the top of her head, scooping her into his lap to look her over. "Jesus," he said again, watching her tongue loll out, soaked in blood that dripped off it slowly, oozing from her throat. He prodded at her chest, muttering an apology when she moaned, pulling away when his fingers sank into the awful heat of a wound, nails scraping against a bullet. "Damn, Gin," he stretched her out as carefully as he dared when he felt wet heat on his stomach, finding his jeans soaked with blood, the fur of her stomach matted with it.
Jack hovered as John parted her fur, trying to find the source of the bleeding, cussing when he found a nasty looking gunshot wound, and Jack flinched, making a funny sound in the back of his throat, as John carefully prodded at it, finding the shredded edges where the bullet had entered at an angle, and from the way blood was spurting out he feared it had nicked an artery.
He ran his hands over her, looking for any other wounds, grimacing when he found a bullet bulging beneath the skin of her shoulder blade, the wound bleeding sluggishly, and apologized hurriedly when she squealed, splattering blood on the ground, trying to flinch away when he found a bullet buried deep in the protruding bone of her hip. A scrape on her side had her flinching, the skin twitching, and blood oozed from her mouth and into the dirt as she tried to whine, the sound becoming more and more breathless.
John gulped, throat clicking, as he took in the sight of her, soaking in blood, whimpering pitifully. He looked over at Jack, eyes wide and glassy, and his chest clenched. She was an old dog, arthritic and tired, and now badly wounded. And, from the looks of the wound on her stomach and the way she bled from her mouth, dying. A nicked artery in her stomach, and what looked to be a pierced lung.
Abigail was good, but even she couldn't work miracles.
"Pa," Jack looked at him pleadingly, though from the way he said it it was clear he knew.
"There's nothing that can be done son." and John sounded just as tired, adjusting his grip on her to cradle her in his lap. He pretended not to notice as his son reached up, rubbing the back of his hand against his eyes, feeling his own burn suspiciously.
He remembered when he first met her, half-dead outside the shack that Beecher's Hope had been in the beginning. Overheated and mistreated by those squatters on his land, he'd thought she would die then, too. Remembered her retrieving beers for him and not Uncle, though Uncle had been trying to train her to, and how indignant Uncle had been—a grin tugged at the corner of his lips. Remembered her leaping so high that she'd turned near flips, only to crash to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
Remembered her hauling out Arthur's satchel—he'd been furious at the time, until she'd found the map with the 'legendary' animals marked on it. Those animals, hunted with her help, had helped him pay off some of the loan. Remembered her helping him and Charles build the house, hauling wood and rocks, sprawling out near the campfires with them. All the times she'd stretched out on top of their bedrolls, refusing to move no matter how much they tried to shove her off, flopping back down on top of them when they did succeed. When she'd helped fight that damn cougar that had made a home near the Hope, nearly attacking Jack, almost getting killed then, too.
Remembered when she'd helped track down Micah, fighting his gang with a ferocity he'd never seen in her before. Snarling and facing off against Micah as though he'd personally wronged her, looking as conflicted as he'd felt when she'd seen Dutch. Remembered all the times she'd crawled into bed with him and Abigail, though she'd been forbidden to.
All the times she'd helped them herd their cattle, their sheep, guarded their chickens from coyotes and foxes, helped him hunt. Remembered when she'd started growing old, slowing down, having to rest and only track the animals, not help chase them, leaving that part of the hunt to Rufus. Remembered, regretfully, the last time they'd gone hunting, though he hadn't meant to never take her again.
Remembered, too, when she'd nearly died fighting that bear that Jack had tried to hunt, a monster of a thing, and he'd thought she'd die then. But she'd survived by the skin of her teeth, none of her wounds fatal like this, and remembered all the times he'd found her laying with her head in Jack's lap as he'd read to her.
She'd been a staple of their life for so long he couldn't imagine it without her.
"It's okay, girl," he hummed, stretching her out in his lap as comfortably as he could. Jack sat next to him, face twisted with grief as he began to pet her head, muttering quietly such that John couldn't understand him, "it's all gonna be okay soon,"
He ran his fingers through the ruff of fur on her neck, not wanting to risk touching any of her wounds, and as he drew his pistol, Jack brought one hand up to cover her eyes even as he moved to scratch that one spot on her back she always liked. John kept scratching the ruff of her neck as he lined up his shot, not wanting her to suffer any more than she already was,
"Thank you," and he pulled the trigger.