The roses have faded
There's frost at my door
The birds in the morning
Don't sing anymore
The grass in the valley
Is starting to die
And out in the darkness
The whippoorwills cry
Alone and forsaken
By fate and by man
Oh, lord if you hear me,
Please hold my hand
Oh, please understand.
Hank Williams
"John. Hey, come on, now. We can't stay here."
John didn't look up. He was knelt before Rane Roth, one hand over his eyes. He was weeping steadily and silently, his shoulders shaking, his face turned down to the growing snow. Micah Bell lay just beyond her, shells littering around him, and so, too, did Dutch Van Der Linde, slumped against the little hacienda, Rane's sword still protruding from his throat, both hands lying palms-up toward the sky. The snow fell gently around them, thickening the air above them. It was silent and still, save the gentle sound of John sobbing under his breath and the faint call of crows down the mountain somewhere.
"Hey." Sadie bent and touched John's shoulder. He jumped as if goosed, his breath hitching. "Honey, we gotta get outta here, before more of 'em show up."
"God dammit, Sadie, god damn her," he murmured, his voice thick. "Why in the hell couldn't she just have listened to me? I told her not to do somethin' rash, I told her, but she just don't listen . . ."
Sadie's stomach cramped. His voice was callow in his devastation, so unlike him it was almost foreign. He was on the back end of his twenties, but he didn't look much older than twelve in that moment. She looked at him a moment - he had removed Arthur's hat and let it fall next to him, exposing his whole face, and his dark hair was sweaty and stuck to his cheeks - and then knelt beside him in the snow.
"John Marston," said Sadie softly, and pulled the hand he'd placed on Rane's gently into both of her own, "honey, listen, she's gone to her reward, she ain't gonna get up no more. And I'll tell ya somethin' else, I believe that she'd be pissed off as hell if she saw you over here fretting after her this way."
John didn't laugh; he remained where he was, his head low. Sadie leaned forward and drew him into her arms, something she had never done before. She expected him to resist her, but he accepted her embrace willingly enough, slumping against her as if all the strength had gone out of him. Sadie patted his shoulder, feeling a little out of her element.
"I know it, John. I hate to see it, too."
"Seemed like she just let it happen, Sadie, right at the end there. Like she just . . ." John gestured vaguely, his voice thick. "Just let the both of 'em shoot her down. Just let 'em."
Sadie had seen this, too, but she shook her head gently nonetheless. "She didn't either."
"No, no, today I saw her hook a big-bore sniper bullet like it was a goddamn fly from fifty yards or somethin'. Don't you try to tell me she couldn't protect herself. She let that happen, Sadie." John shook his head, rubbing angrily at his face. "Goddamn her, she let that happen just now, she let it."
Sadie looked between him and Rane, chewing her lip.
"Get her sword," she said, getting to her feet. "I'm gonna collect her and then we're gonna get the fuck outta here."
"What about Dutch?"
"Fuck Dutch," Sadie said softly, echoing Rane's sentiments earlier that day. "He was gunnin' for us same as Micah. Let him lie. He earned his keep in the end, alright."
"I'll get her."
"No you damn well won't. Go on." Sadie flapped a hand at him firmly. "She ain't heavy I bet, you coulda stood her sideways and hid her behind a zipper, little old thing. I got her."
John got to his feet slowly, but he was still looking down at Rane, his face cramped. She lay silent and still, her face lax and rather lovely in the low light, dark hair strewn beneath her and blood smattered all around in the snow. Sadie grasped John's arm, drawing his gaze to her own. She didn't want him looking at Rane right this second.
"We're gonna put her up next to Arthur and bury her proper, like I bet she'd have wanted," she said gently. "We ain't gonna let her lay here in the snow next to the likes of these two."
John was nodding. "Yeah. Alright."
"I need you to pull yourself together. There are likely more fellers in these hills, we might not have an easy time getting off this mountain."
"Okay." He was still staring down at Rane. Sadie didn't like this.
"Hey, look at me a sec."
John met her gaze, his eyes bloodshot, frowning.
"Honey, you get it all pulled together into one for me and let's get this sweet girl down the mountainside, okay? Please? I can see you're all discombobulated. Hell, I am too," she added, and meant it. "That was fuckin' awful, forgive my mouth. But we gotta go."
John nodded, seeming to steel himself.
"Now go on and get your horse ride-ready. I don't want you lookin' at her while I put her on Hera."
HE did, in the end. Sadie didn't have much issue lifting Rane onto her horse - she was thin indeed, and death seemed to have lightened her even further. It felt a little undignified to throw her over the back of Hera belly-down like a common criminal, but there just wasn't much choice, and because Sadie didn't think it would do John any favors if her face was visible for him to look on whenever he glanced over, she pulled Hera's blanket from beneath the saddle and draped it over Rane's body. It was crude, but it would have to do.
She had one foot in the stirrup when Eli showed up. The clopping of his hooves alerted her first - John was already back, astride Rachel and staring at Dutch's body with a grim, somewhat shellshocked expression, Rane's holster and sword stowed on his saddle, so they should have been quite alone - and she whirled around, drawing, expecting another mounted gunner.
"God fuckin' dammit - !"
Eli was standing near the trail's mouth, both ears laid back, watching her warily, quite still. Sadie stowed her pistol again, allowing her heartbeat to slow a little and feeling a trifle foolish.
"Oh, hellfire . That horse gave me the fright of my life, John, I thought it was another one."
"Fuck. He musta followed us." John was looking at Eli too, frowning. "I forgot all about him."
"C'mere, mister, come on," said Sadie gently, lifting her chin at Eli. He clopped toward her meekly enough, and bypassing John and Rachel without a glance he placed his muzzle against the body on the back of Hera, sniffing, ears swiveling, nuzzling. After a moment he lifted his head, looking at Sadie with an expression of something like entreaty, snorting. She felt a cramp of sympathy.
"Think he knows?" she remarked, low.
"I'd be surprised if he didn't." John clicked his tongue gently. "Eli, c'mere, boy. Come on."
Eli turned to John's voice, ears pricking, and made for him at once. He put his muzzle against John's outstretched hand quite willingly, something he had never done before; he had always been rather obdurately skittish with anyone besides Rane. John stroked him gently, his eyes stinging a little again as he looked at the stallion. He had spent his whole life around horses, since he was knee high to a grasshopper, and he knew a grieving animal when he saw one. It made Rane's death more concrete, somehow, to see Eli seeking succor from a stranger this way.
Sadie must have seen this for what it was as well, because when she spoke again her voice had taken on a notable thickness. "Throw a rope around that creature, John, we can't just leave him out here, poor beast. Hell." She swiped at her face with the heels of her hands. "Bunch of goddamn bullshit today. I shoulda just stayed home."
"Aw, you don't need a rope, do ya?" John scrubbed his fingers through Eli's mane. "Where she goes, you follow, don't ya? Well, I bet you weren't the first. Come on, boy."
He was right; Eli needed no lasso to accompany them. He clopped after the two of them mildly enough, his head hung low, keeping close to Hera and therefore to Rane. Though neither John nor Sadie spoke of it, both of their eyes fell on him frequently as he padded meekly after them, his breath coming in white puffs from his nostrils, ears low. The sight of him - a hardy and rather aggressive animal, so broken and subdued by the loss of his mistress - seemed to summarize everything that had happened that morning, somehow. John had pulled Arthur's hat firmly over his face, low, and though he didn't weep anymore - he had been raised to believe men ought not engage in that sort of behavior, especially not in the presence of another - his eyes were frequently drawn to the blanketed form on the back of Hera. He could not remember feeling so grieved, not since Arthur, and it was strange and unpleasant. Dutch, too, a man who'd raised him up from a boy. How did a man reconcile losing two friends on the same day, and so violently? And one whom he'd loved in the secret recesses of his heart, no less?
"I think I sorta know the spot," said Sadie at length, sounding a bit gruff.
"You mean where Arthur -?"
"Yeah, that's what I mean. I just don't like to say it right out loud."
"You wanna bury her next to -?"
Sadie coughed, hoarse, but John recognized the sob hidden beneath it well enough. She shook her head, avoiding his eyes.
"Yeah, I believe I do, and I don't wanna talk no more about it. This has been a hard morning, John."
The spot where Arthur was buried was covered in snow, same as the rest. The two of them came upon it not long later, Sadie navigating the mountainside from memory. It was untouched by man or beast, and the marker placed above him was standing as firm as its owner ever had. Together, Sadie and John dismounted and dug a hole beside where Arthur was laid to rest with the heels of their hands and the hilts of their daggers. The ground was still relatively soft from the warmth of the spring, and Eli stood by, watching with his ears pricked, as Sadie and John bent over the snowy earth, making a place.
"That's good enough," said John at length, getting to his feet and arming sweat from his brow with his filthy hands. He'd discarded his heavy duster for the work, and he was lean and young and handsome in the falling snow as he stood breathing quickly over the grave. "I believe we might could work with this."
"Yeah, I reckon so." Sadie looked at the hole they'd made, breathing a little hard. "You wanna do the honors, Mister Marston?"
He did. It was a strangely Herculean feat to lift her off Hera - she was limp, beginning to stiffen, all her former bluster and hubris departed at last - but he did it anyways, pulling her into his arms and holding her close to his chest, pulling the saddle blanket away from her and casting it onto the ground without fanfare. He clutched her to his chest for a moment before he deposited her, eyeing her with a furrowed brow. She was terribly beautiful, even blood-smeared and still, and after a moment he bent and placed a gentle kiss on her cool forehead.
Sadie watched this from next to Arthur's grave, arms clutched around herself, feeling horrible. John laid her into the dirt gently, bending, staggering a little, and once she was in her final spot he hoisted himself back onto the snowy earth, standing beside Sadie.
"Okay." Sadie was weeping steadily now, something she had not done since Jake. "Cover her up. She's next to him now."
They did, slowly, taking their time. When she was beneath the ground, Sadie stepped back, looking down, her arms crossed over her chest. She was crying a little, steadily, and John was too, though neither of them spoke of it. They stood before the two graves, silent, the snow falling around them.
"I think I loved her, Sadie."
Sadie sighed roughly, running her filthy hand over her face. "I know you did. Shit, we all knew it, John, it wasn't exactly a secret."
"Aww, hell." John gestured to the freshly tilled dirt, where snow was already beginning to fall. "Shit. I don't believe I know what to do with it."
Sadie looked over at him, examining his grim profile, and reaching out drew him against her gently, squeezing his shoulders. Together they looked at the graves - Arthur's, with the marker that Charles Smith had made for him, and Rane with nothing save the lay of the land - and after a moment Sadie broke away and pulled Rane's sword from her saddle.
"Here." She thrust the holstered weapon into John's hands. He looked up at her as he accepted it, his eyes red and entreating. "Don't you say you don't want it."
"Okay." John was nodding, passive enough. He took the sword in both hands - it was heavy, the leather holster rough and ancient - and placed it on Rachel's back. "I guess that's it, Sadie."
"No, it ain't."
Sadie was looking at Eli, who had followed them up the mountain. John followed his gaze. As they watched, Eli clopped to where Rane was buried, then with a laborious motion he knelt and lay beside where Sadie and John had buried her, ears pinned. This done, he turned his gaze from them, staring off across the landscape, the snowfall lighting in his black mane.
"Oh, boy. Don't that hurt to look at." Sadie's voice was thicker than ever, but she had ceased to care. Her cheeks were damp with tears now anyways. Fuck it. "Poor damn beast, don't know what to do."
"If he decides to keep on, he'll keep on," said John gently, watching Eli. The stallion lowered his head as he looked, allowing it to rest on the snowy, freshly tilled earth beneath which his mistress lay. "If he does, he does. It's gotta be him. I won't drag him away, Sadie, it don't seem right."
"I know." Sadie sighed roughly, shaking her head. "John, where the hell did it all go so sideways? I never thought I'd see the end of that girl."
John opened his mouth to answer this, then felt a break coming and lowered his head into both hands, allowing a sob to emerge. Sadie was too perceptive to miss it and grasped his shoulder gently.
"Oh boy, I don't know that I ever did, neither," he whispered, his voice rough. "I surely never did. I never thought I'd see the end of either one of 'em."
"You wanna say somethin'?" Sadie asked him gently, glancing over at him.
John shook his head, his eyes full of tears. "No. I believe she said enough while she was around for it to go around."
Sadie laughed, low. "Yeah, she did surely do that."
She held him close, and together they stood before the graves of Arthur Morgan and Rane Roth, as Eli lay next to the markers and the snow continued to fall. Though neither spoke anymore as they remained there, both wept steadily in the growing night. It was a hard blow for them all.
