Jess's origin story is a bit shorter, as in the actual show we know a lot less about Jess than Slim. We'll be back with Slim and the family in Chapter 3!

Chapter 2: Jess

"Harpers don't do well alone."

Jess remembered his father telling him this for the first time when he was only six years old, standing over his uncle's grave. People said his Uncle Johnny had gone insane, that he couldn't take the pressures of life in the panhandle. Jess wasn't old enough to know if that was true. He had always liked his uncle. His uncle always knew things before anyone else, and seemed to see things so far away they might not have been there. Maybe that's why people thought Uncle Johnny was crazy, because he could see and hear things no one else could. One day Uncle Johnny just fell asleep in the barn and never woke up. His father seemed to believe that if Uncle Johnny had been married, he wouldn't have died. Six-year-old Jess had no idea how any girl could ever save a man just by marrying him. Either way, Jess knew he missed Uncle Johnny and he knew his pa was sad. He didn't ask why Harpers shouldn't be alone. After a while, as the grass grew back over his Uncle Johnny's grave, Jess forgot all about the offhand comment.

Life moved forward on the Harper homestead. Jess learned he was great with horses, and later, that he was a solid marksman with his .22. Jess was only about ten at the time. He had always been a bit small for his age, but he felt ten feet tall the day his pa called him a natural with a firearm in front of his older brothers. There were seven of them in the house, Pa and Ma and Jess's four siblings. Jess knew their family didn't have much money. If the hunting was poor, they didn't have meat for dinner. There was no school near enough to go to, but Jess's older sister Abigail taught him to read. No matter the struggles, they were happy. They had each other.

When Jess was only thirteen, he woke to screams, heat, and choking blackness. The blackness was so thick Jess wasn't even sure if his eyes were really open. With the next breath, the soot met his lungs and Jess realized the blackness was smoke. A bright spot in the darkness, almost too bright to look at, let Jess know the window across the room was already on fire. The screaming continued. Jess crawled off his bottom bunk and onto the floor, starting to move toward the bedroom door. Somehow, through the screaming, Jess heard a sickening creak as the ceiling started to fall. A beam came down and blocked the door. At this point, Jess knew that he was trapped. He turned and crawled under his bunk, where the smoke seemed a little clearer. The boy curled into a ball, bringing his sleep shirt up over his nose, and prayed that dying wouldn't hurt too much. The screaming stopped.

"JESS!" he heard, coming from outside. He could barely hear anything besides the roar of the fire. His whole world was flames and smoke. The call did not come again, and he thought he must have imagined it. Just then, from his place under the bunk, he saw part of the windowsill fall to the floor, followed by two boots. Without a breath of hesitation, strong hands grabbed him and pulled him out from under the bed. Before he knew it, Jess was being shoved into the arms of his brother's wife, Hellen, in the cleaner air of the yard.

Through blurry tears and black soot, Jess watched his oldest brother Ethan raced back inside the house. Jess was so scared he could hardly breathe, but his young mind still noticed how silly his brother looked in nothing but his long johns and boots. Hellen held him firmly against her side and he held her back, sure they would both fall if one let go. Jess heard a sniffle and looked down, realizing he and Hellen weren't alone. His baby sister Francie, the youngest of the family at only four years old, had her face buried in Hellen's skirt. He realized that Ethan must have found her before coming back for Jess. He lookup up again, just in time to see the rest of the house's roof cave in. The last thing Jess remembered as he lost consciousness and dropped to the ground was another scream. For the rest of his life, he couldn't tell if it was Hellen's or his own.

After the fire, nothing was ever the same. Jess found out later that a neighbor had seen the glow on the horizon and ridden over to find him, Francie, and Hellen unconscious in the yard. There was nothing left worth saving of house or barn by that time. The last three members of the Harper family were loaded into a wagon and brought to the doctor. Jess and Francie woke up a few hours later. Francie refused to speak, instead just clinging to her brother's shirt while she silently cried. Jess did his best to tell the sheriff what happened and answer his questions. No, he didn't think his pa owed money to anyone other than the bank. No, he hadn't seen any strangers around that week. No, he couldn't think of anyone with any grudge against the family. At the end of the story, the sheriff drug his hand down his face and sighed.

"I'm sorry, son" the sheriff said, sighing again. Jess didn't say a word. "It's a miracle any of you made it out. The one thing I can't understand is how your brother found you under that bed. How did he know where you were? Did you call out to him?"

Jess's eyebrows pinched together. He shook his head. Francie hiccupped against his middle and tightened her hold on his arm.

"Well, he must have had angels guiding his way. A miracle, plain and simple. I know it might not help now, but you're lucky to be alive. That little girl you've got there is going to need someone looking out for her," he said, gesturing to Francie. "It won't be easy, but between the two of you, you just might make it." The sheriff stopped at that point and stood up. "If you need anything, boy, you let me know."

Only a few days later, Hellen died without ever waking up. The doctor was baffled. She had been the only one without injuries, and Jess confirmed that Hellen and Ethan hadn't been in the house that night. They had been at their own cabin, about a mile from the main house. How they had known the rest of the family was in trouble was a mystery. People called that a miracle too, just like the miracle of Ethan somehow knowing where to find Jess and Francie in all the smoke. Standing over Hellen's grave with Francie holding his hand, Jess didn't believe in any miracles. The preacher was reading from the Bible and talking about the tragic loss of such a loving family. For Jess, however, the words faded away. His father's voice sounded in his head, and Jess finally understood what he had meant all those years ago, standing over a different grave. Hellen had lost her husband in that fire. Even though her name was Bennet before it was Harper, the same rules must apply. Harpers don't do well alone.

That thought was the only thing that kept Jess in Texas after he learned the name Banister. As much as he wanted to fly off into the wide open and hunt those rotten no-goods down himself, Jess had facts to face. The first fact was that no matter how good of a shot he was with a .22, he was no match for a grown, professional gunslinger. Never mind the fact that he didn't own a sidearm or a rifle and couldn't afford either one. The second fact was that he had a responsibility to Francie. Harpers don't do well alone. He'd seen the truth of that.

The preacher's wife had been the first one to suggest letting Francie go to a new family, while both of them were still staying with the doctor's family. She had somehow known Jess wouldn't even consider it for himself, but she finally convinced him that young girls need different things than mostly grown young men. Girls needed hairbrushes, Sunday school dresses, tea parties, and all kinds of things Jess knew nothing about. The preacher's wife gently convinced him that thirteen was too young to play father to a four-year-old, and Jess knew she was right. When the nice young couple came to the door to take Francie home, Jess didn't stand in their way. Francie cried something awful as they pried her from her brother, but Jess let them take her. It never occurred to him in that moment that he was now the only Harper left alone.

Jess made money working in the livery stable, delivering orders from the mercantile, and just about any other job a thirteen-year-old could manage. He was actually fairly successful at supporting himself while sleeping in the hayloft at the livery. When the weather was really bad, and there were no prisoners to watch, the sheriff would come by and "hire" Jess to watch the jail for the evening. Without fail, the sheriff would come by with breakfast in the morning and find the boy asleep on a cot in one of the cells, safe and warm. The sheriff pretended not to notice how much Jess's dark curls resembled his own son's hair, and Jess pretended not to notice how sometimes the sheriff's eyes looked a little shiny on those mornings. Against all odds, Jess carved himself a little life in that town over the next couple of years. He knew it couldn't last forever. The end of his little safe haven came swiftly, only two years later, in the form of war.