Archive of Our Own

John Marston Jr. was born in early ‘95 somewhere in the depths of Montana. He’d made an eventful and dramatic entrance, putting a poor, down-on-her-luck girl through hell. Abigail, freshly eighteen and only an adult by law, had tears gushing down her rounded cheeks, which still clung to the baby fat of her youth. She sobbed and cursed God and the foolish man who had put her in this situation. More than them, she cursed herself for being so naive as to fall for a man as selfish and boneheaded as John Marston. 

Instead of the man who put her in this position, it was Miss Tilly at her side rubbing her back and urging her to push. Gripping the other girl’s hand, Abigail’s weak body gave one final push. Her screams sounded throughout the woods like a warning to all that awaited her baby from beyond the thin walls of her tent. 

Upon the infant being forced from her womb, Miss Grimshaw held up a wrinkled baby boy. He was sticky with blood and so very small. Abigail felt nothing, not relief or overwhelming joy. She just felt tired. The tent was deathly silent. Abigail, still tear-stricken and dizzy from the blood sullying the sheets below her, forced herself up with a wince. 

“What’s wrong?” She asked with a tremor in her voice that rarely came about. The flush of her cheeks suddenly faded as she looked between Miss Grimshaw and the girls. “Why ain’t he crying?” She looked to the pale baby with a newly awoken urgency. 

“Happens to the best of us, Miss Roberts,” Grimshaw sighed with a sympathy rarely extended to Abigail. She stared down at the baby, memorizing that familiar blue hue of his face. 

With the sting and quickness that could rival a whip, Abigail’s throat swelled up and a gush of hysterical sobs were ripped from her. They wracked her body with the brunt force of a man’s unkind hand, of which she was far too familiar. Despite never wanting the thing, her guttural sobs rang throughout their shabby camp loud enough to shake John from his drunken stupor and start towards the tent before being held back by Arthur, a brother to John not by blood but through years of robbing and evading the law side by side.

“Give me my baby,” Abigail demanded, though her typical toughness was lost to the tremble of her voice. “I need my baby,” she cried. Ignoring the ache in her bones, she scrambled to push herself up with a desperation she’d never allowed to seep through. Tilly held her back, forcing her back onto the bed and into her arms. For once, everyone saw her for what she was; a frightened girl with as much fear as she had hatred for the world. 

Before Abigail could pry herself from Tilly’s grip, a sudden wheeze sounded throughout the tent. The noise was strangled and barely audible but so very beautiful to Abigail. With the same swiftness that she could load a gun, Miss Grimshaw flipped the baby to his tummy and laid forceful pats to his back. A cough was hacked from the baby’s weak lungs, along with a thick substance that spilled down his chin. Promptly, she cleaned it up with a spare rag. A shrill, powerful cry pierced her eardrums. Abigail nearly wept out of relief. 

“He’s just fine, Miss,” Grimshaw said as she shifted the frail thing onto Abigail’s chest. “You got real lucky.”

The voices of Miss Grimshaw and the girls conversing faded as Abigail drowsily stared down at the stranger trying to suckle at her bare skin. He was cold against the heat of her flesh as though he’d been left in the Grizzly Mountains during a particularly harsh winter. She finds the smallest bout of warmth in his tuft of light brown hair.

Once the women had gone for the night, she was left with a pissy babe whose cries she was far less grateful for than she had been hours ago. That familiar isolation crept up on her despite the new life squirming in her arms. A distinct rustling of the tent flap disrupted her solitude. For once, she welcomed the bother. 

The remaining girlish naivety within her strung up hope of it being John. Her foolishness was promptly extinguished as Arthur stepped inside her tent with a cautious survey of the space. He removed his hat like he was some gentleman rather than a man who robbed and killed. It was too ingrained into him to be anything more or less. There was no reluctance in him as he approached her like she’d expected from their rowdy gang of folk. Instead, he seemed at ease. 

“Scared your momma half to death I heard,” Arthur teased as he admired the baby. For a moment, he stared at her as if to silently ask of her well-being. Abigail replied with a smile dulled by the exhaustion that had drained the color from her cheeks and left her body aching and foreign to herself. 

“Already just like his pa,” he chuckled. Any potential humor was lost to the bitterness Arthur failed to bury. 

“He is, ain't he?” Abigail mused as the boy’s tiny hand curled around her index finger. If it weren’t for the new life gumming at her bare skin she'd have bristled at the mention of John. 

The wrinkled baby only reminded her of all the good times they’d had. It brought back memories of the pair of them wrapped up in each other, giggling and smiling bashfully in between the long kisses they traded in his tent. It reminded her of the few times he'd allowed her to guide his hand to her stomach and feel the faint kicks, and somehow all was forgiven. Within hours, motherhood had already softened her.

“I'm real glad you're alright,” Arthur said, no longer looking at the baby. “Marston is too, even if he won't admit it. You had him half scared to death that he'd gone and killed you,” Arthur laughed, this time it was genuine and soft. 

“He damn near did,” she scoffed at the remembrance of bloody sheets and the sharpness of a needle going through her flesh by Miss Grimshaw’s hand. That stinging ache still rang in her bones hours after. “But I'd never allow myself to die ‘cause of some fool.”

A laugh rumbled from Arthur’s chest. “Well, I see you are still the same as you've always been.” While she was sure he hadn't meant much by it, it warmed her to know some part of herself had been preserved within these months. 

“Was he really worried?” She asked meekly, sounding like the hopeful, lovestruck girl she had always been when it came to John.

Arthur nodded. “Nearly drank himself half to death waiting for the kid to arrive.”

“Could you ask after him for me?” Without facing him, she fiddled with the ratty hem of the towel swaddled around the baby. 

“Abigail,” he sighed, his head falling into his cracked and sun-damaged hands. “Y’know I hate playing messenger for the two of you.”

“I ain’t askin’ you to play messenger,” she snapped back, startling a weak cry from her boy. On a newfound instinct, she shushed and kissed the chubby, red-tinted cheeks of the infant. “I’m just askin’ you to bring him here. I’d do it myself, but I can’t even use the chamber pot on my own,” she huffed once echoing cries softened to faint fussing. 

“Fine,” Arthur relented, his agreement nearly inaudible over the growing whining of the baby. Before he stood from the foot of the cot to depart, he awkwardly said, “Boy’s likely hungry if he’s cryin’ like that.”

“ Oh .” She went hot in the face as it dawned on her how wholly unfit she was to be a mother. The boy squirmed and fussed as she struggled out of the sleeve of her chemise. Even as she held him to her chest in the hope of him latching, he wailed and knocked his tiny fist against her. 

“Just as stubborn as your father,” she muttered while tracing the slope of his cheek. She couldn’t muster any malice, causing the remark to come out soft and nearly tender. The featherlight stroke of her finger down to the corner of his mouth made him turn his head and latch on. Even as he fed, his face remained pinched as though he already resented her who birthed him.

Just as all had settled, rustling and low arguing filtered through to her tent. 

“I’m goin’ alright? Just keep your hands off me, Morgan.” A distinct raspy voice hissed. She’d felt that same voice whisper sweet nothings into her ear and gasp against her as he buried himself in her. More often, she felt the brunt sting of it as he bickered with her. 

John stumbled through the tent flaps on the impact of a harsh shove. He looked worse than usual. His hair was disheveled and the collar of his shirt was undone. He stunk worse than usual as well. The heady odor of whiskey and sweat poured from him. 

“You stink,” she said bluntly, her nose curled in disgust. The cut to her words came naturally, as it always had. As she watched John, speechless for the first time ever, blink down at the baby suckling at her, she cursed the edge of her tongue. 

“You don't smell so hot yourself,” he said softly beneath his breath, gaze not straying. 

With a snappy retort dead on her tongue, she said, “It’s a boy.”

Finally, John looked at her. She’d stood before him bare countless times prior. He’d seen, kissed, and tasted every part of her. He’d memorized the freckles along her back, the gentle slope of her breasts, and the distinct smell of coffee and rose water that clung to her. And yet, she curled in on herself as if scared for him to see her in her new skin, skin more loose and heavy. 

“He got a name?” He asked, still awkwardly stood at the foot of her cot. It was quiet for a contemplative moment, the only sound being a faint gurgling and swallowing from their son.

Abigail shrugged. “Thought ‘bout making him a Junior.”

“You bein’ serious?” John snorted cruelly. He laughed in her face like men do, with a scoff to make her feel small and a ghost of a smirk to make her feel foolish. 

“Yeah,” she stated defiantly. Her chin lifted as if to somehow try and gain the upper hand between them. “He reminded me of you.”

With his weight shifted to one hip, he crossed his arms and glared at her like she may as well be an annoying mite burrowed into his skin. 

“This some poor attempt at hitching yourself to me?”

Abigail chuckled humorlessly, jostling the baby slightly. “Figured I'd already hitched myself to you when I quit workin’ and moved into your tent. Figured you hitched yourself to me when you bound yourself to me by your seed.”

Boyish shame flickered through him as he looked down at the floor like he’d been caught in a lie. At one point, she’d find it compelling compared to the older men’s hardened exteriors. Now, all it does is irk her. All that guilt, yet there’s no sorry extended to her. She used to like how he didn’t talk so much, trying to win her over with thoughtful gestures rather than fancy, meaningless words that she couldn’t understand. All he’d been for the past nine months was cruel words spat in her face. 

She was beginning to hate him as much as he hated her. She wondered if she’d grow to hate the innocent thing in her arms. As John Marston Jr., a foolish name choice she’d kick herself for a year later, blinked up at her with heavy, rounded eyes she didn't think she possibly could. She’d retract the statement an hour from now when she’s covered in spit-up while trying to soothe the boy’s wailing, but for now, all she could do was gaze down lovingly at her son.

His lips parted to a yawn, only to startle himself and Abigail with a piercing cry. It was a wail of resentment akin to the howl of a wounded animal. The boy would come to be just that, wounded and resentful just as his parents had become. He would go on to pick up a gun someday and leave with blood tarnishing his hands and the muzzle of his weapon still hot.

John Marston Jr. was born of a whore and a killer. He’d been doomed since his first cry.

—

There was a layer of dust that had accumulated along the windowsills and dried mud caked into the crevices of the rotting wooden floors of Beecher’s Hope, left unattended and uncared for now that Momma had been put on bed rest. Jack had failed to keep the house in shape, just as he had failed to keep the crows from getting into the silo and failed to fix up the barn. All the animals had died or been sold off to keep the bank off their back despite their land not being worth a lick. Momma couldn't go in there, Jack simply wouldn't. 

She sat on the porch in a rickety old chair that didn't creak under her weight anymore. The chemise that nearly hung off of her thin frame billowed around her in a flurry of faded white linen. Beside her stood another chair, empty and barren like a cruel reminder. The humid winds of West Elizabeth stirred and brushed her sunken cheeks while ruffling the loose braid down her back that Jack had done after she’d washed up, same as he had done when he were a boy and decorated her hair with whatever flowers he could scour from the woods. She’d spent an hour before bed detangling sticks and stems from her hair. The memory thickened the persistent lump lodged in his throat. If he dwelled any longer, he feared he’d choke on all the tears he wouldn't let reach his eyes, let alone fall. 

“Oughta head inside, Ma,” Jack said as Rufus trudged up to his side with the stick Jack had been lazily tossing back and forth clasped between his teeth. A dry snout rubbed against his hand, searching for something Jack’s too tired to give. With a heavy huff, Rufus dropped the stick at his feet before struggling up the stairs and plopping down beside Momma. “Reckon we’ll catch our death out here.” Jack purposefully lumped himself in with her, knowing she hated when he got on her like some nursemaid. A warmth settled over Beecher’s Hope as the winds calmed, yet a shiver rolled up through Momma’s shoulders. Frail bones jut beneath pale flesh with the involuntary movement. 

“Not yet,” she said, soft and distant but with the same ability to get fools who thought themselves gunslingers to obey her every word with little to no lip. Old memories of Pa crawled up, making his slender fingers twitch at his sides for a cigarette or the grounding grip of a revolver. He'd been practicing out in the woods, far from Beecher's Hope, so Momma wouldn't hear the resound of gunshots as he aimed his rifle up at the cardinals flying overhead and wishing it were Edgar Ross rather than some innocent bird. “Just till the sun sets,” she assured him, and settled her trembling palms in her lap with a finality Jack had learned at a young age not to attempt to toy with lest you wanted a spanking.

Jack nodded and settled himself on the steps, watching the luminous sky gradually darken and dull as the sun sank beneath the horizon. The barn loomed cruelly in his periphery. It seemed to stand so much taller than it used to, but Jack won’t pay it any mind, allowing all that grief and guilt to coil in the depths of him. Pa would’ve laughed at him for it, all raspy and choked as he muttered about the boy being too soft or placed the blame on Momma for coddling him. Somehow, both old and new guilt and resentment rise in him like acidic bile being dredged up from his stomach, along with the contents of his lunch. 

“Alright,” Momma sighed once the glare of the sun waned and a solemn luster was no longer cast along Beecher’s Hope. Jack went to help her up, slipping an arm under hers and locking it securely around her side.  Her head lulled to lean against his broad shoulders. She didn’t fight him on assisting her this time around, having grown too feeble and sickly to argue. Jack shifted her weight against his own, lifting her enough so that all she had to do was scuff her feet forward.

“Need to sweep these floors,” she muttered as he guided her along to the master bedroom. Floorboards squeaked beneath them as dust and grime wafted into the still air. “Havin’ the place all filthy like this ain’t proper.”

“I’ll sweep ‘em tomorrow morning,” Jack mumbled, a lie to settle her like the fibs she’d whisper when bad men came to camp or when he’d come crying ‘cause his Pa didn’t want anything to do with him. 

“That’s the lady of the house’s duty.” Momma raised her hand as if to bat him away, but halted halfway before settling limply at her side. “I’ll get to it tomorrow ‘fore your Aunt Tilly comes by.” 

“Alright, Momma,” Jack simply grunted as he eased the door to his parents’ room open. Rusted hinges screeched, but Momma’s wheezing felt louder in his ear. The room sat exactly as Pa had left it. His old clothes still hung in the wardrobe, only now smelling more of mothballs and dust than of smoke and cowshit. The pillow on his side had a slight dip even after all this time. Momma still didn’t let anyone touch his side, not even to wash the sheets or make room for herself in the bed that felt so big in his absence.

Jack carefully lowered her down onto the bed. His hands gripped her sides, feeling the ridges of her ribs roll beneath his fingertips. Dreadfulness struck him at the frailness of her body, but the youthfulness that still weakly clung to her dark hair that had yet to be tarnished with gray and the softness of her eyes that still felt so warm despite how cold she was. 

He gingerly drew the blanket up to her chest, same as she had done for years when he was a frightened boy who couldn’t sleep without a goodnight kiss and lullaby from his mother. Jack had taken to caring for her in all the ways she did for him, helping her bathe, dress, and eat. He appreciated her sacrifices more these days, though he still wouldn’t tell her as much. He reckoned it’s that supposed stubbornness of his born from Pa’s lineage of drunken Scots and Momma’s earned grit and defiance that’d come with dive bars and barbaric men. He knew he wouldn’t do this for Pa. Out of spite or stubbornness, he ain’t quite sure. Maybe it’d be some cruel payback for not being there in his boyhood, leaving Momma to shoulder the burden of both fatherhood and motherhood. Or, maybe, it’d just be an excuse to see his Pa again rather than some warped reflection of him every time he looked in the mirror. 

The bed groaned as Jack settled himself beside her, mattress sinking beneath him, whereas Momma made only the slightest divot. Her hand instinctively reached for his. Spindly fingers latched around his wrist. The soothing presence of her breathing and beautiful boy settled the tremors that had her bones rattling and teeth clacking. 

“Read me something, won’t you?” She weakly squeezed his wrist, and Jack worried her hand might crack from the meager exertion. 

He nodded slowly as dread tautened in the depths of his chest. “‘Course, Momma,” he croaked, voice somehow dryer than Momma’s but not as gravelly as Pa’s had been. “I got my old dime novels, or that one ‘bout King Arthur you always did like.” He silently hoped she didn’t ask for the Bible. He hadn’t much belief in that foolishness no more. 

Momma’s brow furrowed, creasing her forehead. “Don’t wanna hear none of that nonsense,” she huffed, and Jack saw an old glimpse of his mother when she was all strict telling-offs and infectious laughter typically brought on by Pa’s foolishness. “Read me something of yours.” Her pale and peeling lips curved into a weak smile as her crinkled eyes eased downward. The pride she’d had when peering over Jack’s shoulder as he read aloud with Hosea ain’t waivered despite the years long since passed. If anything, her beaming smile had only broadened and her murmurs of praise dragged out.  

“Ma, you don’t wanna read that.” Jack swallowed thickly, willing the bile at the bottom of his mouth to dissolve. “I ain’t written anything in ages. Besides, all my old stuff is shit.”  

“Watch your mouth in my house,” she said, pairing her words with a mostly playful smack to his bicep.

“You always was a smart boy, so quit trying to act like you ain't one.” 

Jack hung his head like a mangy dog. Strands of grown-out and greasy hair shrouded around him like he was still the same boy who’d cower behind trees in the hopes of escaping one of Momma’s scoldings for swiping her thimble. Her chilled and clammy palm grazed the burning heat of his cheek as she brushed the hair from his eyes. 

“Write something for me soon, then,” she said, lips wobbling and heavy eyes reddened from stinging tears that she still won’t shed in some poor hope to preserve her boy’s innocence.

“I will,” he said as his own poor attempt to protect her. His stare bore into his lap, jaw tense and aching from trying to ignore the swollen lump that sat uncomfortably in his throat. Every swallow pressed down on it, making tears swell further. 

“Good,” she sniffed. Her hand drifted down to settle back in her lap. He felt cold in her absence. Jack suddenly cursed himself for all the times he’d shrugged off her embrace or groaned in complaint when she’d laid a tender kiss to his temple. “I been thinkin’ ‘bout what the doctor said,” she mentioned, cautious like Jack was a fierce animal gnashing his teeth and snapping his jaw. In truth, he was more of a bloodied and skittish animal whining with its leg trapped between the metal spikes of a trap, bones protruding through torn and butchered flesh.

Jack forced his eyes shut as he inhaled a sharp breath. Any day now, that’s what the doctor had said. Jack had wanted to seize the man and pound his fist against the poor fool's rounded and wrinkled face till he was just blood and pulp. Jack had thought about how the man’s shattered spectacles might slash his eyes while shards of glass would burrow into Jack’s fist. He imagined warm blood coursing down his fingertips, rusting beneath his dirty nails like Pa’s dark blood had been caked beneath Momma’s and his own. 

More than any of that, he wanted to bury his tear-streaked face in his momma's skirts as she gently stroked his hair, just as he did when he was a boy who couldn't go one night without crawling into his momma's bedroll. Despite how he had grown and filled out, scrawny and beanpole-like in the way Pa had always been with wiry uncombed hair to match, he easily crumbled to a boy. Though, he figured he’d never quite grown to be a man anyway. A thick goatee might’ve replaced puny peach fuzz on his upper lip, but his sullenness and softness hadn’t been fully replaced by rage and resentment. 

“Once I done my time,” she began steadily but with a slight strain to her voice. She twisted the gold band of her ring that sat loosely below the sharp jut of a joint protruding up from the thin skin of her finger. “Want you to take this, save it for a girl that’ll help you keep your head on your shoulders.” She fiddled mindlessly with the red jewel, feeling a familiar pang seize her ailing body. 

Jack shook his head. “Ain’t right. Pa would’ve wanted you to keep it.”

Momma scoffed tearfully. This time, it ain’t tarnished with bitterness or resentment. “Never needed no fancy ring to know I’m married to your pa.” 

Jack knew it, too. No binding document or piece of jewelry mattered anything to Pa or Momma. When Jack finally lifted his chin, Momma was gazing back at him with tears streaming down her cheeks, catching in the folds of her freckled and sun-damaged skin. 

“Just hold on to it for me, will ya,” she said. The softness of her voice clashed pitifully with her hollow eyes and shrunken cheeks. Jack’s chapped lips struggled around a simple utterance of ok. A tight nod is all he managed in its place.

Her eyes flitted along his face, halting on his pronounced nose and deep-set brows. From how she softened, shoulders sagging and lips settling into a line, Jack was certain she caught the remnants of Pa that were found all throughout the house, in the bathroom where his rusted straight razor was to the faded picture of them sitting above the mantel. Most often, she found it clearly in her boy. In his looks, but also in the bitterness that burrowed tension into his spine and the whiskey that often wafted from his tongue.

“Don’t cry, Ma,” Jack said, but it came out as a dry whisper rather than the reassurance Pa would've provided. Almost bashfully, she turned her chin to the side as if to hide from him, but the tears trickling down to her prominent collarbone gave her away. 

“Ain’t anyone ever teach you to mind yourself when a woman gets like this,” she laughed brokenly. Jack’s sturdy arms hooked beneath her fragile bones and drew her close to him, resting his chin against the top of her head for his comfort more than anything else. A dull pat to his chest is followed by Momma leaning her cheek against the cotton of his shirt. “Raised a good man, I did,” she stated without wavering. Jack nearly scoffed, but he refused to be another man to go and break her heart. “‘Bout one of the few things I got right in this life.”

“Momma—” Jack choked around the call of her name. She swiftly cut him off, continuing with, “Pride and joy of my life you is.”

Tears soaked through his shirt from where her damp cheek rested against him. Jack’s teeth clenched, begging not to puncture the lump in his throat. 

“I know, Momma,” he managed despite how his eyes burned and his throat ached. 

He cradled her against him like she was a feeble little girl rather than a decaying woman who was such a far cry from his blunt and sharp-tongued mother. Her eyes drifted shut as her breathing evened out. Her frail hand loosely clasped the fabric of his shirt as if to keep him from leaving. It was all Marston men seemed to be good for, but Jack remained cemented to his parents’ bed with Momma’s tiny body curled against him. 

Night seeped into the room through the moth-eaten lace curtains strung above the window, casting a dark shadow along the bed. The glow of the moon highlighted spots along the rug and the frayed edge of the auburn duvet. The house was still and quiet, save for Momma’s occasional wheeze of breath or throaty cough that stirred Jack awake. He checked her pulse through the night, pressing the rough pads of his fingers to the blue veins spanning the inside of her wrist, waiting for that subtle rise to stop.