John.
The loud thunk of wood hitting the floorboards startled John from his slumber, heavy with laudanum.
"Oh, sorry, John," Tilly said, her deep brown eyes regretful as she stooped to pick up the crate she'd been carrying.
"No matter, Till," he gruffed, his mouth cottoned with sleep, vaguely aware of a bustle of other gang members around his sleeping place in Colter's main building. "What's going on?"
"We're moving on," she said, grunting softly as she adjusted the crate within her arms, "weather's finally cooperating, thank goodness."
"Heh, yeah," John replied, pushing himself to sitting; something that still required a fair degree of effort. Abigail swept into the building, Jack at her skirts. Her eyes rested on John sitting up and her expression softened, grateful she didn't have to wake him.
"Oh, good, you're up," she said, approaching him with an extended hand that she pressed briefly to his forehead, checking his temperature. "You're cooler, too."
John stretched, feeling the muscles in his back and shoulders, long dormant, uncoil. "Anything I can help out on?"
"No, we're most of the way there," she dismissed, nodding at John's arms for him to feed them into the jacket she held out, the arm where the wolves had torn into him carefully patched.
"Thanks," he whispered, astounded again that she did so much for him, despite his not much deserving of any of it. But she was already out of earshot, having hustled on to a pile of Jack's toys by the fire and throwing them into a sack. John was inspecting the fine stitching on the patch adorning his sleeve when the boy himself sat next to him, swinging his legs.
"Oh, uh, hey, Jack," John uttered, the remaining laudanum in his system giving the boy's tawny head a preternatural glow in the sunlight that made its way through the windows.
"Hi, Pa," Jack said, his gaze on his toes.
"You know where we're going?"
"Uncle Hosea said he found a nice spot." Jack's finger drew a repetitive circle on the quilt between them.
John chuckled, awkward. "He knows all about them, Uncle Hosea." The boy swivelled to look at John, staring directly at him for what seemed like an endless amount of time, before growing bored, hopping off the bed and running back to his mother. John exhaled a hot breath through his nostrils. For all that time learning shooting and reading, no one had taught him how to speak to children.
The gang's belongings packed, Arthur and Charles appeared in the doorway, each grasping under John's shoulders and heaving him out toward his wagon, where Abigail, Jack, and Uncle were seated in the back; Pearson and Grimshaw in the driver's seat. With an unceremonious shove, Arthur dumped John's ungainly, injured limbs into the wagon bed, where Abigail had laid out the quilt and pillows that had been on his cot.
"Always so gentle," John scoffed from where he lay sprawled, as Arthur brushed off his palms.
"Yeah, yeah," Arthur said, his tone short, tipping his hat to Abigail and hopping down from the wagon to make for one further down the train.
From up ahead, John heard Dutch shout, "Time to get out of this frozen hell, folks! Mount up!" There were scattered cheers all around him, and Jack, picking up on the excitement of his aunts and uncles, joined in with a pitched, "wahoo!"
"Keep the boy quiet, Abigail," said John, his scowl pulling at the stitches on his face.
"Oh, shut your mouth, John Marston," she scolded. "Would rather have left you in the snow." But even as she said it, she fluffed the pillow behind his head, stroked some of the hair from his eyes.
"I'll drink to that!" Uncle crowed, uncorking a jug of whiskey and taking a deep drink.
John made a reaching movement for the jug and Uncle shook his grizzled head, not a small feat considering the bottle was still at his mouth.
He swallowed a big glug of whiskey with a pronounced aah and looked to John. "This is from my private stores, John, can't go sharin' with anyone wantin' some."
John's face darkened. "Private stores," he muttered, then, louder, "how'd we get stuck with you, anyhow?"
"Oh, be kind, John!" Uncle implored him, his cheeks rosy from the drink and cold, a deranged Father Christmas. "The rest of the Marston clan seems delighted by my company." As if to put a finer point on it, he procured a sweet from his pocket and bestowed it upon Jack with a wink, the boy's eyes lighting up.
"That from your 'private stores', too?" But even surly John couldn't deny the happiness on Jack's face at this small kindness, the candy bulging out of the side of his little cheek.
John rolled onto his back, looking at the clear sky above them, clouds entering and leaving his field of vision as the wagon train slowly trundled southeast. From a wagon up the line from them, John heard some of the women - Karen, Mary-Beth, Tilly - singing a bawdy tune and giggling. As they passed over the Cumberland Falls, a crack sounded at the rear of the wagon train, followed by Arthur's annoyed shout. "What was that?" John asked.
"Arthur's wagon broke a wheel, looks like," Abigail said absentmindedly, and John laughed at the justice he saw in it, that Arthur had thrown him unceremoniously into the wagon, and now Arthur would have to deal with wagon troubles of his own.
He pushed himself up to his elbows to peer over the side of the wagon, and spotted Tine riding up ahead, next to Charles Smith, each gesturing at the other's horse. He watched her remove the knife from her belt and offer it, handle-first, to Charles, for him to examine more closely. She seemed a distant memory, as if riding off and away from him, Abigail's hand warm and comforting on his forearm in contrast.
Their new campsite - an outcrop overlooking a peaceful river valley not far from the livestock town of Valentine - only served to solidify John's feelings on the wagon.
Two days into their new lodgings, John could stand unassisted. Leaning against a tree, he looked over the river winding its way below them and swore he could see a bowed rainbow in the sky. He pledged to himself to be better; a better father, a better man. With his head clear of the laudanum's dulling effects, and Tine keeping to herself, the tide seemed to be changing in that welcome direction.
John stepped away from the glorious view and made for Pearson's wagon, pulling a can of strawberries - about the only thing he could manage eating, with his stitches - from the food stores. As he wedged his knifepoint into the top of the can and popped it open, he spotted the O'Driscoll boy, now days starving and filthy, tied to a post by the gang's new chickens.
Tine emerged from amid the chickens with the feedbag slung down by her side, drinking from a canteen, passing the man - Kieran, Mary-Beth had said in Colter - without so much as a glance.
"Ex-excuse me, Miss?" Kieran said hoarsely. "You don't think you could help me with just a drink of your water, there, if you could spare it?"
Tine stopped and turned back to look at Kieran, as if noticing him for the first time, saying nothing. Kieran cleared his dry throat as best he could and continued.
"It-it's just, my momma said angels come down in times such as these, and, well," he laughed bashfully, "you sure do look like one." Tine's face broke into a brilliant smile, pity and kindness clear on her face. She lowered herself to stroke his cheek, and John watched the man lean into her fingertips, his eyes closing briefly at the contact.
"Oh, sweet fellow," she crooned, "you must be so thirsty."
Kieran stuttered another laugh. "I am, Miss, yes."
Tine shook her head, continuing to stroke Kieran's face. "Sweet, simple man." Kieran's chuckle continued, but his eyebrows furrowed. Tine enveloped his stubbled cheeks in her hands. "Sweet idiot, just like his damn fool momma."
Kieran's smile vanished, only disappointment left on his face. "OK, Miss, understood. You don't have to be cruel."
Tine rose from her crouch, her head still shaking from side to side. "Sweet, stupid bastard," she said, as if to the sky, and John laughed, in spite of himself.
Tine's eyes found his, offering him a crooked smile at Kieran's expense, and John felt a needy pull, low in his belly. When they'd run together, her pointed mockery always made way to fucking, and his body, working around him, had made the unwelcome association. John watched the swish of her hips as she walked on, his hand clenched into a fist in the hope of winding it into her ponytail, the white strands like spun silk in his gripping fingers.
Dammit, John thought, his pledge on the overlook not long for the world.
A quick A/N: If it's not clear by now, these are some low-honour boahs. 😈