Cause and Effect

Chapter 7

filipendulous [fil-ipen-du-lous]

(adj.) hanging by a thread, 

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When John was young, before his father had died, and before he was shipped off to live with Catholic nuns, he lived in Chicago. 

His daddy didn't like him too much, but John got by. His daddy was never home anyway, always off drinking or whoring it up with the local woman. Little John always found something to do, found some trouble to get up to, and always got shit for it, by the elder Marston every so often. 

Weren't a good childhood but it was his, and it lasted all of eight years, 'fore his daddy got two rounds in his chest one night out barhopping and never made it back home to John. 

Some sympathetic people said the poor boy was set loose from a demon, set loose from a horrible home. They'd say and then they'd actually look at him. That's all it took. All they had to do was look at the boy. 

Wild look in his eye, that one. They'd mutter, you know what they say 'bout the wild ones.

John Marston was cursed before he was even born, set into a reputation the day his daddy first came home blind drunk, with a wailing infant in the house. 

Poor child, they'd mutter, shaking their heads, he's got the look of the devil in his eyes. 

Catholic nuns, they tried their best, all stern faces, and harsh lines. But there was no point in breaking something already broke, and John bucked against them, cursing God, and cursing them. 

And he ran. He ran and he ran, and he ran. 

He ran from his foster home, because goddamnit he was fuckin' fifteen years old ain't nobody adopting a fuckin' fifteen-year-old with anger issues. 

He ran on the streets, fallin' in with a gang, thievin' and stealin' and killin'. Hot-wired a car when he barely turned eighteen, and they got him on that. Spent a few years in prison, thinking real hard, trying not to end up dead and got spat out of the system, rougher and louder and more fucked up. 

He ran from town to town, tryin' to fit in, failin' miserably, fleeing when the local law started to catch wind of him. 

And he should have ran when Arthur Morgan told him to, should have, should have, should have. 

Fuckin' life was full of should-haves. 

Maybe he wouldn't have a bullet in his thigh right now if he had just gone with the should-have. 

"Fucker," he rasped. "Thought you weren't pullin' the damn trigger."

Colm laughed. "Said I weren't gonna spread your guts to the world, Marston, there's a damn difference."

"Sure," he panted, pain creating a little light show behind his eyes. "Sure, you did." 

"I like you, you know that?" Colm's voice drifted close again, and John managed a laugh. "You're desperate, I like desperate, it makes people dangerous."

"Feeling ain't mutual," John wheezed. "And I ain't desperate, or dangerous, jus' stupid. You gonna lemme go now?"

"You ain't goin' anywhere," Colm said, hand digging into John's shoulder. "Not yet."

"Sure," John said tired, head slumping down to finally rest on his chest. "Sure."

//--//--//

Arthur and Charles got there first, bikes idling on the very border of the O'Driscoll ranch.