Jack Marston is at a low point in his life. His family is dead, Beecher's Hope is in ruins, and he has nothing left to live for. Most days he spends so drunk he can barely remember anything, he kills and robs people at will, and there isn't an ounce...
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Eva awoke with a start. As she had the first night she'd spent with Jack in Casa Madrugada, she forgot for a moment where she was. But then, it all came rushing back to her. They were at Jack's ranch with his strange aunts.
The bed she lay in was comfortable and very, very large. It seemed to be made of feathers or something else very, very soft, with fine, cotton sheets and a feather pillow. Sleeping next to her was Vivian, whose tangled, blond hair framed her round, freckled face like a wreath of fire. When she slept, her mouth was slightly askew, and a thin smear of drool fell from her lips in an undignified way.
One thing about Vivian that was abundantly clear to Eva was that, while she wasn't necessarily the most dignified woman in the world, she was certainly a proper lady. The kind of proper lady that slept with a gun under her pillow and kept it strapped to her thigh beneath her dress when she was awake. The kind of proper lady who was either as kind as a nun or as mean as a hellcat depending on whether she liked you or not. The kind of proper lady who kept her hair neatly combed and pulled back and wore the latest fashion, but who didn't mind getting her hands dirty when she had to.
She was everything Eva hoped to someday be. The confidence alone drew a substantial amount of Eva's envy. But it was easy for a woman like Vivian to be confident. She'd never suffered abuse like Eva had. They might both be prostitutes in profession, but Vivian had been given the luxury of choosing the men she slept with. Eva had never been so lucky. She'd been someone's property, rather than a free woman who made money from her choices as Vivian did.
As Vivian snored, Eva watched her for a moment. The fire in the hearth had long since burned away to embers, and Eva was glad for the extra body heat Vivian provided. In addition to being a pillar of support to Eva, it seemed Vivian was helpful to her in more ways than one. Eva had never considered herself to have friends before, but it was the word which came to mind when she thought of Vivian.
Turning her attention elsewhere, Eva could hear voices beyond the closed bedroom door. Two women and a man, which could only be Jack and the two women he called his aunts. They weren't his blood kin, but he seemed to love them like family nonetheless. His family situation seemed different than most people's, but who was Eva to judge? She had no family at all anymore. Even if her parents were still alive, she wouldn't have called them family. She could barely remember them, and anyway, they'd been the ones responsible for all the awful things that had happened in her life.
Still, Eva liked the two women who'd apparently been living here the entire time Jack had been away. After ushering them inside last night, they'd fed them an excellent supper of beef stew and vegetables, served over thick, steaming rice. As they ate, Jack's Aunt Karen regaled them with tales of how she and Jack's Aunt Mary-Beth had kept the place running by milking cows, tending the chickens, shearing the sheep, and selling those products at market. Instead of a dilapidated shithole, the ranch was prospering, and all the profits were put back into the ranch's account at the bank in Blackwater to be set aside for Jack's use if he ever returned. Only a little money was kept from it for provisions such as food and horseshoes.
