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 sang as she cut meat.
Her task for the past little while had been to help Vivian and Mary-Beth debone the meat from Jack's elk while Jack helped Karen milk cows, tend the fields, and feed animals. Eva enjoyed the work, and spending time with Vivian made her very happy, especially given the breakthrough she'd had with Jack earlier. She needed time to clear her head, and the repetitive task of cutting venison from bone helped immensely with that.
"What's that song?" Vivian asked, smiling at her as she cut part of the loin into steaks. They sat outside at a single, long table since the air was cool and the weather nice.
"A song from Mexico," Eva answered. "Cielito lindo."
"I know that one," Mary-Beth spoke up as she put a leg bone in the bone pile and reached for another to debone. "We used to sing it around the campfire when I still ran with the same gang as Jack's father. Javier Escuella knew how to play it on the guitar, and he had such a beautiful voice."
Eva had forgotten that Jack's aunts had known Javier Escuella. He'd been quite notorious in Mexico for the atrocities he had committed, such a theft, rape, and murdering innocent people. He'd also occasionally come to Casa Madrugada to sleep with the prostitutes there from time to time.
"I met Javier Escuella once, before the Americans captured him," Eva revealed. "He paid Mario for a night with me at one point. He was... gentler than most of the men who paid for me, and he had very sad eyes. But he was still evil. I heard what he and his group of banditos did to women when they raided homes and farms, and it was not good."
"When I knew Javier," Mary-Beth countered, "He was a good man, or as good a man as any of them could have been. I trusted him just as much as I trusted Jack's father and uncle. He was a good man, before Dutch Van Der Linde broke him and turned him into a monster."
"Jack's father was the one who captured him and brought him to the Americans," Eva added. "Everyone in Mexico heard about it, even if they could not read the newspapers."
"And Archer was there when he was executed," said Vivian. "Jack's father delivered him to Archer and his boss, and they accompanied him to Saint Denis because it was the closest city with an electric chair. Apparently, he screamed a lot."
Mary-Beth's eyes looked sad. "Poor man," she sighed.
"I have no sympathy for rapists," Vivian scoffed stiffly. "He raped poor Eva here, and who knows how many other women before and after her? He might have been a good man when you knew him, but he wasn't when he died."
"I suppose not," Mary-Beth agreed, though her eyes were sad now. "Still, it's a pretty song. Don't let my thoughts keep you from singing, Eva. You have a beautiful voice."
"Thank you," Eva replied with a smile, continuing her work. "On another topic of conversation, Jack and I both said we loved each other yesterday."
Both Vivian and Mary-Beth stopped working and stared at her. "You did?!" Vivian exclaimed, breaking out in a smile. "That's wonderful!"
