What if Ross hadn't been lying and Abigail really was killed in a prison riot a week before Dutch?
That's the situation John Marston finds himself in after watching Dutch commit suicide. He manages to shoot his way out of trouble after killing Edgar...
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Little by little, John began to feel better. His leg took the longest to heal, but his strength came back to him piece by piece. In no time at all, he was well enough to walk without crutches, and not long after that, he felt well enough to ride a horse again.
It still hurt to limp down the stairs to the dining room that morning, but John was done being on house arrest. Jack needed him, and if he meant to rescue Jack from wherever the government had sent him, he needed his strength back, and he needed it in a hurry. Each day without his son was another knife to the chest. It hurt worse than any pain in his body, and so John used it as a weapon to push his body to its absolute limits in an effort to heal himself as fast as possible.
It was early that morning, but as he pushed open the doors to the kitchen, he saw Bonnie already standing there, pouring a cup of coffee from the percolator on the wood-burning stove in the corner. Truthfully, he hadn't expected anyone to be up this early, but he didn't sleep well anymore, and lying awake on account of his insomnia did him no good. He might as well get up if he couldn't go back to sleep.
"Good morning, Mr. Marston," said Bonnie, straightening up with a smile as she looked at him. "Coffee?"
"Please," he said simply, having a seat at the small kitchen table in the corner. "You're up early, Bonnie."
"I could say the same about you. Isn't sleep supposed to be good for healing?"
She handed him his coffee and then sat down across from him with a thoughtful smile on her face as she took a sip from her own cup.
"Probably," John said simply, taking a sip from his mug. "But I just can't force myself to sleep these days no matter how hard I try. I'm done bein' an invalid, though, and I want to see if there's anything left of my ranch at Beecher's Hope. I can't stay there with the government lookin' for me, but I have to know what's there, if there's anything left."
Bonnie raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "You do realize how stupid that idea is, don't you? If I were a government agent, your home is exactly where I'd wait for you to show up, especially if it was all you had left."
"It's not the best idea," John admitted with a shrug, swallowing a sip of his coffee, "But I need to see it for myself before I abandon it completely. Besides, I left my dog there, and an old man I've known since I was a boy. He ain't my blood, but we all called him 'Uncle' anyway. I'm worried about what the army might have done to him after I escaped. They probably went to the ranch first when they started looking for me."
"Probably," Bonnie agreed with a sigh. "So what time are we leaving to ride out there?"
"We?" John sighed and shook his head. "There ain't no we, Bonnie. You ain't comin'. If the army is there waiting for me, I don't want you to die, or for them to trace you back here where they'll slaughter your father and everyone else that lives and works here. You're good people. You don't deserve that, especially not on my account."
