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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"Should we, em, ride back?" John asked awkwardly as the light from the setting sun faded behind the mountains to the west and began to disappear. He hadn't stopped staring at Bonnie once.
"Yes, I think so," she agreed, clearing her throat. "Let's... Let's go back."
They rode in silence in the darkness the whole time, and by the time they reached the ranch again, John's simmering guilt had begun to boil over such that he felt as though he were drowning in an endless ocean of sorrow.
He didn't speak again until they'd put the horses back in the barn and they stood on the porch to his little shack. "I think I'm going to go back up to the house and eat there," Bonnie said quietly, clearing her throat. "I hope you like what I made you tonight, though. It's chicken and rice."
"Thank you, Bonnie," he replied, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. "Will I see you tomorrow?"
"I don't know," she replied. "I have to help Amos take the cows out in the morning, and I know you're planning to head to town to run some of Pa's errands and buy yourself another newspaper. Might see you in the morning, might not."
"That's alright," he said. "See you around, I suppose."
"Yeah," she said quietly. "You too."
He wanted to reach out and hold her for a moment, but his arms and legs felt like lead weights. The disconnect between his heart and his mind had him short-circuiting and tying all his emotions up in knots that couldn't be untangled no matter how hard he tried.
He wanted to hold her, but he kept remembering Abigail.
She turned to leave, and he did not call after her even though his heart cried out for her not to go. The loneliness hurt even more deeply when she was gone, and he sighed and reached into his satchel for a cigarette and a bottle of alcohol, any alcohol, to dull the agony of being left alone.
He did eat what she'd prepared for him, and it was good. But right now, he had more of a craving for whiskey than anything else. Gulping mouthfuls of the burning liquid straight from the bottle, John settled down upon his bed, setting his cigarette butt into the ashtray on his bedside table and immediately lighting up another one.
In no time at all, he'd gone through three cigarettes and half a bottle of whiskey, and his head felt delightfully light and floaty and pleasant from the fog provided by the alcohol. "God I miss you Abigail," he whispered, pressing his last cigarette into the ashtray. "Miss you so fucking much."
Perhaps it was the alcohol and perhaps it was merely the depths of John's loneliness, but the longer he thought about Abigail, the more he began to picture her. And the more he began to picture her, the more he thought about how beautiful she'd been, and how her naked body had looked.
It had been a year since John had fucked anyone, and the more he thought about Abigail naked, the more he realized how frustrated he'd been without quite realizing it. Making love to Abigail was one of his favorite pastimes, and it had been so terribly long since he had.
