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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PC RDR1 is here, and that means I can start adding screenshots to each chapter! It doesn't have a photo mode YET (I'm REALLY hoping for a mod that adds photo mode), so for now these are just screenshots from cutscenes, but that's still a lot to work with! My computer runs it in 4K and it looks damn good for a ten year old game. Enjoy the new pictures!
~Alex
John woke before Bonnie the next morning, while it was still dark.
The darkness just before dawn was John's favorite time of day. It was different than the middle of the night, when the moon and stars seemed bright and cheery and lit the landscape nearly as bright as the sun. Before dawn, however, the stars took on a dim, cold, gray light, and the moon slipped below the horizon to hide its face from the earth for another day.
It grew coldest during that part of the morning, too, and John found himself donning his black duster coat and hugging it closely around his body for warmth as he gathered some cow chips for the fire and built the still-glowing coals back up into a healthy blaze.
Cow chips didn't burn as brightly as wood did, but out here in the plains where wood was scarce, it was the best source of fuel one could find. And as long as they were dry enough, they were quite clean to handle and nearly odorless. Best of all, they burned much hotter than wood in spite of the dimness of their blaze, and as John warmed himself and started a pot of coffee, they made it easier for him to see the last of the stars as the warm, orange dawn started to creep into the eastern skies.
He often rose early like this, to greet the sunrise of each new day. On the ranch - and on his own farm before that - work started early. Animals needed feeding, cows needed milking, and horses needed grooming and saddling before the cowboys took them out for the day. Perhaps the hard work was another reason John liked waking up at this hour. That and Abigail.
In those gray hours when the sun and moon were both gone, and the next day was a simple shadow in the distance, Abigail came to him most often. He wasn't quite sure why. Perhaps in the ambiguity of not quite day and not quite night, the veil between heaven and earth was at its thinnest, and she came to him in the form of memories. Sometimes, he almost felt as though he could see her before him, clear as day. He could hear her lovely singing voice in the crickets chirping in the grass, and smell her perfume wafting in an errant, morning breeze.
Today was no exception. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see her standing across the fire from him when he opened them, her face shining and blazing golden in the light, as though she were an angel, come to frighten shepherds watching their flocks around a fire at night. He smiled at her, and she smiled at him, and held out her hand as though she wanted him to take it. Even dead, it seemed Abigail still wanted to encourage him; to be his rock as he risked everything to save their son.
Alone in the cold, solemn morning, a single, solitary tear rolled down his cheek.
No more followed it, however, and soon Abigail disappeared just as quickly as she'd come. He was still standing by the fire with a cup of black, bitter coffee in his hand, sipping the strong liquid quietly when he heard Bonnie stirring behind him.
