#theheartlands fanfiction | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theheartlandsblog · 8 months ago

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happy macmarston may! i have something very special to celebrate... =) 💛💛💛

below the "keep reading" prompt is a portion of the enormous macmarston fanfiction that i have been working on for a YEAR! it's not finished, but in the spirit of the month, here's a segment for you to read if you'd like. i'm so impatient to get this fic done. i wish i could post this segment on AO3, but i only want completed works there!

6,632 words - john marston/bonnie macfarlane - canon compliant violence - emotional infidelity. enjoy =)

TGCAC. SECTION T1. • DURING THE MISSION "MY SISTER'S KEEPER". • JOHN MARSTON IS ESCORTING MIRANDA, LUISA FORTUNA'S FIFTEEN YEAR-OLD SISTER, TO THE MEXICAN BORDER. • IT HAS BEEN MONTHS SINCE HE HAS SEEN HIS FAMILY, AND WEEKS SINCE HE HAS BEEN IN HIS HOME COUNTRY. • THERE ARE UPON THIS VERY SAME EARTH PINECONES THAT ONLY FALL AND OPEN AFTER WILDFIRES. •

in the morning, an early, early morning like the rest of them, john awoke and raised himself up with his filthy elbows and within his first breath he already knew it was raining somewhere out there, behind the cliffs, the mountains. he could smell it - doglike he lifted his face to the meandering wind and huffed deeply, his mouth hanging open, tasting the scent. the cliffs kept the moisture greedily to themselves, however, hemming the clouds in with their brown peaks, and the best the weather could do for them was be determinedly humid. miranda asked him softly if he liked that smell over the dark remains of last night's campfire and he said he did.

the dust stuck to itself instead of blowing, leaving the trail rather clean and open. on that second day they passed a man on a donkey that knew john by name or face and called out a greeting to him, pride written all over his face for noticing such a passenger. at miranda's amused questioning, he brushed it off. she sat closer to him that day and talked a little more - a lot more, in a loud voice, about her family mostly, and what she wanted to do in yucatan. the four horses pulled them past prickly pear and more dasylirion, took them under the shadows of big grey clouds.

once, one single time they stopped, to feed the horses and themselves. across from where john pulled the trembling wagon over was another such wagon, abandoned for what he reckoned was many years. standing beside it and irritably cropping grass was a beautiful wildlooking horse that did not run off when the human beings extracted themselves off the seat and tested their land legs. as john changed into his poncho, he studied the horse. it didn't run - maybe it was just feral, someone's escaped protégé. a light tan hide that turned darker down the legs, dark brown tail and ears, a dorsal stripe. it reminded him of a horse he'd had long ago and caught kicking and squealing in a land just like this. who goddamn knew what the pinkertons were doing with him now.

at the end of the day they found themselves riding outside chuparosa, like they'd intended to. it was, despite everything, beginning to be a sight john was warming up to. there were a couple memories attached to it now, ones that came back when looking at it. there's the length of wall he shot bottles off of with landon ricketts. there's the tracks that guided that godawful train he'd fired from. maybe ricketts was in there right that second, with whatever business he'd promised john.

"you wanna go in?" he offered, slowing the coach down and gesturing with his hat at the little white city. the young girl was already shaking her head, however.

"i can't. they could arrest me! someone could see me and arrest me, kill us both." she insisted, wringing her braid around her hands. the poor girl's eyes were steely and scared.

john furrowed his brows. "i've been in there a couple times and they ain't hung me yet." he said slowly, deliberately leaving out the part where he'd slaughtered three men like sheep in the road for touching his hat, all within minutes of arriving. "you're just a kid. and i'd come along with you. we could buy some sup - "

"you don't understand." miranda interjected him. her eyes and her jaw set and her brain working, working behind them. "i'm sorry. you don't understand what it's like to be someone like me."

a failure. he felt like a failure. john marston was such a godawful father that he couldn't even briefly soothe a child that wasn't his own and would be leaving in a matter of days. some man. some two-faced, unchanging bastard of a man. "i guess i don't." he admitted lowly, flicking the reins again and speeding them up. chuparosa rotating in their view. "we can just stop a little ways away. ain't no trouble."

at a fork in the road they stopped, right alongside a wooden signpost john had read more than a few times. TESORO AZUL / LAS HERMANAS / ESCALERA. they were near enough to chuparosa's rail line to see and hear the locomotives but not to feel them shaking the ground, and as the last light in the sky faded and made way for a dwindling moon the old cowboy and young fugitive watched in tandem the heavy black clouds of boilersmoke roll on by as the engine was fed to stop. the six horses lolled in the grass together, itching their backs, john's palomino with his long neck up, observing the city.

they weren't near enough to hear that, but it sprawled across their vision pale and tempting. john was a long way from the days of arthur and hosea hissing the world civilization under their breaths like a forsaken, unprintable oath. so too was he a long way from their graves, and their homes, and his home. he didn't much know where he was anymore. the cowboy leaned against emilio's coach smoking and resolutely pointed away from chuparosa. directly across from it was el ojo de diablo. he watched that. a drag from his cigarillo. another. saguaro cacti and trees still stood along the edge of those ancient cliffs, like so many sentinel soldiers lined up for the kill. another drag. a wet hack into the dirt. fog swept over them all as they slept, a quiet and blue night save for john's tiny cherrylike glow. chuparosa glowed too.

"señor marston? are you awake?" miranda's voice suddenly peeped. he had been laying down smoking his third cigarillo and he gave a full-body jerk when she spoke. his hat fell off his forehead.

"i am now." he grunted.

from the dark he heard miranda shuffling in her bedroll. "we're going to be out here for a while, aren't we?" she asked him plainly. a particularly wet gust of wind blew across their shoddy campsite, carrying spits of vapour that, when they touched john's cigarillo, snuffed it out completely.

"that's right." he rasped, taking pains to try and not sound so goddamn dour for once. his fingers dropped the stick limply to the grasses.

"how long?"

"five days at least." john mumbled. he stretched his feet out in his horribly sweaty boots that he was wearing to sleep, and rolled onto his side. "we done two. we'll - "

miranda's voice cut him off, rising, hissing. "but my boat leaves - "

"i know when it leaves. i'll do what i can, miranda." john silenced her, truthfully even in his vague irritation. without thinking, he'd curled his legs up and inward. his knees nearly touched his chest, just by how long they were. in the anonymity of night he sought with his hands and gathered his knees up and hugged himself tightly. fetal, vaguely born. the scratch of the rough and worn denim and the ever-present twinge in his leg and the two random bullet casings in his pocket and the grit in the crease behind his knee - he could feel it all. sleep started to crawl across his eyelids and he shut them.

"i'm scared." miranda whispered. john squeezed his eyelids tighter.

"i know. stay scared. it'll keep you alive."

upon entering the third morning, john and miranda were damn near immediately set upon by the army. he woke and stretched and fumbled for something to eat while miranda sifted through her accouterments to find her comb, and it was a happy sort of morning, quiet and wide and blue and brown. once emilio's coach was hitched and been spurred into motion john had stopped them, idiot, godawful idiot, to pick prickly pear blossoms and wooly bluecurls in the shoulder of the trail. he twirled the orange and purple flowers around between his gloved fingertips and it harkened back to hand rolling a cigarette but this was nothing like that, only cleanliness and goodness, and then miranda screamed for him to get back to the wagon.

"john! john marston!" she shrieked, and immediately his heart dropped like a dead horse right into his heels, and the gunslinger turned and positively flew on them back to the wagon. dimly, he registered still clutching the flowers. she was in the passenger seat gripping the wood like she'd all but been nailed to it, staring wide-eyed down the hill.

"quiet, girl! don't holler like that!" john snapped, foregoing chivalry as one often did in situations where he was about to be or was already getting shot at, and scrambled up the side of the coach. "what the hell is it?"

the young girl pointed - "more of them, near the train tracks!" - and he landed in the seat so roughly his breath huffed out of him in a nasty khufh. at the end of her thin and trembling finger trawled a group of seven or eight homogeneous uniformed men on horseback and a collection of three or four more fussing with sandbags. the wooden scaffolding that held up chuparosa's rail was buzzing the imminent arrival of a train and some of their horses were antsy, glowering up nastily at it. they were moving.

"they're on their way! dios mío, they're looking at me!" miranda despaired. one hand wrenched itself off the wood to clutch at her braid. aw hell. john's face contorted into a deep grimace as he took up the reins.

"ye-eeah, they're comin'. you had better hold on." he said ominously, and a bit unnecessarily. then he stood up and brought the reins singing down onto the animals and WHAP! and they were off, careening down the golden hillside.

the soldiers turned to look, as one would do, and he saw them draw their massive and terrible rifles from their saddlescabbards, like teeth, like beasts and snakes unhinging their jaws and unsheathing their fangs. john snarled and his scarred lip pinched and curled and he drew his revolver, abandoning the reins and reckoning speed over firepower, thinking even in the most fleeting of moments, and he reckoned with the eyewatering speed of the coach and the rattling seat and fired three times. one hit a horse and the other soared home into a grey chest and the third took a man's middle two fingers clean off. no time to mourn the animal. no time -

no time; no sooner had he reloaded than they set off after them, moving as one, one united entity. "head right! we will get back to the main road!" miranda called to him. all he could do was wince and pray the four horses would know what to do, swiveling and firing in rapid succession. when the horses realised they were heading directly for a wooden bridge they howled and wrenched the wagon right, and something went flying out of the back, and john wormed completely around in the seat, leaning over the back, one hand on his hat and the other firing, firing.

in a flash they drove under the bridge and the army flowed after them, bloodthirsty. mexico was a thirsty country. "i've got the coach! keep going!" miranda's voice suddenly, blessedly filtered in, thank god. the sound of the reins split the air in time with his bullets. he reloaded, fired, killed a second. días and the ricketts mare were thundering crazily beside the coach and running for their dear lives. john gasped hotly at the air and threw himself down flat to reload, his mouth opening and closing.

in what looked like a watery slow goddamn motion he saw a bullet fly past miranda's head and miss her by a hair's width. "oh, my god! they are still chasing us! get RID of them!" she shouted clear as day. bitterly, he clawed for his rifle. when he rose he rose and was already firing and a soldier pitched sideways off his galloping steed and his head pitched the other way. their chariot of war went flying around pale rocks in pale sand and rattled through a corner, and another life ceased to exist when it rounded after them.

a spoke of the wheel, right under john's shoulder, exploded in splinters as a bullet tore through it. there was something coming out of his mouth, some disgusting remark that would have had javier in stitches, and he aimed down the retreating road at the three oncoming men. CRACK - CRACK - CRACK - and their returning fire seemed to curve around him - and días wailed and shoved the wagon hard - and john marston killed the final three soldiers and left them tumbling to the dust.

miranda, goddammit, is she ok? without a second wasted john flipped about and all in one movement took the reins from her, snapped them over the horses' backs and checked her over. she was breathing hard and staring straight ahead but she wasn't bleeding and she looked strong. she was strong, he realised. looking at that girl of fifteen john thanked his stars that the gang was dead. they'd have snatched up a girl like her, a whole family like hers. potential, miranda had. she had potential. she was lucky. miranda finally glanced at him, and her eyes were clear and solid and bone dry.

for a long while after they pressed that coach hard in silence, until the horses foamed and shook. when they finally stopped that wild ride, the sands had turned white. the pair spent the rest of the day in a shaky adrenalin crash, stopping briefly to water and feed the horses and check on días and then pressing on again. the palomino was perfectly unharmed.

"you such a delicate little old bitch, ain'tcha?" john muttered fondly into his lowered ear, as he searched him for bullet holes. he got confirmation when the stallion huffed and pressed the weight of his huge neck into john's offered chest. then they rode, they rode.

miranda clambered into the back with her skirts bunched up at her knees to hand john a jug of water without stopping the coach. finally, the exhausted girl fell asleep among her scarce things. john was quiet. no whistling, no talking to the horses. he didn't look at her. the wagon rolled through chalky white paths in between raised, sunbrown mesas in miniature. and there were seabirds on the air. surely they were close.

when john finally caught a glimpse of the united states of america across the san luis river, his throat seized and his breath stuttered. only just, only barely, but it was there and my word, it was there. it had been a good couple of weeks since he'd been in america. without even seeing the river, however, he knew it was different and he knew what it was. it looked much the same as the portion of mexico they were in, dry, warm, wrinkled and seamed, but it was his, or he belonged to it, one way or another. emilio's wagon rumbled up the sands. not a half-day's ride away visibly twisted the rolling and sparkling line of water.

by the time a peachy sunset started to ripen, miranda awoke. peering over his shoulder at her, john reckoned she seemed better. taking her hair down from her braid to comb it again, gazing softly at the countryside. the hooves of all six horses beat upon the trail and it lulled john, soothed the stinging still-raw wound of losing his ranch, and then his country. it was open still, rotting still. the pair set up for the night deep in creosote bush and right smack-dab on the border between perdido and punta orgullo. they were close to the water. maybe a fifteen minute ride. john was nervous, excited, a braided rope of both offered to him by his own heart, and standing in his ribcage there holding the rope he knew not whether to climb somewhere with it or strangle himself. it felt strangling, anyway. he knew he wasn't going back there any time soon. again he raised his face to the air and sniffed it, tasting the water, and above him in that same air floated clouds lined in goldleaf from the sunset.

to catch dinner, john decided, rather cautiously, to go fishing. he got real nervous around water. but the horses needed to drink, besides. holding the reins of five goddamn animals at once and riding the sixth, a whimsical sight he did not miss miranda's tittering laughter at, he rode the quiet little ride it was to reach the shoreline and concomitant country. it was riddled with snakes that días eyed rudely. ironic. the horses pulled excitedly for the water and john let them go and tied their reins to each other and watched them line up military style along the edge. ripples arcing out from where their tired forelegs were submerged, arcing out from their dark muzzles sucking and breathing.

"y'all feelin' peckish?" he muttered to the surface as he cast out his line from his battered fishing rod. he hadn't bought a new one since the year nineteen-oh-four.

reckoning with what little shadow he had in the fading dull light, keeping it off the water as best he could and never once by god never once relaxing this goddamn close, john marston caught five little mackerel-type things he hadn't seen before in rapid succession. the fish gave him a fleeting joy. he wished he could draw them, but he knew he wouldn't. even if he had that journal. after his thrashing bluish grey prey was dumped whole and unscaled into días's saddlebag, john took his poncho and boots and socks off and rolled his jeans up and cuffed them and sat with his legs out and swirled the filthy garments in the water. one hand always gripping the shore, buried in the gritty sand mixture, and the droplets spinning darkly off his stallion's whiskers, and the sun fading and the world greying, and america bedding down in the dark, soon to be unseen.

barefooted he rode back, the boots and socks cradled in his lap and the poncho slung wetly over días's hindquarters. miranda was waiting for him and when she saw him and his herd she smiled and giggled again and motioned for the fish. thankfully, she'd started a fire while he was gone, and hadn't gotten herself kidnapped or killed or any other nonsense. the coach was parked behind her and upon the scratchy wood jumped the jagged shadows from the flames and behind it the tall cacti, older than sin, cradling the stars. a treeless section of country.

"lemme see the map, kid." john muttered, slinging his wet clothes down to the dust with loud slaps to dry by the fire. the man and child exchanged the fish and document. wearily he lowered himself to the ground and squinted at it, tilting it towards the fire. "yeah, we'll be there in two or three days."

"do you think it will be waiting still?" miranda asked meekly. she'd sourced silverware from her baggage - god, even that was a luxury these days, john took a fork gratefully - and had speared on it a little piece of mackerel.

"i've no idea. depends on those folks you know." he said honestly. he ate a chunk of the mackerel while it was still hot and painful and steaming from the fire but he didn't care and went back in for another. "we're makin' good time, anyway. still got our hides on. ain't been flayed and all."

miranda shook her dark head and sighed, such a mature gesture. "it's been awfully close, though!" she exclaimed. john sat, nodded and thought yes it sure as shit has, and kept quiet. she shuffled about and ate some more fish and looked thoughtful. then across the fire they made eye contact and she smiled sagely. "i trust you, john marston. i think we will be ok."

she's a far cry from a couple-a days ago, john thought again, to when she'd begged him me equivoqué, voltéate, and he knew she'd be alright in the yucatan with a complete certainty. it felt better not to talk so he didn't and he wolfed down another halfcooked fish before quite suddenly remembering spices did exist out in that great big frontier.

languidly he rose and retrieved his saddlebag, taking the whole thing off días's drowsing form and sitting with a puff in front of the fire with it. rifling through it awarded him nothing of the sort. two old newspapers ripped and torn and some small thing that was edible maybe four weeks ago and loose bullets and the paper he'd bought with luisa and his duster coat and a few bottled medicines were among the things he dredged from that creaking leather cesspool, but herbs were not. he moved onto his satchel, faintly frustrated, a subtle indignant warmth just touching along his neck. out of his satchel he unearthed dozens of sprigs of dried flowers that cracked and disintegrated in his touch.

"¿tienes un amor?" miranda asked him all of a sudden. john glanced up. her chin was nestled on her knees and her hands knitted about her legs. her voice was lively, sweet.

his jaw set into a hard line. "what?"

"a lover. a sweetheart. ¿una esposa?" she clarified. and oh, oh, that hurt, that hurt too, worse than the ranch, the aching deadness inside him, the wounded animal lashing out, the stray cur-dog, the mutt. john put a protective hand on his satchel and tried not to snap at her. it was not her fault. she didn't know.

"oh. sí. ¿por qué?" he said, his voice clipped.

she gestured towards them by raising her chin briefly. light dancing upon her cheeks and fingers. one hand outstretched now and holding a mackerel over the flames. "tienes tantas flores, en paquetes, en el papel." and with gruff and indelicate hands he attempted to sweep the dead flowers away, flushing at her observations. they were useless by now. they rolled and clattered like bones and a few caught sparks from the fire and coughed a weak smoke. then she raised her eyebrows and nudged her head in the direction of john's messy satchel again. "¿para ella?"

he automatically moved to pack it all up, to stuff the paper and the mummified plant stalks away, but something made him pause. he was staring at the fire. the leather of his belt creaking as he held his pose, frozen half bent over, primitive. she was a good kid.

"...no, son para - son - um - ah, i'm sorry." john tried, stammered, huffed out his nose like a bull and shook his head. the fire crackled joyfully, started to thaw him on the inside. "i don't know that much spanish."

"it's ok. just talk." miranda fortuna brushed it off, her voice as warm as the flames.

john looked up, looked at her, and thought back to - well, it could only have been a few weeks ago, to meeting the old man named billy west under the boughs at stillwater creek, and the bittersweet insistence of his own ancient heart. he talked. "they're not for her. i was asked to gather flowers by a man in the states for his wife."

"but you do have one?" miranda inquired, the most cheerful interrogation he'd ever been a part of. she was leaning towards him with a wistful look on her young face in the dancing lights that reminded john of her sister.

"yes. tengo una esposa y un hijo y una hija en..." he tried, and trailed off. he didn't know why he was telling miranda about that. he didn't know. he wanted to. it didn't matter. "um, paraíso. en el cielo. mi hijo se llama jack, he's - él está vivo. tiene quince años."

his stomach flipped and wavered, and his eyes flitted to and from her, undecided. but miranda only shuffled happily, very obviously pleased with herself. "thank goodness! i was worried." she celebrated, around a mouthful of fish. "you have so much paper, you should write her."

like it was the most natural goddamn thing in the world. john leaned back like the words had tangibly pressed him backwards. he scoffed and, insouciant, started to pack his things into his satchel. he leaned and spat into the fire. but the words kept touching him and slipped in-between his cracks and unmended pieces and started to hold on. it was goddamn useless. when was the last time he'd written abigail? the old cowboy rose up onto his knees and slung his satchel over his neck and tracked it with his hand until it settled in its proper place on his hip and then he fixed her with a curious gaze and his eyes burned hotly in the semidark.

"you're the romantic sort, aren't you, miranda? it runs in the family?" he said, again thinking of luisa. what a curious sort he'd fallen in with. in the silence she'd moved to eat what little was left of the fish but snapped smartly back to attention and tried to press her hand to her collarbones despite it holding her fork.

"oh, yes, i can't help it." the girl said proudly. john scoffed again and this time it was almost a forgotten brotherly sort of thing and he rose and packed and hefted up his saddlebag into his arms and he'd thought she was done talking and for that some normalcy had finally started to peter back into him but while he was slinging it onto días she called to him.

"i can deliver it to the train station in the states. what is it called, benedict? i can slip right across the river. it won't be any trouble." she offered, the sound of her voice bouncing about the creosote, bouncing into him. john did not turn around.

"gee." he said simply, stunned. días's sides rose and fell. "thank you. i guess i will. ain't got nothin' else to do."

she told him then how to press the flowers in newspaper or other papers to dry and preserve them during his travels that would no doubt take him elsewhere and to great and wonderful places and she told him that he must have had a lovely mother who had taught him to care about even the lowly things such as inconsequential plants and she told him how she'd get to benedict point and she traced the route on his map with the handle of her fork. john was impressed by how studious she had obviously been during their journey, and at her apparent literacy. crickets chirped loudly and he slept to their song and dreamed of something he could not remember when the morning and consciousness came.

particulate matter of every kind and all eons old twinkled in the pale sand they rolled across that was as blinding as snow and the furthest thing from it. the smell of the water was constant, a harbinger of the end. john was on edge, on the edge of something - and his wariness paid off when, after not even an hour after he and miranda had broken camp, they came across a woman in white standing by an empty wagon in the side of the trail.

she saw them coming, and stepped abortedly into the hot packed dirt, then shuffled back. "¡americano!" she yelled, waving a hand.

"john, look, look!" miranda took him by the shoulder and pointed at the woman. he was stiff. he did not move under miranda's grasp.

"americano, hermana, help chelo, ¡por favor!" the woman kept shouting, leaning out of the nick in the brown rock that clambered on either side, the nick she had wrestled her cart into. dirty and frail looking, still waving. john gritted his teeth and flicked the reins. the horses pulled them level with her.

"we can't stop." he grated out.

miranda's mouth snapped shut, then opened again. she twisted against him and he shut his eyes tightly and flicked those goddamn reins. "we have to, she needs help!" the young girl pleaded, a note of urgency creeping into her voice, and her sharp elbow dug into john's stiff shoulder in place of her hand. she was climbing over him to look at the woman.

the coach rolled past. she was calling, calling, calling into the harsh dry wind. "mi carreta eh - ahm - no work! ¿me puedes llevar a mi pueblo? ¡señor! ¡hermana!"

miranda's knee collided harshly with his ribcage. "miranda. we can't stop." john snapped, his eyes prying themselves open. she froze, hanging halfway out of the seat, and he looked forward, forward down his nose at the dust, the desolate country. the woman was still calling. slowly she settled back down into the seat.

he tried glancing at her. she would not look away from him. she huddled in on herself and stared at john from the passenger seat, staring, staring. he could feel her looking at him. john tensed the muscles in his neck and jaw, first with intent, then without, felt them flex and ache and he narrowed his eyes and drove the coach through the complete silence until finally he broke and threw his hands up, exasperated.

"what if she was gonna rob us?" he tried, bringing his hands down with a smack.

"we don't know that!" miranda instantly shrilled back. yeah, she'd been waiting for this to start up. there was sand in john's teeth. in the corner of his eye she hovered, acrid and scared and constantly looking over her shoulder back the way they'd come. it was never easy, this conv8ersation.

"i've been held up a hundred times. i know the look." john said suddenly - and he was lying. he'd robbed and been robbed and killed and been killed and done it all honestly and dishonestly but he was lying. "we have to reach the port. we didn't have the time to spare. still don't. don't you ask me to stop this wagon, miranda. we can't be too careful."

"i - i -" miranda stammered, and wrung her hands, and john felt in excruciating detail a bead of sweat track down his neck and soak into his red neckerchief and he was begging her in his head to stop, 'cause if you keep it up i'll turn around and kill all three of us, and thank god, she slumped and finally crossed herself. "dios mio. i'm sorry." she muttered.

no sound anywhere save only the wind. "i'm sorry too." john made his voice seep into it, be borne upon it to pollute and stink. "it's the way it is."

the country was all the more desolate that fourth day. horridly hot and the temperature steady and flat in both shade and sun and john's arms itched and prickled. he hacked off the side of the coach and in sun that strong even his spit had a wobbling shadow as it flew. another army roadblock crouched blackly along the coastline made them turn unexpectedly. miranda directed him left in a sad voice, told him to follow the railroad until she told him otherwise. they scuttled off the coast all eight of them like so many dried out crabs and slipped into the rocks.

after a short but excruciating ride on the devastated carthorses, they came upon the railroad, the very same that eventually ran to chuparosa. the tracks were bleached to a pink in that mexican sun, and reluctantly rusted. alongside it the telegram poles shuddered in the heat where they jutted crudely out of the land. like a knife unsure of itself and the effects of its wound unknown yet to it. no amount of ease they brought to modern life could quite erase the unease in john, bred into him, taught in infancy and never forgotten in age. steadily uphill they rattled, passing two trains. each time, their bullish clouds of dust and the jittering tracks foretold their arrival.

the traveling vagrants were granted the treat of watching the second train pass the united states and mexico border across the bridge, and even on their time crunch the coach's speed faltered, just slightly, just enough to watch. frontera bridge swayed perceptibly, and all the crows passing time upon it took off at once, and the engine howled and the smoketrail was light and grey and the long headlight cleaved the evening and cut out the six horses and two human beings in a brilliant yellow.

for the night they stopped right under frontera bridge, and john was aching, had been aching all day, his skin strange on his body, his teeth unsettled in his mandible. they both puttered around the fire as it got going and it ended up weak and pale and eventually they settled down in their spots across from each other. john marston's satchel was heavy on his hip, heavier than any iron. the aching nonstop and sending pulses of pain into his eyes. they'd gotten their stopping point godawful late due to the detour and he already knew it would be a grueling minimal hours of rest and he should really just go to sleep.

he stared into the flames sitting crosslegged and slumped over and smoking absently. he had no business thinking as much as he did. his mind conjured up horror stories of abigail starving in some dingy jail cell or consorting with some incarcerated man or dead and jack being handed a piece of paper with her inutile name scratched upon it. it was a waste of time.

do not think. he reached down and stirred up the contents of his satchel until he found a piece of paper and a pencil sharpened by his knife, the same he used to kill with. with crude movements he splayed the page out over his knee and then slowly put the pencil to the page and wrote the first line.

dear miss macfarlane.

their fire was meagre and spat and shuddered. his head shot up from the page at the noise, fixed upon the flame. he was being a better neighbour to her, to the whole family. no one could give him an earful about such a goodhearted thing. he wrote. i hope you and mister macfarlane are doing well at the ranch. i recall you mentioning you wished to travel one day. i am in mexico, due to foolish efforts i won't bother you with detailing, but maybe this letter will -

he paused, teeth clutching at his lip. no, that sounded stupid, like he didn't know what his own letter was supposed to do. at once john violently scratched that last portion of the sentence out and instead replaced it. so i will tell you about what i've seen. under the crude graphite tip the scratching was loud and ratlike. miranda suddenly looked up and began to watch him keenly over the fire, smiling, shuffling on her heels. he did not deserve this rapt little audience.

slowly, he returned to the page, the cigarillo curling daintily at its end. i think you would like it. i met landon ricketts coming into town, of all people, if you are familiar with the name. i know your feelings about gunslingers, but he is a fascinating sort of man.

he could feel miranda's eyes boring into him. it would have been endearing in another world. his head tilted slightly in thought and the greasy black hair swept across his nose. i also met a family of mexicans which i am helping across the country and one of them is posting this letter in return. they're strong people. it is hot m -

"¡la carta de amor para tu esposa!"

john looked up at her quite suddenly, sharply. there she was, beaming with approval, her hands clasped by her chin. he was silent. in the complete void of noise, he suddenly realised someone had tied bells to the inside of the bridge and they were tinkling slightly in whatever wind, a tinny, lonesome sound. something compelled him to pluck his cigarillo out of his mouth and forcefully lay it on the ground next to him. he was not going to see this girl again. he felt...

"no es para ella." he said plainly, the words spilling off his tongue like terrified cattle off a cliff. "i don't know where she is. i don't even know if she's allowed to get letters. i haven't seen her or my son in months. this is a letter for someone else."

miranda's hands stayed clasped by her chin, but her eyes grew wide. firelight twisting in them. john stared her down unblinking and rigid and he did not know goddamn why and she opened her mouth to speak twice, failed both times. their campsite was so godawfully exposed, paths on all sides, mourning, he's in mourning, that's what it was. a cart pulled by two oxen with a little family in it clattered by on those paths. a dog was following. he was not doing anything wrong. god forbid he want some fucking company.

his hand felt about in the dust and finally took up the cigarillo and he placed it slowly between his cleaved lips like he was smoking for the first time in his life and he bent back to the letter. it is hot most days, and the rains are refreshing. i have not had the chance to visit my land in escalera. but if i got my way, i would hope one day to show it to you and your father -

"it's a secret love. something forbidden." miranda managed to get out, her voice enthralled.

"pssh. i don't know. something like that." john drawled, his cigarillo bobbing. he was feeling every single emotion all at once at maximum capacity and not a single facet of his body betrayed it. he was rather proud of his self-control. pulling at the cigarillo with only his lips, just his black mouth visible under his black hat, he crossed out that last line. i doubt it's much good for ranching. he scratched instead. a familiar territory, marked in self-loathing.

i miss the united states and everyone on your ranch. i hope soon to be back.

yours,

john marston

the assassin attempted to fold up the letter, fumbling with such a delicate action, dropping it once and savaging the left corner. heated, he relented and tugged off his heavy gloves and he folded it properly, turned it over in his huge, dirty hands, blew smoke out his nose in twin puffs. he - he didn't even remember how to address it, it had been that long since he'd participated in society. subconsciously his eyes flitted to miranda.

she was just as he'd left her and peering into his lap where the letter lay with no shame and with a wide and wondering innocence and behind her the horses were cropping the harsh grass and further still the scaffolding of the bridge stood completely black and sharp. no more trains. no moon. colourless everywhere save for that goddamn fire. finally he wrote on the back in his brutal scrawl.

FROM JOHN MARSTON. TO MAIN HOUSE MACFARLANE RANCH.

the next breath he took was warm in a way a cigarette could not even pretend to understand. the old cowboy passed it around the side of the fire to miranda so as not to burn it and she took it with both slim brown hands and held it to her chest like it was a child. now, she was looking into his eyes.

"yo me encargaré, john." she whispered.

"gracias."

#red dead redemption #red dead redemption 1 #red dead redemption fanfic #rdr #rdr1 #rdr fanfiction #red dead redemption fanfiction #rdr fanfic #john marston #bonnie macfarlane #john x bonnie #macmarston #theheartlands fanfiction

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theheartlandsblog · 10 months ago

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hello @neonxdecay ! i remember you! i WAS in the middle of drafting an answer for you, but it turns out that if you save a drafted answer for later on mobile, then the ask just gets straight up deleted, as does the draft. 😑 so here's where the answer is going to be now, and sorry about that!! thank you for your kind words.

i'm also SUPER glad you asked. i love talking about history. i got wordy (I CANNOT OVERSTATE THIS, IT'S HUGE) so it shall be underneath the keep reading/expand post prompt. this will all be about the 19th century, ya know, cowboy times, just FYI. just let me know if the hyperlinks work. 🤎🤎🤎

i'm going to talk about my russian history first! undeniably, the very best sources i've ever come across are these two books - EAST OF THE SUN by benson bobrick, and THE FAMILY ROMANOV by candace fleming. they're both nonfiction books about russian history, but not textbook-y - instead the authors have written an actual, compelling *story* of the history. these two have taken me a LONG way.

EOTS spans the entirety of russia, begins in antiquity and ends in the 1980s/90s - the book itself was published 1992. it talks about everyone and everything - the native people of eurasia, the immigrants, the europeans, the wildlife. TFR, on the other hand, focuses on the ruling family of russia, when they still had kings/queens and such (the romanovs!), and their impact, both good and bad, on the country. combined, they're a fantastic perspective on pre-revolution russia, which is the russia that existed in RDR's timeframe, which i've found really hard to get since interest in pre-revolution russia seems so slim - ESPECIALLY here in the states. it's profoundly difficult to find conversation in the USA about russia that isn't heavily biased and stereotyped. i'm ukrainian from my dad's side, so it's a passionate matter for me. i enjoy every second.

i also study the russian language! just knowing about what people speak helps you understand them. i've been working through it on duolingo for a little over a year, and i know duolingo isn't fantastic (and neither is my russian), but it is all i have access to at this moment. i'll watch movies in russian, videos of RDR gameplay where the game is in russian, i'll literally go to r/russian on reddit and just read the discussions there. i like to read wikipedia articles on timely occasions like the construction of the trans-siberian railroad, or what traditional clothing for the poorer population was like, and even what the plant life is like.

i think the key ingredient is ravenous, ravenous curiosity. i do all of this for my russian characters in HOMEWARD. i am so compelled to tell stories, and from whom they originate hardly matters to me. i love history!! i am a nerd!!

now, onto my american history, which is thankfully a lot more easy to find when you live here, and is a little more accessible than books and language programmes! for this, i am extremely happy to report that youtube is my go-to and is a delightful way to learn.

i started with studying CLOTHES. i have an enormous playlist full of videos on history of anything, from all about the world, and 19th century american clothing remains the overwhelming majority. literally just studying clothing will by default teach you more than simply *clothing* because then you have to learn about what materials they were made from, so what was grown or what animals were raised for that, and then you learn about who the people were in charge of making them, and what culturally influenced aesthetic, modesty, wealth, etc, etc, etc... i know it sounds a bit wild, but if you're gonna study any history, choose someone's clothes! ♡

channels like bernadette banner, the sewlo artist, nicole rudolph, and abby cox are treasure troves of information about historic attire. i love these women!!! studying history is a lot easier when you find someone passionate about it. don't go dragging yourself through a college textbook to try and learn, unless you're passionate about that.

but you know what? let's go deeper than that. let's start getting even *more* niche into history. i guarantee to you that it's out there. here is a playlist by a channel called real pixels which describes in detail how historic relevance and accuracy relate to RDR2. here is a video by a henry films, showing off the real-life counterparts to RDR's towns. here is a video by a channel called early american (this entire channel is a GOLDMINE) about what it was like to do laundry! here's a video by a lost leadville, about old western accents! i've watched all of these, and i watch them often, again and again and again, and i watch them as i write, and i watch them for fun, and THAT is how you learn.

but you mentioned and asked for books, and boy, do i have some american history books for you, too! here's two - WALDEN by henry david thoreau, and STATIONS WEST by edwin d. culp.

WALDEN is an autobiographical account of the real mister thoreau, who voluntarily lived alone in a little cabin he built on the shore of the real walden pond, in concord, massachusetts. evelyn miller from RDR2 was based on him! the book was published in 1854, and is an irreplaceable source of what it was like to live in young america, not-yet post-colonial, that wary, small culture, sometimes even that abject poverty, that wilderness. STATIONS WEST is a little different. it's half pictures and half text, and though it's focused on a fairly niche subject (trains!), it's proved a fascinating collection of primary sources for 19th century living in the united states. newspapers describing accounts of travel, pictures of railroad maps that people scrawled on, ticket stubs with prices of 10, 15, 20 cents. i heavily referenced a lengthy newspaper story from there just to emulate how english was written back then, for the letter that reverend swanson wrote to arthur in chapter 4 of HOMEWARD!

you have to get creative with it! to me, nothing is enough - names and dates aren't enough - pictures aren't enough - sometimes, even whole books aren't enough. i ask myself how can i apply this history? how can i bring life back into it? how can i use it in a context that is not words and static depictions on paper? how does it make me happy? where do i see it echoed today in my present day life?

FINALLY, i also read historical fiction - as in fictional stories that were published in the time period - and i think that step is literally just as important as reading nonfiction. i could go on about this one for ages, but my god, i already have, so i will leave you with this: storybooks from then are delightful on their own because they're books (who doesn't like that!!), and doubly so when you're approaching them to research, because they provide cultural context to when they were written, examples of how written english has changed, and sometimes they're a little more accurate to life back then than a period piece is now. here's two - for my russian fix i'm working my way through WAR AND PEACE by tolstoy (published 1867), and i've just finished TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by jules verne (published 1870), this is a ✨️french one, but was (and is still) loved around the world.

so, holy bejeezus, i think i'm done showing off some of my sources and explaining how i use them. if THIS doesn't answer your questions then i have no idea what will. thank you for asking such an engaging question, this was a lot of fun! 💐 ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ here's one of my cats sitting on my books while i got them out, as a treat.

#admin #asks #theheartlands fanfiction #SCREAMS BANGS MY HEAD INTO MY CARPET #i lost control 😭😭😭😭#added some paragraph breaks for ease of viewing

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