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Jack wakes up one night. His eyes open, and it’s as though the hair on the back of his arms stands up.
“Pa?” He mumbles, his eyes slits.
He knows his pa is in the room next to his, sleeping beside his ma in the master bedroom.
Jack doesn’t want to admit it, but he had missed his pa an awful lot. The fact that he returned home in one piece (or as close to it when it came to John Marston) still hasn’t completely sunk in for him.
He’s had to learn to love his pa at arm's length, but whether or not he wants to admit it, he feels safer with his pa here. The great John Marston who’s a great shot, a decent rancher, and a (former) outlaw/cowboy of one of the most notorious gangs that have ever graced the endless prairies and mountains of North America. Even if these are things his ma would scold him for, if she knew he was taking great pride in it, it doesn’t matter.
His pa is here, and they are safe.
That still doesn’t make him let go of the icy feeling that comes over him when he finally shakes the sleep off, sits up, and tries to figure out what woke him up.
It can’t be coyotes howling in the background, cuz he doesn’t hear any. If all, Rufus is still sound asleep on the floor, in the makeshift cot, ma had made him. Knowing plain well if had been coyotes, Rufus would be up and howling along with them. Besides the coyotes never got close enough to the house, to mess with the cattle.
He knows it can’t be anyone up in the house, not even Uncle, who at times will sleepwalk—a bit tipsy from both sleep and drink.
It isn’t ma getting a glass of water, or something, cuz she would have stopped by his room. And him being awake, but feigning sleep, would see that she was just checking up on him; and after seeing that he’s fine, she would have given him a light kiss on his forehead before leaving.
And pa? He knows his pa well enough to know that when the man wakes up, he’s sure not to make it known to the whole house. Jack knows the man has nightmares and demons. So much, so that if his pa ever decided to record them all in a memo, it’d be thicker than any 1000-page book Jack’s ever read.
So, what woke him?
From where he sits on the bed, his eyes scan the dark room, in search of the cause. The moonlight does a decent enough job filling the room with light, to where he isn’t completely blind to everything he sees.
He then smells something akin to burning but more so like smoke. The kind of smoke that comes from a pipe, perhaps the kind that Uncle sometimes smokes but not as rich. He can’t really describe the smell, but it brings him back to when he was little—barely 4 years old.
A time that’s barely crossed his mind as he’s aged. Not that he can recall much of what he’s already forgotten. He realizes that as he’s gotten older that it’s no point in trying to remember the past when much of it’s blocked out.
He figures that he must have them blocked out for a good reason. A good enough reason that his pa doesn’t bring up much of the past, and his ma sometimes cries at the mention of a person’s name. He also figures it ain’t really fair, but he can’t think of what’s fair and what isn’t when his pa is back home, and it’s not like he can change the past.
Jack isn’t dumb. He knows that the feeling doesn’t stop now that things are kind of complete. He still feels that weight in his bones, the kind of weight that forces him to sink further into the void that encompasses what he ought to not feel for a boy his age. But it’s there, in his chest, and it hasn’t gone away… forever.
He can remember experiencing it vaguely as a small child. He can recall longing for attention from his pa that hadn’t much been given to him, he can recall individuals, good and bad, that always did a lot or too little to assuage the things that had made him feel uncomfortable, and he can recall never being enough when it mattered—and he still feels it.
No matter how much his father tries to assure him, that he’s proud of him, that he’s brave, that he’s smart, and that he loves him… that feeling… it still remains—him not being enough when it matters, and him not being enough when it doesn’t.
He lets out a sigh—he knows it ain’t from the fatigue—but before he can ponder much longer, he tries to lay down, and turns to his side, so that he doesn’t have to face the door. The door tells him that on the other side, is where his parents are… where the world awaits—a world that continues to change regardless of the people who refuse to change along with it.
He then hears it.
A knock… or a creak from the wood?
He sits up, facing the door once more.
For a second, he feels the blood leave his face. What faces him, is not the door, but an individual standing in front of it.
A man.
He looks young but old; he kind of reminds him of his pa, but a more refined version, with his strong nose, high cheekbones, and slicked back raven hair.. that at times seems to grey with the light that seeps from the windows. The man seems familiar but not familiar enough to where Jack can bring himself to speak.
The boy opens his mouth, but again, he can’t speak. He realizes he isn’t scared of the figure… the man… whatever it is… because they hadn’t opened the door.
It’s as though they just appeared.
Regardless of how old or young the man looks, Jack can decipher the man’s eyes the most, which at times are black and lively but then are a shiny and lighter color that basks in sadness, regret, and anger… not towards Jack, but perhaps towards himself.
“Am I-I dead?” The man asks, his voice is raspy.
The unmistakable warmness that enters Jack’s soul at the man’s voice, makes his eyes water. It’s the kind of warmness he hasn’t felt since he was a boy—a warmness that invokes security, confidence, and admiration… maybe even love.
He doesn’t know what makes him do it, but he nods. He wipes the falling tear from his eye and shakes his head. “Yes,” Jack says, nodding again.
The man lets out a chuckle. It isn’t bitter but it isn’t warm, either. He just nods and before Jack can further respond, with a blink of his eye, the man is gone.
For a second, Jack just stares at where the man was.
He doesn’t know what he should feel about what he just experienced, but he isn’t sad.
He accepts that the feeling is something akin to closure, maybe not for himself, but more so for the individual who had asked him that simple question.
Am I dead?
Jack sits in silence, still trying to register all of what happened in the past few minutes.
He then casts a glance over at the dog, who’s still sleeping soundly next to his bed; and laying back down, he turns to the side and closes his eyes—sleep finally overtaking him.
This time, he dreams of expensive cigars, rings on fingers, and a man giving a speech.