Maybe that wasn't the best place to start.

Sure, that was when things turned sour. But things had gone sour many times before and Jack had still pulled through.

Maybe it was best to back up — way back, to when Jack was still Jennie; when she was a long-haired girl with dirty petticoats and a foul mouth and work on the farm to attend to. When she still pretended to be all sunshine and roses.

Not very well, mind you. But there was an effort made, especially with Grace watching. Especially in church, where everyone sat with their hands neatly folded, their heads bowed, pretending to be sad about the death of some crotchety old ranch owner.

There, Jack made sure to keep her hands folded in her lap. So long as she did, Grace would follow. And should the both of them pass glances at each other when Mama had her head turned, would there be any harm? Despite all these adults being so serious-faced, no one ever told her that God hated smiling. God didn't even hate Grace kicking Jack in the shin to see if she would flinch.

Which she didn't.

Only a few words were spared over the old man — a notable death in their small community. Anything more was unnecessary; church was the place to ruminate on higher powers, not on matters of earthly flesh.

It was springtime. Grace must've been — what? Four, five? Jack held her hand on the walk home, mud clogging the bottom of their skirts. Over the fence, they watched their neighbors, all in black crêpe, digging a hole. The men were stone-faced. The women held handkerchiefs to their eyes, though no tears were seen.

Grace took a keen interest. Her brown eyes flashed between Jack and the growing hole. "What's that for?"

"The dead body."

Grace, who even then read her Bible, nodded. "His soul is going home."

"Or going down," Jack said.

Her sister gasped at the sudden scandal. "To — Hell?"

Jack nodded. "To Hell."

"Was he really such a bad man?"

"I think so. I saw how he whipped his horses. I bet he was a sinner — I bet he got a kick out of doing wrong."

Grace grew nervous then, clinging tightly to Jack's hand. "If I see a bad man, and I think he's good, does that make me bad, too?"

"I don't know," Jack said, perhaps too honestly. She felt the sweat from Grace's tightly grasping hand. "You scared?"

Grace nodded.

"Now, there's no need to worry. He's going to stay there in that hole, like all dead people do. It's only if he is a revenant that you have to worry."

"W-what?!" Grace squawked.

"Yeah, don't you know?" Jack licked her fingers and pulled back Grace's cowlick. "Sometimes, real devilish people will rise up as vampires and return every night to feed on the blood of the living."

"My — my blood?"

"Oh, don't get too scared. I thought you were braver than that! Besides —" Jack leaned in, as if sharing a secret. "You're safe from him. Vampires only feed on their kin."

The mean trick didn't really work — Grace spent the rest of the night asking about vampires, and Jack was soon making up nonsense left and right. "They can't be killed with guns — unless it's wielded by a pure-hearted maiden, of course."

"Could I kill one?"

“Hmmm— no,” Jack determined. "You don't know how to fire a gun."

That's the thing: Grace was soft. Of course she was. She was still a little girl; she liked to sing and tell stories and follow the ducks on the farm like a little animal herself. She didn’t know anything about the harsh world outside.

Their Mama never did have much luck in anything: only one boy, and he’d died in the cradle. It was Jack's job to tend to the farm, and to care for Grace once she came around. Jack never did mind that part.

From the very first moment that Jack saw that little baby, placed into her mama's arms by an exhausted midwife, Jack had known. Their parents would do a fat lot of good for another unwanted girl child. This girl was going to be Jack’s girl.

Jack taught Grace everything she could teach: how to read, how to throw stones, how to wrestle. Grace wasn't too good at those last two. She was the type of girl who cried at the sight of blood, who couldn’t touch a dead animal. She was a natural at sewing, and even more of a whizz in the kitchen. Really, the Hawthornes didn’t ever need a boy; between the two of them, things would have been just fine.

And yet, when Jack was seventeen, her parents arranged a marriage under her nose. So Jack stole away into the dead of night.

The why didn't really matter. Jack did what she did. She didn't do what she didn't do. She told Lazarus the story, once. "She was only seven. The frontier ain't no place for a gentle soul like that."

Lazarus had not been terribly sympathetic. "You know what I would give to see my family again?"

"This is different," Jack said. "I didn’t have a choice — if I stayed… well, I probably would have offed myself. And it's not like I've abandoned her. I've sent a letter or two. It ain't my fault if she never wants to write back."

The thought came back to her that frosty morning on the ground, after she'd made a pot of coffee, and stared at the embers dying down. It wasn't often she thought of her sister; it would be a long while until she thought of her again.

The coffee ready, the two of them drank together. Lazarus made the stew, seeing as Jack couldn't even cook a decent trail meal, and before the sun was fully risen they were up and at ‘em, riding away from Loveday.

Any hopes of their finding employment were scattered to the seven winds. They needed to scrounge up something soon before winter set in. With their reputation sullied, they were going to have to make a long ride to the next town, surviving off the kindness of strangers along the way.

Nearby was Indian territory – spattered with isolated camps, some friendly, some not. Individual ranches were a roll of the die, especially for the two of them. There was little herding to be done this far north; were the weather not a factor, they surely would've made their way to California. Their best bet now was to become miners.

"Who was that shady figure you were talking to in Brennan's?" Jack asked on the ride. "Distracting you from me."

Lazarus grunted. "Some kind of fire and brimstone type — rambling on about building a safe house."

"Anyone who wants to be safe wouldn't be living in Loveday."

"I was just trying to get out without causing too much trouble," Lazarus said, just the hint of consternation in his voice. "It was the same as that huckster back in Houston."

"I still think you should've taken that deal."

Lazarus groaned, which Jack very correctly interpreted as: Not this again.

"Like, of course he was probably pulling it all out of his ass. But I think there is a very good chance he wasn't. There's a lot of land, you know. Why wouldn't he want to sell some for the cheap?"

"While also selling a cure for all ills?"

"It wasn't that expensive!" Jack said. "I'd say it was worth the risk."

"Left to your own devices, kid," Lazarus said, "you would be sold bridges until you went bankrupt."

Jack was hardly listening to him. She was staring upright, slouching with her hand on the pommel. "Gosh, can you imagine what we would do with some land of our own?"

Lazarus grunted.

"Trust me, I know how to run a farm. I think we’d do a dandy job with it. And there — we wouldn't have to hide, you know?"

"I doubt it, kid," Lazarus said, and his voice was so soft and disappointed, it broke Jack from her wishful reverie.

Jack paused. "I'd protect you from anyone who came calling."

Laz smiled grimly. “You couldn’t even take the Fowlers.”

“But I got the last laugh!” said Jack, patting her pockets.

It was Jack's unending commitment to trouble that got her here in the first place. Once upon a time, she was a greenhorn cowboy pretending to be… say, thirteen years old. As part of her little herding group, she was scout and page and stacker of wood, seeing as her size prevented any reliable roping. It was a tight-knit group, and Jack had been fond of them. No one paid her any mind. Oh sure, they teased, hit her some, but no one tried to snoop. And good for her. It was the only thing keeping her alive.

Lazarus was the horsebreaker. Jack had hardly spoken a word to him before. She was frightened, quite frankly, by his size and his taciturn nature. At least, at first.

There came a day when he made her help with a new horse; she had seen her daddy break horses on the farm and had gone in expecting much the same: beating the poor thing down until it couldn't fight anymore. She said, "I don't know how much good I'll do, being so small and all."

"Doesn't matter," he said. "You're the only one who won't run away."

But Lazarus hadn’t been like her daddy; he was gentle. His voice was hardly a murmur as he brought the horse closer to him. He caressed its ears. It let him put the halter on. Jack had stood, rope in hand, strange emotion stirring in her as she watched this scene by firelight. She handed him the rope when he asked for it, and found herself glad, for once, that she didn’t have a dick.

Jack was pretty good at hiding, if she did say so herself. But accidents happened. The worst was when a man went to join her when she was taking a piss break.

What was she going to do? She couldn’t shy away, lest she draw his suspicion. She couldn’t hide her lack of equipment; it was hard enough, having figured out a means of doing it without soaking her jeans. Her only hope was to stand strong, to be so clearly male in form and spirit that—

“What happened to your dick, boy?!”

Before Jack could say anything, Lazarus was there. He stood behind her, unbuttoning his own trousers. Don’t turn around, Jack thought. Don’t turn around…

“Awful rude to bring it up, Quincy," Lazarus said. "Weren’t you listening when we brought him on? He lost it in an Indian raid.”

Jack found herself nodding. “Cut it clean off.”

That was when Jack started really paying attention. For some time, she lost herself to a fancy, believing Lazarus to be a lying woman like she was. She craned her ears whenever he spoke; she stared (endeavoring not to be too obvious) when he settled down for the night. He slept clutching his hat to his chest.

She noticed the way he never spoke of his boyhood. He never spoke of life at all. It was all business with him, only discussions of payment and routes taken and his firm and gentle hand on the horses’ velvet noses. She watched him so closely, she felt as if she were closer to knowing him than anyone else in the whole world.

She failed to consider that Lazarus was watching, too.

The turning point came: she was on fire duty, watching the coffee pot in the early hours when dawn had barely opened its eyes. The glimmer of flames made muddy imprints as she looked away; still she stared, as if she could find the beating heart at the center of the fire.

When she looked up, Lazarus was sitting across from her.

She suppressed a gasp; she hadn't realized anyone else was awake. But there he was, sitting on a barrel, leaning over Jack where she sat cross-legged on the ground. Jack swallowed her fear — what was there to be afraid of? They were just two herders, waiting for the coffee to boil.

“W-would you like a cup?” Jack said through her swelling throat.

He did indeed.

Jack's eyes turned away from the fire. When Lazarus lifted his fingers to pick at his lip, it was as if Jack's gaze was being tugged along a string. He noticed. She returned to burning her eyes. Then, she moved on to burning her hand.

Not on purpose — she was only getting his coffee. He sat there, in the corner of her eye, as she poured a cup. He had moved — or, at least, she thought so – and Jack shuddered. There the precious liquid went, all over her ruddy right hand. What a waste! Oh, Quincy was going to smack her for —

Lazarus’s fingers slipped around hers. "Let me see."

Jack had closed her eyes. She couldn't bear the thought of opening them, of knowing how close he was. But this had the inverse effect, making her so terribly aware of his warm touch. It seemed to radiate through her whole body. Or perhaps that was just her skin burning along.

“Looks nasty,” said Lazarus.

“I’ll get along.”

Lazarus lifted her hand and kissed the burn. “If you insist, my lady.”

God, she really was a woman. A stupid, easily flustered little girl. She was on her feet in a shot. “Hah? Haha! What a— what a joke, Mister. You’ve got an awful sense of—”

“Sit down, Miss.”

“You can’t call me that!” Jack hissed. “I’m not— I’m not a—”

Lazarus moved fast. He had her by the collar. She was tossed away from the fire, further from the tents where the other men slept. Oh god, oh god, she was going to die, she was sure of it.

Lazarus set a foot upon her chest. He did not stomp — it was the lightest pin against the ground. But Jack stared at the toe of his boot, terribly aware of how quickly that could change.

He said, "You're going to get yourself killed."

“Huh?”

"Being clumsy like that," said Lazarus. “Get hurt badly enough, and the Doc’s going to have to strip you down.”

“Hwuh? But I—”

“And what’ll you do,” he continued, “if they find you out? A pack of men, starved for female company—”

“Don’t!” Jack squeezed her eyes shut.

“Do you have any sort of plan, kid?”

“Don’t get hurt, don't get sick,” said Jack, “and if I do, die straightaway.”

There was silence. Lazarus didn't reply, save for a small huff — amused? disappointed? — and removing the boot from her chest. He began to walk away.

"Hey!" She scrambled up. "Hey, you get back here!"

But he kept on walking, back to the clearing where the sun was rising and the others stirred. She made a leap to grasp the bottom of his coat. For several steps, he dragged her through the dirt. Jack clung tighter and bit his calf.

He paused to shake her off.

“Stop that!” Jack said. “I got a new plan.”

“Which is?”

“I get hurt, you tell everyone you’re a doctor. And I’m contagious.” She wiped her nose.  “And I’ll return the favor.”

That night, Jack slipped from her tent and into the darkness. The stars shone bright and insects buzzed in the dry heat. She scuffed through the brush, hand on her gun. It was only after she had stood for what seemed like hours, watching flies flit over the surface of the moon, that a hand slipped around her throat.

“Easy, boy,” Laz said into her ear. “Easy…”

Jack slumped in his hold. Lazarus's leather glove drifted down the front of her body; it slipped beneath her shirt to glide between her breasts.

When he began to push down her stomach and below her belt buckle, she shook her head — small, frantic, almost against her will.

Lazarus planted a kiss beneath her jaw, and drew up. He rested his hand against the seat of her jeans. “You like it a bit rough, don’t you, kid?”

“Ye… yes.” She swallowed.

“You a plodding mare…” He kissed her ear. “…or a bucking stallion?”

“Stallion. Definitely a stallion.”

He tweaked her nipple. She yelped.

Laz smiled. “You sing like a bird, though.”

Oh, she loved him. She loved him so much. It was hard to fathom what she would be without him; he was her first love, her dearest friend, the only person in the world that could see and understand her. Sometimes, on the trail, it seemed as though they were hardly two people at all.

What if they weren’t? What if all along, she was only a part of him that had been waiting to be found? That’s what she thought, on nights when they exchanged no words, only hands and mouths. Maybe the two of them had never been people at all; something more like mud and stone, perched high on a mountain and smoothed with rain until they had faces. It was the only way to explain how and why she loved him so.

And shortly, everything would fall apart.

They made camp at the edge of a lake; tall meadow grasses hid them from prying eyes. Laz mixed up cornmeal for their supper. Jack sat on their saddlebags and played her harmonica. The notes mingled with the birdsong.

“When we get into a town where no one knows our name,” she said, “I want to get a new banjo."

The air smelled like frying bacon and thick pine. Jack thought of her old instrument, and its warping neck. She said, "With our new fortune, you could get a new saddle. Or some boots!"

Lazarus sat hunched over the frying pan. "I must always be the practical one."

"Because you are!" Jack said. "I mean, you could get something nice, too.  It’s whatever you want, sir.”

That was one benefit of traveling alone. Jack didn’t have to watch her tongue.

Lazarus's stern expression flickered with a smile. “Maybe we can buy a second bowl.”

As he went on cooking, Jack leaned back, crossed her legs, and took one long, breathy note on the harmonica.

“Amaazing grace…” she sang, “how sweet the sound…”

Above, pine needles swayed against gray sky. She watched a single bird flit from tree to tree, singing its lonely song. Where is your mate, little bird? she thought. This is no world to wander alone.

There were no bugs; the whole world seemed barren in preparation for winter. Even with their little cooking fire, it was awfully cold already. She hoped Laz was up for a good fuck, tonight.

“That saved a wretch…” A needle drifted from the sky and fell on her mouth. “Like m... Pah!”

Supper was finished; Jack brushed away the accumulated needles and sat with her hands in her lap. Laz filled the bowl and began to eat his fill. Jack wriggled with the warm smell of bacon and Johnnycakes right against her nose. She had to wait — Laz ate first.

Food after a long day of riding was always good, even when it was bad. And Laz was a good cook — that's what he'd been brought on for in the herding group, before he proved his mettle with the horses. It made the ritual into a strange form of torture. One Jack ate up eagerly.

Lazarus sent Jack to wash up while he prepared the tent.

Jack was still singing when she crouched at the edge of the lake, boots balancing on the sandy stones. The water was terribly bright and clear. The bowl sent the water spinning across the great blue length of it.

“I once was lost…”

All was quiet. In the summer, it must’ve been buzzing. She knew what it was like to camp by the water in the summer, all the cowboys waking with red bumps across their cheeks and arms. She did not miss it. She preferred it here, all sullen, with the sky steel gray. Across the water, the hills rose, cones of pine dark against their light backs. The water turned her fingertips red with its chill.

“But now I’m…”

The bowl slipped from her fingers. She scrambled to catch it, dunking her whole arm into the water. She was nearly knees-first into the lake; her bowed head saw her panicked reflection… and through that, like a mirror molding from behind, was a cloud of red. The metallic scent filled her nose.

Jack looked up.

Standing there, shin-deep in the lake, was Carter Fowler.

He was dressed in only his cotton shirt and rolled up trousers, clutching his right arm which, through the bundle of fabric that served as a bandage, was bleeding into the lake water. Jack felt an uncharacteristic lurch of sympathy for the poor bastard. Whatever had gotten him, it had gotten him good. He looked like death.

It was said that no man, save his kin, had ever seen him full in the face and lived to tell the tale. But now Jack did. His cheeks and forehead were marred with ghastly scars. He had dark bags under his eyes, a stubbly chin. Jack hardly noticed those — far more obvious was the deep, dripping gash across the bridge of his nose.

Jack, with the same movements one would make speaking to a startled animal, drew up her bowl from the water. She spoke casually. “The little outlaw, right? You mind if I call ya Carter?”

No answer.

“Looks like you got in a spot of trouble,” she said. “I would suggest you keep you and your brothers on the other side of the lake.”

Drip, drip, drip.

“You dumb or something? Or just rude?”

Drip.

“Listen.” Jack sighed. “I don’t want no trouble. You mind if I— ?”

Jack gestured, showing that both hands were clear, and stood.

Carter moved — a groaning lurch towards her. Jack panicked. Her hand was on the gun in an instant, and a shot and smoke billowed over the rocky water’s surface.

“Carter!”

Now, charging towards her, was Ben. He emerged from the brush behind her, as unprepared as his brother: he had no hat, and only one boot. Jack had missed her shot (don’t tell Laz) but Ben didn’t. The bullet grazed her ear, and she dropped and rolled as delayed pain buzzed through her cartilage. Rocks bit into her elbow.

“Hey! Easy now!” Jack stumbled to her feet, now coated in lake mud, and raised her hands. “This is all just a big misunderstand—”

“Raaaugh!” Ben, like a big burly bear, tackled her.

He was all kinds of fucked up, too: a bandaged stomach, all the nails on his fingers torn and bleeding. Jack raised her knee into his stomach; this hurt him enough for him to flinch. In that split second, she wriggled to her feet and fled back to the camp.

She whistled through her fingers. “Lazarus! Get your gun! Get— get—” She panted from the exertion, and put a hand against her stomach.

Fuck, she realized. He had something sharp.

She was cut. Pulling back her sticky palm revealed that it had gone deep enough to bleed. The wind was howling through the trees, carrying the angry grunts of the Fowlers to her. She had no time to waste.

Lazarus was ready; all but the essentials abandoned, already mounted on Booker, hand on Maud's reins.

Wheee— bang!

Before Jack could mount, a bullet struck the mare in the neck. Jack cried out as her horse crumpled into the dirt, stone dead.

Aaron Fowler stood at the edge of their clearing.

“Sorry folks,” he said. “Them’s business.”

“Ah—ah—” In her shock, Lazarus hoisted Jack into the saddle. She was cradled against Booker's neck.

Lazarus said, "What do you want from us?"

"Nothing much. Just you."

Lazarus stiffened against her; Jack knew, then, that they had to run. Had to fight.

“Bet you’ll get a lot of money from a fugitive,” Lazarus said. “That what you think?”

But Aaron didn’t appear to listen. “It was a simple bargain…”

Unlike the others, Aaron was clean, wearing Ben’s fancy coat with the fur ruff. He stepped closer and closer with his gun held out. “My brothers’ lives for yours.”

What the fuck is he on about? Jack thought.

Lazarus dug his heels into Booker's side. Aaron fired a bullet that missed — only shot a hole through one of Laz's shirts strung between the trees.

Booker bolted into the long grass, which struck, almost rhythmic, against Jack’s legs. She held her head close to the horse’s body, Laz’s hands on her stomach. There was a moment when she really thought they’d escaped.

Then, a mirror image: a horse, some kinda fancy show breed, was carrying Ben Fowler. And to the other side, a spry stallion carrying Carter was gaining on them.

How can they even ride like that? Jack thought. They can hardly stand!

Jack remained stunned from the ambush; she struggled to move, squashed between Laz’s chest and the horse’s neck as she was. She reached for her gun, but Carter was faster. She saw it in horrid detail: Carter’s bloody arm raising and aiming right at her sorry head.

Not at Lazarus: the larger target. Not at Lazarus, the one who was steering the horse. Jack’s thoughts were blotted into nothing but fear and instinct as she stared down the barrel of that revolver.

Laz yanked an arm around Jack and held her tight, like she was a swaddled babe. Jack let out a strangled cry. She felt the reverberation — two shots in his arm.

Oh god. Laz drew up, and his dark coat was dripping, flinging drops of his blood across the plains. He hardly made a sound, though his body had gone tense as a wire. Jack choked on her own spit, her teeth jabbed against her tongue, and her hand found her gun. She shot wildly, without thought, without reason, only feeling the white-hot burn of vengeance. Carter’s horse crumpled, and Carter went toppling with it.

She hoped the beast stomped on his head.

Hardly had she managed that shot when Ben gained on them and made his own play at Jack.

“Go check on your fucking brother!” Jack spat. “Or his corpse, for that matter!”

Laz twisted in the saddle. Again, his greater bulk caught the bullet, and he grunted in her ear. Blood dribbled from his mouth, and onto her head.

“Hah… hah…” Jack could hardly think. “Laz, what are you…?”

Lazarus, with his stiffening arm, shot Ben Fowler.

They kept on riding a while longer. That was when Jack first looked up ahead, saw the homefront sitting pretty on a distant, sloping hill. For a moment, shining in the cold sun, she thought it glowed.

“Stop!” cried Jack. “Laz, they’re gone. Laz, I’ve gotta treat—”

Their medical supplies were back at the camp, she realized. But Jack continued on: she would do what she must. She would find someone who could help. “You’re hurt.”

Laz tugged weakly on the reins. They dropped from a run to a gallop. Then, from a gallop to a walk. His hand slipped from the leather, and Booker stopped; the horse's sides wheezed from the strain. Lazarus nearly slid off the saddle.

It did not look good. There were three holes in him: one in his arm, one in the back of his hand, one in the upper half of his shoulder. Jack tore off her coat before rolling up her sleeves. All the hairs on her arm grew clogged with dark blood. She had Laz bite one of her gloves to keep quiet as she fixed him up. She had no water, so she spat on the wounds. She had no bandages, so she drew her knife and cut her sleeves into strips. The sky loosed a couple flakes of snow.

Click.

And yet — still Aaron Fowler came, holding his gun towards Jack as she knelt, bloody and shivering, before her weakening lover.

Jack thought that he would've lost interest. Did Aaron not care about Carter's caved-in skull? Ben’s bullet-ridden body? The Fowlers were in it for the money, yes, but were they this cold-blooded?

“I— I give up.” Jack, with shaking hands, grabbed her pack. “Sorry, brother. Y-you can have it all.”

She tossed the coin purse his way. The money glittered over the brittle grass.

Aaron glowered at her from his mount. "That was you?"

“Obviously!” Jack said. “That’s why you and your kin fuckin’ attacked—”

“I don’t care about the fucking money!” Aaron’s voice was sharp and strident; spittle flew from beneath his bushy mustache. “Who d’ya think I am? Why would I care about the fucking money when there’s a beast on my heels, and my brothers are all kindsa fucked in the head by it?”

“What beast?”

“Keep your sorry head still…” Aaron aimed the gun. “And I’ll let the other fella go.”

Jack had been in her fair share of shootouts — she knew how fast they went. And yet, nothing could have prepared her; all of those close scrapes were nothing. All of her old scars might as well have been make-believe. She knew, with cold, clear logic, that death was always near. She saw the face of it. She knew it was upon her, and a deep sense of peace and finality welled up within. It was not ideal, but when it came down to it, she would let herself get shot for Lazarus.

But that's not what happened. As Aaron's threat passed his lips, Laz reared up and pushed Jack away. Aaron shot him, the whole revolver’s worth, from the base of his neck to his stomach. Bang, bang, bang!

Only when the gun clicked did he seem to realize his mistake.

And then Laz was falling over her, and Jack was crying out. She hefted his body, with a strength she didn't know she had, onto his saddle. And she rode. And rode. And rode until she got to the ranch and — well, y'all already know that part.

The body, the barn, the brands, the blood. She woke to beams of light from a cracked window.