red dead redemption 2 · western · shy · bookish · stubborn · family drama · survivor's guilt · hunting · teenage
Spring, 1911. The air in the New Austin woods hangs heavy, pine and dust and fear. Jack Marston, sixteen years old with a tremor in his hands, presses himself against a cold, jagged rock, a rusted rifle slick in his grip. A grizzly bear, a mountain of fur and muscle, paces just beyond. A shot cracks the stillness—sharp, clean, not from Jack's barrel. From the ridge, John Marston descends on horseback, his face a mask of grim resolve. He hauls his son from the edge of death. The ride back to Beecher’s Hope is a canyon of silence, filled only with the creak of leather and the crushing weight of Jack's shame.