Violet blinked rapidly and swallowed hard before slinking into the darkness which would hide her tears. There was a time when the darkened woods would have terrified her, when all she would have thought of was the searing pain, the hands on her throat and the darkness that followed. In this moment, however, she hoped to meet the shadow. The very thought was absurd, of course, since he'd been dead roughly eight years. The man had anyway. The real shadow, she knew, lived on and came to her dreams at night and dampened what should have been the little joys of her days.
Even a week earlier, she would have stayed clear of dark places like these woods she now found herself in. A week earlier she still hadn't discovered the only man she'd ever loved lying bleeding in the street. She was quickly realizing that he had accumulated every bit as much pain and anger through the years as she had. His words to her just now had proven that.
"Oh face it, Vi," she chastised herself, "You're not upset about what he said. You're upset that it was all the truth."
Things had started with such hope. They had stood in her kitchen talking of how wonderful it would be to settle somewhere. Neither of them had allowed that much and they looked forward to staying somewhere, planting roots. And Jimmy still had loved ones in Rock Creek, as did Violet. Her parents were still there which is how she knew that Teaspoon Hunter was looking to retire and that since Rachel Dunne had gotten married and moved away a couple of years before that the town had been hard pressed to keep a teacher in its employ. Violet hadn't given the job in Rock Creek much thought. There were too many memories there and she always felt it better to stay away but she was finding those memories fading and taking the place they had always been destined for—the background. What happened to her would always be a part of her but maybe it didn't have to be all of her. Jimmy had been running from memories as well and she thought it would be good for him too to go and face them down and maybe together they would find the courage they had separately lacked.
They had sat together and ate supper and it felt good to cook for him. He was appreciative and complimented her on everything. And it hadn't seemed like he had offered those compliments to be polite but because he really meant them. As she had prepared their meal, she had also made two custard pies. Once they finished eating, she sent Jimmy to the saloon to deliver one of them to Jake Danvers. She explained how she never would have gotten Jimmy home the night before without Jake's help and that she wanted to send him a token of her appreciation. Jimmy had remarked he was grateful too and had happily set off toward the saloon.
He had come home a short while later and seemed slightly different to her. She couldn't place what had changed at first and just chalked it up to the newness of the situation. They ate their own dessert in near silence. The only interruption of that silence had been right after Jimmy had taken the first bite of pie.
"This is just as good as I remember," he said, "You always did make a damned good custard pie."
Violet had beamed at him. Once they finished eating—Jimmy had eaten four pieces of pie himself—the silence became unsettled. It was as if they suddenly forgot how to talk to each other. Violet tried to busy herself with the dishes and then with her embroidery and finally with a book. Jimmy paced a while and then found one or two small things that needed fixing—the front door stuck a little and the rail on the back porch was wobbly—and then finally sat down with a newspaper. The waning light had brought a realization to Violet that sleeping arrangements had not been discussed and that more than anything else in the world, she did not want to discuss them. So she stood and went to the back porch and sat with her head in her hands trying to even think of what she wanted.
He had always caused her to have stirrings of something she thought was desire. She loved him and was fairly certain they would marry but for the night she wasn't sure where this should go. They weren't married yet. She frankly wasn't sure about the thought of having him touch her like that. No man had except the shadow and then Jimmy last night and he was still half drunk and under the assumption they had already been, well, intimate. She could feel the panic at remembering his hands pinning her shoulders down. But then when he truly saw her fear, even though he didn't understand it at first, he let her go. He wouldn't force himself on her but that didn't change how unsure she was.
Violet nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the door open behind her. She heard his footsteps and then felt his closeness to her as he settled onto the step next to where she sat.
"You having second thoughts about leaving?" he asked, "Or is it the leaving with me part that has you scared? I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to stick yourself with me. I sure ain't no prize."
She just sat there for a minute thinking of how to respond. She had never really been all that shy with Jimmy before. She had been terrified when she met him and hurt and traumatized but she could talk to him. He had been so tender and sweet. He had done everything there was to do in order to defend and protect her. That was Jimmy and not the man he became but then they had established that there was enough of Jimmy left to maybe banish Wild Bill.
Finally she just shook her head in surrender. She didn't know how to put into words what frightened her.
"If you want me to move along, I will," he offered, "I got no business with a good woman like you. All I can do is make life harder."
"That's not the problem," she whispered.
"Then what is?" he asked gently as he put an arm around her shoulders. The way she stiffened under his touch answered his question for him. "Oh, I get it. You ain't sure about that part of things. I ain't asking nothing of you, Violet. I figure I got to earn your trust and I ain't done that yet. I can sleep on the couch even, if you want me to."
"I don't know what I want," she admitted.
"Well then let's try this," he ventured, "You pick a place for me—either your bed or the couch—and we go to bed and if it don't feel right then I'll move."
He hugged her tighter and felt her nod against him.
"Glad that's settled," he said, "Maybe you'd let me have a kiss though."
Violet turned her head to face him and leaned almost to touch him and waited in that breathless moment for him to move the rest of the way to her lips but then before he could, she turned away and leaned over the side of the porch looking as though she might be sick. When he reached to put an arm around her, she threw it off and scooted farther from him.
"Vi, honey," he said softly, "What did I do? You was fine with kissing me earlier."
She just curled into a ball and cried. Jimmy was confused. He hadn't even touched her. He hadn't said anything he thought was upsetting but she was crying all the same and he didn't know what to do. But finally she choked out a few words.
"Wh-whiskey," she said weakly, "Whiskey and cigars. He smelled of whiskey and cigars."
Jimmy slumped against the rail and just sat there. She'd had him deliver the pie to the barkeep and he had stayed a few minutes and had a couple drinks and smoked a cigar. He wasn't sure how he had forgotten that whiskey and cigars were their first clue to finding the shadow. She hadn't been able to see him clearly but she had smelled those things.
"Damn," he said and it was all he had to offer.
"I'm sorry," she squeaked as she jumped to her feet and ran inside the house not stopping until her bedroom door was shut tight behind her.
Jimmy stood slowly and made his way inside. He saw the closed door and then looked to the couch knowing it would be his bed for the night and he deserved that too. He sighed and took off his gun belts, vest and shirt before toeing off his boots and settling on the couch. It wouldn't be the most comfortable night's sleep he'd ever have but it wouldn't be the worst either, not by a long shot.
Violet sat on her bed and at first was even too upset to change into her nightclothes. So she set to packing up a few things that she would not want to leave behind. The house itself was provided by the town to the schoolteacher so leaving was not an issue but many things in the house were hers and things she wanted to keep. She had few attachments to things as memories had often been equal to pain for her so she kept as few as she could.
Still she didn't want to leave behind books. They were the few friends she truly had. The last real friend she had was Carrie Dudley and there was no way that Carrie could understand what she had been through. It wasn't Carrie's fault really and she had tried, Violet could see that now, but so much happened to Violet in that time and every bit of it changed who she was. She had been taken by force and learned firsthand of something she had only begun to understand in her tender age. It had been violent and frightening. Carrie was in the midst of her first love in Jesse and she talked of tender caresses and kisses and how Jesse never pressured her and treated her like a lady and Violet listened knowing it was too late for any of that for her. When Carrie made love with someone for the first time, it could be exciting and romantic and loving. Violet would only know pain and cruelty from her first time and it hurt to hear Carrie speak of love that Violet feared she would never know. And all that happened with Jimmy had to stay secret as well. He had kissed her and she wished she could tell someone but no one would understand. She stood to get him in trouble with that information. That was the last thing she wanted to do to her hero. They had shared so much and he had never scared her before. He hadn't scared her just now but sometimes a smell or a sound had the power to take her back to that place and the combination of whiskey and cigar smoke brought her back to being pinned down on the floor of the woods. She could feel the great weight pressing down on her and hear her clothing ripped away from her and it made her throat nearly close with fear. She knew he would never make her feel these things on purpose but she couldn't help the response at that combination of smells.
Violet walked over to the mirror in the corner of the room and looked at herself. She sighed loudly. Plain was all she could think when she saw her face. Brown hair, brown eyes and not even an interesting brown, they were just brown. Her skin was pale and she always thought her nose should be different. It wasn't too big or anything but just it never seemed right. She tried to smile to see if that improved anything as it did with some people but the smile never reached her eyes. She looked every bit the walking dead that she felt herself to be. She undressed and looked again at herself. She had curves where they ought to be, she supposed. Her stomach was not flat as some girls had but she wasn't fat either. Her breasts were of a decent enough size that if she wanted to attract the attentions of men she needed only wear a lower cut dress. She had seen plain girls find husbands before and knew it could happen but those girls had personality. They smiled and laughed and it was genuine when they did. She had none of those things to offer a man and for a while she thought that was okay because maybe she didn't really want one after all. But now there was a man in her front room she did want. She wanted him in her life and she wanted him to hold her and she wanted maybe to even learn of a new way to think of being touched and held but she had nothing to offer. She was dead inside and even a man who had lived as hard as he had deserved better than what she had to give. She slipped her nightgown over her head and sat down on the edge of her bed as she wept.
Jimmy stood by the fire looking after Violet as she ran into the darkness. That was something she never would have done before he came. Maybe it was good that she was braver now or maybe it wasn't even bravery so much as her thinking that whatever might lurk in the dark woods—and she knew better than most the evil that could be found there—was preferable to spending one more minute in his company. He dragged his hand over his face trying to think how they had gotten to this point. He recalled their first night together which had been filled with rough patches that carried into the day but that had ultimately resulted in their deciding to stick together for a while, forever if he had a say. Supper had gone well and she asked him to run an errand for her which he had gladly done. Then everything went wrong and he found himself on the couch.
He laid there thinking about what had happened on the back porch. She looked at him with terror but then she was looking through him, past him even. She was seeing a hulking shadow over her and possibly feeling all he had done to her. He knew that a smell or sound or even a glimpse of a certain color could take him places he never wanted to go again and hadn't ever wanted to be in the first place. He'd almost been gunned down once because the man he faced wore a red bandanna and for a moment he wanted to reach out because he saw Ike before him. Some days he was thankful he had realized his daydream in time to draw first and some days he wasn't.
He hadn't lied when he told Violet the beautiful woman she had become. Her hair was the same long, wavy golden brown it had been in her youth and her eyes the same that gave him a clear window to her thoughts except that they now contained a mystery she dared him to unravel. He should have recognized that face before he had. It really hadn't changed that much in the years that had passed. Her body had though and it made him think things that he would have turned a gun on himself for thinking about her in the past. She had been developing curves before and on the night he and Cody had killed the shadow, he had been shown that her breasts were developing perhaps a little faster than her peers. Now they had fully developed and while she wasn't all out of proportion or anything, she had an impressive bosom all the same. Another woman in another place and he would have been sweet talking her to get under her corset and under her skirts as well. In the dark as he lay on the couch alone, he could still remember how soft her skin had been under his fingers the night before. He wanted so badly to touch her again but he had been banished and he might be banished for good, for all he knew.
If she let him stay with her, if she wanted him to go with her still, he knew he would have to wait to act on all of his feelings. He wasn't sure exactly how long he could hold out but he hoped he could for long enough. He didn't want to be another that hurt her.
Yeah I told you all that I maybe had one more story with these two. It was supposed to be another one shot but it got long...it is actually completely written and I am just editing and dividing it into chapters. So there shouldn't be large waits for updates. I hope this serves to settle things for everyone.
Oh and this is inspired once again by the haunting words of Marcus Mumford. I will post the lyrics to the song that set my muse running at the end of the story but you are free to look up the song Hopeless Wanderer from the upcoming album Babel.-J