Hello, and welcome to Chapter Four! Obviously, I must be doing something right if you're still reading -- while the review count has been low so far (both here and on the various links I set up), they've all been positive, which I'm glad to see. Keep those cards and letters coming, folks, I'll be happy to answer any questions and/or complaints you have. Until then, let's see how our favorite bounty hunter is hanging in there...
4: COFFIN VARNISH AND COWBOY KILLERS
The hallway leading to the living quarters was empty, which suited Jonah just fine. He didn't want to talk to anyone now that he was done playing watchdog, and he sure as Hell didn't want anybody staring at him. Over the years, he'd become accustomed to people's lingering looks in regards to his face, but he knew that the looks he got in this place weren't due to that. They all think Ah've gone 'round the bend, he said to himself, but they're wrong. Ah'm just tired is all. Hell, Ah'm over two hunnert years old, Ah've got every right tuh be tired.
Near the end of the hall, he stopped in front of a metal door with HEX spraypainted on it, the bright red letters standing out on the bare steel like neon. Stiletta had done that for him after one too many incidents of Jonah entering the wrong room. It was embarrassing in a way: he could follow a week-old trail across hard alkali, but drop him in a corridor lined with a dozen metal doors and he was lost. Ain't muh fault, they all look alike, he thought as he entered the room. Don't like livin' in this coffee tin, anyhow. He didn't have much choice in the matter, though. He went where Stiletta went, and right now she wanted to be here with her friends, so here he stayed.
Compared to the others, Jonah's room was quite bare. All he had was a bed, a folding chair with a small table, and a pile of clothes that stank of booze, sweat, and cigarettes. He'd grown up with very few material possessions, and tried to keep his adult life similarly uncluttered. Besides, most of the things he did want just didn't exist anymore, though he sometimes managed to find decent substitutes. Take the room's illumination, for example: instead of using the naked light bulb that dangled down from the room's low ceiling, he lit an old kerosene lantern he'd found in one of the storerooms. It was battered and rusty, with the enameled Coleman logo nearly obliterated, but Jonah was more comfortable with the soft glow it gave off than the harsh yellow-white glare the more modern fixtures supplied.
At the moment, comfort was just what he wanted. The presence of the familiar, the stability of what he knew to be true. He tossed his coat aside and sat down at the table. Next to the lantern lay two items that, up until a month ago, he thought he'd never see again: his Dragoons. Jonah picked one up, feeling the heft of over four pounds of cold iron as it rested in his left hand. He let the smooth ivory handle slip into his palm, cocked the hammer, then let it fall back against the chamber. She's held up good, he thought, then spun the unloaded pistol by its trigger guard around his finger, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. The move had no real purpose other than to show off how at ease a gunfighter was with his equipment. Jonah did it a few more times, occasionally stopping to take aim at a random target in the room. When he finished, he tucked the pistol beneath his belt, just as he used to do. Unlike himself, most gunfighters were right-handed, so finding a left-hand gunbelt was rare...although it appeared that he'd found one near the end. The belts he currently wore had come off his corpse, as had the Dragoons. After he'd destroyed it, Jonah had asked the others to burn the remains, but he'd kept the guns and their holsters, just so he could have a small piece of home, albeit an impossible one.
They shouldn't be here, he thought, Ah threw 'em away, lost 'em. Well, 'lost' wasn't the proper word: he knew exactly where they were, there was just at least fifty feet of water between him and them, not to mention a couple centuries. He pulled the gun out again and looked at it. Did Ah go back for 'em? No way in Hell Ah could've got 'em out, thet's why Ah didn't try the first time. But they're here, they were in muh hands, but they shouldn't be... The thoughts circled around his head in an endless loop, questions with no answers, building in speed until his hand began to shake, almost dropping the gun. His right hand shot out, and he held onto the Dragoon with a white-knuckle grip as he shuddered. He'd fought against it the whole time he'd been on guard duty, but now that he was alone, it overwhelmed him. Eyes shut, teeth bared, Jonah tried to ride out the wave of hopelessness that threatened to drown him. His whole life, he felt like the entire world was against him. Abandoned by his parents, scarred by his adopted Apache family, spurned by nearly every woman he'd ever given his heart to, beaten and shot by men that weren't even fit to breathe...the only thing that had kept him going through it all was the hope that, someday, he'd have something to show for it. He'd come out on top, he'd get the girl, he'd be able to walk down the street and have people look at him with respect and admiration.
But now he knew where the end of the road led, and he couldn't even have his stupid little pipe-dream anymore. No respect for him, no hero's death, just eternity as a cheap sideshow attraction. Nobody even cared 'bout me enough tuh put me in the ground, he thought, and another shudder ran through him. After a while, Jonah opened his eyes and sat up straight, his mouth dry and a hollow ache in his chest. He needed a drink...just a small one, enough to steady his hands and wet his whistle. He placed the Dragoon back on the table, then went over and knelt beside the bed, searching for the bottle from the night before. Most of the remaining alcohol had spilled out when he'd dropped it, but there were a couple swallows left, and he downed them in a flash. "Better," he said aloud, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Few more of those, an' Ah'll be right as rain."
Unfortunately, he had no more bottles stashed in the room (none he could remember, anyways), which meant he'd have to scour the pantry off the kitchen for more...and the dinner hour was approaching. The place would be full of people. "Ah kin wait," he muttered, and began to drum his fingers on the floor as he leaned against the bed, the empty bottle dangling between his legs. "Ah ain't like muh Pa, Ah kin wait...Ah ain't desperate..."
Jonah made it a full ten minutes before getting up off the floor and leaving his room.
Most people living within the confines of the warehouse called it the Hub: it was the largest room in the complex, aside from the motor pool. and everyone's favorite gathering place, especially with the kitchen right next to it. It was also one of the few rooms with unblocked windows, and though they were up rather high, it helped people's moods to be able to look out them and see that there was a world outside all this patched steel and plastic. Currently, a snowstorm was obscuring the view, giant flakes hitting the reinforced panes in wet, thudding clumps, and the fluorescents above were fired up and buzzing to supplement the waning light.
As Jonah approached the Hub's open doorway, two boys came running out into the hall, screaming like banshees as kids are wont to do. He stopped short as they bolted past him, the children barely taking notice that they'd nearly had a head-on collision with his legs. This wasn't the first time, either: there were six or seven kids living in the complex, ranging from only a year old to nearly ten like the two rugrats that had almost run Jonah down. For the life of him, he couldn't fathom how somebody could bring a child into a world like this. Then again, the Good Lord did like to spring surprises on people. Once he was sure the stampede was over, Jonah began to step forward, but stopped again when he heard the conversation drifting through the doorway.
"This is wild, man. Two time travelers, both under our roof." Cutter's voice. A good kid, in Jonah's opinion, but too chatty.
"I'm telling you, it's bull." That was Lewis, the resident mechanic. "Come on, think about it: Who'd want to come here?"
"Haven't you been listening?" Cutter said. "It wasn't by choice, same as Hex."
"Hex is bull, too. I don't believe that cowboy crap. Thinks he's fugging Clint Eastwood or something."
Jonah frowned. One of these days, he'd find out who this Eastwood fella was, and why people insisted on calling him such.
Someone laughed, then said, "I never thought of him like that, but I guess that's pretty close. Trust me, though, he's for real, and so am I." After a moment, the voice registered in Jonah's mind: the new guy, the one he'd saved from the scavs. All of the sudden, he felt very ill. What was he still doing here? He'd told Stiletta to kick him out. Jonah leaned against the wall, eyes shut. Ah cain't do this, he thought. Ah don't even want tuh look at the jasper. Dammit, Stiletta, why didn't yuh listen tuh me? He tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry again, as was his throat. Behind closed eyes, Jonah could see the stranger's face, his mask, his broad white smile. It was back in 1878, he could hear the man say in his memory, near a little town in Arizona called Desecration. A time he'd never lived through, a place he'd never seen or heard of. Another impossibility, and it was in there, blocking the way.
Jonah opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, whispering, "Lord, why do yuh keep doin' this tuh me?" He did his best to steel himself, then walked into the room. The furniture within was a hodge-podge of beat-up chairs, a couple of worn couches, and various-sized tables, all scattered around the place. The stranger was sitting in an ugly yellow easy chair, his injured leg propped up on a coffee table and wrapped in a brace. Nearest to him on a couch was Stiletta, with Cutter stretched out on the other end clad in an oversized Seattle Mariners jersey and jeans. Lewis stood close to the door and turned towards Jonah when he came in.
"Well, speak of the Devil," Lewis said, arms crossed over his dirty coveralls.
"Been called worse," Jonah replied as he walked past, doing his level best not to make eye contact with anyone.
"Jonah, why don't you come sit over here for a while?" Stiletta asked, and shifted on the couch to make room for him. "Haven't seen you for hours."
He didn't even dignify the request with an answer, just kept heading towards the kitchen.
"You say you know Hex," Lewis said to the stranger. "Tell me, has he always been an asshole, or this a recent development?"
That made him stop. Jonah spun on his heel and walked back over to where Lewis stood. He had no love for the mechanic: the man had a habit of shooting his mouth off and constantly smelled like a train yard. As he stood toe-to-toe with Lewis, staring him down, Jonah searched through his memory for what would be a good response. Although both he and the residents of the 21st Century spoke English, he'd quickly learned that it wasn't necessarily the same language, and it took a moment to produce an insult that sounded "modern" enough.
"Bite me, fuckface," Jonah growled, and turned around to continue back to the kitchen. Cutter let out a laugh more akin to a bark, then covered his mouth to hold in any more outbursts. Lewis did the smart thing and stayed quiet.
Just as Jonah had feared, there were four people running around the kitchen area. Vance's wife Marya was directing the chaos, as always. It amazed Jonah the way that little Mexican (Latino, he corrected himself, she don't like bein' called a Mexican, same as yuh cain't call Vance a Negro) seemed to be on top of everything, making sure none of the 20-odd people living in the complex were overlooked for anything, Jonah included, as evidenced by the tray of food that always turned up outside his door whenever he decided he couldn't deal with the mealtime crowd. Despite her best intentions, though, he'd lost at least 5 pounds in the past month. His mostly-liquid diet didn't help.
Marya spotted Jonah out of the corner of her eye as he tried to slip into the pantry. "Come to help?" she asked.
"Hell, no. This is women's work."
"Watch your mouth!" Red, one of Stiletta's friends, called out as he struggled with a can opener. His girlfriend Mookie took it from him and managed to get it working.
"Like Ah said," Jonah replied, and stepped backwards into the dimly-lit pantry. It was about 30 feet square, with rows of aluminum shelves stacked high with various shelf-stable goods. Doing his best to act casual, he headed to the section he'd last seen the liquor in. There wasn't much available (especially since he'd been pinching some when he couldn't get out and buy it himself) but it would do for now. He'd picked out a pint with the heartwarming name of Southern Comfort when he heard someone behind him. Jonah spun around, holding his hands (and the bottle) behind his back as Marya came around the corner. He was a good head taller than her, but her sudden presence made him feel very small indeed.
"Looking for anything in particular," she asked, "or just window shopping?"
"Cigarettes," he said. It was the excuse he'd thought up on his way down to the Hub.
"Back this way." As she turned to lead the way, Jonah pulled out his shirttail, shoved the bottle under the waistband of his pants, then tucked his shirt back in before following her. Marya led him two rows over and pointed to a shelf at his eye level. "Don't know how you missed them," she said.
Jonah mumbled thanks and grabbed two packs without looking.
"You might want to think about quitting. They give you cancer, you know."
"Y'all kin die in a light drizzle, an' yo're worried 'bout a little tobaccy?" He shook his head and walked past her out of the pantry.
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
He froze in the doorway. Caught. He began to stutter out a weak apology when Marya came up behind him, pulled a clipboard and pen off the pantry's inner wall, and held it in front of him. The inventory sheet, he'd forgotten.
"Yuh remind me of a supply sergeant Ah knew durin' the War." Jonah took the clipboard and marked down the cigarettes but omitted the whiskey. "Couldn't get a pair o' socks out of him without fillin' out twenty dif'rent forms." He hung the list back on its hook and beat a hasty retreat out of the kitchen.
As he reentered the main room, Jonah saw that the stranger was up and mingling with the growing dinner crowd, Stiletta at his side. The sight of that made him want to draw his guns and open fire. She knew how he felt about this guy, and yet she was helping the bastard as he limped around. Jonah stuck to a far wall and followed the two of them around the room with his eyes.
"He's kind of cute," someone beside him said. He turned and saw Mookie standing there. "It's hard to judge with the mask and all," she continued, pushing a lock of her short, blue-dyed hair behind her ear, "but I bet if he took it off, he'd be a real looker." Her comments weren't doing anything to help the gunfighter's mood. "You talked to him yet, Hex?"
"No."
"Well, come on then. Don't want to be the last one, do you?" She tugged on his shirtsleeve playfully, but he yanked his arm away. "Oh, you're having one of those days," she said, then walked away, making a beeline for Stiletta and her new friend. The man flashed Mookie a warm smile as she introduced herself and shook hands. It reminded Jonah of a politician making the rounds, and it made him trust the masked man even less. As Mookie and the new guy got acquainted, Stiletta glanced over in Jonah's direction, and he could tell by the look on her face that his own emotions must have been pretty plain at the moment. She leaned close to the stranger to say something, then left him to walk over to Hex's side.
"What in the blue Hell are yuh doin'?" He said through gritted teeth.
Stiletta held up her hands. "Stop. Right there, just stop," she told him. "I know you're upset about him being here..."
"'Upset' don't even cover it," he snapped.
"...but he's not here to hurt you, I swear," she continued. "He's just as concerned about you as we all are. He wants to help you."
"He kin help by leavin'."
"Nuh-uh, he's not, and you're going to listen to what he has to say. I don't care if I have to tie you to a chair, you're going to suck it up and deal with this, no more hiding."
"Ain't nothin' tuh deal with," he said, then pointed in the stranger's direction. The cigarettes in his hand had become a crumpled wad of cellophane and tobacco shreds. "An' if'n thet skunk over there says one word tuh me..."
"His name is Green Lantern."
"Don't tell me his name!" He leaned into Stiletta and she backpedaled, her eyes wide. "Ah don't want tuh know a damn thing 'bout him, an' Ah sure as Hell don't want tuh hear anything from him 'bout me! Fer all Ah know, he's the one thet killed me!"
"Jonah, he doesn't know..."
"Yuh believe him?" He reached out and grabbed a handful of her bodysuit. "Yuh'll listen tuh a stranger hidn' behind a mask an' not me? Don't whut Ah say mean nothin'?"
"Let her go, Hex."
Jonah whipped his head up and saw the Green Lantern standing there, out of arm's reach but close enough to do something if he had to. "Ah warned yuh, boy. Yuh touch me..."
"I know, and I'm not. Now let Stiletta go before you hurt her."
He snorted. "Yo're crazy, Ah'd never..." But then Jonah turned back to look at her, and saw the tears in her eyes. "Yuh know Ah'd never hurt yuh, sugar," he said quietly. "After everything we've been through..."
The look in her eyes told him different. He loosed his grip on her and she stepped away. Marya had come out of the kitchen, and she went over to Stiletta and put an arm around her. In fact, it seemed to Jonah that everyone was in the Hub now. The only person that dared to stand close to him though was Green Lantern...the last person he wanted to be near. Jonah's hands drifted to his guns, both as a warning and to hide the tremors.
The masked man held up his hands, just as Stiletta had done moments before. "I know you have no reason to believe me," he said calmly, "but I am...I will be...your friend."
"Ah ain't go no friends," Jonah Hex answered, and moved his darkening gaze from the Green Lantern to Stiletta. "Not a damn one." He then turned away from the both of them and headed for the exit. People scrambled to get out of his way. Just like the good ol' days, he thought as he walked back to his room. Everybody thinks Ah'm some sort of monster, but not thet new fella. No sir, he comes waltzin' in here like a carpetbagger an' charms the whole lot of 'em. Sure, he's wearin' a mask, but thet ain't a good reason tuh not trust a stranger. Maybe he's just shy...right, an' muh daddy's Abe Lincoln.
He returned to his quarters, slamming the door shut behind him hard enough to shake the false walls. The sound reminded Jonah of a cell door closing. "Thet's whut this whole world is," he muttered aloud, "a damn prison." He drove his fist against the door, making the metal reverberate again. "Nobody gives a damn 'bout me...they just dumped me in this godforsaken place an' forgot thet Ah ever existed..." He punched the door a few more times, but that wasn't bringing the gunfighter the satisfaction he wanted, so he grabbed the steel chair and folded it flat. "Ah ain't gonna take it no more!" he bellowed, and swung the chair at the wall with both hands. "Ah'm sick an' tired of y'all pissin' on me like Ah don't matter! Ah'm sick tuh death of it!" The metal wall rang like an out-of-tune churchbell, the welded seams developing splits from repeated blows. "Ah had a life, goddam yuh, an' y'all took it away from me!" Jonah screamed, but even he didn't know who at: God, the Green Lantern, Stiletta, her father, the warehouse's residents...perhaps his future self, dead in the past from causes unknown.
The pounding continued until his arms ached and his throat felt raw, then the twisted chair fell from his hands and he collapsed against the dented wall. He slid down to the floor, a mixture of sweat and tears streaming down his scarred face. "How much longer, Lord?" he croaked. "How long do Ah have tuh wait 'til yuh put me out of muh misery?"
"I think we've lost him."
Hal had been sitting by himself, nursing what he was pretty sure was the oldest, flattest can of Soder he'd ever drank. After dinner, most of the people had left the Hub, off to their rooms or to finish up various tasks before calling it a night. Those that stuck around broke off into their own little groups, leaving Hal by himself to reflect on everything that had happened to him that day. When Stiletta walked up and spoke to him, it took a moment for her words to cut through his ruminations. "Beg pardon?" he said.
"Jonah. I don't think he trusts anybody now, not even me." She sat down on the floor and leaned against the recliner Hal was sitting in, his right leg stretched out stiffly before him. Between the rest he'd gotten and the pills Vance had scrounged up, the pain was down to a dull throb, but the brace, while short, made it difficult for him to bend his knee. She looked up at him, saying, "Why does he have to be so stubborn?"
"I think that's how he's made it this far," Hal said. "Even back home, I know people that can't handle the concept of time travel, much less the paradox we've got going here. Remember, he's from the 19th Century: you've got to give him credit for not having a nervous breakdown the moment he got here."
Stiletta let out a sigh. "I guess so, but what about him breaking down now?"
Hal took a long swig off the can, buying time to think. "We have to back off," he said finally.
"What? Do you want him to get worse?"
"No...and that's why we need to back off. You said it yourself: he's stubborn. Every time we go after him, he's going to throw up another wall, and it'll put him more on the defensive." He shifted in his seat to look Stiletta in the eye. "We're talking about a guy whose entire livelihood was based around tracking down and killing people. His guard is permanently up, and trying to blindside him for what we say is his own good will get us nowhere."
"So we do nothing?"
"Just because we're not confronting him head-on doesn't mean we're doing nothing, it means we're showing the man that we're not the threat he thinks we are. Problem is, we'll have to wait until he makes the first move, and that might take weeks."
"And what exactly is 'the first move', hero?"
Hal smirked. "The same thing you've been trying to get him to do for a month: admit something's wrong...and he almost did that tonight, I think."
"Before or after he scared the Hell out of me?"
"During. When I suggested that he might be hurting you, Jonah dismissed it out of hand until he saw that he was. I think for a moment he really saw what this little dilemma is doing to him, and you as well." He knocked back some more Soder. "Couple more jolts like that, and he'll probably start talking."
"Meanwhile, we're all walking targets," she said, and patted Green Lantern's uninjured knee. "Great plan, hero."
Hal leaned his head back and stared at the warehouse's ceiling. "Sorry, but if you wanted an expert in psychological warfare, you should have called Batman."
As they sat there contemplating what to do about their troubled friend, Cutter came into the Hub and walked over to the two of them. "Hey, Mister Lantern, how's the leg?"
"Better, thanks...and you don't have to call me 'Mister'. Just 'Lantern' will do fine. Or 'GL', a lot of people call me that."
"Okay, cool," he said, then dropped his eyes down for a moment. "So, um, GL...you figured out where you're sackin' for the night?"
"No, not really. I guess in here on one of the couches."
"Oh, 'cause if you want, there's an extra bed in my room. It'd be quieter than the Hub, that's for sure."
Stiletta reached up and touched the young man's arm. "Cutter, you don't have to do that," she said, "we'll work something else out."
"No, no, it's cool, Dad wouldn't mind." He gestured towards Hal. "Figure if he's one of the old heroes, then he probably saved the world a billion times over. Least we can do is give him a real bed."
"All right, if you're sure," she answered, then looked over at Jordan. "Guess you two are now bunkies."
"Fine by me," he said, nodding.
Cutter's face brightened. "Really? Okay, um...crap, I gotta move that hard-drive..." He held up a finger. "Don't come down yet! I've gotta clean up the place first." He turned around and half-walked, half-ran out of the Hub, yelling over his shoulder, "Gimmie, like, an hour!"
"I'm surprised he did that," Stiletta said after Cutter left.
"What, that he offered to share his room?"
She nodded. "The extra bed was his dad's...he died last spring. Jonah and I weren't here then, but Mookie told me about it after we came in for Thanksgiving. I didn't know him too well, but he was a good guy." She waved a hand upwards, calling attention to bundles of cable crisscrossing in the rafters. "When Vance and Marya settled in, him and Cutter did most of the wiring for the place, rigged two sets of gennys...the guy was great with electronics, and his son's no slouch either." She sighed again, then said, "If it hadn't been for the damn war, the kid would be in college getting an engineering degree instead of jerry-rigging appliances."
Hal drained the last bit of Soder from the can and set it on the floor beside the recliner. "I think we've all got that in common, even Hex," he said.
"What do you mean?"
He thought of the years he spent under the thrall of Parallax, then soul-bound to the Spectre. "None of us got the future we were expecting," he answered.