A couple people that have been reading this have asked me if I have anything else published. For those of you wondering the same thing, I have good news: not long after my last chapter-post, I had a meeting with a local publisher about the novel I'm working on. Don't run out to the bookstore to reserve a copy just yet, I'm still in the editing process. I just wanted to let you guys know that I am doing more than fanfic -- though I am having a grand time doing this -- and maybe in a year or two, I'll have a real honest-to-God book to promote. For now, if you want to read more by me, click on my profile for a link to my short little Star Wars fic -- it's more humorous than this one, so it'll be a nice break for you...but you have to read this installment first! No slacking off!

5: LATE-NIGHT JAWJACKIN'

The next time Jonah found himself in the Red Dog Saloon, he noticed a drastic change in the clientele: he knew everyone there. Some were friends, most were enemies, and nearly all of them were long dead and gone. He spied Lewis dealing out a hand of poker to Reinhold Bornsten, Stiletta's father and the man responsible for dragging Jonah into the future. On either side of Bornsten sat Quentin Turnbull, the rich Virginian that blamed the gunfighter for the death of his beloved son, and El Papagayo, a Mexican bandito who had crossed paths with Hex more times than he liked to remember. Solomon, Turnbull's faithful black manservant, tended the bar, pouring drinks for both Jonah's stuffed corpse and his father Woodson.

Accepting the impossible with the logic people possess only in dreams, Jonah sidled up to the bar. "Glad yuh could finally join us, son," his father said, clapping him on the back.

"Surprised they let him back in," the corpse said. "Damn near destroyed the place last time."

Jonah turned his head to either side, looking at the two of them in turn. "Weren't muh fault," he muttered, then pointed behind them to Bornsten. "He's the one whut done it."

Turnbull shook his head as he picked up his cards. "Pay that man no mind, my dear Mr. Bornsten. He has never taken credit for a single wicked deed his entire life."

"Not to mention that he's crazier than a shithouse rat," Lewis said with a laugh. "Come on...cowboys in the 21st Century? He must be nuts."

"Don't listen to 'em, son," the elder Hex told him, and pulled him close. The man reeked of alcohol, as always. "People like them is just jealous, yuh don't need 'em. Long as yuh got a bottle in one hand an' a stack o' coin in the other, the world kin go hang." He hoisted his glass as if in example.

Somewhere behind them, Jonah could hear a woman laughing. It sounded familiar, but as he turned around to look, his father tugged at him again. "Pay attention when Ah'm talkin', boy! Lord, yo're as bad as yer Ma, not listenin' tuh a damn word Ah say."

"Why should Ah?" Jonah asked. "Yo're a drunk."

"An' yuh ain't?"

Jonah pulled away from him. "Thet's dif'rent. Ah'm just...Ah kin stop right now, if'n Ah wanted."

The unseen woman's laughter rose higher. Once again, he tried to see who it was, but this time he was interrupted by Solomon. In his hand was a brandy glass filled with a black, viscous liquid, and he set it down in front of the gunfighter. "I was told tuh bring this tuh you special, Mistuh Hex," he said.

Jonah stared at the glass, his hands pressed flat against the bar on either side of it. The stuff was poison, he knew that as sure as he was breathing...but that didn't make him want it any less. He wanted to pick up the glass with both hands and guzzle it down, consequences be damned. He didn't care if it burned his throat and ate right through his stomach, he needed a drink so badly, just one mouthful, just one drop on his tongue.

With a trembling hand, he pushed the glass back towards Solomon, saying, "Yuh tell Turnbull Ah don't want a damn thing from him." His voice came out strained, the words a labor to form.

"Ain't from Mastuh Turnbull, suh," Solomon told him. "It was Mistuh Green that ordered it."

He was about to ask who the Hell Mister Green was when he heard the laughter again. Nothing stopped Jonah from looking this time, but when he caught sight of the source, he wished he hadn't.

In the corner of the saloon sat Green Lantern. His mask and ring were still intact, but he'd ditched the funny union suit in favor of a green chambray shirt and black trousers. In his lap was Stiletta, clad in a low-cut red dress and laughing, her long blond hair cascading over her bare shoulders. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Lantern was surrounded by other women from Jonah's past: Emmylou Hartley, Cassie Wainwright, Joanna Mosby, Adrian Sterling, his ex-wife Mei Ling...even White Fawn, the first girl he'd ever loved, and little Carolee, barely past seventeen and one of the last of Jonah's romantic conquests. They were all but throwing themselves at the feet of "Mr. Green", though Stiletta appeared to have the lion's share of his attention.

"Take yer damn hands off her!" Jonah yelled at him, leaving his place at the bar and advancing on the group with gritted teeth. A table sat between him and the Green Lantern, so he threw it to the side. Stiletta gasped and clung even tighter to the masked man. In fact, all of the women were backing away from Jonah.

"Don't worry, ladies," Lantern said, "I won't let him hurt any of you ever again."

"The Hell yuh say. Yo're the threat 'round here, not me."

The Lantern eased Stiletta off his lap and stood. "Are you sure? You're the one that looks out of place," he said.

It was true: Hex was still dressed in his 2050 clothes, while even Lewis and Bornsten had traded their modern duds for less conspicuous attire. The former bounty hunter stuck out like a sore thumb.

"You don't belong in the future," Lantern continued, "and there's no way you can fit in again in the past. You may as well be dead."

From its spot at the bar, the corpse said, "Thet's whut Ah've been tryin' tuh tell him."

Jonah's head whipped around. "Shut up! All of yuh, just..." He started to turn back towards the masked man, and was greeted by a fist to the face. The man's ring collided with Hex's nose, breaking it on impact. He stumbled backward and ran into the bar.

"Get back out there, boy!" Woodson shouted. "Yo're makin' me ashamed tuh call yuh my son!"

"He couldn't stand up tuh a dead man," the corpse said, "so whut makes yuh think he kin lick one thet's livin'?"

"Butt out," Jonah gasped, trying to wipe away the blood gushing out of his nose. He balled his hands into fists and stepped forward.

"Fifty pesos on the hombre verde!" El Papagayo said.

"One hundred Soames on Hex!" Bornsten countered.

"Of all the people tuh be on muh side..." Jonah growled, then swung at the Green Lantern. He managed to land a few blows, but it seemed like for every hit he made, good ol' Mr. Green followed up with three more, smiling as he did it. The ring cut up Hex with every blow, and his black shirt was soon soaked with his own blood. He exhausted himself to the point where he could barely lift his arms, but the masked man kept coming, not letting up until the gunfighter fell to the saloon floor. He tried to get back on his feet, but he felt empty, used up...dead.

Bornsten cursed and handed the Soames over to a laughing El Papagayo.

"You should have known better," Green Lantern told Hex. "You're just a relic. Why don't you crawl back to the warehouse and collect dust like the rest of the antiques?" He then turned away from Jonah and returned to the welcoming throng of women. Mei Ling produced a lacy handkerchief and wiped the blood from the Lantern's hands with a discreet smile.

"No...Ah won't let yuh take them from me, too..." Still sprawled on the floor, Jonah unholstered one of his guns and pointed it at the masked man.

Stiletta walked over to him and pulled the Magnum from his hand with barely any effort, saying, "Why don't you leave him alone, you bully?"

"But Ah...Ah'm doin' this fer yuh, sugar," Jonah said, "'cause Ah..."

"You what?"

Ah love yuh. The words refused to come out of his mouth, though, same as always. He'd tried to tell her at least a dozen times, but he always fell short. Once, he'd gotten the guts to ask if she loved him, and she'd looked at him like...well, like he was crazy. Now it was too late. He'd lost her to the mystery man, the young stud. She turned her back on Jonah and went over to the Green Lantern, who greeted her with that damned smile of his. She gave him one back as she tucked the Magnum beneath the Lantern's belt, then steadied her hands on his shoulders so she could reach up and give him a long, lingering kiss...

"NO!" Jonah hollered, loud enough to wake himself up from his own nightmare. He found himself curled up on the floor of his quarters, legs pulled to his chest and arms wrapped around the now-empty whiskey bottle. Jonah held it up in front of his face and stared at it, dazed. He had no memory of drinking it, though judging by the dampness of his shirt, more of it was probably on him than in him. Bad waste of good whiskey, Jonah thought as he sat up, then peeled off the wet shirt and tossed it in the corner.

While he knew the dream hadn't been real, the feelings it had dredged up lingered on. The loss of control, the sense of abandonment...he hated it. Jonah wasn't the sort of man who was used to feeling helpless. There was always a way out, even if it meant spilling a little of his own blood in the process. Problem was, he was fighting against Time itself...and it was winning, especially now that it had thrown a new obstacle in his path. "Green Lantern," Jonah muttered under his breath. "Whut kinda stupid name is thet?" The very thought of the man made the gunfighter grind his teeth. And knowing that this stranger was out there, possibly turning everyone against him...

Delusion or not, Jonah couldn't take that chance. He wouldn't let that bastard take away what little he still possessed without a fight. But that meant confronting the masked man for real. The voice of his stuffed and mounted corpse bubbled up in his brain: He couldn't stand up tuh a dead man, so whut makes yuh think he kin lick one thet's livin'?

"Got yuh in the end, though, didn't Ah?" Jonah said aloud, then stood up and walked over to the door. The lights in the hallway were dimmed, a power-conserving measure as most of the warehouse's residents slept. "Ripped yuh limb from limb, an' by God, Ah'll do the same tuh this Lantern fella if'n Ah have tuh."

When Hal Jordan saw the quarters he'd be sharing with Cutter, his first thought was that a Radio Shack must have exploded in the vicinity, and all the debris landed on that spot. Metal shelves bolted to the walls overflowed with small, half-dissected motors and unidentifiable parts. A plastic milk crate was engorged with circuit boards stacked vertically like old LPs. Wiring had been swept aside into corners and under the beds, where even more junk lurked like electronic dust bunnies. It didn't matter to Hal what the place looked like, though, so long as the mattress he was sleeping on was soft.

"How long do you think you'll be sticking around?" Cutter asked as they settled in for the night.

"Don't know. Guess it depends on how long it takes for me to find the help I need."

"You mean like your super-friends?"

"Yeah, like them," Hal said, "or whoever came after them." Before and during dinner, he'd pumped all the residents for information about any metas they may have been familiar with. He drew a fair share of blank looks, and the people who did understand what he was getting at usually couldn't come up with anything useful, or at least recent. In fact, for nearly all of them, Hal was the first superhero any of them had actually seen in the flesh, and certainly the only one they'd heard about post-war. There was, of course, the Batman in New York Stiletta had mentioned, but she'd never seen the man herself, and Jonah wasn't exactly someone he could talk to at the moment. Still, it's a lead, Hal thought, though I doubt Bruce would be alive after all these years. Dick maybe, or even that Drake boy, but Bruce would be...what, eighty? Ninety? He certainly wouldn't be jumping off rooftops, even he's not that good.

Despite the funny look he got from Cutter, Hal kept on his whole uniform when he got into bed, boots and all. It was an old habit: so long as the mask was on, he was "on duty", which meant he stayed prepared. It didn't matter that his ring was dead, he was still a Green Lantern.

Green Lantern...he was still coming to grips with his reinstatement, and here he was, representing the Corps in a time when there may not be a Corps. They'd only recently reformed, had they managed to weather the past half-century? And if so, why weren't they here, helping Earth recover from this nightmare? Where are any of the heroes? Hal thought as he lay there in the dark, the only sounds being a low-level hum of electrical current and Cutter's light snoring. Someone has to be left, there were too many of us, all over the globe. What bothered Hal the most was the fact that so many people had barely any recollection of superheroes before the bombs dropped. What could have happened between his time and now that nearly all of them disappeared?

The questions followed Hal as he drifted into sleep, coloring his dreams in ambiguous shades of gray. He ran down the empty streets of Seattle, calling out names and receiving no answer. He'd catch reflections of his friends and colleagues in store windows, but be greeted with nothing when he turned around. His mind was so wrapped up in the images, it didn't even register when the cold metal nuzzled his cheek. The sharp click of a hammer being cocked, however, cut right through.

Hal's eyes snapped open, and he saw the shadowed figure of Jonah Hex standing over him, barechested and pointing a gun at the Green Lantern's face. He almost asked Hex how the man figured out where he'd been sleeping, then realized this was one of the most renowned bounty hunters of the Old West. He had his ways.

"Get up," Jonah told him, his voice barely above a whisper but still full of menace. It wasn't until then that Hal realized his hands were bound behind his back. Jonah had trussed him up while he was sleeping. Hal's eyes darted over to the other bed. Cutter was still asleep, paying no mind to the small amount of light pouring through the now-open door. Jonah somehow knew what Hal must have been thinking and growled, "Make one sound, an' yuh won't make another," then stepped back just enough to let the Green Lantern get out of bed. It was hard enough to do tied up, but to make matters worse, Hal's injured leg had stiffened up while he'd been sleeping. When he tried to stand, he let in a sharp hiss of breath through his teeth, which made Jonah shove the gun in his face again.

"My leg," Hal mouthed, stopping himself from adding "you idiot" to the end of that.

"Don't care," Jonah replied, then jerked the gunbarrel in the direction of the door. Hal limped out to the hallway, then Jonah grabbed him by the back of his collar and steered him down the hall to the gunfighter's room, shoving the Green Lantern down on the small metal-frame bed once inside. Place smells like a cheap bar, Hal thought as he sat up. The dents in the wall and the empty liquor bottles on the floor added to the ambience.

After he shut the door, Jonah picked up a battered metal chair off the floor and wedged it under the door handle. With him turned around like that, Hal could see a series of diagonal scars running down Jonah's back. It looked like the man had tried hugging a mountain lion. They were the most prominent ones among the dozens of scars all over his body, a testament to a hard, violent life lived without the benefit of Kevlar or plastic surgery. When he finished his task, he walked over to the bed and stood over Hal, staring down at him for a moment before pressing the gunbarrel under the Green Lantern's chin. "Hold still," he said, then reached up with his free hand towards the mask. Instinctively, Hal leaned back and turned his face away, but Jonah grabbed him by the hair. "Do yuh want me tuh blow yer head off, boy? 'Cause Ah'll oblige yuh if'n yuh do."

"You don't need to take my mask off."

"Yes Ah do." He then let go of Jordan's hair and ripped off the mask in one fluid movement. Hal did his best to remain quiet, though the skin around his mask was still tender from the acid burn. "Ah don't cotton tuh folks whut wear masks," Jonah said, then held up the offending object. "Makes me a mite curious 'bout whut they're hidin'." He bent down close to the Lantern's face, his blue eyes meeting Hal's brown ones. "Fer whut it's worth, Ah know a couple masked men back home. They seem like alright fellas, but if'n Ah had muh druthers, Ah'd do the same damn thing tuh them." He straightened up, removed the gun from beneath Hal's chin, then tossed the mask at the Green Lantern's chest-symbol. It bounced off and landed on the floor. "Don't know why yuh'd want tuh wear such a damn silly outfit fer, anyhow."

"It goes with the job."

"Whut's thet? Head fool at the Mardi Gras?" Jonah leaned against the wall, the Magnum still pointed at Hal.

"Do you really want an answer, or is that rhetorical?"

"Reckon thet's why Ah dragged yer green butt down here: we're gonna play a little game of 'Question an' Answer'. Ah ask, yuh tell." He held up the gun, saying, "Ah've got one bullet in here. Yuh give a bad answer, Ah pull the trigger." He spun the cylinder. "If'n yuh win, yuh get tuh go on yer merry way. Yuh lose, an' Marya sets out one less plate fer Christmas dinner."

Well, Hal thought, this happened a little sooner than I expected...but certainly not in the way I expected. There was no choice but to go along with the game, though. He'd given the bindings a few tugs, but the knots were good and solid. The man knew how to truss somebody up, that was for sure. "Okay. Start asking your questions."

"Whut's yer name...an' Ah mean yer proper Christian name, not thet 'Green Lantern' nonsense."

"Pass," Hal answered, shaking his head.

"Yuh sure yuh don't want tuh reconsider?" Jonah stepped forward and put the gun to Hal's temple. "Cain't imagine why yuh wouldn't want tuh tell me, seein' as how we're supposed tuh be such good friends an' all."

After a long pause, he said, "Jordan...my name's Hal Jordan."

"There, was thet really so hard? Now how 'bout where yo're from?" He pressed the barrel harder against the Green Lantern's head. "Gonna try an' back outta thet?"

"No...but I assume by 'where', you also mean 'when'," Hal said. "Before I came here, I was in San Diego, California, the year 2005."

"Bad answer number one," Hex said, and pulled the trigger. Hal braced himself, and was greeted with the click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber. "One down, five tuh go. Want tuh change yer answer?"

"It's the truth, I swear."

"Then how come yuh said we met in 1878 afore? Cain't be from both places."

Hal tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. "I'm from around the turn of the millennium, that's where I'm supposed to be. When I met you, I had been sent there from my normal time."

Jonah pulled the gun back. "Fair enough...was it Bornsten?"

"I don't understand."

"Reinhold Bornsten. Everybody Ah've met thet got stuck here from somewheres else has thet bastard tuh thank fer it."

"No, it was an accident, plain and simple."

"Thet's one Hell of an accident."

The Green Lantern shrugged. "Happens more than you'd think."

"Ah try not tuh," Jonah said, and his eyes wandered away to the dark corners of the room. The man looked too gaunt in Hal's opinion, just a shadow of the Jonah Hex he'd met years ago (or would meet, depending on your point of view). The fire was still there, but it was beginning to sputter out. "How long yuh been here?"

"Just arrived," Hal answered, then, tentatively, he asked, "What about you? How long ago did you come to this time?"

Jonah looked over at him. Hal expected to be told to be quiet, he wasn't allowed to ask questions, but instead, the gunfighter said, "It's been so damn long, Ah honestly don't remember no more." He ran a hand through his red hair. "Yuh never did answer muh first question, by the by."

"I told you, my name's..."

"Not thet." He gestured at Hal's attire. "Whut kinda job makes yuh wear green longjohns?"

"Oh." Hal thought for a moment, trying to couch the idea in terms a man from the 19th Century would understand. "I'm kind of like a Texas Ranger."

Jonah cocked an eyebrow. "Thet a fact? Never seen a Ranger run from a mob afore, even if all he had was his longjohns."

"Let's just say I was out of options...and ammo."

"There ain't no such thing as 'out of options'. Yuh just didn't try hard enough."

"Like you've been trying to hide in a bottle? Was that your only option?" The words spilled out of his mouth before he'd realized it.

"Thet's number two, now." Jonah pointed the gun at him again and pulled the trigger. Click. "Gettin' a little personal there, don't yuh think, stranger? Ah don't care whut yuh say, y'all don't know me."

"It's true, I don't," Hal answered. He knew he was putting his life on the line, but at the rate he was going, he'd be eating a bullet tonight no matter what he said. "The Hex I knew wouldn't be afraid of an unarmed man, and if things got strange, he wouldn't get drunk and ignore it."

"Ah ain't no drunk!" Jonah grabbed the front of Hal's uniform and pulled him to his feet. "An' Ah sure as Hell ain't afraid of no baby-faced greenhorn."

"Then why did you tie me up? Why do you keep shoving a gun in my face?"

"'Cause Ah don't trust yuh. Yuh show up outta nowheres, actin' all cock o' the walk, claimin' we're old pals...Ah don't buy it, not one damn bit. Yuh may have all them convinced," he said, waving the Magnum towards the door, "but Ah think yo're holdin' something back, an' yuh ain't leavin' here 'til yuh tell me."

"I can't tell you everything."

The gunfighter scowled, then stuck the barrel under Hal's chin again. "Three."

"Don't!" Click.

"Am Ah makin' yuh nervous, boy?"

Hal looked him dead in the eye. "Compared to what I've been through lately, this is a cakewalk," he answered. "I'm not holding back by choice, believe me. If I thought it was safe to tell you, I would, but...do you know what a paradox is?" When Jonah didn't respond, Hal said to him, "It's a contradiction, something that shouldn't be possible, but it is. That's what this is: you meeting me in this time before we meet in 1878. Anything I tell you about what happened then could change it, even though it's already happened for me."

"Thet don't make one damn bit of sense."

"It's the truth. The timestream is very sensitive. One tiny change can make a ripple in the flow of time, which can make even bigger ripples, and those can make huge rifts, causing the whole thing to collapse. Trust me, I've got what you could call 'hands-on experience' in this sort of thing."

"Seems awful convenient, clamin' yuh cain't tell me nothin' less'n Ah want the whole world tuh come crashin' down."

"I know how confusing the whole idea is to you, Hex, but you're going to have to believe me when I say that we were friends. It was a brief friendship, but you were there for me when I needed you, and that's what matters. I can tell you that the last...the other time I saw you, I told you I was glad that I didn't have to count you as an enemy. I meant every word of it...but right now, you're making it really hard for me to live up to those words."

The two of them stood there for the longest time, silent and unmoving. Hal prayed that he'd gotten through to Jonah, for both their sakes. Unfortunately, the bounty hunter's face gave no hint as to what his thoughts might be. After a few minutes, though, Jonah's eyes drifted down to the floor, and he quietly asked, "Was Ah old?"

"What?"

"When yuh saw me the other time...was Ah an old man?"

Hal suddenly remembered Stiletta's description of the "statue" they'd found. "No...God, no. You looked, well, about the same as you do now, I guess. Your hair was a bit shorter in the back, though," he said, noting that it was currently long enough to start brushing Hex's shoulders, "and you were wearing...I think it was an old Confederate uniform."

"Ah was?" Both Jonah's eyes and his voice brightened a little. "Don't josh me now, son."

"No joshing, promise."

Jonah fell quiet again for a moment. "Stiletta said...she said yuh don't know nothin' 'bout...'bout how Ah died." He pushed the gunbarrel harder under Jordan's chin, but not as hard as he'd done previously. "Tell the truth an' shame the Devil, now."

"I wish I had something to tell, but...I only knew you for one day, that's it."

"One day? How kin yuh call me a friend if' n yuh only knew me fer one damn day?"

"It was a Hell of a day."

The gunfighter said nothing, his eyes drifting away again. Hal began to see the same look of distress on the man's face that he'd witnessed earlier that day.

"Hex..."

"Quiet." Jordan heard the hammer cock back, but that was all. "Less'n yuh got something useful tuh say, don't open yer mouth."

"I do...but I'm afraid to say it with this pistol jammed beneath my jaw."

"Scared thet Ah might take offense?"

Hal paused. "Yes. Yes, I am scared. Is that what you want to hear? There's a one-in-three chance that the next time you pull the trigger, you'll blow my brains out, so any rational man would be scared."

Jonah looked at Hal with red-rimmed eyes, like he hadn't slept in years, then lowered the gun. "Fine. Speak yer piece."

He took a deep breath, then asked, "Do you care about Stiletta?"

The anger in Jonah's eyes was plain to see through the exhaustion. "Sonovabitch...Ah knew it..." He brought the Magnum back up to the Green Lantern's head so fast, he scraped the barrel against the man's cheek. "Yuh cain't have her!"

"I don't want her, I just wanted you to take a look outside your own misery for a second," Jordan snapped, all too aware of the gun just inches from his face. "Maybe destroying yourself with booze makes you feel better, but it's hurting her, too. Trust me, I know what it's like to try and drink away your problems: when you sober up, they're still there, the people you love are suffering worse than you are, plus you've got the hangover to deal with." He was trying not to yell, but it wasn't easy. Jonah's behavior, his denial, was reminding Hal too much of his own bout with alcoholism. Even after he was given the ring, it took him a while to face up to the fact that he was responsible for a lot of his own problems, and that if he wanted things to get better, he had to dry up first. "I don't blame you for wanting to hide from all this. I'm only a half-century removed from this time, and the thought that this is where the world's headed makes me sick. And as far as that corpse goes..."

Jonah flinched at the word like it was a lash.

"As far as that goes," Hal continued, "you're gonna have to learn to live with it. Yes, it's horrible to think that you died in some undignified fashion, but let me tell you a little secret of life that I learned the hard way: people don't judge you by your last act as much as they do by the sum of all your years. Everything counts, every grand deed and misdeed. Some people...some people will focus more on one than the other, sure, but that doesn't mean you should lie down and give up because things aren't going to turn out the way you wanted."

"Ah should kill yuh right now fer talkin' like thet tuh me," Jonah snarled.

"Then do it and get it over with, because if you're not going to listen to what I've got to say, I quit."

"Why yuh so all-fired concerned 'bout whut happens tuh me, anyhow?"

"Because Stiletta asked me to help an old friend," Hal told him, "and because if you don't get your head on straight again, I might die." He let that hang there for a moment before going on. "When I met you in 1878, I was so messed up, I couldn't even remember my own name. If you hadn't been there to rescue me, I probably wouldn't be standing here right now." He shook his head. "I shouldn't be telling you this, it could screw up the whole timeline."

The gunfighter regarded him for a moment, then said, "So yo're only tryin' tuh save muh neck so's Ah kin save yorn somewheres down the line."

"Not completely, but yeah, that is part of it. The other part is because not too long ago, I was where you are. I'd lost nearly everything that I cared about, and I thought there was no one that gave a damn about my pain, so I...I made some bad decisions. They made sense to me at the time, but..." Now it was Hal's turn to look away. "When my friends tried to tell me I was doing the wrong thing, I refused to listen, and it ruined my life. You wouldn't believe what I went through to get back to where I am today." He looked at Hex again and said, "There's people here that are worried about you, Jonah, and they want to help you, but you won't let them. I can understand why you don't trust me, and that's fine, but trust them, before you do something you regret."

Eyes still red, mouth pressed in a hard, thin line, Jonah drew in a long, slow breath, then let it out and said, "Ah've already got a long list of regrets, but it started long afore Ah got here." He then let go of the Green Lantern. "Ah don't agree with everything yuh said, an' Ah sure as Hell don't believe all of it, but Ah think yo're doin' yer best tuh be straight with me. Ah'll admit, Ah'm a mite impressed y'all told me off like thet, whut with me havin' a gun at yer head an' all. Yuh don't have muh full trust yet, but yuh got muh respect, Jordan."

"Does that respect include you untying me?"

"Don't rush me, son." Jonah holstered his gun, walked over to where his coat lay, then pulled out a knife from somewhere within. "Just 'cause Ah'm doin' this don't mean thet Ah'm turnin' muh back on yuh. If'n yuh cross me, Ah'll come down on yuh so hard, yuh won't know yo're dead 'til yuh've been in Hell fer an hour." With that, he reached behind Hal and cut the restraints.

"Thanks...and you won't be sorry, I promise." The Green Lantern rubbed his sore wrists, then bent down and picked up his mask off the floor. "I'm just glad we reached an understanding before you finally hit that bullet."

"Nothin' tuh worry 'bout there," Hex said as he reloaded the Magnum. "Looks like Ah forgot tuh put a bullet back in the gun after Ah emptied the cylinder."

"You...what?" Hal stared at the gunfighter. "You were threatening me with an empty gun?"

"If'n Ah was gonna kill yuh outright, Ah would've slipped muh Bowie 'tween yer ribs while yuh was sleepin'. Nice, quiet death. Wanted tuh be sure yuh was a skunk afore Ah went an' did something like thet, though. Ah ain't the heartless bastard some folks think Ah am." He clicked the now-loaded cylinder shut with a smile. "Ah'll remember next time."

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hex, you're a menace."