Chapter Seven
Jess sat at Mort's desk, his hands folded together resting underneath his chin. His black, sweat-stained hat drooped slightly over his eyes blocking out the images of the room, although even if his hat wasn't on his head at all, his eyes wouldn't be focusing on anything around him as his mind's sight was set on something entirely different, unwelcoming as it might be. There wasn't any lamps lit, only the dim glow that came from the building across the street that filtered through the windows provided any light for the room to show that the clock on the wall was near midnight and like several recent nights, Jess couldn't sleep. Or perhaps it was in total defiance that he wouldn't sleep. Nightmares couldn't come if one didn't dream.
Three days and just as many nights had passed since he'd been away from the ranch, each day rolled by with enough work to keep his mind alert but there was always an extra emphasis of slow during the nights. This was due in large part by being around Johnny and Carol every evening, as it just wasn't sitting right inside of him to be in their constant presence. They were too young, too cuddly, but that was to be expected since they'd only been married for four months, adding to that fact was that Johnny hadn't been recuperated from his gunshot wounds for long that he'd sustained when he adamantly wanted to help Jess with his deputy job. And then there was Mort, who seemed to never tire as he often stayed out late watching over the town, which left Jess alone in the lawman's house, sometimes rather painfully aware of that loneliness like he hadn't felt in a lengthy time.
Jess shifted his weight in the chair, the creaking noise that it made against the wood floor sounded strange to his ears and he involuntarily flinched because of it, bringing a slight rumble in his chest that reminisced a deep, cat-like growl. He hated every emotion that clawed at him as much as he hated the fires of his memories. Perhaps it was because they came from the exact same source.
Jess knew what Slim and Mort were doing, joining forces to help him overcome his fears and at first, despite the uncomfortable nights, it seemed that their plan was working, but then the storage shed behind the feed store caught on fire that afternoon. The returned scent of the smoke, the crackling of the flames, even though the building wasn't a total loss, it was enough to make him step backwards again. His mind had been full of the dreaded scenes ever since and there was nothing he could do to shut it out. If his anxiety hadn't been enough to drive him away, spending another night in Mort's house with Johnny and Carol would have done it. Lonely restlessness wasn't working for him anymore, so when the clock struck eleven, Jess stepped into the night, his footsteps loud on the quiet street as he made his way to the sheriff's office.
And there Jess sat, with nothing to keep his mind occupied but the terrible memories that haunted him. He had no peace, disturbed sleep and no hope for it to end. He had worried Daisy and Mike, belted Slim and was as irritable as a freshly wakened bear. Every one of these things was all because of Bannister. The name was enough to make him want to spit. Jess knew he couldn't fight a dead man. Frank Bannister had been buried and gone for over three years, but the burden that Jess had carried because of the depraved outlaw had been part of his life for so long, even the death of the one responsible wasn't enough to erase the agony. When the first fire shook the people of Laramie, the memories, the assault, every repugnant detail from the fateful day of his past had come back with such force it was as if there had been no time spanning the raid on his family instead of the lengthy time that it had been. And now it was like it was happening all over again, from the very beginning when he'd first laid eyes on Frank Bannister.
He'd often wondered how a man as vile as Bannister could be sent to jail and not sentenced to hang. He did what a lot of outlaws schemed to do when behind bars and that was escape. It had been easy for Jess to volunteer to hunt the convict down when Marshal Tram came calling as the knowledge of Bannister's escape had brought the revenge anew. He'd almost lost his life during the hunt and then Bannister's death didn't even come from his hands. Jess would have never admitted it to Clint Gentry or even his marshal friend, but he had felt slighted by not being able to have put the fatal bullet in Bannister, something he'd wanted, even vowed to do from the day the outlaw had burned his family out.
At the young age of fifteen, he had only one attitude, retaliation, but even then, he couldn't properly handle his emotions. Jess wasn't sure all of these years later if he felt any different. There might have been no need for revenge anymore, but the bitterness and the anger that came with the furious emotion was exactly the same, only now, he was no longer a kid but a much more experienced man and still, he couldn't properly handle his emotions. If he had, he wouldn't be sitting there at Mort Cory's desk waiting for the darkness to depart.
Despite the emotional battle that raged within, as the hour wore on Jess felt his body start to relax as a wave of exhaustion rolled over him. He stifled a yawn and then his head dropped, tucking his chin into his shoulder he closed his eyes, the sleep that he'd tried to avoid beginning to claim him. Silence and darkness was all that Jess knew as he hovered on the edge of wakefulness, but as the time of rest turned into a deeper sleep, Jess' body began to fight before the images even took shape.
Jess stood alone in the middle of a room, small and sparse, yet eerily familiar. The darkness was ominous, but it couldn't conceal that he was in his childhood home, the exact place where he was born. Jess looked down at his body, noting the size of his hands, the length of his legs and down to his feet, discovering that he wasn't an inexperienced kid anymore like he was the last time he'd stepped into the room, but a fully grown man. Jess turned a complete circle, seeing everything just as it was before the fire. Fire. The word was enough to set his heart rate into a rapid speed. Or was it more than that?
Jess heard a sound that dropped a bead of a sweat down his cheek and then he turned to meet the dangerous noise. A single flame, small, yet extremely powerful, crawled across the floor where it met the wall, exploding the entire south portion of his home into a crackling blaze. He couldn't move as it felt like his feet were locked to the ground as the swells of heat hit him in the face. Jess heard a shout, but this was not a voice of his family, but came from someone he'd called partner and friend. He turned his head, expecting to see Slim coming to his rescue, but there was only a single window, and this was filled with a cruel face, taunting and terrible as the mouth came open to expel a rush of sickening laughter.
Jess cried out, the agony that he felt on the inside was starting to compete with the terror he experienced on the outside. The laughter suddenly stopped as the window exploded, but not into tiny glass shards, but with thousands of little embers that rushed in all directions, searing everything they touched, including Jess' body. Ashes dropped from the ceiling, showering his head and arms with a fine layer of gray. He looked up, the disintegrating beams giving way to the black sky above, yet he still stood rooted to the same place, not darting away from what hurtled at him. The flames grabbed at him, daring Jess to fight, but when he stood his ground, the fire sent its oppressive partner to finish what it had started and the thick plume clutched his throat and shook him fiercely.
His nose twitched, his ears strained, and suddenly Jess was choking, the spasms clutching his chest as the smoke filled his lungs. He jerked awake, landing with a thud onto the floor but as his hands rubbed over his eyes, the twitching of his nose wouldn't stop, the sounds of fire still pounding in his temples. Jess shook his head hard trying to dispel the effects of his dream. They had always disappeared when he awoke, but not this time, because now, it was real.
"Fire!" The shout came from somewhere up the street.
Jess jumped to his feet, his heart racing faster than it pumped during his nightmare and he burst through the sheriff's office door and into the darkness of the night where the acridity of the smoke burned his nose and throat at his first intake of air. He looked to his left, but nothing but darkness and a few scattered lanterns met his view, but when his head whipped to the right, the glow of the flames on the outskirts of town flashed in his eyes like a lightning bolt had come from the sky. Jess' feet began to move in the direction of the inferno, knowing before he reached the perimeter what was on fire by the familiar voices screaming out his name. As he drew closer, with the structure in full view, inside of his chest, along with the constricting fears of his past came a sharp vice-like grip. Mort Cory's house was fully alight with flames.