Renegades and Pretty Women

Chapter Twelve

Flashes. Jonah was aware of flashes of images.

Penny. He saw Penny. She was looking into his eyes and smiling as he told her how much loved her. As he opened his heart and let her know about the future he wanted for the two of them and the life he hoped they would one day have.

Flashes of Penny getting onto that train arm in arm with that rich banker in a top hat, and setting off to start her new life with the rich man, leaving a broken Jonah behind in her wake.

Scarlett in all her soft feminine glory, purring beneath him. Telling him that she wanted nothing more than to have him with her as she traveled east. Making promises of a future. Blinding him with her passion and with the way she seemed to know exactly what to do to take a mans attention away from anything other than the pleasure her body could give him.

Scarlett locking that bank door and pulling a gun.

Scarlett shooting that old man, probably killing him.

Scarlett shoving that sack of money into his chest and screaming for help.

Scarlett blowing him a kiss before riding away and leaving him to die on the dirty street.

Penny’s clown. Scarlett’s fool. Jonah was quite simply a fool in every sense of the word. Believing that women could love! Believing that love actually existed! It didn’t. Reb and Bart had been right all along.

Too bad Jonah had had to die to learn the lesson his best friends had been trying to teach him all along.

“Wake up ya damned stubborn jackass! We gotta get a move on and yer lazy backside has been layin’ here for a damned day and a half!”

That voice… Surely Jesus wasn’t Joe. Or maybe he hadn’t made it to heaven given his act of cowardice at the end of his life and Joe’s voice was coming from the devil… That would certainly make more sense.

Suddenly, a splash of ice cold water was raining down on his face and Jonah sat bolt upright with a gasp and a sputter before crying out in pain and laying his hand over his bandaged side.

His eyes flew open and he took in his surroundings quickly. Joe was crouched beside him with an empty tin cup clutched in her hand, though Jonah had a sneaking suspicion that that cup had been filled with water just a moment ago.

They were in what seemed to be a handmade lean-to with pine boughs for a roof. A small fire was burning at the entrance, too small to give off much smoke but providing a tiny bit of warmth to those inside.

“I’m not dead?” Jonah managed to ask, and immediately wished he hadn’t spoken when he felt the dryness in his parched mouth and throat. Joe snorted and shoved a canteen into his chest.

“No thanks to you. What kind of idiocy must a man suffer from to stay out in the open like ya did with guns goin’ off ‘round ya?!”

“The bad kind.” Jonah muttered and Joe grunted as if in agreement. “You sure as hell ain’t a gentle nursemaid.” he added as Joe’s finger began poking at the bandages on his bare arms.

It was then that Jonah realized he was wearing only his trousers, no wonder he felt so damn cold.

“If’n ya wanted a gentle nursemaid ya shoulda arranged that ‘fore you took part in a bank robbery and got yerself shot all to hell and back.”

Jonah glared at her. Her dirty face was pale and dark circles surrounded her tired eyes. Her buckskin clothes were covered in blood, his blood.

“How long did you say we’d been here?” Jonah asked as he looked down at the bandages. One around his upper right arm which was in a makeshift sling and one lower around his forearm. Then the third on his side. His stomach growled and then clenched tightly and his mouth still felt dry and scratchy, as if he’d been chewing on wool sock.