Renegades and Stubborn Pride (sequal to Renegades and Pretty Women)

Chapter Six

“See they got that one guard set up that we’ll have to deal with but it looks like everybody else is sound asleep. Just like little babes under a tin roof durin’ a rainstorm.” Reb whispered as he and Jonah lay on their stomachs beneath some bushes just outside the glow of the firelight.

                Jonah raised a brow at the other man and then he shook his head and glanced around the camp, his eyes immediately finding Bart and Joe lying off to the side fairly close to the fire. Jonah knew the men had probably put them closer to the fire to make them easier to see and cause them to think twice about trying to sneak off into the night.

                Jonah could have taught him a thing or two if they had asked him. The camp was too big, the men too spread out and no one was on the backside of the prisoners between they and the forest. Clearly these men were stupid…. Or simply too beat up to give a hell.

                Jonah studied Bart first. The man was sitting up but from where Jonah sat it appeared that he was sound asleep. His face was a mess of bruises and welts and Jonah knew that his right eye was so swollen that even if he woke it wouldn’t open. Bart’s shirt had been lost somewhere along the way and the skinny man’s ribs were also bruised. If Jonah had to guess he’d say they might even be broken.

                He tried to find sympathy for his long lost friend but no matter how hard he tried, none would come. This was the man who had once been a friend that Jonah would have trusted with his life but now seemed more like a stranger. That was the man who had helped to hide his son from him. The man who had kept Jonah from being a real father to Clayton. Jonah didn’t care what reason Bart had for his deception. He didn’t care if God himself had come down and told Bart not to tell Jonah about his son, Bart still should have found a way to let him know. The fact that he hadn’t done that told Jonah just what kind of man the skinny half Mexican bastard really was.

                Then Jonah found his gaze moving to Joe. She was lying on her side with her back to him, preventing him from seeing the face he’d spent the last five years wishing he could see.  Despite the hurt and betrayal he felt at the knowledge of her deceit, he couldn’t deny, at least not to himself, that he was happier than he’d been in a long time just seeing her lying there. That woman owned a bigger piece of his heart and soul than he cared to admit.

                He was pleased to see that she was still wearing the oversized buckskin. She just wouldn’t have been Joe if she’d been wearing anything else. He swallowed hard when he saw that her pants were indeed covered in blood but thankfully most of it appeared to be dry instead of fresh, (or at least he hoped so.)

                “So how we gonna take care of that guard without wakin’ everybody up?” Reb whispered but his words fell on deaf ears since Jonah was already moving away from him. Silently he slipped through the shadows, unseen and unheard. Jonah had had a lot of practice at moving unnoticed. As a boy it had been a necessary means of survival, at first to avoid beatings and later to steal what little food and money he could to get by.

                Jonah felt a bit of uneasiness run down his spine. He wasn’t a killer. As a matter of fact he avoided killing anyone unless it was absolutely necessary to his own survival. Getting Joe and Bart out of here would probably involve killing one or more, maybe even all, of these men. And chances were not all of them were going to be aware death was coming… It wouldn’t be a fair fight. Could Jonah murder them?

                The answer to that was yes. Yes he could. Jonah had a strong sense of loyalty and he protected what was his with a fierce passion. Joe wasn’t his, not anymore, but Clayton was, and these men had shot the boy’s mother right in front of him and would have hurt his son as well if they boy hadn’t managed to run away.