"You're in my heart. You're in my mind. Everywhere ahead, everywhere behind. Every turn I take, you're right around the bend. It's like your ghost is chasin me when i'm awake, when I'm asleep. There's a part of you in every part of me. And I can't outrun you... I thought there might just come a time, when I wouldn't regret tellin' you goodbye. Lookin' back I shoulda realized, I can't outrun you." Trace Adkins 'Can't Outrun You'
Jonah stared out the window of his hotel room and out across the dusty town. How long had he been here now? A month? Two? Three? Hell he couldn’t remember. Time didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Nothing had mattered in five long years. Jonah had thought he’d finally figured things out. He had thought he’d learned what his life was supposed to be and so he had followed that path… and in doing so he had lost everything that he had ever loved. His dignity. His self respect. His friends. His Joe….
An image of that red haired, more stallion than mare filly flashed through his mind and Jonah nearly cried out in anger at the pain it inflicted.
An irritated moan came to his ears and he remembered the well paid and very talented whore that was currently on her knees in front of him, her full lips and hot mouth teasing and pleasuring his cock in ways that only years of practice could teach a woman to do.
Jonah put his hand on her blond hair and tried to focus on the pleasure she was bringing him and it worked for a moment as he threw his head back.
Then his traitorous mind broke in again. Where was Joe? Was she okay these days? Jonah had gone to her cabin a few times over the last five years in hopes that she’d be there but it was clear the place had been abandoned. He knew he shouldn’t have tried to see her, after all the woman had told him not to… He figured after being the idiot he had been, Joe deserved much better than him and he wondered with a jealous jolt whether or not she had found it.
“Maybe I should just go.” sighed the whore between his legs, he was sure he knew her name it simply wasn’t coming to him at the moment. Jonah looked down at his cock and realized it had begun to deflate.
With embarrassment he nodded and quickly plopped his hat over his naked lap.
“Sorry about that.” he said quietly. She nodded as she stood up and adjusted her petticoat and corset.
“It happens sometimes.” she replied with a shrug. “Whoever she is, you should probably get back to her. Clearly you’re not over it.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Jonah muttered as he grabbed the whiskey bottle off the bedside table and downed a long swig of it. How pathetic did a man have to be when the whores were offering him advice on his love life? Apparently pretty damn pathetic.
Jonah heard her clear her throat and he turned his gaze up to her painted face and saw that she was holding out her hand and eyeing him expectantly.
“What the hell for?” he demanded, knowing she wanted coin.
“For wasting my time up here. It’s not my fault your equipment ain’t working today.”
Jonah grumbled under his breath and stood quickly. He pulled his pants up and buttoned them before digging around in his pocket for coins.
“Take it!” he snapped as he all but threw the two tiny pieces of metal into her hand. “And get the hell out!”
Jonah found himself alone again and went to the washbasin to splash his face with the day old water.
Jonah’s life had completely fallen apart. He had tried to live as a gambling outlaw who looked out for himself and had no friends but it had been like trying to wear a boot that was a single size too small.
Bart and Reb had been right. He was a settler. He wanted a house, maybe not to live in every day of the year because he did like to sleep under the stars at times, but a home to go back to when the weather began to turn. He wanted to have his friends back. He wanted to hear Reb’s tall tales and Bart’s grumbling.
But most of all he wanted Joe.
He wanted her touches. Her kisses. Her smiles. He wanted the bond they had shared to be back again.
But Jonah would never have any of those things. He was alone and he’d done it to himself. He was the one person he had to blame.
Now he’d lost his friends. He’d lost Joe. And he’d lost any memory of the man he had once been. Decent. Faithful. Loyal. The kind of man a man could look in a mirror and not be ashamed of…. That man was gone. And all those things he had once had, all those things he had once been, he had replaced with whiskey.
Jonah pulled on his stiff, sweat stained shirt and buttoned it quickly before sliding into his worn vest.
After hooking his gun belt around his hips and plopping his hat on his head, Jonah left the hotel and squinted as he stepped into the bright midday sunlight.
There was only one thing to do when you were out of whiskey, out of coin and too drunk to play poker without losing the shirt off your back.
He headed down the road to the shipping yard and the loading boss nodded in greeting and pointed down the wooden train station landing toward several train cars that were being unloaded. Fifty pound sack after fifty pound sack of oats, feed and flour were being picked up and tossed onto the loading dock.
Jonah rolled up the sleeves of his blue chambray shirt and quickly got to work.
Jonah worked until nearly dark, unloading the train and getting the supplies to the stores they were destined for. He collected his pay for the day, three dollars worth, and then began to make his way to the saloon.
He just wanted a bottle of whiskey and his bed at the hotel. He stepped out of the saloon with his bottle of whiskey and caught a flash of red hair turning a corner around the mercantile down the road.
“Joe!” he yelled and without putting much thought into what he was doing, Jonah raced down the street and rounded the corner only to find a woman in a worn gingham dress looking shocked and scared of him as she hung clothes on a line.
“Sorry, ma’am…” he mumbled, holding his hands up to show he meant no harm.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked, her gaze going toward the door next to her as if wondering if she could get there in time to escape him.
Jonah shook his head. “No, I thought you were somebody else.” He turned away from her and made his way, shoulders slumped, back to his hotel room.
He quickly opened his whiskey bottle and took a long swig before walking to the mirror and looking into it.
He could see why the woman had been so scared of him. His clothes were dirty, stained and torn. His face was covered in a thick beard and mustache since he hadn’t shaved in weeks. His gray eyes, once bright, were now dull and bloodshot from both alcohol and lack of sleep.
It was a curse really. Joe’s face filled his mind whenever he closed his eyes to sleep, so he drank to forget her, but drinking simply made him think of her more and yet now he needed the whiskey to get drunk enough to pass out and get those few hours of sleep he was able to find before the whiskey wore off and he woke up with a pounding head ache.
He’d been a fool to think he could tell her goodbye and that would be the end. Joe was everywhere. He saw her everywhere he turned. He felt his hand in hers when he was sitting here alone. He could feel her lips on his face and her fingertips on his skin.
With a growl, Jonah downed another big swig of whiskey and prayed for some relief from the memories he couldn’t seem to outrun.
***
“Hey, mama, watch me!” Clayton exclaimed as he climbed up on a barrel beside his pony.
Joe couldn’t help but laugh lightly. Whenever that boy said ’hey, mama, watch me’ something entertaining was bound to follow.
She sat down the metal rake she’d been cleaning out the barn with and leaned against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Go for it, kid.” she replied and Clayton looked over his shoulder and smiled brightly.
Joe felt an instant of pain. The boy looked just like his father. Same thick blond hair. Same gray eyes. The same lighthearted and good natured glow about him.
She pushed those thoughts away and instead focused on her child.
“Alright, here I go!” he exclaimed.
Clayton climbed up on his paint pony and stood in the saddle. Joe shook her head as she watched him grab the reins and then urge the pony he called Chief to take several steps forward.
“Do ya see me, mama?!” Clayton asked, a huge smile spreading on his chubby four year old cheeks. Joe nodded proudly.
“I see ya, alright. Why yer darn near the most talented little cowpoke I’ve ever seen in all my life.”
“Really?” Clayton asked with disbelief and then his foot slipped and he tumbled off the pony, landing on his back hard on the ground below.
Joe ran to the corral fence and launched herself over it, shooing Chief away before crouching down beside her son and smoothing his hair from his brow as he stared up at the sky, a frown on his face.
“Are ya alright there, cowpoke?” Joe asked, carefully masking her concern. A sigh escaped Clayton’s lips and he nodded as he met her gaze.
“I think I need some more practice ‘fore I’m the most talented cowpoke, mama.” he admitted and Joe laughed as she helped him to his feet.
“Yer still yer mama’s favorite little cowpoke.” she assured him, swatting the back of his buckskin pants and chambray shirt to clear away the dirt. She would have rather he wear buckskin shirts since they were something she could make without buying materials but the boy insisted that he had to wear clothes like his Uncle Bart.
Joe knew that the last five years would have been much harder if not for Bart. While he hadn’t been around every day, he stopped in at least a few times a year and always brought supplies for the house and gifts for Clayton.
He had stayed with her up until Clayton had been four months old before she’d finally made him leave and Joe knew that bringing the boy into the world would have been a much scarier and daunting task had Bart not been around.
She smiled when she remembered just how flustered and awkward the man had been when it had come time for her to give birth.
When Clayton had been four months old, Joe had known she had to tell Jonah about his son. It hadn’t been right of her to keep the gift that was Clayton from the one who had helped create him. And so she had sent Bart off with a note for Jonah and instructions to track him down and give it to him.
Bart had returned several months later and had let Joe know that he had given Jonah the letter and after reading it, Jonah had crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it into a fire. Jonah had said that Joe had been a mistake and there was no proof that the child she had written about was his. He had also let Bart know to never bother him again.
Joe had cried that night once she’d been alone. She had cried long and hard but then had dried her eyes and gone to sleep, promising herself that she would never give Jonah anymore of her tears. And hard as that was sometimes, as long and lonely as the nights could get it, she had remained true to that promise.
She had her son. She was still trapping and hunting to make her living. She still made or grew most of what she and her little family needed to get by and Bart had become a very good friend who filled Clayton’s need for a male influence in his life.
“Well come along then, cowpoke, and help me get this barn cleaned up so I can go fix us up some supper. I don’t know about you but I got a empty place in my middle.” Joe said, pushing her sad thoughts aside and urging her son toward the barn.
Clayton nodded and poked his stomach. “Yep, right ‘bout here.” he replied with a grin. Joe tousled his thick blond hair and led him into the barn to finish up the work.
***
“And they rode off into the sunset and lived happily ever after, the end.” Joe said with a smile as she sat on the bed beside Clayton that night and pulled his covers up tight around him.
“Mama, yer lyin’.” Clayton argued with a shake of his head.
“First off, boy, ya don’t call people liars unless yer real good and sure they’re lyin’. And second, what makes ya think I’m lyin’ to ya?”
“Well ya gotta be lyin’. Cuz if Josephine and Jonah could go through all of that and be a happy family then where’s my pa? Happy endin’s ain’t real.”
Joe felt as if the boy had just stabbed her in the heart. He didn’t know that the tales he had told were true stories about his mama and pa. Clayton had no idea her name was anything other than mama or Joe and he certainly hadn’t ever heard his fathers name.
“Now why would you think happy endin’s aren’t real, cowpoke?” she asked as she adjusted his pillow. “We’re happy ain’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess we are.” Clayton agreed with a nod. “It’s just… it sure would be nice to have a pa ‘round here.”
“Your pa can’t be here, Clayton. We’ve done talked ‘bout that.”
“I know.” the boys said sadly as he picked at his cover. “He’s in heaven, right?”
“That’s right.” Joe replied, feeling guilt well up inside of her as she lied to her son. But she had to lie to him. She couldn’t very well tell him that his pa, the man she had loved, had turned his back on them both and didn’t care. Surely that would him worse than her lie.
“I’m sorry I made ya sad, mama. I know you take real good care of me and I am happy, honest. I’m yer little cowpoke.”
Joe nodded and kissed his head. “That you are. Now get ya some sleep, cuz tomorrow we gotta check our traps.”
“Yay! I wonder if the ones I set got us something.”
“They may have.” Joe agreed as she stood. “Why I’ve heard it said that those beavers are crazy ‘bout peppermint sticks.”
Clayton was giggling as Joe blew out his lamp and shut his door quietly behind her. Once she was alone she put her back against the wall and buried her face in her hands.
Damn Jonah Winchester for all he’d done to her. Damn him for making her fall in love. Damn him for breaking her heart. But more importantly damn him for breaking their sons heart.
And yet despite what he’d done she missed him. She missed his laughter. She missed his touch. The way his calloused hands and hard body had taught her what it was to be pleasured by a man. His was still the only body she had ever had. Joe had never been with any other. She missed the way his gray eyes had always lit up when they’d seen here and sparked with laughter. His eyes had always looked at her as if she was beautiful and perfect and Joe had loved that…. Then she’d gone and ruined it by wanting more and Jonah had thrown everything they had away by refusing to feel the same.
Joe shook her head and stuck out her chin as she lowered her hands. She had too much to do to worry about Jonah. He had made his choices and she and Clayton were going to be just fine.
Joe Redding hadn’t been raised to be any other way and she was raising her son just the same.