Jonah Hex: Shades of Gray #6

[arcalian]

Jonah Hex: Shades of Gray
Issue #6: "Respite"
Written by: Susan Hillwig
Cover by: Eli Cadavona
Edited by: Jay McIntyre

[arcalian]

He could taste smoke in his mouth. Smoke and dirt and some strange, metallic tang...blood. It was blood, but not his own. His desiccated tongue probed the spaces between his rotted teeth, relishing the taste as his hands dug a path through the rubble that smothered him. Just beyond the corner of his eye socket, he could see the others digging as well. They’d been doing this for so long, clawing their way out of the tomb they’d been imprisoned in. Down in the dark, they’d sensed their master’s defeat, but it had only strengthened their resolve to escape. So they continued to shred what was left of their hands as they burrowed past bits of metal and stone and wood, inch by inch.

Then there was light. Did it fall upon his face first, or someone else’s? It didn’t matter: all their thoughts were the same thought, all their eyes saw with the same vision. So as one, they worked harder, until the light poured over all of them. Free, they were free...but the pain! The damnable light was blinding! He shrieked along with the rest, cowering amongst the charred remains of what was once a town as they tried to adjust to such abominable conditions. After a while, they began to stand, one by one, until all were at attention. Some still flinched under the light’s harsh glare, but it wasn’t enough to deter them from the task at hand.

The trail was found, and the march began. The strongest among them conjured up horses to ride, while the weaker ones had to make do on foot. How they proceeded didn’t matter, so long as all their minds were focused upon the same mandate. It was in his mind as well, the rhythm of the words acting like a cadence to accompany their long march: Traitor...find the traitor...make him pay...

[arcalian]

Jonah Hex sat bolt upright, an intense pain in his chest finally rousing him from the bizarre dream. It was only a dream, wasn’t it? Rather different from the others he’d been having about being dead, but still...Lord, why did his chest hurt so damn much? He clutched at the area over his heart while his eyes rolled madly in his head, trying in vain to figure out where he was. He was surrounded by trees and soft grass, but that didn’t make sense. Hadn’t there been a fire? Didn’t everything get burned up? Yes...yes, it did, including...including himself.

He didn’t want to do it, but Jonah forced himself to look downward. He expected to see nothing but a smoldering corpse, but instead he discovered that he looked perfectly normal. The hand at his chest was covered in undamaged flesh, and even his clothes were intact, from his collarless shirt to his jeans, all the way down to the spurs on his boots. Still not convinced, his other hand reached up and probed his face: it was young and whole, unmarked by either the fire or old scars. Sonovabitch, he thought, the damn thing didn’t let me down in the least. Even as he held his hands before him and flexed them into fists, Jonah could hardly believe that the black ring had once again managed to put him back together as if nothing had happened. Though the shock of it all had blurred his memory somewhat, he could recall just enough to know that the task couldn’t have been easy: pinned under fallen trees, the fire had burned every square inch of Hex’s body, all the way down to the bone. Despite that, the ring had somehow...reassembled him from whatever had been left, probably filling in the gaps with that strange black stuff the ring seemed to endlessly produce, turning it all into living flesh by means unknown. But while it was just beginning the process of doing this, a group of men in bulky clothes had come along and freed his seemingly-dead body, and Hex decided to run...or had the ring decided?

He could remember what a labor it had been just to form words in that state, so perhaps it was the ring that made his skeletal frame move, translating Jonah’s fear of capture into an order to run. Either way, he had escaped those oddly-clad men, then fled for God knows how long until he collapsed in this lush clearing, his mind apparently shutting down until the ring was finished repairing his body. Probably better thet way, he thought as he ran the material of his shirt between his fingers. It hurt bad enough when the ring pushed thet black stuff through muh skin just tuh make a knife...cain’t imagine how loud Ah would’ve screamed if’n it was doin’ the same thing tuh make clothes. It certainly explained why his chest hurt so badly when he woke up.

Thankfully, that pain was now down to a dull throb, easy to ignore as he got to his feet. Daylight poured down upon the clearing, making it hard for Jonah to see. He shaded his eyes with one hand, muttering, “Be nice if’n the ring had given me muh hat back as well,” then quickly followed that up with, “Thet don’t mean Ah want y’all tuh make it now! No more makin’ stuff without muh say-so!”

He still wasn’t sure how much the ring understood, but he figured it was best to be explicit, just in case. As he looked around the clearing, he realized that his order was unnecessary: his hat was only a couple of feet away from where he’d been laying. As he knelt down to pick it up, he saw that it was perched on top of a large leather satchel. “Whut in blazes?” he said aloud, putting his hat on before he picked up the satchel and turned it over in his hands. It looked oddly familiar, and when he saw the initials JWH burned into the corner of the leather flap, it finally hit him. This is from muh scoutin’ days with the Army...or at least it looks like the one I toted around back then. But why would the ring make a copy of this? He opened the flap and found his gun belt and Dragoons nestled inside -- like himself and his clothes, they’d been perfectly restored to their pre-fire condition -- along with a U.S. Army-issue wool blanket. This ain’t whut Maggie gave me, he thought. How come the ring gave me this instead of thet other blanket? The answer came to him scant seconds later: ‘Cause yer mind knows this blanket better than the other one, just like it plucked a knife outta yer memory thet y’all were familiar with. Puttin’ yer body back together, thet’s one thing, but makin’ something outta thin air? Reckon it needs a blueprint of some sort. So it picks things outta yer mind thet yuh know real well. Y’all know this satchel a whole lot better’n thet bag with the funny “zipper” thing on it, so it made this one instead. Serves the same purpose, right?

Jonah nodded absently as he thought on this. In that sense, the black ring seemed to operate in the same way as Hal’s green one: whatever he could think of, the ring could make, though as Jonah looked over the rest of the satchel’s contents, it appeared as if there were some limits. The bottles of water that had been in the duffle bag were no longer present, and the “map” was now an odd patchwork affair, with much of the accordion-folded paper left blank. Those are the parts yuh didn’t bother tuh look at, Jonah told himself, so the ring ain’t got no idea whut tuh put there. He sadly found that it was a similar case with the scrap of paper that had replaced the one Maggie originally jotted her telephone number upon: Jonah hadn’t memorized it, so the best the ring could do was a childlike scrawl of symbols that vaguely resembled numbers, with the only legible portion being Maggie’s name. “Yuh did yer best, son,” he said quietly. “Ain’t no way Ah kin fault yuh fer tryin’.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he saw that a skein of indigo had formed over himself. Was he actually becoming comfortable with the notion of having this black ring trapped inside of him? To be sure, the thought of what it had done to heal his body and restore his belongings didn’t make him want to vomit like it had the last time, but Jonah still had no desire to make this a permanent relationship.

“Yuh’d best not be playin’ with muh head,” he growled, a sudden wave of red wiping away the indigo. “Ah may be stuck with yuh fer now, but soon’s Ah get the chance tuh ditch yuh, Ah’m not gonna hesitate one damn bit. So don’t yuh dare try an’ convince me otherwise, yuh savvy?”

Jonah slung the satchel over his shoulder and, after a brief glance at the painfully-bright sun to get his bearings, began to walk west. Due to his mad dash through the burning woods, he had no clue as to where he might be in relation to Coast City, so west seemed like the best choice -- at worst, he’d walk all the way to the Pacific Ocean, then head either north or south to reach his destination. After a while, he noticed that the land was sloping upward and the trees thinning, so he glanced behind in the hopes that he could spot a road or something else to help him figure out where he was. The woods he’d been walking through stretched for miles, with a large section to the northeast that was now nothing more than blackened cinders. “Damnation,” he breathed, “Vista Verde must’ve been right in the middle of thet.” With that assumption in mind, he pulled out the map, but the ring had done such a poor job of replicating it that Jonah couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Frustrated, he tossed it to the ground...then his jaw fell open as he saw the map evaporate into an ashen cloud that swirled up into the air before him. He backed away from it, but it soon swept over his body and absorbed right into his skin. A chill ran up Jonah’s spine as it happened, not only because of the oddity, but also because it felt familiar, and he didn’t know why. “Please, stop doin’ crazy shit like thet!” he yelled. “It ain’t endearin’ y’all tuh me in the least!” Like all the other times Jonah directly addressed the ring, there was no way of knowing if it understood, and he was beginning to wonder why he bothered.

The land eventually leveled off, and the woods stayed fairly sparse, though Jonah was feeling far too weary to take notice of either. Not a physical weariness, more spiritual: he wasn’t sure how much longer he could endure this bizarre life he’d been reborn into. He admitted to feeling a small amount of gratitude that the black ring seemed to care enough about him to keep putting him back together, but the price...after what happened to him in the fire, could he still be considered human? Was he still Jonah Hex, or just some construct that thought it was? He hoped Green Lantern could tell him for sure, one way or the other.

[arcalian]

It was just past midday when Jonah spotted the first signs of civilization: a split-rail fence that bordered a large grassy clearing. Nailed to one of the posts was notice reading PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO TRESPASSING. Jonah presumed it was referring to the land on the other side of the fence and not where he was standing, though there didn’t appear to be anything of note on either side. Best not tuh aggravate whoever put it up, they might take a potshot at yuh, he thought, and began to turn northward so as to follow the fence line. That was when he saw the horse standing about thirty yards away in the clearing, its head bent to graze. Jonah actually felt his breath catch in his throat at the sight of it -- he hadn’t seen an actual horse since the day he died, and this one was such a beautiful specimen. A fine, strong-looking mare, about two years old going by its general size. Sadly, Jonah still couldn’t see colors properly, so its coat appeared to be a faint orange as it cropped the grass, but that did little to mar its beauty.

Forgetting all his fears of potentially being shot, Jonah swung his legs over the fence and walked slowly up to the animal. “Hey there, girl, ain’tcha just a sight fer sore eyes?” he said, brushing a hand gently along its back. The horse lifted its head and regarded him for a moment, then went back to grazing. “Thet’s right, don’t mind ol’ Jonah none. Ah won’t hurt yuh one bit.” He continued to run his hands over the animal, letting the coarse hairs of its mane slip through his fingers and breathing in the smell of its sweat. God, he honestly thought he’d never see a horse again! The temptation to just jump on its bare back and ride off was so strong he almost felt dizzy, but he resisted. Whatever else Jonah Hex might have become in these past few days, the one thing he’d never be was a horse thief. Oh, but he could dream, couldn’t he? Beneath his palms, he could feel the steady beating of the animal’s heart, and he imagined that to be the rhythm of its hooves on the ground as it ran. Just the thought of its existence made him smile: this was the proper way to travel, not inside a cold steel-and-glass monstrosity on fat rubber wheels, belching out smoke that smelled worse than manure. He could understand the need for using automobiles every once in a while -- rather like having your own personal train, minus the track -- but there was no way to deny the exhilaration of riding hard on a horse across an open plain, the wind blowing through your hair as you stood in the saddle. Did people these days still do that, or were they all fixated on riding in machines?

He got his answer moments later when he heard a little girl’s voice some distance away. Jonah let go of the horse and looked further down the clearing to see a man leading another horse, which was dressed in full tack. Seated upon it was the girl, perhaps no older than six, swinging her legs out of the stirrups and saying, “Faster, Papa Mike! I wanna go faster!”

“Once you learn all the basics, you can go as fast as you like,” the man replied, guiding the horse by the reins. “First off, you’ve got to keep your feet in the stirrups.” He made the horse stop walking, then went over and slipped the girl’s feet back into place. “Remember, this is part of how you steer: by using leg pressure. You can’t be acting all silly like this, or else the horse won’t know what you want to do.”

“But I said I wanna go faster.” She patted the animal on either side of its neck, repeating her command, “Go faster!”

“Horses don’t speak English, honey.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re horses.” The man said this with an air of infinite patience, and Jonah nodded in admiration as the man continued to gently inform his young student on the finer points of horsemanship. It made Jonah feel good to see this little scene, though that good feeling soon turned to worry when the little girl glanced his way and said loudly, “Papa Mike, who’s that?”

Jonah stiffened, unsure if he should run back into the woods or not. His track record so far when it came to interacting with other people in this century wasn’t all that good, yet his gut told him that he had nothing to fear from this man. There was also the bonus information that his altered vision gave him: the man’s aura didn’t show the slightest hint of red. Still, just to be on the safe side, Jonah kept his hands in plain view as he walked slowly towards them.

The man met Jonah halfway, holding up a hand when they were about fifteen feet away from each other. “Hi there,” the man said in a wary tone. “Hate to tell you this, but this is private property you’re traipsing around on.”

Jonah took off his hat and did his best to look tame. “Sorry ‘bout trespassin’. Ah saw yer sign an’ all, but...well, Ah just wanted a better look at yer horse back there. She’s a beaut.” He gestured towards the one the little girl sat upon. “Y’all got a lot of them?”

“Just three. That’s Duchess behind you, this one’s Lucille, and Scout’s running around here someplace.”

“Are you a cowboy?” the girl suddenly asked.

Jonah smirked and said, “Thet’s one way of puttin’ it.”

“Then how come you don’t have a horse?” There was a hint of bragging in her voice.

“Abby, stay quiet for a bit, okay?” the man told her, then said to Jonah, “She’s got a point, though: you’re not really dressed for hiking cross-country. What’re you doing out here?”

“Ah got a mite turned around. Been makin’ muh way tuh Coast City on foot, but a fire done blocked muh path, so Ah had tuh leave the road an’ take a detour through the woods.”

“You mean that wildfire that swept through to the north of us?” the man asked. “You’ve been lost in the woods for two days?”

Jonah was struck dumb. Two days? He couldn’t have really been out of it for that long, could he? Then again, with all the damage inflicted upon him, the black ring might have needed that much time to put Jonah back together. He rubbed a hand over his face as he tried to come to grips with losing two days in the blink of an eye.

The man stepped forward, awash in indigo. “Are you okay? You look kind of pale.”

“Ah’m fine, just...tired. Ah’m gettin’ really tired of all this.” Jonah saw the unspoken question in the man’s eyes, and the gunfighter shook his head as he told him, “Don’t ask, it’s too damn complicated. Just point me in the direction of Coast City an’ Ah’ll be on muh way.”

He nodded vaguely southwest. “It’s about an hour from here if you take the highway...although, frankly, you don’t look like you’re up for walking that far.”

“Then Ah’ll hitch a ride. Ah know the trick,” he replied, sticking out his thumb.

“There’s nobody you can call to pick you up? In Coast City, I mean.”

That notion hadn’t occurred to Jonah -- even when Maggie was telling him about cell phones, she never asked if he wanted to call Hal first. Of course, there was that whole “secret identity” nonsense the Green Lantern was so insistent upon, so she probably assumed that, if the general public didn’t know who he really was behind that mask, neither would Jonah. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. “Ah don’t know his telephone number,” Jonah said with some hesitation, “but if’n there’s a way Ah could speak with the switchboard operator in Coast City, maybe...”

“You want to call Information? Sure, that’s doable. Just follow us back to the house and we’ll get you hooked up.” The man started to walk back towards the little girl, then paused and said to him, “What’s your name, anyways?”

“Jonah...an’ yo’re Papa Mike?”

The man laughed. “Just Mike. Only my daughter gets to call me Papa.” He took up the horse’s reins once more as they walked across the clearing to where the house lay. The girl, deciding that quiet time was over, proceeded to tell Jonah everything she knew about horses and cowboys and anything else that seemed important to her, interspersed with her own inquiries to him as to how much he knew about said subjects. Jonah, whose mind was focused elsewhere, kept his responses to a minimum.

The house was a one-story affair, but still rather large, with a stable and pole barn nearby. A young stallion -- Scout, presumably -- was loitering near the stable entrance, and it sidled up to the mare when Mike brought it to a stop. Jonah wasn’t surprised to see a hint of violet come over both animals when they got close to each other. Mike picked Abby up off the saddle and set her on the ground, saying to her, “Go tell Papa Tom that we’ve got company, okay?”

She nodded and ran towards the house. “Papa Tom, Papa Tom! We found a cowboy!” she yelled long before she was even close to the door.

Mike laughed again as he led the horse into the stable proper. “Just let me strip all this gear off of her, then we’ll see about getting your friend on the phone.”

“Actually, do yuh mind if...” Jonah stepped up beside him and laid a hand on the saddle. “There any way yuh could let me do this?”

“Um...sure, if you know how.” Mike stepped aside, and Jonah set to work. With gentle care, he removed the harness and saddle, which he laid on a nearby rack, then picked up a brush and went over every inch of the horse’s coat. Jonah even knelt down and coaxed it to lift each hoof in turn so he could inspect the underside. Though it had been over a century since he’d performed such tasks, he could recall how to do them with perfect clarity, and it gave him a feeling of satisfaction that had been long absent from his soul.

When Jonah was finished, he said to Mike, “She’s in good shape ‘cept fer the hooves...they’re gettin’ a mite overgrown. If’n yuh got the tools, Ah kin trim an’ reshod ‘em fer yuh. Ah’ll even check the other horses over if’n yuh like.”

“No, I...we’ve got a guy coming out next week that does all our farrier work.” Mike shook his head in amazement, saying, “Abby was right: we did find a cowboy.”

“Not anymore. Now Ah’m just a fella with a whole lot of useless talents.” His eyes darted to the floor momentarily. “Thank yuh fer lettin’ me do this. The world ain’t made much sense tuh me lately, but this...Ah’ve dreamed fer decades about doin’ things like this again.”

“Well, if that’s the case, I wouldn’t go to Coast City. That place is nothing but concrete and skyscrapers. But if you insist...”

The two men left the stable and headed for the house. Another man was just opening the door as they approached. “Okay, please fill me in on this, grown-up words only,” he said.

“Just a poor wandering soul in need of a phone, Tom.” Mike stepped inside and Jonah followed. The interior of the house was a mixture of modern amenities and rustic charm, which Jonah found pleasing. In fact, he was so busy looking around the front room that it took him a moment to notice the flare of violet light behind him, and he turned to see that Mike and Tom were kissing. It wasn’t a lingering kiss, more of a quick peck, but it was enough to make Jonah’s eyes widen. Tom caught sight of the look and pulled away from Mike, saying to his partner, “I think we’re scaring the straights.”

“The two of yuh...yo’re...” Jonah pointed at Mike. “But yuh’ve got a daughter.”

“Thanks to a mutual friend, we have a daughter,” Tom replied, the violet turning fast to red. “What’s the matter, you a homophobe?”

“Ah don’t even know what thet word means.”

Mike slapped the back of his hand against Tom’s chest. “Take it easy, he’s a good guy. You remember where I left my phone?”

“In the kitchen. I put it in the charger for you. Again.”

“Thanks. Come on, Jonah.” Mike led him further into the house, with Tom giving Jonah a sideways glance as they passed by, but the gunfighter held his tongue. He recalled the few times back in his day when he’d encountered fellas that liked to ride sidesaddle, and he personally didn’t pay it any mind, just so long as they didn’t ask him to ride as well.

Little Abby was in the kitchen, standing on a stool with a loaf of bread and a couple of jars on the counter in front of her. Mike walked up beside her, saying, “Whatcha doing, honey?”

“Making sannitches,” she replied, dipping a knife into one of the jars.

“Sandwiches, hon. The word is sandwiches.” He plucked a small object off of the counter, then came back to Jonah and handed it to him. “Here you go, all fired up.”

Jonah stared at the object given to him. It was one of those small rectangular things like he’d seen those gawkers in Paradise Corners waving around. There were no discernible buttons, just a glass panel with a dozen tiny square pictures set beneath it -- aside from the one that looked like a clock and a couple of others, the pictures were sheer nonsense to him. It felt like an eternity passed by before Mike said to him, “First time with an iPhone?”

“Yeah.” There were multiple layers of truth in that one word. Maggie had shown Jonah her own pocket telephone, but it hadn’t looked anything like this gewgaw, and it certainly would have never occurred to him that the two things were the same sort of device.

Mike nodded and said, “They can be slightly intimidating when you first get one, but once you play with it for a bit, it’s easy as pie.” He took it back and waved his fingers over the glass panel like a magician performing a trick, then handed it over to Jonah again. “It’s dialing.”

How kin yuh tell? Jonah thought, but then he heard the soft burr coming from it, followed by a tiny voice saying, “Information. What city, please?” But Jonah didn’t respond. After a week of hard traveling, he was having difficulty with the notion that he was really this close to the end of the journey. One telephone call, and it would be over. All he had to do was speak the right words into this strange little device. When the tiny voice asked him again, Jonah brought it close to his mouth and said loudly, “Coast City.”

“One moment,” the voice replied, while Mike told him, “You don’t have to shout. The reception’s nowhere near as bad as the reviews make it out to be.”

Like so much of what he’d heard in this new century, Jonah only vaguely understood the meaning of Mike’s words. All he knew was that, back in his day, you had to talk louder than normal to be understood over the telephone. A mite slower sometimes helped too. So when another tiny voice chimed in with, “Coast City directory. Please state the name of the party you wish to reach,” Jonah took a deep breath and said into the phone, “Hal...”

Jonah stopped, his mouth hanging open as his mind scrambled to find something that just wasn’t there anymore. He’d forgotten Hal’s last name. Jonah knew that he used to know it, but like his old memories of Paradise Corners, there was now a gaping hole where the information should be. For an entire damned week, he’d been thinking of the Green Lantern as simply “Hal”, not even realizing that the other half of the man’s name had gone missing from his brain. He couldn’t even picture what the Green Lantern looked like without that stupid mask, though Jonah was sure he’d seen him without it. What else had he forgotten? Could he still be certain that Hal gave enough of a damn about him to help once he...if he found him?

“I’m sorry, sir,” the voice on the phone said, “but I need a full name.”

“Ah don’t...Ah cain’t...” Jonah slumped against the counter, the hand holding the phone slowly sinking down until it hung at his side. “Ah cain’t remember. Ah cain’t...”

Mike reached over and took the phone from his hand. “We’ll call back later,” he told the operator, then carefully guided Jonah over to a kitchen chair and sat him down. “Can you hear me, Jonah? Are you sick?”

“No...no, Ah’m not sick,” Jonah replied, but one look at him said otherwise: his face had gone pale again, and there was a slight tremor in his hands. “Ah’m...Ah’ve got problems...with muh memory. Ah’m still gettin’ used tuh it.”

Tom entered the kitchen. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Not sure,” Mike said. “I think he’s had some head trauma. Is that it?” he asked Jonah.

“Sort of.” He glanced from green-red Tom to indigo-yellow Mike. Part of Jonah wanted to confess everything that was wrong with him just so he could relieve himself of the burden, while another part -- the part that had existed within him ever since his father first cuffed him in the ear for daring to show weakness -- struggled to wipe all signs of emotion from his face. “Ah should...Ah’m just gonna go. Thank yuh fer tryin’ tuh help, but...”

“Mister cowboy?”

Jonah turned to see the little girl walking up to him, holding a sandwich that was dripping globs of strawberry jam onto the floor. “Aren’t you gonna stay for lunch?” she asked.

“I don’t think he wants to, Abby,” Tom told her.

“But I made him a sannitch!” She held it up for all to see. “It’s peanut butter and jelly!”

The gunfighter silently regarded the little girl, an aura of the purest blue and indigo wrapped around her. Though he still felt distressed about his memory loss, the presence of Abby and her small gesture of kindness took some of the edge off. Before he knew it, Jonah was gesturing for her to come closer.

“Yuh real good at makin’ them sandwiches?” he asked.

She gave him a big nod. “Uh-huh.”

“Make me four of ‘em. Ah’m really hungry.”

“Okay! Start with this one!” She all but shoved the sandwich into Jonah’s face before running back to the mess she’d left on the kitchen counter. Mike did his best not to laugh at the spectacle, and even Tom was shaking his head with a grin. “You didn’t have to do that,” Mike told Jonah. “Seriously, if you’re that hungry, we can feed you something better than PB&J.”

“Maybe so...but Ah just cain’t resist a pretty face,” he said with a hint of a smile, then he took a bite out of the sandwich -- the thick layer of peanut butter threatened to glue his jaw shut, but he managed to swallow it. “Once yer girl’s done with the rest, Ah’ll just toss ‘em in muh satchel an’ get out of yer hair. Ah’ve troubled yuh long enough.”

Mike’s brow furrowed. “Isn’t there anyone else we can call for you?”

“There’s Maggie,” Jonah said, “but she lives in this big truck she drives all around. Kin thet operator connect me with any telephone anywhere? Ah had her number, but...Ah lost it.”

“They can only look numbers up by cities, I think. You don’t know where...” Mike’s voice trailed off as he saw Jonah shake his head. “Well, I’d rather you stay a while longer. You still don’t look well enough to me.”

“If he wants to go, let him,” Tom interjected.

“The man looked like he was going to faint five minutes ago, and you want me to just let him walk out the door and all the way to Coast City? For God’s sake, Tom, he’s been wandering through the woods for two days. He’s probably dead on his feet.”

In more ways than one, Jonah thought.

Tom said, “So what do you want to do? Drive him to Coast City?” As soon as he said that,
he followed it up with, “Oh no. No. You’re not getting in a car with a total stranger and...”

“Says the guy who brags about hitchhiking to Lollapalooza when he was in high school,” Mike retorted. “Come on, it’s an hour there and an hour back. I’ll even put my cell phone on speaker so you can be sure he’s not taking an axe to my head.”

With a sigh, Tom tossed up his hands in resignation. “Fine. Have your little road trip with the Marlboro Man. See if I care.”

“I know you care, or else you wouldn’t be putting up such a fuss.” Mike gave Tom a peck on the cheek, while Jonah did his best to focus on the sandwich. Lavender or not, he was grateful to Mike for his willingness to help a stranger. With all the Hell Jonah had been through since the fire, he took it as a sign that perhaps things would actually turn out all right in the end. Not being able to remember Hal’s full name did put a slight crimp in his plans, but Jonah Hex was still a born tracker. Once he got to Coast City, he’d pick up Green Lantern’s trail and follow it until he found the man himself, then they could get down to the business of returning Jonah to normal. After a full week of trials and tribulations, he was almost home free.

Please, Lord, let the rest of it be a cakewalk from here, Jonah thought.

NEXT ISSUE: Tune in for “Hex and the City”!

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