JD was going home.
Well, he was going to the place that had been his home for the first eighteen years of his life. When his mother had died, he'd taken the little money she'd saved for him to go to college and headed out West, where he'd found that everything he'd read about in dime store novels was true, or better than true.
Now he was on the train bound for Boston. He wasn't completely sure what he was going back to find, but he hoped it would find him.
Everywhere, he heard familiar voices. Every deep voiced man was Josiah, every blonde woman was Mary Travis, every laugh was Buck. And he was starting to think there were too many brunette women in this world, because every one of them he saw as Sam.
From his bag, he pulled out his copy of "The Magnificent Seven" by Jock Steele and looked at the cover. There he was, in the drawing along with everyone else on the cover. Trademark bowler hat on his head and twin guns in hand. Could he really give all that up in a moment? It seemed he had. If he ever went back to Four Corners, would the others have replaced him? He hoped he'd never find out.
"Ticket, sonny?"
JD looked up and there stood Chris Larabee, all in black, looking down at him.
He blinked, and saw that it was only the Conductor. Nodding, he handed the man his ticket and the Conductor moved away.
Up ahead, he saw long brown hair on a woman and craned his neck to see. The woman turned around, and it wasn't Sam. He put his head back against the seat and looked out the window, trying to get a grip.
I must be losing it... JD thought.
Things that used to matter seemed so small lately. No matter how he tried to convince himself otherwise, JD didn't have Sam in his life anymore. What on earth was he going to do now?
As JD stared out the window, as the hours passed the west started picking up more and more life. The cities got bigger, and every time he woke up there were more things to see out that window.
It would take him several weeks to get to Boston, even by train. He knew he needed the time to think things over, and figure out what was really left for him in Four Corners.
Although JD Dunne would never have admitted he was running from his demons, whenever he closed his eyes he could still see their faces: His friends, the ones he'd left behind without saying goodbye in the hopes he could find peace somewhere. He'd ridden to Ridge City, left his horse with a coach driver who was bound for Four Corners. There was no way JD could guarantee Milagra, his horse, would actually get back to Four Corners, but he'd told the man to take her to the town and deliver her to Buck Wilmington. From Ridge City, he'd bought a train ticket to Boston.