“Be right back,” Gabe said again, then hurried back along the path, passing by Kent, Wayne, and Tom, who were looking over his shoulder at the fire, a reflective look in their eyes.
Maybe having a bonfire on the first night was a bit too much like summer camp, but he had a feeling it was the right thing to do. Besides, there was nothing better than sitting around a warm flame as the night grew dark.
Had any on his team looked up at stars growing bright in the night sky? He had a feeling the answer was no, and it pleased him to be able to give them this experience. After that, they’d have to see how the rest of the summer turned out.
Chapter6
Blaze
When Blaze had been a kid, there had never been any time for a bonfire or for just sitting around. There was always some crooked thing to do, something to steal, someone to con.
To have sat doing nothing would have been considered, in the Butterworth family, a colossal waste of time. So, to have spent a good two hours huddled in a new sherpa-lined denim jacket, his new boots snugly laced and tied, sitting in front of a small, glowing cascade of warmth and light of a bonfire seemed outlandish, at least at first.
Gabe had talked a bit more about the program, then pointed up at the stars, which glowed like pinpricks across a circle of dark blue-black, rimmed by the darker shadows of pine trees and cottonwoods.
He’d been explaining the different constellations when Blaze’s eyes had started to glaze over. Not from boredom, but from the deep, whisky-soft sound of Gabe’s voice. Which seemed to give signals to various parts of his body—pretty certain signals that, after a day of being moved from the scary world of Wyoming Correctional to this wooded place, he was allowed to shut down.
He couldn’t figure Gabe out, though, Gabe who might or might not be hiding a layer of meanness below the more obvious niceness. But his brain couldn’t manage it and began giving into the sinking pull of exhaustion, and the last words he heard Gabe say as he tipped his head back to rest on the wooden slats of the Adirondack chair were something about Orion’s Belt and the speed of light.
The next thing he knew, Gabe was standing over him, shaking him awake. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others tromping along together, flashlights sweeping over the darkness, reflecting off the tall grasses until, one by one, they disappeared.
Blaze sat up from his sprawl, rubbing one eye with the heel of his palm.
“You okay there, Blaze?” asked Gabe, his voice soft and low, sending a shiver up the back of Blaze’s neck.
Of course, he was okay. Even if he wasn’t okay, he was hardly going to tell the boss man, despite how nice Gabe seemed or how he smelled nice, too—like salt and dust and the smoky traces of the little bonfire, now out, sending invisible trails of thick wood char into the night air.
“Fell asleep,” said Blaze. “Did I miss the ghost story?” he asked, doing his bit to make a little joke out of how the after-dinner entertainment had seemed a great deal unlike being on a chain gang and a whole lot more like summer camp.
“Don’t know any of those, I’m afraid,” said Gabe, humor warming his voice. “But the guys said they wanted to make s’mores, for sure, next time.”
As for the guys saying anything like that, Blaze imagined that they’d been testing Gabe to see how far they could push him. They’d probably based their request on what they thought normal people would do around an outdoor fire, not because any of them had any special hankering for toasted marshmallows or any variation of that.
“Sounds good to me, too.” Blaze scrambled out of his chair.
“Can you make your way to your tent?” asked Gabe, as he reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a flashlight.
“Sure,” said Blaze, because the last thing he wanted to do was admit that he was already lost. With the fire out, the sky was dark overhead. A chill breeze swept through the pines, sounding a little bit like someone was moaning. “Piece of cake.”
“We’re going the same way,” said Gabe unexpectedly. “Let me show you.”
Blaze found himself following close at Gabe’s side, bumping into him when the way between pine trees grew narrow.
At one point, he was sure Gabe was leading him somewhere he shouldn’t be so that he could have what he wanted from Blaze with no one the wiser. But then Gabe he led Blaze straight to his tent. There Tom, in the single overhead light, was sitting on his bunk, holding his pair of Carhartt boots in his hands, admiring them. On the little shelf closest to his bed, he’d placed his flashlight on its end, sending a circle of light to spin on the roof of their tent.
“Hey,” said Tom.
“Thanks, boss,” said Blaze to Gabe, who, after a pause, nodded and said, “Good night,” before disappearing into the darkness.
“I don’t think he likes being called boss,” said Blaze as he bent to place his flashlight on its end, which created an additional circle of light on the green canvas.
“Why you think that?” Tom shimmied out of his clothes until he was down to his tighty-whities, then he decided again and pulled on a sweatshirt before slipping into his cot.
“I dunno,” said Blaze, yawning hugely as he contemplated his own cot and the boxes and gear that sat on top of it.
He now owned a ton of stuff which needed to be put away. His mind was spinning as though it had been swept into the circles of light on the canvas overhead.
“I need to pee,” he said. “Maybe even brush my teeth. Isn’t that what you do at summer camp?”
