Blaze had known this moment would come. He’d known it all along. Gabe looked as angry as Blaze had ever seen him, almost snarling, his face inches away from Blaze’s.
“Damn it,” Gabe muttered.
Blaze winced as Gabe shifted his weight, then stood up, hauling Blaze up behind him. Blaze’s ribs ached, and when he gripped his left arm, his fingers came away with streaks of blood on them.
Blaze looked at the wood chipper, which was silent and still, and realized how close he’d come to getting parts of him chopped off. That was when his vision started to go white, like a cloud of billowing smoke had suddenly descended through the branches to surround him.
All he could see was that Kurt was laughing, silently, openmouthed, gleeful.
“You shoved me, motherfucker.” Blaze tried to pull out of Gabe’s grasp to lunge at Kurt because in prison you didn’t just take it when someone handed out a bucket of abuse, you fought back. If you could.
With his arm around Blaze’s shoulders, not letting him move away, Gabe pulled out the small two-way radio strapped to his belt and clicked it on. At no point did he let go of Blaze, not even to grab Kurt or reprimand him. The other two,Wayne and Tom, stared at Gabe, their eyes round.
“Leland, this is Gabe. Come in.” He waited a moment and then said, again, “Leland, come in, please.”
The radio made a click sound.
“Leland, here,” said Leland’s voice. “What’s up?”
“I’ve got a situation here. I know what I would like to do, but I’d like your feedback.”
“Go ahead,” said Leland.
Quickly, without being overly dramatic, Gabe explained the situation, then finished with, “I don’t want Kurt on my team, not another minute. I want you to take him back to Wyoming Correctional so he can explain to the administration there why he’s going to have to deal with his parole another way.”
“Give me ten minutes,” said Leland. “I’ll come get him.”
Gabe clicked the radio off, then clipped it back onto his belt. Blaze, still pressed against Gabe’s side, could feel the angry energy from Gabe’s scowl.
“Kurt, you’re off my team.”
With a sneer, Kurt flipped Gabe the bird like he couldn’t give a shit, but then, as must have seemed obvious to Gabe, he’d never given a shit and didn’t really want to be part of the team.
“I could just leave,” said Kurt, his voice snapping into the air. “Walk up that road and never come back.”
“You could,” said Gabe, his voice calm, his arm around Blaze a steady, warm presence. “But you’d have a long walk ahead of you to wherever you’re going. Then you’ll be in violation of your parole. So think about it. Leland will take you back to Wyoming Correctional. He’ll explain the situation, and you won’t be in violation.”
Gabe trudged them all back through the woods and past the mess tent to the first aid building. Though Blaze tried to keep his head on straight, he stumbled half the way there, then took a deep breath and made himself walk upright.
The first aid building was a tiny, white-painted wooden structure that held a metal table, a rolling chair and two tall metal cabinets full of supplies. The place could barely hold all of them, but Tom and Wayne and Kurt huddled in the doorway, watching.
“’m’I okay?” asked Blaze, unable to keep his voice from shaking.
“You are,” said Gabe. He was using scissors to cut off the sleeve of Blaze’s blue shirt.
“Then why—” Blaze couldn’t even finish the sentence. His mouth had gone dry and his heart was hammering, his head swimming.
“You got gouged on the back of your arm by a bolt, or possibly the edge of the feeder plate,” said Gabe. Then he looked up. “Tom, run and get him a cold soda from the fridge in the kitchen.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom. “I’m on it.”
Which left Kurt and Wayne to watch from the doorway as Gabe gave up on the scissors and directed Blaze to take his long-sleeved shirt off and then his t-shirt.
His arms shaking, Blaze did as he was told, his eyesight going in and out of focus as a small breeze circled around his bare shoulders and went down his naked back.
Gabe started cleaning the underside of Blaze’s left arm, then stopped and straightened up as Tom appeared at the doorway. Gabe took a can of Coke from him, opened it, and handed it to Blaze.
“Drink this,” he said as Tom handed cans of soda to the team. “It’s nice and cold.”
