“They use German Shepherds sometimes, too,” said Wayne, again breaking from his usual reticence. “But this is the furthest thing from a chain gang that I’ve ever been on.”
“And it’s not like the chain gangs you see in prison movies,” said Blaze, quiet and on the side, almost like an afterthought. “You’re not like a boss at all. I mean—like in movies about chain gangs.” Blaze shrugged helplessly, like he was worried he’d made a mistake in saying it the way he had. “You’re still the boss. Still in charge.”
“That I am,” said Gabe. “Okay, you can call me boss if it suits you.”
“So what about Sunday visits, boss?” asked Tom, leaning forward, both hands on the table. “Or was that just fluff someone put in the agreement I signed?”
“Sunday visits are a real thing,” said Gabe. “Guests can come from ten to five. They can stay for lunch or dinner, but in that case, we’d need to know so the cooks can make the right amount of food. Sound fair?”
“So how long can we take with the visit?” asked Tom.
“As long as you like,” said Gabe. “Just like with showers. Just be aware of the needs of others around you.”
“I can’t with this guy,” said Tom with a dramatic moan, pressing his palms to his eyes.
“It’s the truth,” said Gabe, laughing. “You basically have Sundays off, unless there’s some kind of occupational emergency, just like you would on any other job. How is that a bad thing?”
“It’s different,” said Wayne, eying Gabe sternly, like he should already know how new and untried this would seem to an ex-con. “Just different, that’s all.”
“So, yeah.” Gabe bit into a chunk of cornbread that he’d slathered with butter. “Tell your girlfriend to come at ten, if you like. Just let Del or Neal know if she’s going to be having lunch with us.”
“The whole day,” said Blaze, his voice faint. “We can have the whole day off.”
“It’s not a prison, Blaze,” said Gabe, gently. “Like I described during orientation, we’d like you to stick around for the first two weeks until you settle in. Then, after that, you can have guests come, or you can sign yourself out. You could even check out a truck, or we could arrange other transportation for you.”
The response he got to a statement like that was raised eyebrows and more suspicious silence. Maybe they’d all missed that part when he’d explained it to them the first day.
“What’reyougoing to do on Sunday?” asked Wayne with his usual scolding tone as though what Gabe was saying was so far out of the realm of normal, it needed to be prodded and poked at every turn.
“I’m going to go visit my friend, Jasper,” said Gabe. “He’s the guy you met today. We knew each other in the army. He’s the one that got me my job as ranch hand.” He paused, then realized nobody was saying anything. “How about you, Wayne? What are you going to do on your day off?”
“Eat breakfast. Sleep. Eat lunch. Sleep. Repeat.” Wayne shrugged. “My people live in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, and are hardly likely to come all this way just to see me. Maybe I’ll go see them when my parole is over, though.”
“I’m spending as much time with Joanna as I can,” said Tom. His eyes were glowing.
“How about you, Blaze?” asked Gabe, looking in Blaze’s direction because Blaze hadn’t said a single thing, hardly, and he was looking a little white. “Are you going to call someone to come visit you? Your family, maybe?”
“They don’t—” Blaze started, and then he stopped, shoulders tightening as if he meant to make his way through what he had to say by brute force alone. “They won’t—” He shrugged. “They never visited me in prison, so I doubt they’ll visit me here.”
“Ah.” From his training, Gabe knew that sometimes families needed time to adjust to having someone with a criminal past in their midst. However, from what he’d read in Blaze’s file, that wasn’t the issue for the Butterworth family. As to whatwasthe problem, with an audience of two parolees, it wasn’t the time or the place to ask. “Well, maybe now that you’re out, they might think differently?”
Blaze shrugged, looking away from the table, away from the remains of their dinner, toward the end of the tent. Gabe looked where Blaze was looking, at where the sun was sparkling through the trees, making him think, oddly, of starlight.
“Well, I’m full.” Gabe stood up and bussed his dishes, smiling to himself as his team followed suit. “We can build a fire again later,” he said. “We can make s’mores, if you like.”
“Oh, oh.” Tom half bumped into Blaze as he got up and went to the landline. “Can it wait till after my phone call?”
“Sure,” said Gabe. “We’ll do it right as it starts to get dark.”
Wiping his hands on his jeans, Gabe looked at Blaze. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wayne leaving the mess tent, probably headed to his tent, which he now had to himself, as if his intention was to use every free moment he had to get as much sleep as possible. As if he was catching up on all that he’d lost while in prison.
“How about you?” Gabe said to Blaze. “Why don’t you give it a try and call your family. Where are they? Denver? Is it close enough that they can come for a visit?”
Blaze nodded slowly, and he wasn’t smiling.
“It’ll be all right,” said Gabe.
He needed to stop pushing, so he headed back to the kitchen to ask whether or not they had everything they needed to make s’mores and, if not, who might be willing to run into town to get supplies. He’d be willing, if it came to that, but he was informed that they had plenty of everything.
