The guy was on top of him, tearing at the elastic waistband of Blaze’s boxers. Then, in a blaze of overhead light, he was gone, and there were two guards at the door. They made short work of the two gum assassins and, after giving Blaze a once over to make sure he wasn’t bleeding from his ass, shut and locked his prison door, and switched off the overhead light from outside.
He was left in the dark, stifling a small shriek as he tried to breathe slower and then more slowly still. If that was it, he’d gotten off lucky. All he had to do was stay in one piece until morning.
Then suddenly itwasmorning. Blinking against the overhead lights as they came on, for a long minute, Blaze didn’t know why his left eye hurt, or why his lower lip was split open, tasting tender and hurt. Then he remembered and vowed he’d just keep his mouth shut. Tell the release officer that he’d bumped into a wall, or whatever it took to get his exit papers signed.
He shaved as best he could around his sore jaw, and dressed, wincing when his left side screamed at him to stop.
Stepping outside his cell when the door opened, he stood for the daily count, and pretended like it was an ordinary day, rather than one where he was leaving prison, though whether to something better remained to be seen.
He looked up the line and saw that a lot of guys were looking at him. Even the banged-up guy just two cells down who’d run afoul of the rape gang a few days ago was looking at him like he knew something about Blaze. Well, they could ask him what had happened to him all they liked. As far as he was concerned, nothing had happened.
He staggered into breakfast with his block mates, ate the dull instant oatmeal and dull powdered milk, the water-thin orange juice, and had just decided not to eat the banana, which was too brown, when one of the guards tapped him on the shoulder and told him to stand up.
He got looks of sympathy, because it looked like he was being hauled into the warden’s office for a good ass kicking. On the inside, he was doing fist pumps and hollering for joy, feeling like he was on top of the biggest Ferris wheel in the world and it had just stopped. Legs dangling, he could look out over the carnival, the festive smells and sounds rising up at him, and knew he was going to make it. He wouldn’t let himself doubt that Farthingdale Valley would be more like summer camp than prison.
He moved patiently through the checkout process, which included receiving a black plastic bag to throw his things into. Then he was hauled into the medical office to be given a once over, after which he was finally able to get his wallet back, though his driver’s license was out of date. They also gave him his duly received gate money, a whopping fifty dollars, which, on its own, couldn’t do much for him.
A guard escorted him and three other guys out the front gate, waved, and then shut the gate behind them. For a moment, Blaze just stood there blinking up at a sun that wasn’t banked on all four sides by a high cement wall topped with razor wire.
Then he looked at the three guys.
“You guys going to Farthingdale Valley?” he asked.
They all said yes, though they looked as uncertain as he felt.
Who cared about them anyway. When the van arrived, he would shine like a blaze of light, and lay on the charm. Then, while he sweet-talked his way through the summer, he could hold on to the hope that when summer was over and, certificate, resume, and recommendation letter in hand, he could make a new life for himself.
Or maybe he’d return to the Butterworth trailer, to follow the carnival calendar, and in the winter, help Pop with the driveway scam. He just had to decide which way his life was going to go, and he had five, maybe six months, to do it.
Chapter2
Gabe
The inaction caused by waiting for the prison van to arrive unsettled Gabe to the point where he got up to pace the tent, which was bigger than any army tent he’d ever slept in and about five times as comfortable. After five trips to each end of the tent, he sat down again and looked around him at his new life.
In outrageous luxury, the tent rested on the wooden platform, keeping it out of any dampness on the ground. The platform extended beyond the outside of the tent to provide a little uncovered front porch, though there was a canvas fly that could be put up as shade if you wanted to sit out there and not get scorched by the sun. As well, a wood rail on either side provided a place to lay wet towels or to hang wet boots from or anything that needed drying off.
Over the top of the tent was a cream-colored rain fly, and beneath, the tent itself was made of the newest, sturdiest pale green canvas that Gabe had ever seen. Inside were two cots, two little shelves, and there was a box under each bed, where Gabe had stored clothes and gear that wouldn’t fit on the shelves. The cot on the other side of the tent would go unclaimed, as all the team leaders had tents to themselves, which was nice.
A flashlight had been provided, as well as, at Gabe’s special request, a Coleman lantern, a box of string mantles and matches, and two quart-sized bottles of kerosene. There was an overhead light, and a power strip where he could charge his cellphone or his laptop.
To say he was sitting in the lap of luxury in the middle of the woods was an understatement, and he was on the verge of not regretting that he’d let Jasper, his old buddy from the army, talk him into signing up to be the first team lead in the ranch’s new ex-con program.
At the end of the summer, Gabe would receive a five-thousand-dollar bonus along with a guaranteed job as a ranch hand for the next summer season, and all the benefits that came with it. In the winter, he’d probably go up to Greeley to work at the meat-packing plant again, as they promised him he could come back and work for them after the summer season was over.
This pretty much cemented the next twelve months of his life, which was both a blessing and a curse. He was all set for the next year but he also couldn’t go anywhere else, as it would be rude, not to mention stupid, to up and leave such a sure thing.
Then again, he’d be working a whole summer alongside men who had made mistakes big enough to put them behind bars, and for whom doing grunt work to help complete a fancy resort for rich people had been their best option.
All of this felt like a very long way from his Kentucky coal-mining heritage, and the family that had rejected him because he’d chosen a different path for himself by joining the army. Marching in lines while wearing the uniform had seemed a much better prospect than taking a metal elevator into the depths of the earth every day, at any rate.
His first summer underground had been eye opening, to say the least, and the small cave-in that had kept them in the dark for seventy-two hours, while not a disaster, as no lives were lost, had scared the crap out of him. He’d never gone back, and his family had never forgiven him, seeing his choices as a rejection of their entire way of life. Still, even if he’d always be alone, on his own in the world, the life he had chosen was already better than the one he’d left behind.
His cellphone rang, and he picked it up from the shelf and clicked the answer button. The number was Jasper’s, but the voice was coming in tinny, so he stepped out of his tent and went behind to the slope behind the row of tents, where the signal was better.
“Hey, my friend,” said Jasper, and Gabe could hear him smiling. “You settling in?”
“Almost,” said Gabe, a responding smile rising inside of him. “I feel like I’m at the Ritz or something. It’s so fancy.”
