All the while these thoughts flew through his brain, he scanned the racks of rustic looking, ranch-branded t-shirts and tank-tops, the baseball caps with the ranch’s logo on them, bandana scarves in neat squares on the shelves, plus an assortment of small tubes of toothpaste, travel toothbrushes, sewing kits, and various toiletries. Along the walls were stacks of boot boxes, with little pictures of the boots inside, and a whole section of just straw cowboy hats on pegs.
“Let’s get your sizes,” said a gray-haired woman, standing alongside the main counter with a small tape measure in her hand.
Dressed as she was in blue jeans and a snap-button plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he didn’t think much of her. But then when Gabe gave her a quick hug and just about kissed her cheek, Blaze made himself rethink who she was. Someone worthy of such a greeting, to start with. Someone who could look three ex-cons in the eye and not look like she was about to back down.
“I’m Maddy, by the way,” she said, which made Blaze reevaluate who she was, even more. “Step up, one at a time, and I’ll measure your heads. Gabe, can you write down the sizes?”
“I’ll remember them, Maddy,” said Gabe with a smile, standing close by with his hands tucked in his jeans pockets.
Maddy stood on a stepstool to measure each of their heads, looking them each in the eye like she simply did not care that they were criminals and that if they messed around with her, they would miss out on getting spanking-new cowboy hats.
When she pointed to the row of straw cowboy hats on pegs along the wall, she told them their sizes, and then said, “There’s nothing fancy because they are working hats, not for show, and the weave of each hat is pretty similar. The band around the crown is where there’ll be a difference. Most have leather strips of various colors, some have strips of woven leather, so look for something you like, as that’ll be your hat for the summer.”
Blaze scanned the row of cowboy hats, looking with new eyes at the hat bands and the way the straw was woven so tightly, and wondered if he’d ever imagined being where he was, looking for a cowboy hat.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Maddy and Gabe stacking long boot boxes. He could tell which stack was his, or he thought he could. He wore an 11. Tom wore 12s, and Wayne wore 10s, so his stack was the one in the middle.
It was hard to concentrate because how was he getting new cowboy boots as well as the hat? Who the hell was funding this program anyhow? But while days ago he would have been instantly suspicious of such generosity, nothing he could afford to get used to, today was a different day, right? He needed to give the situation more than two minutes before he completely disregarded it, before he turned his back on how nice it felt to be in a store, shopping for new things.
He tried on three hats, but found he liked the first hat best, a finely woven straw hat with a brim that didn’t look too obnoxious or huge. It had a little brown leather band with small x’s woven into the leather, and there was even a small brass buckle with a galloping horse stamped into it.
“That’s a nice one,” said Maddy, half of her attention on him, half of it on Tom, to whom she was handing a box. “Cavender’s is a good brand. You might try on those boots I pulled down for you and see if you like how they go with the hat.”
Ordinarily Blaze would resent having something picked out for him like that, after all, it’d been years since he’d had a selection like this to choose from, rather than the limit of three different off-brand shampoos and razors and so on at the prison commissary. But now, yes, he was on the edge of being overwhelmed, sweating under his armpits, his mouth a little dry, half-crazy like a kid on Christmas morning, not knowing what to do first.
Maddy pointed to one of the wooden benches and he sat down, plopping his hat on his head anyoldhow, in a hurry to try on the boots. Most were all glossy and new, but it was the brown pair with a low-gloss swirl pattern that grabbed his eye. They looked like they were already broken in, and his fingers liked the feel of those boots. When he pulled them on each foot, they slid onto his feet with perfect grace, like he’d been wearing them all along.
At Maddy’s nod, he stood up, adjusted his new cowboy hat on his head and turned to look in the full-length mirror. Which was, perhaps, the first good full-length mirror he’d seen himself in for years and years. Living in a trailer or working the carnie circuit, or spending time in prison, after all, did not lend itself to pausing to take stock of one’s appearance.
He looked jaunty and ready. That was the only way to describe it. His hair was dark beneath the pale, cream-colored straw, messy as though it didn’t quite know what to do with itself, pressed along his jaw. His green eyes were wide, and he imagined he could see a smile in them. But it was the boots that seemed to make a difference in the way he stood, pushing up from the heels through the back of his thighs, almost stiffening them, his ass sticking out in a sassy way.
Stepping to the side, he tapped the brim of his hat as though he’d encountered someone and wanted to sayhow do,the way cowboys did in the movies. Now the smile in his reflection had moved to his face, and he thought, just for a moment, that he was happy.
From behind him, standing along the stacks of boot boxes that had been rejected, was Gabe. Gabe had his hat in his hands, held just level with his hips, and he was watching Blaze through half lowered eyes. Like he knew he wasn’t supposed to be looking, didn’t want to be caught looking, but was looking just the same. But at what?
He was looking at an ex-con out on parole, trying on cowboy clothes that he certainly wouldn’t need when the end of summer came and his parole was up. At a parolee getting far too much enjoyment out of a simple shopping expedition. Who liked the way he looked in the mirror, long-legged and capable, but who simply had no experience around horses, save the little sleepy-eyed Shetland ponies going around and around in a circle amidst the happy giggles of very small children.
But maybe that kind of experience was enough to keep Gabe from thinking that perhaps Blaze ought not to be trusted with live animals, big ones, and should stay behind to help in the mess tent or something.
“Is this a good match?” Blaze asked Maddy, but her back was turned, and up came Gabe, reaching over Blaze’s shoulder to adjust his hat, tipping the brim down a little bit, making a small, curved shade beneath the brim.
“There you go,” said Gabe, softly, his voice almost a whisper, as if he was talking to himself. He cleared his throat and then added, “You tilt it different ways, depending on the weather and the amount of sunlight.”
Blaze nodded, looking at Gabe’s reflection in the mirror, his throat dry all over again.
This wasn’t the first time Gabe had helped him, just him and not any of the others. Not in a way that implied Blaze was incompetent without Gabe’s help, but as if he enjoyed doing it. Like the time he helped Blaze get a new pair of work boots, and then, on his knees, had laced them up for Blaze. And the times he’d helped Blaze wrap plastic around his arm so the cut from the chipper would heal better.
It didn’t mean anything, of course. It could mean entirely nothing, naturally. But the way Gabe was suddenly not looking at him, surveying the room, studying the two other ex-cons in the room, the purposefulness of his not looking suddenly came at Blaze, full force, with the truth of it.
Either all of Blaze’s friendly flirting, the pushy way he’d shoved himself into the fore of Gabe’s attention, had worked, or. Or maybe it had been unnecessary from the very beginning, and Gabe, quite simply, liked Blaze. Or maybe he liked ex-cons. Liked having authority over them, and that’s what turned him on. Except if that were true, wouldn’t the come-hither flick of Gabe’s eyes in Blaze’s direction, made before moving off, have shown up a whole lot sooner?
Maybe. Maybe not. It was hard to tell because the kind of conversation Blaze might have had at a carnival did not differ wildly from the kind of conversation he would have had in prison.D’you want to? Let’s go.
Here, in Farthingale Valley, the conversation wouldn’t be between two carnies on a ten-minute break behind the corn dog stand, or between two prisoners taking advantage of the dark corners of the laundry room when they were supposed to be looking for open jugs of bleach to be used up before more could be ordered.
No. This was flat out in the middle of an ordinary life that Blaze was being shown how to integrate himself into. He’d told himself to trust this, trust where he was. To trust Gabe, even. At the same time, the suspicion lurked that anything he said might be chalked up on a tally board and held against him later.
Gabe was going over to Tom and Wayne, each in turn, leaning close to admire their selections of hats and boots, and he was not paying any more attention to Blaze at all. Except, as Gabe urged the two men to tidy the boxes of unchosen boots so Maddy could put them away, he glanced at Blaze, then ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck.
