“I know you won’t,” said Gabe, responding as solemnly as if Blaze had sworn a vow. “We’ll get breakfast tomorrow. Tom and Wayne will be on lumberjack duty, then you and I will groom four before walking them up to the forge. Sound good?”
Blaze mouthed the wordforge, not sure what it was or, without the internet, how to look it up.
“It’s Jasper’s workshop, is all,” said Gabe. “It’s where he shoes horses and makes horseshoe nail jewelry and the like. It’s just a workshop, really, but he likes to call it a forge.”
Jasper could call it anything he wanted, for all Blaze cared, but he kept his smile small, so as not to overwhelm.
“So let’s catch a few and start brushing them down.” Gabe looked at Blaze, and again his joy blazed from his eyes. “And I’ll bet you’re wondering how we catch those without halters, aren’t you.”
“Yes,” said Blaze, and then he watched, amazed, as Gabe pulled a long rope tie from around one of the open bales of hay, and walked up to a horse with the tie coiled in his hand. The horse didn’t shy from Gabe’s hand and seemed quite content to have that tie around his neck as Gabe guided him to the edge of the pasture, turned him around, and then let him go. Then he caught another horse in the same way and held out the tie for Blaze to try.
Normally, Blaze would have backed up, hands up, palms out, objecting to a task he had no experienced in. But with Gabe waiting patiently, tie held out, he could hardly say no. Plus, if there was anything Blaze was good at, it was copying someone else’s motions, expressions, body posture, all as part of the ruse while telling them a story, or getting them to slap down ten dollars to pay for three darts that would most assuredly miss each and every tough-skinned balloons tacked to the thinly painted particle board.
“Sure,” said Blaze. He reached for the bright yellow tie, his fingers touching Gabe’s, the moment stretching until it snapped and fell apart. “I can do this.”
If Gabe was near, he could probably do anything, including catching horses without halters.
Chapter18
Blaze
When the landline rang right after lunch on Wednesday, Tom leaped to answer it, shoving Blaze to one side as he got up from the table and lunged at the phone. His eyes were bright as he greeted the caller on the other line, as if he’d been expecting that call. That he already knew what the conversation would bring.
They all could hear every single word Tom was saying, so it was obvious, at least to Blaze, what Tom was about to tell them.
“That was Joanna,” said Tom as he slammed the receiver down, smiling at them because he knew that none of them would be surprised by the information. “Her dad has agreed to hire me in his contracting firm in Cheyenne, so I’m going to be finishing my parole while working for him. Oh, and Joanna and I are getting married the day after tomorrow.”
“Congratulations,” said Gabe, though Blaze thought he looked a little disappointed to be losing yet another man from his team. “When are they coming to pick you up?”
“Today?” The question in the single word seemed to freeze Tom where he stood, as if he imagined that Gabe would put up some kind of barrier to his leaving, a bunch of red tape, something. “By dinnertime? Or sooner? Like, now?”
“That’s fast,” said Gabe, nodding as he rubbed his chin with his hands. “What can we do to help you get ready? Help you pack? Do I need to sign any forms?”
Wayne seemed thrilled and pounded on Tom’s back, and the cooks even came out to congratulate him. But Blaze, unexpectedly shocked, watched all this in a kind of sound fog where mouths moved, where the tones were dampened beyond his hearing. As if there was cotton wool in his ears, blocking off not just sound, but feeling, leaving him cold all over.
Tom’s leaving would leave behind more Gabe for Blaze, but it would also mean that Blaze would be alone in the tent at night, and as the panic rose in his chest, he barely heard the rest of the conversation. Barely heard himself adding to the chorus of congratulations and happy wishes for all the best.
There was no way this was turning out like it was. No way he was going to have to sleep alone in that tent. Darkened by shadows, it would be the perfect trap, the perfect corner to back him into. And though he knew that there wasn’t a pair of convicts just waiting for lights out before they sprung, in his mind there was.
“Everything all right, Blaze?” asked Gabe, standing too near, not a bulwark this time, but a wall, tall, ten feet tall, cement, impenetrable.
“Sure.” Blaze shrugged and made a face as if Tom’s leaving had nothing to do with him and his own private and untamable fears that had burst up from below, an open-mouthedthingready to swallow him whole.
He trudged with the others to tent #4 and made motions with his hands that he hoped could be mistaken for actually helping Tom pack.
Someone, one of the cooks, perhaps, had gone to the store room and brought back a large cardboard box and an old green duffle bag, and into those went all of Tom’s stuff. It was when Tom picked up the cardboard box, and Gabe slung the strap of the duffle over one shoulder, that Blaze knew there was no stopping any of this.
He barely heard the dull sound of his own booted footsteps in the grass as he helped walk Tom to the parking lot. There, Gabe was making small talk with Tom, finding out what his plan was, what kind of work he was going to do, not at all concerned that no work was getting done. That they were all basically lollygagging as they waited for Joanna to show up.
Within the hour, a shiny, new-looking red Lincoln town car drove down the switchbacks and into the parking lot. Joanna got out, holding Barbara Lynn in her arms while her dad, a tall man who wore a three-piece suit, introduced himself as Glen Baxter and took the time to shake everyone’s hand.
“My son-in-law to be spoke very well of you, Mr. Holloway,” said Glen.
“Gabe, please,” said Gabe, shaking Glen’s hand. “We’re sorry to see Tom go. He’s a hard worker.”
They helped Tom put his things in the enormous trunk of the town car and said their last goodbyes. Then Tom helped Joanna put the baby in her car seat while Glen warmed the engine. The sound of doors slamming echoed in the small clearing, sending reverberating thuds into Blaze’s heart as Glen drove off in a small cloud of dust.
Which left Wayne and Gabe and Blaze standing in the clearing that served as the parking lot, waving goodbye at the taillights of the car like they were extras in an old black and white movie about the demise of a small town.
