A lot of ex-cons, Galen had learned, went right back to their old life of crime. Recidivism was high. Very few climbed out of the trough of illegality and made it to the next level of living a regular, law-abiding life.
Galen didn’t know if Bede was going to be one of the former or the latter, but he wanted to make sure Bede got the boots he so obviously wanted, but wasn’t sure he could have.
“The boots suit you,” Galen said. “Besides, Toby over there is getting two-toned boots. Garish blue on the bottom, glow-in-the-dark star-emblazoned white on the top. He’s going to be the fanciest guy in the valley. You gonna let him show you up like that?”
Again, Bede snorted and seemed to drop his shoulders as though giving in to great wisdom. And it occurred to Galen that, even draped in burlap, Bede had more taste in his little finger than Toby ever would. Plus, Bede made him laugh, and he made Bede laugh, and that, he’d not been expecting.
“What kind of boots do you have?” asked Bede as he put the oxblood colored boots carefully back in their fancy box and then tucked the box under his arm.
It was a big box, and Bede’s muscles bulged beneath the seams of his pale blue shirt. Again with the shirt sleeves rolled up.
“Those.” Galen pointed to a pair of Ariat boots that were like the ones he had picked out two years ago, the action jerking him away from the realization that Bede was a handsome man. “Those are this year’s model, but mine are similar.”
“They’re classy,” said Bede. “I like the blue inlay.”
Galen wondered at the compliment. Wondered why he was glad to see Bede go up to the counter with his expensive boots, rather than being pissed about it. Wondered if maybe he was getting the hang of this team lead thing.
“You’re not done,” he called out. “You guys need to pick out hats, too. Take a look at the straw ones, rather than felt, since it’s summer.”
As his team fluttered over to the selection of pale straw hats, some with leather hat bands, others with braided cord, Maddy said to him, “You should get a new one as well.”
“Okay,” said Galen, not one to turn down a new hat. He joined his team and looked at the patterns in the crowns and brims, some wheat-shaped, others like arrows.
After touching several hats, he found that his eye was drawn to those with a cattlemen’s crown, two folds in the crown that allowed a cowboy to take his hat off and put it back on with ease. He liked the more narrow leather bands, and he liked the patterns of small arrows on either side of the crown.
One hat had a tooled leather hatband, still narrow, with small round and diamond shaped tacks as decoration. Grabbing a box that indicated the hat inside was his size, he gently placed the haton his head, relishing the cool, balanced weight of the circle of straw.
“What do you guys think of this one?” he asked. “It’s a Resistor, which is a good brand. Lasts a lifetime.”
“Looks good, boss,” said Bede, drawing the words out, but it was mockery without a sting. More, it felt like teasing. The way old friends might do.
“I’m going to try that hat,” said Toby, lifting hats in the same style off the display and out of boxes to find his own size.
“Me too,” said Owen, and then they were all elbows and shoving, and at one point, Toby pulled away from the stand with three straw hats identical to the one Galen wore on his head.
Bede reached out his hand, received his hat, and plonked it on his head. Toby and Owen did likewise, and now his team had matching hats.
They all hadmatching fucking hats.
He hadn’t expected to start feeling like Father Christmas as he stood at the counter and signed the slip for the boots and hats, but he did. They wore their hats out of the store and carried their boot boxes under their arms, and not one of them wanted to let go of the boxes and store them in the truck bed for the short ride down the hill into the valley.
On impulse, he stopped to show them how to handle their hats, how to tilt them. Then, rather than going straight back to the valley, he drove them up into the main part of the guest ranch, pointing out the main features, such as the barn and the dining hall, where dances were held on Tuesday nights.
As he drove the truck down the steep switchbacks, a sweet wind blew through the open windows. Toby whistled through his teeth as his dishwater blond hair whipped around and, meanwhile, Owen, looking like he’d like a toothpick to worry, sighed and relaxed in his seat. Next to Galen, in the passenger seat, Bede, who had elbowed Toby out of the way, winked at him.
Galen didn’t wink back, but he smiled. He couldn’t help it. This was the best he’d felt since his dad had passed away, and Bede was part of that. And if that didn’t surprise the hell out of him, he didn’t know what would.
Maybe he’d take a swim all on his own later, when it got dark so that, all on his own, he could figure out what was going on with him.
He waited all through dinner, and the evening’s campfire, keeping to himself, waiting until he could slip back to his tent. There, he looked for the red swim trunks that Maddy had so thoughtfully ordered for everyone, but couldn’t find them, so he stripped to his briefs, threw on his shirt and boots, grab a towel and a flashlight and hoofed it through the woods to the lake.
Nobody was there as he stood on the end of the dock, which swayed softly up and down in a slight, self-produced wave. When he clicked off the flashlight, and his eyes adjusted, it became pure dark and then slowly, bit by bit, the ambient light of the stars overhead made the lake a pool of still, black ink.
He put the flashlight and towel down, stripped off everything and, bare to the skin, stood in the faint, pine-scented breeze, a little damp from the lake water, a lazy swirl of air that touched him everywhere. It was perfect, and he dove in, spearing into the dark waters that swallowed him and soothed him all over. Making his troubled thoughts from before vanish.
When he surfaced, the lake was calm, except for the black rings of water that spread out from where he was treading water.
“I can do this,” he said out loud, the words barely a whisper over the surface of the water. He could lead men and make good decisions and soon his heart would heal from the heartbreak over losing his dad, and over the turmoil of maybe having to sell the farm.
