Then he could get rid of the intrusive thoughts pushing into him, all of which were tagged by images of Bede. Bede smiling. Laughing. The side eye glance he’d given Galen when he’d suggested they could get pup cups at Starbucks.
These were not thoughts he should be having.
But when he got to the dock, he saw someone was already there. It was Bede, hunkered down in the grass, his very fancy boots in the grass beside him. He was barefooted, and wearing only a t-shirt and jeans. Still stoned, obviously. Coming down from his high.
“What are you doing out here?” Galen asked, keeping his voice low, in case—in case what? Everyone else was at the campfire, and it was just the two of them.
“What?” Bede stood up, clasping the tops of the boots between the fingers of one hand. “Oh, this. I’m throwin’ my boots in the lake,” he said, the words soft and slow. “They remind me of Winston.”
“You’re going towhat?” Galen knew he’d not misheard. In fact, the back-and-forth motion of Bede’s arm was indicative of someone who was gearing up to throw whatever he had in his hands as far as he could.
“You heard me.”
“I sure did,” said Galen, sputtering. “But why would you do that to such nice boots?”
“What’s it to you?” asked Bede, in that same, almost sleepy voice.
“I’ll tell you what’s it to me.”
Bede was high and all kinds of vulnerable from the pot, so Galen took a deep breath and took a mental step back from whathe’d been about to say. Stuff about how much the boots cost, how much it might cost to replace them. None of which was important in the face of what Bede was going through as he came down from his high.
And though, had anyone told him even weeks ago that he’d be handling someone like Bede with kid gloves, he might have laughed, yes. In their face. But he wasn’t laughing now.
“Whatever is going on with you, throwing those boots in the water is not the answer,” said Galen, thinking he might take the boots from Bede before he did toss them in the water. In the ranch’s store, he’d seen with his very eyes the moment Bede had fallen in love with those boots, and in spite of everything, he didn’t deserve to lose them.
Galen took a step forward.
“You going to turn me in?” asked Bede, clutching the boots to his chest.
“You going to smoke pot again?” Galen shot back.
Then Bede laughed, letting go of the boots so they crumpled to the grass.
“Are you laughing at me?” Galen’s jaw dropped with astonishment.
“Yeah, I’m laughing at you,” said Bede, his smile wide, still sleepy, still-pot induced. “You’re not afraid ofanything, are you.” And in a whisper, he added, “Not even me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Galen’s question was loud enough, sharp enough, to echo across the lake, and come back with a slap.
“You just wade in and damn the consequences,” said Bede with a wide, evocative wave of his hands. “In a prison yard, you’d be dead inside of a heartbeat. That or you’d be running the place.”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” said Galen, totally confused, focusing on the only part of that he actually understood. “This isn’t a prison yard.”
He knew he was shouting, but he’d never been more confused in his life. Both by Bede’s behavior and the shooting-up-from-the-depths-of-his-soul sparks that he could not control.
But Bede didn’t move closer, didn’t have the same expression on his face that he’d had behind the first aid hut. Instead, he looked tired, shoulders slumped. The aftereffects of the pot wearing off, perhaps. Or something else.
“Yeah, I noticed.” The tone in Bede’s voice was one of misery. As if being out of prison was far worse than being in it.
“You need to take those boots back to your tent,” said Galen, making himself sound more stern than he felt.
“Sure thing, boss,” said Bede, a little bit of humor seeming to return to him as he bent to scoop up the boots, clasping them to his chest with one arm.
“Put those on. Don’t walk in the woods barefoot.”
“Yes, boss.” Bede put his boots on over his bare feet, one at a time, then straightened, looking at Galen with as much derision as he might eye someone in airport security. “That better?”
“Yes.” Galen laughed low, in spite of himself. “Jesus, Bede.”
