“He stayed because—” Galen paused, then shook his head. “I don’t know why he stayed. I have no idea.”
“Well, he might not know why either, but he’s glad he stayed,” said Gabe, his voice lowering to seriousness. “Keep your eyes open. Make your mind a blank slate. Consider what it might be like to be released after five years in prison, and why on earth you would not go back to what you had before. Bede was making a shit ton of money, and he had a lot of power and influence. He could have that again inside of a heartbeat. But he’s still here. Walking around barefoot every chance he gets.”
“Yeah, go figure,” said Galen, a tornado of thoughts whirling in his head. “I told him it wasn’t safe, but?—”
“You might ask yourself why he does that, as well.”
“I will,” said Galen.
This was an assignment on a whole ‘nother level, but a flicker of brightness inside of him told him that he was glad he’d get to find out.
Every man on his team had made decisions, good and bad. Now that they were in the valley, they had opportunities being placed in front of them. It was Galen’s job to aid and assist them.
Most importantly, he wanted to find out why Bede stayed.
Thanking Gabe, Galen stepped out of the tent and stood on the wooden platform, letting the faint breeze brush across hisskin. He felt a new confidence that he could do the job that he’d agreed to do.
In the meantime, he needed to gather his team together so they could put in a good afternoon’s work attacking the knapweed. At the end of the day, they’d put away their tools and clean up, and then everybody would get a whole Sunday off. Well worth looking forward to.
But first, where was his team? Surely they were done with the counseling session by now.
He marched along the path to the mess tent, where he found a few parolees lounging at tables as they glared at their clipboards. Of note, Toby and Owen were having a clipboard battle, giggling like mad when the clipboard missed, and howling when it didn’t.
“Guys?” asked Galen, then he raised his voice. “Guys. Stop a minute.”
“Yes, boss?” Owen asked, and Toby echoed him.
“How’s it going with the applications?” Galen asked. “You guys know what to do?”
“Sure do, boss,” said Owen, and Toby nodded.
“Great.” Galen paused as if the thought had just occurred to him to ask where Bede was, though that had been his main objective. “Where’s Bede? I need to check on him as well.”
“Down by the lake,” said Owen.
“Yeah, the loser,” added Toby, making the shape of an L on his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, all with a complete lack of fear or respect.
With a nod and a wave of thanks, Galen turned and tramped through the woods, following the push of cool air that came from Half Moon Lake.
Chapter 21
Galen
From between the trees he could see glints of crystal blue water, and the stark blue of the sky over the ridge. And there, sitting at one of the picnic tables, was Bede.
There was no mistaking that broad back, those strong arms, the white t-shirt that Bede was wearing when surely a long-sleeved cotton shirt would be better protection from the sun. He was hatless, too, bent over the picnic table.
When Galen came closer, he could see Bede was scowling.
Circling around, he saw that Bede was scowling at a stack of papers clamped on a clipboard. He had a pen in his hand, but it looked like he’d rather bore a hole through the paper than write on it.
It looked as though the counselor’s job search assignment was going over just about as well as a ton of lead.
“Something I can help with?” he asked, because that was his job. And also, Bede had done him a favor. Maybe he could return it.
“No,” said Bede, scowling hard enough to make him look like he debating getting up and walking right out of the valley. “Seriously, no,” he growled.
Galen sat across from him at the picnic table, just the same. His view was not the lake and the trees and the ridge. His view was Bede’s angry face, strong lines deepened by what Galen could interpret as frustration, for the application in front of Bede was completely blank.
