“Let’s get this paperwork done,” said Lenny, tapping his pen against the metal clip on the clipboard. “Then I can be on my way.”
The mood of the group shifted, and Bede looked around as Lenny shuffled through the papers on his clipboard.
In the middle of this, as Bede waited for his new life to begin, a man came walking through the woods in the swirl of a breeze, longish hair lifting.
He was dressed much like Marston in dusty blue jeans, work boots, a snap button shirt in pale blue, which gave Bede the impression was a sort of uniform in the valley.
The man was whip-thin, lanky, and as he came up to the group, he wasn’t smiling. Which made Bede want to crack a joke, because, man, what did this guy have to be unhappy about?
His gray eyes cast a wide glance, narrowing as he looked at the three of them: Bede, Toby, and Owen. Like he could spot an ex-con at a mile’s distance and didn’t quite care for the view. Had he been on the parole board, he would not have given any of them the green light to walk free.
All of this was in his gaze, the way he lifted his chin and looked down his aquiline nose at them.
“This my group?” the man asked, as he pushed a long lock of hair back from his face.
“You Galen Parnell?” asked Lenny, looking up from his clipboard.
“That’s me.”
Galen’s lips barely moved as he spoke, and he looked away as though he’d seen what he needed to see and wasn’t impressed. He took the clipboard from Lenny, signed it, and handed it back in utter silence.
It was hard for Bede to get a read on a man who held himself so tightly, like he was standing behind an invisible barrier so nobody could get through.
Again, Bede had the rest of the summer to figure Galen out, which was key, because it looked like the guy was now in charge of him. That is, unless Bede simply up and left the valley. Which he could do.
“See you,” said Lenny. He got into the van and drove away, chugging up the switchbacks, disappearing into the pine trees with a flash of white and a sparkle of sun off the chrome bumper.
“Thanks for being part of my welcoming committee,” said Galen to Marston and Kell. It was acknowledgement and dismissal at the same time. “But I better get to it.”
“See you at dinner,” said Marston, tipping his chin at Kell as if to say,We’re not wanted here.
With a wave, Marston and Kell walked across the parking lot and into the woods.
From his and Kell’s phone conversations, Bede knew that Marston and Kell made signs and were setting them up around the compound. Digging holes. Pouring cement.
Was that just a two-man job, or could Bede bribe someone to be put on the same team as Kell? On the other hand, Galen didn’t seem like he’d be pleased to do anybody any favors.
“You’re my team,” said Galen, as though he didn’t like the idea of it very much. As though he didn’t want anything to do with ex-cons.
Bede had seen expressions like the one Galen currently had. The tight scowl, the sneer of disdain represented by a flare of his nostrils.
“I’m Galen Parnell, and you are?”
“Toby Thorne,” said Toby, with his hand to his chest, like there was another Toby in the group and he wanted to make sure Galen didn’t confuse him with somebody else.
“Owen Feeney,” said Owen. He had a smile like a guy who would promise to redo your driveway, get you to sign on the dotted line after paying a hefty deposit, only to never show up.
“Bede Deacon,” said Bede, without waiting for Galen to look at him.
“Bede?” asked Galen sharply, looking up, gray eyes snapping. “There’s no Bede on my team.” Then he paused, as if reconsidering. “Unless Bede is short for Obadiah.”
“That’s right.”
Bede smiled at Galen, half on the verge of daring him to make something of it. To insist that Bede go by his full and given name, like his teachers used to do back in school. Like the prison guards would sometimes do, just to mess with him.
Galen glared at him as a bit of wind lifted his brown hair and tossed it in his eyes. He used long fingers to pull the hair away, then glared at all of them, as though they’d been causing problems all morning and he’d had just about enough.
He’d be pretty if only he’d smile a little. If only he’d relax those shoulders a little. With those eyes and that sweep of hair, Galen would have been in high demand in the prison yard.
