6. Galen

Chapter 6

Galen

R ight after the arrival of his little team, Galen took them on a tour of the valley. He started with the mess tent, then the first aid hut, then the showers, and was sure he'd never met a more disinterested bunch.

According to their files, Toby and Owen had been friends in prison.

Owen was the sharp-eyed one with a sneaky smile that came and went without any reason that Galen could figure out. Toby was a little younger, with dirty-dishwater hair and sharp shoulders and ribs that showed when even the slightest breeze flattened his shirt to his torso.

As Galen led them along the newly widened path to the wooden paddock, painted cedar red, and small storage barn, they stuck close together and dragged their feet, like they were bored school children on a field trip.

When shown the pastures beyond which was a small band of horses grazed in the distance, they didn't seem to care.

They weren't even impressed when he took them to the dock that jutted out into Half-Moon Lake, which, in Galen's mind, was the prettiest bit of water he ever had seen.

The blue water of the lake lapped at the pylons of the dock. Halfway out, the dock became a floating one, as the lake sank to cold depths quite quickly. At the far edges of the lake, pine trees stood, green-topped sentinels, and beyond that loomed the long, gray edge of Guipago Ridge.

Teams in the past, he'd heard, had swimming parties, but it was his secret wish to take himself down there on a moonless night and go for a silent, solitary swim in the dark. By himself. Just like he used to do in the pond back on his dad's farm.

Not that he'd ask them, but not one of his team would want to go with him. Especially not Obadiah "Bede" Deacon.

Bede stuck out. He acted differently than Toby and Owen. As he followed behind the other two, he watched with silent, dark blue eyes. Like he was taking mental notes, but didn't want to look like he was interested.

When they got to Half Moon Lake, Bede stood on the shoreline, holding his hands at his sides. He was looking over the mostly calm surface of the lake as if watching for the thing that might kill him if he wasn't on the alert.

Tension radiated off shoulders that flexed beneath the prison-issued t-shirt, his whole body stiff, eyes searching, casting back and forth.

Which must be what five years behind bars did to a man, not to mention the many years spent dealing in drugs and spending ill-gotten gains. Still, Bede was just about the last person Galen would invite to go swimming with him.

"We are going to get some kayaks soon," Galen told them. "Or maybe it's canoes."

Nobody answered him.

At the end of the tour, Galen took his team members to their respective tents.

Toby and Owen were in tent number twelve, and Bede was by himself in tent number eleven.

All of them seemed a little dubious about being dropped off without supervision beneath the sweetly spreading arms of pine trees, but it was a clean break Galen was willing to make. They needed to learn sometime, and it would help them grow into independence and responsibility.

Galen had only heard of two parolees who'd left the program. One of them was Kurt, who'd tried to kill another parolee by shoving him into a woodchopper. The other, Tom, had a fiancée and a future father-in-law, not to mention, by all versions of the story, the cutest baby in the world.

As for now, Galen was stuck with who he'd been assigned and they with him, and either he would succeed at being a team lead or he would fail. In the meantime, he hoped the members of his team would all shower and change before dinner because they smelled like he remembered Wyoming Correctional smelling, when he'd taken his training.

After he'd dropped his team off at their tents, he went back to his own tent. Sitting on his cot, then scooting back to lean against the metal headboard, he went over the files on each member of his team one more time.

The files didn't show him anything he didn't already know. That Toby and Owen were probably not very smart, having decided a life of breaking into other people's houses was a good idea. And that Bede was too smart to have chosen a life of crime, yet he had.

Bede's file mentioned a woman named Lorraine Sheffield, who was his aunt, and a Winston Ludlow, though Galen couldn't figure out who he was. Still, it was soothing to sit and read everything, as though none of it had any connection to him at all.

However, the little bit of stillness he'd gathered to himself was completely undone because by the time dinner rolled around and he came up to the mess tent, a fight between Bede and Marston was just about to explode.

The two men were poised on the wooden platform in front of the mess tent, chest to chest, fists curled, invisible sparks jumping between them. They were on the verge of coming to blows as though they'd known each other for years and their mutual dislike was finally exposed in a cloud of rage.

Without thinking, Galen stepped between them, pushing Marston away, pressing his palms on Bede's chest.

Encountering solid muscle beneath that white t-shirt as he looked up at Bede, his own breath started coming fast and his heart was beating so hard, he barely remembered saying, That is enough and What is the problem ?

Everything was on the verge of becoming a royal shitshow and every minute he expected that Gabe was going to step in and stop things.

But while several parolees were there, they only watched. As if they fully expected that Galen was man enough to handle it. That, as a team lead, it was his duty to handle it.

When he finally was able to find out that Marston was mad because Bede had taken it upon himself to rearrange who slept where, Marston was incensed, and as Galen looked up into that angry face, he could see the passion there, the love Marston had for Kell.

As for Bede, it was like shoving against a brick wall. Up close like that, smashed between the two men, he thought he was going to get smothered.

Yet, even as he shoved to get free, traces of Bede's scent stayed with him, traces of energy and anger and distrust that seemed to press into his skin.

Gabe's intervention had come late in the battle, but Galen was glad of his steady presence, though by the time Galen had calmed both men down, and a blanket of stillness settled around him, Galen thought his heart would have slowed down.

It was still thumping when he sat down with his tray of good BBQ and fixings, digging into his meal, exchanging pleasant everyday chat with Royce, even as he watched his small team out of the corner of his eye.

Feeling his sweat drying around the back of his neck and beneath his arms, he considered the fact that maybe he wasn't cut out for being a team lead. He certainly couldn't deal with fights breaking out every day. That wasn't what he wanted his summer to be like.

He had to break up another fight after dinner, though the short, terse conversation among the three of them, Marston, Bede, and him, seemed to clear the air a bit more.

He could even say it was interesting watching the way Bede's mind seemed to work, especially when Marston told him to take a shower. There was lightning in Bede's eyes, dark eyes like hammered blue stone, as he seemed to make corner-sharp decisions about how he was going to keep the peace between him and Marston.

Both men seemed to care for Kell a great deal. Marston was in love with Kell, obviously. Who knew how Bede really felt, though he seemed to be struggling between pretending he didn't care and admitting that he did care. A lot. He's like a brother to me .

Well, Galen could go along with that, and maybe this was the hump he had to get over before settling into the job he'd signed up for. He just had to remind himself that just like on the farm, everything in the valley would have its own season, and that time and water could wear away stone. All he had to do was be observant enough to see how the dynamics on his team unfolded.

In the meantime, he went back to his tent after dinner, his little green canvas sanctuary, unlaced his boots, took them off, and put his feet up, head on the pillow, stretched out on his cot, while he went over the files one more time.

Nothing new popped out except that Winston Ludlow was the only member of Bede's gang to get shot and die.

Too bad for Bede. Too bad for Winston. People who attended drug deals in unsavory back alleys kind of deserved what they got. Didn't they?

He must have dozed off, the open folders slipping from his chest to the wood platform beneath his cot. When his eyes flew open, he realized how dark it was getting, and that he might be late for the evening's campfire, surely one of the sweetest points of the day, at least to hear Gabe, Royce, and Marston tell it.

Hustling, he stashed the papers in his little storage shelf, then put on and laced up his work boots. Grabbing his jean jacket on his way out of his tent, he made his way through the shadowed woods to the fire pit.

There was no telling whether the night would be warm or whether the darkness would cool it down. He put the jacket down on a bale of hay and gathered up dry sticks and twigs before going to the fire pit.

There was someone already there, skillfully stacking logs. Galen recognized him as Blaze, a member of Gabe's team.

In spite of briefly having met the other parolees in the valley on Sunday, Galen hadn't worked much with any of them, and was surprised to see Blaze working away like an ordinary citizen. Someone who might be a decent guy. Gabe seemed to like him, and Blaze was a whiz at finding just the right shape and size of sticks for roasting marshmallows for s'mores.

"Here and here," said Galen as he handed Blaze his hastily gathered sticks.

"This one and this, yes. But not that one." Blaze tossed a few sticks onto the pile of logs that Gabe was just kneeling to light. "You did good, though."

Blaze laughed, his smile wide, like he'd not just gotten let out of prison after two years behind bars. So nonchalant. So whatever about it all.

This was not an attitude Galen had ever felt comfortable with, but maybe he could understand how prison might cause Blaze to think that way. To make all ex-cons think that way.

However, he couldn't change any of them, and it probably wasn't smart to spend so much time focusing on something he couldn't change.

It was only for the rest of the summer, anyway. He'd do the job he'd signed up to do and move on. But to where? Back to the farm?

To combat wasting any more energy on the overwhelming choices that loomed in front of him, Galen stood by the fire pit and focused on the small flames licking at the small teepee of kindling that Blaze had arranged and set alight.

The air was bright and warm by the fire, the gold and orange and blue flames making the night seem darker all of a sudden.

Galen shivered. Maybe he'd need his jean jacket after all.