2. Ty
Chapter 2
Ty
S haking, Ty heaved the contents of his stomach into the sharp, dry grasses by the edge of the highway. Just another day in a long string of nightmare days.
When he felt someone’s hands pull his hair back from his face, he was relieved that he could use both hands to hold himself steady and just get it over with. When he was done, he wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his blue jumpsuit and stood up.
There, less than a foot away, was Hudson Blackwell. Ty wasn’t sure how he knew the guy’s first and last name. Maybe someone had mentioned Hudson by name as they’d all stood in line for the lukewarm chili and day-old bread that was meant to be their supper after working sixteen hours digging and spreading heavy gravel.
What had been different about Hudson, even among the rough men assigned to the chain gang, was how Hudson stood apart. He was about six foot four and as sturdy as an oak tree, in spite of the fact that he’d lost muscle and fat while working those sixteen-hour days.
Hudson was also eye-catching, at least in Ty’s mind, with his messy dark hair and deep brown eyes. Not that Hudson ever noticed him. Not that Hudson said much or seemed to care where he was.
Ty had spotted Hudson right away when he’d first arrived to work on the chain gang in early spring. Not just because Hudson was tall, but because he was so angry. All the time.
Not that anyone had much energy for gossip, but Ty had heard that Hudson had been arrested for robbing a bank. That he’d driven the getaway car. That he was the wheelman. A nonviolent crime, so what the hell was Hudson doing on a chain gang?
Ty’s crime had been to defend a young man in a bar. The young man had been celebrating his twenty-first birthday with several rounds of drinks for his small circle of friends.
They’d been boisterous and jolly, and Ty had smiled as he’d moved out of their way to the far end of the bar. Ty could never have said how he knew, but there’d been a sense of gayness about the young men.
His own family had objected loudly when Ty had come out years before. They’d been unhappy when he’d left Illinois for Wyoming, too, for some reason not believing that he meant it when he said he’d wanted to become a cowboy?—
But that was years ago, and the happy times he’d spent riding the range were in his past. He couldn’t bear thinking about that now. Or how the young man and his friends had been attacked by some rowdies who took objection to the gayness and decided to settle the matter with their fists.
Ty had stepped in, creating a barrier between the rowdies and the young men so they could get away. He’d gotten beat up for his pains. But since he was an outsider, when the fight was broken up, the rowdies declared that he had attacked them , and it was Ty who’d been sent to jail to cool off.
How that had turned into doing two years at Nebraska Correctional outside of Chadron, he had never been able to figure out. How that had turned into a hard summer in a chain gang was even more mysterious still. Without anyone in his corner, without any response to the messages he’d left with his family, Ty was left to tough it out on his own.
Once, when Ty was being dragged off to the hot box for working too slowly and asking for more water to stem an unbearable thirst, he’d seen the expression on Hudson’s face. An anguish mixed with rage, Ty had thought at the time, because Hudson had been unable to do anything about it.
Ty had taken that expression with him into the hot box and had held it close since then. The idea that someone cared enough to be angry on his behalf, even if it wasn’t true, made him feel better.
As they got into the van, Ty looked at Hudson and got the feeling that the big bear of a man simply couldn’t stop himself from being nice. Maybe something had happened to Hudson to put up a wall around his heart, but when he’d seen Ty on his knees, throwing up, he’d gotten out of the van to hold Ty’s hair back from his face.
Ty’d wanted to say thank you, but Hudson had turned away, giving Ty the cold shoulder like he was disgusted that Ty had such loose control over his own belly.
As to why he’d been throwing up, Ty could only put it down to nerves shattered by the prison system, by the sixteen-hour days. Or maybe it was because once the chain gang had been broken up, and they’d been carted off to Wyoming Correctional, Ty had been presented with more food than he knew what to do with. So he’d eaten everything, and too quickly. Dinner the night before, and breakfast that morning. Perhaps it was all of the above. At least his belly was empty and didn’t hurt anymore.
They were supposed to arrive in some valley for the Fresh Start Program by lunchtime, but Joey, the kindly driver, had gotten lost more than once and so they were behind schedule.
Ty didn’t care when they arrived, only that they did so he could take a long, hot shower, and wash the itch from his skin. Sleep someplace cool and quiet, and hope beyond hope that he’d get to see the horses and participate in the riding that Mr. Tate had promised him. He missed horses and the open range beyond his ability to comprehend it.
Mr. Tate had been like Hudson. Tall, strong, quiet. Everybody at Wyoming Correctional had treated Mr. Tate with the utmost respect, but unlike Mr. Baines, the head overseer of the chain gang, Mr. Tate never raised his voice or made threats, and did not, it seemed, need to rule by fear.
He spoke and paperwork appeared. Pens. Official stamps on the paperwork, providing him the authorization to move men between states. Cups of shitty prison coffee, but at least there was coffee. Apologies for the terrible coffee swiftly followed.
Ty could only hope Mr. Tate was a man of his word, but around that lurked the fear that he was imagining that it would all turn out okay.
When Joey drove them to a gas station and parked—Ranchette’s, he’d called it—Ty was sure he was dreaming. Joey got the key to the restroom and handed it right over to Ty. He was then allowed to go— on his own —to wash up.
He splashed water everywhere like a dying dove who had finally found a fountain and felt almost as good as if he’d taken a full shower. Almost.
He went back out, handed the key to Joey, and was given an ice-cold bottle of water in return.
The water in that bottle tasted better than anything in the world. Ty drank it as the van trundled along, finally turning west along a two-lane road. On the bench seat beside him, Hudson glowered and sat as still as a stone. Every time Ty tried to catch his attention to say thank you, Hudson looked away as though Ty had offended him.
It felt odd to not be talking. But after half a year working with the threat of a beating hanging over his head if he so much as sighed too loudly, Ty had gotten out of the habit of even trying to talk to anyone.
But with Hudson, he wanted to. He wanted to say thank you, and to ask Hudson how he’d managed to come through it all. He wanted to share their common experience and, through that sharing, dissipate the horror of it.
“Hudson,” he said, almost a whisper, giving it a try.
“Be quiet,” said Hudson. He didn’t look left or right, just drank his water and watched the road as though it was incumbent upon him to get them where they were going.
The landscape they were passing through was pretty brown, on account of how dry it had been over the past weeks. The past week was also when Ty had been thrown in the hot box, and now here he was sitting in the back of a van, drinking cold water, and not having to move a muscle to get where he was going.
As they got closer to the lion-colored foothills, Joey stopped to drive through a green-painted gate. Then he took a turn onto a dirt road that led up to the top of a grassy expanse, past a new-looking wood cabin. Then the van plunged down into a valley that seemed, in comparison, as green as a shamrock.
Tall pine trees clustered on either side of the switchback as they went down it, crowding behind them when Ty turned to look. Shade covered the windows, speckled with bright sunlight, and when Joey turned off the AC, he also rolled down the windows. The scent of pine and water flooded in.
Ty took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. He still felt itchy and dusty, and rattled like he’d been shaken for hours, rather than merely being driven for hours. He could taste the sick in the back of his throat, could almost smell it on his breath. The water in the restroom hadn’t washed everything away, and now his clothes were drying stiffly against him.
But surely that would be the worst thing he’d encounter for a while? Now that he didn’t have to sleep with one eye open. Now that he didn’t have to keep his eyes on the ground whenever a guard passed by.
Mr. Tate had said the Fresh Start parole program would be a good experience. Ty wanted to believe him like nothing else in the world. He also wanted to believe that Hudson wasn’t a hardhearted asshole, but rather a guy like Ty, who’d been through some shit. That they could be friends. He wanted to believe that the world could be good.
As the van pulled into a clearing and parked next to two silver trucks, Ty looked at Hudson. Hudson looked back at him, a little wide-eyed, creating a moment of connection between the two of them that Ty desperately wanted to hold on to but could not.
Besides, this was it. Time to tell if it would get better, or if Mr. Tate had been lying. Ty didn’t think he had been, but as he got out and stood in the bright sunshine, the air cooled by a slight breeze, his heart was rabbiting in his chest.
“Here comes Gabe,” said Joey. He reached into the van and pulled out a clipboard and pen. “He’s a good guy. Heck, they all are. Mr. Tate only hires the best.”
A man was coming toward them. He had dark hair, square shoulders, and a steady walk. As he came up to them, he wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t seem angry beneath the shade of his cowboy hat.
“You’re a little late, Joey,” said Gabe, taking the clipboard from Joey. “These boys give you any trouble?”
“No, sir,” said Joey. “The problem was me. I got lost, not once, but three times.” He held up three fingers, as though that was all the proof he needed.
“When are they going to talk you into getting a smart phone with GPS on it, Joey?” asked Gabe, but any hardness in his voice vanished with his smile. He signed several sheets of paper on the clipboard. “I guess retirement can’t come too soon, eh?”
“You got that right,” said Joey. He took the clipboard back. “This one here is Hudson Blackwell, and this one is Ty Donovan. Say hello to your new team lead, boys.”
“Hello,” said Ty. His throat was dry, and he had to swallow to get enough spit to speak.
Hudson only grunted, but that seemed to be enough for Gabe.
“Thank you, Joey,” said Gabe.
All of Ty’s focus was on Gabe. The moment there were no witnesses, the second Joey drove off, they’d be on their own with Gabe, and his true colors would come out. It was make or break time.
Ty could see, out of the corner of his eye, that Hudson was focused on Gabe as well. Probably for the same reasons.
When Gabe’s attention turned back to them, Ty froze.
“You guys had a time of it,” said Gabe. “I thought chain gangs only happened in old black and white movies. I’m sad to find out that isn’t true. But your sentences have been served, and here you are with us. We’re going to take good care of you and help you get your certificate at the end of the season.”
Gabe paused, and perhaps he meant for them to speak, but after so long being told to shut the fuck up or he’d end up in solitary or the hot box, Ty couldn’t bring himself to make even so much as a squeak.
Standing angrily beside him, Hudson looked like he’d rather pull his own tongue out than reply to a question that he considered a trick.
Without remarking on their silence, Gabe said, “Usually we do a tour, then let you get a shower before dinner. But I don’t imagine you want to trudge around the woods in those.” He pointed to their thin sneakers. “So, I’ll take you to your tent, let you get a shower, and then we’ll do the tour right before dinner. Then I’ll introduce you to your teammates. Sound good?”
Gabe turned his back on them to lead them along a wide path that disappeared beneath the pine trees.
For a second, Ty thought that surely Hudson would run, but where would he run? Ty couldn’t possibly keep up with those long, powerful legs. And he was tired, not having truly slept for almost two years.
“Hudson,” he said, low.
Hudson waved him away as though Ty were an irritating fly and stalked after Gabe. Ty followed Hudson and his strong back and angry strides. Hudson was suddenly the only familiar thing in all the world, and Ty was grateful the decision to be compliant had been made without anyone getting hurt.