Chapter 7 Connor
Connor
“You comin’ out to the bonfire this weekend, Con?” Joey asked as we sat around in our bunks after another long day on the ranch. “Might be nice to get the hell out of here for a minute. I’m so sick of cows I could spit.”
“Larry say it’s okay?” I replied, convinced the answer would be no.
“Hell yeah, he said it’s fine,” Joey nodded. Then he looked at the other guys, a mischievous grin on his lips. “He just said to make sure we don’t let Pete know.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So, it’s not exactly sanctioned then.”
“More like... overlooked,” Greg chimed in from his bunk where he was flipping through an old issue of Field & Stream. “Larry knows we need to blow off steam, but Pete’s got that whole ‘no fun allowed’ policy.”
“It’s just a little bonfire down by the creek,” Kyle explained, sitting up and leaning forward eagerly. “Some of the Nelson Ranch hands set it up. They do it once a month. Beer, music, normal shit that normal people do.”
“Normal shit,” I repeated, the words feeling strange in my mouth. Normal wasn’t something I’d experienced in a long time.
“Yeah, and Evelyn makes these chocolate chip cookies that’ll make you weep,” Darius added. “Worth going just for those.”
Sam, who’d been quiet until now, perked up. “You think there’ll be girls there?” His voice cracked slightly on the last word, reminding me how young he really was.
“Jesus, Sam,” Joey laughed. “Is that all you think about?”
“It’s been years!” Sam protested, his face flushing red. “Three years in juvie, then straight to prison when I turned eighteen. I haven’t touched a woman since I was sixteen.”
I winced internally. The kid didn’t need to explain himself to us. We all understood deprivation all too well.
“There might be some local girls,” Kyle said kindly. “But don’t get your hopes up too high. This ain’t exactly a singles mixer.”
“I’m just saying,” Sam mumbled, picking at a loose thread on his blanket. “Would be nice to talk to someone who isn’t... you know... us.”
I understood that feeling all too well. Seven years was a long time to be surrounded by nothing but men in gray jumpsuits and guards with bad attitudes. The thought of a normal social gathering was both appealing and terrifying.
“So, what do you say, Con?” Joey pressed. “You in?”
I hesitated, weighing my options. On one hand, I’d been keeping my head down, avoiding trouble, doing everything by the book.
Going to an unauthorized party didn’t seem like the wisest choice.
On the other hand, the thought of sitting in this bunkhouse for another weekend while everyone else was out having fun made me feel like an absolute boob.
“Is Ryder gonna be there?” The question slipped out before I could stop it.
The guys exchanged knowing looks that made heat rise to my face.
“Why?” Greg asked, a sly smile spreading across his weathered face. “You two got something going on we should know about?”
“Hell no,” I shot back too quickly. “Just trying to avoid him, that’s all. Kid’s been a pain in my ass since day one.”
“Sure,” Joey drawled, clearly not buying it. “That’s why he follows you around like a lost puppy.”
“Well, I can’t exactly tell him to fuck off, can I?” I huffed. “Believe me, I want him to leave me alone.”
“You know we don’t care, right?” Darius added, glancing up at me. “That you like guys or whatever.”
“Who said I like guys?” I said, again too quickly to be believable. I tried my best to act offended.
“Oh, come on,” Joey sighed, rolling his eyes. “Every time we talk about pussy, you look like you just caught a whiff of rotten garbage.”
“I do not,” I growled, making a mental note to make sure I wasn’t actually doing that from now on. “I… I love… pussy.”
“Jesus Christ, man,” Greg chimed in. He was usually so quiet, but now he apparently felt the need to speak. “That was pathetic.”
The guys burst into laughter, and I felt my face burning hotter than the midday sun.
“Look, we’re just busting your balls,” Kyle said, reaching over to clap my shoulder. “Nobody gives a shit who you want to fuck. We’ve all done time. You think any of us haven’t seen it all?”
“Or done it all,” Darius muttered with a half-smile.
I stared down at my hands, calloused and rough from weeks of ranch work.
These guys knew me better than I thought, which was unsettling.
I’d spent years perfecting the art of being invisible, of keeping my desires locked away where no one could use them against me.
And here these knuckleheads had me figured out in a matter of weeks.
“Fine,” I finally said. “Yeah, I like guys. So what?”
“So nothing,” Greg said without looking up from his magazine. “Just means more women for the rest of us.”
Joey leaned forward, his eyes suddenly serious. “And about Ryder, he probably won’t be there. Pete keeps him on a pretty short leash. But if he does show up, we got your back.”
I nodded, a lump forming in my throat at their easy acceptance. They were a rough bunch of dicks, but we looked out for one another. “Thanks.”
“So, you’re coming?” Sam asked, his face lighting up like I’d just agreed to bust him out of prison.
I sighed, knowing I was probably making a mistake. “Yeah, I guess I’ll come.”
The guys whooped and high-fived like we were teenagers planning to sneak out after curfew. Maybe in a way, we were. None of us had gotten to live normal lives for a long time.
“What about you, Sam?” I asked, turning the attention away from myself. “You coming too?”
Sam’s smile faltered. “I don’t know. What if Pete finds out? I can’t go back inside, man. I just can’t.”
The room went quiet. We all understood that fear, that constant dread hanging over our heads. One mistake, one wrong move, and it was back to concrete walls and metal bars.
“No one’s going back,” I said firmly, surprising myself with the protective tone in my voice. “We go, we have a few beers, we come back. No trouble, no drama.”
“That’s right,” Joey nodded. “Besides, Larry’s cool. He wouldn’t let us go if he thought there was any real risk. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
“He’s just covering his own ass by saying Pete can’t know,” Kyle added. “Standard procedure.”
Sam looked around at all of us, his youthful face a mix of fear and hope. “You guys would really look out for me?”
“Course we would,” Darius said. “We’re all in this together, right?”
I watched as Sam’s shoulders relaxed, a tentative smile spreading across his face.
It struck me then how much we’d all become a makeshift family of sorts.
Broken men trying to piece themselves back together.
The realization hit me harder than I expected.
In prison, getting close to people was dangerous.
You formed alliances out of necessity, but true friendship?
That was a liability. Yet here we were, six ex-cons looking out for each other like brothers.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “We are.”
“So, it’s settled then,” Joey grinned, rubbing his hands together. “Saturday night, we sneak out after Pete does his final rounds and head down to the creek.”
“I heard the other hands might bring their moonshine,” Greg added, finally setting his magazine aside. “That stuff’ll put hair on your chest and knock you on your ass in the same sip.”
“Oh hell yeah,” Kyle whooped. “Last time I had some of that, I woke up in a tree with no pants on.”
“Please tell me that’s not a true story,” I groaned.
“Wish I could, man,” Kyle laughed. “Still don’t know where those pants ended up.”
The conversation devolved into increasingly outlandish stories of drunken escapades, each guy trying to top the last. I leaned back against the wall, listening more than participating. Their stories were a lot more fun than mine, anyway. I was never much for partying.
“You know what I miss most about being free?” Darius said suddenly, interrupting Kyle’s tale about stealing a neighbor’s goat while drunk. “Just sitting somewhere, anywhere, and not having someone watching me. Not having to ask permission to take a piss or get a drink of water.”
“Amen to that,” Greg nodded solemnly.
“I miss good food,” Sam chimed in. “Real food, not that processed crap they fed us inside.”
“Women,” Joey sighed dramatically. “I miss women so damn much I can smell perfume in my dreams.”
“What about you, Connor?” Kyle asked, turning to me. “What’d you miss most while you were in?”
I thought about it for a moment. There were the obvious answers—sex, good food, privacy. But what had really eaten at me during those seven years was something different.
“Stars,” I finally said. “Being able to look up and see the whole sky full of stars without bars in the way.” I paused, feeling vulnerable but continuing anyway.
“First night out, I just laid on the ground outside the motel and stared up for hours. Couldn’t believe how many there were, how I’d forgotten what they looked like. ”
The room went quiet. Then Greg nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said, his voice rough. “I did the same thing.”
For a moment, we were all connected by that shared experience, that moment of rediscovering something so simple yet so profound after having it taken away.
“Well,” Joey said, breaking the silence, “there’ll be plenty of stars at the bonfire. And beer. And maybe even some pretty local girls for Sammy boy here.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “But only the ones I’ve already had my way with. Sloppy seconds for Sammy.”
“You’re a real charmer, Joey,” I said dryly as Sam punched him in the arm.
“What? I’m just stating facts,” Joey laughed, dodging another swing from Sam. “The ladies can’t resist all this.” He gestured to his body, which was average at best, with a sweeping motion that made us all groan.
“Yeah, they can’t resist running in the opposite direction,” Kyle snickered.
I found myself smiling despite my better judgment.
These idiots were growing on me, even if I hadn’t meant to let them.
There was something comforting about their easy banter, the way they included me without pushing too hard.
It reminded me of what life could actually be, what I’d been missing out on for all these years.
“You know what I heard?” Darius leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I heard the Wesley ranch is going under. That they’re gonna be forced to sell or go bankrupt.”
Greg’s head shot up. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Overheard Larry talking to one of the regular hands. Something about bad management by the family.”
“Bullshit,” Joey declared. “Big places like this never go under. They have more money than God.”
“I don’t know,” Kyle mused. “Times are tough for ranchers. My uncle lost his place a few years back. Couldn’t compete with the big corporate outfits.”
The conversation shifted to ranch economics, something I knew next to nothing about.
I let their voices wash over me, content to listen.
I didn’t really give a shit about this other ranch outside of town, but I couldn’t deny I’d heard whispers of it myself.
I’d also heard that the Nelson Ranch had recently undergone some sort of weird transition thanks to a will.
But to be honest, I wasn’t paying attention that much. It wasn’t my business.
“Hey, Con,” Sam’s voice broke through my thoughts. “You ever think about what you’re gonna do after? When your parole’s up?”
The question caught me off guard. I’d been so focused on getting through each day that I hadn’t allowed myself to think too far ahead.
“Not really,” I admitted. “Find work somewhere, I guess. Somewhere quiet.”
“I’m going to California,” Sam declared, his eyes bright with youthful determination. “My cousin’s got a body shop out there. Says he can get me work.”
“California’s expensive as hell,” Greg warned. “You’d be better off staying in Montana.”
“No way,” Sam shook his head vehemently. “I need to start fresh. Somewhere nobody knows me. And somewhere that weed is legal.”
I understood that feeling all too well. The weight of your past, always hanging around your neck like an anchor. The weed part I could leave though.
“What about you guys?” I asked, curious now.
Joey stretched his arms overhead. “I’m thinking Alaska. Fishing boats pay good money and don’t ask too many questions about your background.”
“That’s hard work,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but six months of busting my ass and I could make enough to live on for a year. Plus, no one around but fish and other roughnecks.”
“I’m staying local,” Greg said quietly. “Got a daughter in Billings. Haven’t seen her in eight years. Figure I’ll go make a quiet little life for myself there.”
“I’m goin’ to Florida,” Kyle nodded. “I fuckin’ hate winter.”
“Same,” Darius nodded. “Maybe I’ll get a job dressed as Micky Mouse at Disneyworld.”
“Good god,” I laughed, unable to help myself. “That sounds like a fucking nightmare.”
Everyone else joined in, taking turns teasing Darius. All I could do was smile. These idiots weren’t so bad after all.