Rafe Marquez is 62, spent 28 years flying aerial fire tankers for the U.S. Forest Service, retired three years back after a mild stroke left him with a faint tremor in his right hand he still tries to hide. His biggest flaw is he’d rather chew rusted nails than subject himself to small-town gossip, ever since his wife died of ovarian cancer seven years ago and half the residents of his tiny eastern Oregon burg showed up at his door with casseroles and unsolicited advice to “get back out there.” He’d stopped going to community events entirely until the fire department strong-armed him into their annual barbecue fundraiser, reminding him he’d promised to auction off a ride in his vintage Cessna for the cause.
He’s hunched by the industrial beer cooler at the edge of the park, picking at the label on a PBR, when the collision happens. She’s reaching past him for a glass bottle of root beer, her elbow knocking his bicep, their hands brushing when they both fumble to catch the can he’d dropped. Her skin is cool, dotted with freckles across the wrist, a smudge of indigo ink staining the space between her thumb and index finger, and she snorts when he mumbles an apology, not the tight, polite laugh most women in town use around him. He recognizes her immediately: Elara Voss, 54, the new librarian who’d moved to town three months prior, who’d shown up to the last town hall in cutoff denim and scuffed combat boots to argue against the school board’s ban on queer YA novels, who half the old ranchers in the county call a “troublemaker” under their breath.
She leans against the cooler next to him, close enough he can pick up the scent of lavender shampoo mixed with the hickory smoke curling off the barbecue pits and the faint, sweet tang of the blackberry pie sitting on the dessert table 10 feet away. Her knee brushes his when a group of kids runs past, chasing a golden retriever with a hot dog bun in its mouth, and she doesn’t shift away. “That squadron patch on your hat,” she says, nodding at the faded embroidered logo on his worn baseball cap, “my brother flew tankers too. Died in the 2017 Eagle Creek fire, when his plane went down in the gorge.”
Rafe freezes. He knew that pilot. He’d flown the next shift over the burn zone, searching for wreckage for three days before they called off the search. The guilt of that still sits heavy in his chest some nights, when he can’t sleep. He opens his mouth to say something, then glances over at the picnic table where three of the oldest ranchers in town are staring right at them, nudging each other, whispering. He knows what they’re saying: that Rafe’s finally stopped moping, that he’s messing around with the weird liberal librarian, that the whole town will be talking about this by breakfast tomorrow. Every instinct he’s honed over the last seven years screams at him to make an excuse, walk away, go back to his quiet cabin in the woods where no one bothers him.
But she’s looking up at him, hazel eyes flecked with gold, no pity in her face, no awkward sympathy, just recognition. He stays. He tells her about flying search patterns for her brother, about the way the gorge looked that week, smoke so thick you could barely see the Columbia River 1,000 feet below. She tells him about growing up in eastern Washington, tagging along to her brother’s air shows, how she moved out here after her divorce because she wanted to be somewhere that felt like the places he used to take her camping. When someone announces the auction is starting in 10 minutes, she tilts her head toward the trail leading down to the Deschutes River, half-hidden by pine trees. “Wanna skip it?” she says. “I don’t feel like listening to a bunch of guys complain about property taxes for an hour. The river’s quiet this time of night.”
Rafe glances back at the ranchers, who are still watching. He takes a long sip of his beer, sets the empty can in the recycling bin next to the cooler, and nods. The gravel crunches under their work boots as they walk down the trail, the sound of the barbecue’s music and chatter fading behind them, replaced by the rush of the river and the buzz of crickets in the underbrush. She stops at a bend where a fallen ponderosa pine sits half-buried in sand, pats the spot next to her, and he sits, their shoulders pressing together when he leans back against the trunk. She reaches for his left hand, the one without the tremor, runs her finger over the thick, pale scar across his knuckle he got when his cockpit caught fire mid-flight 12 years back, when he’d punched through a broken window to release the fire retardant before the whole plane blew. “How’d you get this?” she asks, her touch soft, not tentative.
He tells her the story, no omissions, no downplaying how scared he’d been, and she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t tell him he’s brave, just nods like she understands. The sun dips below the pine line, painting the sky pink and orange, and fireflies start blinking in the tall grass at the edge of the bank. He realizes he hasn’t felt this light in seven years, hasn’t talked to anyone this easily since his wife died, and he doesn’t care one bit what the ranchers, or anyone else in town, has to say about it.
She stands up after a while, brushing pine needles off the back of her jeans, and holds out her hand to him. “I got a bottle of 12-year bourbon back at my place,” she says, grinning, “and a first edition of *The High and the Mighty* I found in a donation box last week. Figured you’d appreciate it more than the library’s used book sale.” Rafe laces his calloused fingers through hers, the faint tremor in his right hand gone for the first time in three years, and follows her up the trail.
