Elias Voss, 58, retired smokejumper turned wildfire mitigation consultant, leaned against the sticky vinyl bar of the Silver Dollar Saloon, swirling four fingers of bourbon in a chipped highball glass. He’d burned his chili entry for the volunteer fire department cookoff an hour prior, dumped the whole dented pot in the dumpster out back, and had avoided the well-meaning ribbing from his old crew by slipping through the side door between the community center and the bar. His left knee ached, a leftover from a bad landing outside of Missoula in 2016, and the rain tapping hard on the saloon’s tin roof was only making it throb worse. He’d spent the last 12 years keeping people at arm’s length, ever since his wife left two months after the 2018 blaze that killed three of his jump team, convinced he was too hollowed out to ever be present for anyone. It was easier to be gruff, to blow off small talk, to go home alone to his cabin at the edge of the national forest than to risk letting anyone see how much he still blamed himself for that day.
The door banged open behind him, bringing a gust of rain-wet pine air and the faint sound of Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues* drifting over from the cookoff speakers. He didn’t look up until the stool next to him scraped against the linoleum, a pair of damp dark jeans brushing his good right knee as someone sat. He glanced over, and his jaw tightened a little. Clara Marlow, 49, the new county extension agent who’d moved to town from Portland six months prior, was peeling a soaked flannel off her shoulders, leaving a fitted white tee that was damp at the cuffs and collar. She’d been trying to corner him for weeks to talk about fuel reduction on county-owned public land, and he’d dodged every call, every email, every run-in at the grocery store. She was too sharp, too quick to smile, too much of everything he’d convinced himself he didn’t deserve.
She ordered a lager from the bartender, then turned to him, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners when she recognized him. Her knee was still pressed to his, not hard, just a steady, warm pressure through the denim of both their pants. “Heard your chili went up in smoke. Half the crew’s still placing bets on whether you did it on purpose to get out of judging the pie contest.” Her voice was low, a little rough from the cold, and she smelled like pine soap and rain and the faint, sweet tang of lavender lip balm. He grunted in response, took a sip of his bourbon, but didn’t move his knee away. He told himself it was because his left one was too sore to shift, not because the small point of contact was sending a warm buzz up his spine he hadn’t felt in over a decade.
When she reached across him to grab a napkin from the stack next to his elbow, her damp sleeve brushed his forearm, and he flinched before he could stop himself. She pulled back fast, apologetic, but he shook his head. “Fine. Just jumpy. Was out checking a fuel break on the west side today. Almost stepped on a rattlesnake.” It was the most he’d said to her in one go since she’d moved to town. She laughed, a low, warm sound, and leaned in a little closer, so their shoulders were almost touching.
“Funny you mention that. I was up there last week, same spot. Almost lost my boot to a gopher hole.” She paused, twisting the label off her beer bottle with her thumb. “I saw your presentation to the county board last month. The one where you talked about the 2018 fire.” His jaw tightened again, and he went to take another sip of bourbon, but she kept talking, soft, no pity in her voice. “My older brother was a smokejumper. Died in the August Complex in 2020. I know what that guilt looks like. You don’t have to carry it alone, is all I’m saying.”
He froze, the glass halfway to his mouth. No one in town had said that to him, not in 12 years. Everyone either avoided the fire entirely, or patted him on the back and told him he’d done all he could, like they were reading off a script. He set the glass down slow, his calloused fingers rough from 30 years of handling axes and chainsaws brushing hers where they rested on the bar, her skin soft, a tiny scar on her index finger from pruning shears she’d mentioned using at her community garden plot, neither of them pulling away. The cookoff noise died down outside, the saloon cleared out, the bartender started wiping down the back counter, and they talked for three hours straight, about fire lines, about her brother, about the pair of rescue hounds he kept at his cabin, about the way the aspens looked in October up on the ridge.
When he walked her to her beat-up Subaru out front, the rain had slowed to a fine mist, the streetlights glowing gold through the fog. She stopped at the driver’s side door, looked up at him, and before he could overthink it, she leaned in, kissing him soft, her hand resting light on his chest right over his heart. He didn’t pull away. He kissed her back, slow, the faint taste of lager and lavender on her lips, his hand coming up to cup her cheek, her skin cool from the mist.
When she pulled back, she smiled, tugging the collar of his flannel a little like she was teasing him. “I’m heading up to the north ridge Saturday to map the high-risk zones. You wanna come? You can show me where the rattlesnakes are.” He nodded, no hesitation, no second guessing. She got in her truck, waved, and pulled out of the parking lot, taillights fading red down the main street.
He stood there for a minute, the mist damp on his face, his knee still throbbing, and touched his lips with the back of his hand. He got in his own pickup, turned the key, and the radio flicked on to a Patsy Cline track his mom used to play on road trips when he was a kid, soft and warm through the old speakers. He shifted into drive, the corner of his mouth tugging up into a real, unforced smile for the first time in 12 years.
