Roy Pacheco, 62, retired smokejumper turned part-time fly-fishing guide, leans against the scuffed pine bar of the Silver Spur Saloon, condensation from his Pabst Blue Ribbon soaking through the knee of his frayed Carhartt work pants. He drove into town for the annual fire department chili cookoff ready to corner the new county commissioner, the woman who’d pushed through the backcountry access ban that cut three of his most popular fishing spots out of his rotation, and give her a piece of his mind. Twelve years prior, his ex-wife left him for a fellow jump crew member he’d considered a brother, and he’d carried a chip on his shoulder for anyone who messed with the small, predictable life he’d built for himself in the hills outside Missoula ever since. It’s his biggest flaw: he assumes the worst of anyone who upsets his routine, no questions asked.
The jukebox blares Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” so loud the mirror behind the bar rattles when she slides into the empty spot next to him, her work boots caked in the same mud that streaks the side of his pickup. He recognizes her from the town hall meeting two weeks prior, Elara Voss, 58, sharp jaw, silver streaks in her dark braid, wearing a well-worn Pendleton instead of the frumpy suit she’d had on that night. She leans in close to flag the bartender, her shoulder brushing the tattoo of a pine tree on his bicep, and he can smell pine resin and vanilla shampoo on her hair. “Double rye, neat,” she shouts over the music, then turns to him, holding eye contact so long he has to fight the urge to look away. “You’re Roy, right? The fly-fishing guide who called me a pencil-pushing city hack during public comment last week.”
He freezes, beer halfway to his mouth, and snorts. “Guilty. Figured you didn’t listen to any of us, though.” She laughs, loud and throaty, and when she reaches for her drink her hand brushes his, calloused at the index finger, not soft like he expected a politician’s hands to be. “I listen. I was a backcountry ranger in the Bob Marshall for six years before I ran for office. Those spots you’re mad about? Cutthroat populations dropped 70% in three years from overfishing. The ban’s temporary, two years max, once we restock and put strict catch limits in place, they’re open again.” He feels his face heat up, embarrassed he’d jumped to conclusions so fast, the simmering anger he’d carried for a month melting into something lighter, sharper, the kind of tug low in his gut he hasn’t felt since before his ex left.
They talk for an hour, the bar clearing out around them, her shoulder pressed to his now because the heat went out an hour prior and the November air seeps through the cracks in the wall. She tells him she’s been trying to learn to fly fish for six months, every guide in the county turns her down because they’re still mad about the ban. He teases her, says he’ll teach her, but only if she brings the thermos of dark roast she mentioned drinking every morning, and promises to bring him a free plate of her chili next year—she won first place that night, the crumpled blue ribbon still pinned to her flannel pocket. She grins, sticking her hand out to shake on it, and her fingers linger on his palm for three full beats before she pulls away.
He’s halfway through telling her about the time he got stuck in a fir tree for three hours during a jump in central Idaho when she leans in, her breath warm against his stubbled cheek, and presses a soft, quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Meet me at the Rock Creek trailhead at 6 a.m. Saturday,” she says, grabbing her coat off the back of the bar stool. “Don’t be late, or I’ll add an extra six months to that fishing ban just to mess with you.”
He watches her climb into her beat-up Ford F-150, taillights fading down the snow-dusted main street, before he looks down at the bar, noticing a napkin tucked under his empty beer bottle, her personal cell number scrawled in blue ink across the paper, a little doodle of a trout next to it. He pulls his old flip phone out of his pocket, fumbling a little with the keys because his hands are still warm from where she touched him, and sets an alarm for 5 a.m. Saturday, no snooze.
