Rafe Mendez, 52, spent the first hour of the Missoula Fire Department’s annual chili cookoff leaning against a splintered folding table, nursing a lukewarm Pabst and pretending to check work emails on his beat-up iPhone. A retired smokejumper who now ran a one-man wildfire mitigation consulting business, he’d only showed up because the fire chief was his old jump partner, and Rafe owed him for bailing him out of a DUI back in 2020. His green chile pork had taken third place 20 minutes prior, and he was 10 seconds from bailing to go home to his quiet cabin in the hills when a solid hip bumped his left side, a cold can of black cherry hard seltzer pressing to his forearm for half a beat before the person behind it yelped an apology.
He turned to see Clara, the 47-year-old special collections librarian who’d moved to town three months prior, her auburn hair streaked with thin lines of silver pulled back in a messy braid, a thrifted plaid flannel slipping off one shoulder to expose the strap of a faded sunflower sundress. He’d seen her at the grocery store a handful of times, had heard she was the younger sister of one of the active crew leads, but they’d never spoken. She laughed, wiping a smudge of chili off her cheek with the back of her hand, and made eye contact long enough for Rafe to notice the gold flecks in her hazel irises, the tiny scar at the corner of her mouth from a childhood bike crash she’d mentioned to the cashier once. “Sorry about that,” she said, nodding at his chili pot, which still had a line of people waiting to scoop samples. “My brother’s been hyping your recipe for weeks. Said you put so much hatch chile in it once, a rookie smokejumper threw up after eating a bowl.”
Rafe grunted, half amused, half wary. Most people who struck up conversations with him these days only wanted free advice on hardening their vacation homes against the increasingly brutal summer wildfire season, or wanted him to recount gory jump stories for their dinner parties. He’d stopped indulging either years ago, not long after his ex-wife left him for a real estate developer and took half his injury settlement with her, leaving him convinced anyone who showed interest was just after something he could give them. He was about to mumble a dismissive response and leave when she leaned in to grab a cornbread muffin off the table next to him, her shoulder brushing his, the sharp, warm scent of lavender lotion and pine cleaner drifting off her sleeves. “I don’t want a consult, if that’s what you’re tensing up for,” she said, like she could read his mind. “I got a grant last month to archive old smokejumper oral histories for the library. Your name was at the top of the list of people I needed to talk to.”
He tensed further, about to tell her no, he didn’t do interviews, didn’t like reliving the days he’d spent jumping into burning forests, the jump that had shredded his left shoulder and ended his career in 2018. But she didn’t push, just popped a piece of cornbread in her mouth, and nodded at the scar running along his right knuckle, the same shape as the one on her left. “Chainsaw?” she asked, holding up her hand to show him. Rafe blinked, surprised, and nodded. “19 foot Ponderosa, 2017. Kicked back on me when I was cutting a fire line.” She laughed, tapping her own scar. “2021, trying to clear downed trees off my dad’s property outside Bend. I didn’t even know how to start the thing when I picked it up. Took three stitches.” They both reached for the last jar of pickled jalapeños on the table at the same time, his calloused palm covering her smaller, softer hand for a full two seconds before he pulled back, his neck heating up like he was a 16 year old kid again at his first high school dance. She didn’t flinch, just pushed the jar toward him, a small, teasing smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You can have them. Your chili’s the only one here that actually needs the extra kick anyway.”
An hour later, he was sitting across from her in a booth at the dive bar on Higgins Avenue, the cookoff long wrapped up, the air smelling like old beer and fried pickles. She’d kicked off her scuffed work boots under the table, her socked foot brushing his calf once, then again, deliberate this time, when he told her about the time he’d landed in a patch of poison oak on a jump outside Salmon, Idaho. She didn’t ask about his consulting business, didn’t ask how much he charged, didn’t push for stories about the worst fires he’d worked. She just listened, leaning forward across the table, her hand resting inches from his on the Formica top, and told him stories about the old fire reports she’d found in the library archives, the ones written by smokejumpers in the 70s who’d draw little cartoons of bears and deer in the margins of their incident reports.
The bartender called last call around 11, and he walked her to her beat up Toyota Tacoma parked down the street, the October air sharp and cold, the sky clear enough to see the Big Dipper hanging low over the Bitterroot Mountains. She stopped at her driver’s side door, turned to face him, and leaned up to kiss him first on the cheek, then slow on the mouth, her lips tasting like lime seltzer and pickled jalapeños, her hand resting light on the side of his neck. He didn’t push for more, just rested his hand on her waist, holding her there for a beat, until she pulled back, grinning, and scribbled her phone number on a napkin from the bar, shoving it in the pocket of his flannel shirt. “Call me tomorrow,” she said, climbing into her truck. “I already got the oral history recorder charged, and I make a mean batch of chocolate chip cookies to bribe interviewees with.”
He stood on the sidewalk long after her taillights disappeared around the corner, his hand tucked in his pocket holding the crumpled napkin tight, the ghost of her kiss still warm on his mouth. He didn’t reach for his phone to check work emails, didn’t rush to get back to his empty cabin, just stood there breathing in the cool, pine-scented air, and smiled.
