Marlon Rios, 57, spent 29 years leading interagency hotshot crews across the American West before a blown ACL and his wife Elena’s terminal ovarian cancer diagnosis pushed him into early retirement three years prior. He’s got a pale scar slashing through his left eyebrow from a falling cedar during the 2018 Camp Fire, and a habit of grunting instead of speaking when he doesn’t feel like forcing small talk, a flaw that’s kept most of his new mountain town neighbors at arm’s length since he relocated from Sacramento to the hills outside Boulder. He only agreed to drop off his hickory-smoked brisket at the local fire department’s annual summer fundraiser because his 72-year-old next door neighbor had badgered him for three straight weeks, saying the junior firefighter crew had been hovering by his back porch every Sunday for months, begging to try the meat he smokes low and slow in his cast iron pit.
The air smells like charred rib meat, citronella candles, and piney Colorado IPA the second he steps out of his beat up 2008 Ford F-150. The bluegrass band set up by the picnic tables is playing a fast, twangy cover of Folsom Prison Blues, loud enough that he has to tilt his head to hear the rookie firefighter who jogs over to grab the heavy brisket pan out of his hands. He grabs a frosty plastic cup of beer from the keg near the entrance, planning to slip out before anyone can corner him into staying, when a woman steps into his path.
She’s Clara Bennett, 52, the new county public health nurse who moved to town six months prior, fresh off a messy, widely gossiped-about divorce from the county sheriff that’s been the only topic of discussion at the local diner’s breakfast counter all spring. Most men in town won’t even make eye contact with her, scared of catching the sheriff’s petty, small-town wrath. She’s wearing frayed cutoff denim shorts and a faded 2016 Yellowstone Search and Rescue hoodie, not the pressed navy scrubs he’s seen her in at the downtown clinic, and there’s a smudge of tangy BBQ sauce high on her left cheekbone. She leans in close to be heard over the band, her sun-warmed shoulder brushing his bare bicep, and says that brisket he brought is the best thing she’s eaten since she left Wyoming.
He tenses up at first, glancing over her shoulder to see if the sheriff is anywhere nearby, loitering by the rib tent with his crew. He hasn’t flirted with anyone since Elena got sick, hasn’t even wanted to. But she’s not looking at him like she wants a favor, not like all the other neighbors who keep trying to set him up with their widowed sisters or church group friends. She’s got rough calluses on her fingertips when she reaches for the extra napkin he’s crumpled in his hand, their fingers brushing for a beat longer than necessary, and she laughs loud and unselfconscious when he admits he smoked the brisket for 14 hours, woke up at 3 a.m. to stoke the fire so it would hit the perfect internal temp by noon.
They talk for 20 minutes standing by the keg, the crowd moving around them like they’re anchored in place. She tells him she worked search and rescue for 10 years before going to nursing school, once spent three days stuck on a mountain ledge in a blizzard with a broken ankle, waiting for a helicopter to punch through the cloud cover. He tells her about the time his crew accidentally set a port-a-potty on fire during a controlled burn outside Redding, had to lie to their supervisor and say it was a stray spark from a dead oak tree. She snorts beer out of her nose when he says it, and he finds himself grinning before he can stop himself, a real grin, not the tight polite one he reserves for nosy neighbors.
When the band switches to a slow, syrupy love song that makes him think of his first dance with Elena in their tiny Sacramento apartment, she tilts her head toward the pine tree line at the edge of the park, and asks if he wants to walk down to the creek to get away from the noise. He hesitates for half a second, thinking about the gossip that’ll spread through town by sunrise, about how he told himself he’d never date anyone else, about the frayed old photo of Elena he keeps taped to his truck’s dashboard. Then he nods.
The gravel crunches under their scuffed work boots as they walk, the sound of the band fading behind them, fireflies flickering in the tall grass on either side of the dirt path. Their hands brush three times on the five minute walk to the weathered wooden footbridge that crosses the creek, neither of them pulling away. When they stop at the middle of the bridge, leaning against the splintered rail, she lifts her hand and wipes a fleck of black pepper off his jaw, her thumb lingering on his silver stubble for half a second before she pulls back.
He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t make an excuse to leave. He pulls the crumpled pack of peppermints out of his jeans pocket, offers her one, and when she takes it, her palm rests against his for a full two seconds. They sit down on the edge of the bridge, their shoulders pressed tight together, watching the water rush over the smooth, mossy rocks below, the sky turning soft pink and lavender as the sun dips behind the continental divide. He offers her the last sip of his beer, and she takes it, passing the cup back to him, her fingers wrapping around his for a beat before she lets go.
He takes a slow sip of the beer, still warm from where her lips touched the plastic rim, and doesn’t look away when she smiles at him.
