Arlo Mendez, 62, spent 28 years as a U.S. Forest Service fire spotter, manning a remote tower in the San Juan Mountains three seasons a year. His wife Linda died of ovarian cancer 8 years prior, and he’d pulled back from every casual social offering in town since, convinced any new connection would just end in more loss, plus he hated the way the town’s gossips picked apart every single person’s business like vultures on a dead deer. He leaned against the dented tailgate of his 1998 Ford F-150 now, paper bowl of green chili sweating through the napkin wrapped around it in one hand, lukewarm root beer in the other. He’d only shown up to the town’s annual fall chili cookoff because his old partner Ray had begged, said he’d owe him a case of good bourbon if he stayed at least an hour. The air reeked of pine smoke, roasted cumin, and the sharp sweet tang of spiked apple cider drifting from the booth by the fire station. Kids screamed as they chased each other through piles of crumpled gold aspen leaves, their boots scuffing up dust that caught the low afternoon sun. He was already mentally calculating how fast he could get back to his cabin, crack open a beer, and watch the Broncos game when someone stumbled back hard into his left arm.
Her flannel sleeve brushed the bare skin of his forearm, where he’d rolled his cuffs up to avoid getting chili on them, and he caught a whiff of cedar shampoo and cinnamon gum, no flowery perfume, no fake vanilla. She spun around, holding a half-eaten bowl of chili, eyes wide, and laughed, a rough, warm sound like she smoked a cigarette every now and then when she thought no one was looking. “Shit, I’m so sorry,” she said, brushing a strand of salt-and-pepper bobbed hair out of her face. “That kid with the blue snow cone came out of nowhere, I thought he was gonna dump it all down my shirt.” She held eye contact for three full beats, longer than the polite two seconds most people in town managed when they talked to him, like she was actually looking at him, not just the ghost of Linda’s husband or the quiet guy who lived up in the hills. He grunted, wiping a stray drop of chili off his jeans. “No harm done. That kid’s been terrorizing the cookoff for three years running. His mom lets him run wild.” He nodded at the little boy, who was now climbing on the back of a park bench while his mom chatted with a group of friends by the chili booths.
She leaned against the tailgate next to him, close enough that their shoulders brushed when she shifted to set her bowl down on the metal edge. He tensed up for half a second, ready to make an excuse and leave, when she nodded at the faded U.S. Forest Service patch sewn onto the front of his worn wool hat. “You used to work for the Forest Service?” she asked. “I just started as the town librarian three months ago, I’ve been going through old local history files, there’s a whole folder on the fire spotter towers that used to be scattered all over these mountains. I’ve been curious what the job was actually like, beyond the old newspaper clippings.” He froze. No one had asked him about his job in years, not without leading into a question about Linda, or asking him to help cut down a dead tree on their property. He could feel Mrs. Henderson from the general store staring at them from across the lot, her lips pursed like she was already drafting the gossip she’d spread at the post office the next morning. He hated that, hated the way everyone felt entitled to comment on every part of his life, hated the little twinge of something warm in his chest that he’d thought died with Linda, half disgust at himself for even wanting to talk to this woman, half curiosity that wouldn’t let him walk away.
“It was boring, mostly,” he said, taking a sip of root beer. “Sitting up 10,000 feet for 12 hours a day, staring at trees, looking for smoke. You go days without talking to anyone. But the views? You could see three states on a clear day. Sunrises up there don’t look like anything you’ve ever seen.” He found himself rambling, telling her about the time a family of mule deer walked right up to the tower base, about the way the lightning storms looked when you were above most of the clouds, about the way the aspen groves turned gold so bright they hurt your eyes in late September. She didn’t interrupt, just nodded, asking little questions every now and then, leaning in a little closer when he talked about the constellations you could see up there, no light pollution to wash them out. When he trailed off, she pulled a crumpled library napkin out of her jacket pocket and a ballpoint pen, scribbling her number down in messy, loopy handwriting. “I’ve been trying to find the trail up to that old tower for weeks,” she said, handing it to him. The paper was warm from being in her pocket, and her fingers brushed his when she passed it over. “Everyone I ask says it’s overgrown, that you need someone who knows the area to show you the way. If you’re not busy sometime next week, I’d bring coffee. The good stuff, not the instant garbage they sell at the gas station.”
He hesitated for a second, thinking about the gossip, about the empty cabin he’d gotten so used to, about the way he’d told himself he’d never let anyone get close enough to hurt him again. Then he looked at her, the little smudge of chili on her chin, the chipped dark green nail polish on her fingers, the way she was smiling like she already knew he’d say yes, like she didn’t care what anyone else thought. “Yeah,” he said, tucking the napkin into the inside pocket of his flannel, where it pressed against his chest. “I’m free Wednesday. We can leave at 7, beat the hiker traffic.” She grinned, picking up her bowl of chili. “Perfect. I’ll meet you at the trailhead parking lot. Don’t be late.” She waved, turning to walk toward the cornbread booth, her boots crunching through the aspen leaves. Arlo stood there for a minute, sipping his root beer, the napkin crinkling softly against his chest every time he breathed. He didn’t even notice when Mrs. Henderson walked past him, muttering under her breath, or when Ray clapped him on the shoulder and said he owed him two cases of bourbon now. He lifted his root beer to his mouth, took a long sip, and smiled, small and private, where no one else could see it.
