Ronan Hale, 62, retired smokejumper turned custom fly rod builder, showed up to the Ravalli County summer fish fry only to drop off the custom 8-weight he’d donated as the top tournament prize. He’d planned to hightail it back to his workshop 20 minutes outside town, where the only noise was the rasp of his sanding block and the wind through the ponderosa pines lining his property. Twelve years out from his divorce, he’d perfected the art of keeping interactions short, surface level, no room for anyone to poke at the rough edges he’d stopped bothering to sand down long ago. He grabbed a cold IPA from the tap on his way out, found an empty picnic table tucked under a cottonwood at the edge of the grounds to chug it before he hit the road, his scuffed work boots propped on the bench across from him, the scar across his left eyebrow pulling tight when he squinted against the sun.
He was halfway through the beer when a woman dropped a paper plate heaped with fried catfish and hushpuppies on the space where his feet had been, then slid onto the bench like she belonged there. He recognized her immediately: Elara Voss, 54, the new county park ranger who’d moved to town six months prior, the one every guy at the local hardware store had been complaining was “ice cold” after she turned down three separate dinner invites in as many months. Her uniform shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, sweat beading at her hairline from hauling prize tables around all afternoon, her work boots caked with mud from clearing a fallen oak off the north river trail that morning. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and held out a hand to shake, her grip firm, calloused at the palms from climbing and trail work. When she thanked him for the rod, she held eye contact longer than most people did, didn’t glance away like he was some gruff old hermit better left alone when he grunted a one-word response.
He didn’t remember deciding to stay. One minute he was mentally running through the list of rod blanks he needed to order the next day, the next he was telling her about the 2008 wildfire jump that left the scar on his eyebrow, how he’d crashed through a pine branch mid-descent and still managed to dig a fire line for 12 hours before anyone noticed he was bleeding. She laughed when he told her the medic had chewed him out for wasting gauze, then held up her left wrist to show him a thin, silvery scar wrapping around the bone, from a black bear that’d charged her when she surprised it on a trail last spring. Their knees brushed under the table when she shifted to adjust the tool belt slung low on her hips, and neither of them moved away. He caught a couple guys from the hardware store glancing over at them, jaws half open, and felt a stupid, quiet rush of pride he hadn’t felt since he was a teen showing off his first jump certificate. The air smelled like fried batter, charcoal, and cottonwood pollen, the bluegrass band at the center of the grounds playing a slow, twangy cover of *Folsom Prison Blues*, kids screaming as they chased each other around the cornhole boards. When she reached across the table to grab a napkin off the stack next to his elbow, her forearm brushed his, the rough fabric of her uniform sleeve catching on the hair there, and he could feel the heat of her skin through the thin cotton. She didn’t yank her hand back, just paused for half a second, glancing up at him with a half-smile that made the back of his neck feel warm.
He’d spent so long telling himself he was better off alone that the jolt of interest felt like something forbidden, stupid, the kind of move a 20-year-old made, not a 62-year-old man who ate frozen burritos for dinner four nights a week and forgot to call his sister on her birthday half the time. The old voice in his head was screaming that she was just being polite, that he was reading too far into it, that he’d only embarrass himself if he leaned in. He ignored it, for the first time in years, asked her if she’d ever fished the stretch of the Bitterroot up past the old ranger station. She said she’d just opened that stretch for catch and release earlier that week, that no one else had been out there yet, that she had a cooler of beer in the back of her truck if he wanted to go check it out as the sun went down.
He hesitated for two full beats, his thumb rubbing over the callus on his index finger from years of wrapping rod handles, before he nodded. She stood, slinging her work bag over her shoulder, and waited for him while he tossed his empty beer can in the trash. When they got to her beat up silver pickup, she climbed up into the driver’s seat, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she lifted her boot onto the running board, the weight of it warm and solid through the worn fabric of his Carhartt shirt. He climbed into the passenger seat, the cool air from the truck’s AC hitting his face, and she pulled out onto the dirt road leading toward the river, dust kicking up behind the tires, the sound of the fish fry fading behind them. She turned up the Johnny Cash CD she had playing in the stereo, tapping her work boot along to the beat, and when she reached over halfway to the river to rest her hand on his thigh, he laced his calloused fingers through hers without overthinking it, without bracing for the other shoe to drop, just watching the pine trees blur past the window.
