Elias Voss, 59, spent 31 years drafting fire perimeter maps for the Lolo National Forest before he retired, the scar slashing across his left knuckle a memento from the day he slammed a steel drafting compass down on his workbench when he got the text his wife was moving to Portland without him. He’d avoided every small-town public event for 12 straight years after that, content to spend his days restoring vintage topo maps in his garage shop and his nights drinking cheap beer on his porch watching the ridge line for stray smoke, until his former crew chief showed up at his door at 8 a.m. that Saturday, shoved a $20 beer ticket in his palm, and said if he didn’t show to the volunteer fire department’s summer beer garden fundraiser, he’d drag him out by the collar of his frayed Carhartt jacket.
He showed up an hour late, parked his beat-up Ford F-150 two blocks away so he could bolt early if the small talk got too thick, and planted himself by the split-rail fence at the edge of the park, plastic cup of lager in one hand, ball cap pulled low over his graying hair. Kids darted past with snow cones dripping blue syrup down their wrists, a country cover band droned a Johnny Cash song from the stage, and he’d already calculated he could leave in 12 more minutes without seeming rude when someone’s elbow brushed his bicep hard enough to make a drop of beer slosh over the rim of his cup.
He turned, ready to grumble, and froze. It was Maren Hale, the 47-year-old county librarian who’d moved to town six months prior, the woman he’d only ever seen through his shop window when she dropped off crates of old government maps for him to sort, the one he’d worked up the nerve to go visit at the library three separate times before turning around halfway there, too stubborn to admit he wanted to see her outside of drop-offs. She was carrying a stack of yellowed 1960s fire maps under one arm, her denim shirt rolled up to her elbows, work boots caked with pine duff, and she laughed when he stared, swiping a stray strand of auburn hair off her face. “Sorry about that,” she said, shifting the stack so it rested against her hip, her shoulder pressing light against his for three full seconds when a group of teen boys ran past yelling. “Found these in the library basement this week. Been meaning to bring ‘em by your shop, but I kept forgetting.”
He didn’t know what to say at first, his throat tight, the smell of lavender and pine soap on her skin cutting through the smell of grilled hot dogs and beer in the air. He set his cup down on the fence post so he wouldn’t spill it again, and when he reached out to take the top map from her stack, his knuckle brushed the back of her hand. She didn’t pull away. She leaned in when he told her about the 2017 Lolo Complex fire that had almost burned the town to the ground, pointing at a red perimeter line he’d drawn himself on one of the maps, her face so close he could see the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, the three tiny silver hoops in her left ear, one shaped like a tiny pine tree. He hadn’t talked this much to anyone who wasn’t his old crew chief in months, and he forgot all about his plan to leave early, didn’t even notice when the band stopped playing and the announcer took the stage for the 50/50 raffle.
They’d both bought tickets on their way in, they realized when the announcer started calling numbers, and their tickets were consecutive, digits only one apart. They held them next to each other, their fingers brushing when she pointed to the last number on his ticket, and neither of them looked away when the announcer called the number right between theirs, so neither of them won the $1,200 pot. He didn’t care. He asked her if she wanted to get a burger at the 24-hour diner down the street after the fundraiser wrapped up, said they had the best huckleberry milkshakes within 100 miles, and she grinned, nodding so fast her hair fell in her face again.
He carried the stack of maps for her when they left the park, his hand brushing the back of hers every few steps as they walked down the sidewalk, the sun dipping below the Bitterroot Mountains and painting the sky soft pink and tangerine. When they reached the diner parking lot, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, held the glass front door open for him, and her hip pressed warm against his as he stepped inside.
