It’s mid-July in Burns, Oregon, 8:30 p.m., the sun just dipped behind the Ochoco Mountains, the AC at the Silver Spur Roadhouse is on the fritz, ceiling fans creak overhead, pushing around hot air that smells like fried onion rings and cheap draft beer. Rafe Mendez, 53, retired Forest Service hotshot crew supervisor, slumps into his usual booth, wipes sweat off his brow with the back of a calloused hand. He’s only here because his old crew buddy dragged him out, said he’s spent too many nights holed up alone in his cabin 12 miles out of town, staring at old fire maps and drinking beer by himself. Rafe knows he’s right, but he still resents being here. He’s spent the last 8 years carefully curating his reputation as the quiet widower, no hassle, no drama, no interest in anything that doesn’t involve cutting fire breaks or teaching local ranchers how to clear brush around their property.
The opposing trivia team slides into the booth across from his, and he spots her immediately. She’s the new county librarian, moved here from Portland three months back, he’s seen her at the hardware store a couple times, hauling bags of potting soil, once arguing with the clerk about the right kind of sealant for her old porch steps. Tonight she’s wearing a faded yellow sundress, cowboy boots scuffed at the toes, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid that’s falling out at the edges, a streak of gray running through the front that catches the neon “BEER” sign above the bar. Her team is stacked with local teachers, but Rafe’s team has the edge—their final category is 1960s Westerns, a subject he’s obsessed with since he was a kid, watching old John Wayne flicks with his grandpa on his ranch outside Amarillo.
Halfway through the round, he gets up to get another beer, reaches for the last bag of salted peanuts on the bar at the exact same time she does. Their knuckles brush, rough from his decades of holding chainsaws and fire hoses, softer from hers, with a thin callus on her index finger from turning thousands of book pages. He yanks his hand back like he touched a hot stove, mumbles an apology, and she laughs, a low, warm sound that doesn’t feel like she’s making fun of him. “You can have them,” she says, pushing the bag toward him. “I already ate three tonight, my doctor would yell at me for the sodium.” He nods, grabs the bag, doesn’t say anything else, hurries back to his booth, his face hotter than it was standing in direct sun at a 100-degree fire line last summer. He can feel her looking at him for the rest of the round, glances over once, catches her eye, she smiles, doesn’t look away.
His team wins by two points, thanks to him nailing the final question about the full cast of *The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance*. She comes over to their booth a minute later, leans against the edge of the sticky vinyl, her shoulder almost touching his, the hem of her dress brushing the top of his work boot when she shifts her weight. She smells like lavender and citrus, mixes with the pine and dust that’s stuck to his flannel shirt from clearing brush that morning. “You cheated,” she teases, nodding at the cheap plastic trophy his buddy is holding aloft. “No one knows that much about old Westerns unless they’re a secret film professor, or a hermit who only watches TCM on weekends.” He huffs a laugh, surprises himself. “Guilty on the hermit part,” he says. She stays for 20 minutes, talks to him about the wildfire safety workshop he’s running next month, says she wants to bring a group of teen patrons out to learn how to do controlled burns on the community garden plot. He finds himself telling her about Elena, his wife who died of a sudden stroke 8 years prior, how she used to love old Westerns too, how they’d watch them every Sunday night when he was home between deployments. He hasn’t talked about Elena to anyone who didn’t know her in years.
When the bar closes at 11, the owner turns on the harsh overhead fluorescent lights, kicks everyone out into the gravel parking lot. She stops him by his beat-up Ford F150, her boot kicking a loose chunk of asphalt as she shifts her weight. “The Perseids are peaking tonight,” she says, nodding up at the sky, which is so dark there’s no glow from the town to wash out the stars. “I was gonna drive up to the overlook to watch. You wanna come? I got a cooler of grapefruit seltzer in my car, and I won’t even make fun of you if you get emotional when a meteor goes by.” He almost says no. Almost makes up an excuse about having to get up early to fix a fence on his property, about not being good company after 10 p.m., about a hundred other things he’s told people to get out of social plans for the last 8 years. But he looks at her, the way the fading neon “OPEN” sign is painting her cheeks pink, the way she’s biting her lip like she’s nervous he’ll say no, and he nods. “Lead the way,” he says.
They drive up the winding dirt road to the overlook, her little Subaru ahead of his truck, dust kicking up behind both cars. He grabs the thick wool blanket he keeps behind the seat for when he had to wait out fire conditions on call, spreads it out on the tailgate, they sit side by side, their shoulders pressed together, the cool night air cutting through the last of the day’s heat. The first meteor streaks across the sky 10 minutes later, she gasps, grabs his arm, holds on for a full three seconds before she lets go, mumbles an apology. He doesn’t tell her it’s okay, just moves a little closer, so their knees knock when they shift to look up at the sky. He tells her about the time he saw a meteor shower while he was camped out on a fire line in Idaho, how he thought it was embers blowing over the ridge at first, almost called a full team evacuation. She laughs so hard she snorts, leans her head on his shoulder for half a second before she sits back up. For the first time in 8 years, he doesn’t feel guilty for enjoying himself. He doesn’t feel like he’s betraying Elena, like everyone in town will whisper about him if they see him here. He just feels warm, and calm, and like he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.
They stay up there until the first pale pink streaks of dawn hit the tops of the mountains, the cooler of seltzer empty, the blanket dotted with pine needles. He drives her back to her little blue bungalow downtown, walks her up the creaky porch steps, the screen door squeaking when she pulls out her keys. She turns to him, her hand brushing his as she holds the door open, invites him in for coffee. He steps over the threshold behind her, the smell of cinnamon and old paper wrapping around him before the door clicks shut behind them.
