Rafe Marquez, 62, spent 28 years on wildland fire crews across the West before a blown-out knee forced him to retire early, and he’d spent the seven years since running a tiny custom axe sharpening and bulk firewood business out of his detached garage outside Grand Junction, Colorado. His biggest flaw, if you asked his only remaining crew buddy Earl, was that he’d built a wall around himself thick enough to stop a bulldozer after his wife Lena passed from ovarian cancer, turning down every invite to cookouts, fundraisers, even the annual fire crew reunion under the guise of being “too busy with work.” Earl had finally badgered him into attending the local volunteer fire department’s summer beer garden fundraiser that weekend, and Rafe had spent the first hour propped against a splintered cedar fence post, sipping a watery lager and pretending he couldn’t hear the group of retirees yammering about golf scores three feet away.
He was half a second from bailing entirely when he spotted her walking toward him, sun glinting off the silver streaks in her dark blonde hair, scuffed white work boots kicking up small clouds of dust across the grass. It was Clara Bennett, 58, the new county forestry agent who’d chewed him out three months prior for stacking a half-cord of firewood ten feet too close to the national forest boundary line, calling him a reckless old cowboy who didn’t care about wildfire risk. He’d snapped back that he was stacking the wood for the 82-year-old widow who lived three miles down his road, who couldn’t carry a log more than two feet on her own, and she’d stormed off before he could explain he was moving it the next morning. Now she was holding two cold pale ales in one hand, a half-eaten bag of roasted peanuts in the other, and she had a small, sheepish smile on her face that he’d never seen before.
She stopped close enough that he could smell pine sap, citrus hand sanitizer, and the faint sweet tang of peach iced tea on her clothes, and she held one of the beers out to him. He hesitated for a full five seconds before taking it, his calloused knuckles brushing hers when he grabbed the cold can. She apologized first, said she’d tracked down the widow a week after their fight to drop off a box of fire-resistant landscaping saplings, and the woman had talked Rafe’s ear off to her for 45 minutes, told her he’d been stacking her firewood for free every winter since Lena died. Rafe grunted, took a sip of the beer, didn’t say anything. She shifted her weight closer, her bare forearm brushing his when a gust of wind blew her hair across his wrist, and he felt a jolt of static jump between them that made him flinch like he’d touched a live wire.
He was angry at himself for noticing how her work jeans fit, for seeing the smudge of ash on her left cheek, for the way his chest tightened when she laughed at his dumb joke about the time he’d accidentally lit his own boot on fire during a controlled burn. He’d spent seven years telling himself that even looking at another woman that way was a betrayal of Lena, that he was too old for that kind of nonsense, that being alone was easier than risking getting his heart broken again. Every time he thought about letting his guard down, a wave of guilt washed over him, sharp and sour, and he’d make an excuse to leave. But he didn’t leave this time. She asked him if he’d sharpen her personal felling axe, said every shop in town had turned the edge into garbage, and she’d heard he was the best in the valley. He almost said no, almost told her to take it to the hardware store like everyone else, but then she leaned in, her green eyes bright, and said she’d bring a six pack of the high-alcohol coffee stout he’d ordered at the bar ten minutes earlier, if he’d throw in a free fire safety check for her cabin. He agreed before he could talk himself out of it.
She showed up at his garage two nights later, right as the sun was dipping below the red rock cliffs to the west, holding the axe in one hand and a cold six pack in the other, just like she promised. The shop smelled like steel shavings and linseed oil, and he had a radio playing old Johnny Cash songs low in the corner. They sat on two folding work stools while he sharpened the axe, swapping war stories about old fires, laughing about the time they’d both been assigned to the same 2018 blaze outside Durango, on different crews, staying in the same tent city for three weeks without ever crossing paths. She showed him a thick, silvery scar on her left calf from a falling tree limb during that fire, and he pulled up the sleeve of his flannel to show her the matching scar on his right bicep from a flying ember the same week.
When he handed her the finished axe, their hands wrapped around the hilt at the same time, and neither of them pulled away. She tilted her chin up slightly, and he could smell the stout on her breath, the faint cherry lip balm she was wearing, and he kissed her, slow and soft, no rush, like they had all the time in the world. They finished the six pack sitting on the tailgate of his old Ford pickup, watching the stars come out over the mesa, and he didn’t even think about Lena once, not in a guilty way, anyway. He knew she’d be happy he wasn’t spending every night alone in the house watching old westerns and drinking beer by himself.
He walked her out to her truck when she left, and she told him she had three more axes at the cabin that needed sharpening, that she’d be back next Friday if he was free. He told her he’d keep the cooler stocked. When she pulled out of the driveway, he leaned against the garage door, the faint taste of her cherry lip balm still lingering on his mouth, and realized he hadn’t felt that light in close to eight years.
