Moe Yazzie is 62, retired forest fire spotter, spent three decades perched 80 feet up in lookout towers across the Coconino National Forest, his only regular company a two-way radio and the ravens that followed smoke plumes across the pines. He’s avoided anything resembling a casual date since his wife Elouise died in a 2015 flash flood on the Kaibab Plateau, convinced any spark of new interest was a betrayal, a failure to honor the 28 years they’d had. That stubborn, self-punishing pride is his worst flaw, the one Elouise used to tease him about until she was blue in the face, saying he’d let his own stubbornness turn him into a hermit before he hit 70.
He’s at the Flagstaff VFW’s weekly catfish fry like he is every Friday, perched on the third stool from the end, his plate piled high with breaded fish, vinegar-doused coleslaw, and an extra order of hushpuppies he’d snuck when Jimmie the bartender wasn’t looking. The jukebox in the corner bleats Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues* at a volume just low enough to let you hold a conversation if you lean in a little. The air smells like fried cornmeal, cheap domestic beer, and the faint tang of pine blowing in through the open back door, leftover from the light midday rain.
She sits two stools down at first, jeans with a hand-stitched coyote patch on the knee, a flannel tied around her waist, silver turquoise ring glinting on her left hand when she flags down Jimmie. Moe recognizes her immediately: Lila Mae, Jimmie’s cousin, ex-wife of old post commander Ray, who Moe did two tours of Army reserve duty with back in the 90s. She lives over in Prescott, runs a mobile book sale that hits senior centers across northern Arizona, Jimmie mentioned she was in town for the week to restock her inventory. Moe’s never spoken to her directly, always felt like that was an unwritten line you don’t cross, even when Ray and Lila Mae’s divorce was finalized six years ago with no hard feelings on either side.
Jimmie drags a stack of paper napkins and a case of root beer down the bar, and Lila Mae shifts her stool over a foot to make space, her knee brushing Moe’s for half a second before she pulls back. “Sorry,” she says, grinning, and her voice is warm, like honey left out in the sun. Moe nods, mumbles no problem, and goes back to picking at his catfish, but he can smell jasmine lotion on her, faint, not the overbearing stuff Elouise used to hate. He’s annoyed at himself for noticing, his gut twisting with that familiar, sharp guilt, the kind that used to hit him when he’d even glance at another woman at the grocery store.
She asks if the half-empty bottle of hot sauce next to his elbow is the homemade habanero one Jimmie keeps raving about, the one Moe grows the peppers for behind his off-grid cabin. He blinks, surprised she knows that, and pushes the bottle toward her. Their hands brush when she grabs it, the rough callus on her knuckle scraping against the back of his hand, and Moe feels a static jolt run up his arm, the kind he used to get when he’d grab a metal fire tower railing after a dry thunderstorm. She holds eye contact with him for three beats too long, no awkward look away, and he can see flecks of gold in her dark brown eyes, fine sun lines fanning out at the corners when she smiles.
They talk for 45 minutes, first about the hot sauce, then about the weird late May cold snap that dumped an inch of snow on the San Francisco Peaks two days prior, then about the hardboiled mystery novels she sells out of the back of her beat-up Subaru. Moe finds himself leaning in without realizing it, his knee brushing hers again, this time on purpose, not pulling away. He’s still got that quiet guilt niggling at the back of his head, the voice that says he doesn’t get to have this, that he’s supposed to sit alone in his cabin for the rest of his life missing Elouise, but it’s quieter than it’s been in years.
The sun starts to dip low outside, painting the sky pink and tangerine through the back door, and Lila Mae tilts her head toward the parking lot. “I was gonna drive up to the Schultz Pass overlook to watch the sunset,” she says, twisting that turquoise ring around her finger. “You wanna come? I got peach iced tea in the cooler in my backseat. No pressure if you don’t.”
Moe hesitates for two full seconds, his throat tight. He thinks about Elouise, the way she used to drag him up to that same overlook every spring to watch the wildflowers bloom, the way she’d laugh and call him a stick in the mud when he’d complain about the bumpy drive. He remembers the last thing she said to him before she left for that patrol shift, the one she never came back from: Stop being so scared to live, Moe. It’s not a betrayal to be happy when I’m gone.
He stands up, grabs his faded Forest Service ball cap off the bar, and grins. “Yeah,” he says. “That sounds good.”
The drive up the pass is bumpy, her Subaru rattling over the gravel, the backseat stacked full of dog-eared mystery paperbacks and jars of jam she sells at the senior centers. The smell of old paper and jasmine mixes with the pine blowing in through the open windows, and Lila Mae sings along to the Patsy Cline tape she’s got playing in the deck, off-key but unapologetic. When they get to the overlook, there’s no one else there, the last of the winter snow dusting the peaks in the distance, the valley below glowing gold in the dying light.
She leans against his arm, not too hard, just enough that he can feel the warmth of her through his thick work shirt, and he doesn’t pull away. When the sun dips all the way below the horizon, painting the sky deep purple, she reaches into her tote bag and pulls out a jar of wild blackberry jam, the glass still warm from sitting in her car all day. “Heard you make sourdough toast every weekend,” she says, handing it over. “Made this myself last week from berries I picked up near Mormon Lake.”
Moe wraps his fingers around the warm glass, the rough texture of the handwritten label under his thumb, and doesn’t make the excuse he’d planned to, the one about having to get home to feed his chickens before dark.
