Javi Mendez, 53, spent 22 years as a wildland firefighter before a blown ACL and the quiet weight of losing his crew partner in the 2018 Lolo Peak fire pushed him into early retirement. These days he runs a one-man tree trimming and firewood delivery outfit out of his garage outside Missoula, works four days a week, spends the other three fishing the Bitterroot River or fixing up the 1972 Camaro he’s had since he was 17. His biggest flaw, if you ask his older sister, is that he’ll go out of his way to avoid any interaction he suspects might come with even a whiff of drama. For three years straight he’d skipped the local volunteer fire department’s annual pig roast, making up excuses about stacked delivery orders or a broken truck transmission, until his 16-year-old niece, a new recruit in the junior firefighter program, showed up on his porch at 9 a.m. that Saturday and told him if he didn’t come, she’d tell all her friends he still slept with a teddy bear he’d been given after his first fire.
He showed up an hour late, beer in hand, wearing a faded 2017 fire crew hoodie and work boots still caked with pine sap from a job the day before, and leaned against a gnarled ponderosa pine at the edge of the park, content to watch the chaos from a distance. The pig roaster crackled loud enough to drown out half the conversation, the air smelled like hickory smoke and potato salad, a George Strait track hummed low from a beat up Silverado parked near the picnic tables. He’d almost made it 45 minutes without being cornered by anyone wanting to ask about the fire or his retirement or if he was ever going to start dating again, when he saw her walking toward him.
Lena Hart, the county’s new forestry liaison, 49, the woman he’d avoided like the plague for 12 years, ever since his ex-wife had told him Lena was the one who ratted him out for skipping their 10th anniversary dinner to go fishing with his crew. He’d never bothered to ask her if it was true, had just nodded at her in passing for over a decade, never stayed in the same room as her for longer than 30 seconds. She stopped two feet away from him, holding a paper plate stacked with pulled pork and coleslaw, one side of her mouth tugged up in a half-smile, a thin white scar snaking up her left forearm from a tree thinning accident the year prior. “You know, I’ve been trying to catch you for three months,” she said, and he tensed, ready to mumble an excuse about needing to get back to a job, when a group of kids playing tag came barrelling past, and she stepped closer to avoid being knocked over, her shoulder brushing his. He could smell pine-sol and coconut shampoo on her, faint under the smell of smoke and pork.
He blinked, taken off guard by how warm her shoulder was through the thin fabric of his hoodie, and for the first time in years he really looked at her. Hazel eyes, flecked with gold, a smattering of freckles across her nose, calloused hands like his, nails chipped from swinging an axe on weekends. She didn’t look away when he caught her staring at the scar slicing across his jaw, the one he’d gotten when a burning branch fell on him during the Lolo fire. “I heard you used to write the prescribed burn plans for the state forest service back in the day,” she said, leaning against the tree next to him, close enough that their elbows brushed every time one of them shifted. “I’m putting together a plan for the Miller Creek unit this fall, and I’d pay you double your usual hourly rate to consult. No office meetings, no paperwork beyond scribbling notes on a map, just you and me walking the unit a couple times a week.”
He almost said no out of habit, almost made up an excuse about being booked solid for the next two months, before she laughed, soft and low, and said, “For the record, I never told your ex you skipped that anniversary dinner. She saw your truck parked at the boat launch on her way to her sister’s house. Lied and said I told her because she didn’t want to admit she’d been following you that day.” The words hit him like a bucket of cold water. He’d held that grudge for 12 years, had written her off as a snitch and a gossip, and none of it was true. He felt stupid, heat rising up the back of his neck, and he took a long sip of his beer to avoid having to speak for a second. “I brought you something, by the way,” she said, pulling a sealed mason jar out of the canvas tote slung over her shoulder. Pickled jalapenos, the kind her grandma used to make, the kind he’d raved about at the 2017 potluck, the last one he’d gone to before he started skipping them. “I remembered you liked them. Figured it was a good bribe.”
That’s when he let the grudge go, let the 12 years of stupid, unfounded resentment melt away like snow in spring. He’d spent so long closing himself off from anything that felt like it might rock his quiet little routine, so long avoiding people he thought might hurt him, that he’d missed out on talking to the only person in town who got what it was like to spend every day surrounded by trees and fire and the quiet hum of work that leaves you sore and satisfied at the end of the day. He took the jar from her, his fingers brushing hers for half a second, and he didn’t pull away. “I’ll do the consult,” he said, and she grinned, bright and unselfconscious, the kind of grin that made his chest feel tight in a way he hadn’t felt in years. “On one condition. You skip the rest of this potluck and come get a chocolate milkshake with me at the diner on Highway 93. My treat.”
She didn’t even hesitate, tossed her half-eaten plate of food in the trash can next to the tree, and followed him to his beat up 2006 Ford F150, climbing into the passenger seat and rolling the window all the way down before he even turned the key. The wind blew her brown hair across her face as they pulled out of the park, carrying the smell of pine and her coconut shampoo through the cab, and when he reached over to turn the radio up, his knuckles brushing hers where her hand rested on the center console, she laced her fingers through his, squeezing once before letting go to point at a small herd of elk crossing the road 50 yards ahead of them.
