Elroy Voss is 62, a retired smokejumper who now runs a one-man firewood delivery outfit out of a dented 2008 Ford F-150 in western Montana. He’s lived alone since his wife left 12 years prior, and his biggest flaw is a stubborn refusal to let anyone get close enough to see the soft parts he hides under a layer of pine sap, ash, and gruff one-liners. He’d only stopped by the county fall harvest festival to drop off a half-cord of oak for the beer tent, figured he’d be in and out in 10 minutes, no small talk required.
He was hefting the last log off the truck bed when he spotted her, leaning against the tent’s metal pole, holding a paper cup of spiced cider, cowboy boots caked in calf mud from an emergency call she’d run that morning for a breeder 10 miles out. Marnie Hale, 58, the mobile large-animal vet who’d bought the old homestead three miles up his road two months prior, the widow of his old smokejumper crew chief, Ray, who’d passed from a heart attack two years before. Elroy’s throat went tight. He’d had a strict rule for 30 years: never so much as look at Ray’s wife for longer than a polite split second, no exceptions. He almost dropped the log.
She laughed, a low, rough sound, and stepped forward to catch it before it rolled into the tent’s stack of folding chairs. Her hand brushed his wrist when she pushed it back into his stack, and he caught the scent of lavender hand cream mixed with pine and the faint, sharp tang of horse sweat, warm and real, nothing like the artificial perfume his ex-wife used to douse herself in for parties. “Easy there, old man,” she said, holding his gaze for three full beats longer than polite, the corner of her mouth tugged up in a teasing smirk. “You gonna break your back hauling wood before the bonfire even gets lit?”
He grunted, wiping his palms on the thigh of his work jeans, suddenly hyper-aware of the hole in the left knee, the pine sap crusted under his fingernails. He told himself he should grab his receipt, get in his truck, go home, crack open a beer, watch the football replay he’d recorded the night before. But she held out a paper cup of beer she’d grabbed from the tent, and he took it before he could think better of it. They leaned against the side of the truck while the festival crowd milled around them, kids running past with cotton candy stuck to their cheeks, a bluegrass band playing off-key in the pavilion 50 feet away.
She told him she’d found a box of old crew stuff in the homestead’s attic when she was cleaning it out last weekend: a tattered crew jacket from the 2003 Bitterroot fire, a stack of polaroids, a dented Zippo Ray carried everywhere. “You’re in half the photos,” she said, nudging his shoulder with hers, their flannel sleeves brushing. “Ray talked about you all the time. Said you were the only guy on the crew he’d trust to drag his ass out of a burning tree line if things went south.”
Elroy’s chest felt tight, half guilt, half something warmer he hadn’t felt in so long he couldn’t name it at first. He felt stupid for even thinking about her like that, like he was betraying Ray, even though Ray was gone, even though Ray had told him once, when they were stuck in a fire camp waiting out a storm, that if anything ever happened to him, he wanted someone good to look out for Marnie. He’d brushed it off then, figured it was just the cheap whiskey talking.
She held out her left arm, showing him a thin, pale scar running from her wrist to her elbow, and he leaned in without thinking, his thumb brushing the raised edge of the scar light as a pine needle. “Spooked mare last month,” she said, not flinching, not pulling away. “Kicked out when I was trying to stitch up a gash on her flank. Figured I’d get a tattoo over it, but I haven’t decided what yet.”
They talked until the sun dipped below the mountains, the air turning sharp enough to make their breath fog in front of their faces. When the festival crew lit the big bonfire at the center of the field, the crowd cheered, and Marnie slipped her hand into his, her palm calloused from handling halters and syringes, warm even through the chill. “You wanna come up to my place later?” she said, leaning in so her mouth was close to his ear, her breath warm against his neck. “I got that box of crew stuff, and a bottle of bourbon Ray stashed in the pantry back in 2018. Still unopened.”
He hesitated for half a second, the old rule ringing in his head, and then he nodded. The loyalty he’d clung to for 30 years didn’t feel like a wall anymore, it felt like a bridge, like Ray would’ve laughed his ass off at him for being so stupidly uptight about it. They left an hour later, Marnie leading the way in her mud-caked pickup, Elroy following behind her, his truck cab smelling like the pine bough he’d tossed on the seat that morning, the beer buzz warm in his chest.
She pulled into her gravel driveway, flipped on the porch light, and leaned out her truck window, grinning, yelling that she’d get the bourbon open while he brought in whatever he’d grabbed from his bed. He’d tossed a half stack of the driest oak he had in the back before he left the festival, on a whim, and he hefted it over his shoulder, his boots crunching on the frost-dusted gravel as he walked toward the porch, where she was waiting, leaning against the doorframe, the light gilding the edges of her hair.
