Cole Henderson, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service wildfire crew lead, has lived in Boise’s North End for 11 months and still feels like a guest. He spent the morning patching a hole in his backyard fence, so his work boots are caked with red Idaho clay, a frayed 2010 fire season flannel tied around his waist, a cold IPA in one hand as he leans against the side of a brat truck at the neighborhood summer block party. He’s actively avoiding Marnie from next door, who’s spent three weeks badgering him to go on a blind date with her cousin from Nampa. The thick wildfire smoke that choked the valley for three weeks lifted three days prior, so everyone’s out, loud, sunburnt, passing around potato salad and yelling over a Tom Petty cover band set up in the bed of a rusted 1990s Ford. The scar snaking up his left forearm from the 2011 Wallowa Fire itches a little, the same fight that got him transferred out of Oregon, the same fight that left him with a grudge so thick he still won’t buy the brand of beer his old supervisor preferred.
He’s mid-sip when someone slams into his side, cold IPA sloshing over the rim and down his forearm, gobs of warm peach cobbler splattering the cuff of his work shirt. Mara Carter, 54, who runs the native plant booth at the Saturday farmers market, is holding a half-crumpled aluminum tray, cheeks flushed, apologizing so fast the words run together. She grabs a crumpled napkin from her back pocket and dabs at the beer on his arm first, calloused fingers brushing his skin—rough from years of digging in dirt and hauling 5-gallon pots, warm even through the wet paper. He’s bought curly kale from her every Saturday for three months, never said more than two words, always looked away before she could ask how his week went.
He teases her for being in such a hurry to give away free baked goods, she laughs, a low, raspy sound that makes the back of his neck tingle, says she was running from the same Marnie who’d been trying to set her up with the guy who runs the local hardware store. They lean against the side of the brat truck for 20 minutes, talking over the band, her shoulder brushing his every time a group of kids squeezes past, the scent of lavender and old campfire smoke clinging to her cutoff flannel shirt. She mentions she worked seasonal fire crew out of Bend in the 90s, and he freezes for half a second, because he knows her last name, knows her ex-husband is the same supervisor he fought with 12 years prior—the guy who cut safety corners that almost got three of his crew killed.
Old anger flairs first, then a weird twist of guilt, like he’s betraying his old crew even by standing this close to her, like he’s betraying his wife, who passed seven years prior from breast cancer, by even enjoying talking to a woman who isn’t her. He makes a half-assed excuse to leave, mentions he needs to check on his old hound dog back home, but she calls him out on it, grinning, says she’s known who he was since he first walked up to her booth in that worn USFS ball cap he never takes off. She pulls a crumpled photo from her wallet, edges faded from years in a pocket, shows him a shot of her on a fire line in 1996, wearing the same exact model of fire boots he still has propped by his garage door, standing next to his old crew mate Jimmie, who retired last year. She says she left her ex 8 years ago, walked out the day he tried to blame a 19-year-old new hire for a mistake he made that burned 300 acres of old growth, says she probably hates that guy more than he does.
The tightness in his chest loosens, slow, like the first time you step out of smoky air into clean mountain wind. He sits down on the curb next to her, lets her pass him a piece of cobbler, warm and sweet, the crust crumbly between his fingers. They talk about old fire lines, about the way smoke sticks to your hair for weeks after a burn, about his 6-year-old granddaughter who loves to help him plant cherry tomatoes in his backyard, about the way she still cries sometimes when she sees a spotted owl, because she used to track them with her dad when she was a kid. She leans in when he talks about his wife, doesn’t look away, doesn’t give him that pitying tight smile most people do when he mentions her, just nods, says her mom passed from the same kind of cancer, says she knows what it’s like to feel like you’re not allowed to be happy after someone’s gone.
The band packs up around 10, the string lights strung between the oak trees are the only thing left illuminating the street, most people have wandered home, cool night air settling over the neighborhood. He hesitates for three full seconds before he asks her if she wants to get coffee at the little diner on State Street the next morning, the one that serves blueberry pancakes big enough to cover a dinner plate. She grins, grabs a ballpoint pen from her back pocket, scribbles her number on a napkin printed with the brat truck’s logo, tucks it into the front pocket of the flannel tied around his waist, her fingers brushing the bare skin of his stomach for half a second before she pulls away. She stands up, brushes cobbler crumbs off her cutoff jeans, squeezes his forearm lightly right over the old fire scar, says she’ll see him at 8, don’t be late.
He sits there for five minutes after she drives away, the taillights of her beat-up Subaru fading around the corner, his hand pressed to the pocket where the napkin is tucked. A breeze blows past, carrying the faint smell of pine from the foothills, the distant sound of a dog barking two blocks over. He lifts the half-warm IPA to his mouth, smiles, and for the first time in seven years, doesn’t feel guilty about looking forward to tomorrow.
