Clay Bennett is 58, retired three years from the Lolo National Forest fire crew after a falling branch shattered his left ankle on a 2020 blaze, now runs a one-man woodworking shop out of his garage east of Boise. He’s stubborn to a fault, still refuses to use a smartphone for anything other than calls, spent the better part of last spring taping city council member Mara Hale’s headshot to his workbench as a dartboard after she spearheaded a temporary residential fire pit ban. He only agreed to come to the neighborhood pop-up bar because his next door neighbor left a six pack of his favorite hazy IPA on his porch that morning with a note threatening to steal his custom log splitter if he bailed.
The bar is strung with fairy lights strung between two pine trees at the edge of the empty hardware store lot, the air thick with the smell of grilled bratwurst and citronella candles, a country cover band playing slow, twangy versions of 90s rock hits off to the side. Clay leans against the split rail fence, IPA sweating through the cuff of his faded red flannel, the scar wrapping around his left forearm from a 2017 burn throbbing a little in the dry heat. He’s debating bailing before anyone can corner him into talking about the neighborhood watch when she walks over, holding a plastic cup of dark beer, no blazer, no campaign lanyard, just a faded denim shirt and jeans, a smudge of charcoal on the edge of her jaw, hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with silver at the temples. He recognizes her immediately, his jaw tightening, but she’s already smiling before he can turn away.
She points to the custom leather tool belt slung over his shoulder, the one he stamped his last name into after he made it for himself his first year on the crew. “Bennett? My dad was Jerry Carter, ran the Lolo crew back in the 90s. He used to talk about a kid named Clay who once carried a 70 pound pack 3 miles out of a burn to save a stray dog.” Clay blinks, thrown. He remembers Jerry, drank beer with him every Friday after shift for three years, went to his funeral in 2019. He doesn’t have time to reply before a server drops a tray of full glasses ten feet away, the crash loud enough to make both of them jump, and she reaches for his beer by mistake, her fingers brushing his. He feels the callus on her index finger first, rough from splitting wood for the fireplace in her cabin up in the mountains, then the cold of the glass seeping between their knuckles. She laughs, pulls her hand back, holds up her own cup in apology. “Sorry. Jumpier than a cat in a thunderstorm these days, between all the angry emails about the fire pit ban.”
Clay snorts, can’t help it. “Yeah, I might’ve sent a couple of those. Thought you were just another bureaucrat who wanted to kill our annual fall crew bonfire.” She leans in a little, shoulder an inch from his, because a group of kids run past screaming from the playground nearby, and he can smell coconut shampoo and the faint, sweet tang of menthol cigarette smoke on her shirt. “The ban was only for July and August, dumbass. All the local groups twisted it into a permanent thing. I grew up going to those bonfires. I’d never cancel them. I pushed for the ban because we had 12 wildfire starts last summer from unattended fire pits, two of them within half a mile of this neighborhood.” He stares at her, realizes all the rants he went on with his friends were based on a Facebook rumor he never bothered to fact check, and heat crawls up the back of his neck, equal parts embarrassment and something else he can’t name, the kind of flutter he hasn’t felt since he was 22 and asked out his first girlfriend at a crew cookout.
A guy hauling a stack of folding chairs bumps into her from behind before he can reply, and she stumbles forward, grabbing his bicep to steady herself, her palm warm and firm through the thin flannel. He doesn’t move away. She holds his gaze when she apologizes, no quick look away, no awkward laugh, and he notices the tiny scar above her left eyebrow, the same one Jerry had, the laugh lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes when he admits he taped her headshot to his dartboard. “I’ve had worse,” she says, grinning. “One guy made a whole TikTok of him throwing eggs at my campaign sign. Got 20k views.” They talk for another 45 minutes, the band switching to slower songs, the crowd thinning out as the sun dips below the foothills, painting the sky pink and orange. He tells her about his sister, how he couldn’t cross state lines to go to her funeral in 2020 because of lockdowns, how he’s avoided every neighborhood event since because crowds felt like a slap in the face, like everyone was acting like nothing bad ever happened. She nods, doesn’t give him a pity speech, just tells him her mom died the same way, alone in a nursing home, that’s why she pushed for all these free pop-up events, so people don’t have to sit home alone if they don’t want to.
She nods her head toward the trailhead at the edge of the lot, the one that leads up to the small overlook with the bench that looks out over the city. “Wanna walk up there? I’ve got a pack of menthols in my pocket. I won’t tell your doctor if you have one.” He agrees before he can think about it, even though he told himself he’d be home by 8 to sand the custom cutting board he’s making for a couple getting married next month. The trail is gravel, loose in spots, and when she trips over a half-buried root ten minutes in, he reaches out to steady her, their fingers lacing together for three long steps before she pulls her hand back, but she’s smiling, no awkwardness, like she meant to do it. The overlook is empty, just the weathered wooden bench, the faint hum of traffic from the highway down below, the sky turning dark purple at the edges. She pulls the pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, hands him one, and he takes it even though he quit 12 years ago after his first grandkid was born. She lights her own first, then leans in to light his, the flame small between them, her hair falling forward to brush his cheek. He doesn’t even flinch when the flame grazes the edge of his gray mustache, too busy watching the way the light glints off the silver streaks in her braid.
