Elias Voss, 59, custom boot maker based outside Missoula, Montana, stands at the edge of the fire station parking lot, paper bowl of three-alarm chili sweating through the bottom in his left hand, scuffing the heel of his own hand-stitched work boot into the gravel. He’d only caved to his 16-year-old niece’s begging an hour prior, spent the last two weeks bitching about how cook offs are just excuses for neighbors to stick their noses in each other’s business. His left forearm bears the thin, silvery scar of a 2021 leather cutting slip, the one that put him out of work for six weeks, the one his ex-wife never even called to ask about after she left for a travel nursing gig in Arizona and never came back. He’s spent the 12 years since closing himself off to almost everyone but his niece and the regulars who drop off measurements for custom hunting or ranch boots, convinced any new connection is just a temporary thing that’ll end with him holding the bag.
The air smells like charred ground beef, pine, and diesel fumes from the fire trucks idling near the cook tents. A bluegrass band plays off to the side, the fiddle player sawing through a Johnny Cash cover so loud Elias can feel the vibration in the soles of his boots. He’s halfway through deciding he’s going to ditch the rest of the chili and head home when he spots her. The new county librarian, the one who came into his shop two weeks prior asking if he could resole her beat-up pair of 10-year-old Red Wings, the ones she’d worn hiking the entire Appalachian Trail before moving to Montana. She’s leaning against the side of a pumper truck, laughing at something one of the rookie firefighters said, her hair pulled back in a braid that’s slipped loose at the nape, sun catching the silver strands woven through the dark brown. He’d turned her down flat when she asked for the resole, said he only does custom work, not repairs, told her to go to the chain shoe shop in downtown Missoula. He’s regretted it every day since, too stubborn to track her down and say he changed his mind, too proud to admit he’d thought about her laugh every night for a week after she left his shop.
She spots him before he can slip away, waves, pushes off the truck and walks over. The gravel crunches under those same scuffed Red Wings, and he can’t stop staring at the cracked soles he’d refused to fix just a few weeks prior. She stops so close he can smell the cinnamon gum she’s chewing, the faint vanilla of her perfume, the chili powder dusted on the knee of her jeans where she spilled a bowl earlier. Her arm brushes his when she reaches to take the napkin he’s holding half-crumpled in his right hand, the contact warm through the thin cotton of his faded flannel shirt, and he feels the back of his neck heat up, a giddy, jittery feeling he hasn’t had since he was a teenager sneaking into the drive-in with his high school girlfriend. She holds his gaze for three full beats longer than casual, the corner of her mouth tugging up like she knows exactly how flustered he is.
She says she’s been meaning to stop by his shop again, says she gets it if he still doesn’t do repairs, but she’d pay double, even let him pick out the full-grain leather for the soles, no questions asked. He finds himself saying he’ll do it for free, if she brings him a copy of that western noir he’d seen stacked on the front desk of the library when he dropped off a box of old 1970s boot catalogs last month. He’d been too nervous to ask for it then, had practically run out of the library after dropping the box off, scared she’d see how red his ears got when she smiled at him. She laughs, her shoulder bumping his again, says she already had that book set aside for him, figured he’d like it, had been wondering when he’d stop being a stranger and come say hello.
For a second, all the noise of the cook off fades out, just the sound of their breathing and the distant fiddle hanging in the air. He’s spent 12 years convincing himself he’s better off alone, that letting someone get close just means they’ll leave, that the local gossip about him being a reclusive grump is fully justified. But right now, standing there with the smell of chili and pine and her perfume mixing in the warm September air, he doesn’t feel like a grump. He feels like he’s been holding his breath for 12 years and just remembered how to exhale.
They agree to meet at his shop Saturday morning, 9 a.m. sharp. She’ll bring the book and her boots, he’ll have a pot of black coffee waiting, and they can go over the leather options for the soles before he gets to work. She walks back to the fire truck, pauses halfway, looks over her shoulder and winks. He takes a bite of his chili, burns his tongue so bad his eyes water, doesn’t even care. He pulls his beat-up flip phone out of his pocket, texts his niece that he’s glad she made him come.
