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I didn’t even stay the night, like I planned. I caught a ride with one of the other bands that had to get back to Blackbear. They had shrooms and it was awesome. The guitarist knew the guy who took my phone. Both live in Blackbear. Said he’s shady AF, told me a few stories I can’t even repeat here. Hot travel tip: don’t cross the local family of assholes.
So that’s why I don’t have a single pic from Firelight Ridge even though it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to. Here’s a stock photo from someone who didn’t get their phone molested by a loser in a tunic that looked like he wove it out of bark.
Molly checked the date of the blog post, and saw it was from nearly two years ago. Was there any chance the blogger remembered anything else? On the off chance she did, she left a comment on the post asking if she could ask her a few questions about her time in Firelight Ridge.
She had a few minutes left, so she did a quick search on Sam Coburn. Back in New York, she’d always Googled everyone she went on a date with. Standard dating practice. Not that this was a “date,” in any normal sense of the word.
She didn’t find much about Sam Coburn. He wasn’t on social media. The Fangtooth Flight Services website had only the bare minimum information, which she already knew. He’d worked as a wildfire fighter for many years before he started the company about three years ago.
She also found a brief mention of his divorce in the local newspaper of Fort Collins, Colorado. Apparently his ex-wife was from one of the most prominent families in town, and therefore their breakup had made the gossip columns.
Friends of the couple say they simply grew apart, with Sam spending so much time away during wildfire season. ‘He was never really comfortable in Liza’s social circles,’ said one friend. Their split shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but apparently it was a shock to Sam. ‘Maybe he should have picked a different career,’ said one close associate. ‘Rumor has it he let her keep the house and everything in it, all he wanted was their dog.’ Liza was sad about that, but she wanted it over, so she let him go.’
Ouch. Reading between the lines, Sam had gotten a kick in the teeth with that divorce. No wonder he came off as someone with walls up. She would be too; face it, she was. Maybe they had some things in common.
As she was wrapping up her search, someone pushed open the door of the store and strode inside. She glanced up to see the broad back of someone in a full cold-weather coverall looming over the store counter.
The word “Daniel “ caught her attention and her ears perked up. She could make out only small snippets of their conversation.
“Bunch of us dug out… his truck…ran out of fuel.”
“Why didn’t he hike outta there?” asked Kathy. Molly heard the grief in her voice.
“Might have been drunk…liquor bottles…emptied…”
“Daniel, drunk? He didn’t drink.”
“Can’t know…”
“I know. He…I know because I…I never saw him buy alcohol. Not here, not at The Fang, nowhere.”
Kathy’s hesitation in the middle of that sentence told Molly a lot. Kathy knew that Daniel didn’t drink, but she didn’t want to say how she knew that. Was it possible there was an AA meeting in this tiny town? There were recovering alcoholics everywhere, after all. Staying sober must be especially hard in a remote place like this.
She shrugged off the thought, since no doubt the proper authorities were investigating Daniel’s death, and it wasn’t anything she needed to get involved with. Her timer went off and she packed up her iPad.
She nodded to Kathy as she pushed through the door, and managed to get a look at the man in the coverall. He had a walrus mustache and wind-chapped skin. She could well imagine him digging out a truck buried under an avalanche.
At five o’clock on the dot, Sam pulled up outside the hardware store in his blue pickup. She’d been waiting in the storefront armchair, puzzling over Daniel’s demise. For whatever reason, it didn’t add up to her. Her curiosity had gotten activated, and now she couldn’t stop thinking about the cheerful wannabe writer slash smoothie maker slash plow truck driver.
Lila had only woken up once, eaten a few spoonfuls of Bear’s chicken soup, then turned back to her pillow for more sleep. Molly hated seeing her like this, and wished she could skip this dinner. But now she had another reason to go. Lila thought that Daniel had been seeing Ruth Chilkoot. If she could confirm that Ruth was doing okay, that might help Lila get through this.
“How’s Lila?” was Sam’s first question.
Wow, she was really starting to think that Firelight Ridge was just like every other small town when it came to knowing people’s business.
“She’s sleeping. I might have canceled if I’d had your cell number. And cell service,” she added, remembering that inconvenient detail.
“I’m glad you didn’t. You look great.” He smiled at her warmly. So did he, she noticed, but not in the way she was used to. He wore work pants and a heavy-duty jacket over a black sweater, and yet somehow it all looked great on him.
She glanced down at her own outfit, which she’d put together from Lila’s “closet”—a rack of shelving that used to hold boxes of bolts and screws. She’d found a pair of thick wool pants that were just a little tight on her, along with a wraparound sweater in a pretty shade of eggplant that set off her hair.
Since her feet were much bigger than Lila’s she was stuck with her own footwear, the same boots she’d been wearing since she arrived, but that now looked as if they’d been through an apocalypse.
“I was hoping there was a shoe store in town, but apparently there’s only one option, the thrift store, and it’s only open for two hours on Saturday mornings.”
“Two very early hours. Seven to nine. You have to get there right when it starts or there won’t be anything left. Most people do their shopping in Anchorage when they get there. Or online, but deliveries can take a while.”
She sighed. “Yeah, I get the picture. On the bright side, I assume no one’s going to be judging me based on my last-season clothes.”
