He nods once, as if that makes perfect sense. “That part never leaves.”
The last fallen tree waits just before the ridge, a thick spruce laid across the trail like a barricade. Tom stretches his shoulders before getting to work again, muscles shifting beneath the sweat-darkened fabric of his shirt.
“You retire,” he says while he positions himself for the cut, “or did they push you out?”
The tone is casual. The look he gives me isn’t.
“Body slowed down,” I answer.
“That happens,” he says simply.
The next trunk gives in to our combined efforts with a hollow crack and splits apart under the pressure. When the noise fades and the woods settle again, he stands there for a moment staring at the fallen pieces like he is remembering something else entirely.
“What about you?”
Tom sets his left foot onto the fallen log and leans his elbow on his knee. “Department had gear that should’ve been replaced years earlier. Masks that didn’t seal right. Hose couplings that leaked pressure.” He says it like he’s listing parts from a machine. “I filed reports. Did my due diligence.”
“Let me guess.” Anger simmers in my lower belly.
“They didn’t appreciate it.” A thin smile crosses his face that holds no humor at all. Warehouse fire,” he says finally. “Big one. Old industrial place full of junk nobody had bothered to clear out.”
He braces his gloved hands on his hips and looks past the trees for a moment.
“We went in with gear that should’ve been replaced years earlier. Masks that didn’t seal right. Hose couplings that had been failing inspections for months.” His jaw tightens.
The breeze stirs the branches overhead. Far below, a gull cries somewhere out on the harbor.
“Two of my guys didn’t make it out,” he finishes.
I lean against the trunk, letting the weight settle into my boots. “Funny how the system always needs someone to blame.”
Tom glances sideways at me. “Yeah.”
The quiet stretches between us again before he asks the next question.
“You ever kill someone?”
There is nothing dramatic about the way he says it. No accusation. No curiosity. Just the blunt honesty that sometimes follows shared work and open air.
For a moment the trail in front of me isn’t the trail anymore.
Dust.
Heat.
A figure stepping into the road with something dark in his hands.
Too fast. Too close.
My finger tightening before my brain catches up.
I blink and the forest returns. “Yeah.”
Tom nods once and leaves it there.
For a while we work without talking. The trail still needs clearing and the storm didn’t do the woods any favors. Branches snap under our boots as we drag them off the path. The burn pile grows steadily beside the trees while the afternoon sun filters through the canopy overhead.
Eventually we reach the last stretch of the trail before the ridge. Two trunks lie tangled together across the path, roots twisted up like someone dropped a barricade in the middle of the woods.
