Page 50 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

“What's in it?” Nolan asks, studying his own piece with deep suspicion.

“Potatoes.”

“This is a potato?”

“It used to be,” Tessa says.

He takes a bite, and his whole face changes. “Okay,” he says, turning back toward the booth. “I need another one.”

I take a second bite of my own. I'd been looking forward to watching Beck try one, imagining his reaction. It's not a sad thought. My lefse is perfect, warm, and what I've been waiting for since last summer. I just wish he were standing next to me eating his own.

Beck's last message came Thursday night. Friday passed with nothing, which I told myself was normal, long operational days, exhausted crews, poor reception in the backcountry. I worked. I ate dinner. I went to bed early and didn't check my phone more than was reasonable, which is to say I checked it constantly and pretended otherwise.

Now it's Saturday. It’s been even longer since Reid's checked in with anyone. I know what it likely means. I've lived through enough of Reid's radio silence to know the list of logical explanations by heart. I check my phone one more time, see nothing new, and put it back in my pocket.

Nolan decides to eat his way through the entire festival in the name of cultural education. More lefse. A bratwurst the length of his forearm. Soda bread from the Irish booth that he declares essential to his understanding of the region.

“I'm supporting local heritage,” he says.

Cassidy gives him a look. “You're going to regret local heritage in about an hour.”

We wander the craft booths for a while, admiring some nice woodwork and some deeply questionable taxidermy. I run into three different people I know from Timber Creek, and it's easy, comfortable, the kind of afternoon I've had a dozen versions of over the years. There's a booth near the historical society with old photographs of Silver Bell, faded sepia images of the same buildings we climbed around. I linger there a minute longer than everyone else, thinking about a rock overlook and the first time Beck kissed me.

Someone announces the pie-eating contest starts in ten minutes, and Nolan decides to enter.

“You just ate an entire bratwurst,” Dani says.

“That was lunch.”

“It was seven minutes ago.”

He signs up, chest puffed out, already composing his victory speech.

Cassidy signs up right after him, quiet, almost offhand, like she's mentioning the weather.

Nobody questions it until the contest starts, at which point it becomes clear Cassidy has some kind of hidden competitive gear the rest of us have never seen engaged. Nolan starts strong but fades fast, visibly regretting every heritage-based decision of the past few hours. Cassidy just keeps going, calm, efficient, terrifyingly focused, and wins by a margin that isn't even close.

“I underestimated you,” Nolan says afterward, wiping cherry filling off his chin with the back of his hand.

“That was your first mistake,” Cassidy says.

I get a picture of the aftermath, Cassidy triumphant with both arms raised, Nolan slumped beside her looking like a man reconsidering every choice that brought him to this festival. I pull up my thread with Beck before I even think about it.

Cassidy destroyed Nolan in the pie-eating contest, I type. He's currently questioning all his life choices.

I hit send. No response comes back, which I anticipated. He can't answer right now. That doesn't mean I want to stop telling him things.

Later, the crowd settles into folding chairs near the stage, and a local band starts working through a set of country and classic-rock covers. Somewhere in the middle of the third song I catch myself thinking Beck would know the original artists without even trying.

Between songs, the singer pauses to thank the local firefighters, first responders, and anyone else working instead of celebrating today. The crowd applauds, warm and genuine. I think of Beck and Reid somewhere west of here, breathing smoke instead of funnel-cake air, working long hours on a fire most of these people will never think about again once tonight's over. I think about how a day like this, easy and safe and full of lefse and brass-band renditions of patriotic songs, exists partly because people are willing to do the kind of work Beck's doing right now.

I'm proud of him. Both of them, though it's Beck's face I keep picturing.

“No fireworks?” Nolan asks at some point, scanning the schedule flyer like he's missing something.

“We're surrounded by trees,” Tessa says.

“Right.”