Cal is broader in the shoulders than seems strictly necessary and walks like he’s never once considered not taking up space. He crosses the bay in three strides, shakes my hand, and says, “Cal Larsen. You need help with those?”
He does not wait for an answer. He picks up two of my bags, tucks a duffel under one arm, and starts talking. He covers the bunkroom layout, the shower schedule. The coffee maker, which he describes as “a crime against the Geneva Convention.” His sister’s engagement, which sounds recent, his voice doing something careful around the edges of it. The hiking trail behind the station. His thoughts on the hiking trail. His thoughts on hiking in general. A comprehensive review of a bar called the Watershed, including its burger ranking relative to bars he’s visited across a geographical range I stop tracking.
Somewhere during his assessment of the Watershed’s jukebox selection, he carries my bags directly past the bunkroom and toward the equipment closet.
“That’s not where those go,” I say, pointing to the closet door.
Cal looks at the bags. Looks at the closet. Looks at me. “Right.” He reverses course. He does not stop talking. He is now on the topic of fuel moisture readings he pulled yesterday, which he is apparently not qualified to pull but which nobody has technically told him to stop pulling, and I’m starting to understand that Cal Larsen is what happens when a golden retriever gets a fire science degree.
He waves at three separate people while talking.
None of them are part of the conversation.
“Cal.” Beck’s voice, from somewhere in the station. Just the name. One syllable.
Cal stops walking. The talking takes another full second to wind down, like an engine idling after the key’s been turned. He grins. “Captain says I talk too much.” Leans closer. “Captain is correct but will never hear me say so.”
Derek Kowalski introduces himself with a handshake and a smirk that seems to be his permanent resting expression. “Kowalski. Welcome.” That’s it. Two words and a facial expression that communicates everything Cal’s monologue communicated, but in a format you could fit on a Post-it note. He walks me to the bunkroom that we passed, bunks lined against the far wall, and points at the last one, closest to the bathroom door. “That one.” He walks away before I can ask why.
Hanna Larsen pops her head in and introduces herself—Cal’s sister, paramedic, ring on her left hand she keeps reaching for without realizing. She’s warm and direct. She asks what we need. She means it. She doesn’t hover.
After we drop our bags in the bunkroom, Cal leads me back to the bay and introduces me to Gemma Lockhart, the other paramedic, and she hands me a coffee. The mug is chipped and the coffee is the color of something you’d find at the bottom of a creek in late October.
Everyone watches me take the first sip.
Every single person in this apparatus bay is watching me drink this coffee.
It tastes like someone boiled a boot and then felt bad about it and added water. My face does something I can’t control. Years of command experience, no help here. Beck, across the bay, is watching me the way a chef watches someone taste their signature dish.
“It’s—” I search for a word that is technically not a lie. “Strong.”
“Strong,” Gemma repeats, flat. “Sure.”
“I make it myself,” Beck says. With pride. Genuine, earned, completely misplaced pride.
“You can tell,” Gemma says.
Beck nods, satisfied. He heard a compliment. The man heard a compliment. Gemma catches my eye and the look she gives me says: we’ve all tried. Nobody has the heart. I take another sip. The coffee still tastes terrible. Beck still looks satisfied. Some things you just accept.
After we’re settled, I start pacing. I can’t not pace. There’s nothing wrong. The quarters are fine, the bunk is fine, everything is fine, but the fineness of it is making my skin itch, because fine means still, and still isn’t something my body does.
My pacing turns into walking the streets of Copper Ridge, bigger than it looked from the hill. The main drag runs through the center of the valley with storefronts on both sides: a feed store, a hardware place, a real estate office, a library. Side streets climb the slopes toward neighborhoods hidden in the trees. A gas station at the south end doubles as something involving bait, which feels ambitious. The river cuts below town, visible between buildings, and the mountains sit on every horizon like they’re not going anywhere and neither should you.
I end up at Peak Grounds because it’s the farthest point from the station I can walk without technically leaving town, and because the sign in the window says COFFEE in letters large enough to constitute a civic promise.
Peak Grounds is a shoebox of a coffee shop on the corner of Pine and Third, green awning, warm wood paneling visible through the window. Inside, mismatched mugs on open shelving, a chalkboard menu featuring a drink called The Widow-Maker, and the smell of roasted beans and something buttery coming from the back.
The man behind the counter has dark-rimmed glasses, a beard that looks less styled than inevitable, and the stillness of someone who has made peace with not talking. His name, according to nothing because there’s no name tag and there’s been no introduction, remains a mystery until a woman in scrubs waves on her way out and says, “Thanks, Micah.”
Micah nods. Pours me a coffee without being asked, which is apparently how things work in this town: people decide what you’re consuming, and you go along with it.
The coffee is extraordinary. Dark roast, no frills, made by someone who understands that coffee’s job is to be coffee and anything else is a distraction. After Beck’s boot-water, this tastes like an apology from the entire concept of caffeine.
“You’re with the hotshot crew,” Micah says. The first full sentence he’s offered.
A woman near the window looks up from her laptop. “The wildfire guys?”
“Apparently,” I answer.
