Cole Henderson, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service wildfire crew lead, has lived in Boise’s North End for 11 months and still feels like a guest. He spent the morning patching a hole in his backyard fence, so his work boots are caked with red Idaho clay, a frayed 2010 fire season flannel tied around his waist, a cold IPA in one hand as he leans against the side of a brat truck at the neighborhood summer block party. He’s actively avoiding Marnie from next door, who’s spent three weeks badgering him to go on a blind date with her cousin from Nampa. The thick wildfire smoke that choked the valley for three weeks lifted three days prior, so everyone’s out, loud, sunburnt, passing around potato salad and yelling over a Tom Petty cover band set up in the bed of a rusted 1990s Ford. The scar snaking up his left forearm from the 2011 Wallowa Fire itches a little, the same fight that got him transferred out of Oregon, the same fight that left him with a grudge so thick he still won’t buy the brand of beer his old supervisor preferred.
He’s mid-sip when someone slams into his side, cold IPA sloshing over the rim and down his forearm, gobs of warm peach cobbler splattering the cuff of his work shirt. Mara Carter, 54, who runs the native plant booth at the Saturday farmers market, is holding a half-crumpled aluminum tray, cheeks flushed, apologizing so fast the words run together. She grabs a crumpled napkin from her back pocket and dabs at the beer on his arm first, calloused fingers brushing his skin—rough from years of digging in dirt and hauling 5-gallon pots, warm even through the wet paper. He’s bought curly kale from her every Saturday for three months, never said more than two words, always looked away before she could ask how his week went.