Page 4 of Smoke Season

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” she had begged Sam the night young Zack had been arrested on the Oregon-California border of I-5, baffled by the thick wad of Saran-wrapped cash and handful of pills found stashed in one of the boxes of grow lights he was transporting for Fallows. “He thought he was only making a supply run, trying to make enough money to enroll at Oregon State next semester. You know he’s a good kid.”

Sam did know, which was one of many reasons he wanted nothing to do with the man who’d just darkened his door. Sam raised his voice. “Get lost, Fallows.” He flung one arm in the direction of the door. “I’ve warned you enough times.”

John Fallows approached the bar anyway. “C’mon now, Bishop. Why you gotta pretend like we ain’t family?”

“Because we’re not.” Just because Sam’s old man had been plastered to Fallows’s side back in the day, not to mention just plastered, didn’t mean Sam had to put up with this shit now. And just because he and Chris had no one but each other then didn’t make it true now. Sam planted his feet firmly, shoulders square, channeling his years in the military as best he could. You didn’t forget boot-camp training in ahurry, and he was no longer the kid who’d grown up in Carbon with no choice but to cower under this family’s bullying. “I’m not kidding. Leave my bar.”

Fallows held up a lazy arm. “Keep your panties on, Bishop. We’re just here to talk to my guys. Those DEA pricks have been all over my shit.”

Not that the Feds would find anything, unfortunately, no matter how suspicious they got. Ever since marijuana had been legalized in the state, Fallows made sure to stay squeaky-clean, at least in the eyes of the law. Licenses all in order, storefront on Main Street, even a line of CBD lotion. An LLC and everything. That way, Fallows could carry on with the much more lucrative side of his operations unfettered and unchecked.

“I can’t believe I have to pay some overeducated, pansy-assed, fragile-as-a-snowflake chemistry PhD in Salem to tell me what I already know about my own goddamned weed,” Fallows griped now to his crew. “Goddamned worst idea ever, this fucking blue state voting to make my shit legal.” Some of the guys at the bar agreed with Fallows with a nod, but most kept their eyes on their beers.

Sam just continued to see red on behalf of young Zack, who now sported a record instead of a college ID. Along with all the other pawns who’d found their way into Fallows’s path.

Sam could have easily been one of them, a statistic instead of an entrepreneur. He still had plenty to lose, his reputation in this town first and foremost, just by association. Which was precisely why Fallows was in no hurry to vacate the bar.

He slid Sam a slow smile. “Want a sample? On the house. It might chill you the hell out, man.”

“Get. The fuck. Out of my bar,” Sam repeated, the crew members’ heads now on swivels, following the confrontation like spectators at a tennis match.

Fallows threw his hands up in the air. “Good thing your old man can’t see what a pussy you’ve become.”

“My old man in federal prison? The oneyouput there? That one?”

“Whatever, man. I’m out.” Fallows turned on his heel, like it was his goddamned idea in the first place, leaving Sam, per usual, fuming.

Heart pounding in his chest, he told Fallows’s crew to follow suit; he was closing up early after all.

A half hour later, he stood in the galley kitchen of his two-room apartment over the River Eddy, his hands still a bit shaky as he reached for his phone. Mel’s face graced the screen, a sight that still caused a little uptick of his heart. But they weren’t together anymore, no matter how much Sam wished it could be different, and their days of impromptu calls signalinggoodthings were over.

“Don’t tell me bad news,” he entreated with a sigh. “I’ve had a day.”

“Look out your kitchen window, toward Flatiron.”

He clocked the thin plume of smoke in an instant. “Shit. All right, your day trumps mine.”

“Well, maybe,” Mel agreed, “given that mine appears to just be starting.”

She sounded tired. Sam knew she’d rather be with the girls than on the job, and he also knew she couldn’t turn down the hours. A familiar shame-resentment cocktail rose up like bile. Sam swallowed it back down. It wasn’t Mel’s problem that running the Eddy didn’t provide Sam’s full share of the money that was always in such desperately short supply with a medically fragile child, but itwouldbe his problem to tell Astor and Annie that their mom wouldn’t be coming to get them tonight.

He changed the subject. “You think it’s going to turn into anything, this fire?” It wasn’t like they didn’t see them all the time at this time of year.

“Nah, just a little lightning strike.” Mel paused. “I’ll come get the kids first thing in the morning, all right?”

Sam agreed and disconnected the call with his customary “Stay safe,” because old habits died hard, already reaching for one of the boxes of Kraft mac and cheese he kept handy on the counter. Maneuvering in the tight space to retrieve a trio of bowls from the sole cabinet, he thought wistfully of the spacious farm kitchen sitting empty in his two-story home on Highline Road overlooking town before remembering that that space, too, was still in a state of upheaval. Just like it had been for the entirety of his childhood.

“You don’t have to renovate thewholehouse,” Mel had said—more like begged—for the duration of the half decade she’d lived there, when they’d still been a family of four. “This isn’t the hill you have to die on.”

Sam always brushed her off or made a joke. Because he justmightdie on that hill. He’d been born on it, after all, into a life of poverty, to Shelley and Mark Bishop, the former of whom hadn’t stuck around long. Ever since he’d taken over the place, remodeling it from the foundation up had felt more like an essential obligation than a choice.

“You’re nothing like your dad,” Mel promised time and again. She knew how hard it had been for Sam to reinvent himself in a small town with a long memory, but talking about home improvements had led to talking about money, and talking about money had been their downfall.

Or at least one of them.

After their marriage had imploded, he’d retreated to the Eddy apartment to lick his wounds. Sharing custody was easier if he was in town, he’d reasoned, though really, he’d just hoped to keep the constant reminders of their former life together at bay.

“We were happy,” he’d tell True, usually after one too many once the bar was closed. “Right?”

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