Traveling Dreams

We were driving through the Klamath range in northern California. Somewhere between Burnt Ranch and Weaverville (I kid you not, these really were the names..) we saw the huge plume of a forest fire. Lit from below, it glowed purple and a vivid yellow and reached far, far into the midday sky.
We stopped at a tiny store to stock up on caffeine and soda. A couple of guys were just leaving, saying a few final words about the fires - guess there were more than one. The owner/operator of the establishment sat in a folding chair, a settled kind of smile on his face under the baseball cap and white hair.
I pointed to the picture on the cooler. "You got any Red Bull or just the picture?" I teased, somehow knowing that this was the way in this little valley full of twisty trees and sunshine. "Nah, everybody likes that Rock Star stuff now," he muttered contentedly.
I made sure the Rock Star had caffeine (it's vile, by the way!) and as I paid, I asked about the plume we saw. "Yeah, they've got most of the fires under control, but that one's givin' them trouble," he said.
"We've never seen anything like that before. We don't have fires in Colorado," Jake piped up. "Sweetie, we do too," I corrected him. I turned to the man behind the counter. "Ever hear of the Heyman fire?"
"What was that one?"
"Oh, you know, this woman's boyfriend left her, and she was burning his letters, and set the biggest forest fire in Colorado history!" I found myself easing into the country store rhythm, and it felt good, just to tell stories and be all aw-shucks about it.
"Why was she burning his letters?" Jake wanted to know.
"Oh, you know... women!" commented the store owner with a smile and a look under the brim at me.
We were flirting now, with our eyes, in the unabashed way people who know they will never see each other again, can, and I said something about how guys are like that too, only you don't hear about it, and we both laughed and looked.
And just for a second, I imagined what it would be like if I decided to stay there in that sweet valley with the smiling-eyed man. It was silly, of course - no doubt he had a wife back behind the store, and I've a whole life here. But I still thought about it that night, and it's one of those roads not taken that will always stay in my mind. Lovely, and totally unspoiled by reality!