Smoked (Deepwood Mountain Holiday Specials #5)

WADE

The sun isn’t even up yet and I'm already sweating through my shirt.

The rig's been lit for nearly a half an hour and the firebox is just getting started, that first slow bloom of oak catching and settling into a burn that'll hold for hours.

But it’s hauling all the stuff that has me drenched.

I made three trips from the truck to the cook site with coolers full of pork butts and racks of ribs, plus the Cambros, the sauces, the dry rubs, the foil, the butcher paper, the spritz bottles, and two folding tables I should've set up last night.

The only reason I didn't was because I got home from a job at almost midnight and fell asleep on the couch.

Riley found me there this morning. She took a picture and said she was saving it for my obituary.

Ah, the joys of teenagers. She's fifteen and my everything. But she’s a goddamn menace.

"Dad." She's standing at the end of the prep table now, holding up two squeeze bottles. "Vinegar spritz or apple juice spritz?"

"Both. Vinegar first hour, apple juice after the bark sets."

"That's what you did last time and you said the bark was too dark."

I glance up from the firebox. She's got her dark hair pulled back in a braid with a Deepwood Mountain High Caribou ball cap, wearing the T-shirt I picked up for her from Love’s truck stop. Her face tells me she knows she's right and is just waiting for me to catch up.

"So what do you suggest?" I ask.

"Apple juice from the start. It has less sugar than the cider, but it still keeps things moist without—"

"—competing with the rub. Yeah." I scratch my chin. "When'd you get smarter than me?"

"Shark week. Fifth grade. I did a presentation on apex predators and you spelled 'predator' wrong on my poster board."

"That was a stylistic choice."

“Whatever you say, Dad.”

I grunt and wave her off toward the coolers. She goes, grinning, and I turn back to the fire.

The charity cookout doesn't start until eleven.

Deepwood Mountain's fire department has been throwing this thing every August for as long as I've been around, and I've been the one running the pit for the last six years.

I don't get paid. Don't need to. Ike's crew does good work, and feeding this town is the closest thing I have to church.

But feeding hundreds of people means the cook starts before dawn.

Pork butts need eight or nine hours at 225.

Ribs are faster, but pickier. Too much heat and they go to leather.

I've got three racks of St. Louis cuts and six bone-in butts, and every one of them needs to go on in the next thirty minutes if I'm going to hit the window.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I wipe my hands on my apron and check it.

It’s from Dispatch.

3-day run, Billings to Bismarck, ND, pickup Monday AM. Good rate. You want it?

I stare at the screen. Good rate means twelve hundred bucks, maybe thirteen. Three days means I'm home by Wednesday night, which gives me Thursday and Friday to recover before the weekend.

The weekend I was planning to do a practice cook.

I close my eyes for a second and do the math.

The Labor Day competition is about three weeks out.

Entry fee's already paid—that came out of the last Billings run.

Meat will run me four, maybe five hundred from my ethically sourced supplier.

Gas to get the rig down there, another two.

And every weekend I spend in the backyard dialing in my rub and rehearsing my timing is a weekend I'm not earning.

The guys who beat me last year? A team of four.

They had a guy whose only job was fire management.

Another one on sauce. A third prepping the turn-in boxes while the pitmaster rested.

They rolled in with matching shirts and a canopy with their name on it and enough manpower to actually sleep during an overnight cook.

I showed up with a stick burner, a camp chair, and a dangerous amount of caffeine.

I came in fifth…which is pretty darn good considering. Would've placed if I hadn't been running on thirty-six hours without sleep and accidentally overwrapped my brisket by forty minutes during the stall.

But this year's different. I've been tweaking the rub since January. I know the rig better than I know my own pickup (and that's saying something since I've put three hundred thousand miles on it). The cook is solid. The technique is there.

What I don't have is at least one extra pair of hands.

Yeah, I'll take it.

I have to. Riley needs a new retainer and the transmission on my semi is making a sound I've been pretending not to hear.

I pocket the phone and get back to the meat.

By nine, the cook site is humming. The pork butts are past the two-hour mark and the bark is coming in beautifully.

Riley was right about the apple juice, but I just chalk that up to her watching me.

The ribs went on at seven and they're taking smoke like they were born for it, the cherry wood giving them that deep mahogany color that makes people lose their minds.

The firehouse lawn is starting to fill up. My best friend, Ike, and his wife, Sloane, were here first. Ike's been early for every event since I met him in high school, and Sloane's no better. She's stringing decorations along the folding tables while Ike hauls a cooler of drinks from the station.

Those two. I swear, six months together and they still look at each other with stars in their eyes. It's sweet. It's also deeply annoying when you're forty-five and your most meaningful relationship is with a meat thermometer.

Jasper's setting up the corn hole boards and already talking trash to Chevy, who isn't really listening since he's helping a group of older women carry lawn chairs from their cars. Aiden and Beth arrived with a trunk full of food—potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, and a towering tier cake with the fire department logo piped on in red, orange, and green frosting. Aiden can’t help himself. He doesn’t do anything small.

Perry followed with a clipboard and a laminated timeline for the day's events.

"Wade." Perry appears at my elbow, his tablet in hand. "What's your projected serving window?"

"Somewhere between noon and when it's done."

He blinks at me. "That's not a proper window."

"Welcome to 'cue, Perry," I say, waggling my eyebrows. I do love giving him a hard time.

He makes a note on his tablet, probably something close to Wade: uncooperative re: scheduling, and walks off toward Raina, his wife. I’ll have to call her to come look at my truck. She’s an honest mechanic, but I still think it’ll set me back.

Then Lance materializes next to me, and starts stacking wood splits without being asked. The man is six-six and moves like smoke. Half the time I forget he's even there.

"Thanks, brother," I say.

He nods.

Riley reappears with Sloane in tow, the two of them laughing and talking.

Sloane took over the soccer program at the high school last year, and Riley came home from the first practice talking about Coach Sloane as if she'd found a missing limb. When Ike volunteered to pick Riley up a couple times during my hauls, he fell fast and hard for the coach. My best friend essentially owes his entire love life to the matchmaking of my daughter, and she won’t let any of us forget it.

But it makes sense that Riley’s a little needy when it comes to motherly attention. Her mom walked out when she was just a baby, and Sloane is so generous and kind, making every kid feel important without making a production of it. She’s amazing, and I’m thrilled for Ike.

"Wade!" Sloane calls out. "Smells incredible over here. You need anything?"

"A clone and about six more hours in the day."

"I could loan you Ike, but he'd just stand there with his arms crossed intimidating the brisket."

"I heard that," Ike says from somewhere behind a stack of folding chairs.

"You were meant to, hon.”

I grin. These are my people.

The lawn is packed. More than half of Deepwood Mountain is here—families with kids running through the grass, old-timers in lawn chairs, a group of off-duty firefighters from the Billings station who drove up for the food.

The smoke is hanging low and sweet in the summer air, and the ribs are just about ready.

Jasper wanders over and peers into the rig. "Damn, Dawson. You ever think about how much meat you handle in a given week?"

"Why? You interested in handling it, Quade? I could arrange that. But I seriously doubt you have the chops."

“Ugh, thanks for ruining my appetite,” Jasper grimaces. “I'm just saying, between the cookouts and the comps, you've probably touched more meat than—”

"Keep going and I'll tell Ike to put you on dish duty for a month."

Jasper holds up his hands in surrender, grinning. "I’m trying to compliment you, jerk. You're a man of many talents."

"Thanks, man. But about sixty of those talents are in my gut," I say, patting my stomach through the apron. "All that quality control's gotta go somewhere."

The guys laugh. Jasper snorts into his beer. Even Lance cracks a smile.

I laugh too, because that's how I roll. I'm the husky guy who makes husky-guy jokes.

I've been making them since I graduated high school and realized I was never going to look good with my shirt off, especially next to Ike and the rest of his obscenely shredded firefighting crew. But that was cool, because I could feed hundreds of people delicious food they’ll remember for a long time.

You play the cards you're dealt.

I turn back to the rig and check the ribs. They’re perfect…a beautiful, deep color, the meat pulling back from the bone about a quarter inch, the surface tacky and glistening. I pull the first rack, set it on the cutting board, and start slicing.

People line up and I serve.

I do love this part of it—the faces when they take the first bite, the way a good rib sends a grown man to his happy place. Riley's working the other end of the table, handing out sides and sassing anyone who tries to take more than their share of potato salad.