Page 1 of Red Mountain Burning
1
Song Dogs Don’t Die
Brooks Baker’s footsteps cut deep into the freshly fallen snow, scratching at the quiet of the winter morning. Feeling eyes on him, he scanned the vineyard blocks for signs of life. The rows of cold steel trellises wrapped with bare and unkempt grapevines looked like lines of overgrown crosses in a forgotten cemetery, a religion of the vines and wines—the sacrament, the blood. This region was more druid-like, though, a place where strange things could happen, where the imagination could run wild conjuring images of the old world long ago.
A ghostly and thrilling chill crept up his spine as if he were traversing a burial ground, walking over graves. It wasn’t danger that he felt, more the raw energy of Red Mountain, the mystical place in the desert of eastern Washington State that had found him when he’d desperately needed finding.
Once Brooks reached a plateau, he twisted and gazed west through the last of the falling snowflakes drifting from pink clouds over apple and cherry orchards. Ice sheets floated down the frigid Yakima River. Somewhere out there, past the farms and the rolling hills, stood the sharp peaks and evergreen forests of the Cascades.
Brooks looked down at his house on the shore of the river, where a plume of smoke rose from the chimney. His home was full of life—at least, for now. His girlfriend, Adriana, and her son, Zack, were inside stoking a fire and cooking breakfast. Their current living arrangement was the closest Brooks had ever come to having a family of his own, but he had an agonizing suspicion it wouldn’t last for much longer.
Turning back, he worked his way southwest through the maze of roads threading through the vines. He found a snow-covered Red Mountain mesmerizing and inspiring, like gazing at the stars while at sea, and the edginess he’d felt waned. A hawk soared by, and he wondered if those were the eyes he’d sensed watching him.
“It’s quiet here,” a voice said, gruff and English, sneaking by like a phantom whisper.
Brooks spun around to find Otis Till standing a few feet into a row with his arms crossed. A smirk rose on the man’s face.
“Well played,” Brooks said, watching his breath turn to fog in the cold.
Otis had left England as a teenager, but his English accent hadn’t left him. “The only way to know these vines is to match their stillness.”
Brooks had noticed Otis speaking in other dimensions lately, as if the wise man now crossing into his late sixties had seen things Brooks had yet to see. Otis wore a weathered red wool sweater and brown corduroy pants. A tweed cap covered his head.
“Aren’t you cold?” Brooks asked.
Otis stepped toward him, coming out from the row. The older man shook his head. “Nah, it’s refreshing.”
The two men shook hands, and Brooks felt the excitement and anticipation of the man known as the grapefather, a warrior-farmer preparing for the next vintage. Never had Brooks met such an artist. Never had he encountered a man more dedicated to his craft.
“As cold as it is,” Brooks said, “I’m hearing it’ll be another hot year.”
“I’ve heard the same,” Otis admitted with the same disappointment he might have if his party had lost an election. “Too many more of these scorchers and we might have to replace our vines with agave plants and start producing tequila.”
“Let’s not go there. How’s Joan?”
“Still hiding my pork rinds and trying to make me do the twist on a yoga mat.”
Brooks could never get enough of Otis’s grumpy humor. “Someone has to keep you in line.”
“And Adriana and Zack?” Otis asked.
“They’re cold.” An image of Florida—palm trees and turquoise water—passed Brooks’s inner vision. “She’s not used to this kind of winter. I think she’s feeling a little trapped.”
What Brooks didn’t say was that Adriana had been having awful nightmares involving her ex-husband, Michael, who Adriana, her mother, and her son had fled from two years earlier. With her lawyer’s help, Adriana had organized the perfect escape. By the time she was driving over the California state line, Michael had been put in handcuffs. He’d been sent to California State Prison to serve three-to-five for felony domestic battery.
It was this past August when Michael had gotten out early and tracked his family down, surprising them one night at Margot Pierce’s house. Brooks had tried to protect Adriana and Zack, but Michael had hit him with a baseball bat and knocked him unconscious. If it hadn’t been for Margot, who’d stopped the attack with a butcher knife, Michael would very possibly have gotten away with taking Adriana and Zack. The only good that had come from the incident was that Michael had been sent back to prison for another five years.
Adriana had mentioned the appeal of moving to Florida more than once and had asked Brooks if he had any interest. The question plagued his mind like Chinese water torture. Could he ever leavela Montaña Roja, as Adriana called it?
As if climbing into his thoughts, Otis said, “You can’t go anywhere.” His eyes searched west over Benton City. “It may come as a surprise, but no matter how much I listen to Joan, I won’t be around forever. Someone will need to carry on here, to lead this bunch of vagabonds.”
Brooks stomped on the snow, widening the flattened area around his feet. “Jake will always be here.”
Otis shook his head. “No, it’s you. Jake understands wine, that’s for sure. But not like you. You’re the one making his wines. You’re the one who makes them sing. Without you, his vines would lose their…” Otis’s voice trailed off into the cold wind. “They’d lose their power. It’s you who’s out there talking to them. His vines are part of your destiny.”
A bird—maybe a magpie—squawked from down a distant row.
“That’s a big responsibility to put on me,” Brooks said. “I’m just trying to survive the days. I don’t have the ability to look off into the future.” He stared at the snow while he contemplated his mentor’s remarks.
