Page 10 of Red Mountain Burning
Ah, a spam caller. Otis braced himself. They’d been here before. Joan couldn’t stand it when Otis all but barked at spam callers. She was always quick to explain how difficult their job was and that he should go out of his way to be courteous. Leading by example, Joan was no stranger to carrying on ten-minute conversations with these privacy invaders. Otis was starting to believe she carried on with these intruders just to grate at his nerves.
In the same grateful tone she might use to decline a second pour of coffee from a server, she said, “No, thank you, I’m not looking for life insurance. Where are you located? Oh, I love Utah. It’s been a few years, but when I was much younger, I used to ski there all the time. How’s the weather this time of year?” Joan smiled as she listened, her patience a wire brush on Otis’s tense spine.
“Kids? No, I don’t have any children. But I have the most wonderful partner.”
She glanced at Otis, and he now knew she was indeed making a point.
Otis spun his hands in the air. “Okay, Mother Teresa, can we wrap this up? I get it.”
Joan ignored him and sprang from her seat. “No, I’m on Red Mountain in Washington State.” She smiled and listened.
How could she possibly care so much about this idiot on the other end?Otis wondered.
“No, it’s not wet at all,” Joan continued, apparently finding a thrill in her little chat. “We’re a long way from Seattle. In wine country. Yes, everyone thinks that it rains all the time. The Cascades actually get most of the precipitation. Enough about me. Your job must be terribly challenging at times…”
Joan walked into the living room to continue her conversation as Otis muttered mockingly, “Your job must be terribly challenging…bollocks!”
Otis needed out of there. He donned his tweed cap and stormed out the front door with a last shake of his head. The noon sun had warmed the cool morning, but summer was still a good ways out. Jonathan, his Great Pyrenees guard dog, came running up to the fence. “If I let you out, will you go take a chunk out of the fat one’s leg?”
Jonathan put his giant paws on the fence.
“Suit yourself. I’ll be back down in a minute.” Otis worked his way up the hill, past the vineyard he’d been farming for more than two decades. Glancing along the cordons of the vines, he saw that the buds were swelling, reminding him that harvest would be there before he knew it.
Passing his winery, he looked through the giant open doors in the back and exchanged a wave with Elijah, who was hosing down a tank. As his assistant winemaker turned back to his work, Otis returned his attention to the new site of Drink Flamingo’s flagship. He’d heard they were running some sort of social media campaign to come up with a name, and Otis was quite sure whatever they came up with would rivalDrink Flamingofor the worst name in wine sincebunghole, which referred to the hole bored into a barrel.
In place of Davidson’s doublewide and junkyard, the framing had gone up for Drink Flamingo’s tasting room and winery. To Otis, the cookie-cutter design looked like the beginnings of a McMansion that belonged in a gated community with some absurd suburban name like Swallowtail at Hampton Downs. Otis had no problems with such a community, but he did take issue with the knuckleheads at Drink Flamingo thinking this concept would work among the other wineries that had a more European mien. This wasn’t the suburbs, by God!
A giant hole had been dug behind the McMansion, and Otis feared it might be evidence of an upcoming swimming pool. What was Bellflour up to? The rest of the land had been cleared for planting vines. Next to a John Deere tractor were piles of vineyard poles and huge spools of wire. Otis wondered what varieties they might be planting. Most likely cabernet sauvignon. It was the obvious choice, the easiest variety to sell, and the surefire suggestion his Excel-loving, suit-and-tie board members would offer.
Cresting the hill, Otis stopped at his property line. Only a gravel road fit for tractors separated his favorite syrah block from this travesty. If he could, he would cover his vines’ eyes, just as he might shield a child from witnessing a bloody murder.
Bellflour stood in the middle of the future vineyard with the four men circling him. Otis felt sick as his enemy reached down and gathered a handful of Red Mountain soil, then tossed it in front of him. The act was no different than the devil bathing in holy water. The dusty soil caught in the air and hung like ashes and smoke.
When Bellflour finished his demonstration and the air cleared around them, he caught sight of Otis and led the men in Otis’s direction.
Otis held his ground, ready for whatever might come. He reminded himself of his new motto. “W.W.J.D? What would Joan do?”
And then, to himself, he said grumpily, “Do the opposite.”
