Page 131 of Red Mountain Burning
He used the rail to climb the steps out of the pool, but as he lost the water’s support, he felt his legs buckle. Catching himself before tumbling backwards, he shook it off and grabbed the towel from his lounge chair. After slipping into his leather sandals, he slowly stumbled to the tiki bar and snagged the attention of one of his Flaminglets.
“Hey, sweetie, can I get one of those Nicaraguans?”
“You got it, Harry.” She must have been the last sober one left.
He, on the other hand, was mumbling, but who cared? It was his fucking party.
She clipped the cigar for him and handed it over with a box of matches. “Enjoy, boss.”
Turning back toward the pool, he leaned against the bar and lit his cigar. The music was getting a little annoying, but he was beyond pleased at the turn out. Wendall, the Drink Flamingo CEO, hadn’t been able to make the party, but Bellflour was sure he’d hear all about it. Not one person on the board would ever doubt him again. He’d beat his deadline and done more in one year than many could do in two or three. As if that weren’t enough, their wine club was already beyond full, and the waiting list was thousands of sign-ups long.
Even his father would be proud.
“Harry,” he might say, “I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
Bellflour felt his bladder swelling again. He didn’t feel like dealing with all the drunks pissing all over his toilets, so he stumbled toward the back and exited through a gate in the fence.
Looking down at his army of vines, he raised his hands in the air. “Who is the king of this fucking mountain now?”
He turned right to the wall Otis had built. He appreciated that Otis had said his apologies, but Bellflour preferred to think of it as a surrender. The old man had finally met his match. By accepting Otis’s apology, Bellflour had proved he was the better man.
Thinking he’d have the last word of the night, Bellflour stumbled the fifty feet to the end of his property and approached Otis’s wall, which was two feet taller than he was. He pulled down the front of his Speedo and pulled out what he liked to call the Grand Flamingo.
As he relieved himself, a wave of nausea hit him. He’d had about eight or nine too many, and it was catching up with him. The stream of yellow splashed onto Otis’s lime-washed wall as Bellflour took another drag of his cigar.
When the smoke filled his lungs, the nausea worsened, and he felt his legs go wobbly and give way. Thinking that tomorrow would hurt badly, he began to fall backward, one hand holding the Grand Flamingo, the other holding the cigar.
As his back slammed the earth, his vision blurred. Tasting alcohol and acid creeping up his esophagus, he curled up and closed his eyes. He thought he heard a coyote call out, but he had no idea where he was anymore. After a few minutes in the haze, he smelled smoke.
Cracking one eye open, he saw that a patch of cheat grass had caught on fire around his cigar and was spreading like spilled oil.
“Oh, shit,” he said, feeling a dose of clarity hit him. He pressed up to an uncertain stand but couldn’t hold his balance and fell back down to the desert floor. Pressing up a second time, he saw that the wind was pushing the spreading fire toward the Château. The fear of losing everything he’d worked on gave him the strength to find a small degree of balance, and he attempted to stomp out the fire with his sandals.
Ashes rose into the air and burned his legs as he clumsily danced over the reddening ground. But the fire was already too big and moving too quickly. He looked back to the pool area and the Château above.
“Fire,” he mumbled, as if announcing it to himself.
Nearly naked and fully drunk, Bellflour started running back but tripped and tumbled down to the earth. Rolling to his back, he fought to find his voice. “Fire!” he yelled. “There’s a fire!”
