Page 39 of Red Mountain Burning
“I’m not sure she feels the same way you and I do about the mountain.”
“We’re a rare and dying breed, Brooks. I’m sorry to hear this. I know how much you love her.”
Brooks nodded. “I can’t imagine saying goodbye to this place, but I can’t imagine waving at her as she drives away, either.”
“Jesus, Brooks. I wouldn’t wish that decision on anyone. And I’ll do my best to stay out of it, though you know how I feel. We need you. How about Carmen? What’s she done this time?”
Brooks lowered his head. “I can’t work with her…definitely can’t work for her.”
Otis knew something would have to change over there, or Jake would lose his head winemaker. “Talk to Jake. He’ll understand. If he doesn’t, you know I’ve always got a job for you. As does every other winery in Washington State. Or hell, anywhere in the world. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“You’ve earned it, son.”
They turned to the sound of hurried footsteps sliding down the gravel drive. It was Eli, one of the only people Otis trusted with his vines. He was short in stature but tall in integrity.
“Otis,” Eli said, out of breath, his eyes hiding behind mirrored sunglasses, his head covered by a worn-out trucker’s hat. He could barely put his words together. “They’re spraying something over at Drink Flamingo. It’s blowing into our vines.”
Otis turned and hissed though gritted teeth, “What are they spraying?”
“I don’t know. But the guy’s wearing a protective coverall and a respirator.”
“You’re kidding me.”
Otis marched toward enemy territory in a fiery-red haze. Once neared the fence line, he saw a man in a white protective suit bumping along through the rows of green grow tubes. Otis stared for a moment, assessing the danger. As the man in white reached the end of a row, only a few feet from Otis’s property, the orange hazard symbol plastered to the big, white tank on the back of the tractor reflected in the sun. Sure enough, Otis could see the mist rising and drifting through the chain-link fence and over the road into his own property.
It was perhaps the worst sight he’d ever seen.
Not thinking of Eli and Brooks somewhere behind him, Otis marched left along the fence line until he reached the wide-open gate where a group of workers sat in the shade of a young acacia tree, eating lunch. He ignored them and continued through the construction site, past the tall wooden frame that was coming along much faster than Otis had hoped, and past the pool and hot tub that would soon be full of wine-drunk idiots.
Someone called out from behind. “What are you doing?”
Otis ignored him and beelined it to the tractor, stomping through the dirt.
Staring at the mist rising into the wind, Otis wondered what the guy was spraying. Probably an herbicide. Glyphosate? Paraquat? Whatever it was, Otis could lose his own certifications if too much drifted over.
Had he not been so furious, Otis might have cried. Screw the certifications. They were killing the soil, killing the essence of Red Mountain. It felt like someone had taken his children and forced chemicals down their throats, poisoning them.
About ten rows away from the tractor, Otis began unleashing hell, his fist shaking in the wind. “What the hell are you doing up there? Cut that fucking tractor off right now!”
An angry man behind him warned Otis to get off the property.
Otis kept his eyes on the man in the white suit, who’d now noticed him—but kept spraying.
“Don’t make me climb up on that tractor and throw you off!” Otis picked up a piece of granite the size of a baseball and slung it toward the tractor. The rock bounced off with a ping.
That must have gotten the driver’s attention. He finally shut off the sprayer and stopped the tractor, cutting the engine. The silence stung the air. The mist of the unknown chemical still drifted in the wind.
After a stare down, the man raised his hands and said something unintelligible.
“Take off that damn mask!” Otis yelled.
The man lifted up his hands, like he couldn’t understand what Otis was saying. Otis screamed louder, and the man finally pulled the hood back and his goggles up and dropped the respirator to his neck. The young man’s hair was doused in sweat, the skin around his eyes red from the goggles.
Otis didn’t give him a second to explain. “You have any idea what you’re doing? Your chemicals are drifting! You’re killing my vines—my bloody organic vines!” He heard the fury in his own voice as his victim’s eyes widened.
“You might not know what you’re doing, but your boss sure does. Where the hell is Bellflour? That blowhard is killing this mountain.” Otis put his fist back in the air. “Both of you should know you can’t spray on a windy day, and youshouldn’tbe using these chemicals, anyway! I haven’t sprayed a chemical on my vines in ten years, and look at them.” He pointed. “Look at them!”
