Page 40 of Red Mountain Burning
Once the fool had gotten a good look, Otis said, “You’re killing your soil before you even begin. It might be fine this year, but what about five years from now?” Rage, rage, rage! Otis felt it boiling up around his feet. “How old are you?”
The man was too stunned to respond.
The angry voice behind him was getting closer.
Otis didn’t let up. “Don’t you want your children to have the opportunity to farm? Don’t you give a blue-bloody shit about the earth? You keep spraying whatever the hell is in that tank, and there will be nothing left but an apocalyptic wasteland!”
A hawk passed by, soaring proudly, and Otis pointed to it. As the man looked up, Otis asked, “See that bird? He’ll be long gone. Forget about the vines. Your kids will be lucky if they can grow sagebrush! Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
Otis’s heart raced. He slammed a fist onto the tractor. “Do you hear me!”
Finally, the young man found the courage to speak. “Lo siento. No hablo inglés.”
“Oh, you must be kidding me.” Otis reached for his cap and crumbled it in his hands. In broken Spanish, Otis screamed, “No más! Estás matando las viñas. Detente, por favor!” Repeating himself in English, he muttered, “You’re killing the vines.”
Exhausted in fury, he finally turned to see a crowd collecting behind him. Brooks and Eli stood with the men and women who’d abandoned their lunches, all of their eyes as big as golf balls.
Otis dropped his head and stalked past them, holding back a cry. This is what it felt like to be hanging from a cliff with one weakening hand, each finger fighting for life, each one slowly slipping.
