Chapter 25 No CocaineNegronis #3
Otis pinched closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
It was too late to catch a flight, so they made the eight-hour drive and reached the hospital in Bozeman a little after midnight. In the hallway, they embraced Aunt Morgan, who told them that Eloise had had a heart attack and that she was in rough shape.
Otis entered the room to find his pale-faced mother staring back at him. A smile graced her face. “My son.”
“Mum.” He took her cold hand and kissed her forehead.
Eloise died two days later. Otis had barely left her side, and he was there when she closed her eyes for the last time.
He wished he’d had more time with her, but life had gotten in the way.
At least he had been there when she was issued her wings, and what he’d never forget was the strength and grace she’d showed all the way to the end.
There’d been a time when he’d thought his father was the hero of the family, but by the time they laid her in the ground, he knew it was his mother who’d been the rock.
Vance hadn’t shown up in a long time, which Otis had interpreted as divine intervention, perhaps even a gift from his mother from heaven.
A hired team continued to work Vance’s land, poorly if Otis was judging, but those men and women were the only signs of life over there.
Clearly God had deemed this land too holy for Vance or his heavy metal music and his disrespect for the sacred.
Or so he thought. Otis was enjoying a nice afternoon.
He’d hired a few interns from Washington State University to work with him in the cellar, and they’d spent the day cleaning.
Otis found incredible joy in the sparkle of a spick-and-span winery.
They were nearly ready to bring in fruit, and Otis was sure this was his year, the year he made a wine that would set the world on fire, a wine they would talk about from San Francisco to Tokyo.
He’d poured himself a finger—maybe two, maybe three—of a properly aged and particularly peaty Laphroaig and was about to peruse the newspaper when the familiar sound of vehicular invaders came from the vineyard road. As Rosco began to bark, Otis’s body seized up. Vance was back.
Things had been better lately. He’d found peace with his mother’s passing. Red Mountain was on the upswing.
And yet the darkest nights always followed the brightest days, especially in his world, as he spent his life under a ladder, his eyes on the black cat crossing in front of him.
Otis called for Rebecca and pulled back the curtains. She came into his office and looked out the window with him.
With his eyes on the cars kicking up dust as they moved through the cherry trees toward the trailer, Otis said, “If you tell me it’s time to bake cookies, I will jump right out this window.”
“Don’t you have a new parlor trick yet? Besides, this window is a little high. It might hurt.”
“Fine, then I’ll stab myself in the jugular with a pen.”
Rebecca reached for his forehead, his third eye, and made a spreading motion with her fingers. “Don’t let him get in your way.”
After her feeble attempt at pacifying him, Otis took her arm and pulled her in. “I know, I know. It’s just ... everything was so nice. So quiet. Now this vintage will be the one when Vance returned: 1999, the return of Vance Mason and his band of hooligans.”
“Only if you let him define your vintage.”
Otis gestured out the window. “He’s there, dear. I’m looking at him with my own eyes. Are you saying it’s my fault he returned?”
“I’m saying we have no control over him. Let’s do what we do. This will be our best vintage yet. You and I both know it.”
“I hope so,” he said, his tone caked in dread.
“There’s no room for hope,” she said. “I know so.”
Otis sighed. She was right. He’d done well, shedding the skin of the man who used to get plagued by these troubles. He was being tested; that was all.
Apparently Vance hadn’t changed much. In the coming days, Otis watched with a sad heart as the man had his parties and band practices, wrecking the terroir with his ignorant ways.
Otis was a different man, though. Losing his mother had reminded him of the fragility of life and of the promises he’d made to himself and to Bec.
He swallowed what he wanted to say, sparing Bec another rant.
He put earplugs in when the sounds crept into their bedroom late at night.
He faced the deck chairs more southwest, so they couldn’t see the trailer in his view.
“You know, Bec, if they were giving out medals, I’d get one for sure.
Haven’t you seen my patience?” It was Saturday afternoon.
Late October, and autumn had painted the leaves.
Otis and Rebecca sipped on a vermouth and soda with a spear of orange and olive and watched the sun melt into Mount Adams. Django Reinhardt played from the portable jam box the boys had given them.
“You certainly get your credit,” she said. “I’m impressed.”
“You say that like you doubted me.”
“I have never doubted you, that’s for sure. It’s just that you still continue to surprise me. Look at you, healthier than I’ve ever seen you, despite a few challenges.”
“A few? Had someone told me what farming a new land would be like, I’d be sitting in a rocking chair on our porch in Sonoma, chatting with you about which push lawn mower would be the best for our quarter acre of land.”
“That is the one life I don’t think you could have handled. What would you do all day?” Rebecca slid the olive off the toothpick with her teeth.
“Sleep a good bit. Listen to Chet Baker and take long naps.” Otis changed to his best American accent. “Play poker with the fellas. Grill burgers in the cul-de-sac. Shoot hoops. Nine-to-five it every day. Go to the cinema. Watch ball games.”
“Yeah, that’s not you.”
He laughed and returned to his natural tongue. “You love to pretend like this is all my dream, but it’s yours too.”
“Absolutely,” she said. “I love what we’ve done. I love where we are.”
He absorbed the beauty of his wife, the way the sun shone down upon her blond hair and golden skin.
“I’m trying to imagine my Rebecca in that life we almost lived.
Buying a tiny plot where you could hang a wreath on the front door, have a tulip garden—nothing more.
An entire property set up with irrigation on timers.
A yard service, so that we don’t have to dirty our nails. Perhaps adopt a Labrador retriever.”
Otis chuckled and kept going. “You’d be the prettiest lass on the cul-de-sac, that’s for sure.
Imagine waking up without a rooster, easing into the day, barely a stress in the world.
Walk to the market for our vegetables. No need to go pick our own.
If you want jam, you don’t need to make it.
They sell it at the store. Maybe we’d buy a second home in Palm Springs, a place to get away.
You read your Nora Roberts, and I’ll read the latest Grisham or Silva.
Make sure we have a guesthouse for Cam and Mike and their kids. It actually doesn’t sound that bad.”
“It’s not our life, though, is it?”
Otis took a long sip of the wonderfully bitter drink and smacked his lips. “My dear, for some reason, we chose the road less traveled. The gravel road that leads to life in the vines.” He raised his glass to her. “To the wine life.”
As their glasses clinked, a gunshot ripped through the air. Laughter followed, then a string of curses. Another gunshot. Fwap, fwap!
“What the hell?” He grabbed the binoculars from the hook by the door and rushed to the railing. Through the cherry trees, he saw Vance pointing a rifle into the sagebrush. A few people stood behind him, and their laughter drifted out over the land.
Otis directed his gaze to whatever it was Vance was aiming at. A target, maybe a bucket ... or a rabbit.
Another gunshot. Smoke rose from the rifle.
Then he saw it, a coyote clamoring for a hiding place. It looked like it had been hit.
There are times when a man calculates. When he sees a problem and considers the best way to eliminate it. When he pauses to wonder if the risk is worth the reward, if chasing after a man with a gun is a good idea.
This was not one of those times.
Otis raced down the steps of the deck, sprinted along the fence line, then crossed over the gravel road into Vance’s cherry farm.
Another gunshot only put more fire under Otis’s feet.
Ignoring the pain, he weaved through the cherry trees like a skier slaloming down a double-black diamond. Fury rose out of him from the great depths of his soul.
As he drew close, he saw Vance chasing after the coyote, pausing to shoot and then taking off again.
“Put the gun down!” Otis called, spit spraying from his mouth, his breathing broken and desperate.
Vance turned back but only for a second. He continued to stalk the coyote.
Otis didn’t slow at all. Racing as fast as he could, his heart roaring, his lungs heaving, he shouted with everything he had, ordering Vance to stop.
In the distance, the poor coyote—sand colored with patch fur—was racing away.
Vance looked like he had a clean shot on him. His finger was on the trigger when Otis plowed into him. They both hit the dust in a collision that knocked Otis’s breath out of him. The gun landed five feet away with a thwack!
Vance rose to his knees, shouting, “What the ...?”
“Who do you think you are?” Otis roared.
Only then did he remember that Vance was fifteen years younger with biceps nearly double the size of Otis’s. The coyote, in the meantime, raced farther up the hill.
“You don’t shoot the animals here!”
“He’s trespassing, just like you.” Vance eyed the gun on the ground and worked his way over.
Otis mustered all the energy he had to barrel into the man, knocking him onto his side. Vance easily tossed Otis off him. Then he landed several punches onto Otis’s face, knocking his head back, splattering blood onto his shirt.