Typically, it took three years for a vine to reach maturity and bear fruit.
And he?d purchased the stakes and the wire and a sledgehammer. He broke his back with labor and sweat that first summer, the July sun scorching him pink, then a darker red, the rocks fighting him every inch. The hobby snowballed into an obsession, and he found himself rolling out of his single bed at dawn, coffee mug in one hand, wire spool in the other. He didn?t quit until sundown. It took a month to put up ten rows. He ordered the vines from a nursery in Upstate New York and killed them because he hadn?t soaked them properly before planting. He ordered more, started over.
He found himself in a war and took it seriously. Oklahoma baked the vines in the dry summer. Winter flayed the land with ice. And slowly, over the days, he forgot to think, forgot to dwell on the past or even to look very far ahead. There were only the sun and water and weeds to pull and leaves to check and vines to prune.
He considered it work. He didn?t think of himself as one with Mother Earth or any kind of other hippie bullshit. It was long, hard work and that was all. And he wanted to do it right. He slept, so bone-weary, hands raw, dirt under his fingernails. He slept and slept and never dreamed.
The first crop of grapes had been feeble. The next crop a little better, enough for a hundred bottles of wine, which he corked and stored for a year, then poured out after tasting a glass and nearly throwing up.
It got better. Slowly, he learned.
Three years ago, he?d sold five hundred bottles of his first batch of drinkable wine. He called it Scorpion Hill Red. A very plain table wine, not too dry. Local stores in Oklahoma and Kansas and a few in north Texas had agreed to stock it on a regular basis. Store owners told him customers liked the label, a simple black silhouette of a scorpion against a parchment-colored background. Simple yet cheeky.
With some luck, Mike would ship ten thousand bottles next year.
He craned his neck, tried to spot Keone through the barn door. Sometimes he felt he really had to keep an eye on the kid. Once, Keone had lost control of the little tractor and flattened an entire row of ripe grapes. In a fury, he?d chased the kid with a thick switch, but Keone was too fast. It was a week before he?d shown his face at the vineyard again.
Mike couldn?t see the kid, but didn?t hear anything being demolished, so he turned his attention back to the book. He?d read it cover to cover ten times, knew what it would say, but always consulted it anyway.
The book told him to spread deodorant soap shavings among the vines. The ?smell of people? would keep the animals away. He was ready. He slid open the top desk drawer, took out two bars of Dial and a penknife. Later, he?d walk the perimeter. Right now, he just wanted a drink.
He went to the secondhand refrigerator in the corner of the barn, opened it, perused the beer selection. He had a few different brands. He liked beer.
Mike Foley absolutely hated the taste of wine.
On a hot day like this he?d need something light, a dark or even an amber would make him sluggish. He grabbed a Coors Light, popped the top, slurped. What was the old joke about canoes and Coors Light?
He?d just finished the first beer and thought about opening another, when Keone walked into the barn. He had something cupped in his hands.
?Freeze,? Mike shouted.
Keone froze.
?What are you bringing in here? It?s another goddamn spider, isn?t it?? One thing Mike had learned his first month in the wilderness. Oklahoma was lousy with giant spiders.
Keone offered his lopsided grin, spread his hands open, and showed Mike a fuzzy tarantula as big around as a coaster.
?Jesus.?
The kid laughed.
?Get that fucking thing out of here,? Mike said. ?Giving me the willies.?
Keone bent to set it outside the barn door.
