Ellen Crosby - The Riesling Retribution

Tyler, by contrast, towered over the older men at six foot four, still possessing the gangly awkwardness of a kid newly adjusting to his height and long limbs. Unlike the others, he smiled and waved, his cherubic red-blond curls blowing in the light breeze as he pushed wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose with an index finger. His pale skin, which refused to tan, had turned strawberry colored from so much time working with the vines.

I pulled up and idled the engine. Tyler waited for Vitale to climb into the backseat before hopping in behind him with a well-worn copy of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. B.J. got in front and introduced Vitale to me.

I reached over the seat and held out my hand. Vitale pumped it once and released it. “How do you do, ma’am?”

His voice was high-pitched and querulous. He gave me a cursory glance before settling back in his seat and focusing his attention on the scenery, ignoring me as though I were no longer of any consequence.

I turned back to B.J. sitting next to me. He wore an I-told-you-he’s-eccentric expression and waggled his eyebrows, so I had to stifle a laugh.

On the drive out to the field, B.J. kept up a one-sided explanation of the vineyard for Vitale’s benefit, talking about how successful we were as a small family business now run by the next generation. To hear B.J. tell it, I was on a par with the top women in the California wine dynasties. But by the time we reached the reenactment campsite, Ray Vitale’s monosyllabic comments had deflated BJ.’s well-intentioned patter and we all fell silent.

I reached for my cane as the others climbed out of the Mule.

“I don’t imbibe spirits, myself,” Vitale said in that reedy voice as I stepped down. “You know what the Bible says. ‘For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty.’ I’m glad to see that this site is well removed from your vineyard, Miss Montgomery. It’s not good to have temptation too near our young people. We do not allow any alcohol on the campground premises during the reenactment, you understand. I presume you will not be serving anything to those who come to watch, nor encouraging folks to visit your winery. We cannot have drunkenness marring these events.”

His prissy choice of words was right out of another century, uncharitable and stinging. I was about to make a sharp retort when B.J. intervened.

“What Ray means,” he said, in the soothing voice he used to comfort the bereaved, “is that it’s just common sense not to allow anyone to bring alcohol to the camp around guns and bayonets and the like.”

“I certainly appreciate that,” I said. “But I’d just like to say, Mr. Vitale, that there’s a difference between drinking and drunkenness. As we all know, Jesus turned water into wine and even imbibed himself, since you bring up the Bible. I’m sure the adults who attend the reenactment can make their own decisions about whether they’d like to visit my vineyard or not.”

B.J. placed a hand on my shoulder. “How about if Ray and I take a little walk so I can show him the campsite?” Under his breath he said in my ear, “Let me handle this.”

He caught up with Vitale, who was striding over to take a look at the tornado damage. B.J. pulled a couple of cigars out of his breast pocket and offered one to Ray Vitale. They bent their heads and went through the ritual of slowly rotating the match flame until the tips glowed like early evening fireflies.

Tyler showed up at my elbow as I watched the silhouettes of the two men, backlit by the setting sun, talking through a haze of smoke.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“Checking out that grave.”

“You didn’t go inside the crime scene tape, did you?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t touch anything.”

“Tyler! What were you thinking? It’s not there for decoration. Bobby Noland will give me hell if he finds out you were there.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“You mean lie if he asks?” I shook my head. “Just stay away from it, okay? I don’t want to catch you there again.”

“All right. Sorry.” He bowed his head, repentant. After a moment he said, “I guess you told that Vitale guy, huh, Lucie.”

“Trying to sweet talk me now, are you?” I said, as he reddened. “I didn’t tell him anything. You can’t persuade people who stand on the moral authority of the Bible to change their mind. They’re too self-righteous.”

Tyler waved his book. “Read this and people like him won’t bug you so much.”

“He doesn’t bug me.”

He looked at me over the top of his glasses.

“Okay,” I said. “A little.”

“Then stop letting him. Deny your emotions and you can free yourself from the pain and pleasure of the material world.”

“Where’d you get that? You sound like a television evangelist.”

“It’s Stoicism. Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic. They were into all kinds of denial not to feel things.”

“Sorry, a painless world would be nice, but not one without pleasure. Besides, what’s the point of living if you don’t feel anything?”

Tyler tapped the book’s cover with its hollow-eyed bust of the philosopher set against a stark black background. “Vitale got under your skin not because of what he did, but because of how you reacted to him. Same with you getting mad at me just now. What I did was no big deal.”

“I don’t agree it was no big deal, but what’s your point?”

“Aw, come on. I’m just a harmless kid.” Tyler grinned a rogue’s grin and indicated the crime scene tape. “I’ve heard things, Lucie. I know it’s none of my business but you need to stop letting everything that’s going on get to you. Don’t worry about what other people say. It doesn’t matter.”

I wanted to ask him what other people were saying, but perhaps it was better that I didn’t know. Instead I said, “Maybe I’ll have to borrow that book.”

He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Anytime. Too bad I can’t talk Quinn into reading it. He’s the one who could really use it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means Quinn isn’t someone who stifles his emotions. Especially when he’s mad.”

“Quinn’s got a lot on his mind right now.” I studied Tyler. “Are you trying to tell me things aren’t good between the two of you?”

He shrugged. “I guess they’re okay.”

“You guess they’re okay?”

Tyler bent his book back and forth into a U-shape. “He got mad at me when we were topping off the barrels and I overfilled one of them.”

“How mad?”

“He yelled a lot. Plus he thinks Chance or I lost that stirring paddle. The dodine.”

Was it my imagination or did Tyler seem uneasy discussing Quinn? Funny thing was, I would have pegged Quinn as a Stoic like Marcus Aurelius, someone good at keeping his emotions bottled up. What had changed? Was he losing his temper at Tyler and the other men because those pent-up feelings finally were boiling over?

“Hey, Lucie.” Tyler kept his voice low. “Here come B.J. and Vitale.”

“I don’t think we’ll have any trouble working around that tornado damage, Lucie,” B.J. was saying. “We’ll have to move some of the campgrounds into the woods, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Depends, of course, on how many people show up.”

“How many do you expect?” I asked.

Vitale puffed on his cigar. “We cut registration off last weekend. Four hundred total.” He gave me a stern look. “How much longer will that area be a crime scene?”

“I’m sure the tape will be down by next week,” I said. “The remains that were found there were removed today.”

I saw one of B.J.’s eyebrows go up, but all he said was, “Why don’t we head over to the battlefield? I’d like Ray to see it before it gets too dark.”