Chapter 4: Daniel
Bobby returned to his rock and sat down in front of it, using it as a backrest. He faced the back of his father, who continued to stare off into the faraway hills. From this safe spot Bobby could capitalize on the rare opportunity to extract and examine the suppressed sadness that had surfaced earlier in Jeremy.
“Carin and I weren’t here until a week after the accident, after the funeral, after it was all over. You don’t know the guilt I’ve felt for not having been here during all that. Jeremy, there’s something about being away at the death of a close relative — makes it seem so implausible, so difficult to accept subconsciously. More than two years now, yet I still dream that Daniel is right here. You know that for a time I felt resentment toward you and Janie for not trying to contact us.”
“We expected you to feel that way, Bobby, but I still think we made the right decision. You had finished your finals, you were on a sailboat in God-knows-where in the Caribbean. It was your first vacation with Carin’s parents. I don’t regret waiting to hit you with the news until you came back. It was one of the few rational decisions I made then.”
“I’m sure you’re right. One thing that’s bothered me, though, was that you all were in such a stoic mourning stage when I finally got here. Everything I heard was second-hand, if I heard it at all. I still don’t know many of the details.”
“Bobby, I’m still not sure about all that happened. I was in a daze. My own father’s death was so minor in comparison. Although it was unexpected, it was logical when your grandfather died. That the older generation give way to the new, that I carry on in place of The Old Man. But Daniel’s death wasn’t the logical progression. I had to take back over responsibilities from him. Take back over from a young man with such potential! I learned from him after he came back from Davis. He showed patience with me, with my ignorance. Yet he never once tried to usurp my power as head of this ranch.”
Jeremy was lapsing into his own soliloquy. Bobby, ignoring any comparisons, listened intently.
“I tried to talk Bergen at The Winery into putting ‘Daniel Barnes Vineyard’ on the label after we won that silver over in France. But he said that sort of thing was out of the winemaker’s hands. And of course their PR and marketing department wouldn’t even consider it. Those bastards even said no last year when I proposed it again as a memorial to Daniel.”
That sort of tribute to his late brother didn’t raise the slightest twinge of jealousy in Bobby, because next to his father no one held Daniel in higher esteem. Daniel had been the perfect older brother, with Bobby his adoring mascot and fan. Bobby had seen every football game and rodeo Daniel had been in since grade school, usually from the seat in the stands next to his father. Tobie, an IUD accident and the third and final son, came too late to join in the camaraderie.
When Daniel had exhibited a natural inclination toward the land — including the machinery required to till it — Bobby began examining the professions to find his path to success and security. He had chosen Vanderbilt in distant Tennessee because his mother’s family were old-stock Nashville and active in Vanderbilt alumni affairs. And at the same time Bobby had wanted to move as far away as possible, to wean himself from the wine bottle, for he was aware even as a very young man of the vestiges of primogeniture — that the oldest son not so much inherits, but succeeds.
Bobby had found the minor cultural shock of the South to be refreshing. He began his serious love of biking and running, using those sports as an opportunity to venture into the area’s forests, including the Great Smoky Mountains in southeastern Tennessee, which he found to be so different from the rugged hills of his home. And then he had given up all of it — Vanderbilt Law School, the Little Pigeon River and Tennessee — to flee his personal failure and attempt to fill the shoes of the two men he feared and respected the most. He didn’t stand a chance.
“Jeremy, did you know I saw you sitting up here two years ago? Carin and I had caught that early flight out of Houston and rented a car in San Francisco. We drove up the back way because I wanted to stop at Daniel’s grave first — just the two of us. Then we drove up to the house, and I saw your silhouette up here.”
Jeremy dropped his head as the memory came into focus.
“Janie told me you had been sitting up here all day. Close to sunset I trudged up. You had your head in your hands and you were — ah — you were letting it all out. I was terrified. I felt a total loss of security. I turned and ran.”
“Son, I can barely remember that time. It was as if I’ve had amnesia. My mind was in a Tulia fog for weeks.”
“Jeremy, there’s one thing I’ve wondered about since the accident. I’ve never thought that it was appropriate to talk about it. You were still too sensitive. I’ve wondered why you never sued the driver, or Tornelli Trucking, or Schloss Cellars. He was their driver. You could have gone after someone.”
“I see that you haven’t forgotten everything that they taught you in law school.”
“To make a fortune off others’ misfortune?”
“That’s it. Bobby — I just don’t know. I had my reasons. I didn’t want to bring the legal system and all its trappings into what I considered to be a personal tragedy. With some of those jerks I’ve had to deal with in selling grapes and prunes. I’ve had to hire a lawyer just because The Winery started using one. And the contracts are getting longer and longer and more complicated. Manzetti showed me his new contract with Ross Winery. It took me hours just to understand the concept.”
“Where the grape payments are tied to the price of the finished product?”
“Yes. But I guess I’m avoiding your question. I didn’t sue the driver because he is Nick Gregor’s boy. The kid just had a mental lapse, a lapse in concentration. Sammy — that’s the driver’s name — is scraping by, he has a young family. What’s the purpose of traumatizing him anymore?”
“Okay.”
“And how could I go after Fred? We’re practically neighbors. You can see his house from right here — behind those eucalyptus trees. He bought that place with the money he saved working all those years for his father-in-law, hauling wine and geyser water and apple juice in this area since before I can remember. And now that he owns Tornelli Trucking, I’d be suing him and his little outfit and going after his little patch of ground. Do you want me to be the reason Tornelli Trucking goes belly up?”
“Well, he had insurance, and somebody ought to pay.”
“Did you know Fred lost a son about six years ago? A drunk tourist pulled out in front of his boy. His son had a choice of going over the top of the car or turning the rig over in the ditch. A truck with 12,000 gallons of Johannesburg Riesling! Right there on Highway 29 over in Napa. I remember one particular detail in Fred’s story about it. He said his son was able to die a somewhat dignified death. None of the rubbernecking tourists stayed to gawk. They fled in terror when they saw those silly red and white ‘Combustible’ signs the state makes them carry, and all that white wine pouring out of the tanks. I wouldn’t think of bringing anymore of those memories to Fred. I wouldn’t want to wish it on myself.”
“People like you will put my old classmates out of business. So what about Schloss?”
“You know as well as I do that Schloss is a co-op, and we were a member-grower of the co-op until last year. You want me to have sued ourselves? The only reason I ever joined Schloss is because of Tom Delaney. He kept pushing me to join so they could use our name. I gave in because I thought it would be a good way to dump those three acres of worthless Italian charbono grapes I planted twenty years ago to please your grandmother.”
“So we can check them off.”
“Not quite, Bobby. I’ve told you before that I wasn’t too rational back then. And it was Schloss Cellars that received the brunt of my wrath and my spite. With what I did to them, or could have done to them, I might have hurt them more than with any long, drawn-out lawsuit.”
“What? What do you mean, Jeremy? What are you talking about?’
“Looking back on it now, I think I was a little too vindictive. Some might even say my spitefulness was misplaced. But I had worked myself up into such a tizzy, I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with my heart attack. I’ve pretty much dropped the whole affair since I left the hospital.”
“Jeremy, I have no idea what you’re talking about? I’ve never heard anything about this.”
“By the time you came home and I was out of the hospital, I had fallen into what I’ll call my ‘ashamed phase.’ I also was in the midst of one hell of a cover-up. But since a few months after Daniel’s death — until my heart attack — I led quite a clandestine guerrilla operation against Schloss Cellars.”
“You?”
“Well, I wasn’t shooting a thirty-aught-six at their outdoor wine tanks by night, but I think I got my revenge — and then some. You might as well hear the story from the beginning.”
