The next morning, the air in Coombsville was sharper still than the day before. The thick fog rolling in from San Pablo Bay pressed down on Lapis Lazuli Farm like a damp cotton quilt.
The vineyard in late autumn, after the harvest had ended, was filled with desolation. The leaves, robbed of their moisture, rustled dryly, and the plains where the sweet scent of grapes had vanished were full only of the smell of earth.
I got out of the pickup truck and headed once more toward that old cabin. Cedric Vaughn, who opened the door and stepped out, looked little different from yesterday. Disheveled hair, worn-out overalls... But his hands were empty, with no pruning shears, and his eyes looked remarkably calm.
“Are you the man who came to buy my land?”
A voice from which even yesterday’s madness had disappeared. It was clear I had come today during one of the moments when he happened to be in his right mind.
“That’s right. And yesterday, we made a promise. I said I’d teach you how to save your trees.”
“Did I... make such a promise yesterday?”
“Yes.”
The two children who came out behind him looked back and forth between their father and me with uneasy eyes.
“What’s wrong with my trees?”
“If you farm like this, the Merlot won’t grow properly.”
“......”
“Come here. I’ll show you.”
At my words, he trudged over. I took my place again in front of the old Merlot vine I had pointed out yesterday, and Cedric, grumbling all the while, came to my side and squatted down. His children watched the scene anxiously from the window.
I dug about a handspan into the soil to show him the condition of the roots and began to explain.
“Look, sir. See how the ends of these fine roots have turned black and died? This isn’t because there’s too much water, but because they’re suffocating from a lack of oxygen. The clay in Coombsville has particles so fine that once it holds water, there’s no room for air to get in.”
I rubbed the sticky mud between my fingers and continued.
“In the past, tractors were light, so even if they drove over the ground, the air layers within the soil were maintained to some extent. But things are different now. Farm machinery is too heavy, so the soil at a certain depth beneath the surface—usually thirty to fifty centimeters down—gets strongly compacted. If you don’t break this layer, this hardpan, the grapes next year will only produce a dull, blunt flavor. So what’s needed right now isn’t installing drainage pipes, but ‘root-guiding cultivation,’ which encourages the roots to pierce down through this clay layer.”
I talked without stopping for two hours. From managing the water potential of clay strata to diagnosing nutritional status through the sap concentration of petioles. Strangely enough, Cedric listened to me with full attention to the very end, sometimes nodding and sometimes muttering the contents under his breath as he took in this new knowledge.
How much time had passed? Before I knew it, the sun was sinking beyond the western hills, and long shadows had fallen over the valley of Coombsville. Just as the cold evening fog began to coil around our ankles again, Cedric suddenly let out a deep sigh and looked at me.
“What’s your name?”
Had he realized that he had not once asked for my name until now?
“Brian.”
“I see. Brian, you’re a little different from the people who’ve come by to buy my land so far.”
“Am I?”
“You never once tried to bargain over the price of my land, nor did you even seem curious about it. You must have come because you’re interested in the land, so I wonder why you don’t ask.”
Sensing something strange in his words, I asked,
“Do you remember what happened the day before?”
He smiled bitterly and brushed the soil from his hands.
“To tell the truth... my mind came back around yesterday evening.”
That was truly unexpected.
“Ah... really?”
“It was probably around evening. Sometimes, when the sunset comes, I can’t remember what happened during the day, but my mind wakes up. Yesterday was like that. I was wondering what was going on, and then a young fellow I’d never seen before started talking about this and that in farming, and it was so interesting. I was afraid that if I told you I was lucid, you’d stop talking about farming and start talking business instead. So I pretended to be a little crazier and listened to your lecture.”
Cedric stared blankly at his old cabin and the vineyard soaked in twilight.
“I’ve worked this land since the 1960s, but there’s never been anyone who read the land as carefully as you do. No... I suppose there must have been. There were people who said they would help me, but at some point, they all left me. I know it was all because of my eccentric temper, but... there was nothing I could do. What can I do when that’s how I was made?”
“......”
He looked straight at me. This was no longer a question from a senile old man, but from the owner of Lapis Lazuli.
“Do you want to buy this farm?”
After a brief silence, I nodded.
“I do. Or I’d like to receive the grapes from this place exclusively. If Merlot is grown on this land with the methods I want, I believe it can give birth to the finest Merlot in America.”
Cedric nodded and looked at the enormous valley oak standing in the middle of the field.
“I know too. That I don’t have much time left. My children in there are waiting only for the moment I put my seal on the papers. I know I have to leave money to them. But you see... that’s what worries me.”
His gaze turned to Leo and Rose, reflected in the window.
“Those children don’t know the value of soil. If a huge sum of several million dollars lands in their hands, within a week they’ll be buying luxury cars and going in and out of casinos. That’s why they’ve been trying to sell this Merlot land at a high price, as if it were like the other farms growing Cabernet, and the deals never went through properly. My body was tired and I wanted to rest, and there was once an opportunity to sell it for two million dollars, so I tried to sell. But those children refused. So I was forced to keep carrying it.”
“Ah...”
When I thought of the old man’s feelings, wanting to sell because his body was worn down, yet unable to sell and thus forced to keep farming, I felt terribly sorrowful.
“If it’s you, I’ll hand it over for two million dollars. Those children will oppose it, but if it’s someone like you, who understands the land so deeply, I’ll try to persuade them.”
A deep regret settled in the old man’s eyes. It was the typical tragedy suffered by countless farm owners in Napa Valley. The passion of the first generation evaporating under the greed of the second. I fell into thought for a moment, then opened my mouth.
“Sir, then what do you think of doing it this way?”
“Is there a way?”
“A method where the payment is not made all at once. In technical terms, it’s called seller financing. Instead of paying the full amount in one lump sum, the money is divided up over thirty years and paid out like a pension.”
Cedric’s eyebrow twitched.
“Like a pension?”
“Yes. A fixed amount would be deposited into your children’s accounts every month without fail. With interest added to reflect inflation as well. That way, your children won’t be at risk of blowing all the money at once, and they’ll have a source of income that won’t dry up for the rest of their lives. And while I take ownership of the farm, I’d like to guarantee that you can live here and remain as the gardener until the day you pass away.”
Cedric stared into the air, turning my proposal over in his mind. A lump sum of two million dollars could become poison, but tens of thousands of dollars in cash coming in every month for thirty years could become a support that sustained his children’s lives. Above all, the condition that he could spend his final days beside the trees he loved was something that could not be exchanged for anything.
“Heh heh... You’re not only good at farming, you’ve got a sharp mind too. You even know how to tame children.”
“And in addition, I’ll pay you five hundred thousand dollars in cash.”
“Hm? To me? You don’t have to go that far...”
“Your health isn’t good, sir, so please use it to receive proper treatment. It’s a token of gratitude for protecting Lapis Lazuli so well all this time. Please don’t refuse.”
If two million dollars were paid out over thirty years with interest and inflation adjustments, the amount going to Cedric’s two children would exceed three million dollars. But since it was not a lump-sum payment, it was not a loss for the winery either.
Moreover, if Lapis Lazuli’s Merlot could help maintain Astra Vale’s quality going forward, I thought the deal with Cedric was practically a bargain.
“Thank you... Truly, thank you.”
With tearful eyes, he gripped my hand tightly. It was a rough, strengthless hand, but it was the hand of an old man who had lived his life with more affection for soil than anyone else.
When we entered the building that served as both the farm office and the house, Leo and Rose sprang up like coiled springs.
“Father! Have you finally decided?”
Cedric, as if his energy had run out, sank deep into the sofa and looked at his children with weary eyes.
“Yes. I’ve decided to sign a contract with this young man. And the payment will be received as a thirty-year installment pension. Because I can see clear as day the sight of you two blowing all the money at once and ending up on the street.”
“What? Thirty years? Father, what are you talking about! We need cash right now!”
Leo jumped up and down in protest. Rose’s face, too, turned pale as she glared at me.
“Mr. Brian, did you coax our father into this? What kind of ridiculous contract is this?”
At that moment, Cedric grabbed something like a cane placed beside the sofa and struck the floor hard.
“Be quiet! This is my land, and this is my final will! If you don’t like it, I’ll donate this land to an environmental organization this instant. Then not one cent will go to you. Decide now whether you’ll take the pension that comes every month for thirty years, or walk out penniless!”
Before the old man’s blade-like force, the two children shut their mouths tightly. They huffed and puffed, filled with anger, but in the face of Cedric’s resolute gaze, they had no choice but to lower their tails in the end. It seemed they had calculated that receiving a lifetime pension was better than receiving nothing at all.
In the end, the contract was spread across the old wooden table in Coombsville. A strange contract in which doctoral knowledge from 2025, craftsmanship from the 1960s, and the wisdom to control human greed were mixed together.
After signing, Cedric gripped my hand tightly.
“Will you come tomorrow morning too?”
“Of course. We haven’t even gotten through half the pruning yet.”
“Good... I’ll be waiting. That blue velvet wine or whatever it is, I’m not following the Grim Reaper until I see it with my own eyes.”
Cedric, who had spoken so boldly, was lying in bed the next day as though all that vigor had never existed. He was like an old tree that had had every drop of moisture stolen from its body overnight. Between the deeply carved wrinkles, shadows far deeper and darker than yesterday’s had settled, and the hand that lay outside the blanket held not the warmth of soil, but the pale chill of death.
“Sir...?”
I approached cautiously and called to him, but Cedric’s unfocused eyes did not move, as though nailed to some fixed point on the ceiling. The man who had looked straight into my eyes yesterday, spoken of business, and been full of curiosity while learning new farming methods was nowhere to be found.
“He got up at dawn and suddenly started shouting. Then he immediately became like this...”
Leo’s voice trembled as he came in behind me. Rather than the relief he had felt after finishing the contract yesterday, he seemed to be feeling fear before the first sight of his father’s devastating decline.
“What did the doctor say?”
“They said it was acute delirium and cognitive decline. It seems the enormous amount of energy he poured out yesterday became the cause.”
I went to Cedric’s side. Seen up close, the old man’s condition was far more terrible than I had expected. He was muttering something without pause, but his voice was so small that I could not make it out.
I took the old man’s dried-up hand. The calluses embedded in each joint of his fingers remained as ever, but the pulse running along the back of his hand was so precarious it seemed it might stop at any moment.
Then it happened. Cedric’s right hand, which had been staring blankly into the air, repeatedly clenched and opened as if trying to grasp something in midair.
“Sir, it’s me. Brian. You promised me yesterday, remember? That we’d make blue velvet wine together.”
At my voice, Cedric’s eyes turned toward me very slowly. For a fleeting instant, something seemed to flash beyond his gaze, but it soon scattered into a blur. He did not recognize me. He merely stared at me blankly, as though looking at a strange outsider, then turned his gaze back to the ceiling.
Only then did I understand.
That the astonishing clarity and spirit he had shown yesterday might have been the final flame of life the old man had wrung out for the sake of this land and his children.
While his mind was still whole, he had been holding back the great waves called death and dementia with his entire body, in order to verify a new owner who would truly love this land and to put the final period on the contract.
And the moment he achieved his purpose, he had let go of the tautly pulled thread of life with his own hands.
“... Please don’t worry about your children. The contract will proceed without issue.”
My voice resonated softly in the chilly bedroom.
The old man no longer needed to fight as the owner of the farm. He had fastened a safety device called a pension onto his children, and he had attached to the trees a guardian far younger and more capable than himself. Only now, at last, could he come to a peaceful end.
I rose from my seat and picked up Cedric’s old pruning shears from beside the head of the bed. From the handle, polished smooth by the touch of his hands, I felt the weight of the life’s work the old man had carried all his days.