When the massive Harry Montis stepped out of the sedan, a brief silence fell over the hall that had been so noisy only moments before. It wasn’t because of the force emanating from his hulking frame.
“Good God, isn’t that Harry Montis?”
“The Rainmaker?”
As if it were only natural that anyone who owned a farm in Napa Valley would know the rumors surrounding Harold Harry Montis, the farmers’ faces darkened rapidly.
“I was planning to invite you all once and have a talk anyway, but since you’ve come to me like this, you’ve saved me the trouble. Mr. George Bentley, was it about seven years ago? We met once over a similar matter, and here we are again.”
Harry’s smile was relaxed, but it carried a strange pressure. Perhaps it was a smile backed by his overwhelming win rate.
Naturally, the angry farmers, feeling pressured by that smile, shouted even more fiercely. George Bentley in particular jumped down from his tractor and blocked Harry’s path.
“Harry Montis! I heard a rumor that you’re in cahoots with this Oriental brat, trying to suck up all of Napa’s groundwater. A thousand feet! If you pump water from that depth, won’t all our wells dry up?”
The other farmers standing behind him joined in, spitting out rough curses. Harry took a cigar from his breast pocket, cut it beautifully with fingers like sausages, and lit it. It was nothing much, really, but the movement of his hands was almost artistic. It was clear there was no one whose bulk suited a cigar as well as Harry’s did.
Then Harry exhaled a long stream of cigar smoke and made a show of digging at his ear with a pinky as thick as my thumb.
“Mr. George, your voice is still louder than a tractor engine. And President Brian is closer to being your benefactor than a plunderer.”
“Benefactor? Don’t make me laugh! We received an official notice from the Water Quality Bureau saying they’d issued a permit to drill a thousand feet. This means you’re going to starve small farms like ours to death!”
Harry smirked and pulled a thick bundle of documents from inside his jacket. Waving the papers right in front of George Bentley’s nose, he raised his voice.
“Now, listen carefully, everyone! As a condition for receiving this drilling permit, President Brian Choi has completely relinquished Redwood’s surface stream water rights. In other words, the county will take back the clean stream water used by four farms owned by Redwood—Redwood here, as well as Silver Oak, Ironwood, and Lapis Lazuli in Coombsville—and distribute it to you all. Take a good look.”
The well being drilled this time was only the beginning. Silver Oak was nearby, but even so, it was a farm of over forty acres, so we would need to drill an additional well there. Ironwood and Lapis Lazuli would each need their own wells as well. I expected the cost of drilling wells on all four properties to easily exceed two million dollars. Of course, that included the cost of moving Harry, the Rainmaker.
It was an enormous investment, but to me, it didn’t feel wasteful at all. If it meant securing the most essential thing for operating a farm—water—permanently, then the investment could actually be called cheap.
In any case, the farmers began murmuring as they looked at the documents in Harry’s hand. The phrase “relinquishment of water rights” was unfamiliar to them, yet also alluring. But George Bentley still shouted with suspicious eyes.
“What does that have to do with us? What guarantee is there that the water will come to us? That bastard Clark Anderson from the Water Quality Bureau will obviously divert it all to the big wineries he’s close with!”
But Harry didn’t so much as blink.
“So what do you want me to do about it? Am I supposed to go to Clark Anderson and beg him to please distribute it fairly? We transferred the surface stream water rights to you. In effect, we gave up those rights for the farms of Napa Valley. So what more are you demanding from us? Are you asking us to take off our underwear for you? Or are you asking for our winery’s wine?”
The farmers realized they had nothing to say after being told the water rights had already been relinquished. The strength had already gone out of their expressions, their hands, and their feet. George Bentley, too, spoke in a voice that had lost its edge.
“S-still, couldn’t you at least say something to that water quality official?”
His tone had changed from protest to request.
“I’ll say it again. Brian Choi of Redwood Winery over there isn’t trying to steal water from you. On the contrary, he’s giving up the rights he has and sharing them with you.”
“That much… I understand.”
As his voice softened completely, Harry’s eyes narrowed.
“We’ve done everything we needed to do. We even returned the water rights held by Redwood’s farms with a clause stating that they ‘must be distributed equally to all farms within a five-mile radius of the farms.’ If Clark Anderson violates that and gives more water to his friends or the big wineries, you need to understand that isn’t our responsibility.”
“……”
“So instead of doing this here, go to the county Water Quality Bureau and protest, put on a strip show, or whatever else you want.”
In the end, George Bentley raised a hand toward me, standing far away from Harry, as a sign of apology. Then he immediately climbed back onto his tractor.
“Thanks. Tell Brian of Redwood I’m sorry. Well, it was a situation that was easy enough to misunderstand, wasn’t it?”
“That may be true, but you could have tried to talk things out instead of threatening us with that damn tractor.”
“We did talk. Look and see if so much as a single branch on this place has been damaged.”
“…Please stop causing a disturbance and leave.”
George Bentley made a hand gesture to the farmers who had followed him, signaling a retreat. Once they realized there was nothing to gain here, the farmers climbed onto the tractors they had arrived in without the slightest delay.
They would almost certainly head straight to the county Water Quality Bureau and raise a commotion there, so Clark Anderson was going to have quite the headache.
Harry Montis, having restored peace to the farm entrance, now began walking leisurely up toward the winery. The sight of him with a cigar in his mouth and sweat running down his temples was somehow strange and cool at the same time.
“That was truly impressive.”
At my praise, Harry wiped away his sweat and exhaled a long stream of cigar smoke.
“It’s thanks to you, Brian, making the decision in a way that allowed me to move easily.”
Just then, Director Matt gave the signal from the drilling site.
“We’re starting work!”
Kuuung!
The massive drill bit struck the surface and began to rotate. The ground rumbled, and the air vibrated. In Napa Valley of 2008, it was the moment Redwood’s straw was driven toward a deep water source no one had ever reached.
Warren gazed at the rising cloud of dust and murmured in a voice filled with emotion.
“Now there’s only one thing left. Whether water comes out or not…”
“It will.”
I looked at the drill boring into the earth and spoke calmly. If it didn’t come out on the first try, we could try a second or third time. As for the cost… it was no longer something I needed to worry about.
---
William Harlan was in his office with winemaker Bob Levy, staring at the haze shimmering outside the window. Even though it was June, the land made him think at once that the temperature was higher than usual.
“This year’s vintage may be hell, Bob. It started with frost damage, and now there’s already heat like this.”
At William’s words, Bob Levy nodded. They were more sensitive than anyone to how climate change was destroying Napa Valley’s terroir. Just then, his secretary entered quietly and handed him a memo. It was news that Brian Choi of Redwood had returned all of his surface water rights to the county as a condition for receiving a one-thousand-foot drilling permit.
“…What is this supposed to mean? He returned all his water rights? Something that precious?”
William’s eyes flashed. He knew Brian was not a stupid man. In the midst of such unpredictable changes in the climate, Brian was not someone who would fail to understand what problems could arise from giving up water rights. There had to be a reason.
“Bring in the person in charge immediately. Right now.”
There were few people in Napa Valley who could stop William Harlan when he barked “right now.” No matter that the man was an official of the county Water Quality Bureau; before William Harlan, the unseen king who wielded enormous influence over real estate development and the wine industry as a whole, he was nothing more than a weak civil servant.
A short while later, William asked Clark, who had come running in sweating.
“What on earth is going on? I’m talking about Redwood’s water rights.”
Clark, guessing the circumstances, immediately explained the whole story.
“The Rainmaker moved for Redwood? Hmph! That old geezer Warren, who refuses to die, must have introduced him. And? The water rights?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes…”
“They’re still in your hands, aren’t they?”
“We haven’t announced it to the public yet.”
“Good, then. Don’t announce it yet.”
“Pardon? What do you mean…?”
“I’m saying I’m going to talk to the other farmers who are after those water rights. Don’t worry. I have no intention of taking them by force. It wouldn’t work even if I did.”
Only then did Clark Anderson grasp William Harlan’s intention, and he bowed his head before withdrawing.
“Bob, call those people in now. The ones who rushed over like madmen for free water rights.”
A short while later, several farmers gathered in the reception room of Harlan Estate. William Harlan looked around at them with cold eyes and said,
“I hear you received a great gift from Brian.”
George Bentley, who could be called the leader of the group, cleared his throat and answered.
“Ah, well… that Oriental fellow made quite the generous decision. Thanks to him, we won’t have to worry as much about water this summer.”
“Worry about water?”
William smiled wryly and continued.
“Think about it, George. What Brian gave you may not be water, but a maintenance bill. To draw that stream water all the way to your farm, you’ll have to install new pumping facilities and overhaul the pipelines. Have you calculated how much that will cost? On top of that, with the Lehman Brothers mess and all, bank loans are said to be completely blocked. Does your farm have that kind of surplus cash?”
For a moment, the farmers’ complexions stiffened slightly. They had gone running because they were happy about free water, but now that they actually had to install equipment, they began worrying about money. In particular, this financial crisis was already tightening its grip on Napa’s small farmers.
William did not miss the opening. He placed a prepared bag on the table.
“I intend to offer you survival instead of water.”
When the bag opened, neatly bundled stacks of large-denomination dollar bills appeared. At the beautiful, alluring sight of cash, the farmers’ eyes wavered.
“Transfer to me the water rights you received from Brian. In return, I will pay you cash right now, enough to fully recover from the frost damage and still have money left over. And for the next five years, starting next year, I will buy the entirety of the commercially viable grapes produced by your farms for Harlan Estate’s second line at twenty percent above market price.”
George Bentley wavered between the bundles of cash before his eyes and William Harlan’s overwhelming pressure. Brian had given them a cause, but William had thrown them a lifeline to save farms that were collapsing right now.
“Is that true? You’ll guarantee the grape purchase, too?”
“I promise it in the name of William Harlan.”
George exchanged glances with the farmers beside him. In their eyes, before grand values like “Napa’s future,” the bank interest and fertilizer bills they had to pay today were already rising first.
---
On the afternoon of the seventh day of construction, a quake-like vibration—“kururung”—finally traveled up through the soles of our feet from deep underground.
“It’s coming out! The bit broke through!”
At the same time as Matt’s scream, air under tremendous pressure blasted out of the drilling pipe. Soon after, a stream of water as clear as crystal shot more than ten meters into the sky.
“Hahaha! Good heavens, what a sight!”
Warren stared, entranced, at the gushing column of water. It was cold water drawn from a thousand feet below, on an entirely different level from the lukewarm water at the surface. I caught the surging water in my hands and tasted it. It had none of the dull muddiness of ordinary groundwater; it was the taste of deep subterranean water, extremely pure and rich in minerals.
With the pouring water as his backdrop, Harry said,
“Congratulations. You could say you’ve just dug up the deepest and most enormous vein of gold in Napa Valley.”
All of Redwood Winery filled with cheers that sounded like the ringing of victory bells.
And so, one farm rejoiced with hands full of cash, while another farm rejoiced at the sight of water drawn from deep underground. But the image of a Napa Valley where everyone was happy did not last long.
In July of 2008, another trial from the heavens descended upon California, which had barely overcome the frost damage. A record-breaking heat wave, ranging from 37°C to 40°C—around 100°F to 105°F—had begun.