The Riesling Retribution

Chapter 14

Quinn’s salt-and-pepper head was bent over the record book in the lab when I showed up in the barrel room forty-five minutes later. I’d checked the rearview mirror in the Mini before getting out of the car. My eyes were no longer red-rimmed from crying. He’d never know.

I paused in the doorway as he closed the lab book and slid it over to a corner of the workbench. His eyes zeroed in on my face.

“You look like hell. I heard you paid Kit a visit. Guess it didn’t go too well, huh?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He pushed his bar stool back a few feet and studied me some more. “What do you want to talk about?”

I picked up a graduated beaker and examined it.

“How about the Riesling? Have you decided when you want to pick?”

He stuck his pencil behind an ear and folded his arms across his chest. Today he wore a gray athletic T-shirt and jeans with a hole in one knee. The usual chains around his neck and the leather and steel bracelet around one wrist.

“No later than Thursday,” he said. “Before Edouard gets here.”

“Who?” I set the beaker down.

“The newest hurricane. We’re whipping right through the alphabet. This one may not hit us, either, but we’re going to get slammed with rain.” He wrinkled his forehead. “You haven’t been following it, have you?”

“Of course I have.”

“So where is it now, weather girl?”

“The Atlantic,” I said. Hurricanes always started there.

He rolled his eyes. “I knew you didn’t know. Look, I got a reefer truck coming in since we’re going to have to move fast to get those grapes picked.”

A reefer truck was short for refrigerated truck. We could keep the fruit chilled until we were ready to start processing it—putting it through the destemmer, pressing it, and moving it to the tanks to begin fermentation. It bought us time.

“Okay.”

“I told Chance we’ll need extra pickers that day.”

“Okay.”

Quinn stood and shoved me gently into the barrel room. “You aren’t listening to a word I say.” He walked me over to the long pine table and pulled out a chair. “Have a seat.”

I sat.

“If you insist on talking about the Riesling,” he said, leaning against the table, “I’ve been on the phone with Harry and John. They both think making a dessert wine is a terrific idea. I want to pick twice. Now and after the first hard freeze.”

Harry Dye and John Chappell owned vineyards not far from ours. We helped one another all the time, sharing problems and successes with the types of grapes we could grow since our soil and climate were practically identical.

“Harry and John don’t grow Riesling.”

“That’s why it would be unique to us.”

I shook my head. “Too risky that late in the year because of the weather. And you know we’re screwed if we don’t get it picked in one night and the next day it warms up.”

“I think we can do it.”

We could probably put this argument on a loop and hit replay, we’d had it so often. As a winemaker, he wanted to experiment and push the boundaries of what he could do. As the one who paid the bills, I wanted to be able to pay the bills. Pick everything now and I’d sleep at night knowing we would have the cash to do it. Our Riesling was so good we generally sold out before we released our next harvest.

“Quinn”

“Back me on this, Lucie. You’re too distracted with everything else that’s going on. Let me do it the way I want.”

“I want to think about it,” I said. “Give me one more day.”

I expected him to balk when I said that, but instead he said, “All right. As long as you do something for me.”

“What?”

“Take the rest of the day off. Go clear your head.”

How many times had he said that to me lately?

“If I go home, I’ll just—”

“Who said anything about going home? I gave Tyler some time off. He wants to take you to Ball’s Bluff battlefield. It’s a nice day. You’ll learn some history.”

I cocked my head. “Why did you give Tyler time off?”

“Someone left a bunghole cover open. We might have lost the entire barrel.” He paused. “It was Pinot.”

An entire barrel of wine. Five thousand dollars.

“Dammit. Are you saying Tyler did that?”

“Someone did it. My guess is he did. He was with Chance stirring the barrels yesterday.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“You bet I did. I gave him hell but he claims he didn’t do it. He can’t be doing chores with his nose in a goddamn Latin book. I don’t care how boring the work is and too damn bad if he thinks he’s too smart to be doing manual labor. We lose enough with the angels’ share as it is.”

The angels’ share was the name vintners give to the natural process of evaporation in the barrels. The story was that it went to the angels who liked drinking wine up in heaven. Depending on the humidity and temperature, the angels got as much as half a bottle a month per barrel. Not a bad share.

I wondered what kind of “hell” Quinn had given Tyler.

“That barrel is definitely spoiled?”

“I racked it over and I’m working on it,” he said. “I’ll let you know. After you come back from your field trip.”

“How come I feel like I’ve been set up? You talked to Frankie about this, didn’t you?”

His poker face was perfect. “Would I do something like that?”

I called Tyler, who agreed to meet me in the parking lot a few minutes later. He’d been primed, too, but he’d apparently gotten mixed signals from either Frankie or Quinn because he acted like the idea for the tour was a surprise to him.

He was wearing a T-shirt with something in Latin inscribed on it, baggy low-riding shorts like all the kids wore, and a UVA baseball cap.

“What does your shirt say?” I asked.

“If you can read this, you are an intelligent person.’”

“Oh.” I smiled. “Well, it’s all Greek to me.”

He adjusted his baseball cap and gave me a tolerant smile.

“Chance is meeting us at the battlefield,” he said. “He had to pick something up at the hardware store in Leesburg so he’s over there, anyway. Said he thought it would be interesting to see the place. He’s never been there, either.”

“Does Quinn know about this?”

Tyler shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. Why?”

“Because with you babysitting me for the day, he could use the help, that’s why.”

He looked guilty. “I’m not babysitting—”

“It’s okay. Let’s go. We’ll meet Chance there and I’ll have a word with him.”

When we got in the Mini he said, “Chance isn’t going to get in trouble for this, is he?”

“He reports to Quinn. If he’s going to take off for a couple of hours, he should clear it with Quinn first.” I looked over at Tyler as I pulled out of the parking lot. “You seem like you’re pretty tight with Chance.”

He pushed his glasses up his nose. “I like him. He’s a cool guy. And he’s nice to me.”

Though he didn’t say it, I understood the implicit message. Unlike Quinn.

Chance and Bruja were waiting when Tyler and I pulled into the gravel parking lot at Ball’s Bluff Battlefield Regional Park in Leesburg half an hour later. Although two other cars were parked next to the vineyard’s blue pickup, there was no sign of anyone except the three of us and the dog. I had just driven through a subdivision and passed a sprawling outlet shopping mall, but we could have been in the middle of nowhere it seemed so quiet and deserted.

“They’ve got leash laws in the park,” Tyler said to Chance.

Chance opened the passenger door to the truck and got Bruja’s leash, clipping it to the dog’s collar.

“Does Quinn know you’re here?” I asked him.

He gave me a roguish smile and winked at Tyler like a coconspirator.

“I’m with the boss. Figured it would be okay for just a little while.”

“You need to call him,” I said.

“It’s a dead zone for phone service.” Tyler held up his cell phone. “I never get anything here.”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “I don’t have anything, either.”

“Same here,” Chance said. “We won’t be long, Lucie. Besides, I had an errand in Leesburg, anyway. This is just a little detour.”

I didn’t like being an unwilling accomplice in deceiving Quinn about Chance playing hooky for part of an afternoon, but right now it seemed I had no choice in the matter.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We walked down a gravel path that cut through a heavily wooded area. The trees made a cathedral-like canopy above us, though enough sunlight filtered through in bright pockets to keep it from being gloomy. Still, it wasn’t difficult to imagine why anyone who came here at dusk or at nighttime might believe this place was haunted. I’d never claimed to see Mosby’s ghost near our ruins, but here, where so much blood had been spilled, something unsettling pervaded the air. Blue jays cawed from the trees and Chance had to restrain Bruja from chasing after the squirrels scurrying across tree limbs or diving into the vegetation. In the brooding silence, the rise and fall of the cicadas’ metallic symphony seemed amplified.

“Which way?” Chance asked as we reached a fork in the path.

“The path on the left was made by the Corps of Engineers, which is why it’s wider,” Tyler said. “The one on the right is the old cart trail where the Union pulled a cannon and two howitzers up from the river. What you’re looking at down there is where the Federals were.” He waved at an expanse of woods at the bottom of a gently sloping hill. “Behind us in the parking lot is where the Confederates waited for them.”

“I thought the battle took place in a field,” I said.

“It did,” he said. “In 1861 this place was a field. All these trees have grown up here since then.”

“Let’s go right.” Chance pulled Bruja away from the stinging nettles that grew dense on either side of the path. “The way the troops came.”

“You going to be okay, Lucie?” Tyler eyed my cane.

“I’ll be fine.”

The cart path was narrow but we still managed to walk three abreast with me in the middle. Chance’s arm kept brushing against mine and once he looked over and gave me that heart-catching smile.

As we hiked downhill, the path meandered off to the right, deeper into the woods. There was no sign of whoever owned the other cars in the parking lot. It felt like we were all alone, and I was annoyed that it bothered me.

“Why did they pick this place to fight?” Chance asked. “The edge of a cliff with the Potomac below. There’s no way to escape except the river.”

“It was an important river crossing between Maryland and Virginia because it was so narrow,” Tyler said. “Don’t forget, all the bridges between Harpers Ferry and Washington had been burned. Neither army picked Ball’s Bluff as a battle site. Both sides screwed up some things and they ended up fighting each other.”

“Screwed up what things?” he asked.

Tyler took off his baseball cap and scratched his head. His hair had been flattened by the cap except where the reddish curls stuck out around his ears. He reminded me of a clown.

“The area above and below Leesburg was important strategically because of the ferry crossings. Both armies were keeping an eye on it and placed troops in the region. But one of the Confederate commanders, Colonel Evans, got worried that his soldiers might be picked off by the Union troops. So without telling anyone, he decided to pull out of town and regroup somewhere else.” We stopped walking as he bent down and picked up a stick.

“Here’s Leesburg and here’s the river with the two ferry crossings.” He knelt and drew a map in the dirt with the point of his stick. “Evans pulls out of Leesburg and the Union troops over here watch him leave, figuring the town had been abandoned. What the Union didn’t know was that Evans’s commanders ordered him to return. Leesburg was too important to lose.” He tapped the ground, indicating the Union soldiers. “These guys never saw Evans come back.”

“Then what?” Chance asked, pulling Bruja’s leash as she lunged for Tyler’s stick. “No, girl. Leave it.”

The dog obeyed and Tyler scratched behind her ears.

“After Evans left, a group of Union scouts crossed the Potomac from Harrison Island and climbed Ball’s Bluff, figuring Leesburg had been evacuated. It was dark when they got here so they had to look around by moonlight. Unfortunately they saw a grove of trees”—Tyler paused to draw two stick trees—“and thought it was an abandoned Confederate camp, which is what they reported to their commander. The next day they came back with reinforcements to clear it out.” He shrugged. “Evans’s troops were waiting for them.”

“It must have been a slaughter,” Chance said.

“Not exactly. There were several skirmishes. Took all day. But in the end, the Confederates backed the Union soldiers up against the cliff. Over two hundred Federals died trying to escape or else drowned in the river.”

He stood up and flung the stick into the woods as we continued down the path. Through a break in the trees I could see a chest-high stone wall and behind it an American flag hanging on a flagpole. The cemetery.

“You said only fifty were buried in that cemetery,” I said.

“Fifty-four,” he said. “Most of the others were lost and presumed drowned.”

“I’d like to see that river crossing,” Chance said. “How do we get to it?”

“There’s another path.” Tyler’s gaze strayed to my cane. “It’s pretty steep and it can be sort of treacherous.”

“How did the Union soldiers get up here?” I asked.

“Same path,” he said. “We could skip it and just check out the cemetery, if you want. Unfortunately there’s no place to really see the river from up here because it’s so overgrown with trees and bushes.”

“I’d like to see the river, too,” I said. “Let’s take the path.”

My shirt was already sticking to me and drops of perspiration trickled down my cheeks. Chance and Tyler mopped their faces with their shirts. Maybe we’d catch a stray breeze off the water to cool us off.

“If you guys are game,” Tyler said. “We follow that sign over there.”

“I’ll spot Lucie in case it gets too difficult,” Chance said. “Tyler, take Bruja’s leash.”

We weren’t talking about bungee jumping off the bluffs, just walking down a hill. The first time I let my disability become more of an impediment than it already was, I knew it was the beginning of not fighting back and letting it dictate my life.

“Thanks, but I’m sure I can manage.”

“We’ll have to go single file,” Tyler said. “It’s the only way.”

“Then Lucie should go in the middle.” Chance took my hand. To me he said, “Tyler knows where we’re going and I ought to bring up the rear.”

The scent of his cologne mingled with perspiration filled my head. “All right.”

The path, when we reached it, was narrower than I expected.

“Jesus,” Chance said. “How many soldiers used this?”

“About fifteen hundred,” Tyler said. “They got four horses and those cannons up here, too.”

“How in the world did they do that?” I asked.

“The worst problem wasn’t getting up here,” Tyler said. “It was getting back down when the Confederates went after them. Some Federals ended up sliding down on their butts with their bayonets extended so they literally ran into their comrades and killed them.”

He saw the expression on my face.

“Sorry. I know it’s disgusting.”

“How come so many drowned?” Chance asked.

“There were only three small boats to take them back to Harrison Island,” Tyler said. “It wasn’t enough. Some men tried to swim. Others just got caught on the floodplain, waiting. It was like shooting fish in a barrel for the Confederates.”

Tyler waited while Chance and I took in the magnitude of what it must have been like for panicked Union soldiers under fire being forced to retreat down this funnel-like path, knowing they’d be sitting ducks for the Confederates if they even made it to the river.

“How many did the South lose?” I asked.

“Only about twenty-five.” Bruja tugged on the leash in Tyler’s hand. “Ready?”

The path, laid out as a series of switchbacks, was as difficult to navigate as Tyler had warned. All three of us needed to put a hand out to steady ourselves on a fallen tree or a rock outcropping. No one spoke as we made our way down, but I could hear the breathing of the other two and the dog panting in the heat. Sweat stung my eyes and my clothes were as wet as if I’d gone swimming in them. Here and there blotches of sunlight penetrated the heavy canopy of trees, but the muggy air felt junglelike.

I tripped over a tree root and Chance grabbed my arm as I started to slide down the trail.

It took us nearly fifteen minutes to descend to the river. With each step I thought about what a protracted death this had been for the Union troops trapped at the edge of the cliff with too few boats to ferry them across the river. Once we saw the Potomac and Harrison Island, I wanted to get out of here.

The pea-green river was barely visible because of the many heavy, low tree branches that obscured our view. There was something flat and dead about this part of the Potomac. Nothing at all like the vibrant, swift-flowing river that was so entwined with the history and geography of Washington, D.C.

“Watch the mud and the tree roots,” Tyler said.

Chance unclipped Bruja’s leash and the dog waded into the river. He held out his hand to me. I took it as we walked around the Medusa-like root system of a copse of trees to get a better view of the river and Harrison Island.

I shaded my eyes against the light reflecting off the water. “Doesn’t look too far to that island. I bet you could swim to it in under twenty minutes.”

“Maybe now. Back in 1861, the river probably covered the entire floodplain,” Tyler said. “Plus it had been raining hard for the past three weeks that October so it was higher than usual.”

“Who owns it?” Chance indicated the island.

“It’s private.” Tyler pushed his glasses up his nose. His face gleamed with sweat and the glasses slid back down again. “They use it for hunting, but nobody lives there.”

“We ought to think about starting back,” I said.

Chance nodded and slapped his thigh, whistling for the dog.

“Stand back,” he said as Bruja came ashore and shook herself off.

“When we get up top we’ll take the path by the cemetery,” Tyler said. “That way we’ll make a complete loop.”

The trip up the steep winding path didn’t seem as arduous, but maybe it was because I was relieved to be leaving the riverbank. When we reached the clearing, though, everyone was again breathing hard.

“Whose grave is that?” Chance pointed to a solitary stone marker a few yards from the cemetery.

“It’s where they think the Union commander fell. Colonel Edward Baker. He was also a U.S. senator at the time,” Tyler said, as we walked toward it. “There are bunch of different stories about what happened and where he was actually killed. His death just about destroyed Abe Lincoln. One of his sons was named for Baker. They were really close.”

Sunlight flickered on the small tombstone. Bruja, again on her leash, strained to examine it closer.

“It’s not far from the cliffs,” Chance said.

Tyler nodded. “That’s how we’re going to do it in the reenactment. Baker’s going to drop dead near Goose Creek after he arrives by boat. Then everyone’s going to rush him and fight over his body like they did in the real battle.”

“I feel sorry for whoever plays Baker,” I said. “That sounds dangerous.”

“Nah, we’ve got it under control,” Tyler said. “But it’s Ray Vitale. Your favorite person.”

“Who’s he?” Chance asked.

“A guy Lucie and I met the other night,” Tyler said. “Kind of hard-core. In charge of the Union reenactors.”

“Let’s check out the cemetery,” I said. “Then we should head back to the vineyard.”

Tyler unlatched the wrought-iron cemetery gate, giving it a shove so it creaked open. My eye fell on the raised lettering on the bronze plaque affixed to it. The bottom line read: “Interments—54. Known—1. Unknown—53.”

Chance began counting the white markers arranged in a semicircle around the flagpole, pointing at each one.

“There aren’t enough markers,” he said.

“There’s more than one person in each grave,” Tyler said. “And nobody knows who’s lying there, either, how many sets of remains are buried there.”

I leaned against the sun-warmed wall of red river rock and felt the heat penetrate my clothing through to my skin, thinking about the mingled bones of Union soldiers moldering in this little cemetery.

“I still think that’s ghoulish,” I said.

“At least they’re buried,” Tyler said. “Parts of ’em, that is.”

“The only one they could identify was James Allen?” Chance stood in front of the lone marker with a name on it.

Tyler nodded.

“We should go,” I said.

Chance unlatched the gate. “You okay, Lucie?”

“I told her the place was haunted by the spirits of the soldiers who never got buried in the cemetery, but she didn’t believe me,” Tyler said.

“And I still don’t,” I said.

Tyler grinned. “Oh, yeah?”

“All right, I’ll admit there’s something disturbing about the place.”

Tyler grinned. “Told you.”

“Wonder where those people got to?” Chance said as we reached the parking lot and saw the same cars that had been there when we arrived. “Maybe they were watching us.”

“Okay,” I said, “enough with the scary stuff.”

He unclipped Bruja’s leash and smiled, climbing into the pickup. “See you home.”

Tyler and I got into the Mini. “I think Chance likes you, Lucie.”

“I think you have an overactive imagination.”

We drove out of the park. “So what’d you think?” he asked. “Pretty interesting place, huh?”

“It is. Thanks for showing it to me.”

“I know Quinn gave me time off today because he thinks I’m a screwup.”

“No he doesn’t. It’s just that a lot of things have been going wrong lately.”

“Yeah, and they always seem to be my fault.” He sounded peevish.

“Is Quinn too hard on you?” I glanced at his profile. He’d taken off his baseball cap again. The wind blew his reddish-gold curls so they framed his face like a cherub in a Raphael painting.

“He’s always asking me to do dirty jobs. Clean barrels. Clean tanks. Go out and pull leaves off vines one by one.”

“Tyler, that is your job. That’s what a cellar rat does. No one said it was easy work. Quinn and I do it, too.”

“Chance would be a lot easier on me.”

“Quinn runs the show. And if the work’s too hard or too boring, no one’s forcing you to stay, buddy.” I kept my tone light. “If something’s going on that I need to know about between you and Quinn, I expect you to tell me.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Ad utrumque paratus.”

“You want to translate?” I glanced at his innocent-looking profile and wondered whether he was keeping something from me.

“Ready for anything, prepared for the worst.” He put his cap back on and adjusted it. “It means I can handle it.”

As it turned out, he was wrong.