The Rainmaker's Hammer (2)
A deep, rhythmic metallic thrum rose through the ground—the unmistakable signal that the drill bit had reached the hardest, deepest stratum of the earth. The massive drilling rig had driven three hundred meters down.
Anyone thinking of a household well in Korea might wonder how anyone could dig three hundred meters into the ground. But commercial farm wells in California routinely go a hundred and fifty meters as a baseline, and often three hundred—sometimes as deep as six hundred meters, nearly two thousand feet.
They had to go that deep because decades of over-extraction had driven the water table catastrophically low across California’s Central Valley and the Brentwood region. There was water nearer the surface—fifteen to fifty meters down—but it was frequently laced with pesticides and contaminants, and it vanished the moment drought set in. So they pushed past the depths already being sucked dry by existing wells and bored down into the rock aquifers between two hundred fifty and four hundred meters.
When the rig finally hit the fateful depth the USGS’s outdated data had predicted, the pressure gauges atop the drill tower began to dance like mad.
“Bit’s loading up! Drop the RPM!”
At the foreman’s urgent shout the drill engine bellowed and belched black smoke.
Then it happened.
From deep in the earth came a thunderous boom—as if a giant cannon had fired. Compressed air that had been trapped for ages exploded through the joints of the drill pipe, and a thick slurry of muddy water shot skyward like a fountain.
“Aaah!”
Chloe clutched my arm and screamed. I never looked away. The muddy gush cleared almost at once, and a pure, cold liquid rocketed fifteen meters into the air.
A confined aquifer.
Ancient life-water, compressed for tens of thousands of years beneath the rock strata, had finally broken free.
“It blew! It blew!”
Fredrick whooped and stepped into the icy groundwater raining down from the sky. Chloe, eyes shining with emotion, stared up at the soaring column of water.
I calmly took out the sample bottles I had prepared and filled them from the spray, then switched on the portable water-quality meter.
“pH 7.1, EC 0.35… Perfect.”
A faint smile touched my lips. Sodium was low; magnesium and calcium sat in ideal ranges. The surface canal water William Hartford controlled was forever unstable—laced with fertilizer runoff and salts from the farms upstream. This groundwater needed no filtration at all. It was premium agricultural water of the highest grade.
“Uncle, you can forget about the water beyond that sluice gate. With this one well we can feed the purest nutrients straight to our cherry trees.”
My voice cut cleanly through the roar of the water column and reached them both.
“Hahaha! You’re damn right. Tell them they can open the canal or leave it shut—we don’t care anymore! With this much water, a hundred-acre cherry orchard never has to worry again. Hahaha!”
“Exactly!”
Watching Fredrick and Chloe drunk on pure joy, I found myself smiling too.
At the same hour, the atmosphere inside William Hartford’s house at Deer Ridge Country Club was the polar opposite of the celebration at Harris Orchard.
The door to William Hartford’s study burst open and Cooperative directors Samuel and Thomas stormed in. In their hands was an emergency administrative order issued by the county health department.
“William, we’re in deep trouble. The order actually came down. Just like the Rainmaker said—fifty thousand dollars a day!”
Samuel laid the order on the desk with trembling fingers. William stared down at the document with unfocused eyes.
Provision of Habitat for West Nile Virus Vectors
and Acts Endangering Public Health
Punitive Fine: $50,000 per day
“That lawyer—Harry Montis—he’s no ordinary man. This morning he already dragged the local papers out to the sluice gate and finished his press conference. Tomorrow’s front page is going to scream that the Cooperative president’s stubbornness is driving Brentwood residents into the path of an epidemic!”
Thomas’s face was pure despair. William lifted his coffee cup with shaking hands; the coffee had long gone cold and tasted of nothing.
“My water… my canal!”
“What are we going to do? Even if we hire a lawyer this second, fifty thousand a day is brutal. Ten days of delay is half a million dollars. Half a million—how many cherries do we have to sell for that? Let’s just go open the gate right now!”
The gulf between ordinary farmers and the wineries of Napa Valley was measured in sheer scale of revenue. A winery pulling in millions or tens of millions a year could hardly be called a “farmer” in the same breath. Ordinary growers, by contrast, were considered large operations if annual sales cracked a million. Half a million dollars was more than thirty percent of a year’s revenue for a hundred-acre orchard. Ten days of fines at that rate was enough to make a farm owner’s knees buckle.
The health department’s order had crushed William’s pride underfoot. He had reigned as king of Brentwood his entire life, yet federal law, public-health statutes, and the naked terror of fifty thousand dollars a day left him no room to maneuver. With a twisted expression he snatched up his truck keys.
“Let’s go.”
The Cooperative members exhaled in private relief. They had been terrified he would dig in his heels to the end.
An hour later, at the northern canal of Harris Orchard.
William Hartford’s pickup skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust. The face that climbed out was the color of dirt. He jerked his chin at the crew that had followed him.
“Cut it off.”
The men fired up the cutters. Sparks showered and leapt in the reflection of Hartford’s eyes. The very chain he himself had welded shut in the certainty of victory fell away in limp pieces. The heavy sluice gate groaned open and the long-blocked water surged through like a broken dam, pouring toward Harris Orchard.
From a distance Harry Montis watched the scene, then leaned out his car window and waved.
“Nice work, President William Hartford! Your welding was so solid we almost broke a sweat cutting it open. Oh—and don’t forget the disinfectant! Health department inspectors will be by later for a look. And by the way—Harris Orchard just brought a well online with complete success! So feel free to leave the water flowing just like this! Hahaha!”
Harry’s booming mockery sent William’s blood roaring to his skull.
“Hmph. Let’s see how long you keep laughing. A hundred acres of cherries—where exactly do you plan to sell them…?”
He ordered photographs and video taken to prove the gate was open, had them sent to the health department, then climbed into his truck in a foul temper and drove home. Being played so thoroughly by the opposing counsel left him crushed, yet he had not abandoned every last shred of hope.
The only pity was that he would not see the results until May had come and gone.
The following day, at Chloe’s house in Deer Ridge Country Club, the massive frame of Harry Montis came calling.
Harry sank his bulk deep into the leather sofa, drew several documents from his thick briefcase, and spread them across the table.
“All right, everyone sit. I’ll walk you through how the situation has been cleaned up.”
He adjusted his glasses and pointed to the map and the copy of the administrative order.
“First—William Hartford opened the sluice himself because of the fine, but that act just put a leash around his own neck. By doing so he made a self-admission that the conduct I blocked was wrongful. Legally, the party responsible has now confessed his own negligence. If Hartford had dug in and insisted to the end that he was in the right, we would have been in court for a long, grinding fight. The moment he opened that gate out of fear of the fine, he himself proved that his welding violated both public-health law and water rights.”
“Ah…”
Fredrick and Chloe’s mouths fell open as they nodded along.
“Of course all of this is simply his misfortune for drawing me as an opponent. Still—once he knew who he was facing, he should have retained the best counsel money could buy. Now… it’s too late.”
The words were pure arrogance, yet not a single person sitting in that room thought them arrogant. Not even me.
Harry’s gaze shifted to Fredrick and Chloe. His voice stayed calm, but it carried a cold warning.
“From here on you need to watch three things. First: transparency of water-quality data. Hartford will either dump contaminants into the canal water or file retaliatory suits claiming your groundwater is dropping the water pressure of neighboring farms. So every morning, record the well’s water level and quality readings. That data will be your shield in court later.”
“Understood.”
Chloe nodded, face grave. Harry slid a second document forward.
“Second: independence of water rights. Just because William opened the gate today does not mean you can relax. He will invent maintenance excuses and try to cut you off again. You can’t call me every time. That’s why I have already completed the registration of the groundwater well Brian drilled as an independent state water resource. Even if the Cooperative shuts the canal, you remain legally self-sufficient independent operators—not victims. It publicly announces that no matter what games Hartford plays, your farming will not stop.”
Chloe carefully noted every word with her pen. Harry tapped a page of the statute book with one thick finger.
“Last and most important: make evidence a daily habit. If a stranger appears near the canal, or if anyone so much as touches the sluice, photograph it and log it without fail. The second the cherry cooperative president breaks the law, I will strip him of his presidency—and I will take his own farmland as damages for water-rights infringement.”
Finished, Harry rose and collected his leather jacket. His massive presence filled the living room.
“I believe I’ve done everything I came to do. If you need anything else, call me—I’ll help without holding back.”
Then he looked at me and gave a small grin.
“My little brother’s shop is already the talk of Beverly Hills as the new hangout. All thanks to Brian’s wine. I’m always grateful.”
“I’m the one who should be thanking you.”
“Then…”
Harry gave me a polite nod and left the house.
“In all my life I’ve never met a lawyer that sharp. Lawyers who work Napa Valley really are on another level.”
Fredrick clicked his tongue in open amazement.
“First time for me too. Warren didn’t introduce him for nothing.”
“You’re right. That said—I already got a call from the big-box MD side. They’re saying they may not be able to buy our cherries this year. If you hadn’t lined up the overseas air-freight channels ahead of time, we’d be in real trouble. We might even have ended up asking you to take the entire harvest yourself.”
“Hahaha! We might have seen ten thousand bottles of Ceracia.”
“A lucky break. Lucky that Itochu asked for a meeting next week. Even if the domestic buyers walk away, we should be able to place a good chunk of the volume.”
“Looks like Chloe will have to work her magic again.”
At my words Chloe flashed a V-sign with her fingers.
“Thank you. It’s all thanks to you.”
They had suddenly been cast out of the Cooperative and dropped into serious trouble, yet the cherry shipments and the water-rights fight had both been handled without a hitch. Fredrick looked at me the way a man looks at the person who just saved his life.
“Of course I help. We’re strategic partners… and besides, it’s Chloe’s orchard.”
I squeezed Chloe’s hand tightly. Fredrick watched us and smiled with pure, quiet contentment.