The Perk by Mark Gimenez Read Free Book Online Page A

place to sleep, but land was a place to live.
    "You really got pit bulls?" Beck said.
    "Nah. But those real-estate brokers don't
know it."
    "They bothering you?"
    "Before I put that sign up, three, four of
'em would come knocking on the door every day, wanting to sell this land. Big
real-estate play out here these days, Beck, everyone hoping to get rich selling
their land to city folk."
    "Who's buying?"
    "Californians. They come here for a
weekend and think thirty thousand an acre is cheap so they buy a hundred acres like
they're buying lunch."
    " Thirty
thousand an acre? That's the going price? It was under a thousand when I
left."
    "Yep. Land-poor locals barely making ends
meet, all of a sudden they're rich. I was watching TV the other night—"
    "You've got a TV?"
    "Yep. Anyway, I
was watching The Beverly Hillbillies . This ol' boy name of Jed Clampett,
he goes out hunting one day, shoots at a critter but strikes oil. Well, Jed
gets rich and moves the family to California. Struck me, what's going on here
is The Beverly Hillbillies in reverse: folks are hoping a Californian
moves here and makes them rich."
    J.B. started walking toward the house.
    "That's what I figure, anyway."
    "Where are the goats?"
    "Gone. Sold the herd off ten years back. Kept
a few to eat the cedar shoots. Industry tanked when they killed the mohair incentive—not
that I ever took a dime from those bastards."
    Mean philandering Democratic SOB that he was,
LBJ had long been beloved in these parts because he had given the goat ranchers
of Gillespie County something more valued than good character; he had given them
the "mohair incentive." Government money. Every year for forty
years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had mailed checks to Gillespie County goat ranchers totaling tens of millions of dollars. And unlike other farm
subsidies, the mohair incentive didn't phase out at a ceiling price; it kept
going up. The more mohair a rancher produced and the higher the market price,
the bigger his incentive check; at the program's peak, the government paid four
dollars for every dollar a rancher earned. The big goat ranchers got annual
checks for a million dollars. But Bill Clinton killed the mohair incentive in
1996. He was not beloved in these parts.
    "I knew it wouldn't hurt you."
    "Ain't but maybe a hundred thousand goats left
in the Hill Country," J.B. said.
    The mohair incentive had encouraged ranchers to
build goat empires; at the peak, over five million Angora goats had grazed on
Hill Country land and accounted for fifty percent of the world's mohair production.
One legendary goat rancher had even dubbed himself the "Goat King of the
World." J.B. Hardin was one of the few goat ranchers in the county who
didn't take the money.
    "Hell, I was ready to try something
different. Something that don't stink."
    "Well, the wine business would qualify on
both counts."
    "Reckon it does."
    "And you can wear that shirt without
risking a stampede."
    "That's a fact." J.B. nodded toward
the building down the west fork. "That's my winery, Beck. Vineyards are on
the back side."
    "Grapes do okay in a drought?"
    "This rocky land and thin soil ain't worth
a damn for cattle or cotton, but it's just about perfect for goats, peaches, turkeys,
and grapevines. Government and drought killed off goat ranching and peaches."
    "That leaves turkeys and grapevines."
    "Just so happens I've got fifty acres of
the prettiest vines you'll ever see. And they don't need much water—grapes
like it hot and dry in the summer."
    "So what, you're a wine expert now?"
    "Nope. But Hector is. Me and him, we
partnered up. He makes the wine, I do everything else."
    J.B. sniffed the air. The faint scent of smoke rode
the westerly breeze.
    "Brush fire out west."
    Beck gestured toward the fence line. "Is
that a llama?"
    J.B. nodded. "Named Sue. Got eyes like a
woman. Not that we're having any kind of a relationship."
    "Llama, peacocks, turkeys, antelope—place
looks like Noah getting ready