And then… a thought crept in. Soft. Sinister. Quietly useful. His eyes drifted to the shed window. Beyond it stood the water tank. The one he hadn’t touched in months. It used to feed a line of compost-soaked fertilizer directly into the irrigation system.
Marianne had used it sparingly—she always said the mix was strong. Too strong, even. But it worked wonders when diluted. She’d once joked that the smell alone could scare pests off a mile away. Robert stood up.
Walked out the back door. He didn’t move fast, but with each step the idea took more shape. He slid the shed door open. The hinges groaned. The smell hit him first—sharp, acrid, like overripe garbage and rust. He opened the cap to the tank and winced. Stale pond water. Rotten leaves.
Liquid fertilizer so potent it had separated into layers. And ammonia. Thick, throat-stinging ammonia. He stared into it, eyes watering. Then, for the first time in days, he smiled. They wanted to walk through his vineyard like it was a park?
Fine. Let them leave smelling like it. He wouldn’t need to trap anyone. Wouldn’t need confrontation. No signs. No yelling. Just irrigation. Just a little gardening. Just water. He’d feed the mixture through the pressure pump, just as they’d always done during dry spells.
But instead of pure water, he’d thin the tank’s contents enough to move through the pipes. It wouldn’t harm the vines—he’d check that, of course. But it would stick. To shoes. To socks. To pants and backpacks. And God help the ones who came wearing white.
Robert walked back inside, rolled up his sleeves, and opened the hatch to the pump system. He grabbed a pair of gloves, a siphon tube, and an old strainer he’d once used to fish out pond debris. It wasn’t war. It was agriculture. Smart, sour, and memorable agriculture.
Robert worked through the evening, stopping only when the light faded enough that he could no longer see the fittings clearly. He tested the flow with plain water first—made sure the valves opened, the nozzles triggered on motion, and the pressure didn’t snap any of the older pipes. Everything still held. Then came the mixture.
He filled the tank with a blend of pond water, diluted ammonia, and a dash of Marianne’s old compost concentrate. The smell hit like a slap. It wasn’t toxic—but it clung. It settled into fabric, into hair, under fingernails. He tested it on an old glove first. The stench lingered after two washes.
Perfect. He rerouted the system to target just the outer edge of the vineyard—where the path narrowed and the tourists most often strayed. The sensors were discreet, barely visible among the stakes and vines. He’d tucked them low, under a canopy of leaves, the spray arcing upward in a fine mist.