Camping tonight,
camping tonight, camping on the old camp
grounds..."
Aldo was almost
jovial, but Geneva looked unhappy as hell. They had waved me
down as I was driving through Ruby Valley. That's the way a lot
of visiting is
done around here. You pass somebody you know on the road, and wave
them to a
stop for a few words.
Aldo rolled
a thin joint, still singing off key. Geneva glared. I'd heard
they'd been hit by CAMP, but I'd had no details.
"They wiped
us out," Geneva announced. "At least, on that one piece.
Of course,
we got a few back-ups over on the other piece, but you can bet your
ass we
won't be payin' off our land this year."
"I ain't
sellin cheap," Aldo grumbled, taking a drag and passing the
joint to
me. "This here Raid just upped my price to $2400 a pound. I
don't give a hoot
how long I have to wait."
"We can't
wait forever," Geneva said snappishly. "We can maybe wait
longer than
Mary and Joe, what with the baby comin." She turned to me to
explain. "They
rented a house in Redway last month, and then this mornin' they
got
popped. I'm glad Mary was in town. That sort of shit can make a
woman or a cow
abort. Them copters thumpin' down outta the sun first thing in the
morning,
just as we was havin' our coffee. And then those guys peelin' out,
just a
pickin' and a choppin'.."
Aldo nodded.
"Ya know, though, I got a little respect for those mother
fuckers. They was trained. They knew what they was about, I'll tell
you? Not
like those egg-suckin Sheriff assholes that don't know their peckers
from a
fence post. These here suckers didn't waste the time of day with
us. I heard
the honcho say, 'Plants is what we're after, not people.' And that's
what they
got. One hell of a lot of plants."
Geneva hailed
down two more passing trucks. Katy and Vince emerged from one,
and then Big Andy. They all had land in the Crazy Prairie area where
CAMP was
operating this morning.
Katy and Vince
were oldtimers in the grower world. They had once grown in
Oregon, and when that got hot, they'd moved to Mendocino County,
just a few
miles south of Garberville. After their growing partner went off
his nut, they
moved their operations to Crazy Prairie. Today, they were beaming.
"They went
all around us," Vince exclaimed. "Right over us. I could
damned near read
their name tags!" He slapped his ample belly, threw back his
head and guffawed,
his mouth so wide I could see his fillings. "But they just
kept on going, right
by. Oh God, I was so glad to see them land on that ridge down from
us!"
"But we
got our stuff hid," Katy added seriously. "They've been
working up
there three days now, and they've damn near cleaned out the whole
area."
Big Andy nodded.
"They got me," He said quietly. He looked at his shoes,
then
back at us. "I'm splittin' for L.A. tomorrow. I gotta get a
job. I didn't have
one cent extra."
There was a
heavy silence. Aldo wrenched his wallet out of pocket and pulled
out a hundred dollar bill. "Andy, I reckon I owe you this for
the clippin' you
did on my early stuff," he said. Andy, looking even unhappier
than before,
stuffed the bill in his pocket. He turned and got into his truck
and drove off
without looking back. The rest of us were quiet for a moment. Finally,
Geneva
sighed.
"I hope
he makes it back up this way," She said. "He's a damned
good neighbor."
"Is he
buying that piece he's on?" I asked.
Geneva shook
her head. "No, he's just renting from Steve Blanco. Steve and
Linda leased it out for this year while they're home in Alabama.
Linda wanted
to have her baby down there, for some damn fool reason...the way
things are,
though, it turned out to be a damn good reason. To be away from
here, I mean."
We talked a
few minutes more, about the possibilities of getting through the
CAMP season with crops intact, about how prices would be affected.
When we
broke up, I headed on into town.
At the Woodrose,
the conversations were the same at every table. Who'd been
hit, who'd saved what. Who had a greenhouse that went unscathed,
who'd lost
everything they had. The adrenalin present would have drowned a
horse. I
watched worried faces, scared faces, even happy faces. The tension
made my
stomach churn, so I ordered a glass of milk to try to calm it. My
stuff was
safe for the rest of the day, and tomorrow would take care of itself.
At least,
that's what I tried telling my innards. It didn't work. My stomach
mounted a
full rebellion.
Sure, I felt
sorry for Andy and the others who had lost a year's work, and in
some cases their land. REALLY sorry. But beneath that, I felt afraid
for me. I
sure as hell didn't want to lose all my efforts, my ass-breaking
labors. And
even if I didn't get rich this year, there was still a respectable
crop growing
over the ridge. My eyes began to burn and I swear to god, I thought
I was going
to cry right there in the Woodrose. I gulped a big mouthful of milk,
and
wondered if I was coming down with something.
Pete the Meat
slid onto the stool beside me. "You look like you're coming
down
with something," he said cheerily. "There's a weird bug
going around, you
know. I think it's CAMP, dropping germs out of the helicopters."
I groaned. "Don't
say stuff like that, Pete. Somebody will take you seriously,
and the next thing you know, they'll be shooting. And anyway, I
just have an
upset stomach. It's no big deal."
Pete shrugged,
unconvinced. "Maybe so. But remember how the CIA gave those
guys
LSD just to see what would happen? And how they plotted to poison
Castro with
a dosed cigar. And how they had guys going around San Francisco
with
germ-squirting briefcases? So germ warfare on the weed growers doesn't
seem far
fetched at all."
I stared at
my empty glass. I had to get out. Out of the Woodrose, out of
town...out of...what? No answer. I just wanted to be back on my
hillside, with
Kiki beside me and Spiro curled up near by and God in his Heaven
watching over
my plants. Forever and ever. Was that too much to ask? Amen.
