The day I got
ripped off, during my first year here, it was
raining, the first rain after the long, dry Summer. All I wanted
to do that
morning was lie in my sleeping bag and watch the drops collect on
the tent flap
and drip slowly into the parched ground. The crows and jays were
singing a kind
of serenade in time with the raindrops, and I was so happy to feel
cool air on
my skin and see the dust get watered down that I forgot all the
misery the mud
had caused me the winter before. So there I was, grooving on feeling
cool, when
Spiro started to bark. Spiro barks a lot anyhow. He lets me know
when a car
starts up the road, or when a deer or rabbits invade my space. Even
a few
grasshoppers can get him going on a spring day. So when he first
started this
barking routine, I didn't pay much attention. He was fairly close
to the tent,
and since it sounded like his "someone's coming up the road"
bark, I just
waited to see who it was. It must have taken me ten minutes to realize
that no
one was venturing my drive.
I stuck my head
out the tent flap. That's when a creepy-crawly feeling hit the
pit of my stomach. Spiro was still close by, but he wasn't facing
down the
hill; he was looking toward the ridge, behind which lay my green
fortune: my
patch. The hair on his shoulders was raised like a feather boa.
Rain or no,
I was going to have to take a look over that ridge and see how my
plants were doing. So I laced up my Nikes, and grabbed my shotgun...and
my
airhorn. The growers on my road had, early in the season, formed
an informal
committee of mutual protection. By this time of the year, we were
taking turns
patrolling the road at night, and we had a set of signals to be
sounded on the
airhorns in case of emergency.
I hoped to god
all I'd be facing was a hungry buck looking for tender green
stuff. Even a bear after my fish emulsion was okay by me. A shotgun
will scare
off most critters.
This time, after
my trek up the hill and over the ridge, I wasn't even breathing
heavily. A solid season of carrying 40 to 60 pound bags of stuff
over the route
had put me in pretty good shape. But when I got to where I could
see down into
my patch, my heart started to race. There were three guys down there,
all busy
as hell snipping my best buds.
They didn't
even seem to be in a hurry. If they had been, they would have ripped
whole plants out of the ground, and loped off with them. A neighbor
had lost
ten big ones just that way from a patch down the road. But these
guys were
moving along like they had all day to pick and choose. They'd look
a bud over
speculatively, shake it a little, hold it up to their noses...Jesus,
it was
like a winetasting. And it was my money going into those plastic
trash bags
they pulled behind them!
I freaked. I
forgot whether I was supposed to sound my airhorn first, and then
fire a shot, or the other way around. I tried to do both at the
same time, and
knocked a good bruise on my shoulder. Then I started to yell, to
which Spiro,
good old dog, started to howl. This cleared my head a bit. I sounded
my airhorn
and then fired the other barrel.
The rip-offs
must have known I was alone on the place, because it wasn't until
they heard the sound of answering airhorns that they began a quick
hike over
the back of the property, a route that would take them to an old
logging
road...barely passable, but not barely enough, it proved.
By the time
Reg the Veg and two of the Fibble boys got to my place, the three
guys were gone. We followed the trail easily enough, and found the
place where
their rig had been parked...and had obviously taken off just ahead
of us. Drew
Fibble grabbed his walky-talky, and reported to his brothers and
old man Coyne
what was coming off.
They caught
up with the thieves halfway down the trail, by cutting through the
rear of the Fibble ranch. By the time we reached them, they'd shot
the tires
out on the 4 by 4, and the three guys were tied to trees with barbed
wire.
Coyne Fibble
was a scornful judge. "Kids from Eureka," he growled.
"College
types lookin' for their stash. Ain't pros, neither. They even got
their
driver's licenses on 'em. Damn fool shitheads." He spat in
their general
direction. They looked like they were about to shit, or pass out,
or both. You
could tell beneath Coyne's grim look that he was getting a kick
out of the
scene. It got his circulation going...probably better than sex,
at his age.
"Whatya
want done with 'em, Larry?" he asked. "It was your patch
they hit."
I tried looking
tough. "I dunno. Whatya think?" I found myself talking
"Fibble"
too.
At that point,
Drew Fibble pulled his Colt Python out of the waist of his
jeans. "Let's kill 'em," he said with enthusiasm. "We
can bury the bodies right
here on the ranch, and nobody'd ever know. We can bury their goddam
truck too!"
Old Man Fibble
looked at the ground, his face screwed with the effort of
deciding this matter. Finally he shook his head, a triple slaying
was nixed,
much to the rip-offs' relief. And they paid him a lot of attention
when he went
on to point out that if either he or any of his neighbors suffered
further
rip-offs, we would know where to look for these guys, seeing as
we had their
names and addresses from their licenses.
We decided to
leave them tied up a while longer, to give us time for coffee and
a late breakfast. Andy Fibble stayed to stand guard, while the rest
of us clung
to old man Fibble's jeep as he roared and slid back to the ranch
house.
"How in
the hell did three guys from Eureka happen to find my patch?"
I wondered
aloud, as I downed Mrs. Fibble's incredibly bad coffee.
"Easy,"
snapped the old man. "They bought directions to you and your
grow in the
Blue Room last night. Somebody who's trusted, and who also suffered
crop
failure...is selling maps and instructions there. That's according
to the tall
one, the one named Henry."
I felt like
I'd just sat on a hot wire. "I don't care what his name is.
Who's
the s.o.b. who's selling out his buddies? That's what I want to
know!"
Fibble looked
even grimmer. "Wanna kill him? We could do it."
"Kill or
not kill," I practically shrieked. "Who is the bastard?"
Fibble shrugged.
"They don't know his name, boy. They just bought a hot tip.
But
we could set him up, send one of our kin from Kettenpom into the
Blue Room,
looking like he needed directions and all..."
I slumped over
the table. Suddenly this was all too rough for me. I didn't even
like being a medic in the Army. "Aw, the hell with it. I don't
think I want to
know. I'm just glad they didn't get my grow." The old man sniffed
and made a
sour face. "Well, we'll do what we think is right, me and my
boys. Didn't think
we could count on you to go all the way. It's like what that rat
in the Blue
Room told those three: 'Larry Funk is a pushover. He's a goddam
Pacifist!'"
I guess they
did what they thought was right. I walked away from it. The three
guys were left tied to the tree for most of the morning, and then
escorted to the county road. About a week later, somebody picked
a fight with Fast Eddie Success outside the Blue Room. They say
there were three or four of them, and they beat the shit out of
poor Eddie. I mean, it was serious. He spent some time in the hospital.
When he got out, he was set upon again by the same cowboys. No one
would reveal their names, of course. It was just about that time
that Fast Eddie left the area. Moved to Hawaii, I heard.
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