Ground Money

by Rex Burns

  He wasn’t certain of the crop’s exact value—it had been a long time since he worked in the Organized Crime Unit and he didn’t have the latest street figures. But this much care and investment meant high-quality stuff, sensimilla plants, probably, and there would be a lot of profit at stake. If several other fields were scattered in these isolated gulches and canyons, it added up to enough money to kill someone for. Even your own father.

  He wanted to take one of the plants, but each popsicle stick had a number inked on it. Given their value, they were accounted for and probably mapped on a chart kept for each field. Tended with individual care, they would be checked regularly, and any missing would raise questions. He took a last quick look at the field and the high canyon walls protecting it, then he made his way back to the beach, careful not to leave a trail in the soft sand.

  “Any luck this time?”

  Wager pushed the raft away from shore and glanced back. The screen of brush and low trees was unchanged, and from here this canyon looked no different from any other that sliced its way to the river. “Yep.”

  “Yeah? What did you find?”

  “Come on, Gabe.” Jo nudged his shoulder with her fishing rod. “Give.”

  “They’re running a pot farm. A big one.”

  “Pot? Marijuana?” Sidney looked back at the silent canyon that glided out of sight around a bend in the stream. “I read about some guy over in Delta County growing marijuana in the middle of his cornfield. But I never thought …”

  “Did you see the plants?”

  “They’ve mixed them in with some other kind of plant, probably in case a plane flies over. But the real crop’s happy weed.”

  “Well, man, that explains why they get so uptight about people landing on their property!”

  It also explained a lot of things about the ranch and about Tom’s worry over his sons. It explained how they could afford the time and money to rodeo so much. And if it didn’t explain the whos and hows of Tom’s death, it sure as hell offered a clear motive.

  “What’s the setup?” asked Jo.

  “They pump water out of the river to a small reservoir—a little pond probably lined with plastic so it won’t leak. My guess is they add fertilizers to the pond and then run the mix down the rows with a gravity-feed irrigation system.”

  “Sure,” said Sidney. “You see those rigs all over—the farmers have these metal tubes they set in irrigation ditches and they hook up these plastic hoses to run downhill from the ditch.”

  Wager nodded. “That’s what this looked like.”

  “Is it a big field?” asked Jo.

  “About a hundred yards across—big for a pot farm. I think there’s around two thousand plants. They went to a lot of trouble to dig the pond and set up a fence and the irrigation system. They’re expecting a big payoff.”

  “Two thousand!”

  “What’s that worth? That many plants?”

  “Depends on the street value. But probably between one and two million dollars.”

  Sidney stopped rowing and stared at Wager. “How much?”

  He told him again.

  “My God.”

  “Do you think they have plots in all these canyons?”

  Wager didn’t think so; not all of them were suitable for irrigation. But they would have other fields where they could—they would want to grow as much as possible in a season to make the investment pay quickly. And it didn’t take much space or water to raise twenty or thirty plants here and there. They could have tiny plots wherever a spring seeped out of the sandstone cliffs or a hose could snake down to the river. In all, the operation could harvest tens of millions of dollars every fall.

  “Man, that does beat raising cows!”

  “The overhead can get pretty expensive,” said Jo. “Even if the growers don’t go to jail, they’re going to lose that ranch.”

  One crop would pay for that ranch a couple times over, and Wager suspected this wasn’t the first harvest. But Jo was right—the feds would confiscate anything used to grow marijuana, including the land, and that might explain why the owner wasn’t too worried about keeping the place up. It was a write-off.

  Sidney whistled a low, long note. “That much money!” Then he looked at Wager. “What do we do now? Do we go to the feds? The sheriff? What?”

  That part was no problem—an anonymous telephone call to the Drug Enforcement Agency or a word to Sergeant Johnston, and a helicopter would hover over each draw and gully to study the land with binoculars. Those plants weren’t going anywhere before autumn. But Tom’s killers were something else. In addition to his suspicions, Wager had a motive now; but he knew damned well how much weight that would have when DEA got their noses filled with the scent of a marijuana farm. “I’d like to think about that for a little while. There’s another case involved, and I’m not sure yet what’s the best way to go.”

  “That’s right—you’re with Homicide!” Sidney’s eyes widened as he stared at Wager and he put a few things together. “Somebody was killed because he knew about this place!”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “And now we know about it—I know about it.” The taut young flesh of his neck rose and fell as his Adam’s apple bobbed.

  “But they don’t know you know. And I’m not going to tell them. Are you?”

  “No way! I’m not saying anything to anybody!”

  “And if anyone asks, you can honestly say you never set a foot on shore except at the campground, right?”

  “That’s right—that’s the truth!”

  Wager hauled the tow sack toward the raft and fished out a couple more cold beers. “Then let’s forget all about this for now and enjoy the trip.” He winked at Jo. “It’s your vacation too, right?”

  It took a while. Despite his promise to say nothing about it, Sidney kept coming back to the ranch and the marijuana. But gradually the fact of the river took over, and as they cleared the last of the T Bar M property, his conversation turned to the coming Boulder Field.

  “We’ve got a good class-three rapids just above the Field, but we don’t have to scout that one—in water this high, we’ll get a lot of bouncing, but that’s about all.”

  “Is Boulder Field dangerous?”

  “It can be. But I’ve been through it enough times, in higher water, too. If you know the approaches, you can stay away from most of the trouble.”

  They had broken down the fishing gear and stowed it in its tubing and secured it to the frame with elastic cords. Sidney tugged at the cargo ties and checked the security of the spare oars clipped tightly along each side tube. He told them to put their life jackets on and look around for any loose gear.

  “Remember, if you go over, float feet first downstream so you can push off any rocks. Keep your feet high so they don’t get hung up on the bottom, and you’ll be all right. When you’re past the rapids, you can eddy out just like we’ve been doing with the raft.”

  “Do you think we’ll get thrown out?”

  “It’s happened. But we’ll do all right.”

  The raft was moving faster now, the canyon walls closing in on both sides and rising in straighter sheets of vertical red that tilted the head back and back as they gazed upward. It reminded Wager of approaching an aircraft carrier in a small boat, and how the massiveness of the ship’s overhanging steel suddenly dwarfed the tiny figures peering over the edge of the flight deck so far above.

  “Those rocks look cold!”

  Sidney nodded at Jo. “You notice that too? It always looks kind of dark and cold in this part of the canyon. Most rapids, I don’t even see the shore. But here, I can’t help it.”

  Still silent, the water deepened into a fast, smooth alley that frothed slightly at the shoreline. There, sharp boulders sent noisy, sucking whirlpools reaching out toward the raft, and the only growth was a few stubborn threads of grass caught in tiny crevices.

  “The first rapids are around this bend—we’ll hear it in a minute.”

&
nbsp; He pulled hard upstream to keep the raft on the inside of the sweeping arc, but because of the steep cliffs there was no slack water; it all sped faster around the bend, and suddenly they saw the tumult of spray and foam below them falling away in terraces of white water. The roar of the rapids, pent between faces of bare rock, bounced and doubled and almost drowned Jo’s voice: “Oh my gosh—oh my gosh!”

  “Man, she’s running high—hang on and let her rip! Yeeeeha!”

  Wager felt Jo tense as the raft leaped out over the first step and smacked hard against the water, washing spray across the tubes to plunge in an icy wave over their legs.

  “Bail—bail it out—she’s getting heavy!”

  Gripping the lifeline with one hand, Wager scooped with the other, losing to the surge of water that poured in as the raft pounded down again, the solid shock quivering the whole craft and seeming to hold it for a moment fixed amid the plummeting white world around them until, with a sluggish waggle, it lifted again and lunged for the next level.

  Oars flailing, Sidney half stood to shove the heavy craft toward a spume-filled eddy that spun in a gigantic, lazy circle against a strip of sandless gravel. The raft dragged awkwardly across the current, more water spilling over the stern, and then it began to turn backward, drawn stern-first toward the narrow chute closest to the shore. Sidney heaved on the oars, the choppy, broken water twisting the raft, and suddenly they were in the backflow of the eddy. The raft rocked from the turbulence of the rapids and the weight of the water sloshing back and forth over their feet, but the stream was calm in this spot, and Sidney gently guided the craft toward shore. Jo bailed steadily as Wager readied a landing line and hopped onto the steep beach when Sidney held the raft momentarily still against the pull of the eddy.

  He turned the line around a flake of rock, and Sidney, hauling a longer line, clambered ashore to make fast the stern to another boulder.

  “How about that? Wasn’t that fun?”

  “Fun and wet.” They had to shout to be heard above the river; Jo beckoned to Wager. “Come on—let’s take a look at Boulder Field.”

  The trail skirted a vertical face of orange rock that rose out of sight above the maze of fallen stone choking the narrow canyon. They picked their way across house-sized boulders whose shattered ledges gave slight hand and toe holds. Gradually they climbed higher above the river and its noise and could look down at the long series of rapids and chutes and tortured water that plunged between the gigantic rocks in narrow, spray-filled channels.

  “That thing looks like it’s half a mile long.”

  “A little longer, I think. In low water, it really stretches out; in high water it gets shorter and faster and meaner.”

  “Look—there goes a log,” said Jo. “Look at it!”

  The tree trunk bobbed and plunged heavily through the black water and then suddenly reared to thud into a rock face. It swung in the high wave rebounding from the rock and lurched into a chute, disappearing in the foam to reappear a moment later end-first and shooting high out of a standing wall of white water to plummet hard into the river and be sucked down under a blanket of foam.

  “What if something like that hits the raft?” she asked.

  Sidney grinned. “That’s what prayers are for.” He added, “Don’t worry—there’s not many of them, even in rising water. And we’ll be going faster than they do. We’ll just make sure there’s none coming down before we start out.”

  They spent a good hour scouting the rapids. Sidney pointed out the most likely tongues to aim for and the worst holes to avoid. Their route started on the far side under an outcropping of water-darkened wall, and stayed over there until about a third of the way through. Then it was best to try to cross and aim for the larger chutes that opened up on this side. “We always hit some rocks. Remember, when I yell ‘Jump to’ that means move to the side closest to the rock. It can be scary, but hang in there—we want to keep the raft’s unweighted side upstream so we don’t fill with water and get wrapped around a rock. I’ve done it—it’s a real headache to get it off again.”

  “This looks bigger than the first rapids we went over yesterday,” said Wager.

  “It’s not as steep a drop. But it’s tricky because of all the boulders—some places there’s almost no room to work the oars.”

  Just before the end of the rapids, they would have to pull hard back toward the middle of the river. “There’s a big suck hole on this side—you can’t really see it too well from here, but it’s there. That’s probably where that log is we saw go through. I saw a raft hung up in that thing a year ago and it took eleven of us to pull it loose. And the water was a lot lower then.”

  They worked their way back to the raft, Sidney reminding them what “Jump to” meant and what they should do if they went over. “It’s really safer to go through in your life vest than in a raft because you’ve got a lot more leeway. Just don’t hang your feet down and don’t panic, that’s all.”

  “If it’s so much safer,” asked Jo, “why do you keep telling us how to be careful?”

  “Hey, that’s part of the tour. You don’t want this to be like sitting in your bathtub, do you?” He gave the raft’s lines and straps a final tug for looseness and fray, tucking away loose coils and ends of line. Then he pressed his weight on each of the air compartments, testing their tautness. The rear half of the port tube felt soft, and he groped for the pump tied inside the bow. “We must have scraped something yesterday—this is the one we pumped up this morning, isn’t it?”

  Wager nodded.

  “Not to worry. That’s what this little jewel is for. And the other chambers are good and tight, so even if one went down we’d be all right. Still, we don’t want to take Boulder Field with a soft raft if we can help it. Not the way it is today.”

  Wager glanced at Jo staring at the river. “Worried?”

  “A little, yes. But it’s exciting—I like it.”

  “Sidney’s been through here a lot of times.”

  “He said this is almost the highest he’s ever seen the water.”

  “It’s the highest I’ve seen it, too.”

  “You’ve never seen it before!”

  “All right—you two set for the big run? Everybody know what they’re supposed to do?”

  Sidney used the oars to hold the raft steady as Wager cast off the lines and jumped over the bobbing tube. Using the eddy’s current to gain speed, he followed it upriver along shore and out toward the main current. At the top of the arc, he pulled hard on the oars to back across the eddy fence and thrust the raft into the current. A heavy shove on the oars to spin the craft, and they were neatly lined up for the approach to the first chute.

  Swiftly, the raft neared the line of boulders, whose size kept growing until they seemed to tower even higher than the canyon walls on each side. Black and wet and creased with old seams and angles, they pushed a heavy wave back against the river to make the water confused and angry. The raft, tilting up on the wave, slid sideways, and Sidney grunted as he pushed the port oar against the heave of current. It angled to the chute and tilted bow down on the slick water and shot forward, hitting with a wrenching twist into the white foam that closed over the tongue of clear water.

  “Here we go!” Sidney’s voice sounded like a weak bird call through the tumult, and Wager saw Jo’s lips say “Oh my gosh!” when the raft jetted forward fast enough to throw them back against the rowing frame. For an instant, all they saw was sky—a distant, uncaring, narrow strip pale with heat and touched here and there with thin, high-altitude clouds. Then they faced the prow of a giant triangular boulder like a fang knifing up through the foam, and the raft careened wildly up the wave at its base.

  “Jump to! Jump to!”

  Wager threw his weight on the downstream tube, leaning away from the boulder whose wet, sharp blade seemed to reach for him. The raft mashed against the rock and hung at a steep angle, and Wager had a vision of it flipping over on top of Jo and him and pinning them between its
weight and the scarred, cutting face of the rock. Then it rebounded away, spinning off as Sidney heaved on the oars to pull free of the hole on the downstream side. He tried frantically to turn the raft bow-first before they were pulled into the next chute.

  “Did you feel how cold that was?” Jo had to shout to be heard. “That rock—it just breathed cold air!”

  Wager glanced back at Sidney as they jockeyed for the next chute; the young man pulled back with all his lean strength against the arcing shaft of the oars. But he wasn’t looking downstream. Instead he gazed with surprise at something just behind him. Wager saw it too: a deep wrinkle in the left stern tube that, even as he watched, creased more deeply under the force of the current.

  Sidney caught his eye and shook his head, the surprise giving way to worry. He was pulling too hard at the oars to say anything. And anything he said would be useless anyway.

  They angled into the next chute, the water piling up on each side and rebounding to make a solid wall of white across the glassy surface flow. The raft hit and lurched upward, and Wager felt something thud into the air chambers, something akin to a club or a heavy punch that quivered the rubber skin beneath his hands. The tube he pressed suddenly slacked and wrinkles fanned out from his spread fingers, and he saw the hole which appeared like a sudden drop of black ink from the sky, silent under the roaring tumult of water. It was small, slightly larger than a pencil, perfectly round with a tiny fray at the edge as air rushed out, and he knew it was a bullet hole. Somebody on the rim above was shooting holes in the raft.

  The port side buried as water poured over the soft tube, pulling them down and back into the current and making Sidney’s mouth twist and pull with the strain of rowing. Jo grabbed Wager’s arm and stared at him, her color drained to leave her eyes large and silently pleading. Wager had a quick, blind glimpse of the stony rims etched against the sky and started to shout “Feet first!” when a splash of foam drenched them. An instant later the raft was hit again. The solid thud jarred the frame, and he felt something final tear away somewhere deep inside the craft.