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“I didn’t see any guns. They have to be armed.”
“Oh, sure—but they’re not armed with much. They saw what we’re carrying—none of these old boys are going to be shooting at us. The ones to worry about are guys like Calvin’s boss, and his boss’s boss. DEA cleared out a whole town in the Trinity Alps several years ago while I was an agent—and now those boys had ’em some guns.” Jim gave Jack a shot in the arm. “I’m for staying out of their business. If Forestry runs across them, they’ll report them to the sheriff’s department or maybe to the DEA.”
The spirit of the town was tense and worried. Jack had become their favorite son, and his chosen woman—the woman who had come here to help people—had had a brush with death.
Throughout the day, neighbors came to Doc’s bearing food and offering conversation. There were no patients, only friends. Doc got out of bed and dressed, coming downstairs to visit. With the exception of a short nap in the afternoon, he stayed up the entire day.
Jim and June only stayed a couple of hours, but Jack was a presence on and off throughout the day, which worked well because people who came by the house to check on Mel were anxious to talk to him. “Shot him while he held her at knife-point, they’re saying.” Jack merely nodded and reached for her hand. “How’d you dare?
How’d you know you wouldn’t be off by a half inch?”
“I didn’t have that much to spare,” he said. “I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger if I thought there was any chance I’d be off my mark.”
Another matter of great interest was the shining ring that graced Mel’s finger. The engagement was met with happiness and affection, though not surprise. There were many questions about the wedding, and a serious protest when it was learned that there would be a small ceremony in a few days for family only in Sacramento. Jack, Doc and Mel ate a dinner made up of the food brought by well-wishers and when it was done and the dishes cleaned up, Doc said, “I’m going to bed, Melinda. You should go back to your man’s bed. Those hospital beds are no place for the two of you.” And up the stairs he slowly trudged.
“Yes, you should,” Jack confirmed, taking her with him across the street. Having slept so little the night before, once she was in Jack’s bed, curled up against his warmth, she nearly passed out from exhaustion.
Before the sun was even up the next morning, she was awakened by the sound of amassing vehicles. She looked at the clock and saw that it was barely 5:00 a.m. She rummaged around for clothes and went through the bar onto the porch to see what all the commotion was about. There in the street were trucks, campers, AWD vehicles, SUVs, cars. Men were standing around in the street, checking their rifles, even putting on flak jackets and bulletproof vests. Some wore jeans and work shirts, some wore fatigues. She recognized faces among them—Mike Valenzuela from L.A., Zeke from Fresno, Paul Haggerty and Joe Benson from Grants Pass, Oregon. There were also neighbors and ranchers and farmers from Virgin River. She saw that Ricky was with them, looking for all the world like a grown man.
She watched them for a while before Jack noticed her standing there, her hair all mussed from sleep, her feet bare. He handed his rifle off to Paul and went to her.
“You look like a girl,” he said. “A little pregnant girl, but I know better.” He grinned.
“I thought maybe you could sleep awhile longer.”
“Through this? What’s going on?”
“Scavenger hunt,” he said. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Come on, Jack.”
“We’re going to check, see if the woods need to be cleaned out,” he said.
“With weapons? Vests? My God, Jack.”
He pulled her against him briefly and said, “I doubt we’ll have any trouble, Mel. But we should be prepared for whatever we run into. We’re just going to cut a wide circle around the town—be certain there are no drug farmers or criminals close by. No camps like the one Thompson came from. No camps for people like Thompson to hide out in.”
“How will you know whether there are dangerous people in ordinary camps? I’m told there are plenty of those kind of camps scattered around. Squatters, vagrants, mountain people.”
He shrugged. “Then we should know who’s out there. Look for what’s in their camps, check their weapons so we know what they have. Pot’s pretty easy to spot—it has a real distinctive green color and it almost always comes with camouflage and a generator.”
She put a hand on the vest he wore. “And you need this because—”
“Because I’m going to be a father soon, and I don’t take foolish chances. One of these idiots could misfire.”
“You’re taking Ricky with you?”
“I look out for Ricky. We’ll all be looking out for him, but believe me—he’s up to this. I taught him to shoot myself. He wouldn’t be left out, because it’s about you.”
“Is this absolutely necessary?”
“Yes,” he said, and looked down at her with the expression she had learned meant he was all about business.
Jim Post was beside Jack, grinning. “Morning,” he said.
“Does June know you’re doing this?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And what did she say?”
“Something like, ‘You better be careful.’ The hard part was convincing old Doc Hudson he couldn’t come.”
“Isn’t this better left to the police? The sheriff?”
Jim put a foot up on the porch step. He shrugged. “We’ve already told Henry about Paulis’s camp and gave him the description of the vehicle being driven by the man who probably had it set up. Hopefully, the Paulis camp is deserted and their plants left behind. We saw ’em, Mel—and there’s no question—those old squatters didn’t bring a semi in, bury it, camouflage it and set up a grow. But someone did—and there could be more of those. There’s real trouble way back in there—on federal land. We’re not going that far back. We’ll stay out of their business. We’ll leave that up to the professionals.”
“It just seems so vigilante-like,” she said.
“Naw, we’re not going to do anything illegal, Mel. We’re just going to send a little message. You don’t want to give our women, our towns, any reason to feel they have to fight back. Understand?” She didn’t answer. “If there’s anything like that near enough to threaten Virgin River, we’ll give them a chance to run for their lives before we disclose their location to authorities. It’ll be fine. We’ll be home by dark.”
She said to Jack, “I’m going to be scared to death all day.”
“Do I have to stay here with you, so you won’t be scared?” he asked her. “Or can you believe in me one more time?”
She bit her lip, but nodded. He slipped an arm around her waist and lifted her up to his mouth, kissing her deeply. “You taste so good in the morning,” he said, smiling down at her. “Is that normal?” he teased.
“You’d better be careful,” she said. “Remember that I love you.”
“I don’t need any more than that,” he said, putting her back on her feet. Preacher came to the porch. He nodded at her, bushy brows drawn together in a frown that made her almost shudder. “Just send him in,” Mel said. “That’ll scare them all away.” And to her surprise, Preacher smiled so big, for a moment she didn’t recognize him.
When they had finally left in a grand parade, Mel called June. “Do you know what your husband is doing?” she asked.
“Yes,” June said, sounding annoyed. “Not babysitting.”
“Are you worried?”
“Only that one of them will shoot off a toe. Why? Are you?”
“Well…Yes! You should have seen them—in their vests and with those big guns. I mean, big guns!”
“Well, there are bear out there, you know. You don’t want a peashooter,” June said.
“You don’t have to worry about Jack, honey. I think it’s been established he’s a good shot, if he needs to be.”
“What about Jim?”
“Jim?” She laughed. “Mel, Jim used to do this for a living. He won’t admit he misses it just a little bit. But I swear I heard him giggle.”
All day long she had visions of gun battles in the forest. The unfortunate lack of work couldn’t keep her from pacing. With the bar closed and so many of the men out on the scavenger hunt, the town was impossibly quiet.
Mel spent most of the day on Doc’s porch, sitting on the steps. It was about noon when the black Range Rover pulled slowly into town. He drove up alongside the clinic and lowered his tinted window. “I heard what happened to you,” he said.
“You did? I didn’t know we had any mutual friends.”
“I wanted to tell you a couple of things, because you did me a favor. Number one—I know about Thompson and he’s a loose cannon. I know a lot of what goes on back there and there aren’t any others like him, that I know of. People like Vickie—that’s the woman who had the baby—she’s been in some trouble, but she’s not dangerous to anybody. She just flies under the radar, has had some tough breaks, doesn’t know a lot of ways to make money. By the way—she’s gone. Took that baby and went to a sister’s in Arizona. I got her on a bus.”
“You said Nevada before,” Mel said.
“Did I now?” he asked, a small smile. “Well, I could be mistaken.”
“I just hope you know where to send the check, since it’s yours.”
“I said, they’ll have what they need. Didn’t I say that?”
She was silent a moment, thinking. The check he was going to send would come from the sale of marijuana. There were people who thought it was no worse than a few beers, and she was about to pledge her life and love to a man who owned a bar, thought nothing of serving up a few beers. Then there were others who recognized its medical benefits. And a third faction saw it as a dangerous drug—one that, in the wrong hands, perhaps young hands, could lead to more dangerous addictions. Mel only knew two things: it was still illegal without a prescription and, because it was illegal, crime was often associated with it.
“You said you wanted to tell me a couple of things,” she said.
“I’m leaving the area. There’s been a death. Doesn’t really matter that Thompson won’t be any great loss to society,” he said with a shrug. “He’s associated with a couple of the operations here, so there’s going to be an investigation, warrants, arrests. I’ll be moving on.” He smiled at her. “You get your wish. You won’t be doing business with me anymore.”
She leaned forward on the porch steps. “Have you done violence?”
“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “Not so far. We’ve had our little misunderstandings. But I’m just a businessman.”
“You couldn’t find a more legal business?”
“Oh, sure,” he answered, smiling. “I just couldn’t find a more profitable one.”
The window went up and he moved down the street and out of sight. She memorized the license plate, knowing that if he was any good at his profession, it wouldn’t matter.
At dusk, she sat out on Doc’s porch and waited. As darkness began to descend, she heard the vehicles return. As they drove slowly into town and pulled up to the bar, she tried to assess the mood of the group. Everyone seemed solemn and tired as they got out of trucks and jeeps, stretching their backs and arms. Vests were gone, guns stowed in their racks and sleeves rolled up. But shortly they were clapping each other on the back, laughing and gathering around Jack’s porch. She was so relieved to see Ricky, laughing with the men, one of the brothers, completely safe. The last truck to pull up was Preacher’s, in which Jack rode, as well, and they had something large in the bed, something hanging out. When he parked, all the men gathered around, and the tempo of the group seemed to pick up. There was laughter and loud voices. Almost afraid to know what was going on, she walked across the street. Jack was coming for her and met her halfway.
