The sturgeon poacher, Jeff Holsing, parked in the lot outside the Cache Creek Casino and went inside. As he did, SOU warden Brad Alvarez eased his truck into a parking slot where he had a good view of both the casino and Holsing’s van. He flipped open his cell phone and called the warden he was working the operation with, Melinda Roberts.
‘Holsing just went into the Cache Creek Casino. How far away are you?’
‘An hour and a half, unless there’s traffic.’
‘I’m going in.’
‘Keep your distance.’
That went without saying and Alvarez passed over it. He glanced at the glass doors leading into the casino. He’s got to be meeting somebody in there.
‘Look for me at a blackjack table,’ Alvarez said. ‘Or maybe slots. Text me when you get close and I’ll order you a drink. What do you want?’
‘Margarita, no salt.’
‘You got it.’
She laughed and Alvarez, sitting in his truck, smiled. Truth was they’d both been up most of the night, and what he would do in the casino if he got the chance was get coffee and food.
‘I talked to the lieutenant,’ she said. ‘He said to tell you he’s on his way but still two hours out.’
‘I got a message.’
The real message was Marquez wanted them to be very careful. Marquez thought Holsing was already looking over his shoulder before they started tracking him. He thought Holsing was too jumpy and likely to be carrying a gun. But Alvarez wasn’t worried about whether Marquez got here in two hours or three. What mattered was that they didn’t lose Holsing as he delivered the sturgeon. They left it that Roberts would text when she was ten minutes away, and if Holsing moved before that he’d be back on the phone with her.
He saw rows of slot machines as he walked in. Even at this early hour Cache Creek was crowded with players. But Holsing wasn’t here for slots. He was at a cafe table eating breakfast with Carl Talbot, a twenty-four year old carpenter that Holsing had met with last week. The SOU didn’t know Talbot’s role yet, though it was Alvarez’s guess that they’d find out today.
When he was confident they weren’t moving soon, Alvarez checked out the food court and bought a mocha and a bagel. He sat where he could still see their table and ate the bagel, but left the mocha alone. He wanted the mocha to last, because who knows where it was going from here. Following Holsing was like watching a bad reality show. This one had started at 4:30 this morning when Holsing loaded five sturgeon into his van and then drove around in circles until meeting up with a middle-aged white male in a black Hummer at a Chevron station in Fairfield. He figured Hummer man was their buyer, but the sturgeon stayed in Holsing’s van.
When a waitress arrived with their check, Alvarez moved back outside and then to his truck, thinking, come on, Holsing, you can’t drive around with the fish on ice forever. He watched both come out of the casino. Holsing crossed the parking lot to his van, a tall skinny nervous guy with enough opportunistic charm to get by. He was also cruel. They’d watched how he beat his dog. He was in his van and backing up when Alvarez updated Roberts.
‘Holsing is rolling and it looks like Talbot is leading him into the Capay Valley. Where are you at?’
‘Stuck in traffic.’
‘How long?’
‘Forty minutes.’
‘OK, I’m going with them.’
Ahead, Talbot’s pickup turned left off the one two-lane road running through the Capay. Holsing followed closely on to a gravel road running across the valley floor toward the base of the mountains. When Talbot turned off that road it was on to a dirt and grass road leading up to a property that backed up to the base of the mountains. Pasture land and a ranch house. A big piece of land and he got the address as he rolled slowly past.
He gave Roberts the address and said, ‘I’ll go up that Forest Service road. I should have a view from there. Do you know where I mean?’
She did, and now Alvarez unlocked the Forest Service gate. He drove up to a bend where he could look down over the trees and see the house, Holsing’s van, and Talbot’s blue Ford pickup. He got out of the truck with his binoculars and phone and what was left of the mocha.
Below, and across the valley, the land was green with spring, though on the south and west slopes the grass had already gone brown. Ground fog lay in thin strands in pockets in the fields, but it would disappear soon. The light rain that fell in the late night had left the land damp, but the sky was clear now and the morning warming. After the night and the cold in the delta, the sun on his face felt great. He finished the mocha and checked out the house again with the binoculars before deciding to move up the road to the next bend.
When he did, the cell reception sucked. The conversation with Roberts broke up, but that could be where she was driving through so he didn’t move again. They weren’t doing too well with the radio today either, some problem with a repeater this morning. Still, with the radio he was able to communicate to her where he was.
Now Holsing and Talbot came out of the house. Talbot shouldered a pack he didn’t look happy to be carrying. He tossed his cigarette in the grass and they started across the pasture toward brush at the base of the mountains and Alvarez tracked them with binoculars until they disappeared into the brush. Then he walked around the truck, reached in for the radio, and felt a rush of excitement as he got Roberts.
‘They’ve hiked into the hills with Talbot carrying a backpack.’
‘What’s that about? A backpack? Meth lab,’ she guessed.
‘I’m going to walk out and across the slope and try to get a look at where they’re headed.’
‘Brad, I think you should wait.’
‘I’ll be well above them and I’ll call you. I’m not going far, I just don’t want to lose them.’
He locked the truck and followed a deer trail into the trees and then across the slope a quarter mile through brush, scrub oak, and dry grass. Farther than he’d planned to go, but he could still get back to the truck pretty easily if Holsing popped back out. Up ahead, the slope dipped into a ravine and then the terrain looked rougher, but it was worth it. Holsing and Talbot weren’t up here on a nature walk.
He climbed down into another ravine, then up steeply through brush on the other side. He started to sweat. He should have left the extra shirt in the truck. The slope was humid as last night’s rain evaporated and it was tougher than he’d expected. It was slow going until he spotted a deer trail. Once on it, he found footprints and followed those down and across to a small stream, moving quietly now, watching everything. A stream would fit with a meth lab. They’d need water.
He worked his way down and kept an eye on the pasture because he was a ways from his truck and if Holsing headed for his van, he’d have to really move to avoid losing him. Then suddenly it was worst case. He caught sight of them coming out of the brush back into the pasture. Talbot still had the pack on. Holsing led and Alvarez watched him stop near his truck. If he got in it, there was no way to get back across the slope, down there and follow him. They’d been up here twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes, and he saw Holsing was going to leave. He stood near his truck talking to Talbot and Alvarez tried reaching Roberts.
‘Come on, Melinda, answer,’ but the call kept dropping after one ring. Marquez would be all over him for going out here alone, especially with drugs possibly in the picture. Marquez was getting more conservative and as he thought it over it made sense to search for whatever they had visited up here. If it was a meth lab, Holsing could do serious time, much more than he’d get for poaching sturgeon. I’m going for it, he thought.
He followed the stream down and when it happened, it was like, bang. He came around a tree and there it was, a little dam, a grow field, and a bunch of trash. He was looking at maybe two hundred marijuana plants. He got his phone out, took pictures, and wouldn’t need to hang out here long. He could easily find his way back. He’d bring Marquez, Roberts, and whoever the DEA or county sheriff sent.
He got photos of the dam and where they’d channeled the overflow down into the plants. Black plastic irrigation hose ran down between the rows. Bags of fertilizer were stacked along one side. He took a picture of a pump and a generator and a five gallon gas can resting on a dirt bench cut into the slope, then started back up, hurrying, because who knows, maybe he’d still make it back in time to follow Holsing or give Roberts a heads-up as Holsing drove out.
Several years ago a warden had been shot and wounded at a grow field in Palo Alto, but he figured the footprints on the deer trail were Talbot’s, though the pack Talbot carried could be supplies for someone taking care of the plants. He watched ahead, didn’t expect anybody, but watched anyway and still hurried. He made more noise than when he came down. He took another careful look upslope before climbing on to an open grassy patch, and there he stopped long enough to text Roberts. Sometimes a text message went through when you couldn’t make a phone call work. we’ve got Holsing nailed. he got
Alvarez never finished the message but he did press Send as he spotted a man up the steep slope thirty yards standing between two trees. He reached for his badge instead of his gun, and he got the badge up and heard a shot as he felt a blow and a burning in his chest. When he tried to breathe he couldn’t and the sharp burning spread rapidly under his ribs as he sat down. His badge dropped and he fell back and tried to roll on his side, getting some air, not much, and feeling for the wound, knowing it was bad and scared. His kids were at home. Didn’t want to die over a grow field. He pressed against the wound with his left hand and tried to get his gun loose, but couldn’t seem to do it, couldn’t make his fingers work.
His hand slipped off the holster as a man leaned over him and blocked the sun. Alvarez saw the man’s face and then the barrel of a rifle. He tried to speak, tried to reach his badge. He moved bloody fingers across the grass trying to find his badge, and then saw the barrel adjusting and cried out and moved his hand through sunlight toward the rifle barrel as the finger on the trigger gently squeezed.