As if reading her thoughts, Spike suddenly snorted out a kind of sigh himself.
Mary Catherine laughed as she scratched Spike between his ears.
“C’mon, old friend,” she said. “It’s getting late. I
guess it’s time for us poor workhorses to get going. Time to head them off at the pass.”
CHAPTER 39
MARY CATHERINE GOT LOST on her way back to Cody’s farm.
It was her own dumb fault. As she led Spike through a stand of cypress and black oak, she’d spotted a smaller trail off the main one that she thought looked like a shortcut. But it wasn’t. After a while, the path started going up instead of down and turning in the wrong direction, north instead of south.
She was just about to give up on it, about half a mile in, when there was a rustle on her right and a man stepped out onto the trail behind her. Spike, startled, wheeled around, rearing back on his hind legs, almost throwing her.
Mary Catherine managed to calm the horse and get him completely turned around. She sat there, blinking at the figure. He was a scraggly, thin, young white guy in jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off. Beneath his khaki bush hat, long brown hair fell to his shoulders.
There was also an olive-colored strap over his arm, and then she saw the black barrel of the rifle sticking up over his back.
Gun! she thought, freaking out. The cartel! They were here! We’ve been found out!
“Can I help you?” the young man said, something sharp in his voice.
Not the cartel? Some maniac, then? Mary Catherine thought, still round eyed and frozen in the saddle. An off-the-reservation militia person?
Then she realized it. Why he seemed angry. She actually clapped a hand to her forehead.
“Oh, no. I rode onto your property, didn’t I?” Mary Catherine said. “I’m so sorry. I’m staying at Aaron Cody’s place, and I went out for a morning ride. I thought this was a shortcut back. I’m such an idiot. I didn’t mean to trespass.”
“Oh, Mr. Cody’s. I see,” the guy said, the tension in his voice immediately gone.
He tipped back his hat and smiled, and Mary Catherine suddenly noticed how young he was. He was just a cute sixteen- or seventeen-year-old kid.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I’m Kevin. Kevin Norberg, Mr. Cody’s neighbor. You did wander onto our property, but don’t worry about it. The property lines are tricky. There actually is a shortcut back to Mr. Cody’s ranch, through our farm. I’ll show it to you if you want.”
Mary Catherine paused for a beat, then took a breath.
“OK,” she said. “Thanks.”
She followed the kid off the path. She stared at the gun. It looked like a deer rifle. Was he out hunting? Spike hesitated once as the dirt trail descended through a gap in an outcropping of rocks, but she finally encouraged him to go through.
When they came out on the other side, Mary Catherine saw what at first she thought was a grove of tightly grown baby evergreen trees. But as she got closer, she could see that the long, neat rows of green weren’t trees at all but plants. Plants about nine feet high, with leaves that had long, thin light-green fingers and purplish buds with a strong, sweet smell, almost fruity.
It was marijuana, Mary Catherine realized when she took a breath. Acres upon acres of pungent marijuana.
She remembered then what Brian had told her about the encounter at the food bank. The kids there claiming that marijuana was the area’s largest crop. She looked out at the green sea of pot they were skirting. She knew that California’s Central Valley grew a huge amount of the country’s food, but that wasn’t the only thing the valley was supplying to the nation, apparently.
Is it actually legal? she wondered. A medical-marijuana farm?
Kevin, leading the way ahead of her, certainly didn’t act like his family farm had anything to hide. He couldn’t have been calmer if they had been strolling through Central Park. Or was that because of the rifle on his back?
Mary Catherine decided to keep her questions to herself.
“You sit that horse well, ma’am,” Kevin said as they walked through the forest of cannabis. “Are you working for Mr. Cody?”
“No, just, um, visiting,” Mary Catherine said as calmly as she could.
“From where? Scotland?”