Border Songs (7 page)

Norm scrambled for a neutral subject. “Madeline still racing?” The thought of her sailing was one of his favorite images for reasons he couldn’t place, but there it was—little Madeline Rousseau, shifting her weight to rock her boat and create her own wind, arriving at the marina a mile ahead of her becalmed competition. “She still racing Lasers?” he pressed when Brandon didn’t respond. “One hell of a sailor,” he added, as if defending the question.

He decided right then not to tell anyone about the mastitis just yet. The longer he kept the severity to himself, the less real it seemed—even if it coiled inside him like a scream. He imagined his herd, led by old Pearl herself, marching up the slaughter chute. Then Norm too, the steel bolt crushing the thumb-sized notch at the back of his skull, birds scattering at the pneumatic hiss.

M
ADELINE KNEW
the guard ducks wouldn’t shut up until long after she’d closed the trapdoor beneath the garage of the well-kept rental house nobody lived in on the western outskirts of Abbotsford.

The ducks were Fisher’s brainstorm. A dog they’d have to feed, train and walk, but if they built a shallow pond and planted barley and buckwheat, the mallards would come. And there was no more delicate or reliable alarm system, he insisted, than nervous mallards.

She felt the familiar rush of fear and excitement as the hatch clanked into place above her and muffled the quacking, leaving her with the ruckus of rustling PVC pipes, humming lights and a hissing CO2 generator. It was sweaty-hot, the moist air ripe with too many plants growing and exhaling in too small a space.

When Fisher first led her into this dungeon he’d acted like he was showing her some sunken treasure. The cockiness of pot growers astounded her, everyone was so self-congratulatory about growing hearty weeds that would stand five feet in September if you tossed seeds behind the barn in May. Still, they fawned over their homely shrubs and sticky flowers as if they were purple orchids.
Please
. Even the most spectacular buds looked like glorified sedge or burweed. Yet pot apparently brainwashed people into thinking it was not only breathtakingly beautiful and smelled heavenly but also channeled the supernatural—hallelujah!—and was worth, pound for pound, more than gold. So they grew these pumped-up clones that maximized speed
and potency such that if you lit one on fire you could forget your name in the time it took for one long inhale.

Theoretically, there wasn’t all that much for her to do other than prune, harvest, clip and cure. Timers and pumps watered and fed the plants the nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus they would’ve absorbed naturally if they’d been rooted in soil instead of rock wool. And six-hundred-watt bulbs delivered as much fake sunshine as the plants could handle. Still, there were so many things that could go wrong. If the power failed, everything died within twenty-four hours. Too many nutrients? The plants suffered heart attacks. She studied watermarks in the low ceiling. If water dripped onto the sodium lights, they’d explode.

Madeline hadn’t been here in five days. It didn’t look like anyone else had, either, except to cram more plants inside. Fisher had promised a max of four hundred. Right. There was barely enough room to get around the tables. After counting more than five hundred wide-leafed clones quivering in a fake two-knot breeze, she considered climbing out for good instead of being trapped inside when the trigger-fingered Mounties showed up wired on bad coffee. Fisher admitted he was juggling more than ten grows, which probably meant over twenty. But he insisted this was their baby, their safest op. Sure.

Dozens of baby clones—still trapped beneath humidity domes—should have been replanted days ago. And half the plants in the vegetation room belonged in the flowering room. She checked the thermostat: ninety-three. Far too hot, particularly considering that the rooms weren’t adequately divided. She was supposed to harvest quadrant four, but most of quad three had slid into reproduction, which meant the plants needed darkness. Even a kid’s night-light could ruin them. She studied the gray speckles on the harvest buds. Mold? Even worse, gnats! It was too late. A cloud of them drifted in her direction. She gasped, inhaling the tiny bugs, fanning her Expos hat and backpedaling until she bumped into the concrete wall. Once they scattered, she rubbed her face, coughed and blew her nose. When she risked opening her eyes again she saw a dozen greenhouse whiteflies, then dozens
more. She fanned another gnat cloud while snipping and bagging buds as fast as she could.

Was this the double or nothing she’d been craving—this chance to rise above the oncoming rut of credit cards, mortgages and meaningless jobs? And do what? Travel! Yes, travel. Maybe she’d start in Indonesia—Bali!—and then crew on some exotic schooner headed even farther south. Sydney, then what? The exhilarating unknown. That’s what. But the only daydream she could sustain in this hot, buggy hole involved prison.

She’d received only two U.S. hundreds—real convenient—for her prior six visits. Today, Fisher promised, she’d be paid in full, including her cut of the successful run the night Brandon’s call rescued her from the foot freak.

Her intuition kept screaming at her to climb out. Now! But she was still furiously clipping and bagging buds, fending off real and imagined insects, when the ducks fired up again, first in random solos, then in riotous quacking unison. Shit! She turned up the baby monitor and panted until she heard Fisher’s familiar mumble into the microphone stashed behind the bicycles: “Jus’ me, Madness.”

He had a nickname for everyone, and apparently there was nothing you could do about it. But he was easy to like, and while he didn’t look like the sort you went into business with, he wasn’t the type you worried about either. When she climbed up, he appeared to be staggering from some joke. Lizard-thin in expensive jeans and green fleece, he had a smoked, wrung-out look, his skin as dry as jerky. What startled her was that he wasn’t alone.

She’d made it clear she didn’t want to meet anyone, which of course was another part of the deal that had already been broken, although he’d apologized so profusely about sending Monty to her nursery that she’d asked him to drop it.

“Who the hell’s this?” she said, not caring how it sounded, twitchy from her fingertips to her lips, heart hammering, jaw wiggling, ready to shout.

“Easy, Madeline. This is Toby. And this is …” He laughed awkwardly. “Well, this is his show.”

Toby bowed slightly with the confidence of a senator in his gray T-shirt, corduroy shorts and sockless slip-ons. He wasn’t all that large, but brawny, with neck muscles that angled up like rebar, and his bright, deep-set eyes looked as if they’d been screwed in too tight.

“If it is,” Madeline snapped, “your show sucks big-time.”

Fisher patted the air in front of him until Toby held up a palm as if testifying. “Thanks for all your work. Really. You are very good. And yes, this one has a ways to go.”

She ignored his calming, pilotlike tenor and unloaded on Fisher. “You got fucking gnats down there like I said you would. And you’ve got too many plants on too many schedules and the whole thing’s way too hot. And, if you haven’t noticed, you’ve already waited too long on replanting half of—”

Fisher shushed her. “That’s one of the reasons—”

“She’s right,” Toby said before Fisher could finish or she could reload, “on all counts.” He handed her a tiny tube of aloe vera. “It’s new. Keep it.”

She opened it, dabbed some on her face and slid it into her jeans without thanking him. “You’ve got whiteflies down there too.”

Fisher wondered aloud which pesticide would do the trick.

“Can’t use insecticides on anything you smoke,” Toby told him, “especially when you’re calling it organic.” He rocked his shoulders, and slabs of muscle shifted beneath his shirt. “Seeing how the room is sealed, we can up the CO2 levels to ten thousand parts per million for forty-five minutes. If that doesn’t work we’ll bring in ladybugs.”

“Beautiful,” Madeline said. “Then you’ll have another infestation.”

“They’re easy to vacuum.” Toby grinned. “Then you just seal the bag and store them in the fridge till you need ’em again.”

“We cool, Madness?” Fisher thumbed through a roll of hundreds. “It’s my fault,” he said, lip-counting to twelve. “We’ll get you everything you need by Wednesday. Cool?”

She didn’t concede anything, though her anger was dissipating
faster than she would have liked. What she desired now was a peaceful exit, without telling anyone off, without even admitting she was
out
.

“What do you think of Fisher’s ducks?” Toby asked.

“Ingenious.”

Fisher turned to Toby. “You said you loved the idea.”

“A few ducks, sure.” He carefully applied ChapStick. “But you got a marching band out here.”

“You start harvesting yet?” Fisher asked Madeline.

“Uh-huh.”

“Pretty sweet buds, eh?”

“Not really.”

Fisher acted like he hadn’t heard. “Toby handles all the loads.”

“Yeah?” Madeline slid the thick fold of hundreds into a back pocket and inched toward the door.

“Fifty-nine by land,” Toby said, “eighteen by air, six by sea. And I’ve overseen three times that many.”

The more specific the details, Madeline’s father had taught her, the more thorough the lies.

“Any close calls?” Fisher asked.

She wanted to spare them the recruitment routine but couldn’t bring herself to interrupt.

“People only get caught if they’re reckless or wasted.” Toby raised a thick eyebrow. “It’s not something you do stoned or out of shape. Fact is, even morons usually don’t get caught unless they pull up to Peace Arch when the drug dogs are out. Then anyone’s screwed. Their best dogs can smell a seed beneath your floor mat when you roll by at twenty.”

Madeline liked his voice. Maybe she was overreacting to a few gnat bites. Who knew better than her that only dumbshits got caught crossing a ditch she’d lived alongside most of her life? And she
did
just get paid, didn’t she? And when you compared it to nursery money …

“There are always risks.” Toby bounced from flexed quad to flexed quad. “But do you think the guy who buys a 7-Eleven or opens a bar doesn’t have risks? Or the logger? The crabber? Think they aren’t gambling?
I’ve got my worries, but I own three houses outright and I’ve got two good lawyers if problems arise.”

“If you’ve already got three houses,” Madeline asked, “why still mess with all this?”

“It’s my profession. I take pride in mine just as an engineer or carpenter or doctor takes pride in his. I drive this stretch of the border ten times a week. I talk to hunters, hikers and tugboat captains. And I probably know enough about dairy and raspberry farming to pinch-hit at either. I also know the names and habits of at least half the residents—their dogs, too—along Zero and Boundary.”

She noticed that his tiny teeth looked out of place on his broad face, and realized she was taking mental notes for Sophie Winslow. What an odd request—Sophie pulling her aside after that bizarre bunco gathering to ask her to help keep her informed. About what? “About everything, hon.” She got so close Madeline could smell the wine on her breath. “What you see and hear. I collect all the details.” Then she’d cupped the back of Madeline’s skull and kissed her nose, as if blessing her.

“I chart the weather and the tides and how bright the moon’s likely to be on any given night,” Toby went on. “And I use spotters with Gen Three night goggles and surveillance scopes. When there’s no BP within fifteen minutes of our location, we go. It used to be as simple as waiting till midnight, but the sector has eighty-two BPs now and night shifts too. So you gotta know the agents, which isn’t easy because a third of them are new. Still, I could spot most of ’em out of uniform from thirty yards, and I’ve memorized the sounds of their rigs, and I know where they like to park and how they burn time—which ones spit seeds, which ones smoke, which ones play the deterrence game, which ones do their best to see absolutely nothing. I’ve done well, but I’m not in it for the money. It doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to feel it here.” He patted his chest with an open palm and sucked air through his little teeth. “The way I look at it, I’m delivering a medicinal herb to a neighbor who desperately needs it.”

She smothered a laugh.

Toby studied her face, as if measuring it for a mask. “We need more capable people willing to hump it across the water, because that’s the safest route.”

“Yeah?” She glanced at Fisher.

“I’m willing to pay extra for skilled people willing to deliver by boat, especially by sailboat.”

She caught Fisher grinning, his eyes glittering.

“Understand you sail,” Toby ventured.

“No,” she said.

Toby slow-eyed Fisher, who instantly reddened.

“I race,” she said. “There’s a difference. So, what do you know,” she couldn’t resist asking, “about that new agent who tackled those illegals just over the border a week ago?”

Toby hesitated. “The big guy?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I’m told he spends a lot of time in the woods, but do I know his name? Is that what you’re asking? I know he’s been in the sector since—”

“Brandon,” Madeline interrupted as several ducks started squawking.

“That’s his name?” Toby leaned toward her, his eyeballs straining.

“Brandon Vanderkool. Got homeschooled his last few years of high school and somehow passed the GED. Helped out on his dad’s dairy until last fall. We used to play together, seeing as how our folks lived across from each other back when nobody cared about the border.”

Toby stretched his neck, tugging gently on his curls. “You used to play with him?”

“You could call it that.”

“He’s huge. Much of an athlete?”

“Could hit a baseball a hundred meters but didn’t know his right from his left, so occasionally he’d run straight to third base instead of first.”

Fisher laughed. “What else?”

“He carries flies and spiders out of his house in his hands.”

“A Buddhist?” Toby asked. “No.”

“A gentle giant?” Fisher asked. “You could say that. An artist too.” “Yeah? What kind?”