Dead Man's Bones (14 page)

If you’re guessing that Pecan Springs was settled by Germans, you’ve guessed right. These sturdy, God-fearing people came to Texas in the 1840s and ’50s, taking passage on wooden ships to Corpus Christi, then trekking overland by wagon and horseback. They brought with them their axes and knives and plows, their Bibles and bags of seed, their skills in carpentry and smithing and wagon building, their disciplined habits of work and their stern morality. They came in search of self-determination and a better life, but most of all, land. The ones who survived—those who were adaptable, resourceful, and lucky—got all three.

They settled first at New Braunfels, on the Balcones Escarpment. The rich blackland prairie lay flat and fertile to the east and the hills and canyons of the Edwards Plateau rose to the west, the uplands blanketed with cedar, with pecan and hackberry and cypress growing green along the creeks. Life wasn’t easy, for the settlers hadn’t watched any reality TV shows or read any do-it-yourself books and weren’t quite prepared to be pioneers. This can be a brutal land, especially when you don’t have air-conditioning in the summer and central heat in the winter. But there were plentiful artesian springs and a long growing season, and some of the settlers were adventurous enough to move west and north, building towns like Boerne and Fredericksburg and San Marcos. They also built Pecan Springs, and eventually the courthouse square and the shops around it.

It was one of those shops I had come to visit, Good Earth Goods, which is owned and operated by Colin Fowler. I had dropped in before, when the shop first opened, and came away with a fairly favorable impression. In general, I think it’s smart to buy environmentally sensitive products, although the Good Earth items struck me as pricey. I prefer to find less expensive ways to be kind to the environment. However, I was on a reconnaissance mission this afternoon—to get a clearer fix on Colin—and price was no object. How much can a couple of environmentally friendly lightbulbs cost, anyway?

Thirty-seven bucks, that’s what.

“These are CFLs,” Colin Fowler told me, noticing the telltale pain of sticker shock on my face. “Compact fluorescents. They use about a quarter of the electricity to provide the same amount of light, so they significantly lower the pollution and carbon dioxide emissions that result when fossil fuels are burned to make electricity. Not only that, but they lower your electrical bill. And since they last several times longer than ordinary bulbs, less raw material is required to make them.”

“Well, I’m for that,” I managed. I took out my environmentally insensitive plastic credit card and handed it to him, along with the bag of basil. “From my garden,” I said. “Live long and pesto.”

“You brought this for me?” he asked, looking pleased. He put his face in the bag and inhaled deeply. “Hey, this is terrific! Thanks, China.”

“A natural high,” I said, “and legal.”

“There aren’t enough of those,” he said, smiling. Studying his face, I could see what had attracted Ruby. Colin Fowler is definitely a good-looking man, with a strong-featured face, high cheekbones, chestnut-brown hair worn a little long, and dark eyes. He’s six-feet and then some, which makes him taller than Ruby (a real plus for her, I’m sure). He has the build of a man who works out regularly and often. He smiles easily and seems outgoing and friendly, although it seemed to me that the smile on his mouth wasn’t quite reaching his eyes. He was wearing jeans and rope sandals and his T-shirt, naturally green, said “Legalize Hemp.”

Legalize Hemp.
It’s not a slogan you see much of around here, where the T-shirts promote Lonestar Long-necks and the Pecan Springs Panthers. Most guys wear cowboy boots, too, not sandals, and they’d rather chew tobacco than sniff basil—in fact, most of them wouldn’t be caught dead sniffing basil. But all this was probably part of Colin’s attraction for Ruby, who doesn’t have much use for your average Pecan Springs macho male.

However, as I glanced from his T-shirt to his dark eyes, I caught a glimpse of something unsettling. It wasn’t just the absence of smile, but a distrustful, watchful wariness, the look of a man whose life has taken him into the shadows, who has seen a great many ugly sights and would not be surprised when he saw them again. It was just a glimpse, so brief that I could not be sure what I had seen. And then he lowered his glance.

“Did you see Ruby’s shiner?” he asked casually, running my credit card through the machine.

“Hey, how could I miss it?” I made my voice light, matching his. He was still looking down, punching numbers, and I couldn’t read his expression. “She’s hoping that some stage makeup will take care of the problem tomorrow night, but I have my doubts.”

He handed back my card. “I feel just awful about it. The whole thing was my fault, you know.”

“It was?” I felt distinctly uneasy.

“Yeah. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d turned on the light in the hall. Or if I hadn’t left the bathroom door open. Poor kid walked right into it.”

I managed a laugh. “The oldest story in the world.”

He gave an odd, quirky shrug, then echoed my laugh, tore off the credit card slip, and pushed it toward me. “An old story but true, so help me God.” He was making this into a joke. “I’ll admit to my share of skirmishes, but I’ve never yet cuffed a woman.”

“Of course not.” I gave him back the slip, signed. “Trouble is, Ruby said it was the pantry door. You guys had better synchronize your stories.” Without giving him time to respond, I glanced at his T-shirt. “You’re a hemp activist, huh?”

“You bet,” he said, straight-faced and serious now. “There’s our display.” He pointed. “If you’re into subtle ironies, we’ve even got a U.S. flag made of hemp.”

I turned around. One whole wall of the small shop was devoted to a display of hemp products. Shirts, shorts, pants, sandals (exactly like the pair Colin was wearing), fabric, paper, rope, soaps, food products. And the flag.

“Quite a collection,” I said, meaning it. “How are people taking it?”

Pecan Springs is, by and large, a conservative town, and some people would be suspicious of hemp products, “all-natural” or not, legal or not. It’s illegal to grow hemp in the U.S., but it’s not illegal to sell or purchase hemp products imported from other countries. Go figure.

However, CTSU is just up the hill, and no doubt the hemp items were popular among students. And among the liberals in town and in such nearby art colonies as Wimberley and Gruene, who would be delighted to show off their new pair of hemp shorts, or their “Legalize Hemp” T-shirt. Some of them would even be happy to wear a cap that said “Legalize Marijuana,” although we have our share of drug problems here, close as we are to the border and to the drug pipeline that runs from Mexico through Texas to points north. Tons of high-grade Colombian dope—hidden in boxes of clothing, cheap coffeemakers, made-in-Mexico furniture—are smuggled through the border checkpoints by
pasadores,
border crossers, with the connivance of a few inspectors and crooked cops. McQuaid had been investigating just such a criminal arrangement when he was shot, and although his work put an end to one bunch of bad guys, there were plenty more where they came from, living and dealing in the dark places.

Colin was pointing to a poster behind the counter. “As you can see,” he said, “I’m an active member of the Hemp Industries Association. Hemp has been legalized in Canada, and we’re working for legalization here.” He leaned against the counter, regarding me. “You’re into herbs, China. So I suppose you know the story.” He grinned a little. “Or maybe you don’t. Cannabis doesn’t exactly qualify as a poster plant for the Herb Society of America.”

“I know the story,” I said, “or at least, the outline.”

For thousands of years,
Cannabis sativa
was one of the world’s most important all-purpose plants, yielding fiber, oil, food, medicine—and, yes, a psychoactive narcotic—to cultures around the globe. It was primarily the fiber, called hemp, that made this plant so vitally important to humans. Throughout our existence, far more clothing has been produced from hemp than from cotton, flax, or wool—comfortable clothing, too, clothing that absorbs moisture, softens with washing, and doesn’t need much ironing. And until the late nineteenth century, all the sails, ropes, riggings, and nets carried on all the ships of the world were made from hemp. In fact, our English word
canvas
is derived from the Latin word
cannabis
. Without hemp, Columbus could not have discovered America; Magellan wouldn’t have had a prayer of sailing around the world; and the English fleet would not have defeated the Spanish Armada. Without hemp, it is safe to say, there would have been no British Empire.

The American colonies relied on hemp, just as did the Old World. Thomas Paine listed hemp as one of the new nation’s four essential natural resources, which also included iron, timber, and tar. Thomas Jefferson thought it was far more sensible to grow cannabis than to grow tobacco (“which is never useful,” he remarked judiciously, “and sometimes pernicious”). And when Benjamin Franklin started his first paper mill, the fiber he used was hemp, thereby allowing America to have a colonial press without having to obtain paper (and permission) from England.

It’s a different story in America now, of course. The legitimate and valuable uses of cannabis were ended in the United States by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937—special interest legislation that, many historians say, was aimed to boost the synthetic fibers and pulp-timber industries by criminalizing their major competitor, hemp.

Meanwhile, hemp is legally grown in over thirty countries, including Canada, England, Germany, Australia, and France. Its proponents call it a “miracle” plant—not far off the mark, for hemp fiber is now used to produce a strong, lightweight fiberglass-like material, as well as textiles, paper, building materials, carpeting, even circuit boards.

But Colin was right. Cannabis will never be celebrated by those of us who think of herbs as the teddy bears of the plant world: sweet little warm-and-fuzzies that brighten our gardens, perk up our food, heal our ailments, and offer nothing but good. We can’t think of cannabis that way, or the other two powerful herbal narcotics, opium and cacao.

I picked up my sack of thirty-seven-dollar lightbulbs. “Thanks, Colin.”

“Sure.” He grinned. “And thanks for the basil. I’ve got some salmon left over from last night’s dinner—it’ll be perfect, cold, with pesto mayo.”

Not just a gourmet, but a creative gourmet. And, despite the slight inconsistency in their stories, I seriously doubted that Colin was responsible for Ruby’s shiner. I could be wrong, but I met plenty of abusers in my career as a lawyer, and this man didn’t strike me as quite the type. There was that odd, watchful wariness, though, as if he were mentally watching his back—hardly the look of a man who was completely comfortable with his life. I had the feeling that, one way or another, Ruby’s love affair wasn’t destined to run smoothly.

 
COLIN’S mention of pesto mayo—a simple thing, really, just mayonnaise, homemade or store-bought, blended with pesto—gave me an idea. I had planned to have spaghetti for supper, but on the way home, I stopped at Cavette’s Grocery—a family store that has somehow survived the supermarket blitzkrieg—and bought chicken breasts, sourdough rolls, and fresh spinach. While I was picking up a bottle of zinfandel, I ran into Marian Atkins and Jean Davenport. Marian was trying to decide between a red and a white wine. With a puzzled look, she held out both.

“Jean and I are having chicken cacciatore tonight. Jean says white for chicken, I say red for tomato sauce. What do you think?”

“Well, if it were me,” I said, pointing to the cabernet sauvignon in her right hand, “I’d go for that nice dry red.” It bore the Falls Creek Vineyards label, one of our fine Texas wineries. “I’d use it in the cacciatore, too. But I’m not much of a wine connoisseur,” I added, as she put the white wine back on the shelf. “You might prefer something else.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Marian said. She’s in her early forties, shorter than I, with broad shoulders and practically no waist. Her blonde hair, darker at the roots and permed to a crinkle, was disheveled, and her flushed face was the color of her cranberry shirt. A pale sheen of perspiration shimmered on her forehead, whether from heat or stress, I couldn’t tell.

“Let’s get both.” Jean reached for the bottle of white and put it into their basket, pointing to a package of frozen chicken cacciatore. “We’re not actually cooking the chicken. All we have to do is stick this stuff in the microwave—which is just about all either of us can handle these days.” Jean, too, looked hot and disheveled, which is unusual for her. She’s a cool lady. When the whole play cast is losing their collective and individual heads, she keeps hers.

“Play’s got you guys down, huh?” I asked sympathetically. “Hang in there. It’ll all be over in three more weeks.”

Marian waggled her hand. “The play is . . . well, we’ve done everything we can do. It’s in the hands of the gods.”

“And it may not run for three weeks,” Jean said wearily. “It may close after opening night.”

Marian pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes with a look of combined irritation, impatience, and annoyance. “The problem is Jane Obermann. I suppose you know she sacked Duane Redmond and replaced him with Max Baumeister?” Her tone grew bitter. “Max reminds her of her father. It’s that mustache, I suppose, and his little gold glasses. And the fact that he’s an old acquaintance. The family dentist, as I understand it.”

From the tautness of her voice, I’d say that Marian was definitely stressed out. She needed to go home, open that wine, and put her feet up. “Ruby said Max was having some trouble getting into the role,” I remarked.

“Trouble!” Marian gave a disgusted snort. “I’ll tell you, China, if it weren’t for Ruby, we’d be in a helluva mess. She’s taken her role and made it into something special—with Jean’s help, of course.”