Virgin River. Робин Карр

Scales, generators, ATVs for getting off-road and back into secretive hideaways buried in the forest. There were merchants around who displayed signs in their windows that said, CAMP Not Served Here. CAMP being the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting that was a joint operation between the County Sheriff’s Department and the state of California. Clear River was a town that didn’t like CAMP and didn’t mind taking the growers’ money, of which there was a lot. Charmaine didn’t approve of the illegal growing, but Butch wouldn’t turn down a stinky bill.

      Virgin River was not that kind of town.

      Growers usually maintained low profiles and didn’t cause problems, not wanting to be raided. But sometimes there were territorial conflicts between them or booby-trapped grows, either one of which could hurt an innocent citizen. There were drug-related crimes ranging from burglary or robbery to murder. Not so long ago they found the body of a grower’s partner buried in the woods near Garberville; he’d been missing for over two years and the grower himself had always been a suspect.

      You couldn’t find anything in Virgin River that would encourage an illegal crop, one means of keeping them away. If there were any growers in town, they were real, real secret. Virgin River tended to push this sort away. But this wasn’t the first one to pass by.

      “Tell you what,” Jack said to the man, making long and serious eye contact. “On the house this time.”

      “Thanks,” he said, folding his bill back onto the wad and stuffing it in his pocket. He turned to go.

      “And buddy?” Jack called as the man reached the door to leave. He turned and Jack said, “Sheriff’s deputy and California Highway Patrol eat and drink on the house in my place.”

      The man’s shoulders rose once with a silent huff of laughter. He was on notice. He touched the brim of his hat and left.

      Jack walked around the bar and looked out the window to see the man get into a black late model Range Rover, supercharged, big wheels jacked up real high, windows tinted, lights on the roof. That model would go for nearly a hundred grand. This guy was no hobbyist. He memorized the license plate.

      Preacher was rolling out pie dough when Jack went into the kitchen. “I just served a guy who tried to pay for his drinks with a wad of stinky Bens as big as my fist,” Jack told him.

      “Crap.”

      “He’s driving a new Range Rover, loaded, jacked up and lit up. Big guy.”

      “You think he’s growing around town here?”

      “Have no idea,” Jack said. “We better pay attention. Next time the deputy’s in town, I’ll mention it. But it’s not against the law to have stinky money or drive a big truck.”

      “If he’s rich, it’s probably not a small operation,” Preacher said.

      “He’s got a bulldog tattoo on his upper right arm.”

      Preacher frowned. “You kind of hate to see a brother go that way.”

      “Yeah, tell me about it. Maybe he’s not in business around here. He could have been just scoping out the town to see if this is a good place to set up. I think I sent the message that it’s not. I told him law enforcement eats and drinks on the house.”

      Preacher smiled. “We should start doing that, then,” he said.

      “How about a discount, to start? We don’t want to get crazy.”

      Mel got her sister Joey on the phone.

      “Oh, Jesus, Mel! You scared me to death! Where have you been? Why didn’t you call sooner?”

      “I’ve been in Virgin River where I have no phone and my cell doesn’t work. And I’ve been pretty busy.”

      “I was about to call out the National Guard!”

      “Yeah? Well, don’t bother. They’d never be able to find the place.”

      “You’re all right?”

      “Well… This will probably make you perversely happy,” Mel told her. “You were right. I shouldn’t have done this. I was nuts. As usual.”

      “Is it terrible?”

      “Well, it definitely started out terrible—the free housing turned out to be a falling-down hovel and the doctor is a mean old coot who doesn’t want any help in his practice. I was on my way out of town when— you’ll never believe this—someone left an abandoned newborn on the doctor’s porch. But things have improved, if slightly. I’m staying for at least a few more days to help with the baby. The old doc wouldn’t wake up to those middle-of-the-night hunger cries. Oh, Joey, my first impression of him is that he was the poorest excuse for a town doctor I’d ever met. Mean as a snake, rude as sour milk. Fortunately, working with those L.A. medical residents, especially those dicky surgeons, prepared me nicely.”

      “Okay, that was your first impression. How has it changed?”

      “He proves tractable. Since my housing was uninhabitable, I’m staying in the guest room in his house. It’s actually set up to be the only hospital room in town. This house is fine—clean and functional. There could be a slight inconvenience at any moment—a young woman who asked me to deliver her first baby will be having it here—in my bedroom, which I share with the abandoned baby. Picture this—a post-partum patient and a full nursery.”

      “And you will sleep where?”

      “I’ll probably hang myself up in a corner and sleep standing up. But that’s only if she delivers within the next week, while I’m still here. Surely a family will turn up to foster this baby soon. Although, I wouldn’t mind a birth. A sweet, happy birth to loving, excited, healthy parents…”

      “You don’t have to stay for that,” Joey said firmly. “It’s not as though they don’t have a doctor.”

      “I know—but she’s so young. And she was so happy, thinking there was a woman doctor here who could deliver her rather than this ornery old man.”

      “Mel, I want you to get in your car and drive. Come to us. Where we can look after you for a while.”

      “I don’t need looking after,” she said with a laugh. “Work helps. I need to work. Whole hours go by without thinking about Mark.”

      “How are you doing with that?”

      She sighed deeply. “That’s another thing. No one here knows, so no one looks at me with those sad, pitying eyes. And since they don’t look at me that way, I don’t crumble so often. At least, not where anyone can see.”

      “Oh, Mel, I wish I could comfort you somehow…”

      “But Joey, I have to grieve this, it’s the only way. And I have to live with the fact that I might never be over it.”

      “I hope that’s not true, Mel. I know widows. I know widows who have remarried and are happy.”

      “We’re not going there,” she said. Then Mel told Joey about what she knew of the town, about all the people who’d been drifting into Doc’s house just to get a look at her, about Jack and Preacher. And about how many more stars there were out here. The mountains; the air, so clean and sharp it almost took you by surprise. About the people who came to the doctor bringing things, like tons of food, a lot of which went right across the street to the bar where Preacher used it in his creations; about how Jack refused to take a dime from either Doc or Mel for food or drink. Anyone who cared for the town had a free meal ticket over there.

      “But it’s very rural. Doc put in a call to the county social services agency, but I gather we’re on a waiting list—they may not figure out foster care for who knows how long. Frankly, I don’t know how the old doc made it without any help all these years.”

      “People nice?” Joey asked. “Other than the doctor?”

      “The ones I’ve met—very. But the main reason