Autumn Tides: Part III
As though the book writes itself, my last journal entry from the pot farm read:
“Wildfire took the ranch by storm. Never felt so helpless. I can’t change, and I don’t know why.”
I don’t know who started the fire on the farm that day. Hell, I barely knew who I was by the end of the afternoon — I was just the shadow of a girl walking towards a blaze I had no means of stopping, trying to protect an illegal pot farm I should never have been on, with a man I should never have been in love with.
It was fall on Murder Mountain, and the leaves were just beginning to change. I used to consider autumn an explosive, fleeting season; nothing like its predecessor, summer, with its long days and playful, endless shadows.
As a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander growing up on a tidal creek, I’d swoon over the trees along the shoreline, popping into fluorescent earth tones, “like fireworks!” I’d exclaim. Then, as quickly as they turned, the leaves were gone. Coastal nor’easters would blow the atomic-orange and crimson leaves into the water, where they’d float like tiny, multicolored boats ready for their next port. I couldn’t help but feel for the trees left behind — spindly, stripped and ill-prepared for winter.
Like most of my New England counterparts, I lamented the briefness of autumn — a short burst of beauty we all wished we could hold onto a little longer. It wasn’t until I got sober that I realized I’d spent decades misunderstanding the season and projecting my fear of change onto nature itself. Not until my life slowed down enough for me to observe the slow seeping of color on a single autumn leaf, oozing into the center of its own ribcage, did I realize there is nothing explosive or fleeting about fall at all.
On the contrary, the way that autumn transpires is how most things change. It’s a series of incremental movements, often invisible to the naked eye. It’s not until we take a step back that the threshold of our consciousness becomes aware of the shift, and we can no longer deny its presence. Similar to the way a high tide ebbs, a crescent moon wanes — or a single spark ignites to become a roaring wildfire.
We never did see that spark; by the time I arrived for what I thought would be a quick check on the plants, the blaze was well underway. As my boss raced up the backside of Murder Mountain on his motorcycle, I followed his orders on foot, leaving my Jeep behind.
“Walk toward the fire. See how much time we have to get to the patch,” he had said.
There was a short stretch of dirt road between me and the fire, separated by a cattle gate. I shimmied my body around the closure, moving towards the billowing smoke and growing inferno.
The sheer heat of the flames almost stunned me into retreat, but I pressed on. Adrenaline carried my boots further around the bend until I could fully see the scope and severity of the fire.
Each plot of land we grew marijuana on had a name. The property in most immediate danger was called “The Bluff” to reflect its isolation and steep soil erosion on either side. The Bluff had over 300 plants, standing six feet tall, just two weeks away from harvest. Each hulking green giant yielded at least one pound of weed, and we had a buyer lined up to pay $1,200 per pound on the east coast. I stood, helpless, doing the math.
The fire was eating everything in its path, crackling and popping as it consumed the dry, golden grass and madrone trees.
Amid my recon, I noticed the rutted dirt road was acting as a trench, stopping the fire from spreading. I wondered if I could extend the barrier to protect the plants. Mind and heart racing, I turned back towards my vehicle to grab shovels for digging and machetes for harvesting. As I rounded the corner, my boss appeared: tall, blonde, and stressed along the edges but calm at the core.
“Fuck,” he said, thistle-blue eyes looking simultaneously at me and the smoky sky above us.
“Fuck,” I said in agreement, wondering if it was the right time to let him know the apocalypse we were standing in might have been Trevor’s handiwork.
“We’re going to let CalFire in,” he said. “We have to.”
I knew he was right, which, I supposed, meant I could get arrested. I didn’t ask for details; I don’t even remember if I had any fear left to feel.
“Okay,” I said simply. We opened the gate, and within minutes, fire trucks flooded the road, just a couple hundred feet from our giant, criminal cash crop.
My boss never told me to follow his lead, but I understood. Together, we acted like cordial bodyguards, protecting our patch but tacitly complying with the fire department, a rare intersection of anti-government, underground growers coming face-to-face with an establishment connected to the law.
After that day, I became privy to the silent song and dance between growers and officials of Humboldt County. It was a careful balancing act — one in which we were relatively safe if we played by an unwritten set of rules — but if we crossed the line, we were on the radar. I never really knew where the line was, but I could guess that we crossed it often.
Just as I was giving up hope that the fire could ever be contained, a water tanker flew low and loud over our heads like an aluminum superhero. Firefighters gained ground with its arrival and finally extinguished the flames.
The day was over . Trevor was wrong — Wonderland had survived.
When the last fire truck left, the final gate had been secured, and my boss returned to town, I grabbed a beer from the cabin and wandered over to The Bluff by myself. Smoke lingered in the air, and red fire retardant lay starkly synthetic against the charred earth. I took a gulp from my IPA and let it soothe my fumigated throat. Looking at the plants, I searched for the relief I expected. It wasn’t there. As I stood trying to put my finger on what I was feeling, or not feeling, my TracFone rang; it was my boss, and a tired smile crept across my face.
“So,” he said playfully, “should we celebrate our survival?”
I loaded up my dog, Avett, and headed into town to his house in the woods. Music was playing when I walked in. I felt safe — and smitten. There was no way of knowing that he would soon frame me for stealing the hundreds of pounds of weed I’d just helped save — but that’s a story for another time.
That night, we drank. We relished in the day’s drama, likening our lives to the movies as we set up a dinner plate of cocaine on his kitchen counter and danced around the living room. At a glance, there was a rockstar glitz to our outlaw lifestyle. In reality, it was storm after storm at sea, crashing into my body, dragging me closer to wreckage every time. Eventually, we fell into a semi-sleep state on his king-size bed.
Mornings were always excruciating — every one felt like someone had thrown back a curtain to reveal the harshness of reality, or turned on a flood light to illuminate every corner of regret. I’d find myself a prisoner to the clock, waiting for the afternoon so I could drink and drown the morning until night.
Despite the clamor in my head, I softly called for Avett and snuck out before my boss could wake up. I left a hurried note on the counter and cringed at the sight of cocaine residue on rolled-up $100 bills. I squeezed the bridge of my nose as though to check to see if it was still intact.
Flipping on the seat warmers in my Jeep, I headed back up the mountain.
The mountain itself must have had hundreds of illegal pot farms tucked away along the sinuous and sinister roads. None of the ones I lived on had real names or even addresses, but my fellow growers and I gave them various monikers: The Ranch for the ruggedness, The Farm for simplicity, and Neverland for our pirate and lost-boy ways. I’d considered leaving dozens of times over the years, but never did.
As I drove through town, the air felt charged as growers got ready for the impending October harvest. I might’ve joined in mutual, silent excitement, but nausea held me back.
At the last turn before the farm road, I watched a wind eddy transform a pile of leaves into a suspended, weightless spiral. I envied autumn’s ability to turn debris into beauty — and at the same time resented its tangible display of time passing me by.
Later in life, I would learn that leaves don’t fall off trees in autumn; they’re pushed when the tree sends a signal that it’s time to go. The tree makes tens of thousands of tiny cuts where the leaf’s stem meets the branch, forming a protective layer that creates a small, bumpy scar. Those scars push the leaves away, and the tree is left bare, ready for new growth.
That’s how change can be: a thousand cuts that push us past the threshold of who we once were, into a new existence. Change can feel agonizingly slow — microscopic, even, and impossible to grasp. For me, it’s never been the explosion I’ve expected. Instead, it’s a slow seeping of awareness. An old bracelet uncovered in the dirt. An accumulation of wreckage that finally breaks me into surrender.
Not long after the fire, I left the farm and returned to my home on the estuary. It was winter when I arrived, and I stood at the window overlooking the cold, sleepy creek. The marsh grass was matted down and the trees along the shoreline were bare, but for the first time, I appreciated the sanctuary of winter. I was broken and splintered, but I’d brought a flicker of hope, a tiny spark from the flame. I carried it with me as I recovered, and it grew as I healed.
This series reflects the author’s present recollections of experiences over time. Some names and characteristics have been changed, some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been recreated.
