I dedicate this work to my love, Heaven and my son, Darrian…Without your support, I would be nothing.
Lost cries from the Emerald Triangle
By Paul Allih
Copyright ©2010 Paul Allih
Smashwords Edition
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Introduction:
What you are about to read are the passages from a diary that was written by Thomas H. Willis, the head of a farming family that lived in the mountains of Northern California—an area widely known as the "Emerald Triangle". This section is made up of three counties; Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity. The Willis’ resided in Redwood Valley, a part of Mendocino County. With a population just over five thousand people; their nearest neighbors were ten to fifteen miles away.
Those who knew this simple colony referred to them as “nice people”, who were “family oriented”, and who “mostly kept to themselves”. Shock and awe traveled through these remote parts as word spread about the violent standoff.
To this day, some still cannot believe what happened to the family during those hot days of summer. This book is an in depth look inside the lives of the Willis’ before and during their horrific ordeal. The contents are truly the only evidence that remains to what really happened.
The testimony found within these pages takes place over a span of thirteen days in August of 1996.
Day 1:
The morning light broke over the mountains as the silent killers surrounded us. They stalked behind the breeze that flowed through the green valley—haunting the quiet, crisp of the morning air.
There was no sensing them.
They lurked within the tree lines like something alien. Hiding in the brush, the assassins held us in their sights, waiting for their opportune moment to strike.
The day started off like any other.
I was awoken early in the morning by a squawking bird that was perched on a redwood outside of our bedroom window. It chirped with high pitched shrieks that pierced though the comforts of my sleep. With my eyes blurry from crust, I loaded some rounds into my pellet gun and stepped out on to the front porch. The sun hit me like a punch in the face and by the time I blinked a few times the bird had already taken flight. I wasn’t going to shoot it—I just wanted to scare the hell out of it.
Unable to get back to sleep, I made a pot of coffee as Diane continued to slumber—undisturbed. She could sleep through damn near anything.
When we lived in Los Angeles she was able to sleep through the garbage trucks as they revved their diesel engines while slamming dumpsters on the pavement. Her eyes would hold tight during the cowls from colorful winos in drunken highs, howling through the night as if they had just found salvation. Every so often, I would be startled by the sound of gunshots. At the time I was so glad that we were able to leave that hell.
Out here it is so much cleaner and quieter. For over five years we have lived in the middle of nowhere, mostly surrounded by trees and mountains. We left behind the emotional cripples that were chained in line to a deranged form of society. We left behind all worries of working dead end jobs that benefit no one but the slave owners. No longer trying to fit in with everyone else—we became the outsiders, living for ourselves.
Up until the time we moved I worked as a warehouse supervisor; storing and shipping useless knick-knacks that were made in China. My bosses were assholes who cared nothing for their employees; all they cared about was the bottom line of profit margins. Before I quit they ended the medical benefits for everyone but, of course, themselves. Words cannot begin to explain how happy I was to get out of there. In the end, I spent four years in college just to work in a place that was two steps above a sweat shop.
While I managed that musty warehouse, Diane was a secretary for some low rent, ambulance chasing attorney named Ronald Spiro. He was a crooked lawyer who whored himself to corrupt politicians as he nickled and dimed accident victims. Ronald loved to squeeze money from those who did not have it, especially the people who really needed the most from their settlement.
He would take great joy in putting the screws to them by overcharging for every small thing he did; phone calls, the use of staples, every sheet of paper, and every letter of every word that was typed on those sheets of paper. Diane was sickened by the way this man did business, but he paid her nicely. She made more than most in her profession and when you live in the city every cent you bring in counts.
In 1990, I inherited over $200,000 from my mother. She said in her will that she wanted me to use the money to find some kind of happiness in self-employment. Diane had a green thumb and ever since our first date she talked about how much she wanted to be a farm owner. For a long time the city had been suffocating us and when we were given the chance, we cut out as fast as we could. After a few weeks of looking, we found our farm in small mountain town named Redwood Valley.
It was an immaculate area. Nothing but trees and mountains for miles—a most welcomed change from city life. Redwood Valley is a small town with a population under 20,000. The houses are spread out for miles apart upon open land—our nearest neighbor was thirty miles away from where we lived. Occasionally they would come over, but we mostly kept to ourselves. We worked hard, enduring long hours, and we stayed very close—it was better that way for us.
The land was sold to us by a man who inherited it from his father who was a fruit farmer at one time. The 200 acre area consisted of three single story, three bedroom houses, a giant green house, and a barn. It was a deal of a lifetime from a man who just wanted to get rid of it and finally move on. As he told us, one day his father stumbled onto a bees nest in the woods while chasing his cat. He was attacked viciously, stung to the point of him having a sudden heart attack. Not unheard of, but a strange way to go out none the less.
This beautiful property had sat dormant for almost ten years before we bought it. Needless to say, it took a few months get everything together. We had to replace rotted sections of the floors in every house as well as repainting the insides and outsides. I had to completely rebuild the porch on the house that Diane chose for us, while having to hire an electrician to come out and rewire every room in every house. It was a pain in the ass at times, but nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.
Before we went looking for land, we had already figured out what we were going to grow. For quite some time we had talked about farming pot, given the chance we would become licensed farmers in the medical marijuana trade. Now we had the means to get serious about our plan, there were no more excuses.
The people in many towns and cities of California had spoken in favor of medicinal marijuana legalization by way of their vote. There was no shortage of clinics that farmers could sell their goods to and it was something that the big-wig businessmen would not touch with a ten foot pole.
It was like living in the simpler times, we were taxed but we did not have the miles of red tape to cut through to make a profit. All of our dealings were from shop owner to farmer. It was as if we jumped into a time machine and went back to the days when the independent farmer did his business with the independent shop owner—back when there was truly a free market. No strings and no competition from the rich pricks that had the means to close out the little guy.
We have both smoked it in the past and we believed it to be a pretty harmless plant that carried a lot of benefits with its usage. I smoked it when I was much younger, usually with my friends while we watched b-grade horror flicks or at the occasional concert. The most damage I ever inflicted in the process was to a bag of cheese doodles. While I found more pleasure in drinking whiskey, Diane still smoked on occasions. From time to time I would catch her in the bathtub soaking in the bubbles, puffing on a joint with her eyes closed in relaxation.
After months of growing and distributing, we were able to live better than we ever had before. Mind you; we weren’t rolling in gold, but were making much more working for ourselves than we ever did working for anyone else.
Back in supposed civilization, the blue collars were making less money while working harder than they ever had done before. At the same time, the white collar workers on the bottom weren’t doing much better. While their wages were frozen, pay rates for CEOs continued to climb—if you ask me, that’s no way to live.
At first, we grew four different strands; King Purple, Orange Twist, Berry Kush, and Black Widow. Twenty plants for each strand and by the end of each day I was wiped out—completely exhausted. Doing the math, I was putting in twelve hours a day managing the crops. The fact of the matter was that I needed some help.
After spending fourteen grueling hours farming, Diane and I sat on the front porch and discussed putting the other houses to use. We would do this by hiring extra hands to take some of the load off of me. However, we needed people that we could trust; people we knew. The two who came to mind were those we thought would be the most fit to help us with our expansion; Harry and Calvin.
Harry was down on his luck at the time, he was an out of work underwater welder with no prospects. His wife, Liz, was a preschool teacher who was carrying most of the weight financially. Liz wasn’t making much and the two of them were barely making ends meet. When Diane called them with our offer they both loved the idea, saying that they would be more than happy to join us. They did so on the agreement that we would pay them along with giving them free board and free herb.
When she called Calvin, she knew what his answer would be. “Cal”, as we called him, was single by choice and a functioning pot head who was working at a bible factory in downtown Los Angeles. He was in his late 20’s with no ties; a tall and lanky goof ball with a scruffy exterior—almost resembling that of Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo cartoons.
I knew Cal very well, and as a spiritualist who did not believe in absolutes, I knew he hated working for a Christian company. He was forever looking for a different gig, but none of them paid quite as well and a lot of them gave random drug tests.
After Diane’s call, he quit his job and moved out to our farm just so he could smoke his green and live rent free. From what he told us, when he called his manager he said “I quit—I’m gonna grow some pot!” This wouldn’t surprise me if this was true; Cal had always been appropriately blunt.