Tim McBride - Saltwater Cowboy: The Rise and Fall of a Marijuana Empire

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To my son, Dalton, and my daughter, Kaila, this is who I am, and this is your legacy. You guys are and have been that which drives me every day, and you are the only two loves of my life.

To my father, Jack, who now watches over me from a silvery-lined cloud, Im sorry I made you cry.

To my brother Pat, who Im sure is standing next to Dad, telling him a joke, I now whisper into your ear, I miss you, brother.

To my brother Mike, though weve been separated by vast distances our entire lives and though keeping in touch has never been either of our strong suits, please know that throughout the years I never lost sight of the fact that I have an amazing big brother, and hes always been just a phone call away.

To my mother, Dee, Im sorry that if by my lifes experiences Ive caused your hair to turn prematurely gray. When I hopped into my Mustang and went south, my intentions were no different from those of any other young man. I left home to simply seek out a place in this world where I could stamp my mark. Thanks to you and Dad, Ive lived my independent life by the seat of my pants and that philosophy of child rearing has set me on this path toward what I now know has been my first, best destiny.

To Tim Healy, for being the first to champion my story and for passing it on to Peter.

To Peter McGuigan and his family at Foundry Literary + Media, thank you for introducing my story to the world.

To my pals Ralph and Casey, thank you for guiding and governing my writing.

The Gulf of Mexico smelled like cow shit.

Twice I drew in deep breaths because I didnt immediately recognize the odor. Cow shit? Out here on the open water?

I could see the cargo ships silhouette as the giant orange sun sank toward the horizon. Then I heard them, bellowing, lowing. I couldnt believe it. The ships stern gates were open, and the crew was using cattle prods to stampede an entire herd of cows into the Gulf of Mexico.

As our crab boat drew closer, the putrid smell of manure swamped us. Cows thrashed in the water, snorting, gasping, and groaning in panic as they climbed on top of one another, trying to keep their heads above water, their eyes rolled at the sky. Clark and I were too stunned to process what was happening. A herd of animals was drowning right in front of us. But as shocked as were, we knew we had a job to do. The cows were in the way.

As the ships three-man crew looked down on us from the now empty deck, Clark and I tossed our lines at them to tie us off. I singled out the one who appeared to be in charge. He leaned against the rail, peeling an orange, so I hollered up at him, What the fuck are you doing?

He yelled back down to me matter-of-factly, with a Cajun accent, I cant get the shit out of the hold with all these fucking cows in the way!

The cows tried to herd together, mooing frantically with nowhere to go. They started sinking under, one after another. I freaked out a little until Captain Red put a calming hand on my shoulder.

I told you that you wouldnt believe it, Red said solemnly as he turned away and walked the deck to the wheelhouse. The hard-bitten captain had known this stampede was coming, but that didnt mean he was cool with it.

The crew began throwing bales of marijuana down to us, ignoring the hopeless beasts. As the bales rained down, my buddy Clark and I stacked them forward, toward the wheelhouse. They were what we described as pillow bales, big plastic bags stuffed with merchandise inside burlap sacks, the ends stitched closed with twine. They werent too heavy, but they were bulky, hard to carry, and took up a lot of space. Plus, some of the bales had already split and were spilling everywhere.

Behind us, another crab boat, our partner in this operation, plowed through a watery field of doomed cows. I watched as the animals banged their heads, horns, and hooves against the hull. As the crew pulled alongside us, no words were spoken. The looks on their faces said everything: What the fuck was that?

I looked at Clark. Loose shake covered his red hair and fair skin, turning his face bronze from resin dust. His cheeks looked like a pair of hamburger buns from all the pot seeds that had stuck to them. I started laughing. He took a look at my pot-covered visage and laughed for the same reason. We needed to laugh. This had been one strange night.

As the deck rapidly filled to capacity, we realized that we would need a different strategy if we were going to fit the ever-growing load onto our two boats and get it to shore. Captain Red maneuvered the boat so we could pile more bales onto the bowand then on the roof of the wheelhouse around the radar array, and finally on top of the stern canopy that shaded us from the intense Florida sun.

The first stars of the Milky Way smoldered by the time we cast off from the cargo ship. The only parts of our boat that showed from beneath the mounds of bales were our front and side windows and the radar towers spinning overhead. We must have looked like a floating hay wagon.

I could not shake the image of drowning cows as we made the forty-mile run to shore. I looked back and caught a last glimpse of the cargo ship, which I imagined was heading south back to Colombia for another load of bales. And maybe another load of cattle, too.

I learned two things that night:

No. 1: Cows cant fucking swim.

No. 2: A million-and-a-half-dollar payday for a captain and crew was painfully and obviously worth more than a whole boatload of cattle.

* * *

It was our tradition: on the trip back, we took time to sample the goods. But on this trip none of us had brought a pack of rolling papers or a pipe, and not one of us had a match or a lighter to light the shit, even if we had. You would think a pot hauler would have these things. So we did the next best thing: we improvised by clearing off one of the deck hatches in the stern and placing a couple of handfuls of weed on top. Clearing the spot took a while because the shit was piled everywhere. But we then stripped the wire from one of our fish boxes and touched each end to the positive and negative posts of a twelve-volt battery that the captain kept in the wheelhouse. By doing this we produced a red-hot glow in the wires center. Then, you simply touched glowing wire to the weed until it sparked. Clark blew on it like a Boy Scout making a campfire. When smoke began to billow, he held an empty five-gallon bucket upside down over the burning weed and let it fill up with the intoxicating cloud. When the bucket was full, we took turns placing it over one anothers head. Our method was crude but very effective.

Having sampled the merchandise, we told the guys onshore how good it was. They kept a stash for themselves and put one aside for us. It wasnt a good idea to keep our own stash on board. We had to make sure that the boat was totally clean. When the off-load was complete, we steered a course back offshore to shovel the excess into piles and toss it overboard. Scrubbing the boat down from top to bottom was a meticulous and time-consuming task. Not a trace could be left anywhere on the boat.