The searchlight swept across the field, illuminating everything above Harte's head. He flattened himself on the ground, trying to spread across it like butter. There was a small chance that he could evade his pursuers as long as they gave foot chase. If they brought in a helicopter, he'd be through.

"If only I'd never come to California..." he muttered to himself. Just as the spotlight pinned him to the ground, he remembered...

"Harte! Prop 215's been repealed! What are we going to do?" Fred screamed and jumped from the living room couch, and ran to the kitchen where Harte had been.

But Harte could move fast. He wasn't there.

Harte had moved to California shortly after the state had passed its medical marijuana law, Proposition 215. Harte's doctors in Wyoming had diagnosed his condition years before, but treatment there wasn't as entertaining as the prescriptions that he got after he moved west.

Dr. Grayspan worked with Harte on the marijuana treatments as well as he could, as well as he was able to with the interference the federal government was giving doctors that dealt with medical marijuana patients. The feds were pretty unyielding with their position on 215, just as unyielding as the patients demanding treatment under 215.

Not a native Californian, Harte didn't get as involved in the proposition argument like many of the other medical marijuana patients. He knew when there were meetings, but he never went. He never contacted any politicians when the drive to pass Bill 420 gained momentum. This could have been a mistake, but retrospect never worked for Harte.

Bill 420 was such a ground breaker. After watching the medical marijuana users in San Diego get issued special identification cards, said to be for protection against unjust arrests and harassment, legislation under 420 gave this protection to the rest of the state. Now a patient could give his or her vital statistics to an agency and receive an ID card that would keep that patient out of jail, and so be able to carry on with a normal life, just like the neighbors.

Joy hit Harte just as much as it did his fellow patients, but he didn't join in their reveling. Thinking back on it (retrospect again), it was as if he knew it wouldn't last. It was just too good, too much too soon. Both laws within a decade...No, something was wrong.

And then there it was, as plain as the rolling papers on Harte's coffee table. Registration. Criminal registration.

In California certain types of drug offenders (persons arrested for certain types of drug offenses) had to register themselves and their home addresses with the police department for a certain period of time after their conviction. They'd go to the police station, get fingerprinted, give their vital statistics, and get issued police identification cards. These cards needed to be updated every time the offender moved to a different address so that the police and community knew their whereabouts. Drug offender registration wasn't lifelong, but no doubt seemed that way to the registrant. That person was effectively trapped within his or her own zip code.

The realization of what Harte had done hit him too late. He'd gotten his medical marijuana ID card almost immediately after 420 got to his town. He'd been so happy, he showed his card to everyone he knew and then some. Harte would have pinned it to his shirt if he'd have thought of it. It was like his driver's license; he'd never leave home without it.

There had been an article in the local newspaper about a registered drug offender and the difficulty that he'd been having in the community. Registered drug offenders weren't Meghan's Law registrants, but there were similarities in the registration process. The offender in the news report was hounded mercilessly throughout the town, alternately shunned or harassed as the occasion demanded. The article showed no relief in sight for this offender.

Identical. Medical marijuana ID's and criminal registration. Harte didn't know how he'd missed that before. Well, yes he did, as Harte really didn't know anything about California's laws other than 215 and 420. He should have researched everything before he'd given out his personal information. He was tall, dark haired, middle aged and a little overweight, and now "they" had all of this information on his ID card. If the uproar about registered felons ever overflowed onto the list of medical marijuana patients, Harte's picture would be right there on the internet with the perverts.

Harte wasn't a pervert. He was a patient. That just wouldn't be right.

Both TV news and the internet started chronicling the harsh sentiments about 420 ID card holders. there were interviews with both patients and patient bashers, and there was an increasingly large amount of the latter. Skinheads, police department groupies, Mexican vigilantes, all of them saw ID cardholders as easy pickings.

Isolated cases of "pot-card" bashings happened in different parts of town. The "pot-cards" claimed that the police had leaked out their information, and the police were prompt in their denials.

Not much time passed before state politicians began to give into public pressure. One by one, even the most staunchly pro-215 supporters began to buckle.

Still Harte remained aloof from his brother cardholders. Had he not, he might have been better prepared for the crisis when it happened. But, retrospect again.

That was the situation when he heard Fred's yell from the couch. Fred was Harte's roommate, not a marijuana user but a sympathizer, so to speak. A difficult situation, due to the small marijuana crop in Harte's garden, and the half-pound in Harte's bedroom, but that's how it was anyway.

Fred was a worried about 215 being repealed as much as Harte had ignored the problem. He'd never been pot-bashed, but had been accosted as an associate once. Fred didn't blame Harte for this, exactly, but the incident did put an edge on their relationship.

"Look at the TV, Harte! There's already posses with ID addresses! Look! They're trashing some guy's house on Elm Street! Harte, we've got to get out of here right now!"

As soon as Harte had digested Fred's original screech, he'd dashed upstairs to his bedroom and started flinging some of this clothes into his backpack. His car wasn't running, and his bicycle was loaned out. If he wanted to put any distance between himself and this address, his own little Garden of Eden that was soon to be invaded by demons, he had to start now.

"Harte? Where are you?" Harte heard Fred coming up the stairs as he went out the window. There were such beautiful sunsets where they lived, Harte hated to miss this one. But he was in a hurry. He shimmied down the drainpipe to the back porch and jumped the fence into the alley.

And there they were, pulling up just as Harte ducked behind a trash dumpster. Three carloads of them, some with shaved heads, some in fatigues, and all of them with shotguns or bats. They didn't go over Harte's fence, they went through it, right into his garden.

"Whee whooo, lookie what we got here! Lookie what this pot-boy's been up to! Regular Mr. Green Jeans! You in there, boy?" Harte heard Fred's scream in response. That's when the shooting started.

And now Harte was in the field by the alley, hugging the ground and lit up like a Christmas tree. His dark clothes might fool the searchlight for a time, but if the thugs came out there for a quick walk-through, he'd be no better off than Fred.

He heard their voices over the revving car engines. "You see him? What's that over there? Hey pot-boy! You out there? C'mere and see what we did to your friend! We got something waiting for you!"

Wyoming seemed so far off now. There wasn't anything wrong with Wyoming, Harte thought. Why hadn't he seen that before? Coming to California had to be the stupidest thing he'd ever done. Even without his marijuana treatments, Wyoming was such a better choice for him. How could he have missed that? Memories of his parents coursed through his mind, the times he'd hunted with his father, the smells from his mother's kitchen, his dog Red...As soon as the sun comes up, as soon as these jerks leave, I'm on the bus home. And this time I'll stay there.

Suddenly the thugs started cheering. Without raising his head, Harte could see a dark four-wheel drive pickup truck pull up by the other cars. Then more new noises brought Harte a new sensation, one he'd never felt before. A sinking, drowning feeling, sickeningly sweet and making him nauseous His head swam and his vision fogged. He knew he wasn't leaving this field.

"Lookie, pot-boy! Farley's brought his dogs!"