by Stephen Bly
Hap led the way. Greene followed. Laramie rode drag.
The level, sandy ground was bordered by thick brush that kept them from seeing the Rio Grande. The trail through the green-leafed thicket zigzagged so much they almost lost sight of one another.
Hap peered back to see a pleased look on Greene’s face, an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. Hap mused that most folks plodded along like that, chewing on life’s cigar, happy and content, without any idea what’s around the corner.
“Are you sure you got them penned in? I don’t remember any corrals down by the river,” Greene called out.
“We hired young Mr. Fernando Valenzuela Ortega to watch them,” Hap replied. “Isn’t that a fine name for a thirteen-year-old?”
“You got a thirteen-year-old Mexican kid watching my sixty head?”
“Your goods are right where we left them,” Laramie assured. “Think about it: If the Mexicans cross over and stumble upon them, no one can blame you… or us.”
“You boys think of everything.”
“We like to be thorough, E.A.,” Hap said.
When they crossed the last rise, the brush ended. They dropped down the wide, flat riverbank. E. A. Greene stood in the stirrups and surveyed the river. “I don’t see my cows.”
“We got ever’thin’ that belongs to you right over there.” Hap trotted the trio toward a young boy in a blue Los Angeles Dodgers shirt.
Greene yanked the cigar out of his mouth and shoved it back in his denim shirt pocket. “Where are my cows?”
“Come on, have a little faith in your top ranahans.” Laramie winked at Hap. They eased coiled ropes into their left hands.
“I did just like you asked.”
“You did fine work, son.” Laramie unsnapped his shirt pocket and handed him a folded ten-dollar bill.
“What’s goin’ on here?” Greene demanded.
“There’s your goods.” Hap nodded at the sand.
“Five oranges?” Greene blustered. “Where are my cows?”
“You don’t own any cows. You never owned any cows,” Hap said. “But you did compare cows to oranges.”
“What are you talking about? I happen to own…”
“You don’t own Hidalgo County Land and Cattle, that’s for sure. We rode on up and visited with Señor Robles at the break of day. Seems like someone has been rustlin’ his cattle.”
Greene slammed his heels into his horse. The buckskin bolted forward. Hap’s rope slipped over the man’s shoulders. When the rope’s other end was dallied around the saddle horn, E. A. Greene hit the ground hard.
He fought to regain his footing. When he stomped toward his horse, Laramie’s rope slipped under his step and laced his boots together. With both ropes dallied, the boys backed up the horses until Greene swung in the air, stretched out like a pig on a barbecue spit.
Curses streamed from the dangling man’s lips.
“I have never seen a man strung up like that before,” Fernando hollered.
“It’s a rodeo event we’ve been doin’ since we met,” Hap replied. “This version’s called Rope-A-Crook.”
“Is that all there is to it? You just rope them like in team roping?”
“After he’s stretched out there, one of us is supposed to run down the rope and stuff a bandanna in his mouth,” Hap said.
“Can I do that?” the boy asked.
Laramie pulled out his bandanna and handed it to Fernando. He sprinted to the fountain of curses and plugged up its source.
“I did it!” The boy ran back to Laramie. “What do you do now? Do you turn him loose?”
“Nope.” Hap studied Greene’s empty saddle. “We need some piggin’ string, but the leathers on his saddle will work. We’ll secure his feet and arms with a couple of wraps and a hooey.”
“Just like tie-down roping?” Fernando asked.
Laramie laughed. “Yep. It’s a timed event. They might even have it at the finals in Las Vegas one of these years. They’ve got an endless supply of crooks there.”
With E.A. tied hand and foot, they bound him to the saddle, then led his horse down to the river.
Fernando sprinted beside them. “Are you going to drown him?”
Hap scratched the back of his neck. “I hope not, but we think this pony might enjoy a little swim.”
Laramie led the horse about ten feet into the water, then dropped the reins over the saddle horn. He leaned over, slapped the horse in the rear, and yelled, “Heyahh!”
The buckskin bolted to the middle of the river, but stopped when the water lapped his stomach.
Hap swung down out of the saddle and scooped up some pebbles by the water’s edge. He pelted the horse, who inched out into deeper water.
“You want the horse to swim over to Mexico?” the boy asked.
“That horse is free to go any direction he wants. If he ends up in Mexico, that’s his decision,” Laramie replied.
“I’m thinking he wants to stand in the middle of the Rio Grande all day,” Fernando replied. “Did you know that I am very good at baseball? I was even named after the great Los Angeles Dodger pitcher Fernando Valenzuela. I am very good at pitching. Would you like to see?”
Hap surveyed the riverbank. “You have a baseball?”
Fernando sprinted over to the five oranges and hurried back. He laid four on the sand next to the water and stared at the distant horse as if looking for a sign from the catcher. “I am going to throw my fastball,” he announced.
“That seems like a good choice,” Hap said.
Taking a full windup, Fernando leaned back, rolled his eyes up to the light blue south Texas sky, then fired the orange out into the river. The medium-sized citrus rocketed toward its mark and slammed into the horse’s right hip. The buckskin leaped forward into the deep water and swam toward the Mexican shore.
“That’s great, Fernando. I’m impressed,” Laramie said.
“I have a good curveball, too, but my slider needs work. You want to see my curveball?”
“Maybe your mamma would like to have those four oranges,” Hap suggested.
“Yes, she would. Would you like to come meet my mother and my sister?”
Hap glanced over at Laramie and back at the boy. “What’s your sister’s name?”
“Selina. She is five years old.”
“Thanks for the invite, but we need to retrieve our truck and get on down the road.”
“Do you live around here? Perhaps sometime, you could come watch me play baseball.”
“Thanks, Fernando, but we live in Wyoming. We’re just down here sort of looking for someone,” Laramie said.
“Who are you looking for? I know everyone who lives in this area.”
“It’s kind of difficult to explain,” Hap said.
Laramie ran his fingers through his short, curly hair. “My partner here is searching for a gal named Juanita. Do you know anyone named Juanita?”
The boy’s brown eyes widened. “I know dozens of girls named Juanita. My mother’s named Juanita.”
Hap rode over to the boy. “Do you know a gal named Juanita with a birthmark under her right ear that sort of looks like a horse’s head?”
“Oh, yes. I know her.”
Hap sat straight up and felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. “Are you kiddin’ me, son?”
“No, that sounds like Juanita Elaina Cortez.”
“Juanita Elaina Cortez, that’s a nice name,” Hap said. “How old is she?”
“She is old. Your age, I think.”
“We’re on the right trail, partner,” Laramie said. “How many pounds does she weigh?”
Fernando glanced at Laramie, then at Hap, and back to Laramie. “How many pounds?”
Laramie circled his hands. “Is she heavy?”
“On the top or on the bottom?”
“Around the waist,” Hap insisted.
“She is thin there.”
Hap pulled off his black hat and wiped dirt and sweat off his forehead. It da
wned on him that if he actually found his Juanita, he wasn’t sure what would happen next. That was a dilemma he had never had to face. “Where is she?”
“I think she is in Zapata, about forty miles west from here. She used to be a neighbor of my grandmother’s.”
Fernando strolled beside them, oranges in hand, as they rode back out of the riverbed. What breeze had existed along the river had now died down.
“Where can we find this Juanita?” Hap quizzed.
Fernando shrugged. “At the jail, of course.”
“She’s in jail?” Laramie said.
“Oh, no.” Fernando grinned. “She works at the jail. She teaches them English and cooks.”
Hap shoved back his black hat. “A teacher? A cook? My age?”
“And a birthmark under her ear,” Laramie added. “Hap, it can’t be that simple.”
“Destiny can be simple,” Hap replied.
“Destiny?” Fernando called out. “I thought you were searching for a girl named Juanita.”
CHAPTER THREE
In Laramie’s mind, all midsize towns looked identical after dark. Geographical distinctions faded with the setting of the hot summer sun. Each town had one particular street where the rainbow of bright lights summoned customers. It could be Broadway, or Lincoln Avenue, or Twenty-first Street… they all appeared the same. When Laramie and Hap followed the flashing red and green lights into the parking lot of Jose’s Git-N-Go, he assumed it was just another fast food night.
“This ain’t my idea of a fine supper.” Hap glared at the microwave window where a foot-long green chili burrito twirled a pirouette in slow motion.
“We did get overtime money for waiting for that last load at the feedlot. But I’m surprised all the decent cafés close before midnight.” Laramie juggled a large bag of barbecued potato chips and two frozen cheeseburgers while he tried to swipe away the dirt caked to the front of his jeans. “I don’t think a decent place would let us in until we cleaned up, anyway. Did you rip open the end of that burrito bag?”
Hap’s black T-shirt hung sweat heavy. A denim shirt layered it, unbuttoned and untucked. “You naggin’ me about how to nuke a frozen burrito?”
Laramie studied the poster of a polar bear with shades, who slurped an iced blue drink. “Just a reminder… if you don’t let the air out, it could blow up.”
Hap stomped off some of the dust on his pointed-toe boots. “I’m so tired of lookin’ at the rear ends of cattle that an explodin’ burrito might be an interestin’ diversion.”
“Working at the feedlot did get your mind off the disappointment of Fernando’s Juanita.”
“I don’t remember a thing about her, except she wasn’t the one.”
Laramie’s white teeth beamed out from a dirty-faced grin. “Now don’t tell me you forgot about…”
Hap held up his hand. “I told you, an explodin’ burrito ain’t the worst thing that can happen in life.”
A sudden blast staggered Hap into the paper products rack. He came up kicking Styrofoam cups and clutching a fifty-pack of fluorescent-colored straws. Angry words screamed out in a southeast Asian dialect bounced between the walls of the small store. Laramie pulled himself off a cardboard Budweiser girl who sported shorts meant to make Daisy Duke look modest.
The second shotgun blast from outside the minimart didn’t vibrate like the first. When Hap retrieved his black hat from the rack of cake doughnuts, the quiet ding of a bell seemed out of place.
Laramie glanced over at the unscathed microwave. “Your burrito’s ready.”
Both cowboys scurried to the front door in time to witness a petite Asian woman in black jeans and a Hawaiian blouse brandishing a pump shotgun. Only a few neon lights remained to mark the route of a would-be thief. Other than a distant train whistle the street was silent and empty.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” Hap asked.
She spun around, then lowered the weapon. Gold-framed glasses perched on the end of her tiny nose. “It happened again.” Deep wrinkles around her eyes tightened.
Hap stepped up beside her. “Did you get robbed?”
“He tried. I think it was the same man as last month. He’s out on bail awaiting trial. I am sick and tired of this.”
Laramie studied the hole that had been an eight-by-six-foot plate-glass window. “What can we do to help you?”
The lady tiptoed through the broken glass to the front door. “You want to buy a minimart, so I can retire? I’m too old to put up with this. I need to phone the police.”
The summer night air smelled like a combination of a snack bar at the ballpark and the floor of a movie theater.
Hap peered through the dark shadows of the empty Laredo street. “What’d he look like?”
“Like a man in a ski mask. Were you serious about the offer to help?”
Hap glanced over at his partner. Laramie nodded and said, “I was taught to always help a lady in distress.”
“Did your father teach you that?” she asked.
“My mother. She is in distress most of the time.”
The woman held out her hand to Laramie. “My name is Sam.”
“Is that short for Samantha?”
“It’s short for Vingh Duc Sam.” The lady with short salt-and-pepper hair took a long, deep breath, then dialed 911.
Laramie and Hap had restacked the antifreeze, scraped up the Little Debbies, and swept most of the broken glass on the inside of the store when the police finished their reports.
Sam clutched her arms. “I expected this cleanup to take all night. I phoned my daughter earlier to come over and help when she gets off work. You boys are like angels from heaven.”
“Hap is often mistaken for an angel,” Laramie chided. “It must be the cheap mustache. What did the police tell you?” He fought a rising emotion and questioned why the woman had to run a minimart alone after dark. In his mind, every woman ought to have a safe place at night. Especially those married to drunks.
Sam kicked at a piece of broken glass with her Nike tennis shoe. “They think they’ll be able to track him down. I remembered the license plate number on his getaway vehicle. ‘Wyoming, 2–4570.’”
“Wyomin’?” Hap’s chin dropped. “That’s my license number.”
They raced out to the gas pumps. Hap punched his fist into the lip of a plastic trash can. “He stole my dadgum truck, Laramie. That two-bit thief stole my truck!”
It was after 1:00 A.M. by the time the police filed the stolen-vehicle report. Laramie and Hap nailed plywood over the broken window.
“I ain’t never had someone steal my rig before. Have you, Laramie?”
“Quincy Bob stole the Circle A crummie one time when you were up in Alberta. But he was too soused to have a clue what he was doing. I had to walk fourteen miles back to the ranch. They found the crummie two days later parked in front of the White Horse Inn, with Quincy Bob asleep on the balcony.”
“The White Horse Inn’s been closed for twenty-five years.”
“I told you old Bob was soused.”
Hap hoisted the plywood up with his shoulder and drove in another nail. “My daddy had his two-ton hay truck stolen one time when I was about ten. They took it right out of the shed. They got as far as Belfry before it ran out of gas. Daddy’s ever’day spurs was in the jockey box. He stewed more about losin’ them than the truck. A wrecker from Bridger called us. Said he had the truck in his yard and retrieval cost $167. Daddy pondered it a while, and then we went up to fetch it. He did it for the spurs.”
Laramie pulled nails from his mouth and shoved them into his shirt pocket as he climbed down the six-foot aluminum ladder. He watched as narrow headlights of a small convertible bounced into the parking lot. It was a crisp powder blue like the late-afternoon sky over the Bear Tooth Mountains in summer. The music from the stereo died when the car door opened. “Now, there’s a pretty one for you.” The pain in his right shoulder melted away and he scratched his cheek to hide a boyish grin.
“I
t’s one of them little Mazdas. It’s got two bucket seats and no backseat. I hear they’re fun to drive in the mountains. I reckon the mileage is good, but it would be kind of cramped with the top up.”
“I wasn’t talking about the car, Hap.”
A very tall, slender lady, with straight black hair pulled back behind her ears, swung out of the convertible. She wore white crepe-sole oxfords, a short-sleeved white dress down to her knees, and opaque white hose, but she strolled the parking lot like a lissome model on a designer’s runway.
Laramie’s voice lowered. “There’s one fine-looking nurse… sort of a young, olive-skinned Audrey Hepburn.” He searched for lines that he’d practiced for years. He’d always told himself that someday a lady would appear who might erase his bad memories. As he tried to exhale slowly, he realized he wouldn’t mind if she erased everything on the face of the planet except the two of them.
“Hi, I’m Annamarie Buchett. You must be the cowboys mother hired to help clean up.”
Hap pulled off his hat. “Sam is your mother?”
“Yes, is she inside?”
Laramie shook his head. “She sure is beautiful.”
Annamarie narrowed her eyes. “My mother?”
“Eh… no… I…” He stammered as if his witty but friendly file had been deleted.
“My partner, Laramie, was admirin’ your…”
“Your sports car,” Laramie gasped. “She sure is a beauty.” Images of some movie with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts came to mind, but he couldn’t remember any of the suave lines.
“Thank you, Laramie. You have good taste…” she turned and grinned at Hap. “… in sports cars.”
He tipped his hat. “My name is Hap, Miss Annamarie.”
She shook his hand. “Laramie and Hap? I don’t suppose those are the names your mothers gave you.”
“Hap was my dad’s idea.”
“And Annamarie was my father’s.”
“Say,” Hap added. “Is Buchett a French name?”
“My mother’s father was French. That makes me one-quarter French, one-quarter Vietamese, and one-half stubborn Texan. Buchett is a good, east Texas pioneer name.”