One Step Over the Border

by Stephen Bly

  “Oh, my, anything else?”

  “Guard the grub box.”

  “I can’t imagine someone wanting to steal that.”

  “Twinkie theft is a real problem in rural America.”

  Laramie didn’t glance at his watch, but he figured he and Annamarie visited for at least a couple of hours. As darkness thickened around them like a comfortable blanket, their voices softened and they scooted closer together.

  Hip touched hip when they finally whispered, “good night.”

  Hap tended a small fire as daylight eased into their makeshift camp. Sara rested on his knee. He stroked the dog’s wide head as he studied Annamarie’s face, the only part of her that wasn’t covered by the sleeping bag.

  “You ogling my woman?” Laramie sat up on top his bedroll.

  “Your woman, huh? I considered askin’ her if she’d be willin’ to have her name and nationality changed.”

  “I called it first. She’s mine, partner.”

  “Now, Laramie, you’re always beggin’ me to end this… what do you call it… ‘idiot obsession’ with girls named Juanita. Maybe this is the right time.”

  Laramie combed his short, curly brown hair with his fingertips. “I want to officially ask you to forgive me for calling it an idiot obsession. I think it’s an appropriate fixation, one you should not release, at least, not for a while.”

  “That’s very kind of you, a real comfort in my time of distress. But Annamarie does make a cowboy believe in the benefits of cloning.”

  Laramie beat his boots against the tree trunk and shook them out. A large fluorescent green bug the size of a praying mantis flew out of one of them. “She’s a heart thumper, isn’t she?”

  “I like her, if that’s what you’re askin’. And I ain’t just talkin’ about the fact she is a fine-lookin’ lady from head to toe… and I do mean from…”

  Annamarie propped herself up on her elbow. “Before this conversation gets more embarrassing, I’ll head down to the ladies room.”

  The sun stalled straight up, producing one of those hot days that pins a man to the face of the earth. Every movement proved a chore. Hap parked Luke and the mule by a tiny stream and waited for the others to catch up.

  “What do you make of this?” He pointed to a one-by-two-foot flat metal box.

  Annamarie rode closer. “Looks like a little solar panel.”

  Hap pulled his sweaty bandanna from around his neck and wiped his forehead. “What do they need electricity for?”

  “Maybe they electrify the fence?” she asked.

  Laramie rode up. “No, you need different wire and you string it with insulators. This is too big a place for a hot wire.” He dismounted and hiked down the fence at the creekbed. “These are the only metal fenceposts we’ve seen. Hey, there are recessed hinges in here. I think this is a gate.”

  “A gate to what?” she asked.

  Laramie studied the prairie on both sides of the pasture. “It doesn’t lead to anything. Maybe the previous folks owned both sides of the fence. They could drive the cows through here.”

  Hap swung his leg over Luke’s head, but remained in the saddle. “I never saw a transfer gate at the bottom of a creekbed before.”

  “Is it wide enough to drive a pickup through?” Annamarie asked.

  Laramie stepped it off. “Nope.”

  Sara splashed into the tiny creek. Laramie stooped down to scratch her ears.

  “Are you sure it’s an electric gate?” Annamarie asked. Hap dug through his saddlebag. “There’s one way to find out. I need my backup truck keys.”

  “I’m not following this,” Annamarie said.

  Hap held up the keys. “See this little black unit? It’s a garage door opener for my mom’s garage. Sometimes when she’s on a trip, I go over and mind the place for her, so I have this opener on my spare keys.”

  “Are you saying it’s the same frequency as this one?” she asked.

  He pressed the button. “Nope. But we got a pal named Porty Hammond who used to be a caretaker on the Harrison Ford ranch over near Jackson.”

  “The Harrison Ford?”

  “I didn’t know there was more than one. That place has electronic security gates runnin’ out the kazoo. Porty told me how to reset an opener to open any remote door.” Hap pulled out his pocketknife and flipped open the back. “He said you just short out these two points and hold it there until they pick up the new frequency.” He snapped the case back together, then pressed the button.

  The five-foot electronic gate yawned open toward them.

  Sara yipped and raced in a large circle.

  Annamarie clapped. “It works. But you ruined your key. Now you can’t open your truck.”

  “No, this is my mom’s garage door opener, not my truck lock. Of course, I can’t reset it until I go home.”

  “I’m very impressed that you got it open,” she said. “But we still don’t know why it’s out here.”

  “Some folks just have too much money,” Hap muttered as he punched the gate closed and swung back up into the saddle.

  The air felt dry, caustic against their sweat-drenched clothes. Annamarie rolled her lime-checkered shirtsleeves above her elbows and tried to straighten her wind-tangled hair. She dismounted, hunkered down in the shallow stream, splashed water on her face, then dried with a bright, lime bandanna. “Do you think this water gets any deeper upstream?”

  Laramie gazed at the meandering flow. “Probably not this time of year.”

  “Do you mind if I ride on up the creek?” Annamarie asked. “If I found a wash as deep as a tub, I’d like to soak.”

  “Would you feel safer if one of us rode along with you?” Hap said.

  “I’d feel safer if you two promised to stay down here and fix the fence.” Annamarie mounted the paint mare. “Come on, Sara.”

  The boxer lifted her head from the sandbar, then glanced over at Hap. “Go on, darlin’, Mamma wants you.”

  The dog splashed through the water and over to Annamarie.

  Laramie rubbed the back of his neck. “Stay near the creek and fire that concealed revolver if you need us.”

  “Are you packin’ a gun?” Hap asked. “I didn’t see one and I looked you all over.”

  “All over?” she quizzed.

  “I didn’t mean all over… I meant…”

  “Hey,” Laramie grumbled. “If anyone is going to look her over, it’s me.”

  High, wispy clouds drifted in, raising the humidity. Laramie and Hap found the fence in good repair and spent most of their time in the saddle. Around noon, they discovered a roofless rock house that marked the corner of the range.

  “Must have been a line shack before the wire.” Laramie stood in the stirrups and glanced south.

  “You worried about her?”

  “No, I’m not worried. Are you worried?”

  “Nah… what do you think she’s doin’?”

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “Neither do I. In fact,” Hap drawled, “I’ve been ‘not thinkin’ about it’ for the past two hours.”

  At the distant report of a gunshot, both men spun their horses around. By the time they reached the stream, they had their carbines pulled from the scabbards. Laramie splashed across the shallow creek and turned east. Hap, still leading the pack mule, plowed through thick brush on the north side.

  When they broke out of the thickets, they found Annamarie on horseback. Sara barked at a distance.

  “Are you all right?” Laramie hollered.

  “Yes, but I have something to show you. After my soak, Sara chased a skunk. She found a nice spring.”

  “Struckmann said there were good springs on the place.”

  “It’s the irrigation system that’s impressive.”

  “Someone used to farm back here?” Laramie asked.

  “They still do.”

  “Someone’s livin’ here?” Hap probed.

  “I don’t think they live here, they just farm,” Annama
rie reported. “Come, look at this.”

  The arroyo dipped deep enough that they could no longer observe the rolling range in any direction. Thick cottonwoods blocked their view to the east. As they approached the trees, Annamarie pointed to a holding pond. “Someone dammed up the spring to form that.”

  “Did it to water the cows, I reckon,” Hap said.

  “Perhaps, but the water is now taken by ditches to irrigate the crop.”

  Laramie stood in the stirrups. “What crop?”

  They circled the trees to a panorama of neatly rowed plants.

  Hap whistled and pulled off his hat to slap off the sweat. “Must be three or four acres of weed.”

  Laramie surveyed the field. “It’s marijuana, all right. We ran across some over in Oregon when we rounded up those wild horses near Mitchell. Some kind of cult had a place down near the river. They claimed it was for religious purposes.”

  “But they were amateurs compared to this.” Hap rubbed his matted hair. “That’s the cleanest-lookin’ crop I’ve ever seen. Even my mamma’s garden isn’t this manicured. Straight rows, no weeds, healthy plants. Someone knows what they’re doin’. I wonder if there is such a thing as professional marijuana growers?”

  Sara quit barking at a brush pile and trotted over to Hap, who swung down from his saddle. He crouched next to one of the two-foot-high plants. The boxer leaned her head against him. “I wonder when it’s time to harvest? These leaves look mature enough. Could be a million street dollars’ worth of this stuff. They claimed that patch in Oregon would bring in four hundred thousand once it was processed and sold to dopers.”

  They tied up their horses near the pond and hiked to a small shed.

  Laramie peered inside. “Just shovels, rakes, and hoes.”

  Hap and Sara hiked south. “They are irrigatin’ those last dozen rows. There’s water standin’ in them.”

  Laramie surveyed the creekbed to the west. “Which means someone might come to check on things. One of us needs to ride out now, cut straight across, and get to the road before dark. Hap, maybe you ought to head out and phone the sheriff.”

  Hap glanced at Laramie, then Annamarie. “Yeah, someone needs to go. You know that your Tully is faster than ol’ Luke. I reckon you ought to be the one to go.”

  Laramie frowned. “I want to see what happens when the irrigators show up. You go.”

  “I ain’t the one. Luke’s had a sore frog and you know it. He needs some rest.”

  Annamarie snickered. “I feel like one of those little balls in a Foosball game, getting battered from one side to the next. I’ll take Laramie’s horse and ride back myself.”

  “We can’t let you do that,” Laramie insisted. “I’ll go with you.”

  “You?” Hap choked. “You begged to stay here and see the action.”

  “I’m going by myself,” Annamarie insisted. “I trust both of you, but I need to obey my daddy.”

  “Two cowboys, ever… one cowboy, never?” Laramie offered.

  “Yes. And besides, I know a gal who’s a dispatcher at the sheriff’s office. I’ll phone her. Her name happens to be Juanita.”

  “Juanita?” Hap echoed.

  “She’s the sweetest lady you’ll ever meet. Her husband is pastor of Iglesia Baptista in Agua Frio. She’s about my mother’s age.”

  Both cowboys napped as the afternoon stretched on. The shade of the tall cottonwoods made a peaceful, comfortable afternoon even though no air moved. The buzz of an occasional horsefly and the panting of a tired boxer provided the only sounds.

  The sun sank low as Hap spread canned fruit cocktail on a slice of white bread.

  “Kinda feels like we wasted the afternoon,” Laramie offered. “We didn’t get a lick of fence repaired.”

  “I expect she’s made it to town by now, as long as she didn’t take a tumble.”

  “Or run into the marijuana growers coming this way. We shouldn’t have sent her alone.”

  “I think we ran around that mountain before,” Hap mumbled.

  Sara jumped and let fly with a solitary yelp.

  They grabbed their carbines.

  “Do you hear somethin’?” Hap asked.

  “Dirt bikes, maybe. Sounds like small motors revved up.”

  “A few miles to the west. Could these marijuana farmers be riding motorcycles?”

  “Maybe… they can’t pack much in and out, but they could escape in a hurry with that electric gate. If they get out into the field, we could sneak around to the creek and cut off their retreat. Meanwhile, we can let them work as long as they want. That gives Annamarie more time to bring in the sheriff.”

  The rumble got louder. Hap rubbed Sara’s head. “Easy, darlin’,” he whispered. “No need to bark.”

  Two black four-wheelers burst out of the brush and slid to a stop near the pond.

  “Would you look at that,” Laramie whispered.

  “They ain’t who we’re lookin’ for. They look like teenagers.”

  Two girls, one with a short blonde ponytail and the other with a long black braid hanging down her back, climbed off the ATVs. Both wore shorts, halter tops, flip-flops, and dark glasses.

  “What are they doin’ back here?” Hap said.

  The blonde hiked to the tool shed and emerged with two sets of coveralls and tennis shoes.

  Laramie crawled closer to Hap. “Do you believe this?”

  “What are two dadgum teenage girls doin’ messed with a marijuana patch?”

  “Maybe someone hooked them for a summer job and they think they’re growing carrots.”

  Hap held up his hand. “Looks like they’re arguin’ over somethin’.”

  “Maybe they saw our tracks.”

  “Oh, crap.”

  “What?”

  “They spied some dog poop. They got to see horse prints, too.” Hap glanced down at Sara. Her tongue hung out as she panted and watched the two girls. “How do they know it ain’t a raccoon?”

  The dark-haired one tugged on coveralls, then tossed off the flip-flops. She leaned against the four-wheeler tire and slipped on the tennis shoes.

  “Let’s wait until they’re out in the field, then sneak around between them and the ATVs,” Laramie whispered.

  The blonde pulled off a neon-green jelly flip-flop, then tossed it in the air toward the shed. Sara let out a yip and raced, bobtail wagging, toward the object two hundred feet away.

  Both girls dove for the ATVs. The black-haired one brandished a black semiautomatic .45 in front of her. She fired two rounds at the sprinting boxer.

  Hap threw his .30–30 to his shoulder and squeezed off a round that splattered rock ten feet in front of the girls. The armed girl fired two shots in Hap’s direction, then both girls jumped on the four-wheelers and roared back to the brush.

  Laramie and Hap raced for the horses.

  “I don’t think sweet, innocent teenagers is a fitting description. Why did you reveal our position?” Laramie shouted.

  “I couldn’t let them shoot Sara,” Hap replied.

  The duo leaped to the saddles and turned the horses.

  “We can’t catch four-wheelers,” Laramie hollered.

  “No, but they’re goin’ to follow the creek and brush out. We know where the gate is. If we cut across the range, we might be able to stay up with them.”

  Hap led the way. Laramie thundered behind on the paint mare. Sara dashed after them, but soon dropped out of sight in the hoof-thundering dust. They rode with their carbines across their saddles, the treeless brown grass stretching before them on the empty prairie. On the rises they could see the distant ribbon of brush that marked the creekbed. After a half-hour of hard riding, they reached the fence line and the closed, solar-powered gate.

  Evening shadows dimmed their vision as Hap stood in the stirrups. “Do you hear those engines whine? I think we beat them.”

  “Let’s block the gate and stop them right here. Maybe they’ll veer off into the fence,” Laramie said.

  “
You think they’ll take the bluff?”

  “Two teenagers in bathing suit tops? Sure they will,” Laramie said. “Seeing the carbines close up will convince them.”

  The four-wheelers crashed out of the brush at full speed and raced at the gate… and Laramie and Hap.

  The first shot from the semiautomatic smashed river rock in front of Hap’s horse. They didn’t wait for the second shot.

  Laramie galloped north, Hap south.

  The automatic gate opened and the girls fired a couple more rounds as they bounced and splashed the ATVs into the adjoining range. The gate closed. They spun to a stop on the adjoining hill to look back.

  Laramie and Hap circled the horses and galloped after them.

  “Open the dadgum gate,” Laramie yelled.

  Hap retrieved the spare truck key from his pocket and punched the button on the garage door opener. As soon as the girls spied the gate swinging open, they roared off over the hill.

  When Laramie and Hap reached the dirt road, a few of the brightest stars hung in the south Texas sky. They sweltered under the oppressive heat. A few farm lights blinked on the southern horizon.

  “You think they made it out?” Hap asked.

  “Considering they knew where they were going and we didn’t, I suppose they’re in town by now.” Laramie slid out of the saddle and tied Tully to the fencepost. “We might as well hike down the road and see if we can spot them. The horses need a rest, anyway. They’re sweatier than we are.”

  “And we need to give Sara a chance to catch up. I don’t remember seein’ her after the electric gate.”

  Both men climbed through the barbed-wire fence toting carbines.

  “The road sign leading back here said this was a dead end. If that’s true, they had to come toward us. Maybe they left some tire tracks or something for the sheriff to follow.”

  When they crested the third rise in the road, Hap pointed at a pickup and trailer taillights. “Maybe they left the whole outfit.”

  Laramie led down to the culvert that divided the dirt road from the fence. “I can’t figure why they’re still here,” he murmured. “Stay low. If anyone is up there, the night shadows can hide us.”