One Step Over the Border

by Stephen Bly

  “But you have another Juanita to visit in Colorado,” Annamarie reminded him.

  “I could use some encouragement about that. Rosa, read to me what your aunt Paula stated about the Colorado Juanita.”

  The waiter approached with a heavy tray full of steaming food. “Let’s wait until after we eat,” she replied.

  While recorded Spanish guitar music serenaded in the background, Hap leaned back in the booth with a half-filled glass of iced tea. His wide orange pottery plate was slicked clean except for a pile of onions that he had sorted out. He nodded toward Rosa’s notebook. “Okay, now tell me about the last Juanita.”

  “I never thought I’d hear you say that,” Laramie said. “Is this really the last Juanita?”

  “It’s got to end somewhere. I promised you I’d find her this summer or give it up. So, this is it.”

  “Okay, here’s what Aunt Paula said: She’s thirty-one years old and has a small place in Wagon Wheel Gap, Colorado, which is just south of Creede, along the Rio Grande. She’s fairly light-complected for a Rodríguez. But she looks like Mexico and talks like Chicago.”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it,” Annamarie said.

  “Looks like Mexico? What does that mean?” Hap asked.

  “Aunt Paula says she is ‘as cute as she can be.’”

  “You know,” Laramie mused, “I’ve always wondered what that meant. Isn’t everyone as cute as they can be?”

  Rosa squinted at the notebook. “She is not glamorous, but passable when she dresses up.”

  “That sounds fair enough,” Hap murmured.

  “She graduated from Colorado State University…”

  “That’s in Fort Collins,” Laramie said. “Annamarie’s going to nurse up there.”

  “And she majored in secondary education with a minor in music. She did her student teaching in Loveland.”

  “She’s a high school teacher?” The corners of Hap’s mouth arched to his ears. “Now, I like this. No artist… no barmaid…”

  “Is she married?” Annamarie asked.

  “Aunt Paula believes she is not married and has never been married.”

  “Does she have any kids?” Laramie quizzed. Rosa glared at him. “Hey, that’s not always the same thing.”

  “Does she have a dog?” Annamarie asked.

  “Aunt Paula didn’t mention anything about pets. But, she likes to travel. And has had short-term teaching assignments overseas.”

  “Sounds very well-rounded in the classroom and the world,” Laramie said.

  “But what is she like?” Hap asked.

  “Here’s what I wrote down. She’s ‘very smart and graduated summa cum laude.’”

  “Now, that can be trouble,” Hap mused.

  “And she is goal-oriented.”

  Hap leaned forward, elbow on the table, chin resting in the palm of his hand. “Aren’t all teachers?”

  “She’s committed to her family, sensitive to the needs of others, and quite independent.”

  “I don’t know, Hap…” Laramie picked his teeth with a blue plastic toothpick.

  Hap slapped the table. “Hey, she’s brainy and stubborn, just like me.”

  “Aunt Paula adds that she is spunky.”

  “Spunky?” Hap said. “I wonder what your aunt means by spunky?”

  “Resilient,” Annamarie suggested.

  “Tenacious,” Laramie said.

  “Aggressive,” Rosa added.

  “Wow, this could be the one,” Hap replied. “Does she have ‘The Mark’?”

  “Most certainly.”

  “I wonder how long the drive to her place is from here,” Hap said.

  “About 125 miles from here to the Colorado border. Another seventy-five miles to Wagon Wheel Gap,” Rosa blurted out.

  “You know the exact mileage?” Hap asked.

  “I looked it up. I knew you’d want to know.”

  “That would take about three hours?” Laramie asked.

  “More like four,” Rosa continued. “Very little of it is on the interstate.”

  “Then let’s leave in the morning in time to be up there by early afternoon,” Hap suggested.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Laramie replied. “Meanwhile, Annamarie and I will go down and check on the horses.”

  “We can all go,” Hap said.

  “Well, partner, we’d like to take a little ride out in the hills.”

  “Oh, sure. Rosa and me will catch the sunset here. I’d better use the washing machine at the motel. Got to look my best tomorrow.” Hap leaned back, stared at the ceiling, and sighed. “I don’t know if I’m feelin’ this way because this whole dadgum Juanita thing is about over… or because this one’s the right one. But I’m really feelin’ that tomorrow will be a very big day.”

  The room was dark.

  The pillow soft.

  The sleep sweet.

  And Laramie’s finger was sharp when he jabbed it into Hap’s ribs. “Telephone for you, partner.” He fell back on his bed.

  Hap sat up, fumbled for his hat, but picked up the phone instead. “Yeah?”

  “This is Rosa.”

  “Are you okay? What time is it?” He jammed on his hat.

  “I’m okay. It’s 4:00 A.M.“

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I need to go, Hap.”

  He stood up holding the phone in one hand, the receiver in the other. “Go where?”

  “I can’t go with you to Colorado.”

  “But, why? I’m countin’ on you.”

  “A friend sent me an urgent message. She needs help. She’s alone and needs someone on her side. I’ve got to go, Hap. It’s what I do.”

  “No, no, no…” He paced back and forth between the beds. “That’s not what I have planned. I need you.”

  “You have Laramie and Annamarie. My friend has no one.”

  “You mean you’re leavin’ right this minute? Can’t your friend wait a couple days?”

  “No, I’ve got to go now.”

  “I’ll be right over to your room. We need to talk.”

  “I’m not at the hotel, Hap. I’m at the car rental.”

  “No, not like this, Rosa. I… I… well, you know, don’t you?”

  “Hap, I know I like being with you, and you know I’m scared to death of getting my heart broken.”

  “I would never do that.”

  “I know that you would never do it on purpose. But that doesn’t mean my heart won’t break.”

  “Let’s forget Colorado. I don’t have to go up there.”

  There was a long pause. “You’d do that?” she said.

  “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “I have to go, just like you have to go to Colorado.”

  “You’re wrong, I don’t have to…”

  “Hap, listen to me. You are four hours away from ending a twenty year quest. If you do not go up there, you will always regret it. And someday you’d resent me for keeping you from it.”

  He plopped down on the bed. “Go with me, please.”

  “There are two reasons I can’t. First, what if she is the perfect Juanita? What if she says, ‘Yes, I was in Wyoming, and I’ve been waiting for you to find me all these years and I want to bear your twelve daughters’? What if you give her a kiss and embrace that lasts a lifetime? I would die if I had to watch that. I don’t think I’m strong enough to bear it.”

  “But… but what if she isn’t the right Juanita?”

  “And what does that tell me? It says that if you can’t find the right one, maybe you can get by with me. Hap, I don’t want to be the one you just get by with.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Rosa. I need you.”

  “So do others.”

  “Rosa, tell me the truth, is there someone who needs you? Or is that your exit strategy?”

  “Yes, she needs me, and I must leave now.”

  “I’m not thinkin’ very clear, but this feels wrong.”

  “It’s right for me. I
have to do this. Someday you will understand. Good-bye, Hap.”

  “No, no, no… Rosa… this is like a lousy movie. Someone edited in the wrong scene.”

  “Tell me good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, Rosa… thanks…”

  Thirty minutes later Hap stopped staring at the phone and collapsed facedown in the pillow.

  At 10:00 A.M. they turned left at Española and drove north on Highway 84. Sitting in the middle, Annamarie rubbed Hap’s arm. “Can you talk about it now?”

  “I don’t know what to say. She’s gone. That’s all.”

  “And you didn’t even see her?” Laramie asked.

  “She called from the car rental. It was the middle of the night. I couldn’t think straight. Why didn’t she wait and talk to me face to face?”

  “Maybe she thought the pain would be greater if she did that,” Annamarie offered.

  Hap slammed his fist into his knee. “I don’t reckon the pain could be worse than this.”

  “Did you think she was just going to stand against the wall forever and wait for you to dance with everyone else in the room?” Annamarie challenged.

  “Was that what I was doin’?”

  “What do you think you were doing?”

  “Keeping a promise I made to a twelve-year-old boy.”

  “No, it was a promise by a twelve-year-old, not to a twelve-year-old. When I was twelve, I promised I would practice six hours a day to become an Olympic gymnast.”

  “A gymnast?” Laramie asked.

  “Yes. I practiced at a local gym for several months, then had a chance to audition with a famous coach. Within three minutes, he dismissed me: I was way too tall and much too old to begin.”

  “And your point is?” Hap probed.

  “Not every promise a twelve-year-old makes is worth keeping. There are times to let them go.”

  “Rosa was probably right about one thing. I would regret not making this one last stop.”

  “Then let’s get it over with,” Laramie said. “Maybe you can contact Rosa after this quest is completed.”

  “I don’t know where she went.”

  “Sounds like a job for next summer… ‘Finding Rosa,’” Annamarie said.

  “Oh, no,” Laramie protested. “One of these deals is enough for me.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Hap muttered. “Me, too.”

  The San Juan Mountains stretched along the northeast as they left the café at South Fork, Colorado, and zeroed in on Creede and Wagon Wheel Gap. The sky reflected a deep, bright blue. The fast-moving, but scattered puffs of clouds all looked bleached white from the recent long, hot days of summer.

  High in the mountains, just below where timber stopped and granite crags began, aspen trees turned yellow. The highway was no more than a blacktop ribbon that followed the mountain contours and paralleled the river, which narrowed to a creek ten to fifteen feet wide. Rio del Norte was now a much more accurate name than Rio Grande. A light-green forest service truck pulled off on a dirt road and emptied the highway of traffic. On the river side of the road, an occasional house or cabin emerged in the trees.

  “It’s beautiful up here,” Annamarie said.

  Laramie rolled down his window. The wind blasted his dark glasses and clean-shaven face. “Breathe that air. That’s what I’ve been missing. South Texas in summer doesn’t own air like that.”

  “Makes me want to keep drivin’ north and not stop until we see the Bighorns,” Hap mused.

  “Have you thought about where we go after Wagon Wheel Gap?” Laramie asked.

  “I reckon we can find rooms in Creede. But I don’t know about tomorrow. We can go over to 1–25 and head north to Fort Collins.”

  “Are you writing this Juanita off before you meet her?” Annamarie asked.

  “I’ve lost heart. For years I’ve chased my myth. I sought somethin’ I couldn’t attain. And it feels like I just lost the very thing I was after. Mamma used to say I’d grow out of this Juanita fascination. Maybe it took me this long to grow up. Kind of sad, ain’t it? I might have grown out of it one day too late.”

  “On the other hand, some never grow up,” Annamarie said.

  Hap slowed the truck and trailer where a dirt road entered the highway. “What’s it say on that mailbox?”

  “No name,” Annamarie said. “What number are you looking for?”

  “It’s 4440.”

  “This is it!”

  “There’s a cabin behind the trees toward the river,” Laramie said.

  Hap pulled into the drive. He stopped the rig where an old abandoned barn blocked his view of the cabin. He fingered Rosa’s notes. “She’s thirty-one years old, has a small place in Wagon Wheel Gap, Colorado, which is south of Creede along the Rio Grande. She’s light-complected for a Rodríguez. Looks like Mexico, talks like Chicago. As cute as she can be. Not glamorous, but passable when she dresses up,” he recited.

  “She graduated from Colorado State University… majored in secondary education with a minor in music. She did her student teaching in Loveland. She is not married and has never been married. She likes to travel and has had short-term teaching assignments overseas,” Annamarie added.

  Laramie cleared his throat “She graduated summa cum laude, is goal-oriented and committed to family. She’s sensitive to the needs of others and quite independent.”

  “And spunky,” Hap added. “Which means resilient, tenacious, aggressive.”

  “Don’t forget, she also has ‘The Mark,’” Annamarie said.

  “We got the description so memorized, we almost know her,” Laramie said.

  “Are you nervous?” Annamarie asked.

  “Not as much as I thought. To tell you the truth, I’ve got sort of an empty feeling. I’m in a hurry to get this over.”

  “Maybe you’ll be surprised. She sounds like a great gal,” Annamarie encouraged.

  “She sounds perfect,” Hap said. “And if she’s as smart as I’ve been told, she’ll tell me, ‘Get a life.’”

  “If Annamarie is willing to try to put up with the likes of me,” Laramie offered, “all things are possible.”

  Hap pondered the narrow, dirt driveway. “I don’t know if there’s room to turn the trailer around. I guess we can hike up from here.”

  “We’re not going with you. You’re on your own this time, partner,” Laramie insisted.

  “No, seriously, don’t you think it would be better to approach the house together? Wouldn’t that be less threatening?”

  Annamarie shook her head. “This is your mountain to climb. You’ve struggled up its steep slope for twenty years. You’re about to reach the summit. Time to scale the heights, plant the flag. We’ll watch from down here.”

  “I reckon that’s the only way to escape more cheesy analogies,” Hap mumbled.

  “When all the cowboys hear that final buzzer and are summoned to the great roundup in the sky…” Laramie droned.

  Hap shoved open the door. “That did it. Nothing could be worse than this drivel.”

  “Have fun. Enjoy the visit, Hap. I believe a nice person lives there, whether or not she’s your Juanita,” Annamarie called out.

  “Hand me the little black leather box in the glove compartment.”

  Laramie dug it out. “Are you giving these to this Juanita?”

  “If she ain’t the one, I’m goin’ to hike back there and bury them near the Rio Grande. This is the end of it. Right here. Today.”

  “Take your time,” Laramie said.

  “What are you two goin’ to do?”

  Laramie pasted on a grin. “We’re going to sit here and make out.”

  “Yeah, right. Seriously, I could be tied up a while. It could be two minutes or two hours, I just don’t know. What are you really goin’ to do?”

  Annamarie slipped her hand into Laramie’s. “I’ve been told I need practice at kissing. Laramie has agreed to give me a few lessons. I do wish you would run along.”

  Hap set his hat, then folded his dark glasses
and stuck them in his shirt pocket. He rolled down the sleeves of his black shirt and snapped the cuffs, tugged on his silver belt buckle, and wiped the toes of his brown boots on the back of his black jeans.

  He let out a deep sigh, but didn’t look back at the truck.

  The driveway around the old barn was strewn with pine needles and large granite gravel that crunched beneath his steps. He cleared the barn and a row of spruce trees before he spied the log cabin. The front yard was no more than dirt scattered with pine needles and freshly mowed weeds. Two large windows covered with lace curtains prevented his seeing in. White smoke drifted out of the river rock chimney. The steep, green metal roof told a story of deep snow and cold winters.

  Hap couldn’t spot any trees behind the dwelling, just green weeds and brush sloping off toward the creeklike Rio Grande, which he could see but not hear. Someone inside played a piano. It sounded soft, contemplative, not loud enough for him to distinguish the tune, but familiar enough to make him feel welcome.

  The little front porch had a door to the mud room. A small, hand-scrawled sign was thumbtacked to the door: “Step inside and knock on the inner door.”

  Hap entered to a musty scent, like that of a room seldom used. Dried-out rubber boots perched on a milk crate. A heavy, wool-trimmed parka hung on a peg. The stained-glass oval window in the door glowed with bright colors, but blocked any images from inside the room. The bass notes on the piano sounded melancholy, but the treble ones reflected a hint of joy.

  He tugged on his ear.

  Scratched his neck.

  Pushed his hat back.

  Rocked on his heels.

  Took a deep breath.

  And knocked.

  The music stopped. From somewhere deep in the house a feminine voice rang out, “Yes… who is it?”

  Hap waited for the door to open. When it didn’t, he leaned forward. “Ma’am, my name’s Hap Bowman, I’m from Wyomin’. Your aunt Paula from El Paso gave me your address and said I should stop by and visit you if I got up your way.”

  He heard floorboards creak, but the voice was still muffled. “What do you want?”

  “Ma’am, I’d really like to tell you in person. If you aren’t comfortable with my comin’ in, can we talk out in the yard?”