One Step Over the Border Read online

  “Does he work for the road department?”

  “No, but I think he did have something to do with the interstate.”

  “Never heard of him.” The man scraped the piece of pizza off the wall with his knife.

  “Look, here’s what happened. I asked her about, eh, Hamilton, then the telephone rang. Juanita shoved the baby at me, went to answer the phone, and never came back. That’s all I know.”

  “Juanita!” the bearded man bellowed. “Get in here.”

  “Maybe the phone call was from a neighbor. An emergency of some sort.”

  “It’s a mile to a neighbor’s house and they threatened to shoot us if we ever showed up on their property again.” The man gazed out the broken window toward the street. “Was the call in English or Spanish?”

  “Spanish.” Laramie thought about closing his eyes to make the whole scene disappear. But that had never worked when he was a kid and he knew it wouldn’t work now.

  The man exploded like a jack-in-the-box. “I’m not going to put up with this anymore.” He stomped down the hall, then waved his knife at Laramie. “Get down here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to see what’s going on in the bathroom. If you even so much as touched her, I’ll kill you.”

  Laramie toted Philippe to the hall.

  The big man beat on the door. “Juanita, open up right now.”

  Laramie figured he could outrun him, provided he didn’t have a gun or throw that knife. But he froze again, this time out of fear.

  “Did he hurt you, Juanita mía?” He jammed the point of the switchblade into the door handle and twisted it. The white door popped open.

  Majors spun for the living room when the man disappeared into the bathroom. The scream “Nooooooooo!” would have rattled windows, if there had been any left. Laramie propped Philippe on the sofa. “Sorry, little man…”

  “I’ll kill you!” The man lumbered down the hall.

  Laramie banged open the screen door and hurled himself off the deck.

  “Hey,” someone to his right called out. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

  Hap Bowman stood like a sentry at ease in foot-tall weeds in the front yard. Amazed at the man’s calm demeanor, Laramie reached out his hand as Hap tossed him a coiled nylon rope. The big man roared out of the house. The dog on the porch let out a solitary “woof” without raising his head.

  As the wild man stormed down the wooden stairs, Hap’s rope looped his arms. When he yanked back, the man flew off his feet onto his back. At that moment, Laramie’s rope circled the man’s legs. Amidst screams about parentage and curses meant to last for generations, the man flailed in tall dead grass and weeds.

  Laramie heard a crack, like a bat hitting a baseball. The man collapsed.

  “Did he just knock himself out?” Hap asked.

  After wading through weeds and trash where the man lay, Laramie scratched the back of his neck. “I think he hit his head on a bowling ball.”

  Hap meandered over to him. They gawked down at the unconscious man. “That was mighty thoughtful of him, because I didn’t know what to do next.”

  “I’m grateful that you showed up, Bowman, but you were about an hour late. What’s going on here? Dwight Purley told me I needed to talk to you about roping together. He said you were cowboy from boot to hat. Then you run out the door and leave me in a situation straight out of the Jerry Springer Show.”

  Hap squatted beside the big man and examined the lump on his head. “It’s a long story. I didn’t know you were aimin’ to stick around and visit with Juanita. I figured you were right behind me, comin’ out the door. I waited down at the stop sign, but you never showed. I was beginnin’ to think I had the wrong guy. I called Dwight. When he mentioned you bein’ tall, skinny, and a tad shy, I figured I’d better come pull you out. Who is this guy, anyway?”

  “You don’t know him?” Laramie asked.

  “Nope. Never seen him.”

  “He claims to live here. I think he’s the father of that baby.”

  “So, he’s the one.”

  “The baby,” Laramie groaned. “I dumped him on the divan when I ran for my life.”

  Laramie and Hap jogged back to the house. The black dog on the porch opened one eye, then closed it quick.

  Philippe stood on the couch chewing a dry, yellow celery stick.

  “Where the heck is Juanita?” Hap asked.

  “I don’t know. She left me holding the baby.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “You check out the bathroom.”

  “Why?”

  Laramie plucked Philippe off the couch. “Because the old boy in the yard spotted something in the bathroom that made him decide to kill me. If you find a body in there, I don’t want to know about it.”

  Hap stepped over a spilled tray of cat litter. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  Laramie waved at the hall. “You don’t know your way around this house?”

  “This was the first time I’ve ever been here.”

  “You aren’t going with this Juanita?”

  “We’ve been talkin’ on the phone for three months, but this is the first time we met.”

  “You made a great first impression. The bathroom is the first door to the left.” Laramie bounced the baby and snatched a look out the busted window. “Hurry up. That self-inflicted bowling ball wound won’t keep him down forever.”

  Hap wandered back with two sheets of paper. “She taped a Dear John letter to the toilet seat lid, which seems rather appropriate.”

  Laramie surveyed the room. “She was leaving all this?”

  “It says she’s splittin’ with a dark, handsome cowboy.”

  “Who?”

  Hap shrugged. “Me, I reckon. That’s why she went crazy. I told her there was no way I was takin’ her and the baby with me.”

  Laramie continued to shake his head as he gaped at the room. “That explains it. A scorned woman.” Philippe swatted him in the ear with the dried celery.

  “She deceived me, man. During all those phone calls, she neglected to mention that she lived with a guy, had a kid, and had gained umpteen pounds since the picture she mailed me. Worst of all, she lied about having a birthmark in the shape of a horse’s head under her right ear.”

  “What’s a birthmark got to do with anything?”

  “I told you, it’s a long story.”

  “Hey, is he dead?” The voice from the front yard was female, curious, but not panicked. They found Juanita crouched over the unconscious man. “Did you kill him?”

  “Where have you been?” Laramie marched out to the woman and shoved the baby at her.

  She straddled Philippe on her hip. “When I heard Francis was on his way home, I knew I had to get out of the house. If he found you here, he would beat on me and the baby again.”

  “What about me?” Laramie asked. “Weren’t you concerned that he would carve me up?”

  “Why should I be? I don’t even know you.” She turned and purred at Hap. “Honey, did you come back for me?”

  “I came back for Laramie, my new ropin’ partner.”

  “Well, you’re stuck with me now, too,” she said. “I’m going with you. When Francis wakes up, he’ll kill me, now that you did this to him.”

  Hap held up his hand. “I told you, I’m not taking you with me. I came up here for a chat. That’s all I promised and you know it. We agreed to a ‘no strings’ visit.”

  “Do you call ten minutes a visit?”

  “A short visit. That’s all we needed.”

  “If you didn’t plan on staying longer,” she whined, “why did you give this guy my address?”

  “Optimistic speculation.”

  “I’m not staying here. Give me and the baby a ride to my parents,” she demanded. “You owe me that much.”

  “Where do they live?” Laramie asked.

  “Greybull.”

  “Get your stuff, quick, and change the baby’s diaper. W
e’ll give you a ride,” Laramie offered.

  Juanita scampered toward the house toting a celery-wielding Philippe.

  “Why did you promise that?” Hap said.

  “She has to get out of this situation. That guy’s crazy.”

  “But she chose the situation herself.”

  “And we complicated it. The least we can do is to get her to her folks.”

  “Then she’s ridin’ with you,” Hap insisted. “She had this romantic notion that I was comin’ up here to rescue her and the baby, then live happily ever after. I don’t want her in my truck. No tellin’ what she’ll do.”

  “Okay, she rides with me. But we caravan over to Grey-bull together. Right, partner?”

  “Yeah, but we need the ropes. You think he’ll stay unconscious?”

  While Hap untied Francis, Laramie found the switchblade knife.

  “You think that’s the only weapon he’s packin’?” Hap asked.

  “No, but I don’t intend to search him.” Laramie eyed the front door. “I wish she’d hurry up. Go in there and nudge her along.”

  Hap threw up his hands. “Not me, partner. I ain’t goin’ in that house ever again. And for sure and certain, I won’t do any nudgin’ with her.”

  “But she’s your Juanita.”

  “That’s the point. She’s not my Juanita.”

  “Get both trucks running,” Laramie said. “I’ll see what I can tote.”

  Juanita held the baby wearing a clean diaper, boots, and a T-shirt. Laramie carted a cardboard box and two brown grocery sacks crammed with clothes.

  The black dog raised up on his front paws and howled.

  As they bolted to the trucks, Francis propped up on his elbow. “Where do you think you’re going?” He reached for his black boot and brandished a hunting knife with a ten-inch blade.

  “To a better place than you.” Hap hefted the sixteen-pound ebony bowling ball with the number 135 engraved next to the holes. He bombed Francis’s upraised forehead.

  “Did you kill him?” Juanita asked.

  “I don’t reckon I killed him.” Hap trotted to the trucks.

  “It’s all right with me if you did,” she called out.

  Hap hopped behind the steering wheel of the black Dodge. With the door still open, he shouted, “Well, it ain’t all right with me.”

  The fifty-mile ride to Greybull took less than an hour.

  Philippe slept in his mother’s arms as Juanita stared out the window at bleak prairie and irrigated farmland. Laramie gripped the steering wheel tight and focused on the broken yellow line of Highway 14.

  The hum of the tires on the asphalt dulled his mind. The air in the cab of the truck pulsed with strong garlic. He rolled down the window. Juanita seemed to slump lower in the seat every mile they traveled.

  Laramie mulled over how Juanita might have gotten herself into such a fix. He found it hard to believe that Francis was her best available choice. But then, he had often thought the same thing about his mother.

  Litter and dust swirled as they pulled into, then through, Greybull. The Bighorn Mountains towering to the east provided a Wyoming landscape, but the rundown stores and abandoned cars reminded Laramie of many of the dozen or so Texas towns where he grew up. He couldn’t help studying every bar they passed, expecting his dad to emerge. When he was young, he had teased his mother about writing a book on the front-door architecture of bars, saloons, and honky-tonks.

  He leaned toward the window and gulped the dry summer air.

  Juanita pointed to the railroad tracks. “Pull in there.”

  Laramie found himself cruising through an old abandoned brickyard and following a winding dirt road through the sage. He slowed to a crawl in the foot-deep ruts, glancing at the sleeping baby each time. Gravel gave way to dirt, then two parallel paths in the weeds. Hap’s dusty, black Dodge bounced along behind them.

  A fortress of top-burnt cottonwood trees shielded three old singlewide trailer houses that curved in a U-shape. Several kids played soccer in the hard-packed dirt yard.

  “Are these all your relatives?” Laramie asked.

  “Three of them are my brothers. Two are my sister’s kids. I can never remember who the other one is.”

  Laramie parked his truck in the shade next to an International pickup with no hood or engine. “How many live out here?”

  “Mamma says there’s fifteen now. But it changes all the time.”

  Hap parked his rig next to Laramie’s, then lounged against the front of his truck.

  Laramie grabbed the box and sacks of clothes. “Where do you want these?”

  Juanita pointed at the center trailer. “On the porch by the blue one.”

  A small, gray-haired Mexican lady draped in an old, long dress stalked out onto the porch and began to yell in Spanish.

  “Who is that?” Laramie called out above the diatribe.

  “My mother.”

  “What is she saying?”

  “She’s happy that I came home.”

  The screaming intensified as they neared the blue trailer. Juanita said nothing. When Laramie shoved the box and sacks on the porch, the woman leaned over and spat into each of them, then stormed into the house.

  “What was that all about?” Hap called out from his position next to the trucks.

  “She’s stating the rules,” Juanita announced.

  “Spitting is part of the rules?” Laramie asked.

  “That was for emphasis.”

  Laramie’s voice lowered. “Are you going to be all right?”

  Juanita twisted around. She let out a big sigh and shifted the baby to her other hip. “Now do you see why I wanted so bad to go with Hap? But I am better off here than in Cody when Francis wakes up. I would rather be hit with my mother’s words than his fists.”

  “Take care of that baby. Philippe and I are pals, now,” Laramie said.

  She glanced down at her grubby tennis shoes. “Are you sure you don’t want me to live with you?”

  “I’m not the one you need. You can do a whole lot better than me.”

  Four scrawny white chickens clucked and pecked their way across the yard.

  “That’s a nice way of saying ‘no.’”

  “Look after yourself and your baby. Find a job. You’ll get some breaks. You were right, Juanita; beneath all that gloom and self-pity, you’re a pretty lady.”

  The two cowboys drove back into Greybull. Hap pulled up in front of the Sportsman Bar & Grill. Laramie parked behind him. Hap wandered back to his truck. “Did you ever eat at Frank’s Last Chance Steak House?”

  Laramie studied the buildings along the street and watched the doors of each bar. “Nope. Where’s it at?”

  “About fifteen miles on down Highway 14 toward the Bighorns. Leave your truck and ride with me. I’ll fill you in on the deal with Juanita.”

  Laramie slid out and locked the door. “You think it’s okay to leave my truck parked here?”

  “Hey, this is Wyoming. You could leave it until February and no one would notice. How long have you known Dwight?”

  Laramie flopped down on the passenger’s side. “About two years. I met him at a clinic in Amarillo and worked for him all winter. How about you?”

  “I was fifteen when he decided to teach me to rope.” Hap eased onto the highway headed east.

  Laramie rubbed the back of his neck. “Dwight’s a great teacher. He pushes you to the point that…”

  Hap tapped on the steering wheel. “You almost want to bust his crooked nose… but then it…”

  “… dawns on you that he’s right, and almost in spite of yourself…” Laramie boomed.

  “… he’s made you a better roper.” Hap glanced at Laramie in the rearview mirror. “Geez, we ain’t known each other for two hours and we’re finishin’ each other’s sentences.”

  “I’ve never known anyone better at sizing up a man than Dwight. That’s why I drove up here. If he says we should rope together, it’s futile to argue.”

&nb
sp; “Did Dwight ever take you to the jackpot ropin’ in Chugwater?”

  “That’s the first place we roped together,” Laramie said. “He headed; I heeled. We won the money that night and I never argued about his teaching tactics after that.”

  “No foolin’? Same thing happened to me. I reckon we didn’t go over there until I was about sixteen. I headed, and Dwight heeled. I’ve forgotten a lot of ropin’ since then. But I remember that night. We won the average with two 8.2 times.”

  “This is uncanny,” Laramie added. “Dwight and I had two 8.2 times.”

  “Are you kiddin’ me? Maybe Dwight’s right. Maybe we are supposed to rope together.”

  “How much did you and Dwight make that night?”

  “My share was $155. I thought I was rollin’ in big money. Don’t tell me that’s what you and Dwight made.”

  “Nope. We made $475 each.”

  Hap pushed his hat back. “I’m glad to hear that. This was gettin’ weird.”

  “I went out and bought a video camera so I could analyze my roping. Do you remember what you spent that purse on?”

  “Yeah. On a date.”

  “A $155 date when you were sixteen?”

  “It was high school prom night. I rented a limo and ever’thin’.”

  “She must have been quite a girl.”

  “I’m sure she was. I just don’t remember her very well. She was an exchange student. But she was cute. And I remember her name.”

  “You remember her name?”

  “It was Juanita. They are all named Juanita.”

  Laramie leaned back and folded his arms. “What is this thing about you and girls named Juanita?”

  The walls of the steak house displayed a wide collection of stuffed mounts, racks and heads of most every game animal in Wyoming, plus a few from other continents. The tablecloths were linen, the dishware sturdy, and the floors polished hardwood. With the massive grill in the center of the room, smoke swirled with scents of hot red meat and sweet sauces.

  The cowboys finished their medium-rare ribeye steaks and thick-sliced fries, then dissected cherry cheesecake as Hap finished the story about his fascination for girls named Juanita. “I reckon that all seems a tad strange,” he offered.