One Step Over the Border (12 page)

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.

“It’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.”

“You don’t say,” Laramie murmured. “Mighty pretty…”

“My car?”

Laramie cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am.” He watched her disappear into the store, hoping, somehow, she favored shy, pathetic
bumblers.

With all the boards in place, they toted the tools and ladders around to the shed in the back. Hap snapped the padlock. “I
ain’t never seen you tongue-tied like that.”

“I spent most of my early years too scared to talk. This is different. Real different. It all became clear to me in an instant.”

“What became clear?”

“For weeks I’ve been trying to figure out why in the world I am down here in Laredo, Texas.”

They hiked back around to the front of the store and watched as an ambulance, lights flashing, but no sirens, raced down the
street. “We’re searchin’ for my Juanita,” Hap reminded him.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why I’m here. Now, I know. It’s divine providence that I meet Annamarie.”

“Are you claimin’ the Lord led you here? What about Koni in Gillette? Or Martie in Lander? Or Sara in Cody? Or the Cainette
twins in Encampment that you were too shy to even speak to twice? You said they were all divine providence, too.”

“Hap, Annamarie has a classic beauty. She could pose for one of those Greek statues.”

“Statues? You ain’t just ponderin’ her… sports car?”

“I was talking about her face. And her eyes. Have you ever seen eyes like that? They make a man feel alive and important and…
and…”

“Yeah… right. Laramie, she’s just a diversion. We’ve got to clean up out front. Then we’ve got to figure out somethin’ about
my truck, how to get back to the motel, how to go pick up our pay at the feedlot. Where are you goin’?”

“To get diverted,” Laramie said.

Laramie leaned his backside against the counter close to where Annamarie sat, legs drooped over the edge. She rocked back
and forth and chewed on a long round stick of pepper-spiced beef jerky. A one-sided phone conversation filtered out from the
office in back where Sam had retreated with a stack of forms and receipts.

“Anyway, that’s the short version of my life story… and Hap’s… and what we’re doing in south Texas.” He fought to keep focused
on her eyes and wished he had his dark glasses on to filter his enthusiasm. “Thanks for listening. I appreciate your graciousness
after my brain freeze in the parking lot.”

“I enjoyed the visit. Mother is the only one I have time to talk to much anymore. It’s nice to hear someone else’s voice.”

“I want to hear more about you. You just got started when I interrupted.”

“Now, that will take a while. But you heard the most important parts. The more I talk about it, the more complicated it sounds.”
Her cheeks dimpled with her smile.

“I don’t have many plans for the next few decades, other than Hap’s idiot obsession, and I’m a good listener.”