One Step Over the Border (17 page)

“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.”

They crept close enough to hear a diesel truck idle and catch the movement of the girls as they pushed one of the ATVs up
the embankment to the road.

“This sucks. We should have left your four-wheeler out there where it broke down. We could have been back to town by now,”
the black-haired girl fumed.

“Oh, sure, that would have been cool. It’s registered in my dad’s name.”

“Those two old cowboys could have caught up with us,” the dark-haired one griped.

“But they didn’t. Let’s load this picker and get out of here.”

With the machine down in the culvert, both girls leaned their backsides into the ATV’s rack and shoved.

“I’m going to shoot Rivera. They had an opener to the gate. He set them up to chase us off. Now that the crop’s about ready
to harvest, he’s trying to move in and take it all. I told you we couldn’t trust him.”

“Don’t shoot him before he pays us. We’ve been working our butts off out here. Push harder.”

“Me? You’re the one that needs to push harder,” the blonde one huffed. “We aren’t going to lose this deal now. We grew the
best crop they’ve ever seen. Besides, I’ve got to get that start-up money back into my college fund by September 15.”

The four-wheeler sprang up on the level gravel roadway.

The dark-haired one steered the rig around to line up with the ramps. “Rivera will pay. We know too much.”

They rolled it up in the trailer, then shoved the tailgate in place.

Hap leaned toward Laramie and whispered. “Is that duct tape on the right taillight? I think that’s my dadgum truck!”

The girls marched toward the rig.

“We have to stop them before they drive off,” Laramie replied.

Hap jammed his hand in his pocket and plucked out his spare set of keys. Ignoring the garage door opener, he pressed the round
button on his remote key lock.

“Oh, crap,” the blonde fumed. “You locked the keys in the rig.”

The dark-haired girl beat on the driver’s side door. “I can’t believe this. I did not lock the doors.”

The blonde stomped around in front of the headlights. “Oh, sure. You have fouled up things all summer.”

“Me? It was your ATV that broke down.”

“And you were the one to bring Rivera into this. We didn’t need him.”

“Like, where were we going to sell this grass? Not out behind the gym.”

“Okay, oh brilliant one, what are we going to do now? I told you we didn’t need a truck, even if it was a free loaner. We
should have just driven the four-wheelers like we have all summer.”

“Find a big rock and bust a window.”

When the girls stepped to the driver’s side with a grapefruit-sized rock, Hap fired two quick shots over their heads.

“Hands on the hood of the truck, girls, right now!”

They dropped the rocks, but didn’t move.

“Hands on the hood,” Laramie yelled.

“It’s those cowboys,” the blonde snarled.

“Get over there or we’ll shoot,” Hap warned.

“You won’t shoot us,” the dark-haired one insisted. “There’s no money in it for you.”

The bullet from Laramie’s gun shattered the side-view mirror next to the girls. They both slammed hands on the hood.

“I can’t believe you shot my truck,” Hap groaned.

“It worked. Frisk them.”

“Who, me?”

“They shot at us with semiauto .45s. We need to disarm them.”

Laramie kept them covered while Hap crept up behind them. “Are either one of you named Juanita?”

“Go to…” the blonde growled.

“Nice girls, huh?” Hap interrupted. “The dark-haired one had a gun in the back of her jeans, but I can’t find anything on
the other one.”

“Rivera sent you, didn’t he?” the blonde snarled.

“Tell it to the sheriff.”

“You’re going to turn us in?”

“We’re doin’ you a favor.”

“Go ahead, do it. We’ll tell them we were out for a ride, stumbled across some marijuana growers, and you tried to rape us.
Who do you think a jury will believe, you two drifter cowboys or innocent teenage girls?”

“You think Rivera will testify on your behalf?” the dark-haired one added.

Laramie noticed distant car headlights racing toward them. “That story won’t wash, little darlin’s… you’ve got a gate opener
in your pocket. We have another witness to the discovery of the pot field, who is right now contacting the county sheriff.
Besides that, this truck was stolen from a minimart two nights ago.”

“No wonder Rivera gave it to us.” The dark-haired one kicked at a tire. “He set us up to be caught.”

A car pulled up behind the trailer with blinding headlights.

“Who is that?” the blonde called out.

“Looks like Rivera to me,” Laramie said.

“I’m going to get you, Rivera…” the blonde yelled. “It will make
Kill Bill
look like a kid’s movie. That pot field belongs to us and you don’t get one dollar out of our idea. We planted it. We farmed
it. We put in the gate. It is ours, you son of…”

“Who in the world is Rivera?” A lady’s voice floated out of the shadows.