One Step Over the Border (16 page)

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,” Annamarie 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.”