One Step Over the Border (31 page)

“Where did that come from?” Rosa asked.

“Some tourist brought a dozen. She said they’re selling them all over.” Erika handed the shirt to Hap.

He passed it to Rosa. “You know, it might be easier to start a campaign than stop one. When Oprah phones, we’ll have to tell
her she’s too late.”

Erika rubbed her upturned nose. “We’re going to miss all the activity. Normally, this is a slow time in the park. But we won’t
miss Davenport.”

“We heard he ‘retired,’” Hap said.

“Yeah, but they retained the right to bring embezzlement charges against him later on. That’s him in that red Acura. They
gave him an hour to pack his things and leave the park.”

The Acura roared past them and headed north.

When they crossed the line out of the national park, Rosa raised her clenched fist and shouted, “Yes.”

“You won again,” Hap said.

“Yep.”

“How many victories does that make?” Laramie quizzed.

“One hundred and twenty-two, but who’s counting? Of course, my next cause might be the most important of all.”

“What’s that?” Laramie asked.

“Helping you two find Hap’s Juanita. When I get to El Paso, I’ll contact my aunt Paula. She sends birthday cards to everyone
on the Rodríguez side of the family. She’ll track all the Juanitas.”

Laramie sighed. “That’s the unreal part. I agreed to this whole search thing because I was convinced there was no way to find
Hap’s phantom Juanita. Now we’ve stumbled into a whole remuda of under-ear marks.”

“Yeah, with any luck, before Christmas, Hap and I could be related.” She offered him a sly smile.

“To tell you the truth, this quest has taken on a little less intensity,” Hap remarked. “It’s not the drivin’ force that it’s
been in the past.”

Laramie howled. “Are you saying you want Rosa to change her name?”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“Mine, too,” Rosa murmured. “Was that a soft enough reply?”

“Perfect.”

“Geez, do you two want me to step outside so you can have some privacy?” Laramie said.

Hap slipped his arm around her shoulder. “No need to do that… not until we stop the truck, anyway.”

At the junction of Highway 90, Hap pulled over next to the
Sold
signs on the property at the southeast corner. “So, this is the place just bought by Out West Development?”

“Oh, I got so excited about winning, I forgot to tell you,” Rosa said. “Davenport admitted that the whole fuss revolves around
water.”

“I’m not followin’ you,” Hap said.

“Davenport didn’t want the Rodríguez Ranch for the park. He wanted it for himself. The Out West Development Corporation from
New Jersey bought this property at the junction to install a ninety-thousand-square-foot water-bottling plant. After the state
listed the water quality ratings, they wanted to exploit the springs at the ranch, haul the water down here, and bottle it.
Then they could advertise ‘the purest water in the Lone Star State.’”

Laramie surveyed the acreage. “That doesn’t make sense. This whole ruckus is over bottled water?”

“It’s a big business,” Rosa insisted.

“Not compared to casinos.” Laramie looked up and down the empty intersection. “And where would they get the employees to work
way out here?”

“Look, that’s what Davenport claimed. He said he was offered a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus and a 15 percent share of
the company if he delivered the springs at the Rodríguez Ranch.”

“I liked the story better without their ending,” Laramie said. “It lacks drama. Will the history books record ‘The Bottled
Water War of West Texas’?”

“We don’t have to mention that part in our memoirs. Wait a minute,” Hap shouted. “We’ll say we were involved in a classic
battle over water rights. Yes!”

Rosa laughed. “I don’t think Hap gets any more caffeine today.”

“Hey,” Laramie said. “Drive around those billboards over there.”

When Hap rolled the truck next to the huge, low
For Sale
sign, they spotted a red car.

“It’s Davenport’s Acura,” Laramie said.

“But where’s Davenport?” Hap questioned.

“Who cares?” Rosa countered. “I don’t ever want to see him again.”

Hap piled out of the rig. He circled the Acura, then opened the driver’s side. “No one around and the keys tossed on the seat
as if to say, ‘Steal me.’ A lot of his personal things from the office are stacked in the backseat. It’s like he jist disappeared.
Ain’t that somethin’?”

“Maybe he hiked into that barranca to take a leak.” Laramie pointed to a deep ravine in the barren desert.

“No one needs that much privacy,” Hap insisted. “Besides, after what Rosa did to him, he won’t be functional for a week. I
say what we’ve got us here is a legitimate mystery.”

“I think we should leave,” Rosa said. “This feels weird. Seriously, guys, this is the time to toss the cards in and walk away.”

“Remember how you said adventures seem to come to me and you envied that? Well, here’s another,” Hap reminded her.

“We’ve had enough exploits for one week, partner.” Laramie scrunched around and tried to stretch his legs. “Let’s get on to
El Paso. I really don’t care what Davenport’s doing.”

Hap prowled toward the ravine. “Then you two set here and twiddle your thumbs. I want some answers.”

Laramie crawled out of the truck. “Come on, Rosa, he’ll need us to fight off the snakes or something.”

“I’m not going down there. I have a lousy feeling about this. Trust me. This is not a good thing to do.”

The dirt was soft, yellowish-brown and dry where they hiked down the edge of the steep ravine. They kneeled in the sparse
shade of a creosote plant to survey the dry creekbed two hundred feet below them.

Laramie waved at a clump of green bushes.

“He’s diggin’ a hole.”

“He’s got one of the cardboard boxes down there.”

“Buryin’ somethin’?”

“Evidence, perhaps.”

“This is gettin’ more interestin’ by the minute.”

“Maybe Rosa’s right. Maybe it’s time to walk away.”

“No way. We’re goin’ to check this out. Besides, I’m doin’ this for you.”

“Me? I said we should go on to El Paso.”

“Yes, but for the rest of your life you’d regret not findin’ out what this is about. You’d lay awake nights, unable to sleep.”

“Most nights I’m awake, unable to sleep, now,” Laramie said.

They crept along the brush row as they watched a sweat-drenched Davenport dig deeper and deeper into the sandy floor of the
steep barranca.

“I think he wants to bury the whole dadgum car,” Hap whispered.

Laramie tugged at Hap’s sleeve. “No one digs a hole that deep unless he’s looking for buried treasure. I just don’t care what
he’s looking for. Let’s go back.”

Hap pulled loose and strolled out of the shade of the mesquite straight at the laboring Davenport, waist deep in a large rectangular
hole. “You plannin’ on puttin’ in a swimmin’ pool?”

Laramie trailed up beside Hap.

Davenport tossed down the shovel. “What are you cowboy idiots doing here?”

“It seems to me you’re the one to fit the idiot label,” Hap jibed. “You got fired. You lost out on the big-money deal. Now
you’re diggin’ yourself into a heart attack. Maybe we aren’t the dumb ones here.”

“Oh, but you are the dumbest.” A deep voice boomed from the thick brush behind them.

Laramie and Hap spun around. Ferguson and Munkk aimed Smith and Wesson .357 Magnums at their chests.

“I’m killin’ the tall one right now,” Munkk threatened.

“Not before he digs his own grave,” Ferguson said. “No one cheats Out West Development out of a profit. It’s too bad you didn’t
bring that Mexican gal with you. Then we’d have four of a kind.”

Hap watched the Smith and Wessons. “All of this over bottled water?”

“Water?” Ferguson hooted.

Davenport tossed his shovel. “You truly are cowboy idiots. The water plant was a front to launder drug money coming out of
Mexico. With a plant guaranteed to show a profit, I could be a multimillionaire in a year.”

“Now you’re going to be freakin’ dead in ten minutes,” Monkk growled. “Ain’t it something how life turns so quick? A couple
hours ago we were tied to fenceposts… and now we get to bury all of you.”

“It’s a good thing we called the Texas Rangers before we hiked down here,” Hap boasted.

“What kind of morons do you take them for?” Davenport replied. “How could all these plans be ruined by absolute imbeciles?
The Texas Rangers? Why didn’t you say the cavalry or John Wayne? Or the San Antonio Spurs? Nobody believes that story. This
is not the way I envisioned my life’s end, between two Mafia hit men and Pancho and Lefty. I’m too savvy for this. I earned
a master’s degree in forest management. No one is coming to rescue you. You’re as dead as I am!” His voice rose higher, like
a wounded weasel’s.

At the first shot from the cliff behind them, Davenport dove into the hole. Laramie rolled toward rocks to the right, and
Hap sprawled behind the fresh dirt pile. Bullets flew off the cliff in rapid succession.

Ferguson and Monkk returned fire. A half-dozen shots blazed.

“There’s too many of them,” Monkk yelled. “Let’s get out of here before they bring in a helicopter.”

“They actually called the Rangers?” Davenport shouted. “No one does that but some idiot cowboys!”

Ferguson and Munkk sprinted toward a pickup parked at the north end of the barranca. Bullets from above chased them along.

Davenport raised up to watch the fleeing gunmen.

“Get down,” Hap screamed.

The bullet that hit Davenport had already exited the back of his shoulder when the words blurted out. Blood puddled through
his shirt, before he crumpled into the sandy hole.

Both Laramie and Hap hunkered flat until the truck roared off across the desert.

“I told you I didn’t like the sound of this.” Rosa’s voice floated down from the rim.

After Davenport was evacuated by helicopter, it took two hours more for all the police reports to be filled out.

The sun hovered low when they finally got on the road toward El Paso.

Laramie leaned back and closed his eyes. “I’m still due for a quiet, uneventful day.”

Hap rolled down the window. Warm air blasted his sweaty face. “Rosa, how did you learn to fire a carbine that fast?”

“It’s a little trick I learned from…”

“The KGB?”

“No, from my brother, Milt. He’s a cowboy-action, quick-shoot guy. But I vote with Laramie. That’s enough excitement for a
while.”

“Oh, great, then we all agree,” Hap chided. “Nothin’ but lifeless activity for the next few days. We’ll eat at the Crunchy
Truck Stop Buffet where you can’t tell the veal from the tapioca… listen to Erma Gluck sing the top ten hits of 1926… and
drive forty-five miles an hour all the way to El Paso while we discuss famous land wars in China. We can recite Victorian
poetry or debate the lastin’ influence of John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism. How’s that for borin’? Is that what you two had
in mind?”

Laramie turned to Rosa. In unison, they shouted, “Yes!”

L
ike a wind waving through tall prairie grass, the cavvy of mares and foals followed the buckskin stallion over every rise
that stretched across the west Texas horizon. Laramie and Hap galloped to the top of the treeless hill, then paused to watch
the wild horses flee deeper into the heart of the military reserve. When the band stalled at a small muddy spring along the
brown prairie, the cowboys waited.