FROM CHAPTER ONE    

      When Laramie reached the front step he patted the dog, but the animal showed no interest in him. Afternoon heat reflected off the walls like a radiant electric heater in winter. 

      He scraped open the busted screen door. He hesitated to knock on the peeling white paint of the wooden one when he heard a blast of angry Spanish words, followed by a loud crash and a yelp. 

      Laramie ground his teeth, then checked the note one more time: 2490. He eyed his truck and considered a hasty retreat, when a man hollered from inside, “Juanita! Put that down.” 

      Even the dog flinched when the lid to a white porcelain commode busted out the front window, scattering glass on the unfinished deck.

      The wooden door flung open. A black mustached man about Laramie's age sported a black, beaver felt cowboy hat and several parallel streaks of blood across his cheek. 

      “Ehhh . . . Hap Bowman?” Laramie stammered. “Dwight Purley sent me to ask you about . . .”

      The shorter man grabbed his outstretched hand and yanked him indoors. “Man, am I glad to see you.” Then he barreled outside, slamming the door behind him. 

      The room reeked of garlic and dirty diapers. A divan sprawled backwards. A slice of pizza plastered the wall. Majors heard a roar from the yard and peered out the busted window in time to view the Dodge pickup spin out into the street and head south.

      The bristles of a broom smacked Laramie's ear. The surprise, more than the impact, staggered him into the trash covered pine coffee table. He cracked his shin and hopped around the room trying to flee his attacker.

      “Who are you?” the dark haired lady snarled. Her full lips were painted as red as her long fingernails.

      “Excuse me, ma'am . . . I didn't mean to intrude . . . I just . . .”

      She walloped him in the side, then jabbed his ribs with the broom handle. “Well, you did intrude. Where'd Hap go?”

      Laramie hunkered behind a cluttered, mucky end table. “I wish I knew. He's the reason I stopped by. I need to talk to him.”

      The brown skinned woman yanked open the gauze curtain. “It figures he'd run out on me.” She spun back. “What are you staring at?” She grabbed up a jar of baby food and cocked her arm.

      Laramie shielded his face. “Wait, lady. Whoever got you angry, it's not me. I was told to come talk to a Hap Bowman who lives here.”

      “He doesn't live here.”

      “I guess that's my mistake.”

      “He never lived here. That's the problem.”

      “Then, I'll be leaving. I just wanted to talk to Hap. Sorry for the inconvenience.” 

      “Inconvenience? The jerk ruined my life. Look at me. Look at me! He turned down all of this.”

      A full, stained yellow t-shirt hung outside her skin tight jeans. Bright yellow round earrings dangled even with her chin. Smeared mascara darkened her sad eyes. Slumped shoulders belied her feigned defiance. 

      “I'm sorry for whatever's going on here. But I never met Hap before. I have no explanation for his behavior. I'm a roper and I was told that . . . 
  The pureed peaches sailed at his head. Laramie ducked. The glass jar crashed into the black iron table lamp which tumbled to the soiled green shag carpet. 

      Laramie retrieved the lamp and shoved it back on the table. “I take it you don't like ropers.”

FROM CHAPTER TWO

      “Hap, you're thirty-one years old and you refuse to date anyone without the name Juanita. It's a full blown obsession.”

      The cool westward wind drifted over them, pregnant with heat to be birthed later in the morning. A distant rooster sounded startled to crow so late. Bacon grease congealed in a black skillet, parked in the dirt between them.

 “Laramie, I'm tryin' harder this summer to understand than I ever have. I know one thing, this is my last season of searchin'. I got to give it my best shot. That's the only way I'll be able to walk away from it.”

      “If last night's any indication, we won't live another week. Sometimes it's like walking the floor with an addict. I try to keep you upright and moving until this ‘drug' works out of your system.”

      “I sorta figure that last night was progress.”

      “Progress?” Laramie waved his boot like a pointer stick. “You don't have a clue whether she lives in the U.S. or Mexico, or whether it's in Texas, New Mexico, or Colorado. She could have moved to Cody, Wyoming, by now. Think of that for irony.”

      “We checked out Cody ten years ago.”

      “You've got to narrow it down some, Hap. It's like looking for some particular penguin in Antarctica. We're going to find Juanitas all over, but how can we tell the right one? So far the only site we've crossed off the list was that run down cantina in Matamoros.”

 Hap studied the tanned creases around Laramie's eyes. He kept thinking of the old rodeo phrase, “it ain't the years, boys . . . it's the miles.” His voice lowered, “I eliminated some others last night. I was layin' there in my aches and pains tryin' to think it all through and it dawned on me. My Juanita is the kind of gal to make somethin' of herself. We were lookin' in the wrong place last night.”

      Laramie shook his boot out. Something dropped to the sand, dug a quick hole, and buried itself. “What was that?”

      “A beetle, I guess. Now, listen up. This is huge. I decided there will be no more searchin' out cantinas, saloons or casinos. I'm just sure my Juanita's teachin' at a school, nursin' at a hospital, or runnin' the soup kitchen at the gospel mission. We need to be lookin' on the good side of town. That's the kind of woman she is.”

      Treeless brown prairie grass stretched north of them. Laramie gazed at the horizon as if expecting a fox to jump up. “The Rio Grande's eighteen-hundred miles long. That's not what I'd call narrow.”

      Hap stood up slow, unlocking his back as if it were a pair of vise grips. “We ought to go search a hospital. Maybe they'd rent us a cheap room for the night. That would do us the most good.”

      Laramie wiggled his toes, then shoved his foot in his boot. “Hap, I promised you I'd ride the river with you. And you know I keep every promise. But that doesn't mean I comprehend all of this.”

      Hap scratched his unshaven chin. “Look, if it's any consolation, I don't understand me either. Sometimes this drive feels like a disease. But I aim to get cured. And the antidote is somewhere between here and the headwaters of the Rio Grande near Creede, Colorado. I guarantee, partner, this is the last summer you and me have to put up with this.”