Girl Squad

by Kim Hoover

  “What is it?” Jane asked.

  “We move our campsite over to that area behind the dump station where no one ever goes because it smells.”

  “Eeuuww, yuck,” Rachel said.

  “But first, we drive to the exit and go out, and then stop and have Rachel distract that ranger at the gate, Missy, with some nonsense about going into HQ one more time. Meanwhile, we turn back around and sneak in.”

  “What about me? How do I get back in?” Rachel asked.

  “You’re gonna have to use your charms. You tell her you dropped a ring or something out the window a little way back and you need to go look for it. It’ll be close to the end of her shift, so hopefully she’ll just forget about you and go on home.”

  “I don’t know, Cal. That sounds iffy to me,” Rachel said.

  “Well, if y’all can think of something better, great. But that’s the best I can do.”

  “I think you can pull it off, Rachel. You’re so clever,” Jane said. “I like it.”

  Rachel glowed. “You’re right. Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “We have to assume the Rangers will be in here tonight, trying to catch these folks and maybe even make an arrest,” I said.

  “Right,” said Jane.

  “We don’t want to mess that up,” Rachel said.

  “No, we don’t. So we have to stay out of sight. Once we’re back in here, no one can know it.”

  And so we followed the plan. We packed everything up in the car and drove to the exit.

  “Bye!” we all hollered at the same time.

  We waved and made a big deal out of our departure.

  “Be careful out there, girls!” Missy called as we passed.

  As soon as we got outside, Rachel jumped out and went back to talk to Missy. Sure enough, she got Missy to leave her post and we rolled back in as quickly as we could. Rachel showed up a little while later.

  “No problemo,” she said, giving me and Jane a high-five each.

  We were settled into our new smelly quarters by dinnertime. We decided we should try to get some sleep in the early evening since we might be up all night. We were so keyed up that it was hard to force ourselves to sleep for a few hours before midnight. But we finally just lay down and set the alarm for eleven thirty. When it went off, I was so groggy I couldn’t remember what was going on or even where I was.

  “Man,” I said. “I was so deep asleep.”

  We got up and dressed in the green fatigues we’d picked up in an army surplus store in Amarillo. By the time I was outfitted, I was wide awake. I pulled out the map.

  “Let’s go over our positions,” I said. “Rachel, you’ll be here,” I said, pointing to the playground. “See if you can get on top of something high up.”

  “Where do you want me?” Jane asked.

  “Over here,” I said, “at the Lone Star Theater. You should have a good view from the top of the building. I’ll be at the dump station.”

  We tied back our hair and pulled black-knit face masks over our heads—something Rachel had come up with in the five-and-dime store. We tested all of the equipment and made sure we could hear each other over the walkie-talkies.

  “Okay, ladies,” I said. “Listen up. What we’re about to do is very dangerous. You heard how the Rangers described these people. All we want to do tonight is get some pictures, right?”

  Jane and Rachel nodded in agreement.

  “No funny business,” I said, giving Rachel the hairy eyeball.

  “I’ve got it,” Rachel said.

  “Okay, take your positions!”

  We walked as quickly as we could to our posts. It was just after midnight. Using my binoculars, I kept an eye on the area where we expected the tanker to show up. At a quarter to one, I saw someone walking into that spot—a man dressed in dark clothes and a baseball cap. I radioed Jane.

  “Do you see that guy?”

  “I do. He may be a lookout.”

  Rachel piped in, “There’s another guy. He’s signaling a thumbs-up. I’m taking pictures.”

  At that moment, a bus-size RV pulled in. I took shot after shot, hoping to capture something, anything.

  “Jane, what do you see?” I whispered into my radio.

  “The two men got into the bus. It’s just idling now. Nothing is happening.”

  We kept watch as the minutes ticked by. It was getting close to two a.m. and nothing else had happened.

  “Do you think they called it off?” Rachel asked.

  “No reason to think that,” I said. “Just hold tight. They have plenty of time before sunrise.”

  “Wait,” Jane said, “I see trucks. It looks like three of them.”

  “Everyone get your cameras out,” I ordered.

  One of the trucks pulled up to the side of the bus. I could see someone connecting what looked like a large hose to the tanker. I snapped a picture.

  “Can anyone see faces?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Jane answered.

  “I got a look at the bus driver,” Rachel said.

  “How close are you?”

  “I’m on top of the swing set.”

  “Did you get his face on camera?”

  “I think so—ouch, oops!”

  I heard a crash. I grabbed my binoculars. The men had heard it too. They were scrambling and heading in the direction of the playground. I grabbed the walkie-talkie.

  “Plan B, Plan B!” I barked.

  I took my radio and the rest of my equipment and ran as fast as I could to the Goodnight Dugout, where we had agreed to meet if things got out of hand. It was up Park Road about fifty yards from Hackberry. Jane was right behind me.

  “Come on, Rachel,” I said, “you better get over here.”

  We had practiced the route in the dark. Rachel had run it the fastest.

  “Maybe we should go back for her,” Jane said.

  “Give it another minute,” I said. “If they got her…”

  Just then, Rachel came sliding into the dugout, out of breath and pouring sweat.

  “Thank God,” I said.

  “What happened?” Jane asked.

  “I lost my balance. I fell off the swing set,” she said. “I dropped my walkie-talkie. I tried to find it…but I had to get out of there.”

  “Did they get a look at you?” I said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Jane, keep a lookout for a while, so we know they didn’t follow us.”

  Jane took her binoculars to the entrance of the dugout. She lay down, propped up on the elbows, looking through the glasses.

  “Hold on,” Jane said. “I can see someone coming up the road with a flashlight.”

  “Can you describe them at all?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jane said quietly.

  “What?”

  “He’s wearing a khaki uniform and a cowboy hat. Sort of looks like the same uniform as all the Texas Rangers we’ve seen. He must be one of them.”

  “Dang,” I said, “I bet we’ve messed up their bust. I think we’re in big trouble.”

  Jane hurried to the back of the dugout, motioning to Rachel and me. “Back here as far as we can until he goes by.”

  We saw his boots as he walked by the dugout. He paused for a few seconds, but it felt like forever. We held hands, breathing as quietly as we could. We waited several more minutes and then Jane crawled to the dugout entrance to take another look. She signaled the all clear.

  “I think we should stay here for the night,” I said. “It’s too dangerous for us to try to get back to our camp now.”

  As we lay on the dugout’s dirt floor, I gazed at the other two, who had both fallen asleep almost instantly, their gentle breathing soothing my jangled nerves. I thanked my lucky stars for them—the best friends ever.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We woke up stiff the next morning from sleeping on the hard clay. We had worn our civilian clothes under the army fatigues. We rolled up the fatigues and stowed them in a sleeping bag cover. We did the sa
me with the boots. We packed the cameras, binoculars, and walkie- talkies (less Rachel’s) in the third sleeping bag cover. Then we each carried one out of the dugout.

  “We should try to find my walkie-talkie,” Rachel said. “I can’t believe I dropped it. I guess I’m not quite ready for Ranger basic training.”

  “I didn’t realize you were planning on joining the force,” I said.

  “You never know.”

  “Well, anyway, keep your eyes open for anything out of place,” I said.

  We headed back toward the playground where she had lost the radio. We heard a truck engine humming in the background. I stopped short, my heart racing.

  “What if they’re still here?” Rachel asked.

  “Didn’t the Rangers say the gang would be out of here before sunrise?” Jane asked me.

  “That’s right. But look.” I pointed to a clearing over the horizon. “That’s one of the RVs they pulled in here last night. They’re still here.”

  “We have to be cool as cucumbers,” Jane said. “They have no reason to believe we’re a threat.”

  “Be cool,” I said. “And forget about that walkie-talkie.”

  We continued down the road at a leisurely pace and passed Hackberry. We saw the RV up close. There were several men standing around, talking with their heads down, really serious. These guys were definitely not Rangers. I noticed one of them had Rachel’s walkie-talkie in his hand. He looked up and saw us, but looked back without missing a beat.

  “Let’s make small talk with each other and not make eye contact with them,” I said.

  We chitchatted as we walked until we got back to our own campsite.

  “Oh, my, God,” Rachel said, slumping to the ground in a heap.

  “That was way too close a call,” I said. “We need to get out of here.”

  As we packed up our tent and the rest of our things, I spotted the man I’d seen holding the walkie-talkie coming toward us with two other men.

  “Heads up,” I said to Jane and Rachel.

  As they approached us, the lead man gave us the once-over before he said anything.

  “Mornin’ ladies,” he said in a fake, friendly tone.

  “What can we do for you?” I asked, stepping forward.

  “We’re lookin’ for somebody who lost something.”

  He held up the walkie-talkie.

  “Know who this belongs to?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “I’ve never seen one of those before in real life,” Rachel said, attempting to take it from him.

  He pulled the device away and looked at her for a few seconds before turning to Jane and me.

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  “Me neither,” said Jane.

  “Hope you find ’em,” Rachel said, continuing to pack up.

  “You girls leavin’?”

  “We have to get back. School and all,” I said. “Have a nice day.”

  The men finally walked on.

  “Good job, y’all,” I said.

  We finished loading up the car and headed out of the canyon. Jane didn’t say a word for miles.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? Other than we just almost got killed by those dangerous criminals.”

  Jane frowned. “Right. And I’m the one who is responsible for that.”

  “What do you mean?” Rachel and I asked almost at the exact same time.

  “I’m the oldest. I agreed to get us all this equipment and I should have known we could get ourselves into a lot of trouble,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. This was way too dangerous.”

  “Jane, it’s not your fault,” I said. “Rachel and I are almost as old as you. And, anyway, we’re all in this together.”

  “Yeah, we’re on our way home now. So everything’s okay, right?” Rachel said.

  “Okay, fair enough,” Jane said. “But I don’t mind telling you, what happened in there scared me to death.”

  We were all quiet as we drove along the flat, dusty panhandle highway. As we approached a Motel 6 off the road into Amarillo, Jane thought she saw something suspicious. I took out a pair of the binoculars and scanned the area. What I saw worried me. A lot.

  “It’s the Texas Rangers,” I said. “They’ve set up a roadblock. They’re stopping cars.”

  “We’re not driving into that,” Jane said.

  “No, we’re not. Let’s take this turn,” I said.

  “Officer Gillette wouldn’t like it if she found out we didn’t leave the canyon like we were supposed to,” Rachel said.

  “Yeah, let’s hope they didn’t notice us just now,” I said. “We messed up their chance to catch those guys. We don’t want them to figure that out.”

  We turned off on a narrow dirt road and drove a few miles. I kept watch through the binoculars in case anyone had spotted us.

  “So far, so good,” I said after half an hour.

  “Let’s look at the map,” Jane said, pulling off the road.

  “This road will hook us back on to 387 and we can get home from there,” Rachel said, pointing out the route.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The more I think about it, the more I’m not so sure about going back home now. What if we accidentally left a clue back there in the camp? The Rangers could figure it out. The gang could figure it out.”

  “You’re right,” Jane agreed.

  “We could go to Sweetwater,” I said.

  “To your grandmother’s place.” Jane nodded. “How do we get there?”

  I showed them where Sweetwater was on the map, west of Abilene.

  “It’s pretty much a straight shot south. Should take about four hours,” I said.

  “We need to get a new tire. The spare won’t make it that far.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me think. There should be a good service station in Plainview or Floydada.”

  “Let’s stay off the main highways, even if it takes a little longer,” Jane said.

  Rachel took the map and started planning a back roads route. “I think Floydada’s better for staying on the back roads.”

  “Let’s do it,” Jane said.

  “I can’t believe we’re running from the Texas Rangers now,” Rachel said, as she wrote out the turns for Jane.

  “I just want to get somewhere safe so we can take a breath and figure out what’s going on,” I said.

  “I’d really like to see those photographs we took,” Jane said.

  “Me too,” I said. “We can get them developed in Sweetwater.”

  The first service station we found didn’t take credit cards, but he told us there was a station in Paducah that did. It was a little out of our way, but what choice did we have? I dozed off as the sun pierced the windshield. I had a dream that Mom was driving a tanker truck and careening down a highway. The truck was about to go off a cliff when I woke up screaming, “No!”

  “Hey,” Jane said, grabbing my hand. “It’s okay. You were dreaming.”

  “Oh my God. My mother was about to die.”

  “We’ll find her,” Jane said. “I know we will.”

  I collapsed back against the seat, visions of my mother being roughed up by three big thugs in cowboy boots. How had she been dragged into something like this?

  Luckily the repair shop in Paducah wasn’t busy, and they had the tire we needed. But the gas line was forever. We had to wait behind a dozen cars and trucks for about half an hour. It was the OPEC oil embargo. You could never be sure you would even get gas. Sometimes the pumps ran dry. This time we were okay. Rachel and I had enough money to buy Cokes and Fritos for a snack. We were starting to feel really guilty about using Jane’s credit card all the time. I picked up a newspaper while I was in the filling station.

  “Hey, look at this,” I said to Jane, showing her the newspaper.

  “What is it?” Rachel asked, getting into the backseat.

  “It’s a picture of Jane’s dad, and the headline says, ‘Harold Rawlings greets Congressman Wells at Washington, D.C. Petro
leum Summit.’”

  “So, that’s where your parents are,” I said.

  “Wow, your dad’s a big deal!” Rachel said.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Jane said with a shrug.

  “Does he have anything to do with OPACK?” Rachel said.

  “O-P-E-C,” I said, spelling it out for her. “Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.”

  “Whatever,” Rachel said. “Why do you have to be so precise about everything all the time?”

  “I know he has something to do with it,” Jane replied, “but I’m not really sure exactly how. You know he works at the same company both your dads do.”

  “I kinda thought that. Is he their boss?” Rachel said.

  “Technically, I guess. But I think there are quite a few people in between them.”

  “What she’s saying, Rachel, is that our dads are peons and her dad is the head honcho.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Well, that’s the way it is. And that’s okay. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed or anything.”

  It was late afternoon as we pulled across the railroad tracks that separated the road from Grandma’s farm. We approached the cattle guard and the gated fence that stood at the entrance to the property. I opened the gate and we drove up to the house. Grandma was on the porch when we got there.

  It was a two-story farmhouse built out of a sandy-colored brick. The porch wrapped around three sides and two wooden rocking chairs sat near the front door with a table between them. She had dozens of flowerpots and cacti scattered on the porch and steps. An old, out-of-commission outhouse sat a few yards away from the house. A dilapidated barn stood behind it, the paint faded and chipped. Behind the house, and in every direction, were miles of red dirt covered in bits of grass and the occasional tumbleweed.

  “What in tarnation!” Grandma put her hands on her hips and shook her head as the three of us spilled out of the car.

  “Sorry we didn’t let you know,” I said, giving her a hug.

  “That’s okay. Come on inside. I was just about to get dinner on the table.”

  We brought a few things in from the car and helped Grandma set the table.

  “Now, first of all,” Grandma said, “unless I’m mistaken, you girls are supposed to be in school right about now.”

  Jane and Rachel looked at me and said nothing.