Just a Happy Camper

by Jinx Schwartz

  “Enjoy. I know you have many questions for me, so go ahead and ask. Let’s stick to French. Nosy people are about.”

  “My father. You do not have to tell me, but I would like to know; were you in love?”

  Jeez, this kid didn’t beat around the bush.

  “I was. And, he tells me he has always loved me,” I said, carefully choosing my words.

  “You are still together?” He looked surprised. More like shocked. I could practically hear him thinking, “If you are together, then why did you give me away?”

  “Oh, no. As a matter of fact, we were just recently reunited since, well, before you were born. I’ll let him tell you about that time in our lives. After I call him. I have to confess, he knows nothing about you. He never knew I had his child.”

  “Ah. Now I understand. You were left alone.”

  “How did you get to be so understanding?”

  “My parents tell me I am an old soul. In France, that is considered to be one who is especially blessed.”

  “So, you aren’t angry with me?”

  “Of course not. You gave me life, how could I be ungrateful? And my parents? You must meet them. They helped me to find you. Without their help, I could not have done it.”

  I practically melted into my chair as all the tension I’d felt since yesterday’s meeting lifted from my shoulders. My eyes full of tears, I reached across the table, took his hand and asked, “Can you go with me to the Austin airport this afternoon? I can use an old soul by my side when my best friend arrives to beat me up.”

  ❋

  Jan spotted us when she entered the main terminal and I could tell by her demeanor that she was primed to give me a large ration of caca. That is, until she spotted Antoine at my side. Rushing straight to him she gushed, “Oh, my gosh, you are the spitting image of Jean Luc. But with red hair. I secretly never thought Hetta’s was real.”

  Crap. I hadn’t shared Jean Luc’s name with Antoine as yet.

  “My father’s name is Jean Luc?”

  “Well, Jan, you let that rat out of the bag.”

  “Oops.”

  I had not told Antoine his father’s name because we agreed a paternal and maternal DNA test would be the wise thing to do first. Oh, well, that horse has left the stable. Not that either of us has any doubt he’s my son; he had traced me through DNA results already.

  Home DNA test kits are banned in France, but his parents had risked a four-thousand Euro fine by ordering one online from the US. Evidently Jean Luc’s family was more law-abiding, because there was no trace of them in the paperwork Antoine brought with him. Jan and I had given each other the kits for Christmas a few years back, before Antoine took the test, so he got a match on me immediately.

  “So, Antoine,” Jan said as we drove back toward Marble Falls, “tell us all about yourself. I know nothing about you.”

  I shot her a dirty look in the rearview mirror and she stuck her tongue out at me.

  For the next hour Antoine told us of his childhood in the South of France with his parents, both professors in Toulouse, his love of soccer, and his “football” scholarship to the prestigious University of Stirling, one of the largest high-performance sports programs in the United Kingdom. That explained his almost perfect English.

  Jan threw questions at him, many of which I had not asked yet out of concern that he’d think I was too nosy. She had no such qualms.

  “So, what are you doing in the United States, other than tracking down your mother?” She said the last two words with an eye-cut at me.

  “I have recently been interviewing coaches at Universities here that have good soccer teams.”

  Jan and I both smiled; he was interviewing them?

  “And how has that been going?” Jan asked.

  “I have decided on Stanford.”

  “It’s a great school,” I said, thinking, “Does he know what that costs?”

  “Yes, I think so. I will be teaching goalkeeper classes starting next week, and also stage combat, as well as attending summer sessions while training for the fall, when I am enrolled full time.”

  “Wow,” I said, “congratulations. So you will be on the soccer team?”

  “A red shirt the first semester, then we shall see.”

  “What in the world is stage combat?” I had to ask.

  “It is a theater fight choreography technique that includes unarmed combat skills such as illusory slaps, punches, kicks, throwing, and holding techniques. Also theatrical adaptations of fencing such as rapier and dagger, smallsword and broadsword, as well as the use of other weapons, notably the quarterstaff and knives, to create the illusion of physical combat without causing harm to the other person.”

  “I knew that,” I said, causing Jan and Antoine to laugh. “So, does that mean you also do martial arts?”

  “Yes, and I fence.”

  “Gosh, Hetta just shoots ‘em,” Jan drawled.

  “You carry a gun?” Antoine asked in wide-eyed surprise.

  I opened the glove compartment where two of my guns rested. “Is there a cow in Texas?”

  “Oh, this is so wonderful. Does this mean I am a Texas cowboy?”

  “Yep, y’all.”

  ❋

  Back in Marble Falls, Antoine gave me a copy of his DNA results, and Jan and I decided to introduce him to Mom and Dad the next day. We went online and ordered more DNA kits, then Jan and I went home to break the news to my parents, which had my stomach in an uproar.

  Jan stood by my side as I told them the whole story.

  I was expecting my parents to be disappointed in me on two counts: stupidity, and not having confidence in them.

  They mentioned neither. They were elated.

  I am the queen of underestimating people.

  Chapter Twelve

  “So, what did Jenks say about Antoine?” Jan asked, as we soaked our toes in the lake after Antoine left to catch his flight to San Francisco.

  “He can’t wait to meet him.”

  “See, you were all worried over nothin’. But I’m really pissed with you.”

  “Still?”

  “Hell yes. My mother’ll probably expect me to come up with a secret grandkid now. Thanks a whole hell of a lot.”

  “Ha! Well my parents certainly put in a day of trying to make up for twenty years of not knowing Antoine. Poor guy probably couldn’t wait to escape to Stanford.”

  “Are you kidding me? That kid couldn’t get enough of your mother’s old photo albums.”

  “He sure seemed happy, especially after our field trip.”

  Daddy took us out to his “land” as he called it—forty acres he uses for hunting—for some target shooting, and was delighted that Antoine was a crack shot. My sister and her family came for lunch, and by the time Antoine left to catch his plane, it seemed like we’d all known each other forever.

  “I wonder how long it’ll take him to figure out that his birth mother is a nut job?”

  “Is that a cottonmouth?” I asked, pointing at the water in front of her feet.

  Jan squealed and jerked her legs on to the dock, then saw my evil grin. She leaned over, scooped water, and threw it at me. “Not funny, Hetta.”

  “So sue me. Go find a new best friend.”

  “I probably—oh, hell, Hetta. In all the excitement lately I plain forgot. Remember that gal you met in La Paz, the one who was on the run from the federales?”

  “Becky Haskamp?”

  “Yeah, that’s her. She called me just before I left the whale camp. She’d been trying to reach you on your Mexican cell, but no dice. Anyhow, she wants you to call her. I have the number in my phone. She sounded in a dither about somethin’.”

  “Dial her up and put her on speaker, por favor.”

  Becky answered on the first ring.

  “Hi Becky, Jan and Hetta here. Sorry it took so long to get back to you.”

  “Hetta? Oh, thank goodness. I really, really, need your help.”

  “Where are you?�
�

  She gave me an address not far away, Jan loaded it into her phone’s GPS, and we told her we’d be there within an hour.

  As we pulled into her cabin’s drive, a dog the size of a small pony bounded our way, barking to beat the band. We parked and stayed inside the safety of my pickup until Becky came out of her cabin and yelled, “Scruffy! Friend!”

  The dog went quiet and sat immediately, although he kept a wary eye on us. Especially when Becky hugged me.

  “Wow, that’s some dog you’ve got there,” Jan said after I introduced her to Becky.

  “You can come say hello now, Scruffy. No jumping.”

  “Thank you for that,” I said, giving the big guy a scratch. “He’d knock me over.”

  “He’s pretty low-key, thank goodness. But isn’t he grand? We think he’s mostly Irish wolfhound mix. He adopted us in the Baja, and since he was a stray, no one knows for sure what he is.”

  “We call them Canardlies, cuz you can‘ardly tell what they are. But this one? Mostly wolfhound for sure, with maybe a golden retriever fence jumper in his gene pool.” He leaned up against her and she examined his golden, wiry fur. “His coat is too soft for a pure bred wolfie,” Jan speculated.

  “Anybody want a beer?” Becky asked.

  “Is there a bluebonnet in Texas?” Jan answered, and I heartily agreed.

  Becky gave us a tour of her grandfather’s fishing shack she’d renovated the year before, obviously proud, with good reason, of her work. Taking our Shiner Bocks outside, we walked down to the boat dock and sat under the canvas Bimini cover on her pontoon boat.

  “So, looks like you’ve settled back into Texas life quite smartly. Too bad you had to leave the Baja on the run. But you did the right thing, because even though you weren’t guilty of offing your piece of crap boyfriend in Cabo, it wouldn’t matter. If the Mexican police had snagged you, they’d a tossed you in the slammer for sure.”

  Becky nodded. “I’ll never forget your kindness, Hetta. You didn’t even know what problem I had, but you sensed I was on the run and lent me that driver’s license without a question. I never had to use it, but just knowing I had it to show at military stops was a blessing.”

  Jan, who had heard all about Becky’s five years as a fugitive from the law in the US and then having the Mexican federales after her for a murder she didn’t commit, patted Becky’s shoulder. “You done good. All’s well that ends well, right?”

  Becky’s face clouded and a tear escaped. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry,” she pushed her silky red hair away from her face, “I’m a little emotional today.”

  “So I surmised when you put out that call for help. Sorry it took us a couple of days to get back to you, but we’ve been a mite busy. What’s up?”

  “You remember Jeff who was with me when we met in La Paz? Well, he’s missing.”

  “You called the right woman,” Jan said. “Hetta specializes in making men disappear.”

  Despite her obvious anxiety, Becky gave us a crooked smile. “I thought you were still in La Paz, and that’s why I called. Probably not much you can help me with since you’re up here.”

  “Au contraire, y’all,” Jan drawled. “We have friends in low places on both sides of the border. Let’s get more beer and you can start from the beginning.”

  ❋

  In order to hear all the facts, as Becky knew them, about Jeff’s apparent disappearance, Becky and Scruffy rode back to my parents’ house with me. I’d called ahead and my mother had just finished baking one of her famous carrot cakes, so we drove faster.

  Po Thang and Scruffy hit it off, although at first Po Thang was a little intimidated with a dog bigger than he. In the Baja he’s usually the Alpha dog by virtue of sheer size.

  After we demolished oversized pieces of cake, Jan, Becky, Scruffy, and Po Thang headed out in my pickup for Becky’s cabin, while I moved to my new campground in order to be there for work the next morning. Of course, I took carrot cake for emergencies.

  ❋

  As we’d agreed on, Becky and Jan showed up at my RV when my team finished up work the next day, so we could hash out a plan of attack for finding Jeff.

  After tromping around on foot all day, I was beat, but Jan had taken the lead and gave me a blow by blow timeline leading up to Jeff’s sudden disappearance in Mexico.

  “Let me get this straight, Becky,” I said, stifling a yawn. “Jeff, your now-fiancé, was sent to the Baja by we do not know whom, to follow up on whatever he was working on when you met him down there over a year ago?”

  Becky and Jan both nodded.

  “Up until then, he lived with me at the cabin, and while Jeff traveled for his job, he was home most weekends. Then, about three weeks ago, he got a call from someone, and he told me he had to wrap up a few loose ends in the Baja relating to his old boss, who is a big time arms dealer.”

  “Arms dealer? For which side?”

  “He told me the guy sold weaponry to the Mexican military, so I guess the boss is a good guy?”

  “Yeah, right,” Jan scoffed.

  “Oh, hush, Jan. Let her tell the story.”

  “Anyhow, Jeff called or texted every night until a week ago, then nothing. I thought about going looking for him, but quite honestly, I’m a little afraid to cross the border. Even though I was innocent of my ex-boyfriend’s murder, the federales can carry a grudge. Applying for a tourist visa didn’t seem real smart.”

  “So you called me to see if I had more extra ID?”

  She grinned. “Well, yes.”

  Jan piped up, “Of course she does. And if not, we can get you something real fast.”

  “True,” I said. “But Becky, I really think you going on your own would be a waste of time. Leave some homework for me to look at tomorrow morning before work. I’ll be summarizing my team’s findings from the RV tomorrow, so I’ll take time to think. You two come back over tomorrow afternoon and we’ll get our heads together. Let’s start with hard facts, then take it from there. Okay?”

  “We’ll bring dinner.”

  “And dogs. I need a fur fix,” I told them.

  ❋

  I set my alarm for six, finished up my work reports and sent them off, then made a list of questions to address in the Jeff situation. The day flew by and I realized if I wanted to catch Jenks, I’d better call. After I told him what was going on with my hydrology project, I then filled him in on seeing Becky again, and her worries about Jeff.

  “I remember you telling me about Becky’s run for the border. Glad that worked out, but if you ask me, this Jeff has Fed, possibly ATF undercover, written all over him. I never met him, but from what Becky told you, he fits the bill.”

  “Yeah, the fact that his ex, at least we think it’s his ex, boss is involved in arms sales, legit or not, is a strong clue. Anyhow, she wanted to go running off down there to look for him, but I advised her against it. Jan is doing some of her cyber magic today, since Jeff texted a lot until he suddenly didn’t. We’ll have a conflab tonight and see if we have anywhere to start.”

  “Who does Becky work for?”

  That stumped me. “Dang, I don’t even know. I think she does software development from home.”

  “You might want to check that out.”

  “You don’t think Jeff is using her for some reason, do you? That would break her heart. She already had a rough time when that low down roué of a Frenchman married her to get a visa, dumped her immediately, and then threatened to kill her and her family if she testified against him for marriage fraud. That’s why she fled to the Baja in the first place.”

  “Just keep her background, and Jeff’s, in mind as you snoop. And Hetta, under no circumstances are you to go looking for him.”

  A Texas hissy fit, something I’d learned to corral better as I aged, threatened to break down the barn door and stampede, but I managed to croak, “Sure. Gotta go,” before a wave of full blown anger pounded my temples and set my face on fire.

  Storming outside, I ran down to th
e lake’s edge and did jumping jacks until totally winded, then sat on a rock and soaked my toes in the cold water. Jenks giving me an ultimatum like that was so unlike him that I feared I’d pushed my boundaries with him one too many times over the years, and his seemingly unending patience might be running low. Or out.

  Note to self: get Valium.

  My glum mood lightened by leaps and bounds as two large dogs charged me, gave me a lick or two, and then sloshed into the lake.

  Okay, maybe dogs are better than Valium?

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You are shitting me!” I automatically reached into my pocket for a ten-buck contribution to our cuss jar. I stuffed it into an empty wine glass, since the real jar was back on the boat. We’re trying to quit, but haven’t found a twelve-step program for profanity aversion.

  “I shit you not,” Jan replied, plunking in a tenner of her own.

  Between the two of us, we amass enough cuss money to treat ourselves to a very expensive dinner every year. At the rate this year was going, maybe we’d take a cruise.

  “Jeff’s last text message came from Nacho’s phone? WTF!” We had agreed that euphemisms and acronyms don’t count as fineable.

  Jan, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat, or one that just swallowed a canary, bobbed her head.

  Becky, who was toweling off the sopping dogs asked, “Who is this Nacho?”

  “He’s a friend of ours, sort of,” Jan said.

  “Sort of?”

  “Jan and I ran into him a few years back on the Baja. I’d seen him once before, when he and a compadre threatened to kill me and Jenks for a can of gasoline, and then Jan and I sort of stole his off-road vehicle, and after that he kidnapped us. That was when we bonded.”

  “Oh, well then,” Becky said, “I can certainly see his allure.”

  We all laughed.

  “Actually, he is charming, in a criminal sort of way,” I told her. “Much like your Jeff, he’s a man of mystery. We don’t know who he works for, but he sure comes in handy when we need bad guys taken care of.”