7. The Law

"Did you really think you were going to find another one like the one in here?" Chonito asked Ervey when he got them back on Highway 45. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out the receipt booklet and opened it to the stenciled handwriting. The traffic was beginning to thicken in the opposite direction. It was thinner but steady heading north to Camargo.


"Well hey, güey, you didn´t tell it was two years ago that you bought the booklet," said Ervey.


"Why would I?" answered Chonito, "I didn't know you were interested."


"Well, I hadn't read what was written in that one booklet in the glove compartment," Ervey said.


"It took me a long time to catch it," Chonito said, "I didn't see it until I made out a receipt and was handing it out to a client."


"So there's one missing?" asked Ervey.


"Sure. I didn't think anything of it at the time," said Chonito, "except that it made me curious to read the backs of the receipts still in the booklet."


There was a long silence as the pair contemplated their find.


"Who was the client that got that receipt?" asked Ervey.


"A guy up in near Ciudad Chihuahua. An individual that received only a partial load," said Chonito, "why?"


Ervey didn't answer. He was looking ahead at a military roadblock on the highway. Chonito followed his line of sight and saw the obstruction. All the traffic was being diverted to the side if the road by a soldier totting a long automatic rifle waving a big red flag.


"Again with this roadblock," complained Chonito, "what does it do that everybody knows there here all the time."


Ervey followed the soldier's indications and took the truck off to the pavement and into the narrow dirt lane at the foot of the highway berm behind a long line of other vehicles.


As they waited, they saw that a pair of soldiers armed each with short automatic weapons was coming down the line inspecting each of the vehicles, one soldier talking to the driver as the other stood guard on the opposite side of the vehicle.


"We're applying the federal law on firearms, explosives, and stupefacients. Please declare at this time if you possess any," commanded the soldier that walked up to Ervey.


"We don't have any of that," answered Ervey, thinking he could recognize the soldier from the many times he had been stopped at this roadblock either coming or going to Ciudad Chihuahua.


"Then please step out of the vehicle while my partner performs a search of your vehicle," instructed the soldier.


It took only brief moment before they were told to get back in their vehicle and drive on.


"Always very serious, these guys," said Chonito, "but I wonder how they are with the narcos."


"They probably never come in contact with them. Those guys watch these guys' movements from afar and stay out of the way. And both sides are probably happy that happens," said Ervey.


The soldier had left the glove compartment open. The receipt booklet was resting on the dashboard right above it undisturbed. Chonito took it and threw it into the glove compartment.


"You think the writing in the book is serious?" he asked, "you know, by a guy in the kind of trouble it says he's in?"


"Probably," said Ervey, "I can't imagine you or anybody else would take the time to write it if they didn't have to."


He continued after a long pause, "but if it's been two years since you got it, then...."


"Poor, güey," said Chonito, "whatever was going to happen to him already happend."


"The law of the wild," said Chonito, shifting the Kodiak into high gear.