Chapter 49
Alsworthy lit a cigar and handed the humidor across his desk to Hamilton.
“What’s your next move?” he asked.
“I can’t wait too long to grab the Flying U,” Hamilton said.
“No, you can’t. Otherwise the whole thing will slip through our fingers.”
“I can’t let that happen.”
“No. But I’ve talked to Jeff Brunswick, and he’s prepared to sign a contract with us on behalf of his company. But he insists on closing the deal before the end of November.”
“Why?” Hamilton asked.
“He’s looking at a lease up in Johnson County that looks promising.”
“And is he prepared to pay up real quick?”
“Upon signing, he’ll give us a certified check,” Alsworthy said.
“Well, your foreclosure won’t be in time, will it?” Hamilton fixed the banker with a cold, steady eye.
“Not quite. These things take time.”
“What I’m worried about is that Chippendale will stumble onto that section of his ranch and discover what we found there.”
“That is a possibility,” Alsworthy said. He shuffled through some papers on his desk, in the in-box. He looked a sheet over.
“There’s a possibility I can block Chippendale from doing anything with his property, once he’s in arrears on his mortgage,” Alsworthy said. “There’s a clause in his contract agreement that prevents him from destroying or altering anything on his property or home as long as the contract is in existence.”
“What does that mean exactly?” Hamilton asked.
“It means that he can’t dig up anything that we deem in violation. No drilling, no shoveling, no untoward development.”
“But will it stick?” Hamilton squirmed around his hard-backed chair. The seat was hardwood and uncomfortable, as was intended by the bankers who furnished Aslworthy’s office. His own chair was covered in soft leather, a high-backed baronial model that complemented his cherrywood desk that was polished to a high sheen and nearly devoid of clutter.
“It’s admittedly a long shot.”
“I don’t like long shots. I like ’em short and sweet.”
“The only thing sweet about this deal is that we won’t have to wait long to foreclose. A little less than a month and a half.”
“Meanwhile, I sweat bullets waiting for the ax to fall,” Hamilton said.
“I will be somewhat nervous too until we can get Chippendale off the Flying U.”
“It’s only a question of time until he stumbles on what’s he’s got there,” Hamilton said.
“It’ll be difficult for Chippendale to find what you did.”
“Sooner or later, he’ll stumble onto that slough and then it’s all over. I just hope he doesn’t find it.”
“That’s my wish and my hope too,” Alsworthy said.
“Well, see what you can do. I’m going to round up my old gang and take the Flying U by force if necessary.”
“That could be messy,” Alsworthy said. “Complicated for me.”
“Well, there’s too much at risk as long as Chippendale’s on that ranch. I don’t know if I can wait for you to foreclose on his note.”
“I don’t have much choice at this point.”
Hamilton arose from his uncomfortable chair. He looked down on Alsworthy and donned his hat. He squared it and turned to go.
“I’ll be in touch, Alsworthy,” he said.
“For my sake, don’t do anything rash just yet.”
“I just want to get things lined up. Just in case.”
“All right. But let’s do some more thinking on this before we get too far ahead of ourselves.”
Hamilton laughed low in his throat.
He strode to Alsworthy’s opaque glass door with his name on it as president of the Cheyenne Savings & Loan. He opened the door and looked back at Alsworthy.
“We’re not playing with tiddlywinks here, Alsworthy. There’s big money to be made and I intend to make sure that I get the oil on the Fying U. There’s bound to be a fortune in that swamp.”
He walked out the door and closed it behind him.
Alsworthy took a deep huff of breath and stared blankly at his closed door.
That was what it was all about, he thought. Oil.
Black gold.
Chapter 50
Red Beaver pointed an extended hand and finger into the distance.
“Two suns,” he said. “Big creek. Much water.”
Reese smiled. “That’s good,” he said. “We can go two days.”
“Much grass,” Red Beaver said. “Big grass.”
Reese laughed.
He liked the way Red Beaver talked. He had watched him as he picked out another cow for his wife and sons. The Blackfoot had looked over the herd very carefully and had chosen a large Hereford bull.
Lonnie had cut the bull out of the herd for Red Beaver, roped it, and led it to the small circle of teepees. Checkers had given the Indian an old piece of rope so that he could tether the animal until it was time to butcher it. Red Beaver had grinned and thanked both Lonnie and Checkers for his gift, which was payment for his services as a trail guide from that point all the way to Cheyenne.
Reese and Red Beaver rode well ahead of the herd.
When Reese took out his compass to check the direction of their route, Red Beaver saw it and commented.
“I have seen the soldiers use such a watch,” Red Beaver said.
“It’s not a watch, Red Beaver,” Reese said. “It’s a compass.”
“I know. It shows the direction of the wind.”
“Is that what the soldiers told you?”
“They said it points them to the four directions, like the smoke from my pipe.”
Reese chuckled.
“So it does,” he said. “But it points to every direction on the land. If you follow the arrows, you will get where you want to go.”
That was the best explanation Reese could offer from the top of his head.
“How does it know where you want to go?” Red Beaver asked.
“It doesn’t know exactly where you want to go, but it points to the west, or southwest, north, or east and you know which direction you want to go and it takes you there.”
“Is it magic?”
“Not really. There are rocks in the earth. They have a magnetic quality. That is, they pull on the needles.”
“So the rocks know the way you would go?” Red Beaver said.
“Sort of. The rocks know the directions and the compass can feel the magnetism. A magnet always points to the north. So if you want to go someplace else, you just turn the compass until the needle points in the direction you want to go.”
“It is as if you hold the Great Spirit in your hand,” Red Beaver said.
“That’s a good way of putting it. But it’s not the Great Spirit, Red Beaver. It’s the way he made the earth and all the stars.”
Red Beaver puzzled over Reese’s explanation for a long time. And every time Reese checked his compass, Red Beaver stared at the spinning needle in rapt fascination.
And so they rode, toward Cheyenne, every mile on a ten- or twelve-mile day taking them ever closer to the Flying U Ranch.
When they reached the creek two days later, Reese was glad to see that it ran at an angle from the northwest to the northeast.
So the herd would have water the rest of the way.
The only thing Red Beaver had been wrong about was the grass.
While there was plenty of grass, the hot sun had baked it dry.
And the cattle were starting to complain as they grazed on sere grasses that had fallen victim to the drought.
“Cattle can’t go far on this here grass,” Ben said to Reese on a hot afternoon.
“They don’t have much farther to go,” Reese said.
“Grass gets worse the farther south we get.”
“I know. But in a few days, the grass won’t be our problem anymore.”
“What do you mean, boss?” Ben asked.
“I mean the herd will be in the hands of Chip of the Flying U,” Reese said.
Then they lost the creek as it meandered to the southeast.
And there would be no more water for the cattle until they reached the Flying U.
Chapter 51
Chip followed his foreman, Archibald, “Archie,” Lassiter as they rode to a far corner of the Flying U.
“You ain’t gonna believe this, Chip,” Archie said.
“Why won’t you tell me what I’m going to see?” Chip asked.
“It ain’t somethin’ you can describe too good,” Archie said. “Not and do it justice.”
“I hate mysteries,” Chip said. “’Specially on my land.”
“This is one you might like, boss.”
Archie was in his late forties, a rawboned lanky man with weathered hands and a face crisscrossed with faint scars and a nose that had been broken more than once. But he was an experienced cowhand and a longtime friend of Chip and Carlene. They had met in Missouri at a livestock auction when Archie had just lost his job on a cattle ranch that had gone under.
Chip had asked him to go to Cheyenne with him and manage his herd.
It was a wise decision on Chip’s part. Now that he was in trouble, Archie was doing the best he could to save what was left of the Flying U herd.
“Everything passes,” Archie would say. “The good and the bad.”
“So, what do I do about this damn drought?” Chip asked him.
“Ride it out,” Archie replied. “There are better days ahead.”
“I can’t see ’em,” Chip said.
“They’re out there. You just got to have faith.”
Encouraging words to Chip. But he still had his doubts, what with the mortgage coming due and Ned Hamilton ragging him to sell his ranch. He felt besieged on all sides.
After a long ride, Chip perked up.
“Looks to me like you’re takin’ me to that old slough, Archie,” Chip said.
“That’s where it is,” Archie replied.
“That’s the only part of my property that’s totally useless,” Chip said. “Just a lot of swamp water, dead plants, and mud up your ass.”
“Now, don’t go gettin’ ahead of yourself, Chip,” Archie said. “Just wait until I show you what the boys found this mornin’.”
“Who found what?” Chip asked.
“Eli Dawson and Rudy Cameron chased a cow out here early this morning. Cow had full dugs and was bawlin’ for her calf. It run down here and . . . well, you’ll see.”
In the distance, finally, Chip saw Eli and Rudy. They had a cow roped and were wrestling with something he couldn’t make out. Probably the cow’s calf, he thought. Their horses were ground-tied a few feet away.
Beyond, he saw the slough and began to smell the rotted vegetation.
“There they be,” Archie said.
“I see ’em.”
“That’s a calf they got half-bulldogged,” Archie said. “That’s the calf’s mother on that there rope.”
“I figured that.”
When Chip and Archie got close, Rudy and Eli let the calf go. It ran to its mother and she backed away from it.
Chip’s jaw dropped when he saw the calf. It was almost unrecognizable.
“What in hell . . . ?” he said. “What happened to that calf?”
“It must’ve wandered down here and fallen in that swamp,” Archie said.
The calf was covered in black slime that glistened in the morning sun.
“What’s that all over the calf?” Chip asked.
“Oil,” Archie said. “Crude oil. I checked and it’s bubblin’ right up out of the ground. That slough there is some water and a whole hell of a lot of oil.”
“Oil?”
“I checked it. Tasted it. Felt it. It’s oil all right, and lots of it. Won’t take much to get it out of the ground. You’re sittin’ on a gold mine, Chip. A black gold mine.”
Chip sniffed the air. He could smell it. The calf shook itself and wagged its tail. Very little of the black slime flew off its body. He wobbled on shaky legs up to its mother. They touched noses, and then the mother cow turned away from her calf. The calf ran to her udder and began to nurse. The cow kicked one leg and held its head high as if to escape the stench of the oil.
Eli walked over to Chip and looked up at him.
“That calf was drenched in oil,” he said. “We got it all over us gettin’ it out of that swampy mess.”
“Calf liked to have drownded itself,” Rudy said. “It was in some kind of sinkhole. A sinkhole just a-bubblin’ up crude.”
“I see,” Chip said.
He swung down out of his saddle and walked to the edge of the slough.
There, on a small island of earth, he saw black bubbles that rose, sparkled, then sank back down. There were lots of bubbles, and there was a small lake of oil around the little islet.
“My God,” he breathed. “I can’t believe it.”
“You got oil here, Chip,” Archie said as he dismounted and stood beside his boss. “A fortune, maybe.”
“Yes. Could be. This changes everything, you know.”
“I expected it might,” Archie said.
“I’ll have to ask around, find a geologist in town.”
“They’s one there,” Archie said. “I seen him in the saloon last week. He was holdin’ court, talkin’ ’bout the riches that was in the ground all over Wyoming. I thought he was just full of hot air.”
“Where would I find this feller?” Chip asked.
“He’s got ’em a small office on Main Street. I think you’ll find this fellow there.”
“Know his name?”
“Jeff somethin’. Didn’t hear his full handle. Men there just called him Jeff. I think his last name was Brunswick, or somethin’ like that.”
“I thought you didn’t hear his last name.”
“I heard a last name once. Just barely. Might not be Brunswick, but I think it’s pretty close.”
Chip turned away from the slough. He looked at Rudy and Eli. “You boys clean up that calf and get it away from his corner of the ranch.”
“How do we do that?” Eli asked.
Chip frowned. “I don’t know. Rub it off, wash it off, brush it off. Calf will die if you don’t get all that oil off its hide.”
“Sure enough, boss,” Rudy said. “We’ll clean it up.”
Chip’s mind was racing. If he could sell the oil rights, he’d be sitting pretty. He might even save his ranch and pay Balleen for the herd he was driving down from North Dakota.
Maybe there was a God after all, he thought.
Chapter 52
Ned Hamilton fairly bristled with controlled fury. It was all he could do to keep from punching Jeff Brunswick square in the mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Brunswick said from behind his desk in the small office on Elm Street in Cheyenne. “Unless you can produce a deed to the property, Mr. Hamilton, I can’t proceed any further.”
“I’ll have the deed in just a few days,” Hamilton said.
“Fine. Bring it in and we’ll do a title search on the property, buy insurance. You must understand that we must be careful in granting oil leases.”
“Isn’t a man’s word good anymore?”
Jeff shook his head. His small office contained maps, some of which were on his oak desk, along with a compass, a slide rule, a magnifying glass, and an inkwell with a quill pen stuck in it.
“I’m afraid not, Hamilton. My company is not going to pay out hard cash on an o
il lease unless we are sure that the lessee actually owns the property.”
“Crap. I just don’t have a deed yet. But I own the property in question.”
“Fine. When you produce the deed, we’ll pay up once you sign the necessary papers and we’re satisfied as to your ownership of the land.”
Hamilton leaned over the desk and braced himself with two balled-up fists.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
“With the deed?”
“Yes. With the damn deed.” He turned and strode to the door, his neck reddening and swelling.
Brunswick did not watch him leave his office but turned to the maps on his desk and picked up his compass.
Hamilton slammed the door and stepped out onto the dusty street. He walked to his horse, put a boot in the stirrup, and grabbed the saddle horn to pull himself up onto his horse.
He rode straight to the Silver Slipper Saloon on Main Street.
As Chip and his foreman turned onto Elm, they both saw Ned Hamilton ride away from the oil company office.
“Isn’t that Ned Hamilton?” Archie Lassiter asked.
“That’s the man,” Chip said. “Looks like he just left the office.”
“So he’s tryin’ to horn in on your oil.”
“He’s been after me to sell my land for quite a spell. Archie, I want you and the other hands to arm themselves. Pack iron on your hips and carry rifles.”
“You expectin’ trouble from that Hamilton feller?”
“I am. I think he’s desperate since I told him and Alsworthy that I was going to try and save my ranch, and in any case, I would not sell my property to Hamilton.”
“I never liked that man.”
“He’s a crook. Just like Alsworthy.”
“The banker?”
“Yeah. I think Alsworthy is in cahoots with Hamilton. I’m almost sure of it.”
“Man, the lengths people will go to line their pockets.”
“Let’s see what this feller has to say when I tell him what’s goin’ on,” Chip said.
The two men halted in front of the geologist’s office and lashed their reins to the hitch rail outside.
Ralph Compton The Cheyenne Trail Page 22
