The Wildcatters

by John Benteen

  Fargo considered. By the same token, if he opened fire now and dropped them—and he could do it—the U.S. law could come after him, Russell, and Uncle John. Golconda was wild, but not that wild. He could not kill seven men and leave their bodies on the prairie as buzzard bait without some sort of reaction. In Mexico, yes; even in Texas—in the wild country. But not here in Oklahoma. Brasher would see that the U.S. law came in, that he and his partners were indicted. Even if they won the case, they would be so tied up they’d never get their well drilled.

  What the hell, Fargo thought. Let them sit there and mildew.

  He began to edge backwards. When he was below their line of sight, he got to his feet and began to lope. He ran back to where he’d tied the horse, swung aboard. Then he spurred and lashed the animal, sent it galloping across country.

  He caught the wagon train halted on the road, just on the far side of the bluffs. Uncle John Morris was no spring chicken, and he liked the looks of that pass no more than Fargo. He was not going to move his precious rig through until Fargo came back from the scout. With his mule tight-reined, his gun across his saddlebow, he waited. When Fargo rode up, covered with mud, Morris’s eyes were questioning. “Well?”

  “They’re waitin for us.” AND Fargo told him where.

  Uncle John nodded. “So? We circle around ’em?”

  “Wide around.”

  “Suppose they spot us?”

  “Then we fight. I could have killed them all before they knew what hit them. But seven bodies—we’d be tied up with the law so long. Besides, gunplay this early in the game might scare off our drillers. We’re not paying them fighting wages.”

  “Makes sense,” Uncle John said; but his blue eyes were hard. “I hate to let them bastards get away with such a thing.” He stroked his beard. “1 know how to dispose of ’em and nobody could ever prove a thing.”

  Fargo stared. “How?”

  The old man’s mouth quirked, and he did not look like Santa Claus at all, then.

  “Nitro,” he said. “You gimme two of them flasks of nitro, and show me where they are.”

  It was not often that Fargo was surprised, but now his jaw dropped. “Good God, Uncle John. You can’t get nitro to where they are without blowing yourself up.”

  “You think not?” the old man said.

  “How?”

  “That creek where they are—in this weather, it oughta be running full”

  “It is. Some of ’em are up to their butts in water.”

  “Well, if it was me, I’d do it this way,” said Uncle John. And he began to talk.

  Fargo listened closely. Then he said, “You willin’ to try it?”

  “I’ve taken longer risks than that with nitro. You give me a little time to get ready and everybody stay clear. Then you circle and do your part; I’ll circle and do mine.”

  “You sure you won’t blow yourself to kingdom come?”

  “Listen, boy, I’ve been handlin’ nitro ever since they invented it. And I don’t like bastards layin’ in ambush like a bunch of Comanches. It’s my risk, not yours.”

  “All right,” Fargo said.

  “I’ll git right on it,” said the old man.

  ~*~

  Fargo and all the rest kept a safe distance. Uncle John Morris went to the nitro wagon, now abandoned by the driver. From long range Fargo saw him remove two flasks from a case. Carefully, he repacked them in a wooden rations box, stuffing it with excelsior and cotton. Then, calmly, he remounted his mule, the case of high explosive on the saddle pommel before him. The sight of that box, the knowledge of what it could do, made Fargo’s blood run cold. Let the mule stumble, the box drop, and there’d be nothing left of Uncle John Morris but a hole in the ground.

  Well, that was not his concern. He had his own job to do. Uncle John waved and went wide out to the left. Fargo waved back and rode wide to the right.

  He followed the same route he’d taken before. This time, he left the shotgun on his saddle when he tied the sorrel, carried only the Winchester. He ran a way, then snaked forward on his elbows again. He had doffed the bandoliers, too, and made better time.

  He was in place on the edge of the hollow long before Uncle John could have got in position. Looking down into the brush, he saw that the men were growing perceptibly more restless. The stream was rising from all the rain; they were getting wet and some of them had moved a little way off to higher ground.

  Fargo hunkered down in exactly the same place he’d hidden before and kept his eyes fastened on the chocolate-colored swirl of muddy water that filled the rivulet’s banks.

  He lay there for a long while. Uncle John was also a professional; he was, by now, easily the equal of Fargo, who had never fought Comanches. He would take his time, too. Nevertheless, Fargo realized that he was strung tight; he listened for an explosion in the distance which meant that something had gone wrong.

  It did not come. The water deepened in the stream. Before long, the creek would be at flood level. It would drive the ambushers out anyhow. Uncle John had better hurry. Fargo edged the Winchester forward.

  Then his eyes gleamed. There it came, riding on the swirling current. He saw it bobbing in the water upstream, beyond the bridge across the road, a perfectly innocent wooden canned goods box floated by the heavy rain. Nobody in the hollow below paid any attention to it at all.

  The box came on. Sometimes it swirled and bobbed toward the bank, and Fargo held his breath lest it be caught in the brush, hang on some obstruction. Once, a finger of clay projecting into the creek bed blocked it; but the rush of the water pivoted it loose, sent it floating onward. It passed beneath the flimsy wooden stringers of the bridge; by a miracle it didn’t hang on the small pilings. Turning around and around, it came on into the hollow where the gunmen waited.

  Fargo lined the Winchester. He held his breath, picking a certain willow projecting across the water on the left as his aiming point. When the box reached that tree, it would be right in the center of the hollow....

  Now it was past the bridge. Now only a dozen yards from the willow. It swirled toward the right bank; Fargo held his breath lest it hang. It did, momentarily, then broke loose. One of the hidden men turned his head, looked at it curiously. It bobbed on.

  Then it swung toward the left. Fargo’s mouth twisted in an utterly wicked grin as the box wobbled across the current and hung in the lacy branches of the very tree he’d picked out.

  He drew in a deep breath, aimed the Winchester.

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  The very earth seemed to explode.

  The roar was thunderous, tremendous. The ground shook. Mud and water geysered. Fargo ducked, and even so he was drenched with slime and water and something red. Down there, the whole hollow vanished in that huge convulsion as both flasks of nitroglycerin blew and the lowering sky was blanked out by an immense curtain of earth and water. Fargo pressed down hard into the mud, as the fallout hit him. Then, when the world was silent except for a ringing in his ears and the hiss of the rain, he dared raise his head.

  The hollow below was still there, though now it was much larger. The bridge was half gone, its stringers and timbers splintered. Where the willows had been, now there was only a sea of churned mud and swirling water.

  Fargo saw a boot floating on the surface. Something raw and bloody projected from it. Then it was gone.

  Otherwise, the seven men had vanished as completely as if they had never existed.

  Smoke curled and wafted above the torn, churned crater. Fargo was surprised to find vomit in his throat; he swallowed its stinging burn. Then he leaped to his feet, ran toward the horse. He mounted up, raced it back to the wagon train.

  Uncle John Morris was there ahead of him, on the mule.

  Fargo reined up the skittish horse. The old man grinned.

  “By God,” he said. “She made a pretty bang, didn’t she?”

  Fargo shook his head, still stunned, awed. “Jesus, Uncle John,” he whispered. “They’re g
one. Just totally gone.”

  “Sure. That’s the way nitroglycerin works. That’s what they make dynamite out of, don’t you know? Only the pure nitro, a quart of that’s worth fifty sticks of dyno.” The old man laughed, a deep, happy, satisfied sound. “It’ll give Brasher and Friday something to think about. And if the law investigates—why, it’s only another case of somebody tryin’ to haul nitro without takin’ the proper precautions. Nobody can prove a thing.” He reined the mule around. “I reckon the bridge went, too. We might as well go cross-country.” He looked back at the explosives wagon. “Of course, we’ll take it slow and easy. We got plenty of time, now.”

  Chapter Seven

  John Morris was a slave driver when it came to getting an oil rig ready to drill. First, foundations had to be dug and poured with concrete to support the derrick. Then the match-marked steel of that structure had to be erected, its columns and bracing bolted tightly into place. That in itself was hard, dangerous work, much of it carried on high in the air. Fargo, who had a horror of high places—it was his only real fear—took no part in that. But Curt Russell was like a monkey, roaming around the high steel as if it were level land, spudding the holes together, wrenching the connections up tight. Meanwhile, Fargo rode the fence line, on guard, fully armed and bandoliered.

  The women were as busy as the men. With a dozen hungry mouths to feed, they cooked continually. There was no time for lollygagging, as old Morris called it; no time for Tess to pretty herself up with powder and paint or spend an hour doing her hair. She, Lily, and Maggie worked from before daybreak until long after dark, over the wood range or over washtubs. And Fargo found his admiration for Tess and Lily growing. Neither of them shirked; both pitched in with a will.

  Maggie was a different case; and Fargo watched her narrowly. He did not forget the way she had leaned against him that night, putting her hands on him; neither did he miss the way her eyes followed him around when he was in her presence. Not only him, however. Most of the roughnecks they had hired in Tulsa were young, burly men; Maggie’s eyes were following them, too, and it seemed to Fargo that there was a hunger in her gaze completely at odds with her virginal appearance.

  Nor was she enthusiastic about the hard work the other two women went at with a will. She had a tendency to dawdle, to ease off, to let somebody else carry her load. It could be normal in a girl that young, Fargo thought; but maybe not. Nevertheless, he did not like it; it was like dropping a silver dollar on the bar and hearing it thud instead of ring. He kept his eye on Maggie. He found nothing definite to complain about in her behavior. A dozen minor things, insignificant in themselves but curious when assembled, kept him wondering, however.

  The derrick went up with amazing speed. Its lacy framework reared quickly not far behind Lily’s house; and the men rigged it with crown block and traveling block and all the other gear that was necessary to begin drilling. Meanwhile, Uncle John began to manufacture his drilling mud.

  The mud was necessary to seal the hole and stabilize the drilling process. In the past few years, a special mud compound had been originated. Most drillers used that but it was not feasible here. They couldn’t buy it in Golconda and it couldn’t be transported from Tulsa. Fortunately, Uncle John had been an oilman since the days when drilling techniques were improvised on the spot. He made his own mud in a vast sump watered by Lily’s well, trodden by teams of mules. He added chemicals brought from Tulsa.

  The day came when they were ready to spud in, start the drilling. Everything was in place; the five-sheave crown block, the four-sheave traveling block, the swivel and hook, the “kelly” which was really the drive-shaft turned by the rotary table. When the spudding bit was hooked up to it and the gasoline engines started, the digging began. And it was then, and only then, that Fargo, who bore the chief responsibility for guarding all of this, realized that he had to summon his nerve and go up to the top of the derrick.

  From there, he could see for miles. There was no excuse not to use that height; and he slung the Winchester over his shoulder, field glasses on his chest, and sucked in a deep breath, braced himself, and began to climb the spikes that gave him access to the top of the rig.

  For him, it took more nerve than facing the Swede with the bullwhip or stalking the seven ambushers. Nevertheless, he did it, careful not to look down until he was on the planking of the crown block platform at the very top of the derrick. But from then on, that was his station.

  Like something carved from wood, he squatted there for hours at a time, staring off into the sun-glimmering distance, where he could see other derricks like this one against the heat-shot sky. He could see, too, the shimmering outlines of the town of Golconda, the road, and anyone who came along it.

  He was there late in the afternoon of the first day of drilling when he saw the dust.

  In the week since the rain, the earth had dried, turned powdery. He could see the dust for miles, and tagged it immediately as that raised by a car. He put the glasses to his eyes. Presently he could recognize the car as an Olds, and he saw it halt before the Erickson gate. The man who got out and opened the gate was Friday.

  Fargo forgot his fear of heights then; he came down off the derrick quickly and nimbly, dropped the last six feet. Above the roar of the engine, the sound of the bit, Russell’s voice reached him. “What’s up?”

  “Visitors!” Fargo snapped. “Friday and, I reckon, Brasher. Arm yourselves!”

  They were already armed. Russell wore his father’s Colt; Uncle John carried the old Frontier Model that was legacy from his Texas Ranger days. Russell caressed his gun’s butt. “How many men they got with ’em?”

  “None, I think. Just the two of ’em in the car.”

  “Guts,” Russell said. “They got guts comin’ here like that.”

  Uncle John continued to direct the drilling. Fargo and Russell waited for the car. They heard its clatter before they saw it. Then it came into view, pulled into the dooryard, stopped. Tull Brasher heaved his gigantic, black-clad bulk out from beneath the wheel, and Ross Friday got out of the other door lithe as a cat. He was powdered with dust, and, Fargo noted instantly, had strapped on an extra gun. Two Smith & Wessons rode in holsters slung low on either thigh.

  With the Winchester cradled in his arm, Fargo went to meet them, Russell alongside. “Hello, gentlemen,” said Fargo easily.

  Brasher’s eyes were like black marbles. “Fargo. Russell.”

  Curt snapped: “Listen, Tull—”

  Brasher held up both hands. “No fighting, just a parley. Want to talk to you.”

  “We got nothing to say to you,” Russell grated.

  “Maybe you have. I’m here to talk money.” Brasher dropped his hands, rammed them in his hip pockets. Experienced eyes appraised the drilling rig. “I see you’ve spudded in.”

  “Damn right we have,” said Russell.

  “All right. Then it’s time to talk turkey. Let’s get out of the noise.” Brasher motioned. Russell looked at Fargo, then began to walk away from the rig. Brasher kept pace with him. Friday lagged behind, and Fargo fell in beside him.

  “Ross,” he said. “You enjoying Golconda?”

  “Hell of a town,” said Friday negligently. “I’ve already made some money. It’s not too late for you, either, Neal.”

  “Oh, yes it is,” Fargo said. “You see—” he jerked his head toward the derrick—“I’ve got more to show for my time here than you have, Ross.”

  Friday chuckled. “True enough. But a few battles don’t mean you’ve won the war. By the way, Fargo, what the hell happened to them?”

  “Them who?” Fargo looked at him innocently.

  Friday spat into the dust. “Don’t hand me that. You know who I mean. They just vanished, wiped off the face of the earth.”

  “Nitro,” said Fargo. “You know. I mean, if you got anybody missing, Ross, probably they were trying to haul illegal nitro. There are regulations about hauling nitro, you know. But every now and again, a bunch of Johnny-come-latelie
s will try to beat ’em and—boom! It’s mean stuff, nitro.”

  “Ain’t it,” said Ross Friday. “All it leaves is a hole.”

  “That’s right,” said Fargo. “Just a hole. I never really realized what nitro could do until the other day.”

  “Yeah,” Friday said. “But it works both ways. You know, a shot of nitro could completely wipe out this rig. Not to mention this spread and everybody on it.”

  Fargo halted. “Ross. You don’t want to try that.”

  “No,” Friday said. “I don’t. Let’s see what Brasher and Russell come up with.”

  ~*~

  They had squatted down in the shade of one of the outbuildings. Fargo and Ross Friday joined them just in time to hear Brasher say: “Fifty thousand dollars, cash on the line.”

  “No,” said Russell.

  “That’s a lot of money for an unproved lease.”

  “Not a frog’s hair. This lease is worth millions.”

  Fargo and Friday squatted on opposite sides of the pair. Brasher took out a cigar, rammed it into his mouth. “I’ll go one notch higher, Curt. Sixty thousand. That’s my last offer.”

  Russell grinned coldly. “Tull, even if I wanted to accept it, I couldn’t. I’ve got too many partners now. Fargo; Lily; Uncle John Morris.”

  “I’m figuring on hiring Uncle John and his rig. Making him a good deal to drill for me. That would leave just you and Lily and Fargo. Sixty thousand to split three ways.”

  “I’d rather split a million,” Curt Russell said. Then he stood up, slowly, and looked down at Brasher. “What I’d really rather do, you son of a bitch,” he said harshly, “is make you sweat. You killed my father, you lying, cheating, dirty, double-dealing chicken-shit bastard, and if you had the guts to fight me to my face, I’d love to take you on.” His hand hovered over his gun. “With my daddy’s Colt.”