A Risky Business

by Sandra K Rhoades

  Merle looked down at the spotting scope. Lately, she had been wondering if her whole life hadn't been viewed through the scope, with an oil well always in the lens. She just hadn't seen anything else, like dogs… like children… her mind drifting back to Lisa. She had cared for the infant for less than twenty-four hours, yet she had found a permanent niche in Merle's heart. Mary Blake had sent a note after she had recovered from her operation, including a snapshot of the children. Merle had taken the photo into Medicine Hat and had had it enlarged and framed. Now it rested on her dresser back at the motel.

  Merle touched her stomach, wondering how it feel to be carrying Leon's child. That morning she hadn't guarded against pregnancy, hadn't even thought of it for that matter. When there had been no repercussions, she had been relieved but she wasn't so sure now. Not that she would use pregnancy to force him into marriage, but his baby would be something of him to hold to in the years to come.

  Sighing, Merle returned the scope to her eye, centring the cross hairs on Leon. He had been out to check on the well intermittently since ordering her off the hill, and this week he had been there constantly, because of the numerous tests they had been conducting. Because they both stayed at the motel and frequented the truckstop, it had been inevitable that they see one another. When they passed in the hall or happened to sit at adjacent tables at the cafe, Leon looked right through her. She could have been invisible for all the notice he took of her.

  She wasn't quite sure what she had been expecting when she had defied him over going out to the hill, but she hadn't expected him to ignore her. Over the past few weeks she had been developing a greater understanding of herself, and she strongly suspected that she had wanted him to somehow force her to obey him. That he hadn't showed her just how clearly she had destroyed any feelings he might have had for her.

  At least there hadn't been any trouble in the past weeks. Though she hadn't spoken with the police again, she no longer had any fears for her safety. The days on the hilltop were peaceful and the drilling crew had even stopped annoying her when she went into the truckstop for her meals. Although it seemed out of character, she sometimes wondered if part of Leon's attitude towards her wasn't merely a stubborn refusal to admit he was wrong. He wouldn't admit his mistake even to the extent of returning her car keys. Finally after hot wiring the Blazer for two weeks, Merle had driven it into the GMC dealership in Medicine Hat and got another set of keys.

  Leon was talking to the geologist and Merle moved the glass to look at the cellar, the ten-foot square concrete-lined hole at the base of the derrick. About six feet deep, its function was to accommodate some of the wellhead equipment and reduce the height of the rig. The roughnecks were there securing the last section of pipe, and Leon signalled the order to open the valve that would permit the oil, thousands of feet below the ground, to flow into the pipe. This was the third drill stem test in the past six days and Merle knew they were finding something. She could tell a lot about how things were going just by watching the faces of the men as they read the results.

  As soon as the well was finished she would go back to Calgary and find a job. Since she wouldn't be handing in a report to Wild Rose and couldn't even pay them back the salary they had been paying her over the summer, she knew she wouldn't be able to find another scouting job. She really didn't care. Since meeting the Blake children she had decided she would like to do something that involved children. Not that she thought anyone would be fool enough to hire her to look after their offspring, but she could try to get a job as a school secretary, or something similar.

  Although she was no longer scouting the well, she still watched it from the hill each day. Once it was in she wouldn't be able to see Leon again, even at a distance. He would go back to his offices in Calgary, and oil wasn't going to be a part of her future. She needed these last images of him to carry her through the rest of her life.

  Merle heard a deep rumble coming from within the bowels of the earth and kept the spotting scope focused on the end of the drilling pipe. The thunderous sound grew louder and…

  'Holy Sweet…' Merle's exclamation died in her throat as she almost dropped the scope. Never in the six years she had been scouting had she witnessed anything like this. 'My God!' She pressed the end of the scope more firmly against her eye. Oil was spewing out the end of the pipe in a fountain seventy feet high. It was a gusher, an old-fashioned gusher. Good Lord, she thought, this only happens in the movies.

  The men at the site were going crazy, running and jumping around, letting the oil shower over them, Merle moved the scope, trying to find Leon among the medley. The men were becoming covered in crude and she couldn't spot him among the gyrating, black bodies. Puma No 14—fourteen! Had he expected something like this?

  Merle turned her attention back to the plume of oil, staring at it in fascination. 'Incredible,' she breathed, unable to take her eyes away from the black jet.

  She didn't know how long she had been lying there staring at the gusher when she heard a noise behind her. 'Laddie Boy, come over here. You have to have a look at this,' she called to the dog, her eyes still riveted on the derrick. 'Come on, Laddie Boy, what's keeping you? This is a lot more exciting than some dumb rabbit.'

  What was the matter with that dog? Usually he couldn't wait to come slobbering all over her. Finally, Merle turned around to see what he was doing and looked straight into Greg Larson's cold blue eyes.

  Crude, high grade black crude.

  Three hundred and fifty million years ago, a great shallow sea had covered this area of southern Alberta. Its slow-moving waters teamed with life, its shores were edged by huge primeval forests. The sea bed was covered in thick, black mud: sapropel from the Greek for rotten sea. The mud contained the decomposing remains of millions of marine plants and animals. As the eons passed and the sea retreated, the organic remains of these ancient life forms slowly broke down into long chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Impermeable shale overlaid the claystone that formed from the sea mud, trapping the hydrocarbons. At some point, these beds folded and the molecules migrated together to form one huge reservoir of crude.

  Leon, unlike his men, didn't rush to the derrick to shower in the spray that had its origins so long ago. Nonetheless, his grin nearly split his oil-spattered face. This was what he had been hoping for. All the signs had been there, including the vague premonition that number fourteen would do it again. He had almost given up weeks ago when Merle had defied him about staying off the hill, but even for her, he hadn't been able to abandon the well.

  He turned to look up towards the hill. In the past weeks she hadn't even tried to conceal her surveillance activities and he had spent many hours watching her from the office window. His grin faded when he didn't see her. Perhaps she had left, defeated because she would know now that all her reports would be worthless. A find of this sort was not something that could be concealed. By this evening, all of Alberta would have heard of the gusher, by tomorrow, the rest of the world.

  He turned to look back at the fountain of oil. In a few minutes, he would give the order to have the men cap the well, but for now, he just wanted to stare at it, to let the feeling of accomplishment swell inside him. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event. In the years to come, there would be plenty of dry holes and mediocre finds to cope with. He wanted to savour this moment of triumph a little while longer.

  The security guard from the gate came over and tapped him on the shoulder. 'Some cops are here and they want to talk to you.'

  'The police?' Leon questioned, the well momentarily forgotten. 'Did they say what they wanted?'

  The guard dragged his eyes away from the black column of petroleum. 'Nope, just said they wanted to see you. Shall I tell them to come back later?'

  'No, I'll talk to them now.' Leon started towards the gate, glancing up at the hill as he walked. He felt uneasy. Where the hell was Merle? It wasn't like her to slink off with her tail between her legs just because her job had proved fruitless.

 
; He recognised the two officers as the ones who had spoken to Merle that morning after the shooting, and his foreboding increased. They were staring transfixed at the crude shooting over the top of the derrick.

  The corporal turned to him when he reached the gate. 'That's really something,' he said, gesturing to the rig. 'Guess you must be used to it, but I've never seen anything like it.' He turned his attention back to the derrick.

  'You wanted to talk to me?' Leon asked impatiently.

  Reluctantly, the police officer looked back at him. 'Yeah, we're looking for Merle Halliday. We thought you might know where we could find her?'

  'You found out something?' Leon queried sharply.

  'Well, it looks like your hunch about Larson might have been right. We can't place him at the shooting, but we've found out some interesting things about him and thought maybe we should have another talk with Miss Halliday.'

  His eyes kept flicking back to the well and Leon felt his irritation increase. 'What kind of interesting things?'

  'It seems Larson spent a few months in a mental hospital some years back. The doctor we talked to said they would have liked to have kept him longer but as he had committed himself voluntarily, they couldn't stop him from leaving.'

  'This doctor thinks he could be dangerous?'

  'It's a possibility.' He paused, still distracted by the well. 'That's why we want to find Miss Halliday. We can't find Larson,' the officer added, matter-of-factly.

  'What do you mean, you can't find Larson?' Leon demanded.

  'Just that, he's disappeared. Apparently, he arranged for another job after you fired him, but never showed up for work.' The officer looked at Leon curiously. If that was his well pouring oil out like that, he wouldn't be wasting his time worrying about some dame. He looked back at the gush of oil. He had no idea what it was worth but if his heating bills last winter were anything to go by, he bet Crane could buy just about any woman he wanted after a strike like this.

  'Merle's usually up on that hill.' Leon pointed to the hilltop, forcing the officer's attention back to him. 'I haven't seen her for a few minutes, but I've had a man keeping an eye on her since the shooting. We can get him on the mobile phone and see where she went.' The security guard was standing a few feet away, watching his fellow employees cavorting in the black shower, and Leon called over to him, 'Joe, get Ed Daily on the phone for me.'

  'Don't have to do that, Mr Crane.' The guard gestured to the men over by the rig. 'He came tearing in here a few minutes after the well blew. Guess he didn't want to miss all the excitement.'

  'He did what?'

  Joe's eyes flew to his boss's face. He looked like he was about to murder someone. By and large, Mr Crane was an easy-going employer, but Joe knew he could only be pushed so far. When that geologist, Larson, had ignored his orders, Crane had fired him without a qualm. From the looks of the boss now, old Ed was going to have to start looking for another job as well. 'Do you want me to go get him?' The guard shifted uneasily on his feet. He hoped the boss wasn't going to get mad at him.

  'I'll deal with him later,' Leon snapped, turning to the policemen. 'Let's get up to that hill and see what the hell's happened to her.'

  Merle's eyes kept going to the rifle, drawn to it like a migrating salmon going to its spawning grounds. How long before he used it? She forced herself to look back at Greg's face, to make sense of his rambling. He had been talking for hours, it seemed. His monologue was disjointed, the ravings of a mad man. One point was clear, though: he intended to use that rifle.

  She tried to focus on his words, to make some sense of this nightmare, to find some lifeline out of it. He was talking about his childhood and tears started pouring down his cheeks. Impatiently, he brushed them away with his sleeve. As he spoke, Merle realised he was starting to confuse her with his mother, laying the blame for childhood slights and disappointments at her door.

  They were sitting on the ground, facing one another, a few feet from the crest of the hill and out of sight of the well. She realised that Leon must have had someone keeping an eye on her, because Greg had said that he had been watching her for weeks, waiting for the man to leave her alone so he could approach her. Laddie Boy had never returned from chasing the hare and she wondered if Greg had done something to the dog. In spite of her own fears, she couldn't help feeling concern for the animal.

  At first, Merle had made some attempt to reason with him, to talk him out of this course he was so determinedly set upon. Merle shuddered slightly when she thought of the gusher. She had sought to distract him by drawing his attention to it. That's when she realised just how truly unbalanced he was He had become incensed at the mention of the well and for a moment, Merle thought he would shoot her right then. He seemed to think the well should have belonged to him, that it was Leon's only because Merle had lost him his job.

  Now, Merle sat in frozen silence as he talked and talked. Occasionally, he fingered the safety catch on the rifle, the faint clicking sound as he snapped it on and off sending icy shafts of terror through Merle's heart. In his distorted mind everything that had ever gone wrong in his life was focused on her—and the only way he could exorcise the devils that plagued him was to kill her.

  The occasional sob was disrupting his speech now, and Merle suddenly realised he wasn't watching her as intently as he had been. Gradually, his words were growing muffled and he lowered his head, wiping away the tears from his face with one hand.

  Merle felt her muscles tighten. Should she try to make a run for it? Greg was muttering to himself and hadn't looked back up at her. Merle shifted slightly, tensed for his reaction. When he didn't look up, she slowly rearranged her legs so she could spring to her feet. Her eyes went back to the rifle. If she ran, she couldn't afford to think about it. She would just have to run and keep on running, and not think about the bullets that might stop her.

  She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, he was still talking to himself, his head bowed. Now!

  In one motion, Merle was on her feet and running in a broken pattern down the hill, dodging clumps of sage and rocks. She heard Greg shout, the crack of the rifle being fired, but didn't ease her pace. This was her only chance and she couldn't afford to think about anything stopping her. Her lungs were burning, her heart thundering in her chest. Her ankle twisted as she landed after jumping over a bush, but she ignored the pain. She had to keep running, reach the Blazer and get away.

  She was so intent on escape that at first she didn't recognise the men coming up the hill towards her as anything but more obstacles in her path. Then she saw Leon break into a run towards her. She swerved, heading straight for him and launched herself into the arms he held out to her.

  Her breath came in ragged sobs as she felt the warm, hard security of those arms fold around her. Merle buried her face in his hard chest, uncaring that his shirt reaked of crude oil and that his pulse was racing as quickly as her own. She was safe. Her heart was gradually slowing to normal, her breathing becoming easier. 'Oh, Leon, you were r-right,' she stammered. 'He wanted to k-kill me.'

  'It's okay now, he can't hurt you.' Leon murmured gently, holding her tighter. 'The police will take care of him.'

  'He has a gun, he's crazy.' Merle shuddered against his chest, burying her face deeper into the folds of his shirt. She heard Leon talking to the police officers. They had heard the shot and one of them went to call for reinforcements. Then Leon led her to his Blazer and after opening the door, helped her on to the bench seat. Joining her, he pulled her back to his chest, understanding her need for comforting arms.

  When she was calmer, Merle said softly, 'I should have listened to you. You were right. I just didn't want to give in to you. I'll never defy you again,' she promised, her voice filled with deep emotion.

  Leon laughed softly, amused by her uncharacteristic docility. Holding her slightly away from him, he looked down into her face. Now that the ordeal was over, her eyes were misted with tears that threatened to spill d
own her cheeks. One side of her face was streaked with black oil from his shirt, stark against her still pale countenance. He had never seen anyone so beautiful. 'That, my love, is a promise I am not going to let you renege on.'

  He dropped his head, his mouth seeking hers. She clung to him, letting the tenderness and comfort of his kiss purge the terror of the last hour. His lips explored her with all the pent-up longing of the weeks since she had lain in his arms. His hands pulled her pliant form closer to his hard one as though he would take her into his heart where she would forever be safe. When he released her, she lay weakly against his chest.

  For several minutes they sat in silence. More police cars pulled up to join the one that was parked behind the Blazer. Merle shuddered anew as she saw the officers climbing the hill carrying rifles. Despite the nightmare, she could still feel deep pity for Greg Larson and did not want to see him hurt.

  In the end, Greg Larson's capture proved to be an anticlimax. The police found him standing at the crest of the hill, crying and muttering to himself as he stared down at the well site. His gun was lying on the ground a few feet away and though he attempted to reach it when he realised the police were there, they had little difficulty in restraining him. His resistance crumbled completely once he was hand-cuffed and he docilely let the officers lead him down the hill, tears streaming down his face. The police allowed Leon to drive Merle to the station, following behind the squad car bearing Greg Larson. Though she had to give a statement, it appeared unlikely that Larson would ever be fit to stand trial.

  Several hours later, Leon parked the Blazer at the side of the gravel road that ran along the base of the hill. They had returned to the motel and changed, then had dinner together at the truckstop. Neither of them had mentioned the well or Greg Larson. Instead, they spoke of inconsequentials, their conversation potholed with long silences. Now that it was all over, the familiar coolness had crept between them again.