Magnolia City (38 page)

“You know as well as I do, it’s Splendora. Why haven’t you shut them down?”

Lone Wolf stopped his horse but kept his back to her. “The governor didn’t prohibit drilling, ma’am, just producing. You can drill all the new wells you want. You just can’t run them.”

“You call that fair? We don’t have the money to drill another well. We can’t even buy food. What are we supposed to eat?”

She could see Poke’s hat tip back in amusement as he rode forward. “Try frog legs,” he said with a snigger.

“It’s not funny!” she shouted. “I bet you’d never arrest a member of the Rusk family—the frog killers! Have they paid you off, too?” The words flew out with an angry sob.

Poke halted his horse and turned it slowly back to face her. He trotted over until he was floating above her, circling her, scowling down. “Look here, ma’am, if anybody breaks the law, we’ll take the proper action. We’re Rangers. Splendora’s done nothing illegal. If you folks don’t have the money to keep going, you’ll just have to shut down your operation and go home. We won’t allow squatters.”

Squatters!
She couldn’t believe her ears. Poke spurred his horse so close she had to jump out of the way. Both riders broke into a gallop on the road. Dust whirled behind them.

Hetty buried her face in her hands, so overcome with the aching inside that she hadn’t even heard Pierce shrieking. She spun around to find him. He had toddled over to a dead frog, red ants swarming up his forearms, stinging. She carried him into the water as the swamp smell of rotting flesh hit her.
We’ve let everybody down, baby,
she thought as she washed the ants away.
Pick won’t be able to send money home to Momma anymore. Pearl will be destitute again, and the Hillyers thrown back to scratching out a living on the farm. Worst of all, we won’t be able to pay Granddad back his investment in the well.

She lifted Pierce, dripping, and hugged him to her breast. His screams tore through the raw places in her heart.

Poke’s voice echoed in the air. “You’ll have to go home . . .” She’d been avoiding those words all week, but now they were out. He’d said them. And she had to face the truth.

Garret drifted over and moped at her. “He’s wrong.”

“No, Garret, he’s right,” she said, letting her heartache come to its brim. “We have to go home.” She started sobbing along with her baby, the salt from both their eyes dripping without check into that from the ancient sea.

Hetty enlisted Pearl to help her pack. They began the next night, waiting until the sun had set and the air had begun to cool. Pearl shuffled over in her faded mules, bearing in her hands the offering of an apple pie. When she placed it in the middle of the table, Hetty caught the smoky scent of fresh-ground nutmeg.

“I thought we could use some sugar, so here’s a pie I done this morning,” she said. “You know me, I always bake when the sun goes up.” She patted her apron pocket. “And here’s a letter from Odell.”

“How is he?” Hetty lifted a crate onto the counter next to the most recent editions of the
Kilgore News Herald
.

“Nothing but bad to tell. He sent a message to Garret.”

“Really? You can read it to him if he ever emerges out of the doghouse.”

“Hitting the fruit jars again?”

“I hope to tell you! Spending what little money we have on corn whiskey. Why do men do these things?”

“They’ll run you crazy. Where’s the baby?”

“Asleep, thank God. Maybe we can get some work done. Why don’t you cut the pie?”

Hetty unfolded big sheets of newspaper that rustled when she wrapped plates in them. She tried to ignore the headline: Wolters Tells Guards to Shoot at the Waistline. As she worked, she skimmed the smaller articles reporting the growing unemployment all through East Texas. She worried about Pick—he’d left them that afternoon to hunt for work up in Longview.

A truck drove by outside. A few minutes later, she heard a loud rap at the door. Pearl went to open it.

“Now look here, y’all—” Mr. Smackover planted himself in the middle of the room with his hands on his broad hips. “It ain’t time to put the chairs in the wagon yet. Mac said you was packing up. I come to tell you my teapot’s back in business.”

“Sit down and have some pie,” Pearl said, scooping wedges onto dessert plates.

“Don’t mind if I do, Pearl.” Smack sat ponderously at the table.

“But wasn’t he shut down?” Hetty asked, continuing to pack while the others ate.

“He was. Everybody was,” Smack said, chewing. “But there’s always a way to sneak around the law. The guy was living in a shotgun next door, so he joins the two with a makeshift porch and declares it his residence. Strings up a barbed wire fence, so nobody can enter but us truckers. And he’s getting away with it. Put out a call for petrol. I say we start running hot oil again. It’ll keep us alive during martial law.”

“I’d love to, Smack, but how?” Hetty said. “We’re surrounded by an army.”

“Pay them no mind. I still say you got a right to the oil out of your own damn well.”

“That’s what Odell says in his letter.” Pearl slid the pages out of her apron pocket. “He says we need to capture our oil while we can.”

“He’s right. Boss Ross is in cahoots with the big boys. Why—Governor Sterling was one of the original partners in Humble Oil.”

“I didn’t know that,” Hetty said.

“Throws a different light on it, don’t it? They’re trying to run us little guys out of business, that’s all that’s happening here. And you’re cooperating!”

“Odell says, if y’all don’t capture your oil, somebody else will.”

“What are you talking about?” Hetty asked.

“It’s all in the letter here. I’m trying to tell you about it.”

“Read it to us, Pearl,” Hetty said.

“Well, not the first part, that’s personal,” she said, swishing the pages through her spindly hands. “But here—” She began reading. “My best wishes to both Garret and Hetty. I heard about the governor ordering troops to your parts. It’s been all over the papers they allow us to read here. Do not be disheartened, my friends, this too will pass. In the meantime, don’t give up. Don’t let them wipe out the lone wildcatter like yourself, Garret. You can be sure that’s exactly what the big oil companies are hoping to do—just like they killed the cattle business by closing down the open range. Let’s keep Texas free! There’s something you should know about the production of oil. It’s governed by an old English common law called the Rule of Capture.”

Pearl looked up at them. “He’s got it capitalized,” she said, “so it must be kind of important.”

She read on. “If I kill a deer on someone else’s property, it’s poaching. But if the deer strays onto my property, he’s fair game. Now, why is it important to know this? Because oil also migrates. It moves wherever the pressure takes it. From what I’ve read of the Woodbine, it flows from west to east. The Ada Hillyer Number One is located, I think you said, at the western edge of the field. So the more the Majors pump out of the reservoir, the more likely oil is to flow away from your location. The advantage the Majors have is that they can continue to drill new wells, and you can be sure, as soon as martial law is lifted, they’re going to bleed all the oil right out from under you. So I—”

“Wait,” Hetty said, lifting a white china plate, “read that last part again.”

“As soon as martial law is lifted they’re going to bleed—”

The plate Hetty was holding fell with a crack. “Oh my God!” Her heart skipped a beat. She had to grasp the edge of the counter as a wave of light-headedness swept into her brain.

“What’s wrong?” asked Pearl, poised to read more.

“I just realized what’s happening here.” She moved her hands away from shards of china and held on.

“Where?” Smack looked around the room.

“Right under our feet. That’s what Splendora is planning to do—bleed us to death.” Hetty turned to face their puzzled expressions. “Don’t you see? If Odell’s right, that means no more oil is going to flow into this section. It’s all going that way.” She pointed toward Kilgore. “Damn him!”

“Who? Odell?” Pearl asked.

“No! Lamar!” she said, going white-hot inside. “I knew something was up. He’s been too quiet.” Hetty pulled a chair out and sat down until her head stopped swimming. The others just stared at her. “All this time I thought we were safe. Wasn’t I the little fool?”

“Safe . . . ?” Pearl asked.

“I thought Lamar couldn’t do anything to harm the Ada Hillyer, but the bastard found a way.” She remembered the way he had looked at her when they all dined together at the Cupola Club. Like he had a secret he was bursting to tell her. Now she knew what his secret was. The trickster had struck again. He had turned the oil field into a giant playing field, moving derricks around like chessmen with one purpose in mind: to checkmate the queen. And, as usual, he was cheating. The thought made Hetty boil.

Smack pushed his plate away. “What all can he do?”

“Plenty! Why do you think he set up shop southeast of us? Don’t you think he knows about the Rule of Capture? Of course he does. He’s got the best geologists and lawyers working for him. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”

“Y’all really think he’d make a move on account of—”

“You obviously don’t know the Rusk family like I do. Help me put these dishes back in the cupboard, Pearl. I’m not about to let Lamar rob us of our oil. We’re turning our well back on.” She tossed pieces of jagged porcelain into the trash.

“And how do you plan to do that?” Pearl asked.

“I’ll do it myself if I have to. As Smack says, there’s always a way to sneak around the law. I’ll open the pipes at dusk and turn them off at dawn. Nobody’s coming out here in the dead of night to check the well.”

“That’s the spirit.” Smack clapped his hands. “Just remember, I don’t pump. Y’all have to get the motor going.”

“Just leave it to me, Smack. We’ve got to suck all the oil we can out of that sand before Splendora gets their greedy clutches on it. What do you say, Pearl? Are you with me?”

“Tell me what to do, hon. You know best.”

“Send Odell a big kiss for me. We’re going to capture our oil, by God! And I dare Lone Wolf to gun down a couple of women with those pearly pistols of his.”

A lurid crimson light woke Hetty the next morning. Tugging on the same dress she’d worn for two days, she went and knocked on the door of the other shotgun house. While she waited for a response, she looked through the pines. A bloodred sun festered through a gash in the clouds.
You haven’t beaten me yet, Lamar. Just wait.

Pearl answered in her nightgown.

“Did I wake you?”

“Oh, you know me, already blowin’ and goin’.”

“Would you mind watching Pierce and making us some coffee? I think Garret’s going to need it.”

“Glad to, hon.” She looked past Hetty. “Oh my! Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.”

Hetty walked into the plush of pine needles on the ground, soggy from a heavy dew. The red light of the wounded sun bled into the world. The whole sky was inflamed with it. She crossed the bridge over the creek, still rife with decaying frogs. Peering into the doghouse, she spotted Garret in the purple shadows of the morning. He had fallen into a stupor on a piece of canvas stretched over heaps of rope. Empty fruit jars littered the floor. Hetty bit her lip. It wasn’t that long ago she’d dreamed of sleeping beside him on a bed spread with cool Egyptian cottons. If Lamar were here now, standing by her side, he’d be happy to see his rival so fallen—curled like a child on coils of rope in this rough-hewn wooden shed. Lamar would shoot her one of his lopsided grins and offer her his arm in triumph.
You bastard. Get off our lease!
she would snarl, the eyes of dead frogs watching him with hatred as he crossed the bridge.

Hetty knelt and stroked Garret’s cheek, craggy with a two-day’s growth of beard. He stirred. “You don’t have to sleep out here, honey.” As he stretched, the odor of rancid sweat rose in the air. “Come have some coffee.”

She pulled him up by the hand and escorted him across the bridge. As they stepped onto the floor of pine needles, she steered him toward the tank at the bottom of the hill. “Show me how to start this pump,” she said.

“Why?” He yawned.

“Just do it, please.”

“You crank it like the old Model Ts.” He stooped to pull out the choke, then twirled the handle like a lasso through his hands until the machine coughed into life. He inched the choke back in. It looked easy. “Why do you want to start the pump? There’s no oil in the tank.”

“There will be. Come have some coffee and I’ll explain.”

While Garret sipped at a steaming cup and lit his first Camel of the day, Hetty sat across the table and told him about her discovery. Pearl gave him Odell’s letter to read, then went to fetch Pierce, who’d started crying in his cradle. After Garret had finished the letter, Hetty said, “That’s why I’ve changed my mind about leaving. Lamar is robbing us blind.”

Garret sat there glowering, staring vacantly into space as if old ghosts were rising in front of his eyes. “I’ve changed my mind, too. Now I think we
should
go home.”

“And let Lamar win? I thought you said you’d never give up.”

“No—I said only one thing would ever make me give up, but it could never happen here.”

“Does that mean it
has
happened?”

“It’s about to.” He got a haunted look in his eyes. “We need to leave here before we get swallowed by an anaconda.”

“What are you talking about, Mac?”

“The best thing we can do now is sell the well against future profits. It’ll produce again someday.”

Hetty just stared at him.

“I’ll take the log into Tulsa’s and see if I can find us a buyer. We still owe five thousand to the consortium.”

“I don’t care. I’m not caving in to my sister and Lamar.”

“I thought I was in charge of the well here?”

“But you’re not taking charge. You’re lying out in the doghouse getting drunk.”

“Stay out of this, Hetty.” He walked out with his cup of coffee and slammed the door behind him. That was Pearl’s cue to appear with the baby. Hetty hefted Pierce on one arm and said, “I don’t understand your father. Don’t you dare grow up to be like him.”