Читать книгу The Sandy Steele Mystery MEGAPACK®: 6 Young Adult Novels (Complete Series) - Roger Barlow - Страница 13

CHAPTER EIGHT

Cavanaugh Shows His Colors

Long before sunup, the screaming of a siren on the rig brought off-duty crewmen pouring out of their bunks in all stages of undress. When Sandy arrived at the brightly lighted well, the night foreman was already halfway through his report to Hall, Salmon and Donovan.

“She started rumblin’ an’ kickin’ at the drill-pipe just like she did yesterday.” The fat, oil-smeared man was puffing. “I stepped up the mud pressure an’ pulled the siren. She’s calmed down now, but the blowout preventers are having all they can do to hold her.”

“Good boy,” said Hall. “If you had pulled the siren and waited for orders we might have a gusher on our hands and pieces of derrick flying in all directions. How far down are we?”

“Little over 5,500 feet, last time I checked.”

“That’s the Gallup Pay.” Donovan was dancing with excitement. “I knew we’d hit it. Let’s take a sample and see what we’ve got.”

The big old diesel roared for a moment. It dragged a bar of iron called a “kelly” out of the square hole in the turntable until the top of the first section of drillpipe appeared.

After the pipe had been securely locked in the turntable so that it could neither fall back into the well nor shoot upward if the underground pressure increased suddenly, two floormen clamped their six-foot-long tongs, or monkey wrenches, around the kelly and unscrewed it from the pipe with great care.

They had eased it off only two or three turns when a frothy mixture with the foul odor of rotten eggs began to squirt from between kelly and pipe.

Donovan caught some of this in his cupped hands. He smelled it, rubbed it between his fingers and then tasted it.

“Beautiful!” the geologist crooned. “This is good, high-gravity oil. The sulphur content is high, as you can smell, but refiners know how to take that out. I’ll tell you more when I’ve run a full analysis, but it sure looks as if we’ve licked the law of averages. Two flowing wells in two tries is ’way above par.”

The crewmen, who had been holding their breaths for his verdict, let out wild rebel yells and spun their battered hats into the air. Jack Boyd and the night foreman hoisted Hall on their shoulders and marched him around the derrick in triumph.

“All right, fellows,” the oilman shouted to stop the riot. “You all get new hats, new shoes and bonuses!” As they started another cheer he mounted the drill platform and held up his hand for attention.

“But I’m going to ask you not to wear those hats and shoes, or bank your bonuses, for a few weeks yet. This has got to be a tight well.”

“Glory, Mr. Hall,” somebody called from the edge of the crowd. “No celebration? That’s a lot to ask.”

“I know it is, Bill. But look at it this way: With this well under my belt, I can get a big bank loan and hire several more rigs to work this property. That will take me at least a month. If news gets out about this strike in the meantime, what will happen?”

“Cavanaugh and the oil companies that hold adjoining leases will rush in and drill offset wells just outside your boundaries before you can get started,” Bill answered glumly. “They’ll drain most of the oil out from under your land, like they did up at Cortez last year.”

“Right!” said Hall. “I know things have been tough these last few months. I’ve had to hold up your pay several times, to make ends meet. But you all hold stock in our company. If you hang on a little longer, we’ll all be in clover. So I’m sure you’ll keep your mouths shut when the spies come prowling, as they will.”

A roar of agreement went up, but then someone said, “How about the kid? He don’t own no stock, does he?”

“I know Sandy, and I know his dad,” Hall answered. “Also, his bonus is going to be twenty shares of stock. I’ll vouch for him.” He slapped the surprised boy on the back and added, “All right, gang. Back to work. We’ll pull the string and get the well cemented and closed in. Then we’ll shut down here till I get that bank loan arranged. Some of you have vacations coming. Take them now. Don will put the rest of you to work running surveys and drilling test wells on our downriver lease. Tell any snoopers that John Hall ran out of cash—which is no lie. I closed out my balance at Farmington last week so I could meet the payroll!”

After the drillpipe was withdrawn and stacked, the combined crews spent the rest of the day mixing an untold number of bags of cement with water. This mixture was pumped down the well to replace the mud that had filled it to the brim.

Once, when they heard a plane approaching, most of the men faded into the trailers while the others tried to look as unbusy as possible. The ship was Cavanaugh’s Bonanza! It circled twice and roared away.

When Salmon estimated that the hole was full of cement, the diesel began pumping mud again. This forced the cement out of the well and up to the surface between the earth walls and the heavy steel casing inside which the drillpipe had rotated.

“How do you ever reach the oil again?” Sandy asked when the operation was completed.

“Easy.” Ralph yawned tiredly. “After the cement has hardened, we’ll pump out the mud. That will leave a cement plug twenty feet or so thick in the well bottom to keep the pressure under control. When we want to start producing, we just drill through the plug and away we go. Say, why don’t you go to bed instead of asking foolish questions? You look as if you had been dragged through a dustbin.”

“I was just thinking, Ralph. Since we’ll be having some time off, why don’t we visit Miss Gonzales’ school?”

“You go,” yawned the driller. “I’ve got to get this well capped good and tight tomorrow and then drive to Farmington and try to rent a portable test rig—on the cuff. I’m going to act so poor-boyish that it will break your heart. Casehardened drillers will weep in their beer when they hear my tale of woe.”

“Is that exactly honest?” Sandy tried to smooth down his cement-whitened cowlick, as he always did when he was thinking hard. “I mean—we have struck oil.”

“We’ll have struck it for somebody else’s benefit if we don’t play our cards close to our chests and keep a close guard over our well and our tongues.” Ralph looked at him shrewdly. “You’ll see what I mean in a day or two. And here’s some good advice: Watch your step, Sandy. There are some mighty curly wolves in this oil game. Don’t try playing Red Riding Hood with them.”

* * * *

Learning that Jack Boyd was one of the men assigned to guard the well from all intruders, Sandy borrowed the engine man’s car the next day and headed in the direction of Kitty’s school. The going was rough, as usual, but the machine was equipped with a heavy-duty transmission and rear axle, double shock absorbers, an oversized gasoline tank and other features which defied the chuckholes. He made good time and found the school trailer during the noon recess.

Twenty Navajo children of all ages were playing what looked like a fast game of baseball as he drove up. They flew into the trailer like a flock of frightened chickens, and came out trying to hide behind their teacher’s skirts.

Kitty greeted her visitor with considerable reserve, but when he told her that Ralph had asked him to come, she became much more friendly and invited him to share her lunch.

He found that the roomy trailer was well equipped for its purpose, with plenty of desks, books, a blackboard and other facilities. It was parked under tall pine trees near the first brook that he had found since he left the well.

“A good place to study,” he said to make conversation as he looked out of the big windows at the nearby Chuska Mountains.

“But it’s the shower that attracts the children at first,” she admitted. “I have a little pump in the creek, you see, so we have all the water in the world. They’ve never seen anything like it. Most of them live in gloomy hogans where the only light comes through the door and the smoke hole in the center of the room, and where water has to be brought in in buckets. Hot water is the greatest luxury they’ve ever known. They’d stay under the shower all day long, except that they are so eager to learn their lessons.”

“Navajos really like to study?” He tried to keep the surprise out of his voice.

“Of course they do. They’re bright as silver dollars. Now that they have schools, they’re going to surprise everybody with the speed at which they learn.”

“Do you ever teach them about Kit Carson?” he took the plunge.

“Why…” she stared at him uncertainly. “I mention his name when I have to.”

“I think you’re being prejudiced.” Sandy smoothed his cowlick desperately. Would she throw him out of the trailer for being so bold?

“So that’s why you came!” She startled him by bursting into a merry peal of laughter. “That was brave, after the—after the nasty way I treated you at Farmington. Very well, teacher. Tell me why you think Great-uncle Kit was a friend of the Navajos.”

Sandy began haltingly, but soon warmed to his subject while the Navajo children came in from their play, gathered around him, and listened intently. Remembering old stories his mother had told him, Sandy related how Kit, an undersized, sickly boy of fifteen, had learned to make saddles so he could get a job with a wagon train that was heading west from his home town in Missouri.

He went on to tell how his great-uncle had overcome endless hardships to become famous as a hunter, trapper and scout with Fremont’s expedition. He described how Kit had driven a flock of 6,500 sheep across the Rockies to prevent a famine that threatened the early settlers in California. He explained the happy ending to the blockade of the Navajos in the Canyon de Chelly, and wound up by telling how Carson had left his deathbed to go to Washington and make one more plea for government help for “his Indians.”

“That’s about all,” he concluded, “except that a town and a river in Nevada, and an oil field in New Mexico are named after Kit Carson. He must have been a good man.”

“Perhaps he was,” the girl said softly while her pupils smiled and nodded their dark heads. “I’ll be kinder to him when I teach a history lesson after this. He sounds a lot nicer than some of the people I have met recently. That Mr. Cavanaugh, for instance…” She turned up her snub nose and let her voice trail off.

“Cavanaugh!” Sandy cried. “Has he been prowling around here too?”

“Yes. He drove through here this morning in a truck. Said he was making some sort of a minerals survey of school lands. Also said he’d stop by again after school. Will you stay here until he has gone, Mr. Cars—Mr. Steele? I can’t bear him.”

“I will if you’ll call me Sandy,” the boy said bashfully.

“All right, Sandy. And you may call me Kitty.”

“Cavanaugh certainly gets around,” Sandy said. “Did he have anyone with him?”

“Yes, a young man who seemed to worship the ground he walked on. He was nice enough, but, well, sort of dewy-eyed, if you know what I mean.”

“I know,” Sandy grunted, “and not quite dry behind the ears, either. That was Pepper March.”

“Well, time to get classes started.” Kitty jumped up with a flutter of skirts and shooed her children to their desks. For the next two hours, while Sandy listened admiringly, she was an efficient, understanding schoolmarm. As he followed the recitation he had to admit that, as she had said, the Navajo children were “bright as silver dollars.” They displayed an eagerness to learn that almost frightened him. Very few youngsters showed that hunger for knowledge back at Valley View High.

That got him to thinking about poor old Quiz. How he would have enjoyed this visit. What tough luck! But maybe he’d have a chance to get some sort of line on Cavanaugh, the big lug.

The roar of an approaching truck jerked him out of his reverie. Kitty quickly dismissed her pupils and she and Sandy were alone in the trailer when Cavanaugh strode in, closely pursued by Pepper.

“Oh!” The big man frowned at the unexpected visitor until Pepper rushed forward, shouting Sandy’s name, and shook hands as though his school rival were the best friend he had in the world.

Then Cavanaugh turned on a smile as bright as a neon sign and insisted on shaking hands too.

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Pepper,” he boomed. “Wish you were on my team instead of John Hall’s. Say! I heard you had a bit of luck at your well. Is that right?”

“Luck?” Sandy stammered, wondering how on earth he was going to get out of this one.

“Oh, sure. Everybody knows about the telegram that brought you all tearing back from Chinle. Did the well come in?”

“It… We…” Sandy almost swallowed his Adam’s apple and his face went white under its tan. What on earth could he say?

Cavanaugh misunderstood the reason for his hesitation and lost his momentary advantage by rushing on.

“Oh, come on, son.” He pounded the boy’s shoulder with a great show of affection. “You don’t owe a thing to that old skinflint Hall. Give me the real lowdown on the well and I’ll make it very much worth your while.”

Sandy jerked away, his fists clenched in fury, but Kitty stepped quickly between him and his tormentor.

“Mr. Cavanaugh,” she said in a voice that dripped ice water, “you’re new around the oil regions, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” The electronics man pulled in his dimpled chin as though the girl had slapped him.

“Out here in the Southwest,” she said slowly, “folks don’t pry into other folks’ business if they know what’s good for them.”

“Well… I… You…” His face turned scarlet. “You can’t talk to me…”

“I can, and will.” Her black eyes flashed fire. “Your truck is trespassing on school property belonging to the state of Utah. Remove it at once!”

Cavanaugh opened and closed his mouth several times, like a fish out of water.

“You’ll both be sorry for this,” he gritted like a stage villain. “Come along, Pepper.”

“Do you…” Sandy spoke through a dry throat after Cavanaugh’s truck had thundered away. “Kitty, do you live here in the trailer?”

“Why, of course.” She looked at him oddly. “There’s not the slightest danger.”

“I’m not so sure, now. Couldn’t you stay with one of the Navajo families in the neighborhood for a while?”

“Then who would protect the school? It’s more important than I am.”

“But…”

“Don’t you worry, Sandy Carson Steele.” She patted his arm. “The Navajos are my friends, and they’re no friends of Cavanaugh. I’ll tell them what’s happened and they’ll take good care of me. Now you had better get back to the well as fast as you can. The roads are completely impossible after dark.”