Chapter Seventeen
BEAUMONT WAS A GROWING town with a few thousand inhabitants. A quarter of the population was made up of black people, and there were several Jewish businesses there. There were also Italian and Dutch immigrants and even a few cowboys. It was a friendly city, but it lacked many of the modern industrial assets that would be required if a big oil field did lie near its borders, something that worried Cal and other investors.
The huge Gladys City development had at first been the object of scorn, and still was not considered a serious proposition by some people. Cal had been scoffed at by local businessmen for sinking money into such a pipe dream, and even while they worked to build his derricks, local contractors laughed at him behind his back. But like the other oil seekers, he believed in the development and had great respect for it, and its founder.
It had been to Cal’s advantage that no one locally knew of his background. It prevented anyone taking advantage of the fact that he had money.
His wasn’t the only outfit working at dragging oil out of the ground here. Captain Lucas, a brilliant gentleman with a Slavic background, had a rig nearby and had come up with some amazing techniques to combat the drilling problems that were peculiar to this coastal area of Texas. He, like Cal, had contacts in Corsicana to whom he could turn for drilling equipment and advice. The innovations that he and his men used in penetrating the pressurized salt dome, which also contained quicksand and large rock, were to revolutionize the oil business. There was even a rumor that J. D. Rockefeller and his people at giant Standard Oil had their eyes on Beaumont. Everyone was waiting. Waiting.
Meanwhile, there were dry holes and premature reports of failure and wild stories of outlandish strikes put about by out-of-town reporters.
Cal related this to Nora, who listened with fascination while they spent their first night in Beaumont in a hotel. He had gone out to the rig to check on the progress of Pike and the crew and had come back dispirited and tired.
“What’s wrong?” she asked when he took off his muddy boots and his jacket.
“Another snag,” he said wearily. “Captain Lucas has overcome his quicksand problem, but ours plagues us still. We had to send for yet another fish-bait bit from Corsicana.” He lay back in the chair with a groan. “I have so many people waiting, hoping, for success.” His eyes slid over her body. “I’m impatient. Captain Lucas has been drilling since October. He hit a gas pocket, but no oil. Not yet, at least. You’re so thin, Nora,” he added unexpectedly. “You must try to eat more, to regain your strength.”
“I have had very little appetite,” she told him. She smiled. “But now that you’re back, I am hungrier.”
He chuckled. “In a moment we must go downstairs for the evening meal.” He held out his hand. “But not yet.”
She gave him her slender fingers and was pulled down onto his lap. He bent and kissed her, and for a long time, not a word was spoken.
His hand smoothed over her bodice possessively, while she curled up in his arms and lay waiting for his mouth to return to hers.
“I don’t like to divert you,” she whispered, smiling, “but supper will become cold downstairs, and there is an apple duff, which our landlady remarked that she made from apples she had hoarded in the fruit cellar.”
He smiled back. “And you like apple duff?”
“I adore it. I adore you, too, but apple duff is irresistible at the moment.”
“In that case, let me change my boots for a pair of clean shoes and we will go down.”
He let her go while he went in his stocking feet to his suitcase and a minute later donned a pair of very expensive-looking leather shoes. She didn’t comment while she fetched her pretty black shawl to drape over her nice black dress, but she wondered about those shoes. Cal was still much like a stranger to her.
ALL THE TALK DOWNSTAIRS was of the Spindletop Hill, where Captain Lucas was drilling.
“Did you see the sky?” one boarder asked excitedly. “Lit up like a funeral pyre, it was, over that way.” He pointed, as if his audience could see through the wall.
“Yes, we did,” an elderly woman agreed. “It is Saint Elmo’s fire,” she added. “Sailors believe that when they see it, their ships will come safely into the harbor.”
“This is not Saint Elmo’s fire,” the boarder said indignantly. “It comes from where Captain Lucas is drilling.”
“He’s hit another gas pocket, likely,” another commented. “One day he’ll blow himself right off that hill. Or catch the whole thing afire.”
“They say there’s oil out there,” the boarder said.
“I’ll believe it when I see it. Pass the potatoes, please,” the elderly woman returned.
Nora and Cal exchanged complicated glances. He didn’t mention that he had an investment in the oil field. Neither did he take the elderly lady’s word for the lack of oil there. He needed an optimistic outlook.
Later, while Nora got ready for bed, he went down to the nearest saloon to meet his drill crew, as he’d arranged earlier in the day.
“Oh, it’s been a slow process, trying to sink a shaft in that unholy spot,” Mick Wheeler, the engineer from Corsicana, said, rubbing his bald head. The other four men, and Pike, who had joined them, nodded their agreement. “Like the other group that’s drilling near us, we had a problem getting the pipe out to the site right off. Then we had to borrow a rig to unload it from the train. Once we got the pipe in, we hit quicksand and it piled in and collapsed the sidewalls of the well.”
“Just like the first two wells,” Pike commented, “but they were in other areas, not on the hill. The problem of the quicksand and gravel took two weeks, and once we got past that, we had a blowout from a gas pocket.”
“Aye,” Mick agreed. “We’ve had to keep those circulating pumps going around the clock, which has meant trying to find more men for the crew. We have plenty who stand around and watch, but nobody will hire on.”
“They’re probably afraid of being laughed at,” Cal said heavily, fingering his beer. “Oil prospecting seems to be the favorite joke in this town.”
“They won’t laugh long once we strike oil,” Mick said curtly.
Pike looked not only worried, but nervous. He seemed uncomfortable, watching the door every time a new customer entered. “We should get back out to the site,” he said. “I don’t like leaving it unattended.”
“There’s a sentiment with which I agree.” Mick nodded. “Even though all we’ve got right now is a gas pocket, who knows what we may hit when we get down farther. Lucas hit rock when he was at eight hundred and eighty feet. We’re at eight hundred feet now.”
“We’ll hit rock, too,” one of the crew muttered, “and be right back where we started.”
“No, we won’t,” Cal said shortly. “If we hit rock, we’re damned well going through it! Lucas did, which means it has to be possible.”
“But how, man?” Pike exclaimed. “Short of begging the captain for his secret, which I won’t for one minute consider….”
“Cable Sam Drago out in Corsicana,” Cal told Pike. “I don’t care what it costs,” he added when the other man protested. He handed him a twenty-dollar gold piece. “Use it all if you have to. Tell him what problems we may run into and ask him for advice. Tell him to come out here if he has to. I’m not stopping for rock. Lucas got through it somehow. I want to know how.”
“You could ask him.” Mick grinned.
“I could. But fair is fair. I don’t expect him to help me beat him to the prize,” Cal said. “It’s a question of ethics. Besides, he’s already helped us with the valve. That’s enough to ask.”
“You’re right, of course,” Mick agreed.
Pike didn’t add his agreement. He still looked worried and out of sorts. “I’ll wire Drago in the morning. Come on, men.”
He was in an unholy rush to get going. Mick swallowed his beer with a wink at Cal and a whispered, “Maybe it’s a woman,” before he joined the older man.
Watching them leave, Cal puzzled about Pike’s unease. No, Pike wasn’t the sort to like women. He was a loner by nature, and there was something shifty about him. He’d better keep an eye on the man. If there was anything going on, he’d put Mick in charge and take his chances. If Pike hadn’t already found oil twice in other areas of the country, including Corsicana, he might have been less willing to take the risk.
WHEN HE GOT BACK UPSTAIRS, Nora was tucked up in bed asleep. He stood beside the bed, staring down at her beautiful thick hair spread all over the pillow and her long lashes pressed against the pale skin of her cheeks. She looked thin and not at all healthy. He wondered if he’d done the right thing, bringing her here. Only time would tell. Tomorrow they’d go out to the site, and she’d have to manage. He dreaded subjecting her to those conditions, but he liked even less leaving her in town alone. Any city was a dangerous place for a woman on her own. Even with the primitive surroundings, she’d be better off where he could look after her, and make sure she was taking care of herself as well.
He smiled as he watched her sleep. She was his. He’d never felt the kind of possessiveness he did right now. He thanked God for her father’s inflexibility. Because of it, he had a second chance. He wasn’t going to waste it.
THEY HIRED A BUGGY and rode out to the rig the next morning with their cases tied on the back.
The country four miles south of Beaumont was flat except for the hill where the drilling was going on.
“Patillo Higgins is the force behind this whole thing,” Cal explained as they drove toward one of the derricks in the distance. “He’d almost given up, though, when Captain Lucas took him up on the lease. Now everything is riding on that well coming in.” He shook his head. “For his sake, and ours, I hope it does.”
Nora watched him from under her lashes, more curious about him every day. She had overslept this morning, and when she opened her eyes, it was to find him dressed and on his way down to see the livery man about hiring a buggy. She dressed in his absence and packed, and was ready to go right after they had breakfast with the other boarders.
Secretly she had hoped that he might wake her very early and teach her some of those secrets he’d hinted at. But his mind seemed very much on his oil well. She resigned herself to playing second fiddle until he either found oil or gave up looking. She had a hunch that he would never give up. It seemed to be in his blood. She wondered if his people were involved in the oil business. She’d have to ask him, when there was time.
She was introduced to Pike, and she disliked him on sight. He wasn’t familiar or rude, but she sensed a lack of honesty about him. It was in the way he shifted his gaze when he spoke to her, even in the way he spoke to Cal.
Cal led her into the small, rude cabin and showed her around. There wasn’t much to show; only one room, a few old cane-back chairs, an iron bedstead with a saggy mattress and worn sheets, and a fireplace with a Dutch oven hanging in it. On a rickety stand were a chipped blue-patterned ceramic basin and pitcher, and underneath, what must have passed for a towel. Nora thought immediately that she would not get a bath short of town.
“I know, it isn’t much,” he said through his teeth. It was freezing cold, to boot. He went to get an armload of wood from the porch to stack beside the fireplace. A small bottle of kerosene stood at the hearth where the poker rested. He arranged the wood and picked up the bottle.
“No!” she exclaimed. “Cal, you’ll set the place ablaze!”
He turned, chuckling. “I don’t like taking ten minutes to get a fire started. If you’re shaky, go stand outside.”
“Oh, Cal.” She groaned.
He arranged the few knotted sticks of fat pine, doused them with kerosene, stood back, struck a match and tossed it in. The wood blazed up explosively, but after a minute, the fat pine knots were burning. It wouldn’t take long for them to catch the seasoned oak logs, and they would burn for a long, long time.
“Greenhorn,” he accused affectionately. “Don’t they have fireplaces back East, then?”
She glowered at him. “Yes, and we have paper with which to start fires!”
“You’ll find that we have quite another use for our mail-order catalogs out West,” he said, tongue in cheek. “Along with our corncobs. The, uh, privy is out that way.” He opened the back door of the cabin and nodded toward a small wood structure that stood with a bag of quicklime beside it.
She lifted her chin and managed not to blush. “And chamber pots?”
“Chamber pot,” he said sheepishly. “For a man, I’m afraid. We don’t have a tall one for you.”
That would mean the long walk to the outhouse at night with a lamp. Her next purchase, she decided, would be a chamber pot for herself.
“I can see your mind working,” Cal said with resignation. “I have to send one of the men in to get the food. I ordered supplies yesterday and forgot to stop for them on the way out of town. You’ll have nothing to cook if I don’t. I’ll have him pick up the necessary item.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you.”
“Very selfish,” he chuckled. “I don’t want to have to get up and light you out the back.”
“You would do that?”
He moved forward and took both her hands in his. “These are good men, but there are few women to be seen. I would not have any unpleasantness, if it can be avoided.”
“I do not like Mr. Pike,” she said at once.
“I noticed that.” His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
He wasn’t belittling her remark. She wondered if he had reservations of his own. “It’s nothing particular. Just intuition.”
“You won’t have that much contact with him,” he said gently.
She turned and looked around. “Can we afford some new ticking for the mattress?” she asked plaintively. “It looks as if a muddy army has slept on it.”
“I ordered a new mattress,” he said, to her delight, “and new sheets.”
“That is an extravagance,” she said guiltily. “I could have washed—”
“With what?” he asked politely. “We have no pot to boil clothes in, no tubs to rinse them in, no lines to hang them on—for there are no trees here.”
She was horrified. He soothed her. “There is a laundry in town,” he assured her. “You will not have to wear soiled clothing.”
She looked worried just the same. “It will be expensive,” she said slowly, hesitant to offend him.
“Your concern for my pocket does you credit,” he said with a smile. “But we can manage. I have credit in town, you know.”
“Oh!” She brightened. “That makes it better.”
What she probably meant was that it made it understandable that he was able to afford things. She hadn’t asked him about his source of income, but he knew she wondered just the same. Soon he was going to have to tell her the truth.
THEY SETTLED IN ON THE SITE. After the first few days, Nora felt more comfortable cooking on an open fire. She was good with stews, and even with biscuits once she mastered the art of cooking them on the fire. A cake was impossible, so she had Cal buy one at the bakery in town. They shared some of it with the men, whose own cooking seemed to leave much to be desired, considering their thinness.
The conditions were rough, and Nora had all she could do to keep warm at first. But the cabin was fairly tight, and she was careful to spend most of her time inside. She mended the curtains and did what she could to keep the living area spotless. He surprised her with little things for the cabin, like a new decorated glass kerosene lamp and a chair with a crocheted cushion. His thoughtfulness delighted her.
At night she curled close to Cal and slept comfortably and secure in his arms. He held her, but he never encouraged her further than that. He didn’t kiss her these days, and when her hand strayed to his bare chest under the covers, he moved it away. She knew what he was trying to do. He didn’t want to risk getting her pregnant. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to want to do anything short of it, either.
“You said that we would explore other ways of pleasing each other,” she whispered daringly one night.
“And we will,” he said gently, kissing her eyes closed. “But not with my men camping on the porch.” He chuckled. “The rains came unexpectedly and soaked the ground. They would never be able to sleep in the mud, Nora, and without them, there will be no oil.”
“I know,” she groaned. “It is just…”
“Go to sleep. Try not to dwell on it. I know that you are bored here. Perhaps we might get some magazines. Would you like that?”
She smiled. “Yes. But I would like some colored thread and some crocheting hooks, please. And some yarn and knitting needles. I can do handiwork, if I have the materials. I might make you a sweater.”
“I never wear them,” he murmured.
“Then I shall knit you some socks,” she said, not to be outdone.
He wrapped her up against him. “Socks would be fine. Go to sleep.”
She closed her eyes. But, as usual, sleep was a long time coming.
The next day, all hell broke loose on the hill. Captain Lucas’s well exploded into the sky late in the morning of January 10, 1901, and all the doomsayers shut up for good.
“He did it!” Cal cried from the porch, because he could see the plume of oil rising majestically into the sky. “By God, he did it, Nora—come and look! He did it! There’s oil there! Acres and acres and acres of oil!”
She came and stood beside him, watching the huge black gusher against the gray sky, with her arm around his lean waist.
“And we’re right next door,” he said, waving to his crew. They were jumping up and down and dancing on their own rig. It was only a matter of time now, and they all knew it. If oil could be struck one place on the hill, it could be struck all around. The land Cal owned was money in the bank.
Pike’s small eyes gleamed now with excitement. He got his reply back from Corsicana, and the men followed the instructions Drago had sent. As time passed, they went down and down and down.
Then, the first week of March, there was a sudden explosion inside the derrick. Nora had been washing out her smalls inside the house. She came onto the porch and stood watching, her hand shading her eyes from the sun.
Cal yelled something at Pike, who started backing away. All at once, mud began to spurt up the derrick. Pike slid down the ladder, followed at once by Cal, who was yelling at Mick and the others to get out of the way.
The men fell back, covered with mud, and still the sticky brown muck flew up and up. Then, all at once, what seemed tons of four-inch pipe joined the mud and started up through the derrick. The crown block went, and the pipe started shooting up and landing stuck in the ground.
“Oh, no!” Nora whispered in anguish. She knew that Cal had invested heavily in this venture, and now it seemed that he was going to lose everything. Weeks of watching with him, hoping with him, were crumbling, just as the pipe and derrick that had been so expensive were now falling like tenpins. At least, thank God, Cal had gotten out of the way in time. If he’d been closer…It didn’t bear thinking about! That falling pipe, in such huge amounts, would surely have killed him!
When it stopped, finally, Cal began cursing. He was so eloquent that Nora covered her ears, and he wasn’t the only man on the place expressing his feelings about mud, derricks, pipe and prospective oil in graphic terms.
The men stomped back up to the derrick, seeing impossible figures to replace it. Captain Lucas’s strike had boosted prices beyond belief, for everything from land to lumber.
Cal squatted down to look at a piece of pipe with furious silver eyes.
“My God,” he said heavily. “It will take thousands to replace all this. And then we’ll have to start again, from scratch!”
“Hell of a shame, boss,” Pike said. He looked nervous. Really nervous. “What a hell of a shame!”
Mick was more vocal as he swung toward the remains of the derrick. He muttered all the way up to it and turned to call his crew to start picking up the strewn materials.
He’s just opened his mouth when there was an ominous rumble.
“Get the hell out of there, Mick!” Cal shouted.
The Irishman made it in the nick of time, as more mud came spewing out in a flood. But this time it didn’t end with mud. The mud was followed by a column of gas. And that was followed within seconds…by a thick, green, solid flow…of oil!
“Oil!” Mick screamed. His voice didn’t even sound human. He held out his arms, and it covered him, oozed down his clothing into his shoes. “Oil, oil…!”
Cal had been holding his breath. Now he threw down his hat and ran into the flow with Mick. The two of them grabbed each other in bear hugs and then began to dance like two crazy people. Even reserved Pike joined in, along with the other men. Nora laughed and cried all at once as she realized what had happened. Cal’s gamble had paid off. They were going to be very, very rich.
Cal saw her standing on the porch and ran up to grab her in a greasy bear hug, lifting her clear of the wooden flooring.
“We’ve done it,” he laughed. “We’ve done it, we’ve done it, Nora—we’re set for life!”
“Yes, I know,” she laughed. She rubbed at the thick oil on his face, but he pulled her close and kissed her. She didn’t seem to mind the taste of it, or the grime of his body, so he kissed her again. And for a few glorious seconds, they were alone in a world of their own.
Then the landscape exploded with people, in buggies, on horseback, on foot from the camp around them. People came to exclaim over the well, to congratulate them, to offer suggestions.
While Cal and Nora answered the greetings, Pike was talking to a stranger in a suit and looking nervously toward the porch, where Cal was standing. Nora’s eyes narrowed. Something very suspicious was going on. She hoped that Pike hadn’t done anything in Cal’s absence that would put a damper on this glorious triumph. She was going to have to talk to him about Pike.
She tried, when the bulk of the well-wishers had gone home, among them Captain Lucas himself.
“Listen, Cal,” she began while he was trying to wash some of the oil from his face. “About Pike…”
“What about Pike, dearest?” he murmured into his towel. “He’s as delirious as the rest of us.”
“Did you see him talking to that man in the suit?”
“Hmmm,” he agreed, wiping at his eyes. “That was one of the new lawyers in town. I met him earlier. He and Pike are friends, that’s all.”
Nora had an unpleasant feeling that friendship was not what had drawn those two men together. But not for all the world could she do anything to dampen Cal’s spirits.
“This won’t do at all,” he muttered when he saw the residue of oil that covered him. “Not that I’m complaining.” He chuckled when he saw the smudges he’d left all over her. “But we’ll never get clean in a basin. Come on. We’ll check into a hotel and have proper baths in town. And then you and I and this crew are going to celebrate. In fact,” he added, swinging her gently around, “we’re going to buy all the champagne in the saloon and drink ourselves right to heaven.”
“I don’t drink,” she faltered.
“You will tonight,” he assured her, with a grin that made her head whirl. “Because we have just hit one of the biggest oil strikes in history. And there is no way I’m going to celebrate that without my wife!”