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-latelies 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.”
Brasher’s ruddy face went dead pale. He also got to his feet, towering over Russell. “Nobody talks to me like that,” he snapped.
“I just did,” Russell said. “I’ll repeat it, too. You’re a louse, Brasher. You’re too low to look up at a snake’s belly button. You’re a rotten thing without the guts to fight your own battles.”
Brasher’s mouth thinned. “You think so, huh?”
“You travel with your pet gunman,” Russell said coldly, looking up at him.
“You used some bad words against me. Suppose I told my pet gunman to lay off. You want to put your damn fists where you’ve run your mouth?”
Russell’s eyes gleamed. “There ain’t nothing I’d like better.”
Brasher drew in a breath that made his barrel chest swell. “I won’t gunfight you, Russell. But I’ll sure as hell knock the crap out of you.”
“Oh, will you now?” Curt said, happily,
“You call off Fargo, I’ll call off Friday. Nobody talks to me like that and gets away with it.”
Russell stared at the bigger man. Then he nodded. “You think you can take me, Brasher? After all these years, when I’ve itched to get my hands on you?”
“I know damn well I can take you. But you’ll have to shuck that gun. I’m not armed.”
“The hell you’re not.”
Slowly, Brasher peeled the coat away from his bull’s frame. “You see? No gun. Friday’s good enough for both of us.”
Russell’s eyes glittered. “You want to go it knuckle and skull?”
“After what you called me, yeah.”
“Then you got yourself a deal.” Russell unbuckled his gun belt. He handed it to Fargo. “Neal, watch ’em. Watch ’em both.”
Fargo said, “Curt. Remember this. A good little man can’t whip a good big man.”
Russell turned a face almost mad with hatred toward Fargo. “You think not? Watch.”
Fargo shrugged, draped Curt Russell’s gun belt over his shoulder. “Ross,” he said, “no matter which way it falls, we’re out of this.”
“Suits me,” Friday said, and he came to stand beside Fargo.
“Nobody’s gonna interfere, then,” Brasher rumbled.
“Nobody,” said Fargo. “Knuckle and skull. Anything goes.”
“That’s the way I want it,” said Curt Russell. He and Brasher moved out away from the outbuilding. “Any time, Tull.”
Friday looked at Fargo. “Ten to one on Tull.”
“No,” Fargo said. “It’s not a bet I’d take.”
Ross Friday drew in a long breath. “Neal, what kind of bet would you take?”
“You and me,” said Fargo. “Dead even. Pistols.”
“It might come to that,” Friday said.
“We’ve got room here for another man, if you want to come,” Fargo said, watching Russell and Brasher square off in the dust. Brasher raised fists the size of sledgehammers; Russell hunched into a fighting crouch.
“No. I’ve done hired out. Once I do that, I don’t sell out any more than you would.”
“Then maybe it will come to you and me and pistols,” Fargo said.
“I’ll have to admit,” Friday murmured, “it’s something I’ve always wondered about.”
“Me, too,” Fargo said. Then he added: “Let’s watch the fight.”
~*~
The two men faced each other across ten feet of dusty ground. Brasher was taller, heavier, but he was also older, a hard drinker. Russell, smaller, was all muscle, no blubber. Nevertheless, Fargo did not think he had a chance. He had read something in Brasher’s face that was absent in Russell’s; Brasher had a killer instinct which Russell lacked.
They circled each other warily. Then Russell made a sound in his throat, charged in.
Fargo wanted to yell. Russell went with his head down; that was bad. How bad it was Russell learned when he slammed both fists at Brasher and Brasher wasn’t there. The big man had sidestepped the blind charge, and as Curt swung and missed, Brasher hit him on the side of the head and in the kidneys all at once. Curt stopped short, staggered, whirled. He blinked his eyes and came back again.
This time more cautiously, but not to any avail. Brasher backed up, squinting appraisingly. Then Brasher charged, but watched what he was doing, where he was going. Curt threw up an arm that fended Brasher s right. But that left him open to a short, chopping left; and that left caught him in the belly and rocked him back, gasping; and Brasher wasted not a second. He bored in as soon as Curt was off balance, and the sound of his fist on Russell’s jaw was thunderous.
The impact picked up Curt and tossed him backward; he landed on his shoulders in the dirt, But he was tough, resilient, and as Brasher charged he came up, caught the big man around the legs, tossed, heaved. Brasher made a sound and went over backward to thud into the dirt. Then Curt was on him, fists clubbed, hammering at him.
But Brasher was too old and wise a fighter not to be ready. His right hand flashed up, caught Curt defensively around the throat, closed and pushed as Russell hammered at him. Fargo wanted once more to yell; Brasher had raised Curt too high, had room to get in a knee.
But it was not his fight. Brasher brought up that knee, hard, sharp, accurately, and Curt Russell screamed with the agony of its impact in his groin. His whole body went limp; he rolled aside, as Brasher bucked, and then he was on the ground with Brasher standing over him.
Brasher drew back a booted foot, kicked. His toe slammed into Russell’s ribs with sickening impact. Russell gasped, rolled wildly across the ground, doubled up like a worm touched with a hot match-end. Brasher was right after him, kicked again. His boot caromed off of Curt’s hard buttocks, and Russell tried to scramble to his feet, his face like paper.
But he never made it. Brasher brought up a knee. As Curt was halfway up, that knee caught him under the chin. At the same time, Brasher’s fist crashed into Curt’s temple.
Russell sighed, fell back supine, eyes closing. He lay immobile in the dust. Brasher grinned wickedly, pulled back a booted foot for a final kick against the side of Curt’s head.
Fargo tensed; that kick would kill young Russell. Instinctively his hand flashed down. Suddenly he held his Colt .38, backing off to cover both Friday and Brasher. “Tull, hold it!” he snapped.
Eyes full of killer lust, Brasher whirled, stared at the unsheathed gun. “You swore—” he rasped.
“You’ve whipped Russell. I won’t let you kill him.”
“It was knuckle and skull. Anything goes. If I want to kick the hell out of him—”
“You d better not,” Fargo grated. “I’ll drill you.” He swung the gun to cover Friday. “Nor you, Ross. Don’t draw. Tull’s won his fight, but he don’t kill Curt.”
Ross Friday’s eyes glittered as he looked at the gun in Fargo’s hand. “Neal,” he said, “you promised. You put that thing up, I’ll brace you fair and square. We’ll see which is faster.”
“No,” Fargo said. “Later. Right now, it’s saving Russell that counts.”
Friday drew in a deep breath. “Neal, this is the end of it. The whole end. The next time I see you I’ll kill you on sight.”
“That’s fair enough,” said Fargo, feeling no sadness, only a kind of pleasure at facing Friday. Ross was his equal with a gun; and it had been a long time since he had met his equal. “We’ll leave it like that. But for now, Curt lives and the two of you clear out.”
Brasher rubbed his knuckles, his black eyes hard as he stared at Fargo. “I’m warning you,” he said. “You’re wastin’ your time and money. You’ll never get that well down. I’ll see to it that you don’t get that well down.”
Fargo looked back at him. “Brasher, I’ll make you a promise. As I understand it, you’ve got five producing wells. If anything happens to this rig, you’ll lose five in return. And if we buy another rig after that and anything happens to it, you’ll lose five more. You can try to stop this well if you want to. But every try you make will cost you five wells in return.”
“Big talk,” Brasher said, lip curling.
“No. Just truth. A promise.” His eyes went back to Friday, read the implacable hatred on the man’s face. Friday had been bested too many times. He would not challenge Fargo now, not with Fargo’s dead drop. But the time would come—Fargo added: “Ross will tell you that I don’t make big talk.”
‘We’ll see,” Brasher said. “Come on, Friday.” He turned toward the car, halted. “Sixty thousand dollars, Fargo. Think about it.”
Fargo grinned coldly. “You’re about nine hundred and forty thousand shy, Tull.”
He watched them go to the car. Just before Friday got in, he said: “Neal. Don’t come into Golconda. You do, it’ll be me and you, on sight—showdown.”
“Fair enough,” Fargo said. “So long, Ross.”
He stood there with gun in hand as the car chugged away. When it had disappeared, he hurried back to where Russell lay, still unconscious in the dust. By that time Lily Erickson had found him, knelt beside him and held his battered head against her lush breasts. Gently Fargo pushed her aside. Then he picked up Curt as easily as if the man had been an infant and carried him into the house.