CHAPTER 36
Ira’s man, Jud Aikens, must be drilling up at the house site. Long heard the thud sounds of the drill when he was still a quarter mile from operations, and knew the driller must be poking a well down in the earth.
“They’re drilling your well.” He kissed her. “I have to see this.”
The buckboard parked, he, Jan, and his guard hiked up the rise to where it was set up. A bareheaded cowboy in leather gloves held the cable so as to quickly stop the reel if the drill bit hung up. If the tool got hung up in the rocks, his failure to hold the cable might break the drill. His man was smiling over the roar of the steam engine.
“We are forty feet down,” he shouted.
“Great work. Where’s the man, Lance Grey?”
“Let me shut down and we can talk.”
“I hate to stop progress.”
“Oh, we can catch up. This rig is in good shape. He is napping. He’s still really drunk, but managed to tell me how to use this one. We borrowed some whiskey. Gave him one drink. It stopped his shaking, but he is exhausted. I had some experience doing this, so I can make it work—save having a big problem.”
“I will double your wages if you make it work.”
“Oh, I will make it work. The last guy paid me half cowboy wages and that’s why I left him.”
“He must have been a damn fool.”
“I know for a fact he’s had six guys since me.”
“You need to keep drilling. We have a lifetime job for you drilling wells on all our ranches.”
“Sounds great.”
“How deep will he have to go?” she asked, going back downhill with him.
Long turned his hands up. “I have no idea.”
She shook her head and grabbed his arm. “My husband knows all things.”
“No. How do you feel?”
“All right. I had a little nausea but it passed.”
“We have lots to experience in the months ahead.”
“I am looking forward to them all.”
“Darling, I agree.”
Carter met them at the mess hall.
“I went up and saw your driller. He’s doing fine,” Long said.
“Another ranch hand did well drilling for two years. He sounded interested when I said he could double his pay.”
“Is the other drill ready?”
“That was the one his partner ran. It needs a new cable.”
“If you think he can drill, get it fixed and put him to work.”
“Did you think that guy down there can design a house to suit you?”
Long told him about the architect and the plans.
Jan smiled. “Oh, he and I talked about it over my sketches. We have final say before he completes the plans.”
“Carter, he asked about quarrying limestone on the ranch.”
“They used lots of it in that big house. I wasn’t here then, but the quarry is north of here and I know there is a lot of exposed limestone to use.”
“I had seen it riding by. I think that answers our question.”
“Harry said next week the survey crew would start surveying east. No changes out there needed.”
“Good. We are moving on.”
“I had twenty-five purebred shorthorn bulls offered to me. They are sound, two years old, and they would be delivered here by the seller.”
“How much?”
“Four hundred apiece.”
“Would he take less?”
“Want me to offer three fifty?”
“Money is still short. No one is back from Abilene, yet, with pockets full of money. Offer him that. And make sure they are sound.”
“Oh, yes. I will try.”
“If he has more we’d take a hundred sound ones at, say, three or three and a quarter.”
“I will try for that.”
“That would shed us of all the half-breed longhorn bulls?”
“It should.”
“Handle it.”
“We have enough money in this account?” he asked her.
Jan nodded, rocking her head back and forth. “Drill wells, surveying, building fence around the world, and we buy a hundred bulls.”
“And we have money for the new house?”
“Yes. I am teasing.”
“We will have one of the best ranches in Texas.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
The three laughed.
The next afternoon his neighbor Lloyd Hudson from the Rocking H came by to see him. He and a cowboy dismounted, and Long left his desk, trying to find a better way to keep track of the cattle numbers, and greeted him.
Hudson was looking around and shook his hand. “You must be well drilling?”
“That is for my wife’s new house.”
“Didn’t I hear his widow left the mansion?”
“Yes. Come on in. What suits one woman might not another. I offered it to the Methodist church as a school or training place.”
“I understand. I came to thank you for surveying. They told me when I bought the land that I had nearly a mile of land when I built my house. Well yesterday I found out it was barely a quarter mile inside my place and a portion of the corrals are in the next Texas section.”
“I went up there and discussed how it was with the surveyor. He said there was some land north of your line on the section next door.”
“How did your brother buy that land you two have?”
“He had a lawyer and an agent in Kerrville do that. I bet that agent would help you.”
“Ten bucks an acre is the going price?”
“I understand that. It means sixty-four hundred dollars. If you can buy it for that I’d loan you any part you can’t pay, and you can pay me back over ten years.”
“That was my big concern.”
Long clapped Hudson on the shoulder. “When you need it, just holler and we will loan it.”
“I will write your agent and get started. Your man made a description of it, so if I bought it that would be the right one. I sure appreciate the help.”
“I am glad it worked out so well.”
“It will.”
“How is your family?”
“Oh, they’ll be fine after today.”
“You had lunch?”
“Oh, Mark and I just rode over to talk.”
“My cook Sam will whip you up something. Get your cowboy and we’ll go over there.”
“I didn’t come to bother you.”
“No bother. Food is over in the large tent.”
Hudson said he couldn’t believe he fed everyone every day.
Long told him it made them all family.
Jan came over from her sewing circle and told him to bring his wife next time.
He agreed, and after a meal they rode home. Long went back to his project at the office. Soon they would need to do this on all the ranches they bought around Kerrville. Get everything under one brand.
He heard the shouting and ran outside.
“Long! They’ve got water up there.”
He ran hard. The water was blowing fifty feet into the air. It looked like a gusher. Jan would be pleased. It would mean she’d get water pressure without a windmill set up.
Nearly out of breath, he was high enough up and able to see the drilling crew dancing around under the falling water. What a day this turned out to be.