Roughnecks

by James J. Patterson

  Zak was standing in the back of a gin truck attaching some cable with a hook on the end to a piece of equipment. Marty and Jon were running with those Getter boys. So it was left to Rory, standing atop a recently assembled pump house, to raise the lone cheer when that Mercury door opened and out stepped a sober Jesse Lancaster.

  The big white tower arrived right behind him, looking majestic, even on its side, tinged dusky vermillion by the setting sun. The bottom of the drawworks constituted the working floor of the rig. All in all virtually tons and tons of iron.

  SINCE EVERYONE WORKED THE SAME shift until they nippled up, Sam’s place back in town that night was just jumping with roughnecks and Getter boys as well as her regulars. From their booth near the front, Marty, Cynthia, Jon, and Zak had a good view of the action. After a couple of drinks, Zak seized the opportunity to make a few inquiries regarding the men of Bomac 34, most of whom were still strangers to him. Marty and Jon got into a competition to see who knew the most about as many of them as possible.

  Sitting with Rory at a table a few feet away was Billy Knott, Rory’s motorman and closest friend. They had worked in the patch together for many a year, most always getting on the same crew and if not, at least with the same rig. With them was their chainhand, “Smoke” Denton. Jon and Marty were careful to point out that Smoke was very finicky about his roughneckin’ image. If he couldn’t throw chain he’d as soon not roughneck, and preferred instead to hire himself out as a welder or carpenter. Smoke was a sullen, gruff, unshaven character, and Zak sensed that the moniker fit the man’s aura and temperament as well as the way he burned up pipe with the throw of his chain. Zak remembered as well that Jon, now a motorman, was reported to be the best chainhand that Jesse had ever seen, which had to account somehow for the strange glimmer in the Scandinavian’s eye as he described Denton’s peculiarities as to what he would and wouldn’t do on the floor of an oil rig. In any event, Smoke Denton was Rory’s first choice as chainhand on this or any crew.

  An older fella worked worm’s corner for Rory, and his last name, the one folks knew him by, was Frye. He was a very private man, and Jon speculated as he pointed him out sitting at the bar chatting with the locals that Frye had been a mystery for so long that everyone had simply given up trying to figure the old boy out. That he had been a driller for many years was common knowledge, and it was just assumed that his aging memory had had something to do with his returning to worm’s corner. He wasn’t too particular, seemed glad enough just to be working, and was known to be a real solid hand.

  “He’ll sit and sip beer with you all afternoon,” Jon said, stealing a glance at the old man. “He won’t say much but he’ll listen to everyone else tell their stories, and he’ll laugh.”

  “Yeah and he’s real comical when he laughs cuz he ain’t got but two teeth!”

  “If someone is trying to remember some detail from a story,” Jon looked at Marty for a nod of verification, “and Frye was around when it happened, he’ll speak up, but he rarely, if ever, comes up with a story of his own. At least not in front of the younger guys.”

  “Shit, ebbrybody’s younger’n Frye,” Marty laughed and took a drink.

  “I mean, none of us was around when he got started, and he probably thinks that nobody gives a shit about times they’ve never seen or places they’ve never been.”

  “Maybe he’s right,” Zak wondered aloud.

  “That’s so sad,” Cynthia blurted out. The three men looked at each other and then just exploded with laughter. At first she was offended. Their hilarity was contagious, and she was glad to be having fun whether it was at her expense or whether it was just that at that moment all the troubles of the past few days had suddenly subsided and they could all be happy again.

  “Cynthia, you’re just priceless,” Zak said as things calmed down. “Let me get you another 7Up.” The others raised their empty glasses indicating another round was in order.

  Zak stood next to Frye as he waited for Sam to get his drinks. Frye just stared straight ahead. Zak could think of reasons for a man to be silent about his past. Perhaps too, like Corey, Frye wasn’t showing his medals to just anybody. Zak took a look around the room. The last member of Rory’s crew, the wild, bearded derrickhand was nowhere to be seen. “His name is Ogre,” Jon had said with a disparaging shake of his head, as if the name told the whole story.

  At another table not too far away were the Parker Brothers. They were from Michigan and had migrated West together, taking odd jobs in small towns until they hit Watford City, North Dakota, and one by one had broken out roughnecking. How they had held together through the trouble times was something that impressed everybody. It made good sense to Marty.

  “One good ting ’bout roughnecks. They don’t let each udder starve!”

  Andy, the oldest, was worm drilling on Bomac 34. He was the only Parker Brother to have worked all positions from worm’s corner to derricks, and, if inexperienced with that brake handle, he was at least level-headed and knew what went where and when. This impression, Zak could tell, they were repeating from Jesse verbatim, because what Jesse said was gospel, and their belief in what was true about those Parker Brothers had the feel of dogma. Besides, George had also said that Andy would do all right in time.

  Not like Carl, “Old Smoky,” who had all the experience a man needed but was still as useless as tits on a bull when it came to whipping a crew into some kind of shape.

  Sitting next to Andy was “Chug” Parker, chainhand, and sitting at Andy’s other side was young Hale. Paul Kimberly, their motorman, had been sitting with them earlier but had moved to the back room where he was trying to win some money at pool from a couple of local farmhands. Carl and his cowboys were conspicuously absent.

  Talk eventually settled on Jesse Lancaster. That he looked beat to shit they all could see, but Jon, and Zak in particular, agreed that the madness they had witnessed a couple of nights earlier was gone from his face, leaving only weariness and fatigue. Cynthia noticed that he hadn’t changed clothes since the accident and they all thought without saying it out loud that Freddy’s accident was already sinking rapidly into the past.

  Jesse had looked different in other ways as well. There was a cleansed, purged difference to the man. An untwisted cathartic ease that made his expressions and movements seem more fluid, lighter on his feet. Zak was no psychologist but somewhere in this concatenation of circumstances, pain and heartache, things seemed to be evening out, hopefully, and for the better. Jesse hadn’t had too many words with George or the boys before turning in at the end of the tower. That he was back to drill was clear. There was to be no undue attention paid to the events of the past few days. What was needed now was time. Time for things to settle down. Time for the old routine to reintroduce itself.

  After a long silence, Marty sighed. Then he sat back in the booth like Papa Bear. Jon set the new agenda as though with that sigh Marty had called a meeting to order.

  “Well, we still haven’t got a chainhand,” Jon opened the discussion.

  Marty had already moved past that, he smacked his lips and looked around the table. “If we’re still shorthanded when we spud-in I tink ol’ Jesse will ask Zak if he wants to break out throwin’ chain.”

  At that moment the big doors to Simone’s Bar blew open with such ferocity that two short, square panes of glass cracked in the windows on either side of the doors.

  There, filling the entire doorway, was Rory’s derrickhand. He was huge, ferocious, and he was drunk.

  “My name is Samson Dowdy!” he bellowed. Anyone who hadn’t dropped what they were doing when the doors blew open was paying attention now. “And I’m the toughest man in Daniels County!”

  The derrickhand’s eyes beamed around the room like lasers. Zak was struck with fear but showed a blank face as did most of the other men. Some simply turned their backs. Others made grim faces and stared back at that derrickhand, read
y to fight if they had to but not willing to make a move that could possibly be construed as accepting his challenge.

  Zak tried to gauge how many men it would take to subdue this man if they had to. If there were enough men in the room willing to try. He determined there were probably not enough.

  The big man surveyed the bar and found it free of resistance. Almost disappointed, his eyes dimmed and he smiled warmly as he walked into the bar, throwing a nod at driller Rory, and another in the direction of Zak’s table before taking a stool next to Frye.

  While things returned to normal, Zak took a quick look around the room and noticed that while some of the men just shook their heads as they reached for the threads of their interrupted conversation, there were more than a few who sat staring fixedly at the mighty Samson as he ordered up a drink and began chatting pleasantly with Sam and the older worm.

  LATE THAT NIGHT IN THE tent by the creek, Zak was having a devil of a time getting to sleep. He was thinking of throwing chain. Marty’s suggestion had shocked him just about as much as Samson’s Wild West entrance to the bar had, only more so. He thought of the chainhands he had met and come to know a little so far: Freddy Fifer, Smoke Denton, Chug Parker, and, of course, Jon.

  Zak was comfortable at worm’s corner and felt that was where he belonged until he became more familiar with the entire operation. But then again, worm’s corner was the entry-level position, so to speak, and, come to think of it, he had to admit that on several occasions he had wanted to grab that chain from Freddy’s hands and throw it himself, not simply out of frustration but because it looked like something he could do well. Also, having thrown chain at least once would come in handy if he found himself out looking for work as had nearly happened this weekend.

  On the other hand, like Zak, Freddy had been on the job just a few weeks before his accident and though it was true that he hadn’t been injured while actually throwing chain, he had, it seemed clear, become overconfident with his small successes, bitten off more than he could chew. Zak wondered if he wasn’t making the same mistake by harboring illusions about his own potential abilities so early on. Anyway, after what had happened to Freddy, Jesse might not offer him the job. From what Zak could tell, he certainly wasn’t obliged to.

  If the decision were in Zak’s hands, he would err on the side of caution. He wouldn’t choose himself. He would go out of his way to find someone with experience. At least someone who had been a roughneck more than two weeks.

  He tossed and turned in his sleeping bag, zipped up tight against the chill night air. He tried to regulate his breathing and relax. As he did this, his fit of confusion came completely untangled, and straightened out as quick and sure as chain whipping toward a cathead. The stillness of his tent filled with a compulsive burst of laughter.

  “I wouldn’t hire myself?” he asked the gods already laughing.

  What kind of bullshit rationale is that? He had seen Jon throw that chain correctly and he had seen Freddy throw it incorrectly. As a matter of fact, one of the most frustrating things about watching poor miserable Freddy try to make up that pipe was that Zak felt he couldn’t just walk over to Freddy and say, Here, let me have at ’er, and change places. Freddy had wanted to go back to worm’s corner anyway, didn’t he say so? Zak wondered what would have happened had he just taken the initiative. Perhaps if he had been around a little longer he would have. Maybe after his first few throws things would just have settled in that way. Maybe Jesse would have simply shrugged and said, Hey, whatever works, works. Of course, there was the question of pay to consider. Chainhand makes more than worm, motors more than chain, etc., the custom in the patch being to offer a job to the man in line for it. Worm to chain, chain to motors, motors to derrick, derrick to driller. Fair is fair. The roughnecks depended on it. It was well known that Jesse took that custom, and others, to heart. It went hand in hand with the way he built a crew that could then be called upon under extreme circumstances. “We’ve been watching you Zak, that’s why you haven’t been hurt.” It was Jesse’s call, and Jesse was considered a master at handling those delicate forces in the men who worked for him. It’s why, apparently, he was able to demand so much. He could take these useless, wandering wastrels, ruffians, and renegades and turn them into roughnecks, real hands, thereby giving them something society wasn’t about to—a chance.

  So where did Freddy fit, and where did Zak fit into all of this? Freddy didn’t fit, that was the problem. In hindsight, that painful fact had been obvious to everyone. And what about himself? Would that Widowmaker chew him up and spit him out as it had so many others? And what made him presume to be any different than Freddy? After all, what happened to Freddy really could have happened to anybody, and that type of thing had happened to a great many anybodys. On the other hand, who’s to say that after a few weeks Freddy wouldn’t have come around. At some point this had to have occurred to Jesse Lancaster too. Freddy was just wrong, that’s all. That didn’t mean that Zak was wrong. Jesse took a chance on Freddy, and Freddy had taken a chance on Freddy, and Freddy blew it.

  Worst of all, what if Jesse had actually been right about himself on that awful night down there in Watford? What if he couldn’t get it? Was what happened to Freddy Jesse’s fault after all? Would it be Jesse’s fault if it happened again to the man next in line? Was Zak next in line?

  No, the truth of the matter is that everyone is responsible for their own level of commitment, to pull their share. And there’s no rule out beyond the stars that says the allotted share one must pull be a fair one. It just is what it is.

  Zak would know after his first throw of that chain whether or not he could get ’er. Everyone would know.

  Everyone.

  THERE. DO YOU HEAR IT? Right there.

  It’s so faint, more of a vibration than a sound. More of a change in the wind. Yes, that’s definitely it now. Everyone on the tiny platform stopped talking in midsentence and listened. When the distant thunder of the locomotive was at last identifiable beyond doubt, a very pleased cheer went up from the crowd. They crept close to the edge of the railway platform expectantly, impulsively as a group, and stared down the empty tracks to where they turned out of sight. It must be moving very fast, they thought, for the reiterated bursts of steam could be heard making distant splashes in the air puffing many times per second. This, getting louder and louder as though someone was gently turning the volume on a stereo from zero to ten, was getting closer, closer, and closer. In another second, they heard the clanking gasping sounds of the gears themselves and the grating rush of huge iron wheels on cold iron tracks. Shouldn’t it be slowing down? At the bend in the tracks the trees blew back, and from around the corner it roared into view. Full speed out of control and about to jump the tracks as it roared into the tiny station!

  Everyone scattered. Zak turned and tripped over a screaming child hurting its little leg. As Zak went down he grabbed the child and handed it up to its frightened parent who then turned and ran. Zak attempted to get up and run after them but his bootlace had gotten stuck through a chink in the iron floor. The roaring in his ears told him it was too late. He turned to face the raging iron beast hurtling toward him so angry and loud as it exploded all around him. He whirled around in time to see Jesse, the engineer, at the brake handle, throwing in the clutch that sent the engine screaming into high-high. An air compressor kicked in, blowing scalding hot gas across his face. A terrific whipping sound sliced the air, and from out of nowhere a chain came flying, hitting Zak at the ankles, making tight wraps up to his knees, past his waist, pinning his arms, up to his neck. The cathead screamed. The rotary table whirled insanely. More chain fed in at his ankles as more chain played out at his neck. Just when he was sure his body would tear completely apart, mud and water began spurting up from under his feet, lubricating that chain as it spun faster and faster. Soon the mud was up to his nostrils and he bobbed and pitched through the muck to get air, gyrating like an inc
hworm in an oil slick. He gasped each time he broke the surface, the muddy water stinking of chemicals like sodium bichromate and caustic. In the pitch darkness he could again hear the puffing, chugging steam engine and then, by God, he could see it! A faint blur of light way off but getting closer. A boat? Oh please! A boat! “Over here!” Zak screamed, but his cries were drowned out by the downward pull of the heavy chain and he sank below the surface. He fought his way back up and for just a few seconds he could see in all directions. The boat was too far off. They’ll never get here in time. He didn’t have the strength to keep his head above the surface for two more breaths. Something broke the water just a short distance to his right, then again behind him, then to his left. God, something’s in here with me!

  The blur of light in the distance tightened into a beam that jerked one way then another, missing him each time. Something again broke water, this time just in front of him and was caught for a terrifying instant in the beam of light as it swished from side to side. It was a monster, a giant predator, a man-eating fish of some kind, but the face on it was fleshy, sickly, with a gaping mouth full of glistening teeth that bit at the filthy muddy water insanely. The side fins were big fat scaly human hands that slapped and splashed as it fought the current attempting to line itself up to strike. A wave pushed it beneath the surface. The searchlight hit Zak in the face. Jesse’s voice pierced the gale. Zak attempted to answer, but his lips sank beneath the surface, his mouth filled with muck, and he was covered over sinking hopelessly downward. Something then hit him violently from behind, spinning him, turning him over and over. It hit him again hard from another angle with jaws that bit again and again trying to find a gap in the wraps of chain where the sharp teeth could break through. The jaws gripped him savagely and whipped him this way and that, but the wraps of the chain were too tight and the teeth that did pierce through went far enough to sting viciously but not enough to tear the flesh. It stopped without letting go. Zak’s lungs were about to burst. Then they rushed upward through the filth together and broke the surface. They smacked into the fast-moving bow of the steamboat, the monster going one way, Zak the other, with the chugging engine loud in his ears. The steamboat crested a gigantic wave directly on top of him, exposing the boat’s broad metal underbelly before it came crashing down. His chain-covered body clanged and bounced along the keel under the boat, and the staccato puffing of the engine roared in his ears as he was sucked with a violent yank directly into the propeller.