Roughnecks

by James J. Patterson

  “You might want to try Ben’s Hardware back in town for one of those plug-in heaters when you have a little time. The nights are gonna start coolin’ off pretty soon. Ever spend a winter in these parts?”

  “No, never have.”

  “Well, you’ll be okay here for the next coupla months but before too much longer you might want to start lookin’ for a spot to rent in town if you’re plannin’ on winterin’. You’ll freeze your ass to death here, that’s fer sure. If you wait too long to get your name down on a spot, they’ll all be gone by the time you decide you really need one. You can’t always count on the hotel having spare rooms. That’s too damn much money to be payin’ day after day anyway.”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep all that in mind,” Zak said. They were walking between the trees along the rim of the ravine that dropped about twenty feet down to a small drainage creek. The roots of the trees jutted out nakedly in spots. From there the terrain opened wide and endless to the southeast. It was the only direction from the house that was open to the weather and by the looks of the vegetation and the permanent lean of the trees to the northwest, it appeared that weather from that direction was plentiful.

  “Those would be yer summer storms,” Bill Turner informed him. “Most of your winter storms come from the other side of those hills. But they aren’t much protection. You’re gonna want to be somewhere else.”

  “Well, I’ll bet this little neck of the woods is mighty pretty in the fall,” Zak put a happy ending on their visit as they climbed into the Jeep. The look on Bill Turner’s face was a little envious and a little concerned. Zak wondered what kind of obligations Bill had taken on over the years to slow him down.

  “That’s true enough, ’ceptin’ fall don’t last too long in these parts.”

  They finished off the beer on the way back to town and Zak thanked Bill for his trouble which Bill assured him was no trouble at all. After dropping him at Sam’s, Zak cruised back out to location. It was already dusk and Zak was afraid that if he went back to the tent he would fall asleep and be late for work. He parked a discreet distance from the rig, made himself a couple of sandwiches, curled up, and had a snooze. It was a quarter till eleven when he heard a car door slam. He sat up stiff and groggy as his door pulled open and there was Jon, bright eyed and full of it.

  “Wake up chainhand! We’re fast holin’ tonight!”

  XII

  Jon threw his head back and let out a tremendous war whoop as Zak tumbled from the Jeep. All around them the rig was a frenzy of motion and excitement. The bright electric lamps on the tower seemed like huge spotlights; it was opening night and Zak was changing roles without a single rehearsal. As Zak grabbed his gear from the back of the Jeep, Jon clapped a heavy palm across his back, “Yes sir, good buddy, tonight you graduate to Roughneckin’ 201, and I’ve got news for you.”

  “And what’s that?” Zak turned, plunking his hard hat down on his head and tossing his gear over his shoulder. It was then that he noticed that his Scandinavian friend was dressed and ready to go. This was serious. They were off at a gallop for the bottom doghouse. Jon filled him in.

  “Ol’ Rusty finally got up the nerve to run off that friggin’ Cowboy Crew!” Jon was triumphant. “Them dirtbags were so pissed I thought there was going to be a rumble right here on location. Jesse told Marty and me about it in town this evening just before it went down, and we went and rounded up Samson and the boys just in case George needed some help. We got here just as Carl and them were packin’ up their gear. They were a-cussin’ and a-bitchin’ to beat hell. Really lookin’ for it. When they seen us comin’ they simmered down and split. This all just happened a little while ago and you, you silly bastard, you slept through the whole friggin’ show!”

  Zak laughed. That was one show he was glad to have missed.

  “But that means that every day some crew or other is gonna have to double up or else nobody gets days off. There aren’t exactly a lot of hungry roughnecks roamin’ around these parts and we’re still shorthanded, which means you’re our newly elected chainhand. Congratulations!”

  “Damn.” Harper grunted and laughed nervously as he pulled on his overalls. “But wait a minute,” he stopped in his tracks, “nobody’s hired me out to be chainhand yet,” he stated what he thought was the obvious.

  “You need an invitation?” Jon laughed. “We’re shorthanded there, Zakko! You’n me are gonna have to work motors, chain, and worm’s corner once we’ve spud-in. We’ll have Marty’s help on the floor at first ’cause he won’t be needed up top just yet. We can share worm’s responsibilities after that, but there’s no one left to throw chain ’ceptin’ you big man!”

  The thing that amazed Zak most was Jon’s bedlamite enthusiasm. Instead of being morose over their apparent ill luck, Jon was elated. Feeding off the crisis of the moment, just ready and to get in there and fight like a tiger.

  “Let’s go chainhand, let’s get it!” he roared and was off like a shot for the top doghouse as Zak hurriedly laced up his steel-toed boots.

  Chainhand, Jesus!

  And fast-holin’, shee-it!

  He assumed that drillin’ must go real fast at first because the topsoil and then those first few formations are probably soft, but this having to double was a bigger worry, he fretted as he stumbled through the door. On the way up the ladder, he noticed his knees were weak. If they had to double tonight it would mean that instead of getting off work at seven a.m., they wouldn’t see relief till three p.m. Tomorrow. Sixteen hours from now. His rubbery arms helped pull him up the stairs. Damn. If tonight was their turn to double, what kind of shape would he be in by then? Double-damn.

  In the top doghouse things were quiet, earnest. Perhaps it was the final comeuppance and good riddance of that pain-in-the-ass Cowboy Crew, or the fact that their worst fears regarding Jesse had not come true, but there was none of the tension and stress Zak expected to find. Everyone knew this had to happen, that this was for the best. Now it was just a matter of getting it done. Heck, they had been shorthanded those first days too. Marty, Jon, and Jesse each had a different twinkle in their eye for Zak as his eyes met theirs. They were looking forward to this! The four men stood in the doorway for a brief moment watching the goings-on out on the floor and awaited their cue.

  The Parker Brothers had gotten the ball rolling. They had finished unloading the pipe from the tractor-trailers and had laid it down in racks on the ground below. They had adjusted the counterweights for the tongs and strung up the boom line. In addition, they had even hooked up a rock bit for breaking soil and had run in the first dozen stands.

  Jesse and the boys took over on the floor without missing a beat. The Parker Brothers disattached the kelly from the pipe in the hole and Marty, Jon, and Zak took hold of it from there and attached it to the pipe in the mousehole. They guided the ensemble, with Jesse stepping in for Andy Parker at that brake handle, over to the joint in the hole. The Parker Brothers then melted from the floor in the scant seconds it took Jon to dope the pipe and stab it down into the joint, but they congregated at the top doghouse door waiting and watching with a gleeful roughneck curiosity to see what was about to happen next out on the floor. Zachary Harper meanwhile trotted over to the chainhand’s position and picked up the end of the chain, determined to give them a good show, win, lose, or draw.

  As soon as Jon was clear of that pipe, Zak let ’er fly with all his might! That chain just danced up to that top joint in crisp tight little wraps and though his follow-up move was a little unsure, he nevertheless stepped right up, face to face with that whirling pipe, trying as best he could to guide those wraps with the flat of one gloved hand while holding the loose end of the chain tight with the other fist, all the while keeping his feet free of the spinning rotary table. Marty and Jon whooped and hollered as they watched that pipe make up just fine. The Parker Brothers looked at one another as they stood there in the doorway and then moved on. An
d Jesse Lancaster grinned from ear to ear.

  That first tower, things were happening all the time and that pipe just seemed to fall through the floor, things had just gone Boom! Boom! Boom! all night long. Jon, Marty, and Zak were in high-high and loving every minute of it. As quick as they could, they would finish a connection, drive another thirty-foot section up that beaver slide. As soon as Marty stabbed the pipe, Zak would fling that chain making up that pipe each and every time. Where Jesse really showed his finesse at that brake handle was making Zak look good throwing chain. If Zak’s throw wasn’t perfect, if those wraps were loose or his tension wasn’t as sharp as it could be on his follow-up, Jesse would speed up or slow down to compensate and those six wraps would be right where they needed to be each and every time. The pace was so fantastic that not one of them noticed the night fly past. Or the glorious dawn.

  Meanwhile, it was Marty’s job to “mud-up.” He spent every spare second down in the hopper dumping his mud sacks and mixing in saltwater. The deeper they went, the more mud they would need. When Zak asked him at the end of the tower how many sacks he had mixed, even he couldn’t remember. Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred? One was as likely as another, things were happening so fast. It was a job to mix the right amount and keep it at the proper viscosity. Marty answered, “I mixed enough!”

  IT JUST SEEMED TO HAPPEN that it wasn’t dark anymore. Rory and his men showed up at 6:41 a.m. Jon, Zak, and Marty were almost disappointed. They could have doubled easy.

  THAT AFTERNOON, ZAK DROVE INTO town. He parked the Jeep outside Ginger’s Bar and sure enough, as he was stepping toward the door, down the street came a red Chevy TrailBlazer. The guy behind the wheel wearing a beat-up straw cowboy hat had to be Randy Hughes, just as Corey had described, and if that was Randy, then the big powerful-looking fella sitting next to him had to be none other than Stitch Cronan.

  Stitch stepped down out of the TrailBlazer and adjusted his belt while squinting up into the setting sun. He had a great paunch that reached outward from his massive chest in a sweeping arc that curved downward and tucked into his new blue jeans along with his flannel shirt. He was a few years older than Zak had imagined, with an imposingly fierce countenance that grew more intense as he realized that the strange young man in the yellow baseball cap and the rimless glasses was approaching him with a purpose. Zak immediately felt like retreating and calling the whole thing off.

  “Mr. Cronan?” Zak said, confidently sticking out his palm. Stitch just looked down at him like he was a bug on his boot. “I’m Zachary Harper, a worker on the oil rig over on your property. Mind if I chat with you for a minute?”

  Stitch threw a what-have-we-here look over at Randy, then noticed Zak’s hand which had been hanging in the air for the longest time collecting dust, swallowed it for a second in his giant paw, and then dropped it.

  “What’s on yer mind?”

  “I’ve heard from a couple of fellas around town that you have an old bunkhouse down near where we’re drillin’ and I was wondering if you might see yourself clear to renting it to me for the next little spell while we’re working over there.” Then, dreading a lull, he decided to include his references, “Mr. Coster let me pitch a tent when we were over at his place. Well, we’re done over there and what with fall settin’ in, a fella could use a roof over his head.”

  Cronan smiled, then laughed, revealing a huge row of teeth, many of which were capped with shining gold. “Tell me something, mister. Have you ever seen that old shack of mine?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. Just yesterday Bill Turner was nice enough to ride out there with me and show me where it is.”

  “He was, was he?” Cronan winked from Zak to Randy who was now leaning against the blazing red TrailBlazer.

  “Yeah, it looks like just the answer!” Zak had decided some time ago to take the ever-present inside joke, whatever it was, and meet it head on with optimistic naïveté. It was an honest approach and it had worked thus far.

  Cronan paused, sizing up his new tenant, and with yet another sidelong snicker over to his buddy, tried to sound reluctant. “Well, I suppose if Old Man Coster’ll let you use his favorite fishing hole, I can let you use my favorite hunting patch, just you don’t go burnin’ that little shack down though. Lord knows, I may have to move back in there myself one day!” Randy finally snickered out loud and spat on the sidewalk.

  Zak reached for his wallet, but Stitch winced and put out a big hand. “Put that away, Jesus! I can’t have people thinkin’ I’d take money from someone to stay in that place!” Stitch looked right, then left, embarrassed should someone see Zak standing there with his wallet open and misunderstand.

  “Thanks,” Zak muttered as he hastily put the wallet away, but they had already turned their backs on him and disappeared through the door to the bar. Zak thought of following them, then stopped for an uneasy half second. He could visualize Stitch laughing and buying rounds and fielding questions about how things were getting along with his oil rig, and Stitch pointing out that one of ’em was using his old bunkhouse, you know, the same fella that was camping at Coster’s fishing hole. Zak walked back to the Jeep instead and as he fired it up, he laughed. He was trying to see Stitch Cronan sitting on a bench in a big stadium wearing “someone else’s name, someone else’s number.”

  THAT WEEK THE WORK WAS unbelievably hard. On Thursday, Jesse’s crew took the double, working straight through from eleven p.m. till three the following afternoon so that Rory’s crew could have the day off. And they were back again eight hours later to work their regular shift. Because they were still fast-holin’, Marty wasn’t needed up in the tower and Jon and Zak were damn glad for the extra pair of arms and legs.

  Amid all the hustle and bustle Zak had all but forgotten about his tent and the unfinished business of packing up his things and dismantling his old campsite. He had been staying at the Pioneer, and as soon as he had a little time he made the trek back out to Coster’s Creek.

  Zak arrived to find his tent collapsed and a big fat cow standing on it nonchalantly chewing her cud. She had taken an enormous shit right there, the big round pie still steaming behind her. More bovines had wandered about and claimed the spot as their own. Several had collected at the water’s edge, or were standing in it up to their knees, drinking in gallons of fresh stream water in long slow draughts. Zak walked up to the cow standing on Freddy’s tent, waving his baseball cap to shoo her off but she wouldn’t budge. He hollered. He grabbed the cow by the ears and pulled, but the cow shook her head stubbornly. He stood to one side and pushed the beast with all his might. It barely shifted its weight. Finally Zak stood back and asked as pleasantly as he could, “All right dear, what is it you want? Hmm? Please get off my tent, please?” Just as it occurred to him to go to the Jeep and scavenge around for some food to lure it away, the cow gave a low rumbling sound and then plopped several pounds of manure leaving a second big cow pie before ambling off contentedly. He rolled the tent up like a taco and tied it up tight, scattered the campfire stones, and kissed that place goodbye.

  Clearly, it was time to get to work on Cronan’s shack.

  The following Saturday it was the Parker Brothers turn to double for Jesse and the boys. Zak went back to the Pioneer after work but before going to bed he hit the hardware store soon after it was open, bought cleansers, plastic buckets, light bulbs, a heater as Turner had suggested, and after a long nap beat it out to his new abode. He spent most of the afternoon cleaning up the kitchen. He found storm boards under the house and nailed them over the broken windows. He clipped the broken springs from the chair in the living room and from the bed. He hit everything with Lysol. He unrolled Freddy’s tent and scraped the cow shit from it with a shovel he borrowed from location, then set it to soak in the creek. A reasonable distance downwind from the house, he dug a deep hole for a latrine with the intention of pitching the tent over the hole as a makeshift outhouse, and covered the hole with
another storm board.

  Early that evening, feeling very good about himself and needing a few more supplies before the stores closed, he went back to town and, after picking up his things, stopped in at Sam’s. He was disappointed not to find any roughnecks on hand but it stood to reason. The Parker Brothers were on the double and Rory’s men were probably getting dinner somewhere. Zak would have liked to see Jon though, for a chat and a few whiskeys. Then he remembered that Jon was probably off with Mary Ellen. Marty was most likely out at location with Cynthia, and Jesse had certainly shot back to Watford for the night. So Zak bought a case of beer and stopped on the way home for a bundle of hamburgers.

  Zak dumped his gear in the front room. He put the beer in the fridge. As he sat down at the kitchen table with his bag of hamburgers he saw out the kitchen window the sun just over the top of a pointed hill overlooking the shack and was suddenly inspired to take his dinner and eat it there.

  Climbing the hill to the west side of the shack, he laid out his supper, rolled a reefer, popped a beer, and slowly munched, facing east. The wind was from the west, the northwest; he turned his denim collar up, draped a woolen blanket over his shoulders, and sat Indian style on the rocky top of the hill looking almost directly down on the shack, the six treetops, and the rolling vista beyond.

  For the first time in his life, he could really see the approaching terminator, the line between day and night; a wall of black as big as the land it was creeping across. The wind at his back was picking up, becoming colder, he imagined Boreas himself attempting to blow back or otherwise retard the progress of this marching wall of doom. The night was preceded by deepening blues and grays, overwhelming the golds and greens and browns in their path, swirling all shades into a deepening purple, then black. As the sun dipped down behind him, the last traces of light lapped at the gray wood of the shack, the brown and gravel path leading up to it, and tossed sparkles across the silver glinting of the creek below. When the line between night and day at last crept silently and painlessly over him, the temperature dropped just enough to be make him shiver.