Roughnecks

by James J. Patterson

  “Oh right! I’m going to go into the Scobey Pharmacy, with Big Alfie, whose eyes nearly pop out of his head and whose tongue practically hits the floor every time I go in there, and buy condoms? Tell him and the rest of the world, I’m safe, ready, and waiting? Really, some roughneck!”

  Instead of intercourse, they explored. They talked and laughed and chased each other around the bed like squirrels on a tree trunk. They rolled around for hours. Alternately laughing and talking and teasing and then growing silent and allowing their bodies to do the talking. They pulled the covers around them and breathed in happily the sweetness of their first night.

  ZAK OPENED HIS LOCKER DOOR and noticed right away that his gloves were missing. No one had ever borrowed his last pair before. But then again, with Hansom’s crew hanging around, anything was possible. “Shit,” he fussed and slammed his locker shut. From now on he would have to go back to locking up, which meant a long frustrating rummage through the Jeep to find his combination lock. Once found, he then had to remember the combination. He didn’t. He tried to bring it back as he stomped up the stairs. No dice. He pitched the lock into the trash as he stepped into the top doghouse. It hit the metal can hard and loud. Everyone looked up momentarily, then resumed what they were doing.

  Frank Kramer, that company hand, George Cleaver, and Archer Hansom were in the top doghouse along with a new guy who was standing off to one side. The guy was a densely packed powerhouse with thick shoulders. He had rocky features which stretched his skin tight over his skull and thin blond hair combed back on the sides with a flip over his forehead Elvis Presley style. He clearly had been wearing it that way so long he no longer required grease to hold it in place, but he greased it anyway. He was standing in a corner facing into the room, like a man accustomed to worrying about his back, smoking a cigarette and eyeing everyone suspiciously. Right away Zak noticed his missing gloves dangling through the son of a bitch’s belt.

  Frank Kramer was standing next to the knowledge box, going over a chart from the previous tower with George and Archer.

  “Jesus Christ, Archer!” George slammed the door of the knowledge box down in disgust. “It took you a whole tower to trip some pipe? What kinda bullshit are you guys pullin’ around here?”

  Hansom shrugged.

  “Glory be!” Marty howled as he entered from the floor. “Congratulations Georgie boy! You go out and find a new hand at last?”

  “This is Lou Crawford,” George nodded in the direction of the new hand standing in the corner. “And Frank here is goin’ drillin’ with you boys for a spell,” George said casual-like. Frank was clearly there to take George’s place at that brake handle.

  Zak walked over to Crawford and gestured to the gloves. “We always ask one another before we go borrowing things,” he said.

  “Then make sure you do,” Crawford said and looked at Zak with a want-to-make-something-of-it? face. He had a large disturbing gap between his two tobacco-stained front teeth.

  Great, Zak thought. So this is how it is? We finally get some help and he turns out to be a prick, introducing himself as a bad-ass by starting shit before he’s even met anyone. Should Zak bother to mention that it was he who put the notice up at the PDQ Club? Or that O’Mally and he were related? Perhaps not. Maybe no one was doing anyone else a favor in this situation after all. Asshole or not, having a full crew should be an improvement and ease everyone’s load. Still, Zak couldn’t help but wonder what Calico could have been thinking of when he sent this guy their way.

  Marty, who had witnessed this exchange, hobbled over to Crawford, snatched the gloves from his belt, handed them to Zak and, before anyone could speak, threw open the cupboard and, fetching some new pairs, tossed them at everyone declaring, “Today, glubbs are on de new guy!” Crawford said nothing. “Dey cost two bucks fifty a pair, four times,” he said to Frank, and to Frank and George said, “Better to keep dat closet locked up too from now on.” He hit Jon in the chest with his new pair just as the motorman was coming through the door. Frank marked it down.

  George sighed, with not a little disgust. Well, that’s one way to get introduced to your new crew.

  An hour earlier, Archer Hansom had been sitting in the top doghouse going over the charts from his tower before relief was due to show. He smoked a cigarette and shook his head. It had taken eight hours, an entire tower, to round-trip only nine hundred feet pipe. Jesus, what a nightmare.

  And that fuckin’ Skidder up in the derrick was piss drunk when he arrived, and had been drinking steadily since he got up to the crow’s nest.

  Each time they disconnected that pipe and pushed it over to bank and Archer set it down, it took several seconds for derrickhand to yank in back into those fingers returning it to an upright position. In the meantime that pipe swung and swayed like he might lose it altogether, and if that happened, the three of them would have to climb that derrick and walk it like a jungle gym, around to the far side to push it back. After about a dozen or so stands like that they were ready to climb that tower and toss Skidder over the side. Twice Arch had to send motorman Scotty up the ladder to straighten Skidder out. Each time Scotty had been up there about half an hour and came back down smelling like beer. It must have been quite a party up in the tower, bombing the boys down below with empties; Skidder and Scotty standing up there having a piss over the side, one arm over the other’s shoulders, singing “Remember the Alamo.” But down on the floor it had been nasty, and Arch was planning on a fight when Skidder came down, if he didn’t fall down first. Either way, he was running that son of a bitch off. Enough was enough. Friends or no.

  To make matters worse, George had come up to the floor and chewed him out for moving so slow and Archer hadn’t had a leg to stand on. “Goddamnit! If you can’t whip a crew inta shape any better’n this then you have no business at that brake handle!”

  While George and Archer had been standing there, Archer had seen over the toolpusher’s shoulder the glimmer of a beer can sailing toward the reserve pits; another fluttered down over the pump shack. If Cleaver had seen or had any idea what was going on, they would have been run off right then, and George would have dedicated his life to seeing these jerks had a hard time latching on anywhere ever again. But then Archer wondered, just what could George do? Run the rig by himself? Everybody loved to boast that Jesse could do it, but Archer knew he couldn’t. Maybe if George got mad enough he might. But not for long. Or maybe George could patch together some volunteers from the other crews to keep things going for a day or two. Either way, Archer didn’t want to find out. It was time for Skidder to dry up or clear out. And Scotty was in shit with him as well.

  At the end of tower, everyone was waiting for Skidder to climb down and get what was comin’. Johnny Bailey, Archer’s chainhand, was coiled up, ready to explode. Archer was debating with himself how to get everyone off location before the fireworks began. Johnny was blameless and Archer thought he might deserve better than to get run off with the rest of them. Archer Hansom sighed, looked up, and muttered, “What a bunch of crap.”

  Just when he was thinking Skidder might have passed out up there, or was just too plain scared to climb down and face the music, they saw something moving up above.

  There he was. Out on the diving board waving his hard hat like the Lone Ranger, whoopin’ and a-hollerin’! He was holding the inverted T-bar of the Geronimo line between his legs. The Geronimo line—a cable that served as an emergency escape line for the derrickhand, stretched tight from the derrickhand’s station to the ground below hundreds of feet away from the rig.

  “Hey Scotty.”

  “Yeah Arch?”

  “Who was it installed that Geronimo line?”

  “Why, it was Skidder. Well, Skidder’n me.”

  “Yeah, and is that Skidder’s pickup parked way the fuck out there where that line touches down?”

  Scotty gave a squint in that general direction
.

  “Yes, I do believe it is, Archer.”

  “Aw shit,” Johnny Bailey spat as his eyes followed that line from the ground back up to the crow’s nest.

  And Skidder MacIntyre waved his hard hat in the air above his bright blond head and hollered “Hi! Ho! Silver!” as he leaped gracefully into the night air, landing in a sitting position on the T-bar, and, keeping one hand on the squeeze brake over his head, sailed swiftly but gently to earth as that T-bar rolled down the line like an alpine amusement park ride. Skidder hit the ground with a single somersault, hopping to his feet and, after a sweeping bow Sir Walter Raleigh style, hard hat in hand, he jumped into his pickup and was gone with a roar down rig road, his red taillights weaving this way and that as they disappeared into the night.

  “I’m starting to hate that son of a bitch,” said Archer Hansom.

  “Bastard,” spat Johnny Bailey.

  “Well fuck a duck!” laughed Scotty. And they turned on Scotty menacingly just as George and Frank and the new guy arrived up in the top doghouse.

  FRANK KRAMER WAS FROM SOUTHERN California. He had earned his oil field stripes in Bakersfield. His dad had been in the oil patch, too. Frank drove a beat-up Chevy Chevelle with bald tires and a heater that didn’t work. He was the type of guy the average roughneck would take one look at and say No way, I ain’t workin’ for him. He looked like a city boy. But he let his men go about their jobs, and only butted in when he thought it might do some good. Most times he was right on. Jon, skeptical as always, withheld judgment for a couple of weeks. Frank proved to be a cool customer, if a bit tenuous at that brake handle, and, like Jesse, had the diplomatic skills and rare common sense when dealing with his men to ask, rather than give orders, when difficult tasks or unpleasant chores needed doing. This was a most appreciated trait.

  One day, as all were gathered in the top doghouse, Jon strolled in with a present for their new driller. It was in a burlap sack with a piece of twine tied at the top. Frank untied the string and pulled out a twelve-inch crescent wrench. Written on the shaft in thick black ink was: “Property of F.K. Driller, BOMAC 34.” On the other side was printed the simple legend, “Widowmaker.”

  “Good thing I ain’t married,” he laughed as he thanked them. It was exactly the type of wrench that had jutted out of Jesse’s hip pocket at all times for thirty-odd years. His only true and trusted companion, and the right hand of a thousand and one Indian tricks.

  “Dat dere som bitch will save all our lives somb ob deze dayz.” Marty clapped his big palms on Frank’s shoulders. “If you lose it, I’ll hab to kill you.”

  “Um, thanks,” Frank said.

  “You keep ’er here,” Jon explained, taking the wrench and jabbing it down into Frank’s back pocket. “Don’t ever let any one of us ever see you without it.”

  WITH CRAWDAD IN WORM’S CORNER and Frank at the brake handle, new rhythm set in among the crew. Although Frank agreed with Zak and the rest that Crawdad was a “surly and unpredictable bastard, personally,” everyone had to agree that their new worm showed up for work on time, was strong with the slips, and never faltered during trips. “That’s all I care about,” Jon concluded, and with this mutual agreement, the Crawdad issue was settled. But no one liked him. He was a habitual kleptomaniac. No roll of tape, clipboard, or set of bootlaces was safe. Everyone had battened down the hatches good and tight ever since he arrived.

  If the boys had their work caught up during a drillin’ tower, they’d disappear. Crawdad would wander up to the top doghouse and ask, “Where’s Jon and them at?” And Frank would shrug, “Must be down in the mud shack sleeping.” What few awkward attempts Crawdad made at being buddy-buddy with his crewmates went ignored and an uneasy truce settled in.

  It was while Zak and Jon were crawling about the rig with Freddy’s old Zurt gun that Zak wondered aloud how in the world he could approach George about letting Marty go drillin’. Zak shared Jesse’s last wish, so to speak, with Jon, and the motorman took a good long think on the subject. They would need another derrickhand, Jon observed, and they both agreed Jon loved his motors, and Zak had taken a genuine shine to throwing chain. Neither of them wanted to graduate to derrickhand.

  “Besides,” Jon said, “it’s really frickin’ cold up there.”

  Before long both roughnecks began eyeing Crawdad with curiosity, as if he might be a likely candidate for derrickhand. He was built for the work, and certainly, he was crazy enough. But as in all things, the solution to one problem most always presented new difficulties. If Marty went drillin’, and Crawdad could be trained to work derricks and manage the mud, assuming he could be talked into it, then they would need another worm. Ideas began to germinate.

  One or the other of the co-conspirators would sidle up to Crawdad after a trip and say something like, “Hey, you’re pretty good at racking pipe, ever racked pipe up there?”

  Or another might casually let drop something subtle like, “You know, Marty sure knows a lot about that mud, I’m sure he’d tell you all about it if you asked.”

  One thing Jon and Zak swore was crucial was that Marty get nary a whiff of what they were up to until the time was right.

  MARY ELLEN BROUGHT THE DRINKS as Jesse’s old crew, minus Jesse, congregated at the hotel bar one afternoon on days off. Marty had brought Cynthia up from Watford because she missed Scobey, meaning she missed everyone’s company, and she was rosy cheeked and happy as she sipped her Sprite and listened to the men talk freely and openly about work again, for the first time really, since Jesse twisted off. She and Marty got an extra room. And all were reunited, like old times.

  “The work is harder now, isn’t it,” Zak observed once they were settled in.

  “Eben wid dat rough tough worm you got down dere?” Marty was twinkling, half-serious, half-not, expecting an avalanche of bitching about Crawdad in response.

  “Well, what I’m sayin’ is,” Zak went on, not taking the bait, “I find I have to watch Frank a lot more than Jesse. I mean watch him, not necessarily to learn from him either. I always think, or anticipate, that he’s going to do something that Jesse would do, and then he doesn’t. Then I have to look out, or wait for him to get it. To catch on. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t.”

  “That’s because now we’re working through problems, solving things on the run,” Jon said. “Instead of having someone who’s seen it all before, like Jesse. Now we’ve got a worm driller and I don’t think our little California Dreamer has too many Indian tricks up his sleeve.”

  “Dat car’s a hoot!” Marty kept it light-hearted.

  “Yeah, that three fifty engine will last a lot longer than that little go-cart they put ’er in.”

  “That little sardine can scoots pretty good though.”

  “As long as there’s five roughnecks packed in tight weighing her down.”

  “Until he gets that heater fixed, packed in tight is the only way to stay warm.”

  “We smell like sardines in dat little junk bucket too!” Marty laughed and snuggled Cynthia close, making her frown with pleasure.

  “Well, driller gets a gas allowance for drivin’ us to work each day,” Jon chimed in, implying that a ride to work was a perk he approved of.

  “Well, dat sure, and bedder da Frankie Mobile den dat new Bronco get all fulla muddy stinky old roughneck sardines!” He squeezed Cynthia again and she giggled.

  They got quiet for a moment, each one thinking about the brink of winter, knowing Marty’s Bronco and Zak’s Jeep would get called into service one way or another, sooner than later.

  “Marty,” Jon lit a cigarette, “remember last year when Jesse’s Merc beat out all them four-wheels gettin’ to the rig in the snow?”

  “Heh heh,” Marty gave a raspy chortle, “I got out to open dat gate. I looks up’n sees ol’ Jesse backin’ dat bastart up da hill an’ he come barrallin’ down trew d’snow just a-bouncin’
and a-flyin’! Tought ol’ Jonny’t have hisself a hart tack!” Marty laughed hard.

  “We had passed all these good ol’ boys in their four-wheel pickups’n such,” Jon laughed as he added some details for Zak and Cynthia’s benefit. “They were stuck, and diggin’ like hell to get themselves out, and that ol’ Merc of Jesse’s, rear-wheel drive, bald tires and all—just like Frankie’s outfit, ’cept bigger and heavier of course…”

  “Ant a heater dat werked don’ forget!”

  “…was passin’ ’m right an’ left. Well, we could see the problem up ahead from the side of this other hill. There at the bottom was a ravine and up the other side of it was a cattle barrier that also had a gate. We knew we’d never make it if we had to stop comin’ up the other side, so Marty hops out and jogs down there to open the gate, and Jesse starts backin’ ’er up. Jeez, must’ve been a couple hundred yards up this hill.”

  “I seen dat ol’ blue bastart comin’ down dat hill and I know’d dere weren’t a single tire touchin’ da grount when you cleared dat cattle barrier. Best damnt snow drivin’ I ebber did see!” Marty laughed.

  “We said to the other roughnecks, ‘You boys need a pull?’ They were so pissed!”

  “When I got back into da car ol’ Jonny’s face was white like a ghost!”

  “I had three or four knots on the top of my head from hittin’ the roof each time. I swear we left the ground completely four or five times. My hard hat was in with my gear. I swore I would only drive with Jesse ever again wearin’ that hard hat. We never got stuck though.”

  “Yeah, but ebbry-buddy else did. Dey’d be stuck in da snow and we’d be stuck at work and we’d have to double!”

  IT WAS LATER THAT EVENING when Marty and Cynthia, Jon and Mary Ellen, had melted away, that Archer Hansom walked into the Pioneer Hotel bar. And Zachary Harper was the man he wanted to see.