XVI
Archer Hansom’s plan was a simple one, and coming out of the blue the way it did, quite a welcome surprise.
“Zak, I think it’s time there was a truce between your crew and mine. What I mean is, I think old Skidder may have given you boys the wrong idea about us.”
Zak was startled.
“It’s just that we’ve watched the way you boys work through things, and we realize we’ve got a good thing going here on this rig and would like to ride it on as far as we can. You’re the best crew of roughnecks I’ve seen in the patch. We’ve got an experienced toolpusher and good iron. Let’s pull our resources together and make this work for everybody.”
They got some beers and sat at a table.
The amazing thing was that what Archer proposed was something akin to what had been brewing in all their minds but no one had threaded the beads together yet. Archer’s crew needed someone to work derricks. Up until now, he had been working shorthanded and needed a derrickhand. That couldn’t go on much longer. Now he had been doing some asking around and figured that if he could trade a worm’s corner man from his crew, even-steven for Crawdad, Archer could teach Crawdad derricks. He also knew a good man who could work all positions except driller and was an especially good derrickhand. The new man could work derricks for Zak’s crew and then Marty could go drillin’. Marty drillin’ for Zak’s crew would have the added benefit of getting Frankie Boy off that brake handle.
Of course there was a catch.
“His name is OK Wellman. The OK is for Oklahoma City, where he’s from. Anyway, he’s getting into the Rapid City airport at eight tomorrow morning and we need someone to drive down there tonight, pick him up, and bring him back. Now you boys are on days off, so we were thinking maybe one of you could go get him.”
“I’m ready to go right now,” Zak said, but then grew suddenly ponderous. Should he bother Marty and Cynthia with this? Jon and Mary Ellen? George Cleaver?
“I was discussing this with Cleaver this morning,” Hansom read his mind. “He said he didn’t care, but that out here, well, special situations require special solutions, and that if it was all right with you boys he didn’t have a problem. Also, he’s been a little concerned that Frank is having a little too much fun drilling again, and wants him back in that trailer of his doing his job. I think old Rusty is helping out with company hand’s chores that rightfully aren’t his to do, and that could and will lead to any number of problems. Rusty said he’d keep an eye on Marty those first few towers but was a little surprised he didn’t think of that himself, Marty’s perfect! And besides, don’t take this wrong, but you guys, without a driller, aren’t really a crew, company hand could hire you guys out to do anything.
“Why not just let Wellman work derricks for you guys?”
Archer sat back in his chair, smiled a weary kind of smile, and said, “It’s complicated. Besides we have no way of getting him up here, and there’s still the Frank issue. No, we think this works out better. I’ll tell you something though, and this is the truth, not that we all haven’t had our problems, but after what you guys went through with Lenny, and then fat boy Freddy, and then Lancaster, a good strong hand like Wellman will be a breath of fresh air. That and the fact that I’ve broke out several derrickhands, I’m an old mudman myself. I spoke with Crawdad the other day, and to be honest, he sounded real happy to join our crew and get a fresh start. Has he been a problem?”
“Only at first. He’s a bit of a pest, and lock up your stuff.”
“Well, up in the derricks is where he belongs, as long as he can get ’er. You know, Zak, Jesse always had the best crews. You’re Jesse Lancaster’s chainhand. And don’t worry, OK’ll fit in better with you boys. Fuck, the guy reads books. And Crawdad will be a better fit with us. Almost anyone would be an upgrade after Skidder.”
Zak looked at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock.
“It’s about four hundred fifty miles down to Rapid, so figure about seven or eight hours.”
“Well I should leave right now,” Zak said.
“I’ll leave a note for Marty here at the hotel and fill him in tomorrow,” Archer said. “Now look, if you’re not back in time for any reason, the boys will gladly double for you guys, we’re good t’go on this. Whaddya say Zak?”
“How will I know this guy?”
“How?” Archer drained the last of his beer. “Look for the roughneck getting off the friggin’ plane. Oh, and another thing, don’t no one ever call him Okie.”
ZAK GRABBED A SIX-PACK FOR the trip and filled his water jug from a tap at the bar, made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and was on the road in less than an hour.
THE JEEP THUNDERED DOWN EMPTY highways and through the chill black night. As the hours ticked by Zak had many doubts. What would happen when Marty and Jon got wind of this? Would Frank, the company hand, go for it? Did Marty consider himself ready? What if Archer is fuckin’ nuts and everybody but Zak knows it? And what if Marty and Jon would rather twist off and take their chances back in Watford? Would either of them have gone on this mission? Maybe Marty would have appreciated making his own decision as to when he would break out drillin’.
“Why am I doing this?” he asked himself out loud. The simple answer was getting company hand back in his trailer hiring roustabouts and water haulers was needed. He’s the freakin’ boss after all. And nobody wants to put Cleaver in charge as de facto company hand, that’s for sure. Wasn’t it anomalous situations like this, when routines and protocols are broken or disturbed, that unpredictable shit happens, people get hurt? And if the end result was giving Marty his big chance drillin’, well you can’t beat that. Things had been happening, changing so fast, Zak hadn’t really considered what it all meant. And by the way, what was that bit about being Jesse Lancaster’s chainhand, being good crew and all that horseshit? Flattery? Buttering him up to take the deal? Hardly. Without a driller to lead them and protect them, like Archer said, they aren’t even a crew. Having Marty for a driller would be great. With Marty, Jon, Zak, and maybe Johnny Bailey on the floor, OK up in the derrick. Yes, that would be worth the drive to Rapid for. On the other hand, if the others twisted off, he could hardly blame them. On the other hand again, if they did twist, being Jesse Lancaster’s chainhand would go a long way down in Watford.
Oh what the fuck, too late now, thought Zachary Harper as the sun came up over the eastern horizon on his left, tossing gold all over the roiling rolling grasslands with just a glinting of frost over the endless distance in all directions. If Archer was full of it, or the boys didn’t go for it, if this OK character turned out to be a shitwheel, well, so be it. And Zak laughed out loud and had to admit, getting rid of that fuck-stick Crawdad would make going to work a pleasure again all by itself.
He rolled up to the Rapid City airport an hour early, parked, and walked in, sat down at a little food counter, and ordered up an omelet. The airport was small and cozy with a decent-sized lobby/rotunda-like main area with plenty of Native American art, and welcoming images everywhere. Civilized, he thought. When OK’s flight landed, Zak strolled down the concourse and smoked a cigarette while he waited at the gate.
OK Wellman was a head and a half taller than the tallest folks to emerge from the jetway. He had broad shoulders, a broad forehead and high cheekbones, and black hair evenly cut just above the collar. He carried two duffel bags, one large, one smaller.
They spotted each other immediately.
“OK,” Zak approached and stuck out his hand. “I’m Zak, a friend of Archer’s.” OK had a huge hand that swallowed Zak’s whole.
“Hey Zak, nice to meet you, just down from Scobey?” He had a deep gravelly voice that matched his size but not his complexion.
“Got here an hour ago,” Zak reached for one of the duffel bags and OK handed him the smaller one.
The average citizens coming and going there at the airport
all took notice of OK Wellman. Zak remembered a bible passage about a time when giants roamed the earth. If true, this Wellman character might just be a long-lost strain.
On their way out to the parking lot, Zak filled him in on his version of the Archer plan.
“But goddamn, ain’t it like that?” Wellman seemed to be on familiar ground. “You never know in the oil field, man. One day you show up on location and your crew is run off, and another’s hired on. Or a buncha roughnecks have put their own heads together and solved a problem that was right there for the solving all along. But hey, Archer says it’s a sweet setup you boys have. It means a lot to me to be able to just dive right in and get to work without all the bullshit, politics, searching around, having to yak it up all the time. That can get on a guy’s last nerve.”
Zak couldn’t help but think, Well sure, I guess we are making it easier for you. He didn’t care. Corporal Acts of Mercy, he said to himself. Now where did that come from?
“And sometimes I just need to get back out to big country. You know what I mean.”
“Oh yeah,” said Zachary Harper.
“We’re all just a buncha bulls trying to escape our own private china closets.” The bright morning sun made their eyes squint. “Seriously dude, sometimes just walkin’ down a city street, I get the temptation to reach out and smack every horse’s ass I see right across the face. And they’re fuckin’ everywhere. I want to swat every pretty girl I see right on her beautiful fat ass, and go take a joyride in the most expensive car in town. Trust me, when I start itchin’ like that, it’s time to get back to the oil field, or at least back out here, to someplace like this, where I’m not liable to break anything. The farther away from civilization the better. Scobey sounds perfect.”
As they reached the Jeep and Zak fished his keys out of his denim jacket pocket, OK stopped in his tracks. “Wahoa, what the fuck?” he gasped with disbelief. “Is this your outfit?”
“The Jeep? Yeah,” Zak was nonplussed.
“Well, this may sound a little crazy, but I’ve seen this Jeep about twenty times in my dreams lately, no shit. What do you call it?”
“Déjà vu.”
“No, what do you call the Jeep?”
“Uh, well, I guess I just call it ‘The Jeep.’” Zak laughed as they tossed OK’s duffel bags in the back and climbed inside.
“No, you were callin’ it something else. It’ll come to me. Damn.”
As Zak fired ’er up OK suggested they continue into town and pick up a few things.
“Yeah, I was born in Oklahoma City, but I was raised just north of here in Belle Fourche,” OK volunteered on their way into Rapid. “But my great-great-grandmother was either a Cheyenne or a pure-bred Lakota. My great-great-grandfather was a white man, an Indian trader. They say he specialized in hoops and hats. Would make’m for food, pelts, and peaceful passage. I kinda gotta love the idea of all those Indians ridin’ around buffalo country wearin’ Wellman Hats!”
“Hey, maybe you should learn the trade? Every man is always on the lookout for the perfect lid,” Zak enthused. “Wellman’s Black Hills Chapeaus!” They both laughed.
“Well anyway, I was just back to Kansas City to visit my old grandma, she gave me a pouch of tobacco and personal trinkets to take up to Bear Butte. So once we’re under way, if you don’t mind, we’ll take a little jog up that way. You’ll probably dig it.”
In town, they pulled into an Army Navy store and Wellman got himself a big heavy winter coat and a sleeping bag, a knife, a canteen, gloves, a Zippo lighter and the fluid to fuel it, among other things.
By now, hunger and fatigue were beginning to rear their ugly heads. Both men had been up all night, in OK’s case, two nights, and a few hours’ sleep, a shower, and a good meal might come in handy for the long haul. At the Hotel Alex Johnson they sweet-talked the pretty clerk at the desk for an early check-in. Separate rooms. They paid cash.
When Zak descended to the lobby midafternoon, beneath the giant wooden beams, taxidermy, and native and cowboy art, he found OK Wellman sitting in the restaurant enjoying a big, delicious bison burger.
He had a plan.
“Look, I spoke with Archer and he says everything is a go with your boys and his. My old man up in Belle Fourche is a transmission specialist. He’s got an old Buick I can have, but it may need a little work. Won’t take long, it’s on the way, his shop is pretty well stocked. Then I’ll have some wheels and can follow you north. He says we can stay the night at his place, then roll north first thing tomorrow.”
“Works for me,” Zak laughed. This mission was getting longer and more complicated by the hour, but hey, if Archer and them were cool, so was he. Besides, OK Wellman was good company, and this little sojourn was doing wonders for Zak’s frame of mind. They’d ride into Scobey like the freakin’ cavalry!
“By the way, that was a nice turn you did for grumpy ol’ Crawdad. We all owe you one,” OK was saying as Zak’s bison burger arrived.
“You know Crawdad?”
“Well enough. Jesus, the caliber of people you can meet out in the patch sometimes,” he shook his head and mowed down on the last of his burger. “I mean, some of these folks are, you know, like on the verge of being socially retarded. Cripes!”
The waitress delivered a couple of pints.
“Crawdad and I broke out at nearly the same time in nearly the same place, in the early seventies during the overthrust boom. But hey, I know Calico too, you know him right?”
“Sure I do.”
“Well his real name is Terry, Calico was a name some sweet girl gave him way back when ’cause of the color of his hair. He hated it at first, but once we heard about it, that was it. We made sure it stuck. Blackie started callin’ him that, if I remember correctly. Suits him though, even if he hates it. I was workin’ motors for Blackie up on the slopes when Calico was Blackie’s chainhand. Diesels are my thing. I can tear down and put back together just about anything that runs on diesel. That’s another reason I’m okay with comin’ back to the patch. We’re all just one big happy family, eh pardner?” he laughed and slapped Zak on the shoulder with a hand the size of a baseball glove.
“Crawdad and me worked together for a spell. I was building roads up there when I wasn’t roughneckin’, so we didn’t see each other much. He and I never came to blows, but that attitude of his gets his ass kicked every now and again. He’s great at startin’ fights, I understand; I don’t think anyone’s ever seen him win one though. You can only put up with so much of Crawdad’s shit.”
Once out of the hotel, they stepped across the street to Tally’s Café for some takeout sandwiches and bottles of pop for later, and it occurred to Zachary Harper that OK Wellman was used to running on a lot of fuel himself.
BEAR BUTTE, SOUTH DAKOTA, IS a mountain, not a butte, that rises up more than four thousand feet out of the surrounding prairie floor, a huge hump in the flat endless wilderness. They say that if you look at it from a distance and squint your eyes just right, it looks like a bear lying down to sleep. In the autumn, the leaves on the surrounding cottonwoods and elms all turn yellow before they fall. Cattle sprinkle the vast prairie like little black dots, fleas on a giant carpet.
As they passed through Sturgis, Zak saw Halloween cobwebs and spiders and paper witches festooned on picket fences and real jack-o-lanterns on front porches. He realized he had utterly lost track of the calendar, his sole attention in that regard focusing on days on, days off, and marking the slow descent of the mercury as each day got a little colder, and a whole lot shorter.
“Some assholes are always trying to build something at the base of the mountain,” OK said with disgust as they approached from afar. “White men have always been willing to destroy anything for a short-term commercial interest. A giant parking lot, how does the song go? Now they want an amusement park or some shit to draw even more bikers and spectators. They’d spoil this
for everyone year round, just to sell a little more booze and bullshit for a long weekend in the summer. The folks who actually give a shit can only win those battles every so often. The developers will get their way eventually. Don’t ever take anything for granted,” OK sighed. They wound their way up the drive to a small parking area partway up the mountain.
“So do you consider yourself native?” Zak asked.
“Not at all, would never presume to be. No, I’m a white man,” OK said thoughtfully, as his black eyes scanned the familiar horizon. “But you know, I feel the blood, I really do. It boils up in me sometimes where I can’t contain it. So it doesn’t matter to me, Cheyenne or Lakota. I think it’s stronger in me than in most of my kin, almost all of whom are fair. Granny says I’m the first man in the clan to come out with anything like Indian features. She had an aunt they say whose hair was dark as a crow. What draws me is the spirit, the oneness to nature, the being a part of everything. That’s what I feel, really strong at times.” They got out of the Jeep and walked to the edge of the first hill.
“Look out there,” OK pointed. People were moving slowly, reverently, over the face of the mountain. Some were stooped over, fixing small colorful ribbons to the low branches of scrublike plants, or little bags, or what looked like broken mirror glass and colorful beads, affixing them to spindly trees.
“It’s a religious thing. They come here to this holy place, like Mecca, to pray, to give or to add their own artifacts or gifts, to commune with the Great Mystery. Are you a religious man, Zak?”
“Not really. I was raised Catholic.”
“And twisted off a while back?”
“Pretty much, although I think that opened my soul to greater possibilities, if that makes any sense.”
“Well, sure it does, you’re no stranger to ritual then at least.”
“No stranger at all.” Zak was watching as the Indians moved about the mountain.
Roughnecks Page 35