Nora

by Diana Palmer

  WHEN HE GOT BACK UPSTAIRS, Nora was tucked up in bed asleep. He stood beside the bed, staring down at her beautiful thick hair spread all over the pillow and her long lashes pressed against the pale skin of her cheeks. She looked thin and not at all healthy. He wondered if he’d done the right thing, bringing her here. Only time would tell. Tomorrow they’d go out to the site, and she’d have to manage. He dreaded subjecting her to those conditions, but he liked even less leaving her in town alone. Any city was a dangerous place for a woman on her own. Even with the primitive surroundings, she’d be better off where he could look after her, and make sure she was taking care of herself as well.

  He smiled as he watched her sleep. She was his. He’d never felt the kind of possessiveness he did right now. He thanked God for her father’s inflexibility. Because of it, he had a second chance. He wasn’t going to waste it.

  THEY HIRED A BUGGY and rode out to the rig the next morning with their cases tied on the back.

  The country four miles south of Beaumont was flat except for the hill where the drilling was going on.

  “Patillo Higgins is the force behind this whole thing,” Cal explained as they drove toward one of the derricks in the distance. “He’d almost given up, though, when Captain Lucas took him up on the lease. Now everything is riding on that well coming in.” He shook his head. “For his sake, and ours, I hope it does.”

  Nora watched him from under her lashes, more curious about him every day. She had overslept this morning, and when she opened her eyes, it was to find him dressed and on his way down to see the livery man about hiring a buggy. She dressed in his absence and packed, and was ready to go right after they had breakfast with the other boarders.

  Secretly she had hoped that he might wake her very early and teach her some of those secrets he’d hinted at. But his mind seemed very much on his oil well. She resigned herself to playing second fiddle until he either found oil or gave up looking. She had a hunch that he would never give up. It seemed to be in his blood. She wondered if his people were involved in the oil business. She’d have to ask him, when there was time.

  She was introduced to Pike, and she disliked him on sight. He wasn’t familiar or rude, but she sensed a lack of honesty about him. It was in the way he shifted his gaze when he spoke to her, even in the way he spoke to Cal.

  Cal led her into the small, rude cabin and showed her around. There wasn’t much to show; only one room, a few old cane-back chairs, an iron bedstead with a saggy mattress and worn sheets, and a fireplace with a Dutch oven hanging in it. On a rickety stand were a chipped blue-patterned ceramic basin and pitcher, and underneath, what must have passed for a towel. Nora thought immediately that she would not get a bath short of town.

  “I know, it isn’t much,” he said through his teeth. It was freezing cold, to boot. He went to get an armload of wood from the porch to stack beside the fireplace. A small bottle of kerosene stood at the hearth where the poker rested. He arranged the wood and picked up the bottle.

  “No!” she exclaimed. “Cal, you’ll set the place ablaze!”

  He turned, chuckling. “I don’t like taking ten minutes to get a fire started. If you’re shaky, go stand outside.”

  “Oh, Cal.” She groaned.

  He arranged the few knotted sticks of fat pine, doused them with kerosene, stood back, struck a match and tossed it in. The wood blazed up explosively, but after a minute, the fat pine knots were burning. It wouldn’t take long for them to catch the seasoned oak logs, and they would burn for a long, long time.

  “Greenhorn,” he accused affectionately. “Don’t they have fireplaces back East, then?”

  She glowered at him. “Yes, and we have paper with which to start fires!”

  “You’ll find that we have quite another use for our mail-order catalogs out West,” he said, tongue in cheek. “Along with our corncobs. The, uh, privy is out that way.” He opened the back door of the cabin and nodded toward a small wood structure that stood with a bag of quicklime beside it.

  She lifted her chin and managed not to blush. “And chamber pots?”

  “Chamber pot,” he said sheepishly. “For a man, I’m afraid. We don’t have a tall one for you.”

  That would mean the long walk to the outhouse at night with a lamp. Her next purchase, she decided, would be a chamber pot for herself.

  “I can see your mind working,” Cal said with resignation. “I have to send one of the men in to get the food. I ordered supplies yesterday and forgot to stop for them on the way out of town. You’ll have nothing to cook if I don’t. I’ll have him pick up the necessary item.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

  “Very selfish,” he chuckled. “I don’t want to have to get up and light you out the back.”

  “You would do that?”

  He moved forward and took both her hands in his. “These are good men, but there are few women to be seen. I would not have any unpleasantness, if it can be avoided.”

  “I do not like Mr. Pike,” she said at once.

  “I noticed that.” His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  He wasn’t belittling her remark. She wondered if he had reservations of his own. “It’s nothing particular. Just intuition.”

  “You won’t have that much contact with him,” he said gently.

  She turned and looked around. “Can we afford some new ticking for the mattress?” she asked plaintively. “It looks as if a muddy army has slept on it.”

  “I ordered a new mattress,” he said, to her delight, “and new sheets.”

  “That is an extravagance,” she said guiltily. “I could have washed—”

  “With what?” he asked politely. “We have no pot to boil clothes in, no tubs to rinse them in, no lines to hang them on—for there are no trees here.”

  She was horrified. He soothed her. “There is a laundry in town,” he assured her. “You will not have to wear soiled clothing.”

  She looked worried just the same. “It will be expensive,” she said slowly, hesitant to offend him.

  “Your concern for my pocket does you credit,” he said with a smile. “But we can manage. I have credit in town, you know.”

  “Oh!” She brightened. “That makes it better.”

  What she probably meant was that it made it understandable that he was able to afford things. She hadn’t asked him about his source of income, but he knew she wondered just the same. Soon he was going to have to tell her the truth.

  THEY SETTLED IN ON THE SITE. After the first few days, Nora felt more comfortable cooking on an open fire. She was good with stews, and even with biscuits once she mastered the art of cooking them on the fire. A cake was impossible, so she had Cal buy one at the bakery in town. They shared some of it with the men, whose own cooking seemed to leave much to be desired, considering their thinness.

  The conditions were rough, and Nora had all she could do to keep warm at first. But the cabin was fairly tight, and she was careful to spend most of her time inside. She mended the curtains and did what she could to keep the living area spotless. He surprised her with little things for the cabin, like a new decorated glass kerosene lamp and a chair with a crocheted cushion. His thoughtfulness delighted her.

  At night she curled close to Cal and slept comfortably and secure in his arms. He held her, but he never encouraged her further than that. He didn’t kiss her these days, and when her hand strayed to his bare chest under the covers, he moved it away. She knew what he was trying to do. He didn’t want to risk getting her pregnant. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to want to do anything short of it, either.

  “You said that we would explore other ways of pleasing each other,” she whispered daringly one night.

  “And we will,” he said gently, kissing her eyes closed. “But not with my men camping on the porch.” He chuckled. “The rains came unexpectedly and soaked the ground. They would never be able to sleep in the mud, Nora, and without them, there will be no oil.”

  “I know,�
� she groaned. “It is just…”

  “Go to sleep. Try not to dwell on it. I know that you are bored here. Perhaps we might get some magazines. Would you like that?”

  She smiled. “Yes. But I would like some colored thread and some crocheting hooks, please. And some yarn and knitting needles. I can do handiwork, if I have the materials. I might make you a sweater.”

  “I never wear them,” he murmured.

  “Then I shall knit you some socks,” she said, not to be outdone.

  He wrapped her up against him. “Socks would be fine. Go to sleep.”

  She closed her eyes. But, as usual, sleep was a long time coming.

  The next day, all hell broke loose on the hill. Captain Lucas’s well exploded into the sky late in the morning of January 10, 1901, and all the doomsayers shut up for good.

  “He did it!” Cal cried from the porch, because he could see the plume of oil rising majestically into the sky. “By God, he did it, Nora—come and look! He did it! There’s oil there! Acres and acres and acres of oil!”

  She came and stood beside him, watching the huge black gusher against the gray sky, with her arm around his lean waist.

  “And we’re right next door,” he said, waving to his crew. They were jumping up and down and dancing on their own rig. It was only a matter of time now, and they all knew it. If oil could be struck one place on the hill, it could be struck all around. The land Cal owned was money in the bank.

  Pike’s small eyes gleamed now with excitement. He got his reply back from Corsicana, and the men followed the instructions Drago had sent. As time passed, they went down and down and down.

  Then, the first week of March, there was a sudden explosion inside the derrick. Nora had been washing out her smalls inside the house. She came onto the porch and stood watching, her hand shading her eyes from the sun.

  Cal yelled something at Pike, who started backing away. All at once, mud began to spurt up the derrick. Pike slid down the ladder, followed at once by Cal, who was yelling at Mick and the others to get out of the way.

  The men fell back, covered with mud, and still the sticky brown muck flew up and up. Then, all at once, what seemed tons of four-inch pipe joined the mud and started up through the derrick. The crown block went, and the pipe started shooting up and landing stuck in the ground.

  “Oh, no!” Nora whispered in anguish. She knew that Cal had invested heavily in this venture, and now it seemed that he was going to lose everything. Weeks of watching with him, hoping with him, were crumbling, just as the pipe and derrick that had been so expensive were now falling like tenpins. At least, thank God, Cal had gotten out of the way in time. If he’d been closer…It didn’t bear thinking about! That falling pipe, in such huge amounts, would surely have killed him!

  When it stopped, finally, Cal began cursing. He was so eloquent that Nora covered her ears, and he wasn’t the only man on the place expressing his feelings about mud, derricks, pipe and prospective oil in graphic terms.

  The men stomped back up to the derrick, seeing impossible figures to replace it. Captain Lucas’s strike had boosted prices beyond belief, for everything from land to lumber.

  Cal squatted down to look at a piece of pipe with furious silver eyes.

  “My God,” he said heavily. “It will take thousands to replace all this. And then we’ll have to start again, from scratch!”

  “Hell of a shame, boss,” Pike said. He looked nervous. Really nervous. “What a hell of a shame!”

  Mick was more vocal as he swung toward the remains of the derrick. He muttered all the way up to it and turned to call his crew to start picking up the strewn materials.

  He’s just opened his mouth when there was an ominous rumble.

  “Get the hell out of there, Mick!” Cal shouted.

  The Irishman made it in the nick of time, as more mud came spewing out in a flood. But this time it didn’t end with mud. The mud was followed by a column of gas. And that was followed within seconds…by a thick, green, solid flow…of oil!

  “Oil!” Mick screamed. His voice didn’t even sound human. He held out his arms, and it covered him, oozed down his clothing into his shoes. “Oil, oil…!”

  Cal had been holding his breath. Now he threw down his hat and ran into the flow with Mick. The two of them grabbed each other in bear hugs and then began to dance like two crazy people. Even reserved Pike joined in, along with the other men. Nora laughed and cried all at once as she realized what had happened. Cal’s gamble had paid off. They were going to be very, very rich.

  Cal saw her standing on the porch and ran up to grab her in a greasy bear hug, lifting her clear of the wooden flooring.

  “We’ve done it,” he laughed. “We’ve done it, we’ve done it, Nora—we’re set for life!”

  “Yes, I know,” she laughed. She rubbed at the thick oil on his face, but he pulled her close and kissed her. She didn’t seem to mind the taste of it, or the grime of his body, so he kissed her again. And for a few glorious seconds, they were alone in a world of their own.

  Then the landscape exploded with people, in buggies, on horseback, on foot from the camp around them. People came to exclaim over the well, to congratulate them, to offer suggestions.

  While Cal and Nora answered the greetings, Pike was talking to a stranger in a suit and looking nervously toward the porch, where Cal was standing. Nora’s eyes narrowed. Something very suspicious was going on. She hoped that Pike hadn’t done anything in Cal’s absence that would put a damper on this glorious triumph. She was going to have to talk to him about Pike.

  She tried, when the bulk of the well-wishers had gone home, among them Captain Lucas himself.

  “Listen, Cal,” she began while he was trying to wash some of the oil from his face. “About Pike…”

  “What about Pike, dearest?” he murmured into his towel. “He’s as delirious as the rest of us.”

  “Did you see him talking to that man in the suit?”

  “Hmmm,” he agreed, wiping at his eyes. “That was one of the new lawyers in town. I met him earlier. He and Pike are friends, that’s all.”

  Nora had an unpleasant feeling that friendship was not what had drawn those two men together. But not for all the world could she do anything to dampen Cal’s spirits.

  “This won’t do at all,” he muttered when he saw the residue of oil that covered him. “Not that I’m complaining.” He chuckled when he saw the smudges he’d left all over her. “But we’ll never get clean in a basin. Come on. We’ll check into a hotel and have proper baths in town. And then you and I and this crew are going to celebrate. In fact,” he added, swinging her gently around, “we’re going to buy all the champagne in the saloon and drink ourselves right to heaven.”

  “I don’t drink,” she faltered.

  “You will tonight,” he assured her, with a grin that made her head whirl. “Because we have just hit one of the biggest oil strikes in history. And there is no way I’m going to celebrate that without my wife!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE CELEBRATION WAS LOUD, but nobody in the saloon seemed to mind, even when glasses were broken. Cal poured champagne and urged it on Nora, who felt conspicuous as the only woman in the place. Well, except for two women who had come in with the men. They were dressed in low-cut muslin dresses, and they had eyes as hard as their hands looked soft. They grinned at Nora, who grinned back even through her blushes.

  “You wanted to know what they looked like,” Cal whispered in her ear. “Now you do.”

  She hit at him.

  “Drink up,” he challenged. He was relaxed and getting more so by the minute, his eyes glittery with pleasure as he watched his shy wife. Over two months of holding her without anything more ardent had taken its toll on him. If he hadn’t had the arduous quest for oil to occupy him, he thought, he might have been climbing walls or treeing the town by now. He wanted Nora desperately, but despite the gains in health she had made, he didn’t want to put her at risk just yet. He’d made su
re that she didn’t have to do laundry or haul water from the well on the property or do anything except the very lightest of chores. She’d spent most of her time knitting and trying new recipes. He was truly astounded at the difference between the woman he’d married and the Nora who lived with him now. But there were things that hadn’t changed, like her impish sense of humor and gallant spirit. He found himself more in love with her every day. He often wondered about her own feelings, but she’d become adept at hiding them most of the time. He’d been unkind to her. He didn’t like to think that he might have killed any deeper feelings that she’d harbored before she lost the baby.

  When he wasn’t working, they’d spent time talking about general subjects, like the continuously changing situation in South Africa with the Boer War, and the death of Queen Victoria and the coronation of King Edward. She mentioned that she had been introduced to the monarch, and that she thought Victoria’s death had a lot to do with the worry that stemmed from the Boxer Rebellion in China and the Boer uprising. Once he would have bristled at the reference to her superior social status. Now he only smiled indulgently.

  It had amazed her how much time Cal had to spend on that rig. Someone had to watch it all the time, night and day, and he took not only his own shift, but sometimes stayed even longer to help the men. There were times, Nora told him, when she thought she had married a ghost. That amused him, but she knew that what he was doing was for their future and she never complained. He found her quite complex, now that she was relaxed with him, and he enjoyed their talks and debates. She was equally comfortable discussing the political situation with McKinley’s reelection and the price of eggs in town.

  When he was free, on Sundays, they went to a Methodist church in Beaumont and had the midday meal in the boardinghouse where they stayed infrequently to have a bath and rest.