The New Wild West

by Blaire Briody

  “Do you know anyone else here?” I asked her.

  She shook her head and looked down at her feet. She said the job she’d been promised was door-to-door sales for $200 a day. But she’d only spoken to her boss over the phone. She had his phone number, but the battery on her cell phone had died.

  “You need to call somebody?” asked Stakes. “I got a phone that works.” He pulled out his flip phone and Tori read aloud the number she had for her boss. It started ringing and Stakes put the phone on speaker.

  A man’s voice answered.

  “It’s Tori. Are you guys coming?” she said, the words rushing out.

  “Oh, shit. I’ll come right now. What time is it?”

  “Almost 10 o’clock and I’m scared,” Tori said meekly.

  “All right, be right there,” he said, and hung up.

  Tori looked dejected. “They freakin’ forgot about me,” she said, sniffling.

  Stakes moved closer to her and lowered his voice. “Are you sure you’re safe with these guys? Do you know these guys, Tori?”

  “No, I don’t know nobody. I know nothin’,” she said softly.

  “You be careful, because you don’t know what the hell you’re gettin’ yourself into up here,” said Stakes.

  Stakes and Mackie started arguing over where she would sleep tonight. Mackie offered her a place to sleep on the floor of the bus, but Stakes said he’d already offered her his mattress in the camper while he slept outside. Stakes explained the homeless situation in Williston to her. “It used to be you could camp in the park over there,” Stakes said. “But they disbanded everybody because everybody was gettin’ drunk and stealin’ things outta people’s tents, gettin’ in fights. Then it used to be you could camp out at Walmart, but they ran everybody off from there. It got to a point where there ain’t nowhere to go.”

  Stakes wanted her to know that he always protected women. “We take care of our ladies,” he said. “I may flirt, but I’m not gonna make a move. I ain’t gonna let nothin’ happen to no woman. Hell no. You’re in good hands, Tori. We’re not some strangers out here tryin’ to hurt people.”

  “If somebody’s abusin’ a woman, you have to stand up,” said Mackie, agreeing with Stakes.

  Stakes tried to convince Tori to come with us to the bars. Tori said she didn’t like beer. A loud truck rumbled by our group, the headlights momentarily blinding us.

  “Maybe she can have a rum and Coke instead,” Mackie said.

  Tori stayed quiet, looking down at the asphalt.

  “Well, I don’t know what she likes. But we’ll take care of ya,” Stakes said to her. “We’re gonna adopt ya.”

  Suddenly Tori looks up. “Is this Williston?” she asked, looking around frantically.

  “Yeah, this is Williston,” Stakes said.

  “I’m supposed to be going to Alexander,” she said, referring to the small town a half hour away.

  “Oh, I know a pastor there,” Stakes said, excited. “He helps us out sometimes. But we’re not big Christians,” he said, shaking his head. “No, no. We get drunk.”

  “We’re Christian drunks,” Mackie said. A loud motorcycle sputtered by in the distance.

  “Well, Noah was a drunk,” Stakes said, referring to the Old Testament story. “I’m a former preacher, and I still know the Word.”

  Tori ignored them and asked to use Stakes’s phone again. She called her new boss, and he said he’d driven around the parking lot but didn’t see her. She told him to look for the yellow school bus.

  After she hung up, Eric told her that if this job didn’t work out, she could always apply to the fast-food restaurants or do housekeeping.

  “Yeah, they’re always looking for housekeepers up there by the Vegas Motel,” Mackie said. He suddenly seemed bored with the conversation and walked back into the bus, turning on some music.

  “You be damn careful with these guys,” Stakes said, lowering his voice again. “This is a boomtown, an oil town. There are bad people out here. There’s a lot of people who disappear around here. I ain’t tryin’ to scare ya, but you’re 21 years old in a strange place, and these are some wild boys ’round here. Don’t let them abuse you. Don’t let them touch you unless you want it. It’s your choice.”

  Tori looked away from Stakes; she watched a car that was driving by the road above us. She hugged herself tighter and shivered. Her thin coat offered little protection from the breeze.

  Around 11 p.m., a white Dodge van pulled up next to us. The van’s door slid open, and the interior light illuminated the passengers inside. Two men sat in the front. In the backseats were two other young attractive women and a young man. The man driving apologized to Tori. “Another guy was supposed to be here at 9:30,” he said. Tori put her bag down on the carpeted floor and pulled herself inside, sitting next to one of the young women.

  Stakes told her to take care. She thanked us and waved before sliding the van’s door shut. The van accelerated, driving out of the parking lot, and turned toward downtown. Soon it was out of sight. Stakes, Eric, and I stood in the parking lot and watched the van leave in silence.

  Finally Stakes said, “It’s good there were other girls in there.” He paused. “I think she’ll be all right.” He sounded uncertain. “It was the best we could do.”

  * * *

  That night, the Williston bar scene was in full swing. As we made our way from the train station to the bars, a group of drunk girls stumbled past us, giggling and yelling at two guys standing behind them. We walked through the alley behind Main Street, where people spilled out of the back doors of the bars. Most of the men wore stained T-shirts and loose jeans; the girls wore tank tops and jeweled designs on the back of their fitted jeans. They stood together in groups, smoking cigarettes and holding bottles of Coors or Budweiser; their voices and laughter carried into the warm summer night.

  Stakes wanted to go to Cattails, but first we stopped at a bar called the Shop to check out the scene. A young man wearing a baseball cap stood outside smoking a cigarette, watching us closely. Stakes opened the heavy, opaque door and peered inside. The hazy glow from neon lights lining the walls filtered onto the sidewalk. Three men sat at the bar in silence and stared at the TV above them. Stakes turned back to us and shook his head. “There’s maybe one person in there,” he said.

  The man smoking outside spoke suddenly. “What the fuck does it matter?”

  Stakes looked at him, surprised. “Well, it does, ’cause we can go somewhere else.”

  The man shrugged, obviously annoyed. “There’s alcohol, so what the fuck does it matter? I’ve been in that bar, that bar, and that bar,” he said, gesturing to the establishments all around us. “It doesn’t fucking matter.” He put out his cigarette and walked back into the near-empty bar.

  We headed north to Cattails, designated by a Budweiser sign above a green fence. There was a large crowd outside the back entrance. It was obvious the party was here. Stakes said he heard a rumor that the bar had become so successful, the owner wanted to sell it for $2.5 million. Stakes waved to a guy standing outside whom he called Scrappy, a Cattails regular. We made our way through a black door into a small fenced-in area packed with people—about 80 percent of them men. Country music blared from the speakers, and we pushed through the crowd to buy three pints of beer from the outdoor cashier. As we paid, Stakes asked Mackie if he had the $200 he owed him. Mackie told him not yet.

  “It’s all right, I know you’re good for it,” Stakes said, patting him on the back. “But I got rent to pay next month.”

  We took the beers and found a table in the corner. As soon as we sat down, a young woman with short blond hair stumbled over to Stakes and threw her hand on his shoulder to stabilize herself. She was intoxicated. A blond man came up behind her and apologized to Stakes. Stakes asked if the woman was okay, and the man nodded.

  “How long have you been in town?” Stakes asked.

  “Since January,” he said in a thick European accent. He explained he came
from Norway to work in the oil fields.

  “It’s boring here!!” the woman yelled, stumbling into her Norwegian friend. “This guy is, like, totally cute,” she said, leaning into him. She started singing quietly, looking down at the ground as she swayed.

  Stakes chuckled. “Well, you know what, girl? I’m kind of totally cute too,” he said, imitating her cadence. “And I’m 60 years old!” He laughed.

  “You are not cute,” she said, pointing at him sloppily. “You’re, like, butt ugly.” She giggled and leaned onto the Norwegian guy.

  “Well, if I’m butt ugly, kiss my ass!” Stakes said, and laughed at his own joke.

  The girl suddenly seemed to realize what she said and frowned. “I’m sorry. Actually, you’re, like, sexy.”

  Stakes waved her away. “Nah, I understand what you’re sayin’. I know I ain’t cute.”

  “I apologize,” she slurred. “I’m drunk and I’m being a bitch.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Stakes said. “I agree with ya. I’m an ugly son of a bitch. I’ve heard it all before. I’ve been a long time livin’.”

  Her Norwegian friend was now chatting with some other men. “I’m gonna go get another beer,” she said as she stumbled away.

  Mackie, who’d been staring into his beer, watched her leave and looked over at Stakes. “Rockin’ the Bakken!” he yelled, and pumped his fist.

  Stakes smiled and raised his glass. “Rockin’ the Bakken!”

  Mackie and Stakes wanted to check out the karaoke inside the bar. We opened the door and heard someone singing. Stakes bobbed his head to the music. We sat at a table closest to the stage. People drank beer out of plastic cups, and a group of men huddled over a blackjack table in the corner. A rifle was mounted over the bar next to a SUPPORT OUR TROOPS sticker. Mackie wrote his name down to sing a karaoke song.

  We sipped our beers—Stakes was on his second one—and watched two heavyset women sing off-key to Adele’s “Someone Like You” ballad. Then it was Mackie’s turn. Mackie took the mike and guitar music came over the speakers. “There are starrrrrrs!” he yelled along to the tune. “In the south-ern skyyyyy!” Stakes leapt up and cheered. He went over to the stage—he was the only one standing in front of it—and sang along with Mackie, air playing the guitar and rocking his head to the music.

  When they returned to the table, it was almost midnight and my beer was empty, so I announced it was time for me to go.

  “I’m gonna miss ya when you leave,” Stakes told me.

  “I’ll see you again soon,” I said as I stood up.

  “Yeah, but I might not be alive,” he said softly, taking a sip of his beer. I wasn’t sure how to respond to his comment, so I stood there in silence. Then Stakes insisted on walking me back to my car. Mackie reluctantly finished his beer and followed us.

  We walked back down the alley and weaved our way through an unlit parking lot of used Ford pickup trucks to get to my car. The night was quieter now, but the music from the bars pulsed in the background. Stakes hugged me good-bye. He said he was headed back to the bar to “see what fight I can get into.” He laughed. “Just kidding.”

  “Yeah, right, you’re an instigator,” Mackie said.

  “Well, dammit, it’s a tough town. Especially when everyone gets fucked up and drunk,” Stakes said.

  I told him to get home safe.

  “Well, I don’t know if I’ll get home safe,” Stakes replied, “but I tell ya what, we’re gonna do somethin’.”

  Mackie laughed. “Yeah, we’ll find something to do.”

  They waved good-bye and headed back toward the bars.

  * * *

  The next afternoon, I visited Stakes in his camper. He had slept in Mackie’s bus and Eddie Bergeson had given him a ride back to the camper that morning. Around noon, Stakes started drinking again. When I arrived, he appeared worn out—the bags under his eyes were more prominent, and he slouched over in his chair holding a vodka bottle. But despite the drinking, he seemed lucid enough to sit down and chat with me. He was worried about Tori. He said he’d been thinking about her. I agreed—I’d been doing the same. I had tried calling her that morning, but her phone had gone to voicemail. I promised him I would keep trying.

  “I’m just curious to make sure she’s all right,” he said. “To me, she’s a child. Just turned 21 years old. It’s like … damn. Doesn’t know anybody, never been here, and ain’t got a pot to piss in.” He looked out the window and was silent for a moment. “It gets to me sometimes. ’Cause I can remember times when I really … when there were people that came up to me and helped me too. So I try to pay it back, or pay it forward.”

  I nodded and we chatted more about the previous night. Worried about the comments he had made about death last night, I asked him how he was feeling. He said other than some numbness in his finger that wasn’t going away, he felt fine. The last time he visited a doctor was when he lived in New Mexico. The doctor determined he was in good health. “She just told me my potassium levels and my blood pressure,” Stakes said. “I’ve smoked for 50 years, drank for a lotta years, done drugs for a lotta years. I always joke I’m gonna live to be a 150. I’m not goin’ anywhere. But sometimes you don’t get a choice. Sometimes—I’m gettin’ to a point now where I can’t remember certain things. I’m forgettin’ things, like I can’t remember people’s names, or there’s a word I can’t remember. It’s like a fog. And I know I’ve gotta keep workin’, ’cause I’ve got no retirement. I don’t know if I can get Social Security because most of the time I worked under the table. I may have 10 more years if I’m lucky. Maybe I can make it to 70. I’m gonna try. But it gets harder to find work, ’cause your body starts breakin’ down; you become a little more brittle. With this kinda work, you’re not just sittin’ there all day. You’re paintin’, you’re buildin’.”

  The other day, Westerman promised Stakes he’d keep employing him as long as he could do the work. Stakes hoped he could start saving money. He calculated that if he worked 40 hours a week at $20 an hour, he could make $800 a week. After his expenses, he could put $500 a week away in savings, and after five years, he’d have $130,000—a solid retirement fund. So far, however, he’d only saved a couple hundred dollars in the past two weeks, and he needed that to pay rent. He also wasn’t working anywhere close to 40 hours a week.

  What about family he could live with as he aged? I asked. Old friends back in Georgia or Louisiana?

  “All my relatives have pretty much died by now,” he replied. “Nobody would remember me anyway. My older brother won’t even talk to me. His wife doesn’t like me. And every time I call—well, he’s not there, or he’s kinda short with me if I talk to him. My younger brother and I had a fallin’ out, and I haven’t seen him since Mom’s funeral. I’ve tried to find him, but I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, or what.” Last Stakes heard, his younger brother was living in Barstow, California.

  “For now I’m just livin’ week to week and day to day. And I’m gettin’ older, and there ain’t much I’m gonna be able to do about it.” Because he was adopted, he didn’t know what health risks might lay ahead. “I don’t have a record of my hereditary stuff. I don’t know if I’ve got heart disease in my genes, or other stuff like certain types of cancer. I live a crapshoot every day. I just live from one day to the next.”

  After two hours, I told him I had to go—I was driving back to California the next day.

  “Well, I hope it’s been a little enlightening. If that’s the only legacy I’ve got, for you to include me in a book, then that’s the legacy for me. It’ll be somethin’ people can remember me by. ’Cause other than that, I got nothin’ to offer the world, other than just being old Tom.” He suggested I title his story “The Rise and Fall of Tom Stakes,” because he rose up early in his life, did well for a time, and then fell.

  I told him I would be back in Williston that November.

  “Well, I might not be alive if you come back in November,” he said. Then he laughed as if it were
a joke and gave me a hug. I got in my car, and he stood on the crooked steps of the trailer and watched me drive away.

  33. FORT BERTHOLD

  On the morning of July 8, 2014, Edmund Baker, the environmental director for the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, arrived at his office and received an urgent call from a colleague at the tribe’s energy department. The man told Baker there had been a spill and requested his presence on site immediately. Baker grabbed his safety gear, jumped in his car, and drove 20 minutes to the spill location near Lake Sakakawea.

  He arrived to a chaotic scene. “There was no site control, no one in command to follow protocols. It was a nightmare,” he said. Baker toured the site and learned what he could about the incident. A pipeline owned by Crestwood Midstream Partners had burst and released an estimated 1 million gallons of brine saltwater, an oil field waste product. It was one of the largest oil field spills in the state’s history. It had likely happened a few days before, but no one knew for sure. The pipeline had been built in 2010 and didn’t have monitoring equipment that could alert the company of a leak. Though these monitoring systems are widely available for pipelines, they’re not required under North Dakota law. The spill was discovered only as the company combed through production loss reports.

  After it ruptured, the pipeline had released toxic salty brine, which snaked down a hill, killing all vegetation in its path, and into a small creek that fed Bear Den Bay, a tributary of Lake Sakakawea (though the company denies the spill ever reached the bay). The path of the brine was nearly two miles long. The site was also dangerously close to a nearby water intake system, which supplied the town of Mandaree and the surrounding population with drinking water. Baker wasn’t sure what to do—he had never dealt with a spill of this scale. His first thought was to secure the water supply. The water intake system was still pulling in drinking water less than a mile from the affected area—Baker couldn’t believe it hadn’t already been shut off (it was finally turned off around 3 p.m. that day).