Stringer and the Oil Well Indians

by Lou Cameron

  Bluefeather chuckled and said, “I thought MacKail was a Scotch name. None of you palefaces really know how to enjoy life. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll meet you here a hundred years from now and we’ll compare notes on which of us had the most fun.”

  Stringer didn’t answer. He’d been chided about his own easy way with money from time to time. Bluefeather did seem to be overdoing it a mite. But it was none of his beeswax if the suddenly rich cuss wound up old and broke.

  Stringer could see how, in a way, the oil well Indians of Oklahoma Territory could be enjoying a delicious joke on the white man. For the white man had pushed them onto this dry and mostly worthless range against their will and now, instead of dying off as old Andrew Jackson had no doubt figured they might, they were getting rich, hand over fist, without any effort on their part. It sort of made a man believe there might be a Just God, after all.

  He parted friendly with the big and little Indians in front of the nearest ice cream parlor, then he strode on to Main Street and First, near the railroad depot. Finding the new office of the BIA was easy enough. When he went inside it looked like the hiring hall for Buffalo or Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show. Both Bills hired lots of cowboys and Indians.

  Everyone seemed to be dressed similarly as they shared hardwood benches to either side of the reception desk. The Gibson Girl behind the desk asked him what tribe he claimed membership in and looked sort of relieved when the tall, tanned and blond Stringer showed her his press pass, handed her a business card, and said he wasn’t there to ask for any money. She told him to have a seat and carried his card back into the maze of cubby hole offices.

  Stringer hunkered in a corner and had a Bull Durham just about built when she came back and waved him over to confide that the agency manager would be proud to give him an interview. He got lost a couple of times among the open-desk offices that slightly resembled whorehouse cribs, save that everyone in them was sitting up with all their duds on. When at last he found a real door with the right name on it and went in, a portly white man wearing a tweed suit and a harrassed expression waved him to a seat near the desk and began by saying, “It’s about time someone from the newspapers asked to hear our side instead of just printing more lies about us screwing Mister Lo, the poor Indian. I’m surprised you’re not here to apply for a Cherokee allotment. Half the so-called Cherokee are as white as you or me, you know.”

  Stringer held up his freshly rolled smoke for permission, got a nod, and lit it before he said, “That’s one of the things I’d like to get straight in my head, Mister, ah, Manson. Might you be one of the Scotch Mansons of Clan Gunn, by the way?”

  The portly Indian agent shrugged and said, “I know my folk were Scotch, a long time back. Can’t stay if they belonged to any clan or not. Why do you ask?”

  Stringer said, “I’ve noticed some of us are sort of vague on past tribes we might have belonged to a ways back. Just how might the BIA define membership in one tribe of Indians or another, seeing as so many Oklahoma folk look white or colored to me?”

  Manson sighed and asked, “You noticed? These days we’ve got Wannabees of every shade from Lily White to Inky Black collecting handouts from Washington.”

  Stringer raised an eyebrow to ask, “Wannabee?” to which the agent answered with a bitter laugh, “I wanna be an Indian. Just a few years back we couldn’t keep a full blood on the reservation and most breeds would cuss you if you hinted they might have just a drop or more of Indian blood. Now every trash white or colored cow hand west of the big Muddy suddenly seems to recall an Indian great grandmother the family had forgotten all about.”

  Manson got out a cigar of his own, and bit off and spat the end on the floor as he explained, “In it’s infinite wisdom, the U.S. Government never got around to defining just how much Indian blood one needed to be called an Indian, as long as you didn’t want to scalp anyone. The Five Civilized Tribes bitched, with some justification, that they were part white before we moved them out there in the first place. Old Hickory allowed it didn’t matter and that an Indian was any person who belonged to any Indian tribe, or nation, as they prefer to call it.”

  He waved at the shelves of buckram-bound law books just to Stringer’s right as he added, “Indian Policy, if you want to call it that, has been changed over the years with each new administration. President Roosevelt’s dream is to have them all educated and assimilated by the middle of this century. God knows what the Democrats will do, once they’re back in. As of now, don’t hold me to it, the old Indian Nation has been more or less transformed into the new Territory of Oklahoma and I sure hope you don’t intend to print that as an attempt to screw the Indian.”

  As the red-faced Manson lit his cigar, Stringer asked just what the change was supposed to do for Mister Lo, adding, “I thought the Indians enjoyed having their own nation, once they got used to life out here.”

  Manson blew smoke out his nostrils like a fly-blown bull and said, “It never worked worth a damn. Each tribe applied for and got its own patch of what we now call Oklahoma. The so-called Indian Nation never took up half of what we hope to make a future state. Each tribe was granted its own government, under tribal councils supervised by Washington. That’s why we’ve always had so many federal marshals here to deal with the sad results, to the best of their ability, see?”

  Stringer shook his head and said, “Not really.” So Manson explained, “Let me give you an easy example. Do you remember the infamous Belle Starr?”

  Stringer said, “Not personally. I’ve seen two tintypes of the lady. Both were ugly and they struck me as two different ladies entire.”

  Manson nodded and said, “Fort Smith photographers have no shame when asked for pictures of dead folk by you newspaper gents. Never mind what she looked like. What she was doing down the river at Younger’s Bend was selling moonshine and dealing in stolen goods. Her spread lay in the Cherokee Strip or tribal reserve. She had no lawful right to be there, seeing she was pure white as well as just awful, until it occurred to her to marry up with an otherwise worthless Cherokee named Sam Starr. That made her Cherokee, as far as the tribal council cared. The white lightning she sold no doubt confused them on the finer points of anthropology and, with the Cherokee claiming her as one of their own, the federal government couldn’t do a thing about her squatting on reservation land. But as a white woman, any time she was off the Cherokee Strip, she was free to do business as a white, and did. She got a pretty penny for the livestock Starr and his gang stole.”

  Stringer repressed a yawn and started to say something dumb about ancient history, the lady in question having been shot in the back just before the turn of the century. Then he brightened and said, “Hold on. Are you saying an Indian still can’t sign a bill of sale like anyone else?”

  Manson nodded and said, “Not if he’s on the BIA rolls as a reservation Indian. Under federal statute law, all Indians in theory, and all reservation Indians in practice, are wards of the government, the same as minors or certified half-wits. It was intended for their own protection, lest some white slicker ’em with gold bricks. No contract an Indian signs with a white man has any validity in court. Didn’t you know that?”

  Stringer said, “I do now, and you say you have all sorts of folk asking you to let ’em be Indians?”

  Manson nodded and sighed, “It beats working. We keep trying to settle Indian claims with a final cash payment. They usually take the money. But then they usually seem to find a lawyer to take us around the same old mullberry bush. Back in the nineties, when it became obvious the Indians were only using part of this territory and that white outlaws and squatters seemed hell-bent on using the rest, the government gave cash and land deeds to each and every Indian family so the sooners could come in and lay claim to the rest. It worked just swell until the money was spent, they noticed they weren’t going to get any more handouts, and screamed they hadn’t read the fine print. That’s what I’m doing out here now, trying to tidy up the mess. You’d be surpris
ed how many long-lost relatives turn up to demand their own share of the tribal lands, once you discover oil under it.”

  Stringer smiled thinly and said, “No, I wouldn’t. It’s just as well I never had a Cherokee great grandmother. I’ve always wanted to get rich quick and easy. So how do you decide whether one of your Wannabees is the real thing, and what does he get from you if you can’t prove he’s Swedish?”

  Manson shrugged and said, “It’s up to the tribal councils to decide who they let in and who they don’t. Our hands are tied. Our only hope is that, now that tribal lands are worth something, the tribal leaders may be more picky than they were in old Belle Starr’s day.”

  Stringer nodded and said, “I’d hesitate to share my slice of the pie with a long-lost cousin I never heard of before. But I’m still confused about the way a real or Wannabee Indian deals in oil leases if no contract between a white and Indian cuts any legal ice.”

  Manson said, “You get a white sponsor to sign for you, naturally. Those gents waiting out front who don’t want to be Indians likely want to be given power of attorney for one, see?”

  Stringer raised an eyebrow to ask, “Is such power an easy thing to come by?” To which Manson answered with a scowl, “I pride myself on making it as tough as I can. But we can’t do much about a white approved of by the tribal council as a spouse or legal guardian. The B.I.A. has no jurisdiction over business contracts signed by whites, while the tribal councils say it’s none of our business if some mighty tolerant white person wants to marry or adopt an Indian. I just told you Indian Policy was a confusing mess.”

  Stringer said, “Well, money does draw lawyers the way shit draws flies, and lawyers are paid to look for loopholes. I just met an oil well Indian called Walter Bluefeathcr. He surely made an oil deal with somebody. I don’t suppose you know of him?”

  Manson suppressed a moan and said, “I wish I didn’t. He’s a member of the Osage tribal council and a real pain in the ass. He had more land than we ever allotted him before they struck oil under it. He’s a shrewd businessman who’d bought out other Osage to expand his cattle spread before the first test well was sunk. He hasn’t gotten any poorer since. I think he signed with Standard Oil.”

  Stringer insisted, “How? You just told me he couldn’t do that, didn’t you?”

  Manson nodded and said, “He’s married to a white woman. She, in turn, is related to a white lawyer. Need I say more?”

  Stringer replied, “I wish you would. I don’t see why Uncle Sam makes it so complicated for folk to do what they’re going to do in any case. It seems to me that even a dumb Indian is as likely to be cheated by a white signing an oil lease for him as he is by the better-known gents out to buy his oil.”

  Manson shrugged and said, “I don’t write the regulations. You don’t have to worry about Walter Bluefeather, though. He’s smarter and tougher than he looks and he has the Osage tribal government behind him. But I could tell you tales about less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed redskins.”

  Stringer glanced at the wall clock. Then he nodded half to himself and said, “Just tell me one.” So the Indian agent told him, “You’re right. I do have to get back to work. To make it short and sour, I know of one old Creek with a drinking problem who was pleasantly surprised to discover a redheaded fancy gal from Fort Smith was suddenly in love with him. But she held out for a ring and got it, less than a week before Sinclair Oil got to him with an offer that needed the signature of a voting citizen of These United States.”

  Stringer asked, “Are gals allowed to vote in Oklahoma?” To which Manson replied, prim-lipped, “No more than Indians of either sex. But the new bride had a trusted white male friend, as some call pimps in Fort Smith. The old Creek let his wife and her real lover make the deal for him. Since the contract was signed by his white sponsor, guess who got the front-money check, and cashed it without bothering the old Creek about it? I suppose they felt as long as they kept him well likkered up at their own modest expense he had nothing to complain about. He didn’t complain, as a matter of fact, until the drillers sinking the test well on his property wound up with a dry hole. Then they went away, his wife and her pimp went away, and he was left with an awesome hang-over and a big mess in his front yard. I told him, when he came bitching to us, that he should have showed up sooner.”

  Stringer snuffed out the last of his smoke and got to his feet as he asked, “Could you have done anything for the lovestruck Indian if he had?” and Manson said, “Sure we could have. Unless an Indian client of the BIA chooses his or her own white sponsor the BIA stands ready to supply an agency lawyer to do things right. It takes more time, of course, and for some reason some Indians don’t seem to think we have their best interests at heart. But I want you to print it in your paper that to date no Indian who’s made an oil deal with BIA approval and backing has been screwed out of one wooden nickel!”

  They shook on that and Stringer left to dig for more leads.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Stringer headed for a nearby saloon as the next best thing to a barber shop if one wanted to listen to small town gossip.

  The joint was a hole in the wall no more than twenty feet wide with the bar running along one wall back to darker smoke-filled depths where an invisible player piano was playing a mechanical ragtime tune. Stringer would have had a time admiring the wonderous invention had there been more light and less smoke. For, despite the hour of the afternoon, the dinky drinking establishment was sardine-packed with gents who smelled like rock-oil or cowshit, depending on how they were dressed. Most of the crowd seemed to be oil field hands. A few dressed more like shop clerks were likely oil field deal makers, judging from the way they talked. One or two cow hands along the length of the bar could have been breeds or even full bloods. It was against the law to serve Indians hard liquor, but the fat gal behind the bar was paid to peddle booze, not to act as a deputy marshal or even a reservation police officer, so she didn’t even study Stringer’s face for signs of Indian ancestry when he asked for a boiler maker. She just made him pay before she served him.

  The beer chaser was good. The shot glass of red-eye she served with it tasted like paint remover. He was a good sport about it. He knew it was his own fault for ordering hard liquor in moonshine country and decided to just stick to beer from then on.

  As a well-traveled westerner, Stringer knew the secret of avoiding fights until one had been accepted in a neighborhood saloon was to just drink quietly and not stare at any of the regulars until spoken to. But when the building and the ground under it shook and the roar of not too distant thunder rattled the one glass window to his left, Stringer found himself blurting, “Jesus, what was that?” to nobody in particular.

  The man to his right dressed like an oil rigger chuckled and said, “Nitro. Sounds like Tiger Twain is at it again. Old Tiger has always used more nitro than patience with a stubborn formation. One of these days he’s going to overdo it. But what the hell, I’ve told him to his face I’ll never work with him again.”

  Stringer finished his first beer, signaled the barmaid to serve them both again, and said, “I think I met old Tiger last night. Just after he’d lubricated this hat for me. I can’t say I recall him chucking nitroglycerine down the pipe, though.”

  The oil rigger nodded and explained, “He’s got a dozen rigs drilling for old Blackjack Sinclair. I heard about the gusher they brung in last night. I’d say that blast come from a deeper drill farther west and higher up. They found those fool blackjack oaks growing in an old graveyard atop a rise and so down they went. I hear she’s down more than a mile and still dry as the Indian bones they hit six feet down.”

  A man in a business suit on the far side of the oil rigger chimed in, “Blackjack Sinclair is buggy as a hobo’s bedroll. There’s nothing scientific about his crazy hunches.”

  The oil rigger nodded but said, “I can’t see why I’d want to grow over an oil dome if I was an oak tree, neither. But you got to admit old Sinclair’s struck a hell of a l
ot of oil in his short time as a wildcatter.” Then he turned to Stringer and held out a hand grimed with ground-in dirt, saying, “When a man offers me a beer I like to know his name. I’d be Bull Durham if it’s all the same with you.”

  Stringer shook with him as he said with a smile, “I’ve been smoking your cigarettes for years, Mister Durham.”

  The oil rigger grimaced and said, “That sure was original on your part. My folk Christened me Leroy, back in Penn State. But others made the connection betwixt Bull and Durham shortly thereafter.”

  Stringer said, “I started out Stuart instead of Stringer MacKail. I suspect I come out ahead, but folk will shorten Stuart to Stu, if you let ’em, and I even hate stew on a plate.”

  They clinked glasses on it while, oblivious to the ritual from where he was drinking on the far side, the more formally dressed oil expert proclaimed, “There’s no mystery about the way Sinclair strikes oil. He hears of an oil strike made by gents who know what they’re about and muscles in. You could sink a well most anywhere in this county with a fair chance of striking rock-oil. We’re over an underground sea of the stuff. It’s all one formation, right?”

  Bull Durham smiled knowingly at Stringer and said, “Gee, I wish I knew so much about geology. I’d get to wear a white shirt every day and all the gals would love me.”

  Stringer smiled back less certainly and asked, “Well, isn’t this Tulsa field more or less one formation, once you get down to it?”

  Bull Durham replied, “Yes and no. Oil floats on water, with a lot of gas mixed in with it. The oil and gas in these parts would have fizzed up out of the earth years ago if it wasn’t for a thick layer of cap-rock holding „em down like the lid on a pressure cooker. Picture that cap-rock more like a wrinkled blanket than a dead-flat lid and you’ll see why there’s more to a producing well than sticking a needle in a rubber balloon.”