Stringer and the Oil Well Indians

by Lou Cameron

  Stringer thanked the yard bull and moved on. As he swung around the end of a train of greasy tank cars he could see why they called those bigger things rising above a cluster of frame shacks cheesebox stills. That was what they looked like, albeit made of riveted boiler plate and somewhat larger. He didn’t try to figure the birdcage of piping, fat and skinny, that rose around the dark massive stills. He knew that, this far from the eastern markets, crude rock-oil was refined in batches, piped into tank cars, and shipped out as kerosene, gasoline, motor oil and whatever. There was a lot of wastage to be burned off or dumped in the nearby Arkansas. A lot of the separates had little or no market until someone figured out some uses for petroleum jelly and wax, let alone the black tar they wound up with in the end.

  As he approached, he saw that the only fence around the layout was three-strand barbed wire. So he cut some of the distance by just ducking through the west corner of the property and ambling on toward the office sheds through the confusion of pipes laid across or above the cindery bare dirt.

  As he passed under one elbow he heard soft hissing and sniffed mighty rotten eggs. He knew enough chemistry to be just as glad he wasn’t smoking at the moment. Hydrogen sulphide was inflammable in its own right and the odorless methane that made up most of natural gas was downright explosive. It was a hell of a way to run an oil refinery.

  He said so when he strode into the office shed to find a pair of gents hovering over blueprints on a center chart table. One wore a denim work shirt, and the other was in vest and white shirt sleeves. He was the one who growled, “We know about that leak. We’ve sent for a trouble-shooter. Was there anything else you wanted to tell us, cowboy?”

  Stringer got out his press pass again as he told them who he was, and said he wanted some information they might have. The one who seemed to be a plant manager stuck here past his usual supper time said, flatly, “This is not the Tulsa Public Library. You are trespassing on the property of Mister John D. Rockefeller and we’re not authorized to gossip about his business. We’re pretty busy at the moment, too, so why don’t you go play someplace else, kid?”

  Stringer smiled thinly and said, “I reckon I could just wire my paper that one oil well is burning out of control here and that Standard Oil has no comment on any explosions that are likely to take place any minute.”

  The plant manager straightened up to look more friendly as he hastily assured Stringer, “Hell, we’re not facing any real emergency, here, Mister, ah, MacKail. It’s just a stubborn gas leak our own crew can’t seem to stop entirely. I’ll allow you may hear a big whump if she ignites before the gent we sent for gets here. But we’re not talking about a disaster to the plant, itself. We’re just not leaking that much gas.”

  Stringer said, “I can still tell you where it is, if you don’t know. There’s this big elbow in a mighty fat pipe, with a big two fisted valve on top of it and..”

  “We know where it is. It’s the valve packing that’s leaking,” the plant manager cut in, glancing at the wall telephone across the room as he muttered, “That damned Durham should have gotten here by now.”

  Nobody seemed interested in throwing him out, after all, so Stringer stepped closer to the table to ask, “Might we be talking about a pipe fitter called Bull Durham, hangs out in the Pronghorn Saloon a lot?”

  The blue collar refinery man was the one who said, “That’s him. He has office space with a lawyer just above the Pronghorn. The secretary I just talked to said she thought he was downstairs and that she’d have him come right over. I wonder what could be keeping him.”

  Stringer asked if they were talking about a telephone in the office of Lawyer Lacey and when he was told they were he sighed and said, “Durham might have spotted me as I was cutting cross the yards ahead of him.”

  The plant manager frowned at Stringer to demand, “What reason might Bull Durham have for avoiding your company, MacKail?” So Stringer said, “I’m still working on that. I take it you do business with a client of Lawyer Lacey, Walter Bluefeather?”

  They both looked blank. The plant manager said, “Hell, we refine oil for lots of oil well Indians with funny names. How am I supposed to know?”

  Stringer said, “You could look it up. I know you wouldn’t have oil leases or other such documents on file here at the business end of the oil game, but you would have charts on your own oil lines, wouldn’t you?”

  The plant manager nodded cautiously but asked, “Just what are you sniffing around for, MacKail?” So Stringer explained, “I don’t suspect Standard Oil of anything but capitalism. But someone else here in Tulsa has sure been acting shy about their own sneaky doings. I’d be able to tell you better what it was, if you’d let me have a look-see at your pipeline blueprints. You have my word I’m not out to make your outfit look bad, unless Standard Oil is in on it, of course.”

  The two Standard Oil men exchanged thoughtful glances. The one in greasy denims shrugged and said, “Don’t ask me. I just work here.” So the plant manager pondered on a while and then he decided, “We have nothing to hide. I doubt we have anything that can do you any good, either.”

  He stepped over to a cabinet of flat blueprint drawers and asked which section of the Tulsa field they might be talking about. When Stringer allowed he was interested in the trunk line running beside the Pawhuska Post Road on the Osage reserve, the oil man said that was easy and hauled out a big blueprint covered with little white dots and skinny lines.

  He laid it flat on the table for Stringer’s inspection. The first thing Stringer noticed was that oil wells were only indicated by numbers with no mention of who might own what. When he said so the plant manager explained, “We’re not concerned here about which infernal Indian’s sponsor gets the royalty check from the main office. We just meter each line and credit the production to its number. The company paper pushers know which oil lease goes with which number. I told you this chart wouldn’t tell an outsider all that much. It’s not supposed to.”

  Stringer didn’t answer as he ran a finger along the trunk line from town to the cluster of dots that had to be the wells he’d seen on Bluefeather’s property. He got out his notebook to take down the number. Then, while he was at it, he made notes on oil wells further out on the Osage reserve. There were more of them than he’d expected. He chuckled and said, “This is one time the Indians would seem to have won.” Then he traced some other white spiderweb lines in the direction of the refinery, nodded, and put away his notes, saying, “I told you I didn’t suspect Standard Oil. But some local boys may want to explain some of the figures I just took down and, seeing it’s almost sundown, I’d best get cracking. I wouldn’t want to call on anyone, along with some law men I know, after bedtime.”

  They both naturally asked what he knew about Indian oil leases that they didn’t. So he shook his head wearily and just said, “You boys here at the refinery couldn’t know as much as I did when I got here. Your job is to refine and ship the final product. The crude is what they’ve been crooking, long before you do a thing to it, and it’s sort of complicated. So I’ll just send you free copies of my paper, once I get it figured out a mite better, myself.”

  He left and headed back the way he’d come in the gathering dusk. As he approached the big elbow of pipe that smelled so bad he saw someone was standing there, as if it was some kind of gate. Stringer kept on walking, feeling tenser, until he could see it was Walter Bluefeather, his own gun already out, though held politely down beside him. Stringer nodded gravely and said, “Evening, Walter. I guess Bull Durham told you where I might be found at this hour, right?”

  The big Indian nodded his big white hat and replied, “He sure did. And I’m sorry as hell about this. For I’ve kind of got to like you, MacKail.”

  Stringer answered, “I sort of like you, too, Walter. You’re about the smartest Indian I’ve ever met. Of course, I can’t speak for the other members of your Osage Council, once they find out just how slick a businessman you’ve really been all this time. I supp
ose you promised Willy Whitepony you could get him back into the good graces of his nation if he’d do just one small favor for you?”

  Bluefeather grimaced and said, “That’s what comes of sending a boy to do a man’s job. Seeing you got to Standard Oil after all, despite my best efforts, just what might they have told you, and vice versa, just now?”

  Stringer had to think about that. For, while telling the two-faced Bluefeather the jig was up might inspire him to just light out in his new Buick for parts unknown, those two men in the office were unarmed and not expecting any sudden Indian attacks.

  As Stringer pondered his best choice of words, Bluefeather said, “I know you’re stalling in hopes it might be darker when you crab for cover ahint them other pipes. I hope you can see I could have nailed you afore you spotted me, here, if I wasn’t such a conversational cuss. So converse at me, Stringer. I’d like to know just how much you found out with your nose in the private matters of the Osage Nation.”

  Stringer shrugged and said, “It was only a suspicion before you proved it by this tense discussion we’re having. I doubt the other Osage will be sore at me for taking a closer look at the way you’ve been protecting their interests as a council member and ice cream manufacturer, Walter. I doubt throwing down at me with that fine .45 would do you all that much good at this late date, either. If I were you I’d crank up that gas buggy you just bought and head for somewheres like, say, Tibet. Your fellow Osage are mighty fine trackers and they have a lot more than me to be pissed about.”

  Bluefeather shook his head and said, “Not if they never find out. So long, Stringer, I’ll really miss you.”

  Then he swung the .45 up to fire as Stringer dove sideways shouting, “Don’t do her, you damned fool!”

  Then Stringer was flat in the dirt behind a massive length of iron pipe and Bluefeather had fired from within the cloud of natural gas he’d been standing in.

  The “Whuff” the plant manager had said it might be sounded more like a cannon going off close to Stringer, as the refinery yards lit up red white and blue, and grainy gunk rained down from the ruby sky on Stringer and the pipe he lay huddled behind. As the light began to fade away, he saw Bluefeather’s big hat a few yards away, charred black and still smouldering. So he raised a cautious head, his own gun drawn, and muttered, “Oh, shit, I told you not to do that!” as he spied what was left of the Osage under the elbow, where a roaring flame still played from the ruptured valve above.

  As he eased in for a better look by the flickering light, he was sorry he had to. There was no smell of rotten eggs in the air, now. It smelled more like a ham that had been left in the oven to overbake. Bluefeather’s body lay naked save for charred boots and gun belt, but his flesh was charred so matchhead crisp that he didn’t look immodest. His privates had burned down to smouldering embers. His face looked even worse. The blackened remains of the face had been stretched into a ghastly grin by the heat of Bluefeather’s partial cremation.

  Stringer heard running footsteps and turned, gun in hand, as the two oil men from the office and another who’d been on duty somewhere else tore his way, all three with fire extinguishers in their hands. Stringer said, “I’d just let that valve go on burning for now, if I was you. You just heard what happens when you strike a light around gas that’s not burning.”

  The plant manager saw what was still smouldering under the flaming valve and gagged, “What on earth have you been up to here?” To which Stringer could only reply, modestly, “Cooking with gas. Now, if you boys will be good enough to take over, here, I have some other pressing chores to tend to.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Later that evening, a drunk stepped into an alley near the depot to take a leak and wound up pissing on his own boots when Bull Durham rose ominously from behind his fort of ash cans to growl, “It’s good to see you, Pecos. I’ve been feeling sort of confused, tonight. What’s been going on out yonder?”

  The drunk stared owl-eyed until the faint light from the red skies above let him in on who he might be talking to. Then he said, “You’re in deep shit, Bull. They got the fried mortal remains of Walter Bluefeather in escrow at the Tulsa Morgue because the Osage say it would take the U.S. Cavalry and Artillery combined to bury him on Osager ground. The Creek don’t want him, neither. The federal lawmen are hunting you now, with the Indian Police helping. It’s the first time I can recall Cherokee, Creek and Osage agreeing what time of day it is. But they surely seem agreed on the pain of being screwed out of oil money. How much did you screw ’em out of, Bull?”

  Durham stepped around the ash cans to converse more intimately with good old Pecos as he replied, “I wasn’t the mastermind as set it up. I just done what I was paid to do and there wasn’t supposed to be no trouble.”

  He glanced toward the alley entrance and added, “There would not have, if some other idjets hadn’t stirred up that nosy young newspaper man and got him peeking under the walnut shells faster than we could shift the pea.”

  Pecos buttoned his pants and opined, “That MacKail kid sure must be smart. You and old Bluefeather even had Bill Tilghman fooled and here MacKail went and caught you at it less than a week after getting here a virgin.”

  Then he blinked at Bull Durham and added, “What did he catch you boys at, by the way? Nobody I drink with seems to know just what you was all up to, ’cept it being mighty serious, seeing how you have so many lawmen after you.”

  Durham said, “Never mind the whys of it, old paid. Tell me the hows of what they’re up to. I know they have the livery covered. I damn near walked into a trap when I studied on my favorite mount and some moonlight riding down the old owlhoot trail. What about the railroad yards?”

  Pecos sounded almost cheerful as he replied, “Oh, they’ll nail you certain, if you try to hop a train out, Bull. Chris Madsen is set up in the depot, with some young gals serving coffee and cake as the boys finish a sweep of the yards and rest up to go sweep it some more. The Indian Police are set up all around the city limits, mounted up and spoiling for a horse race. I don’t see how you’re going to get away, Bull.”

  Bull Durham shrugged and said, “A man’s got to try. It’s been nice talking to you, Pecos. I hope you can see why I can’t afford you talking to anybody else. It’s nothing personal.”

  The old drunk began to sober up, sudden, as he stared wide-eyed down at the gun on Durham’s hip and pleaded, “Aw, I wish you wouldn’t kill me, Bull.”

  But Durham did. Not with the gun Pecos was staring so hard at but with the bowie the old drunk never saw coming until it had ripped into his belly and severed his aorta. It was barely possible for a man bleeding to death like that to let out at least one good yell. So, as Pecos dropped to his knees at Durham’s feet, clutching his ripped-open belly with both blood-slicked dirty hands, Durham cut his throat from ear to ear.

  The killer knew enough to crawfish backwards as he did so. So while he got some blood on his pants below the knees it hardly showed amid all the oil spots.

  Durham knew he was in enough trouble without having to explain lurking in dark alleys with dead folk. So he slid out and slithered on, moving from shadow to inky shadow cast by the red glow above. He knew there was one way out of town the law might not have thought of. It hadn’t occurred to him until he’d hunkered in that alley, sweating ants a spell.

  Old Bluefeather hadn’t motored back out to the Rocking Tipi this evening, thanks to that dumb response to Stringer MacKail’s poking about the Standard refinery. So that speedy Buick runabout was still in Tulsa, someplace, and there wasn’t an Indian pony made that could outrun a horseless carriage across open range.

  Walter had usually parked it out front of Lawyer Lacey’s office. Durham also knew where the two-faced Osage parked when he didn’t want just everyone to know he was in town. So that was where Durham made for, sliding between buildings and jumping a backyard fence or two until he was surrounded more by private residences. Some few folk were still seated on their front porches as Bull Durham
passed, trying to walk innocent, but most had already called it a day. The fugitive felt a pang of envy as he passed a window where a gal was letting down her hair on the far side of her lace window curtains. He knew that even if he made it, he faced some lonesome time under the cold uncaring stars of midnight. They’d be expecting him to streak for Kansas to the north or Texas to the south, since either direction offered quick ways out of Oklahoma Territory, with Texas being the safest destination, though a longer trip to make on only one tankful of gasoline. He meant to streak for Fort Smith instead. There was a gal there he knew who let her hair down pretty good at night, or by broad day if a man asked her nice. But to get to her he had to get to old Walter’s horseless carriage and, if that fool Indian had left it somewhere else…

  But good old Walter hadn’t, Durham saw, as he moved down yet another alley to spy the white paint job winking at him faintly from the ruddy gloom. Durham drew his six-gun and eased closer, eyes peeled and ears so wide open he could hear his own heart beats and a cricket chirping a city block away. As he got to within pistol range of the silent gas buggy. Durham took shelter behind a telephone pole and called out, softly, “I see you, there, you sneaky rascal! Come out with your hands up or I’ll blow your infernal head off!”

  There was no answer. Durham hadn’t expected any, but a man just couldn’t be too careful at times like these. He moved in the rest of the way and murmured, “Howdy, Miss Buick. You and me are going to take a little spin down the owlhoot trail at twenty or more miles an hour, Lord willing, and I sure hope Walter gassed you up right.”

  He holstered his gun and slid into the driver’s seat to strike a match and read the dashboard gauges. He shook out the match with a grin when he’d read he had close to ten gallons to go on. Old Walter had bragged on getting twenty or more miles to the gallon and Fort Smith was only about a hundred and sixty-odd miles away.