Petrogypsies

by Rory Harper

  T-Bone sent out a couple of perf-gun operators on his speedboat. We perforated the casing for the oil zone at twelve-two and ran in a production packer on a string of two inch tubing. Then we sealed off the hole as quickly as we could, pulled the riser pipe up, weighed anchor and steamed for shore. The perf-gun operators and the speedboat driver decided to stay aboard and ride in with us, since the water was getting a little too rough for their preferences.

  We were in a hurry because a hurricane had brewed in the Gulf south of Cuba for the last week that we drilled. We had been afraid that we’d have to pull off before setting our production string, but the storm had dithered around instead, gaining strength, until it decided to charge straight at us. Dark clouds scudded high in the atmosphere behind us, looking like torn ribbons, as we turned for shore.

  A half an hour after we moved off location, I wandered around the deck and came upon the chief fishing over the rail.

  He looked up and gestured me to come over.

  “Catching anything?”

  “Nope.” He pointed to an area a couple of hundred feet off the bow. “See that?” I looked. After a second I saw half a dozen fins cutting through the still water. “Sharks. Imagine they’re scaring everything off.”

  Beside him another pole reposed on the deck. He handed it to me. “Here. The third mate was going to join me, but he decided at the last minute to catch a few winks instead. This may be our last chance to fish for awhile.”

  I generally preferred to use live bait, but I realized there wasn’t many worms aboard ship, and no convenient bait houses nearby, so I made do with the spoon he’d already attached. After about fifteen minutes I hadn’t had much luck, either, when I felt eyes on my back. I twisted around. Sprocket loomed over both of us, green eyes blinking slowly. Jokingly, I held out the rod to him. “Here you go, Sprocket. Maybe you’ll have better luck than us.” I swung the tip back and cast out with the weighted spinner. “See, it ain’t too hard once you get the hang of it.”

  His eyes spun for a second, then steadied. He hummed for a minute. His mouth shot open and his drilling tongue arched over the rail and splashed into the water hundreds of feet away. The chief guffawed and slapped his knee.

  “Guess he brought his own equipment, Henry Lee. Doubt he’ll catch much using his drillhead for a lure, though.”

  Sprocket’s hum changed in pitch. I looked and saw the length of his tongue rapidly playing out through his mouth.

  “Damn, he’s got a bite! Must be a big ’un!” the chief exclaimed. “Don’t let him get away, boy!” He dropped his pole and started shouting advice to Sprocket. “You got to let him run awhile, then draw in when he slows. Don’t jerk, he might pull loose; just reel him in smoothly. Then let him run some more, only make it harder for him. He’s got to fight the line. After awhile it’ll tire him, and you can pull him aboard.”

  Sprocket seemed to be listening. His tongue reeled out for about five minutes, then drew in some, then reeled out some more. This repeated three or four times.

  Beside me, the chief stayed excited. “Damn, that’s a big one he’s got. Say, doesn’t this hurt his tongue?”

  “Nope,” I said. “That drill tongue’s tougher than steel cable. Stands up to heat and acid and all sorts of horrible conditions downhole.”

  Finally Sprocket started to reel his catch in. It took him more than ten minutes. Whatever he had caught still had some fight in it. The chief leaned over the side with a gaff, but Sprocket yanked it right up the side of the ship without any help.

  I didn’t know what he had, not being all that familiar with sea fish. But it looked mean as hell. The chief recognized it, though, and motioned for me to back away. “Son of a gun! He’s hooked a white shark.”

  The damn thing looked to be fifteen feet long. Finally, Sprocket it pulled it over the rail and flopped it on the deck.

  “Sharkfin makes a tasty soup,” the chief said. “If you have a taste for it.”

  The shark lay still. One eye stared at me. Most fish, you look them in the eye, all you get back is a fishy look. This white shark was different. It looked seriously pissed off.

  Suddenly, its mouth released from Sprocket’s tongue. The flippers spasmed into furious activity, and, before anybody realized what was happening, a whole mouthful of teeth was coming at the chief like a freight train. The jaws were big enough to chomp him in half, and that’s what they intended to do. The mouth was just about to close around the chief’s waist, when it was jerked back like magic. The chief had raised his arm to try to fend it off. The shark’s snout barely touched his elbow as it was whisked away.

  Sprocket had whipped his tongue around the shark’s tail and pulled it off just in time. Weakly, we both leaned against the rail and watched. The shark struggled furiously.

  I don’t think it realized the truth, even at the end. All its life, everything it had ever run into was dinner. Except Sprocket. Sprocket liked hydrocarbons best of all. But everything else, including sharks, was okay by him.

  Sprocket stuffed that shark, fighting all the way, into his eating mouth. Then came a couple of meaty crunches and the show was over. One less white shark. One more tasty treat for Sprocket.

  * * *

  The chief kissed Sprocket’s hide, then went below, still visibly trembling. Said he needed to change his underwear. I figured he was joking, but I wouldn’t have blamed him if he wasn’t.

  Sprocket went back to fishing. The hands that were loose gathered at the rail and encouraged him. A couple of sailors joined us and patted Sprocket’s hide. For the first time since Pegleg’s death, they mixed freely with the crew. None of them scowled when they glanced at me.

  But none of them came up and shook my hand, either.

  Sprocket’s first couple of casts came back bare, but on his third try, he hooked something again. Something that seemed as big as the deceased shark. As we egged him on again, his tongue ran out smoothly. After five minutes, he took up the tension on it, and his catch started to fight. His eyes gleamed with excitement. And with the anticipation of another snack.

  He played his tongue out again, then pulled in. That’s when the program changed.

  His tongue abruptly jerked downward so rapidly that he stumbled forward into the rail. He grunted with the effort and reeled on it. His tongue drew taut, then went slack.

  As he brought it in, we figured that the fish had pulled itself loose, but we were wrong. His drillhead came up the side of the ship with something still attached to it.

  It had been another white shark, a huge one, maybe twenty feet long. It had been torn in half. The jaws were still clenched around Sprocket’s drillhead, but everything a foot past the gills was simply gone.

  Behind me, Doc whistled. “What the hell could have done that?”

  Over where Sprocket had made his last cast, where the fins cut across the surface, the water boiled white.

  Sprocket stuffed the half-a-shark into his eating mouth and began to chew.

  * * *

  As he finished the last gulp, the chief appeared around his flank. Sprocket bemusedly smacked his lips as the chief set down the five-gallon can he was lugging.

  “I figured out how I could reward Sprocket,” he said. He pulled a big screwdriver out of his back pocket and began to pry the lid off.

  “Here you go, Sprocket.” The chief stepped back from the can of Muracon-E. “Have a ball. Thanks for saving my life.”

  Sprocket’s drillhead poked tentatively out of his mouth and snuffled once. His eyes popped open and spun alarmingly, then he croaked in panic and backed rapidly away from the can.

  “What’s the matter with him?” the chief said. We both looked at the can at the same time, but it was really Muracon-E, not something else.

  “Hey, Sprocket, calm down,” Doc called out. Sprocket continued to back across the deck. His whole front end clenched up.

/>   “What’s happening?” I asked nobody in particular. “He loves that stuff. He’s acting like—”

  Then I glanced over at the chief. “He’s acting,” I finished slowly, “exactly like he did when he pulled Pegleg out of the hole.”

  The blood drained out of the chief’s face. I knew and he knew that I knew.

  “Aww, Chief.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “The stuff that was smeared in Pegleg’s clothes,” I went on. “Some of it must have been Muracon-E. That’s why Sprocket don’t like it any more. The only place it could have come from is your Goody Room. And you’re the only person with a key to it.

  The chief started to recover. “No, that’s—”

  Behind me, Doc spoke. “I bet somewhere in that police investigation of Pegleg’s murder is an analysis of the stuff in his wounds.”

  “There’s no evidence—”

  “When you know where to look, there’s always evidence,” Doc said. “There’s probably still traces in the Goody Room, blood and hair and such.”

  “Aww, Chief,” I said again. “Why?”

  The chief’s hand dipped into his pocket and came out with a small-caliber revolver.

  * * *

  For a long minute, the chief faced us. The gun swung slowly back and forth as if he wasn’t sure who to point it at. Nobody moved. Maybe fifteen of us stood in a semi-circle around him, with another half-dozen staring down from the balcony. He had six bullets at the most in his pistol, but nobody wanted to be the first to help him use them up.

  “What you gonna do now?” I finally asked. “We’re out in the middle of the damn ocean. There’s no place to go. Even if you hold us up till we get to shore, then jump ship, you can’t get much of a head start.”

  He still looked uncertain. I started to hope that I could plain talk him out of the gun.

  “Look, this is crazy,” I said. “You and me are friends, Chief. Believe me. You ain’t gonna do nothing but get in deeper from here on. Unless you call it off right now.”

  “It was self-defense, Henry Lee,” he said.

  “I believe you.”

  Behind him, Sprocket growled and his tongue poked out of his mouth. He may not have understood what was going on, but he sensed that we were all sure unhappy with the chief at the moment.

  The chief turned at the sound and eyed Sprocket. Then I made a stupid move. I stepped forward and reached for the gun, but the chief slid aside and pointed it at my face before my hand could close on it.

  “I can’t trust you, either, can I, Henry Lee?” he said. “You don’t give a damn about me. Nobody does. Nobody ever did.” The gun was pointed at me now, no waving from person to person.

  “Everything I been saying is true, Chief. You’re just making it worse on yourself. If it was self-defense—”

  “Shut up. Let me think.” He moved so he could see all of us and Sprocket at the same time. While he pondered, the breeze freshened from the dead calm it had been.

  “Okay,” he said after a minute. “I think I’ve got it worked out.” He gestured toward the second mate. “You, Mr. Atkins. Get the engine room gang up here.” He searched the faces on the balcony. “Sparks, you stay in sight. Nobody but you knows how to run that radio of yours. I’d just as soon no transmissions were made right now. Marvin, you get the wheelhouse crew down here. I want every hand on this ship assembled on deck in five minutes. If anyone comes up missing—you won’t like it.”

  “But that’ll leave the ship adrift!” the second mate protested.

  “That’s an order, mister!” He pointed the gun at the mate.

  The mate nodded and left.

  The chief turned back to me. “Okay, Henry Lee. Come here a minute. Don’t worry,” he said, when I hesitated. “Everything will work out fine. I just need to set things up properly.”

  He took me by the arm and led me over to stand with him next to the wellhead. “I need to simplify things. So I can get away without anybody getting hurt in the process. First, let’s make sure I don’t have to worry about Sprocket any more.” He smiled at me, just like we were still buddies, then stuck the pistol barrel into my ear.

  “Doc, Razer, you bring Sprocket’s tongue over here.”

  “How come?” Razer asked.

  The chief smiled again. “Don’t fuck with me. Just do it. Now.”

  Sprocket stared at us while his drill-head was brought up the ramp. The works around the drilling head had been partially disassembled. “Open that valve,” the chief said to me, pointing with the gun at the shut-off valve that led to the mud tank.

  “All right,” he went on when I had finished. “Now, let’s run his tongue in through it. Thirty or forty feet’s worth. I want his drillhead well into the tank.”

  “That’s good,” the chief said after they had done what he said. “Now back off.” He reached out and grabbed the valve’s wheel and spun it. Sprocket twitched, but didn’t react otherwise. I felt a sharp pain shoot through my own mouth in sympathy when the chief gave it one final tug to cinch it down tight. Actually, it couldn’t have hurt Sprocket at all, considering the abuse his tongue took downhole daily.

  The chief looked at me. “Sorry. I wish I didn’t have to do this. I closed it enough to trap his drillhead on the other side of the valve. That ought to neutralize him for the time being.”

  He kept the gun against my head. “Okay. Next step is to put the rest of you somewhere safe.”

  We waited until everybody from the engine room and the wheelhouse had assembled on deck. The chief counted heads until he was satisfied. When Captain Johnson stepped to the front of the crowd and opened his mouth, the chief shook his head and waggled the gun. “Don’t waste your breath,” he said.

  He took me by the arm again. “I want all of you to follow us.”

  The entire crew marched behind as we headed toward the fantail, straight down the catwalk that ran the length of the ship. Finally, he stopped when we stood beside a sealed and locked hatch.

  “Purser! Front and center!”

  Eight large C-clamps secured the hatch. They were twisted down as far as possible. A hole in the tightening knob lined up with a hole punched in a heavy metal tab that jutted out from the edge of the hatch. A lock had been passed through the holes on each clamp.

  The purser came forward. “Unlock that hatch, please,” the chief said. Several rings of keys dangled from the purser’s belt. Without a word he bent and began to open the locks.

  When the purser was done, the chief had me pull the hatch cover up and push it aside. I could see the floor of an empty hold ten feet below the deck. About then, I figured out what the chief planned for us.

  He nodded and smiled when I looked at him.

  “That’s right, Henry Lee. You’re all going below for a while.”

  “Chief, you can’t run the ship all by yourself. Especially not with a hurricane blowing up.”

  “I don’t plan to. I merely need you out of my hair,” he said, patting his bald head and smiling again, “while I disable the radio, gather up my belongings, and escape. I’ll pilot Mr. Pickett’s speedboat to shore. I can get to Freeport or Bolivar in an hour. The ship will require five or six hours. I’ll return for you in a few minutes. You help me cast off in the motor boat, then let everyone else out.”

  He turned to the waiting crowd. “All right, everyone into the hold.”

  A few minutes later, we stood in a clump in the hold, with the chief outlined above us. “I won’t be long, gentlemen. Try not to get too bored.” He dragged the hatch shut until it seated over the edge. It was quiet enough that you could hear him screwing down the clamps. He didn’t bother to snap any of the locks in place.

  Doc struck a phosphorus match, making a tiny, wavering circle of light in the hold. “Anybody got any ideas on how we can stop this lunatic?” he asked.

  Nobody did.
>
  While we waited, we explored the rest of the hold. It was completely empty. No handy dynamite or welding rigs or giant economy-size can openers. No doors leading out. We were locked tight inside a bare metal box.

  After what seemed to be forever, we heard the chief’s footsteps overhead again. He rapped on the hatch cover. “I’ve been thinking, boys. Five hours isn’t enough lead time. Better if everyone thinks I went down in the storm with the rest of you. Much easier for me to slip into my new life without the law after me. Sorry.”

  Shouts drowned out his leave-taking.

  “The bastard’s left us adrift,” Captain Johnson said. “When the hurricane hits …”

  We heard the chief fire up T-Bone’s speedboat. The sound diminished as he motored away, and the hold grew quiet and still enough for me to notice a whooshing, rolling sound around us. The more I listened, the louder it sounded in the dark.

  “What’s that noise, Captain?” I asked the captain.

  The hold grew silent, and we could all hear the gurgling and slapping.

  “Oh my god,” Captain Johnson whispered. “He’s opened the sea cocks.”

  The hold got noisy again for a few minutes.

  “I can’t believe he’s just left us here to die,” I said when it got quiet for a second. “Maybe while we were all yelling before, he undid the clamps on the hatch.”

  “You climb up on my shoulders, Henry Lee,” Doc said. “You’re probably the strongest on the crew. How about a couple of you hands help me hold him up?”

  The hatch was still clamped down. For ten minutes, I strained and grunted, but it wouldn’t lift an inch. When the clamps were down, the cranes probably couldn’t have pulled the hatch loose.