Slaughter by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2014-12-24T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

“People have been drilling for oil in the San Fernando Valley for nearly twenty years,” Magnusson began, “but only on a limited basis. I came here to Los Angeles a couple of years ago and started drilling here in town when the boom hit. I did well enough I decided to expand to the valley.”

Frank broke in to say, “Your sister told me the fella who owns this house is in Europe for a year with his family. If you’ve been out here for two years, where were you staying before you rented it?”

Magnusson waved a big hand. “Astrid wasn’t with me then. I just had a room in a boardinghouse. The same place my drillers stay, in fact. But when she came west, I needed somewhere better for her, of course.”

Frank nodded. “I reckon that makes sense. Mind if I ask what prompted her to join you?”

“Our mother passed away,” Magnusson replied with that rough growl in his voice again. “Astrid had been taking care of her. But with her gone, there was no reason for Astrid to stay back in Minnesota.”

“I’m sorry,” Frank said.

Magnusson shook his head as if to say that what was past was past. He went on. “When I decided to expand my drilling operation into the valley, I looked into the situation, of course, and found out the same thing other drillers had discovered. The title claims those ranchers have are pretty shaky legally, especially the Montero, Sandoval, and Lopez places. Those involve Spanish land grants, and some of the other drillers had already filed lawsuits seeking a ruling on them before I even got here.”

“But you took advantage of the situation anyway, even if you didn’t start it, didn’t you?”

One of Magnusson’s big fists thumped on the desk. “A man’s got to grab hold of his chances where and when he finds them, damn it! If you were a businessman instead of a gunman, you’d know that, Morgan.”

“Go on,” Frank said, suppressing the irritation he felt at Magnusson’s attitude.

Magnusson glowered across the desk for a second before he continued. “At first, I confined my drilling to areas that I either knew didn’t belong to any of the ranchers, or property where clear title was in dispute. But my God, Morgan, there’s so much oil down there! You don’t know what it’s like. To a man like me, knowing that oil’s there is like a man who’s dying of thirst knowing that there’s a whole lake of cool, clear water right under the ground if he can just get to it.”

“So you started setting up your rigs wherever you damned well pleased,” Frank said.

“Yes, damn it, I did—but only after asking Francisco Montero for permission. I would have paid him a good royalty on whatever I pumped out of his range.” Magnusson shook his head. “But he turned me down flat, the old bastard.”

“That’s because he was a cattleman, not an oilman.”

“No, it’s because he was a damned fool . . . although he had sense enough to marry Dolores Sandoval, I’ll give him that.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.