The Wildcatters by Bill Burchardt

Author:Bill Burchardt [Burchardt, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western Fiction
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 1963-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

To Eve, the sight at the Ivy lease was fantastic. Lace had driven the buggy like a thing possessed, cursing like a teamster when the crowd rushing from town impeded her progress. She had lost all reason when she heard the tool pusher’s message in the dressing room. The tears were gone at once. Carried on the tide of Lace’s frenzy, Eve had hurried with her to the livery. They had not been a moment too soon.

The town had already taken every horse and rig that was for hire. Those left behind were forcing the hostler to harness the private rigs stored there. He was between the shafts of Lace’s buggy, backing it from the stall, when Lace and Eve ran in. In shrill anger, Lace gave him a tongue lashing, tangling her own harness as she frantically tried to hasten his efforts.

They pulled out of the stable with Lace using her buggy whip to drive off those who tried to hitch a ride. The horse took the bit and was a near runaway as they plunged down the road that was now a rising column of dust.

Bouncing in chug-holes, narrowly missing the bar ditch, they had careened wildly as the trail grew rocky and narrow along the river road. Silent and pale with alarm, Eve hung on, certain the buggy would overturn at every lurch. The lathered horse barely avoided other rigs moving almost as fast and in the same direction, and was exhausted and heaving when the gushing well came in sight.

Lace threw the reins aside as her horse brought up snorting at the barbed wire fence. Her skirt caught over the whip socket as she leaped from the buggy. The skirt tore noisily and Lace turned, jerking at it, ripping it, as Eve jumped down beside her.

Eve seized Lace’s arm and slapped her hard across the cheek. Lace looked startled with the shock of the slap, but she stopped pulling at her skirt and let Eve unhook it from the whip socket.

“Do you want to tear your clothes off?” Eve demanded.

Lace could not have cared, and Eve was near understanding as she looked at the awe-inspiring sight of the gusher. With demoniac roar, black crude oil was spouting far above the crown block of the derrick. There the wind caught it, turning it into a feather-like plume that sprayed back over them, blackening trees and earth, drenching the crowd, warm and fetid in their mouths and nostrils.

Lace was suddenly quiet in bewildered awe. “Oh, there’s so much of it,” she shouted, “and they’re wasting it all!”

She started then toward the derrick, holding up her torn skirt. Eve caught up with her as she was trying to crawl through the barbed wire fence.

“Lace!” Eve pleaded. “You can’t do anything up there! You’ll get hurt!”

“But it’s all running away!”

“They’ll stop it—as soon as they can,” Eve shouted.

Men were already busy trenching the earth to catch the torrent of oil. The crowd was swelling, seeming to come from everywhere, from the timber, from the countryside, from the road.

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