Roughneck (1954) by Jim Thompson

Author:Jim Thompson [Thompson, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiographical fiction, Young Men - Fiction, Humorous Stories, Depressions, Mystery & Detective, Fiction - Authorship - Fiction, Novelists, Novelists - Fiction, Hard-Boiled, Fiction, Literary, Biography & Autobiography, American, Nebraska, Depressions - Fiction, Historical, Crime, Young Men, General, Nebraska - Fiction
ISBN: 9780375700330
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 1998-02-15T04:49:36+00:00

"Now, do I walk downstairs or do you take me

on the elevator?"

We rode down on the elevator. Diffidently,

each of us hurt by the other, we parted at the

entrance. We had several casual encounters in

Oklahoma City after that, but the diffidence,

the stiffness, remained. Allie was ashamed of

himself. He was angry with me for making him

ashamed.

Years passed before we met again in another

city, and Allie, still sore and ashamed, yet

wanting to crack the ice between us, found a

way of reestablishing our friendship. The

medium he chose virtually frightened me witless

– more so, I should say, than I ordinarily am. But

though it almost turned my hair gray, I think it

was worth it.

I'll tell you about it at the proper time.

____________________

*14*

Shorty and Jiggs knew the location of a pot of

gold, figuratively but none the less golden: an

abandoned oil well with a mile of high grade

pipe in it. The well was deep in the heart of

eastern Texas on part of a one-time plantation.

For years past the worn-out soil of the area had

gone unfarmed, and was now a jungle of weeds,

bush and second-growth timber. Its present

owner would gladly permit the removal of the

pipe for a fraction of its resale value.

As Shorty told the story, the plantation owner

had been so embittered at the drilling

contractor's failure to strike oil that he had

chased him and his employees from the property

at gunpoint. The contractor had sued for

recovery of his machinery and equipment. The

plantation owner had filed counter suit. Having

more money than the contractor, he won after

years of litigation. But his victory was an empty

one. News of the gentleman's bad temper and

stubbornness had spread among the oil field

fraternity, and no one would touch the job on a

share-salvage basis. It was cash-on-the-line or

no deal. So, with the land owner now nearly

bankrupt and still as stubborn as ever, it was no

deal.

When he died, his heirs split and sold off the

property as small farms. As the land went bad,

the farms moved from one owner to another.

One of them was no longer sufficient to support

a family. It took several, and the original forty-

acre plots were consolidated and

reconsolidated. And even then large areas were

so depleted as to be not worth tilling. Thus, the

case with the land on which "our" well stood.

"I don't know, Shorty," I said, when he first

told me the story. "It sounds like another oil

field fairy tale, just too damned good to be true.

You actually saw it yourself?"

"Damned right I did. I didn't believe the story

myself when I first heard it, so not having

nothing else to do, I looked the place up. I

talked to the guy that owns the land, and then I

waded on out through the jungle and looked at

the well. It's there, by God. More than five

thousand feet of highgrade casing. And it's free

– I mean, it ain't frozen in the hole. I rocked it

and I know."

"But it might be cemented part way down. If

it was cemented, say at a thousand feet, you

could still get some sway."

"Why the hell would it be cemented? They

didn't strike oil."

"Well," I shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe

that plantation owner did it.

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