Clifton Adams - Boomer

Grant had already noticed the strangeness of her speech and dress, and now he realized that Rhea Muller came from German stock, or Pennsylvania Dutch. Well, she's a long way from home, he thought. But Rhea Muller had that look of determined self-sufficiency about her; her own independence threw up a barrier against sympathy. Something in the back of his mind warned Grant to keep his distance. Here was a girl with ambition, and too much ambition always meant the same thing—trouble.

Still, Rhea Muller had the power and the looks to attract men, and Joe Grant was not immune to the attraction of pretty young women. He said at last, “You still haven't told me about the satchel, except that it has money in it.”

“That's all you need to know.”

“Not if I'm going to protect it,” Grant said. “How do I know the money isn't stolen?”

Her face colored but her words were controlled when she spoke. “Perhaps you have the right to know. The money is borrowed—five thousand dollars. Everything my father owns went up for collateral: his leases, a small producing well near Bartlesville. But we had to have the money to buy tools and a rig; we were in no position to bargain.”

Grant whistled softly. “It sounds like a big gamble.”

“Wildcatting is always a gamble. But Glenn Pool is going to be the biggest oil strike in history; it's the once-in-a-lifetime chance that all oilmen look for.”

Grant frowned, but the talk of oil interested him, if only because he knew nothing about it. “Well, maybe it isn't such a gamble. If your father's going to drill where he's sure there's oil, that seems like a pretty safe proposition.”

The girl turned and fixed her cool blue eyes on Grant's face. “It isn't as safe as it seems. Our lease expires in thirty days unless we get a well spudded in within that time. That's plenty of time now that we have the money, provided we're able to get rig timbers, machinery, tools...” She paused for a moment, and Grant thought he saw worry in the faint lines about her eyes. Suddenly she looked away. “Mr. Grant,” she said, “do you know what a 'top lease' is?”

“I never heard of it.”

“It's used by land speculators, especially around new oil fields. Sometimes a man has a good lease but can't promote the money to drill. If it looks like he won't be able to get his well started in time to fulfill the contract, a speculator will buy a lease on top of his. Do you understand?”

“I think so; it sounds the same as betting against the shooter in a crap game. If the first man doesn't get his well started in time, the speculator takes over the lease.” Then he thought of something else and suddenly understood why Rhea Muller was worried. “Does somebody have a 'top lease' on your father's land?”

She nodded, still looking the other way. “A man by the name of Ben Farley.”

“Do you think this Farley had anything to do with what happened in Vinita?”

She did not have to answer. A drilling lease in a new oil field was at stake—a fortune for the speculator if he could stop the Muller well. Derricks and machinery cost money-even Joe Grant knew that much about the oil business. If the speculator could somehow get his hands on the money that the Mullers had borrowed...

Grant breathed deeply, frowning hard. He didn't like it; it smelled of trouble. And he was in enough trouble as it was.

CHAPTER FOUR

SUCH TOWNS AS Dodge, Wichita, and Abilene had not prepared Joe Grant for Kiefer. The depot was a shunted boxcar. The week-old town was a churning sea of black mud, working with animals and humanity. Mule skinners turned the air blue with profanity as heavy freighters dragged through the axle-deep mud. The main street was already a mile-long double file of tents, clapboard and tin shacks. Horses and oxen bogged almost belly deep in the mud, wagons and hacks were stalled; only the long spans of mules were capable of pulling through this river of black slush.

The new town came in two parts, the railroad being the dividing fine. To the west there were a few tents and tar-paper shacks which was Kiefer's meager residential district. On the other side stretched the boggy road leading eastward to the Glenn ranch and the new oil field. Shanties and shacks and sheet-iron buildings lined the road on either side. Here were stores of cardboard, banks of canvas, clapboard cribs and livery stables, dance halls and gambling rooms, blind pigs and restaurants.

Kiefer was a boom town, born full grown, vicious and profane.

Saddle on his hip, Grant dropped down from the day-coach into the sucking mud that seemed to cover everything. He had never seen anything like it. No trail town that he had ever seen could compare with it.

Rhea Muller stood on the coach steps, gazing out at the crowds milling around. Suddenly she smiled and lifted her hand, and Grant saw a huge, square-built man and a blond boy coming toward them. He glanced up, and Rhea said, “My father and my brother. They'll take us out to the lease.”

Old Midler's face lighted up when he saw the black satchel in his daughter's arms. “Rhea, you got the money!”

“Yes, but on the banker's terms.”

“Who cares about terms!” the old man shouted. “Now we can get the well started!”

The old man and the boy made a pack saddle by clasping their hands. “Here, well carry you over to the wagon, Rhea. We'll stop by Kurt Battle's and tell him to load up our drilling tools.”

Joe Grant grinned faintly as the old man and the boy swung Rhea down from the coach and plowed through the mud toward a rickety buckboard, all of them talking excitedly at once. A bond of affection seemed to pull them together; happiness showed in their faces. Grant was surprised to hear Rhea Muller's laughter roll free and unrestrained. It was a pleasant sound.

Only after they had reached the buckboard did she remember Grant and motion for him to come over. “My father,” Rhea said. “Pa, this is Joe Grant.”

Joe took old Muller's hand. The big Dutchman grinned, but there was worry behind his pale eyes. “Rhea says you pitched in on a little trouble up at Vinita. I want to thank you. It was a big favor; bigger than you know, maybe.”

Grant looked pleased. There didn't seem to be anything to say. Then he shook hands with Bud Muller, a sober young giant with a good deal of his father in him.

“I didn't think it would start so fast,” the old man said thoughtfully, almost to himself. “Me and Bud was over in Tulsa trying to raise the money. We should have gone with Rhea.”

Rhea smiled at her father, a very different expression from the smiles that Grant had seen before. “It's all over now. We'll get the well going and let's not hear any more about Ben Farley.” She looked at Grant. “You can throw your saddle in the back.”

He hadn't meant to go any farther. He had meant to say good-by and start moving south again, but when he looked at her he knew that it would not be that easy. She was a strange girl, headstrong and ambitious. She was trouble, and he knew it. Yet, he heard himself saying “Thank you.” And he threw the saddle in and climbed up himself.

Rhea and her father rode up front; Grant and Bud Muller braced themselves in the back of the buckboard as it lurched and swayed in the mud.

“You aiming to work for us, Mr. Grant?” Bud Muller asked.

The suddenness of the question threw Grant off guard. “Why do you ask?”

“Rhea said you might.”

Grant tugged his hat down on his forehead to hide the uneasiness in his eyes. “What else did your sister say?”

“That's all. It won't be an easy job, and it might be dangerous. I guess you wouldn't want it for what we could afford to pay.”

Grant wasn't thinking about the pay, or the danger that might be involved in fighting a land speculator called Ben Farley. He was remembering how fast the marshal's office had gone into action, and thinking how much safer he would be in Texas.