Clifton Adams - Boomer

He wasn't sure how she meant it. “To watch after the well, you mean?”

She lifted her head and looked at him. “Not just the well, Mr. Grant.”

Suddenly she turned and fled down the sod steps and into the dugout, and Joe Grant stood uneasily in the mud, wondering if her words actually meant what he had taken them to mean. Several minutes passed and he tried to tell himself that this was the time to leave.

But he kept remembering the way she had looked at him. Could a girl like Rhea Muller have a personal interest in him —an outlaw?

At last he called, “Miss Muller.”

There was no answer from the dugout.

He descended the sod steps and knocked on the plank door. Still there was no answer. He pulled the latchstring and stepped inside.

The dugout was one large room, the lower half dug into the earth, the upper half built up of logs and mud plaster. There was only one small high window in the room, but the walls had been plastered with clay and whitewashed, so it was almost as light as any other room. The furniture was mostly boxes and packing crates, all whitewashed. An iron cookstove stood against one wall; a folding cot fitted into the corner of the opposite wall, the bedding rolled neatly at one end.

Rhea Muller stood rigidly beside the stove, her back to Grant. “Why don't you go?” she said tightly. “That's what you want, isn't it?”

“I guess I don't really know what I want,” Grant said. “Once I thought I wanted to be a cowhand, then a farmer.”

“Then a bank robber?” she asked stiffly.

“No. I didn't want that; it was forced on me.”

She turned then, and he was surprised to see that she had been crying. She did not seem the kind of girl who would cry very often.

“Miss Muller...” The words sounded thick. “Is anything wrong?”

“No!” she said bitterly, “nothing is wrong. Just get out and leave me alone!” She turned away quickly when Grant didn't move, and after a moment she said quietly, “My whole life is bound up in this small piece of red clay and blackjack... in a lease that has just thirty days to run.” She made a quick gesture with one hand that indicated the entire room. “Do you think I like this, Mr. Grant? Living in a hole in the ground like a wild animal, living out the good years of my life in towns like Kiefer and Sabo? Well, I don't like it, Mr. Grant, but I can live with it for a few more months if it will help my father get his well.”

She wheeled back to face Grant and her eyes were hard with resolution. “I mean to have this well! Nothing is going to stop me from having it!” And Grant had the uneasy feeling that she had forgotten that he was in the room... that she was making the vow to herself alone. Then she looked at him and some of the hardness went out of her eyes. After a brief pause she went on, “I want to live like other people. I want to live in a decent town, I want to forget the smell of oil and the feel of mud.”

Grant was seeing a side of Rhea Muller that he had not known existed. She seemed tired and defeated; her mask of self-sufficiency had fallen away, leaving the evidence of fear in her expression. He moved awkwardly. “You can have all those things when the well comes in. There'll be plenty of money then for anything you want.”

Surprisingly, she laughed, and the sound was bitter. “There have been other wells, but something always went wrong. Fires, explosions, lost tools. This time it's Ben Farley.”

“He can't hurt you. You've got the money to start the well, what could he do to stop it?”

She smiled thinly, “A million things. You don't know Farley.”

For one long moment they stood there looking at each other, and Grant could feel his resolutions deserting him. Without her mask she was even more attractive than before; no longer was she cold and ambitious, but she was afraid.

“Joe.” It was the first time she had used his first name and the sound was little more than a whisper. She came toward him slowly, and said his name again. “Joe, we need you! We need a man who's able and not afraid to fight—with guns, if necessary. My father's too old. Bud's too young....” She came closer, her chin tilted, her eyes looking directly into Grant's. “Joe, we need you!”

He did not know how it happened, but suddenly she was in his arms, her face pressed hard against his chest. For one brief moment he held her gently, as if she were a child. But Rhea Muller was no child. She was storm and fire, like no other woman Joe Grant had ever known, and suddenly he held her hard against him.

“Joe, will you help us?”

“Have I got a choice?”

He had the brief impression that she was smiling, but the moment he found her mouth with his all other impressions fled his brain. Almost too late they heard the tramp of boots near the dugout, and Rhea pushed away, breathless, with high color in her cheeks.

“Rhea, you down there?” It was Bud Muller, and his voice was quick and edgy. Then the door burst open and young Muller shoved inside, looking directly at Grant. “Have you decided whether or not you're working for us?”

Grant shot a quick glance at Rhea, but she had donned her mask again and he could read nothing in her eyes. “I guess so, Bud. For a while, anyway.”

“Then your job has already started. Come with me.”

Rhea's eyes widened. Grant frowned, then nodded quickly and followed Bud up the sod steps. “What's the trouble?”

“You'll see soon enough. He's over at the bunk tent.”

They heard Rhea coming after them but neither man slowed his quick pace toward the flapping, clay-spattered side walls of the bunk tent. Grant threw back the flap and drew up for a moment staring at the man sitting on one of the half-dozen canvas cots. “Who is he?”

“Name's Robuck. Pa hired him yesterday to help dig the derrick cellar.”

The man looked at them briefly, his eyes still dull and slightly glazed. There was a cut along the side of his head above the left ear, his left eye was blue and puffed, dried blood was caked on the left side of his face, and his nose was humped in the bridge where it had been broken. Grant turned to Rhea, who had pushed into the tent.

“You'd better get some water, iodine, and clean cloths.” Then to the man, “What happened?”

The roustabout laughed harshly. “What does it look like?”

“Was it a fight?”

“Call it that if you want to.” He got unsteadily to his feet, dragged a kit bag from under his cot, and began throwing his few belongings into it. “You can get my pay ready,” he said to Bud. “I'm not working for you and your pa any more.”

“You'd better lie down,” Grant said quietly. “From the looks of that nose, you could use a doctor.”

“I don't need a doctor. All I need is a one-way ticket out of the Territory, and that's what I aim to get!” He held his hand out to Bud. “I'll take my pay.”

The man was more scared than hurt and Grant could see that he would be of no use to anybody until he got away from the men who had beaten him. Bud peeled off four dollars from a small roll and handed them to the roustabout. “Can you tell us who did it? And why?”

The man touched his nose gently and winced. “There were four of them; that's all I know. They said if I worked on the Muller lease again they'd kill me. I like you and your old man fine, but...” He left the word hanging, then picked up the kit bag and walked unsteadily out of the tent.

Grant grinned tightly and turned to Bud. “Is that a sample of Ben Farley's work?”

“It has to be Farley,” the boy said angrily. “Nobody else has any interest in what happens to our lease.” He dropped to one of the cots, clinching and unclinching his lean, work-roughened hands. “We've got two drillers that have been with us since Bartlesville; they won't scare easy. But we've got to have rig builders and roustabouts to get the derrick set up. That won't be easy, with Farley's men beating up every hand that comes on our lease.”