piece of blanket. Soon both of them were hanging onto the truck body for
dear life as they bumped and blundered over a road that made previous
ones they had traveled seem like superhighways.
Sometimes their way led through tall thickets of mesquite and briars
that threatened to tear the clothes off their backs. Then they would
ford a stream so deep that water splashed over them. The machine, though
still fairly new, groaned and knocked like a Model T at the torture it
was undergoing.
“This territory is what Australians call ‘back of beyond,’” Ralph
shouted at one point as he dodged low-hanging tree branches. “We need a
covered wagon.”
At another, when they all had to get out and push the machine from a
gully into which it had slid, he made sarcastic remarks about the
driving abilities of all unprintable Navajos.
Once he wiped the streaming perspiration from his face and neck, pointed
to a mass of black clouds in the west and muttered, “Thunderstorm
weather. A good day to lie under a tree and take siesta.” Mostly,
though, the Ute gritted his teeth and kept silent as the pickup fought
its lonely way across the fringes of the Painted Desert.
It was midafternoon and the sticky heat was stifling when they reached
the great box canyon where the Hopis were supposed to be living.
“I don’t like the feel of this place,” Quail said as he stopped the
truck on a high bank that overlooked the trout stream pouring out of a
narrow cleft between two buttes. “Look at those thunder clouds piling
up. I should not wish to lose my car in there.”
“_We_ don’t matter, of course,” Ralph grunted. “How far is it to
Ponytooth’s place?”
“About half a mile, I think,” the Navajo answered.
“Then let’s leave your precious hunk of junk out here and walk in.”
Ralph set off down a faint trail at a fast lope that the others found
hard to match.
Around a sharp bend in the canyon they came at last to a heap of
sandstone ruins. The little group of circular pueblos looked as old as
the surrounding hills. Most of the walls had crumbled or been knocked
apart in some strange manner. Only one had a roof of pine or cottonwood
beams, light poles and bunch grass. In front of it a tiny old woman sat
smoking a long pipe.
Her face, brown as chocolate, was a mass of wrinkles. But her black
eyes, which peered out of the folds of a heavy wool blanket, or manta,
were sharp with intelligence.
She made no answer to their questions in English and Navajo. When Ralph
spoke to her in the basic Shoshonean language, however, she pursed her
lips and pointed up the canyon with them.
“Ponytooth is probably up there hunting somewhere,” Chief Quail said.
“We’d better find him before it gets too dark.”
Half a mile farther up the stream they found the old Chief. He was
stalking a jack rabbit with, of all things, a bow and arrows. Slanting
rays of sunshine that broke through the gathering clouds showed that he
was dressed in the ancient Hopi costume. It consisted of a woolen
poncho, or blanket, with a hole cut in the center, through which he had
thrust his white head, baggy trousers slit up to the knees on the sides,
deerskin leggings wrapped round and round his spindly shanks, and
beautifully woven sandals. Only his belt, which was mounted with large
silver discs, showed that he was a person of importance.
“I didn’t know that clothing like that existed any more, except in
museums,” Ralph said softly.
The Hopi shot the jack rabbit through the heart, retrieved his arrow,
and came toward them, carrying the animal by its long ears. When Hall
went forward, with outstretched hand, the Hopi showed no surprise
whatever.
“No spikum English mush,” he said gravely in return to the oilman’s
greeting.
Chief Quail tried him in Navajo—and got a cold stare in return.
“I think I can make him understand what we want, if it’s O.K. with you,
John,” said the driller.
At a nod from Hall he spoke at great length in Shoshone clicks and
gutturals.
Chief Ponytooth listened, at first politely, then with a growing frown.
At last he held up a hand and replied with a torrent of words. As he
spoke, thunder rolled in the far distance.
“He says,” Ralph translated, “that he is an old man. Soon his body will
be placed in a crevice in the rocks, and his spirit will go northward to
join those of his ancestors at a place called Sipapu. Meanwhile,
however, he has been ordered by the Hopi Council to live here in the
ruins of Awatobi, a pueblo or village that was destroyed by the
Spaniards hundreds of years ago because the tribe had killed all of
their Christian missionaries.
“Although he knows that the Navajos claim this territory as part of
their reservation, he declares that it is part of Tusayan, an ancient
province belonging to the Hopi and their cousins, the Moqui. So long as
he stays here, he believes, neither Navajos nor palefaces will dare to
steal this land.”
“Tell him we don’t want his confounded desert,” Hall said impatiently.
“Tell him we won’t kill a single jack rabbit or harm a piece of
sagebrush. Try to make him understand that all we want to do is to
remove oil from far beneath the ground. In exchange we will give his
people money so they may build schools and hospitals.”
When this was translated, Ponytooth straightened his bent back and
glared at them defiantly. His face, under its broad white hairband, took
on a haughty grandeur. Then he spoke again, waving his skinny arms and
beating his breast for emphasis.
And the thunder rolled nearer with every sentence he uttered.
“He says—” Ralph shrugged—“that neither the Navajos nor the palefaces
have ever given his people anything. They have always taken things
away—cattle, wheat, the spirits of young warriors. They are his enemies
until the end of the world. He is weak and old now, but you can only
take this land by killing him.”
A spatter of cold rain emphasized the Chief’s meaning.
“We had better leave this place,” Quail said as he gripped Hall’s arm.
“It must be raining hard farther up the canyon.”
“Not yet,” Hall snapped. “Ralph, tell the Chief that we understand how
he feels and that we will go, if he wishes. But warn him that if he does
not accept the fair offer we wish to make him, other men may come and
take this land from him, as they took other things from his ancestors.
Try to make him understand that we are his friends.”
The Chief understood the last English word.
“Frens!” he screamed. “Frens! Frens! Frens!” In the rapidly gathering
darkness the canyon walls echoed with his shouts. “Paleface, Navajo,
never frens to Hopi!”
Chief Ponytooth, last of the Pony Clan, burst into wild whoops of
sarcastic laughter. At the same moment, thunder rolled deafeningly above
their heads, lightning danced about the canyon walls like angry spirits,
and the rain began coming down in bucketfuls.
“Out!” yelled Chief Quail. In his excitement he forgot his careful
grammar. “Water come. We die!”
He spoke too late. A roaring sound had begun far up the canyon. Before
they could move, it grew deafening. At the same time a five-foot wall of
yellow water swept down upon them like an express train.
After that, things happened too fast to be described. As he ran madly
toward the canyon wall with the idea of climbing out of reach of the
flash flood, Sandy slipped on a bank of wet clay and fell headlong.
Ralph grabbed him by the collar and barely managed to drag him to
safety.
Hall let out a wild yell as the dry sandbank on which he had been
standing a moment before absorbed water like a sponge, turned to
quicksand, and began to suck at his legs. Just before the wall of water
struck, Donovan snatched up a long branch and held it out. Hall grasped
it and, in turn, was pulled to comparative safety.
By this time the little trout stream had turned into a raging torrent. A
great pine tree in its bed, roots torn loose by the tremendous sudden
push of the water wall, came crashing down. A branch caught Ponytooth
across the thighs and dragged him from sight beneath the flood.
Chief Quail, who was nearest to the Hopi, acted instinctively. He
plunged into the frothing, rock-filled water and fought it with all the
power of his massive shoulders. A moment later he was tumbling
downstream with the old man held tightly in his arms.
While the others watched spellbound in the gathering darkness, the
Navajo fought the cloudburst. Fifty yards downstream, he managed to hook
a leg around a rock that still held firm. His face purple with effort,
he finally succeeded in pulling his apparently lifeless burden to the
top of a dry ledge.
Almost as quickly as it had come, the flood subsided. Dripping, cold and
shaken, the little party headed back toward the pueblo ruins. Chief
Quail walked ahead, carrying the Hopi in his arms.
An hour later Donovan rose from examining the Chief and looked across a
campfire at the rest of them with a worried frown. The geologist had
found Ponytooth’s only apparent injury—a broken leg—and had set it with
expert fingers. But the old man failed to return to full consciousness
thereafter. He threw his arms about and shouted wildly. His cheeks
burned with sudden fever. When his little brown wife crept to his side,
he ordered her away in a frenzy.
“I can’t understand it,” said Donovan. “So far as I can tell, he has no
internal injuries. But the life is running out of him like water out of
a sack. I’m afraid he may be dying.”
“He _is_ dying,” Ralph spoke up softly. “I’ve been listening to his
ravings. He thinks he has offended the water spirits by even talking to
palefaces and a Navajo and a Ute about the tribe’s sacred boundary line.
He thinks he must die to make his peace with the spirits. And so, he
_will_ die before the night is out.”
“Hosteen Quail,” said Hall, “Navajo chiefs are medicine men as well,
aren’t they? Can’t you paint a sand picture or something, and cure
Ponytooth of his delusion?”
“No,” the Chief answered sadly. “Navajo magic works only for Navajos.”
“Let me try,” Ralph said suddenly. He gripped the Hopi’s shoulder to get
his dazed attention, and spoke to him for a long time in Shoshonean. The
old man shook his head back and forth in disagreement, but he stopped
picking at the moth-eaten buffalo robe which Donovan had thrown over
him.
“I told him that the water spirits were not angry,” the Ute said at
last. “He said I lied. I told him we are all his friends. He said to
prove it. So I told him I would prove it by singing him well.” Ralph
stood up slowly and paced around the fire three times in a
counterclockwise direction. “My father was a medicine man,” he went on.
“As a boy I watched him sing people well, but I never was allowed to try
it, of course.... Well, here goes.... Wish me luck, Hosteen Quail.”
He leaned his head back against the ruined pueblo wall for a moment, as
though gathering strength from the ancient building. Then he began to
sing in his rich baritone.
At first the chant went slowly, slowly, like the beat of buffalo hoofs
on the open prairie. Then, as Sandy held his breath to listen, the
rhythm became faster. The words meant nothing to the boy, but somehow
they painted pictures in his mind: A wild charge of naked Indian
horsemen, dying in a hopeless effort to capture a fort from which white
rifle smoke wreathed. The thundering rapids of some great northern
river. Chirping of treetoads in the spring. A love song on some distant
mesa. A bird call. The silence of a summer night....
“There!” Ralph whispered at last, his broad face dripping sweat.
He reached under Ponytooth’s robe and fumbled there for several moments.
Almost, he seemed to be withdrawing some object from the old man’s
body—something red and wet—like a fingernail!
The Hopi gave a long sigh. “Frens,” he murmured as he sank into peaceful
slumber.
“He’ll be all right now,” said the Ute, “providing we take him to the
hospital at Lukachukai quick to get that compound fracture fixed.”
He stumbled out into the darkness, which now was spangled with stars.
Her eyes round with faith and wonder, the little brown woman followed
him. She was carrying a pot of steaming coffee.
The less said about that awful midnight drive to Lukachukai, the better.
Hall got them there somehow, while Chief Quail and Ralph held Ponytooth
in their arms during the entire journey to protect his leg.
Then they had to go all the way back to Chinle for the jeep, but not
before Chief Quail had made a detour to toss a piece of yellow carnotite
ore on the wishing pile which stood near the entrance to Canyon de
Chelly.
“It’s not that I like Hopis any better than I do Utes,” he said
shamefacedly. “It’s just that I want Ponytooth’s leg to get well quick
so we can settle the boundary dispute.”
“Well, here, I’ll chuck something on your silly pile, too.” Ralph
twisted a ring off his finger and tossed it onto the big mound of
stones. “Me Boy Scout. Always do good turn.” But he turned away so the
others couldn’t see his face.
They got a few hours’ sleep at Thunderbird, but a much-relayed telegram
dragged them out of bed before sunup. It was from Jack Boyd, the diesel
engine man at the well, and it read:
SHE’S ACTING UP STOP HAVE HER STUFFED FULL OF MUD STOP HURRY
More dead than alive, they pulled onto Hall’s property to find that
things had calmed down. Drilling was proceeding as usual, in fact, and
Boyd was covered with embarrassment.
As Ralph and Sandy stood outside the bunk trailer, almost too tired to
go in and take their clothes off, the driller said lazily, “See that big
mountain there to the north? What does it remind you of?”
Sandy blinked the sleep out of his eyes and stared. The mountain in
question had a big round cliff at one end, a long high ridge in its
center, two branching ridges farther along, and sharply pointed cliffs
at its other end.
“Why,” he said at last, “it looks like a man lying on his back.”
“Good boy. That’s what it is.” Ralph grinned. “That mountain is called
the Sleeping Ute. It’s supposed to be a great warrior who will awake
some day, to unite all the Indians.... And do you know what?”
“What?” Sandy yawned mightily.
“I thought I saw his big toe wiggle just a minute ago.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cavanaugh Shows His Colors
Long before sunup, the screaming of a siren on the rig brought off-duty
crewmen pouring out of their bunks in all stages of undress. When Sandy
arrived at the brightly lighted well, the night foreman was already
halfway through his report to Hall, Salmon and Donovan.
“She started rumblin’ an’ kickin’ at the drillpipe just like she did
yesterday.” The fat, oil-smeared man was puffing. “I stepped up the mud
pressure an’ pulled the siren. She’s calmed down now, but the blowout
preventers are having all they can do to hold her.”
“Good boy,” said Hall. “If you had pulled the siren and waited for
orders we might have a gusher on our hands and pieces of derrick flying
in all directions. How far down are we?”
“Little over 5,500 feet, last time I checked.”
“That’s the Gallup Pay.” Donovan was dancing with excitement. “I knew
we’d hit it. Let’s take a sample and see what we’ve got.”
The big old diesel roared for a moment. It dragged a bar of iron called
a “kelly” out of the square hole in the turntable until the top of the
first section of drillpipe appeared.
After the pipe had been securely locked in the turntable so that it
could neither fall back into the well nor shoot upward if the
underground pressure increased suddenly, two floormen clamped their
six-foot-long tongs, or monkey wrenches, around the kelly and unscrewed
it from the pipe with great care.
They had eased it off only two or three turns when a frothy mixture with
the foul odor of rotten eggs began to squirt from between kelly and
pipe.
Donovan caught some of this in his cupped hands. He smelled it, rubbed
it between his fingers and then _tasted_ it.
“Beautiful!” the geologist crooned. “This is good, high-gravity oil. The
sulphur content is high, as you can smell, but refiners know how to take
that out. I’ll tell you more when I’ve run a full analysis, but it sure
looks as if we’ve licked the law of averages. Two flowing wells in two
tries is ’way above par.”
The crewmen, who had been holding their breaths for his verdict, let out
wild rebel yells and spun their battered hats into the air. Jack Boyd
and the night foreman hoisted Hall on their shoulders and marched him
around the derrick in triumph.
“All right, fellows,” the oilman shouted to stop the riot. “You all get
new hats, new shoes and bonuses!” As they started another cheer he
mounted the drill platform and held up his hand for attention.
“But I’m going to ask you not to wear those hats and shoes, or bank your
bonuses, for a few weeks yet. This has got to be a tight well.”
“Glory, Mr. Hall,” somebody called from the edge of the crowd. “No
celebration? That’s a lot to ask.”
“I know it is, Bill. But look at it this way: With this well under my
belt, I can get a big bank loan and hire several more rigs to work this
property. That will take me at least a month. If news gets out about
this strike in the meantime, what will happen?”
“Cavanaugh and the oil companies that hold adjoining leases will rush in
and drill offset wells just outside your boundaries before you can get
started,” Bill answered glumly. “They’ll drain most of the oil out from
under your land, like they did up at Cortez last year.”
“Right!” said Hall. “I know things have been tough these last few
months. I’ve had to hold up your pay several times, to make ends meet.
But you all hold stock in our company. If you hang on a little longer,
we’ll all be in clover. So I’m sure you’ll keep your mouths shut when
the spies come prowling, as they will.”
A roar of agreement went up, but then someone said, “How about the kid?
He don’t own no stock, does he?”
“I know Sandy, and I know his dad,” Hall answered. “Also, his bonus is
going to be twenty shares of stock. I’ll vouch for him.” He slapped the
surprised boy on the back and added, “All right, gang. Back to work.
We’ll pull the string and get the well cemented and closed in. Then
we’ll shut down here till I get that bank loan arranged. Some of you
have vacations coming. Take them now. Don will put the rest of you to
work running surveys and drilling test wells on our downriver lease.
Tell any snoopers that John Hall ran out of cash—which is no lie. I
closed out my balance at Farmington last week so I could meet the
payroll!”
After the drillpipe was withdrawn and stacked, the combined crews spent
the rest of the day mixing an untold number of bags of cement with
water. This mixture was pumped down the well to replace the mud that had
filled it to the brim.
Once, when they heard a plane approaching, most of the men faded into
the trailers while the others tried to look as unbusy as possible. The
ship was Cavanaugh’s Bonanza! It circled twice and roared away.
When Salmon estimated that the hole was full of cement, the diesel began
pumping mud again. This forced the cement out of the well and up to the
surface between the earth walls and the heavy steel casing inside which
the drillpipe had rotated.
“How do you ever reach the oil again?” Sandy asked when the operation
was completed.
“Easy.” Ralph yawned tiredly. “After the cement has hardened, we’ll pump
out the mud. That will leave a cement plug twenty feet or so thick in
the well bottom to keep the pressure under control. When we want to
start producing, we just drill through the plug and away we go. Say, why
don’t you go to bed instead of asking foolish questions? You look as if
you had been dragged through a dustbin.”
“I was just thinking, Ralph. Since we’ll be having some time off, why
don’t we visit Miss Gonzales’ school?”
“You go,” yawned the driller. “I’ve got to get this well capped good and
tight tomorrow and then drive to Farmington and try to rent a portable
test rig—on the cuff. I’m going to act so poor-boyish that it will break
your heart. Casehardened drillers will weep in their beer when they hear
my tale of woe.”
“Is that exactly honest?” Sandy tried to smooth down his cement-whitened
cowlick, as he always did when he was thinking hard. “I mean—we _have_
struck oil.”
“We’ll have struck it for somebody else’s benefit if we don’t play our
cards close to our chests and keep a close guard over our well _and_ our
tongues.” Ralph looked at him shrewdly. “You’ll see what I mean in a day
or two. And here’s some good advice: Watch your step, Sandy. There are
some mighty curly wolves in this oil game. Don’t try playing Red Riding
Hood with them.”
Learning that Jack Boyd was one of the men assigned to guard the well
from all intruders, Sandy borrowed the engine man’s car the next day and
headed in the direction of Kitty’s school. The going was rough, as
usual, but the machine was equipped with a heavy-duty transmission and
rear axle, double shock absorbers, an oversized gasoline tank and other
features which defied the chuckholes. He made good time and found the
school trailer during the noon recess.
Twenty Navajo children of all ages were playing what looked like a fast
game of baseball as he drove up. They flew into the trailer like a flock
of frightened chickens, and came out trying to hide behind their
teacher’s skirts.
Kitty greeted her visitor with considerable reserve, but when he told
her that Ralph had asked him to come, she became much more friendly and
invited him to share her lunch.
He found that the roomy trailer was well equipped for its purpose, with
plenty of desks, books, a blackboard and other facilities. It was parked
under tall pine trees near the first brook that he had found since he
left the well.
“A good place to study,” he said to make conversation as he looked out
of the big windows at the nearby Chuska Mountains.
“But it’s the shower that attracts the children at first,” she admitted.
“I have a little pump in the creek, you see, so we have all the water in
the world. They’ve never seen anything like it. Most of them live in
gloomy hogans where the only light comes through the door and the smoke
hole in the center of the room, and where water has to be brought in in
buckets. _Hot_ water is the greatest luxury they’ve ever known. They’d
stay under the shower all day long, except that they are so eager to
learn their lessons.”
“Navajos really like to study?” He tried to keep the surprise out of his
voice.
“Of course they do. They’re bright as silver dollars. Now that they have
schools, they’re going to surprise everybody with the speed at which
they learn.”
“Do you ever teach them about Kit Carson?” he took the plunge.
“Why ...” she stared at him uncertainly. “I mention his name when I have
to.”
“I think you’re being prejudiced.” Sandy smoothed his cowlick
desperately. Would she throw him out of the trailer for being so bold?
“So that’s why you came!” She startled him by bursting into a merry peal
of laughter. “That was brave, after the—after the nasty way I treated
you at Farmington. Very well, teacher. Tell me why you think Great-uncle
Kit was a friend of the Navajos.”
Sandy began haltingly, but soon warmed to his subject while the Navajo
children came in from their play, gathered around him, and listened
intently. Remembering old stories his mother had told him, Sandy related
how Kit, an undersized, sickly boy of fifteen, had learned to make
saddles so he could get a job with a wagon train that was heading west
from his home town in Missouri.
He went on to tell how his great-uncle had overcome endless hardships to
become famous as a hunter, trapper and scout with Frémont’s expedition.
He described how Kit had driven a flock of 6,500 sheep across the
Rockies to prevent a famine that threatened the early settlers in
California. He explained the happy ending to the blockade of the Navajos
in the Canyon de Chelly, and wound up by telling how Carson had left his
deathbed to go to Washington and make one more plea for government help
for “his Indians.”
“That’s about all,” he concluded, “except that a town and a river in
Nevada, and an oil field in New Mexico are named after Kit Carson. He
_must_ have been a good man.”
“Perhaps he was,” the girl said softly while her pupils smiled and
nodded their dark heads. “I’ll be kinder to him when I teach a history
lesson after this. He sounds a lot nicer than some of the people I have
met recently. That Mr. Cavanaugh, for instance....” She turned up her
snub nose and let her voice trail off.
“Cavanaugh!” Sandy cried. “Has he been prowling around here too?”