Oil (filmed as There Will Be Blood) (17 page)

II

Jacob Coffey, Hay, Feed and Grain, Lime, Cement and Plaster, sat in the private office behind his store, with his feet on a center table from which the remains of a poker game had not yet been cleaned. He was a hard-bitten individual with tight-shut mouth and other features to correspond; his skin was tanned to leather, and all his teeth were gold, so far as they showed. He got his feet off the table and stood up; and when he heard Dad's name, he said: "I was rather expecting you'd call." Dad said: "I only just heard about you. I came at fifty miles an hour." So they were friends, and Mr. Coffey accepted a gold foil cigar instead of his half-chewed one, and they sat down to business. "Mr. Coffey," said Dad, "I am an independent oil man; what the Big Five call one of the 'little fellers'—though not so little that I won't show here in San Elido county. I've bought twelve thousand acres, and want to prospect for oil. If there's any here, I'll put a couple of hundred wells on the tract, and employ a thousand men, and pay a few million dollars in wages, and double real estate values for five or ten miles around. Now, Excelsior Pete is here; and of course they'll fight to keep me or anyone else out. The thing I want to show you political fellers is that these big companies never put up the dough unless they have to, and it most all goes to the state machine, anyhow. Like everything else, they need a little competition to keep them softened up. Us independents pay more, and we make the big fellows pay more too. I assume I'm talking to a man who knows this game." "You may assume it," said Mr. Coffey, drily. "Exactly what do you want?" "For the present, just one thing—a road to Paradise. It's a case of no road, no drilling, and that's no bluff, but a fact you can understand, because you haul heavy material yourself, and you may have tried to deliver over that there sheep-trail." "I have," said Mr. Coffey. "Well, then, no words needed. I want a road, and I want it without no red tape—I want the county to start work within the next ten days, and just push the job right through, so that I can get in here and drill my well, now while I got a rig to spare. Maybe that's never been done before, but it's what I want, and I've come to ask what it's worth. Do I make myself clear?" "Perfectly," said Mr. Coffey, and his hard face yielded to a slight smile. It was evident that he liked Dad's business methods. He told his side of the case; and Bunny understood that he was bargaining, drawing a fancy picture of the tremendous difficulties involved. The county machine had been having a peck of trouble of late, some damned fool had stolen some money—a silly thing to take the county's money, said Mr. Coffey, when you could make so much more in legitimate ways. Also there had been criticism of road contracts; they had a crank in this town that published a weekly paper, the "Watch-Dog," and filled it with reckless charges. Well, the long and short of it was that to use the emergency repair funds of the county to build a road for an oil-operator, would be bound to stir up a lot of fuss, and lose votes which the county machine needed. As Mr. Ross had said, the Excelsior Pete crowd, who already had a road to their tract, wouldn't favor Dad's road; they might furnish material for the crank's weekly paper, and they might make a kick to the state committee, and make Mr. Coffey's life a little hell. Dad listened politely—as the process of bargaining required. He said that he appreciated all these troubles, and would expect to make up for them. In the first place, there would be the job of carrying the county supervisors into office. Would it seem a fair proposition if Dad were to contribute five thousand dollars to the war chest of the campaign committee? Mr. Coffey blew a big cloud of grey-blue tobacco smoke into the air, and sat gazing fixedly at the figure 5 and three 0's written in these clouds. "You understand," Dad added; "that's a party matter, and separate from any proposition I make to you personally." "Let's have your whole idea," said Mr. Coffey, quietly. So Dad gave his "spiel" about believing in co-operation, and how he always got a little organization together wherever he worked, and stood by his friends and gave them a share of what he made. He told about his Ross-Bankside No. 1, and how he had formed a syndicate for that well, and, in order to make sure of getting his derrick material on the spot, he had let the president of a big lumber company have two percent of it—just a little friendly service, and the well had earned so far nearly six hundred thousand dollars net profits, and the president of this company had made over twelve thousand, just for his trouble in seeing that Dad always got his lumber the day he asked for it. And now here was the same thing; if Dad could get a road, he would gamble on the Paradise tract, and Mr. Coffey might gamble with him. Dad offered to "carry" him to the amount of two percent of the well; the cost would run over a hundred thousand dollars, so Mr. Coffey would be getting a two thousand dollar investment, and if the well became a producer, he might get five or ten, or even thirty or forty thousand dollars; such things had happened many times, and were to be reckoned on. Of course, Dad would expect this to mean that he and Mr. Coffey would be friends; they would work together, and help each other with any little favors that might be needed. And Mr. Coffey puffed several more clouds of smoke, and studied them, and said he felt friendly to Dad; but he thought it would be better if Dad would contribute two thousand dollars to the campaign fund, and carry five thousand for Mr. Coffey personally. And Dad, looking him in the eye, inquired, "Can you deliver the goods?" Mr. Coffey said yes, he could deliver them all right, Dad needn't have any worries. So it was a bargain, and Dad took out his check book and wrote out two thousand dollars to the order of the treasurer of the county campaign committee of the Republican party. Then he asked Mr. Coffey whether he held any public office, and the latter replied no, he was just a plain business man; so Dad said all right then, the agreement could be in Mr. Coffey's name; and he wrote a memorandum to the effect that he had received the sum of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations, in return for which Mr. Coffey was owner of five per cent interest in the net profits of a well to be drilled on the Abel Watkins ranch near Paradise, to be known as the Ross Junior-Paradise No. 1. But it was understood and agreed that the said well was not to be drilled until there was a good hard road completed from the main street of Paradise to the entrance of the Abel Watkins ranch, and if the said road were not completed within sixty days the said J. Arnold Ross was under no obligation to drill the said well, nor to return to the said Jacob Coffey the said one dollar and other good valuable considerations. And Dad handed that to the said Jacob Coffey, and smiled, and remarked that he hoped it wouldn't fall into the hands of the "Watch-Dog." Mr. Coffey smiled, and laid his hand on Bunny's shoulder, and said he hoped this young man wouldn't make any mistake and talk about it; and Dad said that Bunny was learning the oil business, and the first lesson he had learned was never to talk about his father's affairs. So then they shook hands all round, and the two got into their car, and Bunny exclaimed, "But Dad, I thought you were a Democrat!" And Dad laughed and said that he wasn't deciding the tariff on hyperchlorides, nor the independence of the Philippine Islands, he was just gettin' a road to the Watkins ranch. Bunny said, "There's one thing I don't understand; how can Mr. Coffey do all that, if he hasn't any office?" To which Dad answered that the big fellows as a rule avoided holding office for that very reason, so they were free to do business. Mr. Carey could be sent to prison if it were proven that he had taken money from Dad, but nothing could be done to Coffey, he was just the "boss." The officeholder, said Dad, was either a poor devil who needed a fifth rate salary, or else he was a man actuated by vanity, he liked to make speeches, and be applauded by the crowd, and see his picture in the papers. You would never see pictures of Jake Coffey in the papers, he done his work in his back office, and never in the limelight. Bunny, of course, remembered what he had been taught in the "civics" class, and asked if that was the way the business of government was always run. Dad said it was about the same everywhere, from the county up to the state, and on to the national government. It wasn't really as bad as it seemed, it was just a natural consequence of the inefficiency of great masses of people. It was all right to make spread-eagle speeches on "democracy," but what was the fact? Who was the voters here in San Elido county? Why, the very boobs that Bunny had seen "jumping" and "rolling" and "talking in tongues" at Eli's church; and could anybody pretend that these people could run a government? They were supposed to decide whether or not Dad should have a road and drill a well! It was a sure thing they couldn't do it; and Jake Coffey was the feller that done the deciding for them—he provided that promptness and efficiency that business men had to have, and that couldn't be got under our American system.

III

The water well men got to work, and the telephone line-men; and Dad said it was time to figure on living quarters for their crew. They would get along with a bunk-house while they were prospecting; then, if they found oil, they'd put up nice cabins for the families of the men. Dad said to Paul that he was foolish to waste his time on beans and strawberries, which would keep him a pauper all his life; he had better turn carpenter and do this building job, and after that he could learn oil-drilling. Dad would have his boss carpenter come and figure the materials for the bunk-house, and see to the foundations and the sills, and after that Paul could finish the job with carpenters he'd pick up in the neighborhood, and Dad would pay him five dollars a day, which was just about five times what he'd get working this old ranch by himself. Paul said all right, and they sat down one evening and made out the plans of the house. It was going to be real nice, Dad said, because this was Bunny's well, and Bunny was turning into a little social reformer, and intended to feed his men on patty de far grar. Instead of having one long room with bunks, they'd have little individual cubby-holes, each with its separate window, and two bunks, one on top of the other, for the day man and the night man. There would be a couple of showers, and besides the dining-room and kitchen and store-room, a nice sitting-room, with a victrola and some magazines and books; that was Bunny's own idea, he was a-goin' to have a sure enough cultured oil-crew. Dad and Bunny took a drive to Roseville, to get some furniture and stuff for their own cabin, which was now complete. Dad purchased a copy of the "Eagle," fresh off the press, and he opened it, and burst into a roar of laughter. Bunny had never seen him do that in his life before, so he looked in a hurry, and there on the front page was a story about one Adonijah Prescott, a rancher who lived near the slide between Paradise and Roseville; some three months ago his wagon had been overturned and his collarbone broken, and now he was filing suit against the county for fifteen thousand dollars damages; more than that, he was suing each and every member of the county board of supervisors, alleging neglect of their public duties in leaving the road in an unsafe condition! On the editorial page appeared a two-column discourse on the dreadful condition of the aforesaid road; there were mineral springs nearby, and it had been proposed to develop them, but the project had been dropped, because of lack of transportation; and now there were possibilities of oil, but these also were in danger, because of bad roads, which kept San Elido one of the most backward counties of the state. The "Eagle" stated that a public-spirited rancher, Mr. Joe Limacher, was circulating a petition for immediate repairs to the road along the slide, and it was to be hoped that all citizens and tax-payers would sign up. Next day along came Mr. Limacher, in a rusty Ford, and asked Dad to sign! Dad looked very thoughtful, and said it would cost him a hell of a lot of taxes. The public-spirited Mr. Limacher— who was being paid three dollars a day by Jake Coffey—argued a while with Dad, and in the end Dad said all right, he didn't want his neighbors to think him a cheap-skate, so he'd sign along with the rest. Four days later came the news that the supervisors had held a special meeting and voted immediate repairs to the slide road; and two days after that came the grading gang, teams of big horses with heavy plows—you'd never have guessed there were so many in the county, there must have been a score of them on that two mile stretch. They tore up the ground, and men with crowbars rolled the boulders out of the way, and more teams with scrapers slid the dirt this way and that, and pretty soon it began to look like a highway. And then, beginning at the Paradise end, came countless loads of crushed rock, in big motor trucks which tilted up backwards and slid out their burden. There were machines to level this material, and great steam-rollers to roll it flat— gee, it was wonderful to see what Dad's money could do! They had ordered the lumber for the bunk-house, and got it in by small loads, and Paul was at work with half a dozen men from the neighborhood. He had engaged them himself, telephoning from Paradise; and if any of them felt humiliated at working under a nineteen year old boss, Dad's twenty-two dollar check salved their feelings at twelve-thirty every Saturday. Even old Mr. Watkins, Paul's father, was impressed by this sudden rise of his "black sheep," and no longer said anything about hell-fire and brimstone. It was on his ranch, you understand, that all this activity was taking place; the carpenters' hammers were thumping all day, and up near the head of the arroyo the artesian well was flowing, and a gang of men and horses were leveling a road up to the drilling site. It seemed to the Watkins family as if the whole county had suddenly moved to their ranch. It meant high prices, right on the spot, for everything good to eat they could raise. You could not help being impressed by so much activity, even though you knew it was the activity of Satan! Best of all was the effect upon Ruth, who fairly shone with happiness over Paul's success. Ruth kept house for Dad and Bunny, besides what she did for Paul and herself; but it seemed to agree with her, she filled out, and her cheeks grew rosy. She had money to buy shoes and stockings and clean dresses, and Bunny noticed all of a sudden that she was quite a pretty girl. She shared Bunny's idea that his father was a great man, and she expressed her admiration by baking pies and puddings for him, regardless of the fact that he was trying to keep his weight down! The four of them had supper together every evening, after the day's work was done, in the Rascum bungalow with the bougainvillea vine; and then they sat out under the vine in the moonlight and talked about what they had done, and what they were going to do, and the world was certainly an interesting place to be alive in!