Protected Pt. 01

I unlocked the coach and entered, setting my laptop on the table. "Mafic! I'm home!" I heard the soft thump of Mafic, a fat orange tabby named after a type of igneous rock, jumping off my bed before he appeared, mewling his greeting as he blinked sleepily. I bent down, picked him up, and nuzzled him while giving him good scratch behind the ears before placing him on the couch. "You hungry?"

Mafic meowed that he was as I pulled out a can of cat food and opened it, plopping the contents into a bowl before setting it on the floor by his water dish. While he ate, I checked the status of the coach. Sitting in the middle of nowhere, the RV was burning a lot of diesel keeping the interior cool, the water hot, and the lights on. The water and fuel tanks were going to need to be filled, and the sewage tanks emptied, in a day or two. I'd mention it Todd, the site foreman, tomorrow, and have the fuel truck swing by when it went out to refuel the thumpers. Normally the RV was parked in a campground with hookups, but there were none available within a two-hour drive, so I had to rough it... if someone could call living with all the comforts of home roughing it. I wasn't sure how Todd was going to handle the water and sewage problem, but he was an old pro at keeping my home operational, and I suspected he had several options already lined up, so I didn't worry about it.

I prepared myself a meal of pan-seared chicken breasts with shallots, along with a quick cooking package of frozen seasoned rice for a side. As I ate, I scrolled through the data, comparing my program's data with that of the standard 3D-mapping software most of the industry used, Larke Oil included. The voids and strata data were a near-perfect match, which made me sigh in relief. It appeared I'd finally found and squashed the bug that caused the inclinations to be off by about five percent in seemingly random situations. I rotated the maps, looking at them from different angles. If my data, while far from complete, was accurate, we were sitting on a field rich with natural gas and crude. Not surprising considering how rich the surrounding fields were, but I'd seen stranger things. I worked on the data until well after dark, absently stroking Mafic, until my brain began to feel like mush.

"I think that's enough for tonight, don't you?" I asked the purring mound of fur on my desk as I picked up my dish and glass, giving them a quick rinse before popping them into the dishwasher. The washer was full, so I set the machine to run in the middle of the night, conserving the hot water for my shower.

Shower finished, I dressed in one of my nightshirts, a pale-yellow affair that reached my knees, with the words, Geology: It's Rock-It Science splashed on the front. It was one of a half-dozen or so shirts I owned that had geology puns on them. They weren't the sexist thing I owned, but Mafic didn't care, and the shirts were supremely comfortable. Picking the cat up and placing him in my lap, I curled up on the couch and turned on the television, flipping through channels until I stopped to watch John Wayne put out an oil well fire. I'd seen various parts of the movie at least four or five times, but I didn't care. I watched until the end, slowly stroking the animal as sleep began to win its war with my consciousness.

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COLT

I rolled to a stop outside the BDMC clubhouse, my rumbling Harley falling silent with the flick of my thumb. I quickly counted twenty-one other bikes as I dismounted and stretched the kinks out. The club was all here.

I paused for a heartbeat just inside the door, my eyes quickly scanning the space as they adjusted to the relative dimness. The BDMC clubhouse was huge, a one-twenty by two-hundred foot prefab the club had erected years before I joined. It had a large main room with a pool table, bar, video games, and plenty of seating, and in the back of the building there was a large kitchen and three small bedrooms sharing space with the 'chapel,' what we called our private meeting room. Sitting on a one-acre lot, the rear of the building was shaded by a group of large Texas Ash and Cottonwood trees with a dozen picknick tables and three huge grill pits beneath. The trees made a mess in the fall but provided much welcomed shade in the heat of summer.

The place was still my second home, but now the clubhouse had a slightly faded and worn appearance. The building had been erected when the BDMC had over two hundred brothers and the resources to maintain it, but now, with only twenty-two brothers, and no income for the club, upkeep was coming out of our pockets. It wasn't a dump, and we were doing what we could, but the building, both inside and out, was slowly falling into disrepair. Hopefully, that was about to change.

I went straight to the bar to wash the road dust out of my mouth. I picked up my bottle of Garrison Brothers Balmorhea Bourbon from the shelf, poured a splash into a glass, and downed it with a toss, grimacing as the amber liquid burned all the way down. That's how far we'd fallen... we had to bring our own bottles to stock the club's bar.

"So, what did Larke Oil want?" Fish asked as he slowed to a stop across the bar from me while the rest of the club gathered around.

The burn from the whiskey was dying as I pulled out the check and slapped it on the bar.

Fish picked it up and looked at it. "Eighteen thousand. What's this for?"

"A job."

"For us or for you?"

"Us. It's made out to me, but I'll deposit it then write the club a check. We are now, officially, a security service."

"Security service?" Grace asked.

"That's right. Larke Oil wants us to babysit their head geologist and the president's daughter. That's the same person by the way. I'm not sure how we're going to do it, but the pay is good. A thousand a day for twenty-four-hour protection."

"Where is she?" Goose asked.

"Way the hell out in the scrub, somewhere. They gave me a map, but I'll have to figure it out because their map is full of longitude and latitude lines, but has no road names. I assume she's around somewhere close, but she could be in Bumfuck Egypt for all I know."

"How long is this job supposed to last?" Fish asked.

I shrugged. "Don't know, exactly. A couple of months, probably."

"Sixty grand? That'll come in handy," Big Dick said.

"Amen to that, brother," Fish replied, "but why us?"

"I asked the same question. I think it's because they're desperate. I get that impression anyway, and we're the only game in town. We can do this. We know how to run protection. There shouldn't be that much difference between protecting a person and protecting a product. I thought about it on the way back from Houston. I'll meet with her tomorrow and figure out how we're going to set this up, but I'm thinking two-man teams on twelve-hour shifts. That way we'll only have to pull a detail once every six days or so. I have no idea where she's staying at night. That's the kind of stuff I'll work out with her tomorrow. Hopefully this is an easy job and they'll be paying us to sit around on our asses."

Fish nodded. "And the best part... it's legal."

"I think this calls for a celebration," Grace said, rounding the bar to join me. He began tipping over glasses and lining them up on the bar before poured a splash into each one from his own bottle. When he was done, he picked up a glass for himself and held it out and up. "To being in the black again."

A chorus of agreements rumbled through the club as we hefted out glasses in agreement and then tossed back our drinks. Grace was a Tequila man, and after the burn stopped, I quickly scanned the men standing across the bar from me, my smile joining theirs. It was the first time I'd seen everyone looking this happy and hopeful since the purge. I just hoped I hadn't committed the club to something we couldn't handle.

-oOo-

"Grace, Fish, come look at this," I called as I held a finger from each hand on a pair of maps spread out on a table before me. I'd spent over an hour pawing through junk before I found a tattered Texas state road map that the BDMC had used before everyone had a GPS in their pocket. We were the last three men in the clubhouse, the other brothers having trickled out to return to their old ladies and squeezes.

"Did you find her?" Fish asked as he and Grace stepped up behind me.

"I think so. It took a while to find something I recognized, but here, see this road?" I asked as I drew my finger along a line on the Larke Oil map. "I think that's Eagle Pass Road. That much I figured out early, but finding the rest of this hen scratch is what took so long. Anyway, doesn't this," I asked while pointing to the Larke map again, "look like this?" I continued pointing to my Texas road map.

"Looks like it to me," Grace said.

"Me too," Fish agreed.

I stabbed the Texas map with a finger "Okay. Then she's here."

"Jesus. That's out in the middle of nowhere." Fish drew the map a little closer and I watched as his finger moved on the map before stopping on Rio Lago. "Christ! That's at least an hour's ride!"

"And over fucking dirt roads, too," Grace grumbled.

I grinned to myself. Grace was fussy about getting his bike dirty. "Yeah, but it's also a grand a day. I can ride for a couple hours each day for that. Can't you?"

"Yeah. And they don't normally drill for oil in town. I'm not bitching, I'm just..." Fish paused. "Okay I am bitching," he continued with a small smile, "but you're right, it's worth it to get the club back on its feet. And it's only once every five or six days."

"That's the spirit!" I cheered, making sure my voice was dripping with false enthusiasm. "Can you two ride out with me in the morning?"

"I guess," Grace replied. "There's nothing happening at the shop that can't wait a couple of hours. I'll get Maddy to open. Why?"

"Same here. I close tomorrow, so I don't have to work in the morning," Fish added.

"Good. I want you two along in case you see, or think of, something I miss. Three pairs of eyes and all that."

The two men shrugged. "You were in charge of security and logistics. I don't know what we'd see that you wouldn't, but sure. What time?"

"Want to meet for breakfast when Betty's opens? That should put us on the road no later than six-thirty. Let's ride while it's cool."

"Sounds like a plan," Fish agreed. "We'll meet you at Betty's at five-thirty."

I knew I could depend on the two men, on all the brothers in the BDMC. The twenty-two brothers who were left had bonded tight. "I'll see you there."

"I have to go," Grace said as he glanced at his watch. "Maddy sent the kids to her mother's for the night. She told me she was going to be fucking by nine o'clock whether I was there or not. I have thirty minutes to get home."

Fish and I chuckled. Charles and Madeleine Grace had been high school sweethearts, and after thirteen years and three kids, Grace had gotten the snip. Good thing, too, because it was common knowledge around town those two fucked like rabbits. I'd shown up unexpectedly at Grace's welding shop one day after the pivot on my drill rig cracked. When he'd answered the office door, Maddy was sitting on her desk with her hair in disarray, papers and pens were strewn on the floor, and she was still buttoning her blouse. Until that time I'd assumed Grace was mostly talk about how often he and Maddy did it, but now I didn't doubt they went two or three times a day, every day. Of course, if I had Maddy warming my bed every night, I'd be horny all the time, too.

"You better go, then," Fish said.

"See you por la mañana," Grace said, waving as he strode out, his bike rumbling to life a moment later and then roaring away into darkness.

Fish walked to the bar and poured two more shots, one from my bottle, and one from his. That would be my third, and last, for the night. He placed them on the table, spun the chair across from me around backwards, and sat. He picked up his glass and held aloft it until I did the same.

"To friends past, and a brighter future," he said solemnly.

"To friends and a brighter future," I agreed as we tossed our drinks back.

"You did good," Fish said.

"Thanks, Tom. I hope this leads to something. The club could use a break."

"We've held on this long. We can hold on for a little longer, but sixty grand helps a lot. I think we should spend a little of that money sprucing the place up and do something nice for the brothers and sisters. I also think we should refund the money we've put in to keep the club going."

"It might be the last payday for a long time," I reminded him.

"I know, but it's the right thing to do. It'll be nice to have some pride in the place again. Every brother and sister has sacrificed for the club, and I think the club needs to reward that. We can put it to a vote."

I nodded slowly in agreement. "I think you're right. I just don't want to blow it all."

"Nobody wants that, but a club funded picnic, like we used to have? That doesn't cost a lot and it'll remind people what this club's about."

"You're right, but let's not vote it. Let's just do it," I said with a smile. "Pull the numbers and we'll pass out the cash at the picnic."

He nodded. "We'll start getting together a list of things that need doing and get a price. See where we can get the most bang for the buck."

Even though I'd been with the BDMC for eight years, I was still the newest member... of those that had survived the purge anyway. After the purge, the remaining brothers had nominated me to lead the club, and I still had no idea why. I'd suggesting both Fish and Grace would be a better president than I'd be. There were only two candidates for the position. Fish had nominated me, I'd nominated Grace, but I was elected with twenty-one votes, Grace receiving only my vote. I'd tried to be the best president I could, but the BDMC had been struggling. Maybe, finally, I was able to contribute something to the club.

"Before we spend all the money, let's go see Willow tomorrow and make sure we can actually do this."

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WILLOW

I'd gone to bed early last night and woke up as the sun painted the windows of my RV red with morning light. After I'd whipped up a quick breakfast of cheesy eggs for me, and opened a can of food for Mafic, I drove back to the recording truck.

"Morning, Jill," I said as closed the truck's door behind me.

"Morning," the woman mumbled, clearly battling sleep.

The thumpers never stopped, so we ran three shifts of eight hours, seven days a week. I could come and go as I chose, but the sounding techs had to be here. We were still early in the survey, but after three or four of weeks, the grind got bad, and I always took that into account when tempers got short.

I sat down at the work desk and plugged into the capture system. It took almost forty-five minutes to download all the raw data to my computer that had been collected overnight, and then another twenty minutes for the program to crunch all the numbers, but finally the seismic map appeared on my screen. I whistled softly.

"Did you see these voids?" I asked.

"Yeah. It's regular Swiss cheese down there. What does the wonder program say?"

"A lot of water, but a lot of gas, too. Not as much crude as we'd hoped, at least not in this section. It's deep though."

"How deep?"

"Between eight and ten thousand."

She whistled. "This is only the first of twenty-four, though. Maybe we're over an angular unconformity."

"Maybe. How much progress did you make last night?"

"We started mapping between midnight and one o'clock. We'll finish this section today, easy. The quads should finish placing geophones in the next section by noon, so we're a little ahead of schedule there."

I popped open the calendar on my computer and did some quick math. "Assuming we don't run into any problems, we should be done by the Fourth of July. I'm sure that'll make everyone happy."

"Yeah. It'll be nice to be home with the kids for the holiday."

I nodded. It had to be tough on Jill. She'd been with Larke Oil for more than twenty years, and was one of our finest sounding technicians, but that meant long stretches away from home and her family. Why anyone would get married, and especially have a family, while working in the oil fields was beyond me. I could pack up Mafic and bring my family with me, but that didn't work very well with kids.

We chatted about nothing important as the data rolled in, the map updating on my computer about once every two minutes as more sounding data was collected and crunched. The wells were going to have to be deep, but we could sink one almost anywhere and hit something. The trick was going to figure out how to extract the maximum amount of oil and gas with the fewest number of pumps.

-oOo-

"Willow? I think we have a problem," Hank said as he reached for the radio. "Thumper One. Hold position."

I looked up from the seismic reflection map I was studying. Hank had come on shift about an hour ago to take over for Jill. "What?" I asked as I rose and looked over his shoulder. I saw it. Even though the thumpers were stopped and no longer sounding, I could see the geophones were still picking up a disturbance. "Call it up." He typed a moment then a map appeared on the monitor with a line of blinking dots running more or less parallel with a road. "Dammit! Can't people read!" As the geophones and road diverged the noise diminished until it faded away. "Hang on a minute. I need to back that data out of my database. Back the thumpers up about two hundred meters, give me the grid reference, and then have them start again."

While he coordinated getting the thumper trucks reset, I pounded away on my computer, quickly writing a query to back out data to where the trucks were restarting their run. On the regular production software this was easy--a few clicks with the mouse and it was done--but my software wasn't there yet. One more thing to add to my seemingly never-ending list of things to do to get the software ready for primetime. Fortunately, I'd done this very thing so many times over the years, I could almost do it in my sleep.

The thumpers had just started sounding again when I heard the rumbles of motorcycles outside. As Hank worked, I opened the door and bounded out, jumping the last two steps. "Can't you read?" I demanded as the three men dismounted. "You riding in here like this screwed up our sounding data!"

"I'm looking for Willow Larke, with Larke Oil," the youngest of the three men said.

"Who wants to know?"

"Willow?"

I watched at him a moment. "Who are you?"

He stepped forward and extended his hand. "Sorry. Colton Arne. This is Tom Fisher and Charles Grace," he said as he motioned to each man in turn. "Are you Willow Larke?"

I took his hand. "Yes."

Colton nodded. "Your aunt hired me and my men to provide security for you."

"Aunt Pam?" I asked, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. "Why?"

Colton shrugged. "She wants to keep you safe. Apparently there's been a lot of vandalism around, and someone took a shot at you, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "Someone didn't want us driving across their land, despite the fact they signed over the mineral rights to us. We called the Sheriff and they were arrested. End of problem. We don't need security. You'll just be in the way and screw things up, like you did just now."

"Apparently your aunt doesn't agree and thinks you do."

"Well, she's not here."

"No, but I am."

"Look, Colton, I don't want or need your protection. Look around you. I saw you coming from three miles away. What are you going to protect me from?"