“What do you mean, nothing happened? Didn’t the ear work?”
“It worked perfectly.” He started the motor and jammed the car into gear.
“What did you hear?”
“Music,” said the Ute disgustedly. “Highbrow music. Bach and stuff.”
“Was it code of some kind?”
“Nah!” Ralph spat into the night. “Your friend Pepper would say, ‘Come in, Gallup. I’ve got something here that you’d like: the umpteenth symphony by so-and-so.’ Then he’d play a record and say, ‘How did that sound, Gallup?’ And Gallup would answer, ‘Clear as a bell, kid. Keep it up.’ Or Window Rock trailer would come in, ask for a Belafonte number, and then say it was fuzzy and to sharpen up the beam. Craziest performance I ever heard.”
“Maybe they’re just lonesome, way up here,” Sandy said with great relief.
“Maybe. But it’s a mighty expensive way to be lonesome.”
“Or they could be testing,” the boy went on with less assurance.
“That sounds more like it.”
“Or they’re killing time while they wait for a message of some kind?”
“Now you’re cooking with LP gas. The question remains: where is that message going to come from? I don’t like this business, Sandy. It gets screwier. I wish we could monitor his station every night, but that’s impossible, of course. Well, at least we know our ear works and that Cavanaugh keeps a kennel. I wonder what John and Don will make of this one.”
“When will Mr. Hall be back?” Sandy was glad for a chance to change the subject.
“Next week, I think. Keep this under your hat, but he has got his loan, and has flown down to Houston to put some more rigs under contract. Also, I wangled a portable drill rig when I was in Farmington today. That means we’ll soon be heading for the other lease to run some surveys. And that’s a job that separates the men from the boys, I can tell you.”
“After what happened tonight I feel as if I’d already been separated.” Sandy yawned. “Gee, don’t oilmen ever get any sleep?”
CHAPTER TEN
Pepper Makes a Play
A huge truck carrying a light folding drill rig and motor rumbled into camp from Farmington two days after the Elbow Rock episode. Donovan then set about organizing an exploration crew. Since the need for secrecy had lessened, only five of the older men were selected to act as a token guard for the property. Ten others, who had had experience in survey work, were directed to take tarpaulins off the long-unused instrument and “shooting” trucks, tune up their motors, and get the trailers set for travel. After Ralph had checked every item on the rented truck and Donovan had made sure that his seismograph, magnetometer, gravimeter and other scientific apparatus were all in perfect working order, the little caravan rolled westward toward Hall’s other San Juan River lease.
“We may be going on a wild-goose chase,” the geologist told Sandy, who was riding with him in the jeep that now had the laboratory in tow. “I had an aerial survey run on the property last fall. It shows one anticline that may contain oil, but I’ll have to do a lot of surface work before I recommend that John spends money on a wildcat well.”
“How do you make an aerial survey, Mr. Donovan?”
“I’d like you to call me Don, if you will, Sandy,” the geologist said. “And you ought to call John by his first name, too. Oilmen don’t go in for formality after they get acquainted.”
“Yes, sir… Mr.—Don, I mean.” Sandy felt a warm glow at this mark of friendship.
“One method of making an aerial survey is by means of photographs taken from a plane or helicopter,” the geologist explained. “A stereoscopic color camera is used to provide a true three-dimensional picture of the area in which you are interested. Such photographs show the pitch and strike of surface rock strata and give you some idea of what formations lie beneath them. In addition, prospectors use an airborne magnetometer. You know what a magnetometer is, don’t you?”
“It measures small differences in the earth’s magnetic field.”
“Right! I see that you listened when your dad talked about geology. Well, you fly a magnetometer back and forth in a checkerboard pattern over any area where photographs have shown rock formations favorable for oil deposits. Heavy basement strata are more magnetic than the sedimentary rocks that cover them. So, when those igneous basement rocks bulge toward the surface of the earth, your magnetometer reading goes up. That gives you a double check because, if the basement bulges, the sedimentary rocks that may contain oil have to bulge too. And such a bulge, or anticline, may trap that oil in big enough quantities to make it worth your while to drill for it.
“Then, if your money holds out—aerial surveys cost a young fortune—you may run a triple check with a scintillation counter to see whether there’s a radiation halo around the anticline. One complication with that is that you have to remove the radium dials from the instrument panel of your plane to keep leakage from interfering with your scintillation readings.”
A loud honking from the rear of the column caused Donovan to stop the jeep. Going back, they found that the new drill truck had slipped into a ditch and was teetering dangerously.
Although they had been traveling through such wild and arid country that it seemed impossible that even prairie dogs could live there, quite a crowd collected while they struggled and sweated for half an hour to get the machine back on what passed for a road. First came a wagon pulled by two scrawny horses and carrying a whole Navajo family—father, mother, two children and a goat. An ancient truck with three more Indians aboard pulled up in a cloud of dust. Then came two Navajos on horseback.
Ralph recognized one of the riders and gravely offered him a cigarette which he held crosswise between his first and second fingers.
“Hosteen Buray, we need your help,” said the driller after his gift had been accepted.
The rider said a few words to the other bystanders and things began to happen. The riders galloped away and came back dragging a small tree trunk that could be used to raise the truck axle. The children gathered sagebrush to stuff under the wheels. The woman milked her goat into a pan and presented the steaming drink to the thirsty oilmen. Finally, everyone got behind the machine and pushed with many shouts and grunts.
With Ralph’s expert hand at the wheel, the truck struggled back onto the trail.
After receiving “thank yous” from all concerned, the Navajos stood aside and waved in silence as the column drove away.
This time, Sandy asked to ride with the driller because, as he explained, “I’ve got a lot of questions about things.”
“Shoot,” said Ralph.
“Why didn’t anyone offer to pay those people for helping us?”
“They would have been insulted. That’s how Cavanaugh got in bad with them in the first place—by insisting that they take money for everything. Navajos are proud. Next question.”
“Why did you hand out cigarettes in that funny way, instead of just offering your pack?”
“You never point anything at an Indian. It might be a gun.”
“Oh…”
“Anything else on your mind, Sandy?”
“Are all Navajos named Hosteen something-or-other?”
“Hosteen means ‘Mister.’ Most white men don’t use the term. The Navajos resent that, too.”
“I guess I’ve got a lot to learn,” the boy sighed.
“You’re doing all right.” Ralph slapped him on the knee.
*