“What do you mean by that?” Hanns asked.
“They can harvest what seeps to the surface. The family still owns anything deeper than a plough can turn.”
“So?”
“Oil, Hannsi, it is all about the oil. The family is sitting on a gold mine and you own it.”
“Oil?”
“That’s right! Oil! We will sink a well over the grease seep.”
“Hermann, the village is not going to let us drill a well and pump out oil without making a fuss.”
“Hannsi? How are they going to stop us? We own the land. We own what is on it and what is under it. The tenants hold a lease. They have leave to farm the land and build in the village. Someone else owns the rents. But the family still owns the land,” Hermann smiled. He knew there was something a bit odd about the terms of the Lehen the family held.
When their ancestor was given the fief ages ago, in return for his knightly service at arms, he thought there might be something worth mining on the land. So he asked for and got the right to mine. The family figured the Herzog gave it to him because the then “His Grace, the duke” knew there was nothing there. They owned the mineral rights free and clear in the face of any custom to the contrary and they could prove it. Hermann’s grandfather staggered out of the burning manor house with his arms wrapped around an iron-bound chest to die a slow painful death from horrible burns. The chest held the family papers. Some were so old the parchment was brittle. “I told you, you’re sitting on a gold mine.”
“So, maybe I have a right to the oil? But the tenants have the use of the land.” Hanns was skeptical.
“Hannsi, they have never cropped that portion. They have never run stock on it to graze. They don’t harvest the grease anymore.” Hermann was sure of this because they always checked anytime they hunted through the area. If they were harvesting the grease a toll was due the family. “They are not using it, they haven’t ever used it other than years ago to collect any grease that came to the surface and they can still do that. It is like the wood lot next to it, if it isn’t technically part of the wood lot anyway. They do not have the use of the land other than the limited right to harvest the grease, just like there is a set portion of the trees they can take.”
“Still, Hermann, we don’t have one of those things that goes hiss and thump.”
“You mean a steam driver?”
“Whatever you call it. We don’t have one and we can’t afford to hire one. We couldn’t even get one to the seep if we did. There is no road back there, only a path and the only bridge is a log across the creek.”
“Don’t need one. All a steam driver does is push enough steam under the hammer so the weight goes up then the steam escapes and the weight comes down. Ten men with a rope can do the same thing.”
“Hermann, you’re not listening to me. We don’t have the money. We can’t afford to hire ten men.”
A stranger turned from the next table turned to face them and said, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to intrude. And I wasn’t meaning to eavesdrop on your conversation. But you weren’t being particularly quiet about it. Do I understand correctly that the only thing between you and an oil well is capital to hire labor and buy materials?”
“No,” said Hanns.
“Yes,” said Hermann.
“Let me introduce myself,” the short, blond, blue-eyed stranger said, pulling his chair up to their table. “My name is Adolph Holz.” He faced Hanns. “You have a grease seep?”
Hanns looked at the short man with ice blue eyes and blond hair that was almost white from the summer sun and formed an opinion. He was probably a small-time merchant or a younger son of a larger merchant house. His clothes were not rich, but he was not a laborer by a long spell. Hanns decided he could trust the man to be reasonably honest as long as he kept an eye on him and counted the change. “Yes. But there isn’t that much of it and the tenants have a right to what there is,” Hanns said.
Herr Holz turned to Hermann. “You are convinced that you can get oil out of it?”
“Absolutely! I work on a drilling crew and we’ve sunk three wells in or next to seeps just like it. I can do the same on family land. All Hanns has to do is turn loose of the money and I can make the family rich again!” Hermann glared at his cousin.
“Hermann, you’re crazy. Besides I haven’t got enough money to do it. And anyway, I wouldn’t let you throw it away even if I had it.” Hanns glared right back.
“My good fellows, please, there is absolutely no cause for family to turn against family here. Now, Hanns, I gather it is not the idea of trying for an oil well that you dislike but the thought of spending the money?”
“I don’t have the money!” Hanns replied.
“Yes he does! He just won’t turn loose of it!”
“And if Hermann could do this without you having to invest any money in it, then would it be all right for him to try?”
“I guess so. Yes, if the tenants don’t object and if the rent holder doesn’t object, and I don’t really see how they can do anything other than grumble, I can let him drive a well on the land, it should be all right. After all, it is our land. Yes, as long as he pays for it and it doesn’t cost me anything then he can drill his well.”
Hermann sneered. “You know I can’t raise that kind of cash.”
Holz smiled. “But if you had the cash you are sure you can bring in an oil well?”
“Sure I can!”
“Then the solution is simple.” He looked at Hanns again, “I will put up the money, Hermann will organize and run the project, you will provide the land and we will split the income three ways.”
“Fine,” said Hanns.
“No way!” said Hermann.
“What?” Hanns was truly shocked.
“That oil is ours. I’m not giving away one third of it just because you are too cheap to pay for the drilling.”
“Hermann, I really don’t have the money!”
“Then we will find it somewhere else.”
Adolph Holz saw his chance at a life-changing dream slipping away. “One quarter?” He offered, while waving to a bar maid and making the hand down circular motion that the Wild Cat patrons had learn meant another round. The patrons and staff now accepted it as a way of saying, “Bring another of whatever anyone in the group is drinking.”
In the end, they agreed it was a loan and Adolph would get one half of the output until the loan was paid back, then, a hard-bargained seven percent of the profits after that.
“Why are you doing this?” Hanns asked the stranger.
“I have the money.” Which was true. Even if it wasn’t his money, he did indeed have it. “I like to gamble.” This too was true. “This sounds like a better bet than a game of cards.” This, though, was a cold blooded lie.
“Hermann, why didn’t you hire a steam hammer?” The brawny fellow, who was sweating away, stripped to the waist, in the August heat, asked his friend.
“Johannes, we’ve been over that before. It would have been too much trouble to get it here and it cost too much! We would have had to build a road and a bridge just to get it across the creek. This way all we had to do was build a derrick and the trees for the lumber were already here.”
“If we have to go very deep this is going to take forever.”
“When I was child the crude was practically bubbling up out of the ground. It looked just like that last seep we sank a well in before we quit to come here,” Hermann said for the fourteenth time.
“Quit your grousing and pull,” was all Adolph Holz had to say on the topic. Once he put up the money, Holz wanted to be involved in every step of the project. On the first day, when he tried to sit and watch, work ground to a halt. It wasn’t like his name was von Holz or something. So he was bending his well-dressed if scrawny back to the rope along with Hermann and the hired help. Hanns, of course, claimed he could not free up the time to work on the project. “Hey, I’m providing the land and the lumber you want to cut for the scaffolding. Don’t ask me to waste my time on top of that.” There had been an argument about the lumber until it was pointed out that it would still be there when they were done and it would be cut and ready to be dragged out.
