Jack looked at me again, I thought I saw disappointment in his eyes.
'I'd like to know,' I said quickly.
Jack beamed a smile. 'Glad to show you,' he said. I looked at Daddy, who seemed surprised at my sudden interest. Then he looked at Jack Clovis and smiled. 'You can go look at it if you like, honey, while I go to the trailer to call Aunt Jeanne and home.'
'I don't want to trouble anyone,' I said.
'Oh, heck, it won't be any trouble,' Jack said quickly.
Bart laughed. 'Jack's been waiting for someone to talk to about his well for months now.'
'It's Miss Andreas's well,' Jack reminded him.
'Not the way you brag about it,' Bart retorted.
Jack's deep brown complexion took on a crimson tint. 'I'd love to see it,' I said.
Jack straightened his shoulders. 'Right this way, ma'am,' he declared.
'I'll come and get you,' Daddy said. He left the house with Bart, and I walked out with Jack, who pointed toward the rigs.
'Yours is fourth from the left there,' he said. 'You know anything about oil?'
'Just that it comes in a can,' I said, and he laughed so hard I thought he would crack a rib.
'It doesn't come in a can, ma'am.'
'Please, call me Ruby.'
'Ruby. Oil starts as crude oil deep in the ground. It takes several million years to be formed,' he said in a tone of almost religious respect. 'You know what it comes from, right?'
I shook my head. It seemed as long as I was willing to listen about oil, Jack Clovis was willing to talk.
'Dead plants and animal material that lie buried in sedimentary rock. So,' he said, smiling at me. 'You can see why it takes a while to get into that can.'
'Do all those rigs have oil?' I asked.
'All the ones you see here are called development wells because this is a known oil field,' he continued. 'Even so, some of them were dry. We call them dusters. There's one,' he said pointing at one that stood still. 'Once the oil is pumped up,' he continued, 'we put it in a metal tank called a separator, to separate the oil from the natural gas and water. Then it's stored in those stock tanks. It gets shipped off to the refinery where it's turned into the product you buy.'
'How long have you been doing this?' I asked.
'Since I was twelve. You live in New Orleans, right?'
'Yes.'
'We heard talk about you and your family, but no one knew anything for sure,' he said, shifting his eyes away quickly.
'What sort of talk?' I asked.
'That you once lived here with a woman who wasn't your mother and Mr. Tate, who wasn't your father, and that now you lived in a rich old mansion somewhere and sat back and counted your money,' he replied.
'First,' I began, 'that woman
'Oh. Well, everyone gets stuff wrong here.'
'And second, we don't just sit around counting money. That's hardly us,' I said sharply.
'No offense meant. You asked, so I told you,' he said casually.
'My father works hard; my mother is an artist, and I'm about to go to college to become a doctor.'
'A doctor? Wow!' He whistled. 'Well, there she is. Your well,' he said. I just stared. 'You really didn't know which one it was?'
'I was very little when I lived in that house,' I said, nodding toward the mansion, 'and I was afraid of the oil machinery. They looked too much like mechanical monsters. If anyone took me close to them, I would scream.'
Jack nodded, his face serious, thoughtful. 'I can imagine how a little girl might look out at these babies and think they are some sort of creature. They're alive to me,' he said.
'Like bees, sucking up the oil?'
'Not exactly,' he said, laughing. 'Was that your idea?'
'One of them, in nightmares.'
'Oh. I'm sorry. It's really very interesting work, and I'm always fascinated by the idea that we're drilling deep into the earth and bringing up something that was formed so long ago, even before humans existed.'
I saw he was sincere about his fascination.
'Of course,' he said, lowering his voice, 'I don't talk about the work like this with the other guys.'
I smiled. 'Is it ever dangerous?' I asked him.
'You don't want to be near the rig if there's a blowout.'
