A World of Thieves

He drives into Blackpatch on the junction road, the Model T lurching with every gust of wind, the tires sucking through mud, the windshield wiper sweeping vainly against the hard crosswind rain. In the shimmering casts of lightning the surrounding derricks look like a spectral forest. He passes through a dense collection of tent residences, some of them broken free of portions of their moorings and flapping wildly in the wind, their drenched inhabitants flailing and tumbling about in their efforts to catch the loose flaps, to prevent still more of their possessions from sailing away into the night.

Now the junction road becomes the town’s main street and the bright lights are a wavering glare on the watery windshield. He has to strain to read the signs on the slowly passing establishments—the Miscue Pool Emporium, the Monkeyboard Game Palace, the Pipeline Cafe, the Yellow Rose Ballroom…one after another.

Despite the wind and the closed car windows, the stink and tumult of the town carry into the Model T. He breathes the pestilential exhalations, hears muted shrieks and bellows from within each place he passes, raucous laughter, a squalling welter of music. He has looked upon many oil towns and despises them all as dens of rank iniquity. He abhors the worthless sorts who inhabit them—drifters and grifters, whores and gamblers and cons, thieves of every persuasion. It seems fitting to him that the brute he hunts after should find his way here, down to this foul pit.

And then—in the next smeary swipe of the wiper, as another crack of thunder tremors the car and a snake-tongue of lightning illuminates the entire street in an eerie violet light almost bright as day—he sees the sign he seeks. The Wildcat Dance Club….

She was skilled at her calling, Nurse Rose. In fifteen minutes she had Belle’s wound cleaned out and bandaged, and she gave her some pills to take against the pain. The flashes of lightning had increased in frequency, the window curtain brightening with every flare, the sash rattling with every thunderclap. Max had gone back to his post in the hallway. Mona poured drinks for us all, but Nurse Rose politely declined. She closed up her bag and headed for the door, saying she should get back upstairs to assist the doctor.

Bubber said it would likely be a while before Gustafson could tell us anything about Russell’s condition, and what I ought to do in the meantime was get our bags out of the roadster before somebody else did.

“In case you ain’t never heard,” he said with a tired smile, “the world’s full of damn thieves. A man can’t be too careful.”

We did need dry clothes, and I wanted to retrieve Russell’s revolver from under the car seat. And I had three hundred dollars in my valise. Back at the house, Russell had put the rest of the money in an envelope and taped it behind the water tank over the toilet. Belle asked if it wouldn’t be safer in a bank and Russell said, “You kidding? With so many damn bank robbers on the loose?” It was an argument Buck had always used against putting money in a bank.

Bubber took a key ring from his pocket and detached two keys and handed them to me. “The skinny one’s an extry to my Chrysler,” he said. “It’s down the street a couple of blocks, over by ragtown, front of a pool joint. I let a buddy borrow it to carry some of Mona’s hooch over there. You can use it to fetch your goods to the Hightower without getting them all wet. The other key’s to the room. You all can sleep there tonight.”

He kept a permanent room at the Hightower Hotel, with a private parking spot in back. He and Mona usually stayed there when he was in town because it was farther removed from the oil field and not as noisy as the Wellhead, where she lived.

Mona thought we should wait till the storm passed. “You’ll be soaked to the skin before you take two steps out there.”

Belle laughed and said she didn’t think she could get any wetter than she already was. And I thought Bubber was right—no telling how long the storm would keep up, and the sooner we got our bags out of the stolen roadster the better.

“I’ll ring you at the hotel soon as we know about Russell,” he said.

Belle gave me a look. I hadn’t told Bubber about Russell calling me a bastard and holding a gun on me. About punching him out. About having no idea what his inclination toward me would be if he pulled through.

The car was parked in front of the Miscue Pool Emporium, right where the junction road came into town. We were sodden by the time we reached it and got in out of the slinging sheets of rain.

“Whooo!” Belle said, laughing, swiping water off her face with her hand.

An explosion of thunder made us both flinch—and we busted out laughing. She leaned into me and put her hand to my face and kissed me.

Then came the brightest flashes yet, three or four in rapid sequence and accompanied by a barrage of thunderclaps that shook the Chrysler. I looked out the rear window just as a jagged lightning fork hit the holding tank on the hilltop.

For an arrested moment the entire tank was encased in an incandescent blue light and shedding sparks like a welding torch—and then its roof burst into fire.

Belle turned to look, and her mouth came open.

A tower of orange flames rose from the tank roof and swirled in the gusting wind, casting the street in a quavering light. The handful of people out in the storm began hollering and running to the nearest doors to give warning.

The lightning strike had also undone some of the tank’s welds—streams of burning oil were running down the tank sides. Running into the gullies. Riding the flow of rainwater down the hill and toward the town.

Belle grabbed my arm. “My God, Sonny…let’s go!”

Her expression was as resolute as fearful. I followed her gaze out to the road in front of us. It ran past the ragtown and lay clear of traffic, thanks to the storm. Straight ahead and we’d be free as birds. Just a quick swing through Fort Stockton to get the money from the house.

In that moment, looking out at the road, I envisioned us at our ease at an iron lacework table in a courtyard of stone fountains and deep green shade, sipping bourbon sprigged with mint, myself suited like a dandy, she in a sleek black dress cut low, wearing pearls, her hair grown long and woven in a braid, our conversation soft and teasing as we discussed how best to take our pleasure in the evening ahead, the days to come, the years.

Men were scrambling out of bloated wind-whipped tents, clutching their hats to their heads, gaping in the glowing orange rain at the flaming tank behind us. I cranked up the engine and put the car in gear, everything in me saying Go.

The clamor of alarm was swelling as people swarmed into the street. The rearview mirror shone with firelight. I looked back at the burning oil snaking down the gullies to the foot of the hill and spreading into a widening tide of fire coming steadily on. Cars slewing into the street. People running. Abandoning everything but