Blind Descent

Several wells outside the town of Carlsbad were close enough to the highway that she had already seen them. They were past the drilling stage; casings were in place, and the business of draining the petroleum pockets was in progress. Little remained but pipes and tanks built low to the ground and painted a neutral grayish-yellow. As far as A

"How close to the park boundary?" A

"Pretty close," he said. "But strictly legit. They got a lease. They can sink a line straight down beside the fence if they want to. The Blacktail's not that bad. See that beaky-looking rock sticking out?" He pointed to a wedge of limestone protruding from a slope an eighth of a mile distant. "That's where the boundary line runs. And don't think it's not checked regularly. Carlsbad is a stickler. So are we."

For Holden it was a long speech. A

Moving to more neutral territory, she asked, "What are you checking the Blacktail for?"

"We check all the wells every now and then. By law, they've got to file regular reports on the drilling. How deep. How long. Pipes. Casings. That sort of thing. The Blacktails last report mentioned a loss of returns. When they are drilling, the drill fluids bring up mud and rock cuttings. A loss of return means they're drilling all right, but nothing is coming back. Could mean a lot of things. Could mean they've hit open space. A cavern. The Blacktail is along the same lineament as Big Manhole. There's logic to cave formations." Holden winked at A

A

A barrel-chested man introducing himself as "just plain Gus" emerged from the trailer to greet them. Gus was covered in filthy dungarees and a coat that looked as if it had survived the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He ushered them into the trailer. To A

For once she appreciated the wind. Facing north, she shook her head, letting the cold strip away the nicotine residue. Four men, bundled in layers and hard-hatted, had appeared from somewhere and were occupied unloading pipe from the flatbed. Mouths moved, orders were shouted, but the roar of the forklift engine and the whine of the wind drowned out the words.

A

"A guy was killed up there, you know."

The voice at her shoulder so closely echoed her thoughts, A

"Some broad found him," the man went on, words coming out with smoke. "Guy had got his head blowed off."

"No kidding?" A

A chance to stand out of the wind and impress the girls must have been the highlight of this driller's day. He looked pleased with himself and his situation. Taking another drag, he embellished. "I knew the guy. We all did. Brent somebody or other. He used to come around. A geologist or some damn thing. Worked for Lattimore and Douglas out of Midland, Texas. They own the Blacktail."

Now that her memory had been jogged, A

"The dead guy?"

She nodded.

"Oh, he was a rock hound. Looked at the core samples. Stuff like that."

"Ah." A

"Scuttlebutt was they were going to unload him. He got himself in bad odor with somebody." The man laughed, and fine particles of dust sifted down from his beard to settle like powdered sugar on his coat front. "Maybe they 'terminated' him the old-fashioned way."

A bellow bored through the wind to their ears. "Break's over." The man crushed his cigarette under a steel-toed boot. "Good talking with you." He touched the brim of his hard hat.

"Likewise," A

Returning to the shelter of the truck, she waited for Holden and turned the murder of Brent Roxbury over in her mind. By the time Holden emerged from the trailer and joined her, she'd kneaded and stretched a few disparate facts into a theory.

Holden Tillman listened with his customary politeness as she outlined it. Half a minute more elapsed while he digested her words and chose his own. "I don't think that's going to fly," he said at last. By the strained edge to his patience, A

"So now you're saying Brent might have been shot because he was working for Lattimore and Douglas? He was shot near here. I'll give you that." His tone was noncommittal.

"I was just thinking aloud." A

"The Blacktail is legal," Holden told her. "They've got a ten-year lease. They're in a place it's legal to drill. They're drilling for what they say they are. The well could produce upwards of three to five million cubic feet of gas a day. You can like the drilling or not, but they've got every legal right to drill as long as they file the reports and abide by the lease stipulations. What happened to your idea that Brent and Frieda's deaths were co

A