Kettleman Deeps

I had driven into the Kettleman Hills to persuade a pair of landowners to sign drill leases.  My employer, a small petroleum firm, wanted in on Kern County, California’s oil boom, but hadn’t the heft to bid around Bakersfield.   A brutal drought now in its third year had desiccated the scrubby landscape, and it was hot.  100 degrees by the temperature readout on my rental.  II’d gotten a four-wheel drive SUV with high ground clearance and was glad of it when I turned off the lonely state highway onto a rutted dirt road.  The track wound south into the tangled Transverse Ranges.  In the gauzy heat haze, the hills seemed to pulse from something subterranean,  and blistered mesquite baking under a scorching sun along the slopes gave the air a charcoal stench.

My destination, Lizard Springs Ranch, abutted sandstone escarpments tilted up by seismic thrusts from ancient seafloor.  The locale looked like a fire trap with hillsides of dead brush descending to browned pasture and only one way out.  Lacy Chamiss had recently inherited the 200 acre property.   On the phone last night, she’d expressed eagerness for a deal that would let her move on.  The tumbleweeds certainly seemed bent on leaving.  A bunch blew by me as I drove in.  It wasn’t easy avoiding them on the narrow road.  I slowed the car to a crawl and rolled down the window crossing the vacant space in  front of the only house for miles.

    “Go ahead and park where you please,” I heard a woman call out from the porch.

I recognized the voice as Lacy’s.  She was sitting on a dilapidated couch next to an equally dilapidated dog that barely raised its head before returning to snooze mode.  

    “I’m glad my directions got you here okay.  This area has a way of turning people all around,” she said.

    Miss Chamiss was tall, slender, about my age, forty.  She wore black slacks and blouse which matched her hair that hung loose to her shoulders.  Her face appeared worn by worry and the merciless heat.

    “Navigation’s never a problem for me.  Getting agreement’s what gives me troubles,” I said exiting the car, briefcase in hand.  “Like I told you, the deal depends on getting the rights to that larger parcel to the north.  We can’t commit to a project on just your land alone.”  

    I’d made it to the porch and exchanged perfunctory handshakes.  We sat at opposite ends of the couch.  The sleepy dog was between us.  I envied his ease.   A dust devil rose momentarily by my car.

    “I think that owner, Harry Lean.”

     “Lead,” I corrected.”

    “Whatever.  That guy should be committed.  He’s been out here too long.”

    “The Leads do have some history in the Kettleman Hills.”

    “The Leads all end up in the cemetery he’s got out there.  That was the first thing he showed me when I went over.  Makes him so proud.  His folks all died for the cause, you know, but I don’t want to get into that wackiness.”

    And I didn’t want to go into the difficulties such a cemetery might cause my company.  I struggled to focus.  This was supposed to be the easy half of the day’s dealings, but the harsh heat and wind made concentration difficult.  As if on cue, there was a brief but sharp earth tremor.  Lacy chuckled when I startled.    

    “Get ‘em all the time out here,” she said.  “Lead claims they’re increasing because drilling’s riling up something below.  Just to worn you, that man might require some serious talking to.”

   “Warning taken,” I said.

   I suggested it would be better to conduct our business at a table or desk.  That moved us inside.  Lacy’s offer of something to drink was declined, for I wanted no impediment to a rapid return to the air conditioned comfort of the car. We sat at a table with two chairs which constituted half the furniture in the stark but sizable front room.  Along the opposite wall, a roll-top desk held a clutter of yellowed papers.  Worn envelopes of varying size jammed the cubbyhole compartments.  I’d have bet not a one had been mailed this millennium.  An old rotary dial telephone sat atop a pile of tattered parchment sheets.  The phone’s cloth cord was badly frayed.  The house’s wiring and plumbing were likely in similar disrepair.

.     Opening my briefcase, I laid papers on the scarred wood while speaking.

   “Lead’s not the only one around here who’s got spook stories to tell.  Believe me, I’ve heard plenty.  I did some research and found these tales go clear back to the county’s first oil strike.  That’s eighteen ninety something.”  

    “Well I’ve heard talk that went back way further.  When I was a little girl, my uncle told me in this very room about a force molded deep in the earth over millions of years.  On its own, it never moves, but it’s going everywhere because of what we do.  Just how, I never understood.  Hell, none of it made any sense, but it gave me nightmares.”

    Lacy wore a far away look remembering then added, “Stay out here long enough, and that’s the way you start thinking.  I’m not about to let that happen to me.”

    Her anxiety had to be contagious.  I had no other explanation for the desperate desire to flee that suddenly welled up within me.   

    “You know,I think it would be best if I just leave this material with you.  I’ll call you this evening after you’ve had a chance to look it over.  That way I can go to Lead’s place right now, and I’ll let you know tonight if he’s going to be a problem.”

    I was closing up my briefcase and rising to leave as I spoke.

    “My uncle left me a bunch of papers to go over on the desk there.  I really  don’t want to, but something keeps pulling me back to read more, and it can be hard.  Some of the pages are just about impossible to figure.  The writing’s illegible, faded, or foreign.  I’ll have to say a passage out loud real slow trying to sound  out how it’s supposed to go.”

   Lacy plainlyhad more to say, but her words had so ratcheted up my tension that it didn’t matter to me how rude and uncalled for being abrupt was.  I just said “goodby” and went out the door.  I had to shoo away the dog who tried to get into the car with me.  Then I drove much too fast down the bumpy lane.

    It was noon, and I feared my meeting with Lead would be lengthy.  He’d come across as a garrulous old timer on the phone.  His holding was sizable, over a thousand acres situated where the Kettleman Hills level out to prairie.  Vegetation on the flatland was limited to scatterings of shrubs bent by wind and withered by the punishing drought.  The road was indistinct, and I was on it for quite awhile.  It kept turning in different directions for no apparent reason.  “Convoluted,” Lead had warned.  The track forked, and I had to turn around after dead ending.  The car’s thermometer now registered 105, and I had a sinking feeling Lead’s place lacked air conditioning.

    I finally got to the ranch center.  There were a couple of sheds, a big barn that had seen better days, tanks for water and propane, and a nice looking double-wide trailer with a side yard of grass bordered by miniature palms that I parked beside.  I checked my briefcase to make sure the papers were in proper order and braced myself for the heat.  Outside, it was heartening to hear a large air conditioner running alongside the trailer.

    The front door opened after what seemed ages waiting in furnace like conditions.  Lead backed away from the opening bidding me enter into the wonderful coolness.  The man was quite elderly.  88 according to company reports and looked even older.  He was stooped over and wrinkled beyond belief.  A few wispy strands of hair clung to a skull blotched with liver spots.  However, he was dapper in dress: tailored suit, silk tie with diamond stickpin, gold cuff links, Rolex watch, and sharp leather shoes.  I had on casual slacks  and a sports shirt which I’d assumed would be dressier than my client’s clothing.  

    I followed the old gent over to a couple of leather couches set around a glass coffee table.  A silver tray on the tabletop held shaker, ice bucket, two martini glasses, a bottle of Gilbey’s Gin and one of Boissiere Vermouth.  And just how had Lead learned these were my preferred drink fixings?  I let it pass.  I’ve had prospects use tricks like this seeking an edge in negotiations.

    “You have a nice place here,” I said blandly.

    Expensive artwork adorned the walls. At the far end of the room, ceiling high curio cabinets held oddly shaped porcelain figurines, carved masks, and jeweled daggers.  Even at a distance, the collection appeared menacing.

    “What’s bellow's been good for Leads.  Now you’re preparing to pay, and you’ll end up in it.”

      Not having a clue what this meant, I sought to direct the conversation towards business with an allusion to financial gain.

    “I think we can end up with a deal where everybody profits,” I said.

     I laid my briefcase near the drink tray and noticed an oil pump, the sort that looks like a giant ant, had been artistically etched into the silver.

    “Of course we will,”  Lead said and started loading the shaker with ice, gin, and vermouth.  “Miss Chamiss has her part down pat, rehearsed it plenty she has, reading passages aloud, trying to make sense of them.  This very second she’s saying words, the right words.  How do I know?  Because every system’s built of it so everything’s telegraphed.  Once you sink in at the source, you get hooked up.  I’m speaking of our local source.  There all over.”

    Lead handed me the drink container.

    “You’re more spry.  Shake this thing some and pour us both a glass.”

    A drink couldn’t possibly make Mr. Lead any more cryptic, and I’d definitely welcome one.  I shook, poured, raised my glass in toast, and relished the icy relief going down.

    “That hits the spot,” I said and snapped open my briefcase.

    “It’s what fuels us,” Lead said.

    He took a big gulp and grinned.  His dentures were clearly coming loose.

    “Speaking of which,” I said laying a 12 page stapled lease document down before him.  “We think a great deal of fuel can be extracted here, and my company is making a handsome offer both for the rights to drill and to share in the sale of anything produced on your property.”

    Lead downed the rest of his drink in a couple of big gulps and set the glass down atop the lease pages.  His watery gray eyes suddenly sharpened.  They focused piercingly on me.

     “What fuels fuel?” he asked.

    “I don’t get you.”

    “Hay fuels a horse.  Seeds fuel a bird.  What fuels fuel?”

    “I truly do not know.”

    “Heat.  It needs heat.”

    Lead had sprung up faster than I would have expected though he couldn’t straighten out to his full height which had to be over six feet.  His crouched stance made him five five.

    “You’ve lost me,” I confessed.

    “You’ve been found, and I’m proud to play a role.  My only regret’s that none of my family’s left to participate, but sacrifices are required.” Lead said and collapsed onto the couch laughing.

    I suspected the martini he’d just downed was not his first of the day. A man his age likely needed something to act this stimulated.  Lead took the drink glass off the papers and pulled a fancy fountain pen out of his coat pocket.  After flipping through the pages, he started signiing his name and putting the date on the appropriate spaces at bottom.

    “You might want to look those over some,” I said

    “No need.  Things will proceed by design.  We can’t be of consequence with something this size. You understand the scale here?  What you figure global warming's all about?  Heat’s its element.  We started using so it got around.  After it was everywhere, we couldn’t do without more and more of it, and that was its plan all along.”

    “Whose plan?” I asked.

    “Oil,” Lead said.

    He put the pen back in his pocket and handed me the signed documents.  I placed the papers back in my briefcase while Lead loaded the shaker with ice and liquor.  I shook it and poured him a drink but declined one myself.  With the lease signed, I had no cause  to linger and again beat a hasty retreat.  Lead called out to me from  the trailer doorway as I hurried toward my car.

    “You’re lighting out fast because your survival instinct sounding an alarm.  Won’t do no good.  Its got you.  Its got us all.”

    I was glad to leave this goofy gab behind.  My plan now was to drive on over to Lizard Springs Ranch, answer any questions Lacy might have, get her to sign the lease, and make it to my motel in time for a swim before dinner.  It pleased me to think how productive a day this was becoming.  I tried calling Lacy, but my phone was dead.  Then I got so turned around getting off Lead’s pplace that I wound up circling his cemetery three times on the web of paths creasing the sere land.  The graveyard held an impressive collection of headstones, at least fifty.  Despite its considerable extent, there would be ample room for my company to build access roads around it.   

    I only had to go a short distance on the state highway before reaching the turn off for Lizard Springs Ranch.  Right after catching  sight of the house, I saw Lacy’s dog run past.  His yellow brown fur looked black.  Glancing in the rear-view, I realized the animal was covered in oil.  When I pulled up before the house, Lacy ran out onto the veranda.  The bathrobe she wore was blackened.  She was covered in oil and screaming.  

     “Help me.  Help me.  You got to shut it off.”

    “What happened,” I asked running onto the porch.

    “In the shower, the water turned to oil.  I slipped.  The dog ran in.  He slipped.  You got to try and turn it off, and for God’s sake, don’t slip.”

    She was pulling me inside by the  hand. The floor in the front room was streaked with oil.  The floor in the bathroom was coated with the stuff.  It was so slick I had to steady myself by grasping towel racks and cabinets to reach the shower enclosure. I twisted the knobs as hard as I could getting myself pretty oiled in the process, but couldn’t stop the black fluid from gushing out.   

    “No good,” I said.

    Oil began spurting out of the sink taps.

    “Forget it.  Let’s get out of here. I’ll just grab some clothes.  In the kitchen, under the sink there some garbage bags we can put on the seats so I don’t mess your car so much.  There’s also some rags and detergent you can  wash yourself off with.  I’m too far gone.  I’m hoping you’ll take me down to the coin-op car wash.  It’s about six miles down the highway.  You got to hose me down with soap then rinse me off before I go someplace to shower.”

    “Sure thing.  You can shower after at my motel room,” I told her.

    She muttered “thanks” and ducked into the bedroom.  I went into the kitchen and got a package of garbage bags out from under the sink and soaked a rag with dish washing detergent.  Oil gushed out when I turned on the faucet.  The flow proved unstoppable.  The Kettleman Hills are rife with small pressurized pockets of oil.  I told myself that the recent tremor caused the piping of the water-well to rupture into one.  My imagination fought a losing battle against darker considerations of primordial ooze as beginning and end with humanity something petty and brief in-between.

    I met Lacy in the front room and didn’t bother mentioning the oil in the kitchen. We  left the house too shaken to speak.  At the car, we lay garbage bags on the seats silently before getting in.  Lacy had wiped herself down pretty good and probably had less oil smeared on her than I did.  I turned the car on grateful for the cool coming from the air conditioner.

     “We’re going to be okay,” I said when I finally put the car in gear.

    I did not sound convincing.

    “Where you going?” Lacy shouted when the car turned left heading towards the  Transverse Ranges.

     “I’m not doing this,” I said frantically pushing buttons on the dash.

    The dealer had mentioned the car could park itself.  I’d paid no attention.  I never use driver-less systems.  Now I couldn’t get out of one.  Shutting off the ignition did nothing.  None of the controls worked, the pedals, the steering wheel, nothing.

    “Where does this road go?” I asked.

    ”Lord, it goes way back branching off  towards Wheeler Ridge and Big Pine Mountain, but it gets pretty rough. I don’t know how far this car could get.”

    “Or how far it’s programmed to get,” I said.

    My voice kind of trembled.  I couldn’t give myself much reason not to panic.  The car was traveling over serious ruts and bumps at a good clip.  The hills were closing in, becoming larger and steeper. They were matted with  fire blackened chaparral. The temperature guage read 110.  We had no water, and I was thirsty.  The only thing I’d had to drink in  the last three hours was a dry martini.

    I checked my watch before addressing Lacy who kept nervously running her fingers through her oily hair and then wiping them on a towel taken out of the tote bag she’d brought.

    “Were you reading something out loud from one of those parchment sheets at around ten after one?” I asked.

     “Yeah, what’s this all about?”   

     “What did it say?”

    “Mumbo jumbo.  Within without, above below, we are one, the time has come, it’s now begun.  I don’t know, it went on and on like that.  Something about under has risen and above will know below.  Does that mean something to you?”

    Before I could respond, Lacy shrieked, “Can the car do this?”

    We’d dropped into a steep gulch and only our momentum carried us up the other side.  The roughness of the ride shut us up.  It was a jeep road now.  The tires began to spin going up a grade.  The incline was too steep, and the engine stalled.  I tried the ignition.  Nothing.

    “What do we do?” Lacy shouted.

    I was worried she was about to lose it, that we were both about to lose it.  I took hold of her hand trying to reassure her.  Our palms were oily.  

    “We got to go back to your place.   You must have some water or juice in the fridge, right?”

    “Sure, I got a whole case of bottled water, but we’ve come a ways.”

    I figured it to be five miles, and the temperature guage read 112.  At least it was mostly downhill.

    “No choice,” I said stepping out into the heat.   

    I tried the trunk to see if there was anything in there we could use, but it wouldn’t open.  Lacy handed me a towel to drape over my head to give me some sun shielding and cloaked her head as well.  Hot air burned my nostrils, and my shirt clung to my skin with sweat before we’d gone a hundred yards.

    At the lip of the gully, we paused to pick out a safe path down.  I was amazed the car had managed to climb out of this declivity.   At the bottom, I had the sinking feeling we would not.  We sat to rest in the spot of shade provided by a contorted ironwood tree whose limbs hung gallows like above us.

    “Is that a water pump?” Lacy excitedly said pointing to a black metal contraption a couple hundred feet to our left anchored alongside a sheer face of conglomerate.

    She started running towards it.

    “Save your strength,” I called after.

    I knew it couldn’t be a working water well.  After getting up close, I was able to identify the aged plumbing from my readings.

    “This is Indian Springs.  Unfortunately, the springs were of oil not water.  The Indians use to come up here to collect it, and then in the late nineteenth century, wildcatters drilled it out, and it became the county’s first operating oil well.  It’s been shut off for over a century.

    It was no longer shut off.  The entire unit began violently shaking.  The pipes sputtered and hissed.  Sounding like a roaring dragon, the well blew with a geyser of wonderful cool water.  We danced around in the cascading shower and fell to our knees.  Cupping our hands, we drank again and again from the torrents that drenched us. We were saved.

    Only we weren’t.  I stopped guzzling and stared in horror at Lacy who was covered in oil and gulping down great gobs of it.  I had to have swallowed over a quart of the stuff myself and began retching.  Lacy joined me in barfing.  When we could puke no more, we collapsed supine in the pooling oil.  Then the earth opened to receive us.

                                                                The end