Michener, James A. (164 page)

'You mean real oil 7 '

'I do. Not a bunch of spectacular gushers like Spindletop. But good, dependable oil trapped in the rocks below us.'

'If you're right, could we make some real money 7 '

'A fortune, if we handle it right.'

'And what would right be?'

'How much of this land around here do you own 7 '

'I'm sure you've checked at the courthouse. Well over seven thousand acres.'

'Where does it lie, relation to the tank 7 '

'South and some across Bear Creek to the west.'

'I'm glad you can tell the truth. But if I'm right, the field runs north and east of the tank. Could you buy any of that land 7 '

'Look, I don't have much ready cash.'

'Could you lease the mineral rights? I mean right now Not tomorrow, now.'

'Is speed so necessary?'

The minute anyone suspects what we're up to ... if they even guess that I'm a creekologist . . . Then it's too late.'

'How does an oil lease work?'

Kimbro had to rise, adjust his scarred back, and sit gingerly on the edge of the chair: 'There can be three conditions of ownership. First, you own your seven thousand acres and all mineral rights under them. Second, Yeager owns the good land we want, the surface, that is, but he owns nothing underneath. Tough on him, good for us.'

'Yes, but do we have the right to invade his property in order to sink our well?'

'We do, if we don't ruin his surface. And if we do ruin it, we pay him damages, and he can't do a damned thing about it.'

'He won't like it.'

'They never do, but that's the law. Now, the third situation is the one that operates mostly. Farmer Kline owns a big chunk of land, say three thousand acres. He also owns the mineral rights. So we go to him and say: "Mr. Kline, we want to lease the mineral rights to your land. For ten years. And we'll give you fifty cents an acre year after year for ten years. A lot of money."

'What rights do we get?'

'The right to drill, any place on the farm, as many holes as we want, for ten years.'

'And what does he get?'

'Fifteen hundred dollars a year, hard cash, year after year, even if we do nothing.'

'And if we strike oil?'

'He gets a solid one-eighth of everything we make, for as long as that well produces. To eternity, if he and it last that long.'

'Who gets the other seven-eighths?'

'We do.'

is it a good deal ... for all of us, I mean?'

'For Farmer Kline, it's a very fair deal. He gets an oil well without taking any risk. For you and me, the deal with Kline is about the best we can do, fair to both sides. It's his oil but we take all the risks.'

'And between you and me—seventy-five, twenty-five?'

'Tell you the truth, Rusk, with some men like me you could get an eighty, twenty deal, but nine out of ten such men would never find a bucket of oil. I know where the oil is. For you, it's a very good deal. As for me, if I had the land or the money, I wouldn't say hello to you. But I don't have either.'

'So what should we do?' Rusk asked permission to pour some

coffee, whereupon Kimbro pushed the big revolver across the table to him.

'I trust you, Rusk. I have to. We're partners.'

When reports of the notorious Sunday School trial at Waxahachie circulated through Texas, accompanied by sardonic laughter, the voters began to realize that in Laurel Cobb, son of the famous post-Reconstruction senator, they had a man of common sense and uncommon courage, and a movement was launched to send him to Washington to assume the seat once held by his father. Said one editorial, recalling the older man's dignified performance in the chaotic 1870s: 'He restored honor to the fair name of Texas.'

Prior to 1913, Laurel would have had little chance to win the seat, for in those years United States senators were elected by their respective state legislatures and he would have enlisted only minor support, for he was more liberal than the Democratic leadership. In fact, his father had been acceptable in 1874 only because Texas wanted to show the rest of the nation that it was not ashamed of how it had conducted itself during the War Between the States: 'Damnit, we want a man who held high rank in the army of the Confederacy, and if the rest of the nation don't like it, the rest of the nation can go to hell.' However, the men who sent him to Congress on those terms were often embarrassed by how he acted when he got there, and it would have been impossible for their sons to accept Laurel.

But with adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment, senators were elected by popular ballot, and the general public wanted Cobb, so a serious campaign was launched in his behalf. It was Adolf Lakarz, the fighting little fellow who had defended him in the Sunday School trial, who persuaded Cobb to run, using this argument: 'If you fight for justice in a church, you can do the same in a nation.' As soon as Cobb accepted this challenge, he began contesting the Democratic primary in earnest, and this took him to Saldana County and the machinations of Horace Vigil and his dexterous assistant Hector Garza.

Cobb, aware of Vigil's unsavory reputation, had balked at paying court to the old patron, but Lakarz had quickly put an end to such revolt: 'Laurel, you're one of four good Democrats who want this Senate seat, and the other three will do anything short of murder to grab it from you. The competition will be especially tough for those easy votes that Vigil keeps in his pocket. We need them, and if you have to kiss ass to get them, start bending down.'

'How does one man control so much 7 '

'Because he still has that good old Precinct 37.'

i should think the government would take it away.'

Lakarz laughed: 'Texas tried to, many times. Federals try to every time there's a Republican administration, but old Horace holds on.'

'Sounds illegal,' Cobb said, but Lakarz corrected him: 'Sounds Texan.'

So Cobb and Lakarz drove from Waxahachie along what might be called the spine of settled Texas: Waco on the Brazos, with its rich agricultural land; Temple, with its proud high school football team; Austin, with its handsome buildings and growing university; Luling and Beeville, in the sun; Falfurrias, with its multitude of flowers; and then that shocking emptiness which had been the stalking ground of Ranger Macnab and the bandit Benito Garza.

'It can be hot down here,' Cobb groaned as the temperature rose to a hundred and stayed there.

"Oooooh, Mr. Candidate, never say that! Down here they call a day like this bracing, and if you want their votes, you better call it bracing, too."

i imagine it could be glorious in winter.'

'Say that to everyone you meet, and you'll win.'

When Cobb thought he could begin to smell the river, Lakarz told him: 'This land up here used to be attached to Saldana County, but about 1911 huge chunks were lopped off the old counties to form new ones. But what's left is still big enough to carry a lot of weight.'

'WTiat advice on handling Horace Vigil?'

'Easy. Let him know you're a loyal Democrat. If you're thinking of opening a saloon, buy your beer from him. And always speak well of his Mexicans. For without their support, you will never go to Washington.'

As they approached the outskirts of Bravo, Cobb saw an astonishing sight: 'Are those palm trees?' For mile after mile the tall swaying trees baked in the sun, as if standing on the banks of the Nile, and sometimes in their shade would rest acres of experimental orange or grapefruit trees. In the blazing heat a new industry was quietly expanding into Texas, and some of the farmers who had pioneered it were becoming richer than their neighbors in other parts of the state who had oil wells.

'Vigil doesn't need to bother with votes. He has a paradise here,' Cobb said, but Lakarz warned: 'Horace always bothers with votes.'

They found Vigil in the adobe-walled building from which he ran his beer distributorship. He was an old man now, white-haired and in his late sixties. He was markedly stooped, but no one could

doubt that he was still the shrewd dictator of his county; as always when meeting strangers he spoke in near-whispers: 'Never met your daddy, but they tell me he was first rate. 1 heard about him trackin' down that gunman who shot his two niggers. In those days that took courage.'

He sat surrounded by his usual cadre of young men, sons of the functionaries who had served him in the past, they fetched his cigarettes, instructed the judge as to the cases in which Mr. Vigil had a special interest, supervised the counting of ballots, and distributed alms to the needy. Little had changed politically. Vigil was still the patron, dispensing his rude justice, and to the citizens of Saldana County he was still Serior Vee-heel.

The old man coughed: 'Mr. Cobb, of the four Democrats run-nin' for the Senate, I prefer you. Now tell me, what can I do to help you win?'

Cobb liked this old dictator; he felt the man's warmth and respected his authority: 'No, you tell me.'

That's reasonable, because I know this territory. Not as big as it once was, but more voters, more leverage.' He turned away from Cobb and called to his principal assistant: 'Hector, I want you to meet the man we're sendin' to Washington to take his daddy's place.' And the four laid plans for nailing down the primary.

But as Cobb toured other sections of the state he became aware that one of his opponents was taking his own bold steps to steal the election, and this embittered Adolf Lakarz. who reminded Cobb: 'We've got to get a huge majority in Saldana County, because, as the papers keep saying, "in Texas winning the Democratic primary is tantamount to election." '

'You ever think about that word, Adolf? It's one of those curious cases in which a perfectly good word has been restricted to only one use. You never hear "A hot dog is tantamount to a sausage." Lakarz, irritated that his candidate was wasting his time on such nonpolitical reflection, warned: 'You better hope this primary is tantamount to your election.'

The campaign in Saldana had only begun when one of those political events which perplexed outsiders took place. Horace Vigil, who had fought the Republican customs officer Tim Coke for decades, learned that his old nemesis was leaving the Bravo-Escandon Bridge for a better job in New York, so he organized a gala farewell to which he contributed a new Chevrolet in which the Cokes could drive to their new post. In his speech of thanks, Coke said: 'I hate to leave Saldana just as the Democrats are preparing to tear themselves apart in their primary. I'd like to see my old friend Horace get his nose busted. But I say this here and

now. I want all my Republicans to cross party lines and get into the polling booths one way or another. And you're to vote for Vigil's man, Laurel Cobb, and vote three or four times, like you always did for me. Because in thirty years of fighting that sumbitch Vigil, I always had respect for him. I never knew what infamous or criminal thing he was going to hit me with next, but the battles were fun. I look forward with relief to fighting those Democratic hoodlums in Tammany Hall. They're the worst snakes ever got thrown out of Ireland. But these damn Democrats in Texas, they're rattlesnakes.'

Three days before the election Lakarz slipped back into Bravo for a strategy meeting, and what he learned was ominous. Vigil himself outlined the sorry details: 'Reformers in Washington, bunch of Republicans, they're comin' down to take control of Precinct 37.'

"We've got to have those votes.'

'We'll be allowed to count them and report whatever totals we need. Texas law demands that, but as soon as the countin' ends, we have to deliver the ballot boxes to the federals.'

'What do you think they'll do?'

'Send me to jail, if they can prove anything.' Lakarz could see that this possibility frightened the old man, who said quietly: 'jail I do not seek, but if it's the only way we can win this election, jail it will have to be.'

'Our friends will never let that happen.'

The old warrior was not so confident, but he did not lament his problems; he had one more election to win, and he would speak only of it: 'When the boxes reach Bravo, they'll recount the votes in the presence of a federal judge. We could be in a lot of trouble.'

'Have you a plan for getting out of this?'

'Normally we'd bribe the judge, but this time he's a federal. I'll think of somethin'.'

A council of war occupied Saturday afternoon, and it was Hector Garza, a little taller, a little bolder than his predecessors, who devised the winning strategy: 'We must have absolute secrecy. So that when the federals come after us, we can honestly swear: "We don't know."

'You think they will come?' Vigil asked in a whisper, and Garza said: 'For sure. The Republicans will see to that. But I know a way to hold them off.'

Sharing his intricate plan with no one, not even Vigil, he orchestrated a strategy in which no one except he and the person performing one small part of the job knew what anyone else was doing. On the eve of the election he said to Vigil and Lakarz with

confidence: 'As soon as the votes have been counted across the state, tell me how many votes we'll need to win.'

Late on election night Vigil telephoned Garza, standing watch at Precinct 37: 'We've got to have more than four hundred and ten,' and an hour later the three officials at the precinct certified the vote to have been 422 to 7.

When the men from Washington, waiting in Bravo, heard this, they exulted: 'Now we have them! Impossible for a vote to be so lopsided.' And almost hungrily they waited to get their hands on the incriminating box: This time Vigil goes behind bars, and not in some half-baked county jail. The federal pen.'

But now a singular thing happened. The ballot box disappeared. Yes, on its way down FM-117 it disappeared, and since the elections officials had legally reported their results, those results had to stand. The preposterous 422 to 7 stood, enabling Laurel Cobb to win the election by a twenty-seven-vote margin.

How could an object as big as a ballot box disappear? It was never fully explained. It had been handed by the judges to a Mr. Hernandez, who passed it along to a Mr. Robles, who gave a receipt for it, and he gave it to a Mr. Solorzano, and that was where it disappeared, because Mr. Solorzano could prove that he had been in San Antonio when all this happened.