At Ease with the Dead by Walter Satterthwait Page A

Reservation, around Nineteen ten.”
    â€œWhy weren’t more oil companies out there looking for it?”
    â€œTwo reasons. The quality of the Goodrich crude was high, but the quantities were low. There just wasn’t enough of the stuff down there to justify additional drilling. And more importantly, the Navajos didn’t want to lease out their land. To anyone, for any reason.”
    â€œThen why would your father bankroll Lessing’s trips?”
    He sipped at his coffee. “By Nineteen twenty-one, when Lessing came to him with the idea, my father had already done pretty well for himself. He could, afford to speculate. How much would it’ve cost him to outfit the trips? A couple of hundred dollars? A thousand? If Lessing came up empty, then the loss was insignificant. And if Lessing found a promising location, then maybe my father could talk the Navajos into letting him drill.”
    â€œAnd Lessing found a promising location?”
    He nodded. “A seep. A surface flow.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œWest of Many Farms.”
    â€œDid your father ever get his leases?”
    He nodded. “Finally. It took him two years to convince the Tribal Council that he wouldn’t do any damage to the land.”
    He took another sip of coffee and relaxed against his chair, getting comfortable with the story. “Back then,” he said, “most of the drilling work was an ecological disaster. Wildcatters would stomp into an area, strip away the ground cover, and drill their holes. They’d toss the mud and debris off to the side, along with their garbage. If the well came in, they’d wait too long to cap the flow, and then they’d pump it out too quickly, beyond its capacity. And if it didn’t come in, or when the well dried up, they’d just move on, leaving their mess behind them.
    â€œMy father hated that. In his own way, he was probably just as ruthless as the rest of them, but he always had a love for the land. And he always had a high regard for the Navajo and their culture. He probably knew more about them than most anthropologists of the time.”
    â€œHow did the well at Many Farms do?”
    â€œWells. Three of them. They were producers. High quanties of good crude. And because my father did respect the land,” he said, smiling, “and maybe, too, because he gave the Navajo a larger share of royalties than most wildcatters would’ve done, they granted additional leases to Halbert Oil. We still do business with them. At the moment we’re negotiating some geothermal leases north of Gallup.”
    I nodded. “Getting back to Lessing. Did your father ever say anything to you about his death?”
    He shook his head “No. But remember, Lessing died a long time before I was born.” He shrugged. “Sorry. I wish I could be more helpful.”
    I’d never had the owner of an oil company apologize to me before; I doubted that many of them would do it as amiably as Martin Halbert. “You’ve already been helpful,” I told him. “And I appreciate it. Thanks.”
    I had used up all my questions and Halbert had evidently used up all his answers. I looked over the railing, out across the two cities, the two countries, spread beneath us.
    â€œWhat’s your next step?” Halbert asked me.
    I shrugged. “Try to locate some of the students from the field trips. Maybe one of them can tell me something about this woman.”
    He nodded again. “Now there, maybe, I can help. One of our geologists, man named DeFore, Brian DeFore, he was a student of Lessing’s. I don’t know whether he went on any of the trips, but he might be worth talking to. He’s in his eighties, retired now, but I’ve got his address somewhere. I can dig it up for you, if you’d like.”
    â€œYeah, I would. Thanks.”
    He placed his napkin on the table. “Let me see if I can find it. And I’ll grab