Free Petrogypsies by Rory Harper

It’s you that got them in a bind. Getting yourself put on standby by Hydroco for the next forty years.”
    Pearl looked guilty. “He offered a bunch of money to everybody back at the camp, Spanky. And nobody didn’t know ol’ Sprocket was up against the wall.”
    “Well, it ain’t my fault you’re greedy, is it?” Spanky said belligerently. “Why don’t you tell Tiny to stick it, and come over here and cement Sprocket’s well when you finish mine?”
    “Can’t do that, much as I’d like to,” Pearl said mournfully. “A man’s only as good as his word, and I promised as soon as I left your location, I’d head over to this well right outside of Goldsmith and do some block squeezing. Nothing in between. Now, if we could run some concrete for Sprocket while we’re still on your location … naw, that don’t make no sense.”
    Him and Spanky stared at each other for a minute. “How much steel hose you got to spare on the rig, Spanky?” Pearl asked.
    “Don’t know, but I can find out.” Ignoring the rest of us, they stood up and staggered together into the darkness toward Uncle Foots’ location. “We can flange up a bunch of connections if we need to use five-inch hose with three-inch, or whatever,” Spanky said. “The lease boundary’s about a hundred yards from Sprocket’s wellhead. We move you over to the edge, and—” Their figures had been fading out of sight, when Pearl suddenly swung about.
    “Damn! I almost forgot.” He came back into the circle around the fire. “Y’all are a bunch of fine fellas, but I do believe somebody here is trying to keep my bottle.”
    I tossed it to him. It was practically empty.
    Doc and Razer and the rest of us were staring at him, glassy-eyed. He caught the bottle, then shook the capped end at Doc. “Big Red’s gonna run cement into your hole tomorrow. I was you, I’d get my butt in gear and hunt up some pipe to go with it.” Then he vanished into the darkness.

    * * *

    Doc let me go with him to the camp. Schooling up the worm. I suspected once I lost my wormhood I’d do more real work and less running around, so I was thinking on how I could remain incompetent as long as possible without nobody noticing. We rode off in Mooney’s pickup, which he’d let us have the use of as long as he was banged up in the infirmary.
    The camp was quiet by the time we got in, around two in the morning. Lots of tents around, but not too many critters. Guess most of them were out on location. Doc cut the engine of the pickup right as we pulled off the Farm and Market, so as not to wake up anybody. We climbed out of the cab and threaded our way among the tents.
    The casing crews pooled and coordinated their production, so we headed straight for the pipe rack, on the far side of the camp. The camp was dark, but a full moon was out, and for a change the weather was good, a few high clouds motionless in the sky, so we didn’t have much trouble finding our way.
    When we got there, it looked deserted. Hundreds of casing joints of varying diameters were laid down, enclosed by a locked chain link fence. We climbed over it and started walking down the rows.
    “Our last pipe was nine-and-five-eighths, down to fifteen thousand feet,” Doc reminded me quietly. “So we have to hang about four thousand feet of seven-inch or smaller pipe off its bottom. We need an API rating of N-80 or better. I’d prefer some C-95, myself. Keep a eye out for a stack of that.”
    There didn’t seem to be too much small pipe in stock, but it wasn’t too long before we come up on a heap of just what we were looking for. The tag on the end of the center joint said the pile contained five thousand feet of pipe, and had been produced by a Casing Critter named Maniac.
    “Looking good,” Doc said, as we climbed back over the fence. “Now we need to see what Casing Critters are in the camp. If there ain’t any, we’ll wake up Zeke and see who’s likely to be available next.”
    “Unless