Free Deep in the Heart of Trouble by Deeanne Gist

off the silence in the mercantile.
    “You and Mr. Crook must be pretty good friends for him to let you stay in here after hours.”
    “I used to work here, is all. He knows I’ll leave everything in its proper place. It’s your turn.”
    Of his four pieces left, he could only move his crowned one safely. He headed it in the direction of one of her more vulnerable blacks, trying to figure out why she had offered to finish out the game for Harley. From all indications, she didn’t care for his company any more than he cared for hers.
    She slid her king into an attacking position. Tony would have no choice but to move out of her way or be jumped.
    “Why did you stay just now, Miss Spreckelmeyer? Why didn’t you leave when Harley and the others did?”
    Her lips flattened a bit. “Actually, I was looking for you.”
    “Me?” Surprise tinted his voice.
    “Yes.” She struggled for a moment, clearly unhappy with whatever it was she had to say, then straightened her spine and gave him her full attention. “Papa wants me to reinstate you.”
    Leaning back in his chair, he hooked an arm over the backrest.
    Well, well, well. What do you know about that? “He was in here just before sunset. Why didn’t he say something?”
    “He wanted to discuss it with me first.”
    “And what happened when the vote was one in favor and one against?”
    She rent the last two slivers of orange in two. “I conceded under duress.”
    “Duress?”
    “I didn’t want to upset Papa by arguing with him tonight. But rest assured, had it been any other night, you would be on your way out of town.”
    He leaned his chair back on two legs. “What makes you so allfired sure I still even want to work for Sullivan Oil?”
    Hope kindled within her eyes. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
    He dropped his chair to the floor and slid his checker to a safer square. She finished off her orange, then bullied another of his discs with a different king. Their pieces danced for several more moves— hers charging his, then his charging hers.
    “Are you going to switch to rotary drills?” he asked.
    She took so long to answer, he thought she was going to ignore the question.
    “We’re considering it,” she finally conceded.
    The woman clearly did not like to eat crow. And if he were a betting man, he’d guess she didn’t do it often.
    He faced off his king against hers. “I’ll expect a raise, of course.”
    Her mouth slackened. “A raise? Don’t you think that’s a bit precipitous?”
    “I think it’s the least you can do.”
    She puckered her lips. “You may have your old job back, Mr. Bryant, at the same rate as before.” Reaching for a single black disc, she jumped all four of his remaining markers. “Take it or leave it.”

chapter SIX
    TONY STOMPED on his shovel, sinking it into the gummy soil, then hoisted up a load of dirt. As soon as he’d returned to the rig, Grandpa promoted him from toolie to roustabout, and he’d spent the morning picking up broken rods, junk pipe, and connections so the men wouldn’t stumble as they scurried around the well. He’d discharged the lines to safeguard against leaks. He’d put new clamps on a broken sucker rod. And now he was digging a ditch for the saltwater that had accumulated in the stock tank. Once he filled the ditch with the water, he’d have to figure out how to make the liquid evaporate.
    Arching his back, he glanced up at Jeremy on the double board. The boy was juggling elevators—resting one pipe on a device used to lift and lower drill pipe while fitting a collared pipe to a second device, pulling some pipe, then shifting a giant hook back to the other elevator. The process was tedious and the greatest crusher of fingers ever invented, yet Jeremy never missed a beat.
    Paul Wilson, their roughneck, had made a visit out to the old pecan tree thirty yards east of the rig and was hotfooting it back. Tony smiled, thinking that what the old fellow lacked in brain power,