Monarch’s parent company, Southwest Petroleum, made them feel like geniuses.
They’d been nervous about the first loads they’d taken. Setting up the account, waiting for the wire transfer to go through. Ron breathing down their neck, making sure everything worked. It was nerve-racking. The second, third, and fourth runs had made them feel better about the process, more confident. But they’d all been half loads, and only one truck each time because they wanted to work out any kinks on quick, simple runs. The process was smoother each time. And better still, Ron only knew about the first one. Now, there in the morning darkness, it seemed so simple. It was such a small amount of oil that no one would ever notice, and by the time anyone did, they’d be long gone. And once Ron was out of the way, they could do whatever they wanted when they shut the operation down.
When the tank was full, they shut the pump off, unhooked the hose, and let the truck warm up. The old diesel rumbled and coughed black smoke, but it ran well enough. It was Eddie’s handiwork. He was savant-like when it came to fixing things, which was a necessary skill set given the age of the equipment Eli’s father had left behind.
As they stood around outside, Eli felt a strange pride come over him at having the oil outfit up and running again. Being up early, working with his hands, using the tools and the gear, getting black crude on his clothes, the smell of oil and diesel and greasy machines—it was all part of the work he grew up doing. He had never been lazy, despite recent months, and standing outside in the early morning, listening to the truck idling behind him made him nostalgic.
“Funny to be out here again.”
Eddie stuck his hands in his pockets and kicked at a rock. “It is, isn’t it?”
There wasn’t much to say beyond that. After a few more minutes they agreed that the truck was probably ready and they went back in. Eddie jumped up in the cab, put his thermos beside him on the bench seat and leaned out the window. “Two runs still seems like a lot, but maybe I’ll see you down there.” He gave Eli a mock salute, grinned, threw it in gear and drove off.
After a few minutes, when the truck was completely gone and silence returned, Eli stood alone outside, looking over the remnants of his family business. The sky was streaking with light and the oil derricks stood like random grave markers, denoting the death of another time, another life. Suddenly the nostalgia turned to sadness and then a spark of anger. He wanted to steal everything he could from Monarch. It had run his father’s business into the ground. It had sucked five years of labor from him and then cut him loose. It was eventually going to destroy the entire town by simply closing up shop and hanging everyone out to dry, once the pipeline had sucked every last dime from the ground.
He fired up the other tanker truck and backed it into the warehouse. He started pumping another load and stood around, trying not to think about what was really bothering him. But being alone with his own thoughts was too much. There were no distractions. Ron might as well have been standing there, poking him in the shoulder. They would have to get rid of him. Despite Eddie’s reticence, it had to be done.
He wandered up the hillside while the tank was filling and looked out over the desert. There was nothing out there. A sea of rolling sagebrush stretched out in all directions. An orange and pink glow spread outward from the distant eastern peaks—bleeding upward through the sky like an infection. Standing on the ridgeline, less than two hundred yards away from the warehouse, he could barely hear the pump, which was deafening when you stood beside it. The desert seemed to swallow sound with all its space. He wondered how far away a gunshot would be heard. A single, solitary, sharp noise, lasting half a second or less, was all it would take. The odds anyone would hear it, recognize it, and respond to it were as remote as the coyote running out in front of that guy they heard about. There was almost no way it could happen.
He could see it in his head, playing like a movie—Hey Ron, you need to come out here and