A Clearing in the forest by Gloria Whelan

to explain what he was doing. Wilson kept nodding, but he wasn’t listening. He was so scared standing way up there on the platform that he wished he were dead.
    Finally T. K. shut up. Thank heaven he was going down first, so there would be something between Wilson and the ground. But when Wilson tried to follow, he couldn’t make himself put his foot on the first rung. Then he saw the space between himself and T. K. grow greater and fear of making the trip down by himself got him started. Once they reached the ground, T. K. said he’d see Wilson later and took off toward a pile of casing. Wilson stood there shaking, wiping sweaty palms on his jeans.
    Lyle Barch approached Wilson. “How ya like it up there?” His smile was derisive. “Wait till you get up there on the block.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWell, when we got to get up there in a hurry, we just hang on to the block and ride it right up to the top of the tower, like an elevator.”
    An elevator without any floor or sides, Wilson thought gloomily. He could tell Lyle was enjoying the effect his words were having.
    â€œNever expected to see you here,” Lyle said. Didn’t think you were the type.”
    What type did Lyle mean? All kinds of men worked on the rigs.
    For a while Wilson had owned his own motorcyle, a battered job he had rebuilt from an abandoned wreck. Lyle had tried to talk him into joining up with his gang, but Wilson had refused. Since then, Lyle wouldn’t have much to do with him. More than once Wilson had seen Lyle’s name in the Oclair Tribune for things like “drunk and disorderly behavior” or “careless handling of a motor vehicle.”
    Wilson understood in part what bugged Lyle. Until the oil boom, jobs had been scarce. There was no industry. All you could do in summer was wash dishes in the restaurants—and even for those jobs there was plenty of competition. You watched the summer kids walk around with their tennis rackets or flash through town in fast cars. In winter even the movie theater closed down. All you could do was go into Oclair and watch the level creep up on the big snow gauge in the middle of town. There had been times when Wilson himself had done things he later regretted, just because he was so bored.
    He decided that as long as they were working together, they might as well be friends. “Do we bring our own lunch or what?” he asked Lyle.
    â€œYou can if you want, or there’s a truck comes by with sandwiches and pizza.”
    â€œI’ll see you at lunchtime, then,” Wilson said and walked toward the engine shed. After the climb up the rig, the mud oozing up around his boots was wonderfully reassuring.
    Inside the shed, there was a pleasant smell of machine oil. On the wall a huge hand-lettered sign read: IN THE EVENT OF A BLOWOUT ALL ENGINES MUST BE SWITCHED OFF IMMEDIATELY.
    These were the biggest engines Wilson had ever seen. But, even for such monsters, one of them was vibrating too much. He looked for a wrench and found one beneath a label that said “wrench.” Pete must have been here.
    When Ferrelli came in, he saw a boy hanging over the number one engine, tightening up a bolt on the bedplate, a smile on his face.

9
    Frances Crawford counted seven men, a car and a truck. On the back of the truck was stenciled in large red letters the word EXPLOSIVES. The men scrambled out of the cars and, lugging their equipment, headed north through the woods along a cable line laid earlier in the week. Every one hundred feet they drilled three six-foot holes. The dynamite men came along behind them and placed charges in the holes. Then, using a shooting box, the men set off the explosives. By monitoring the sound waves from the explosions as they bounced off rock formations thousands of feet below ground, a computer could estimate whether or not there was a chance of finding oil there.
    The little army advanced efficiently, not