Bryan Burrough (12 page)

What Hunt didn’t realize was that Joiner stood at the middle of a spreading net of intrigue. To raise money for his third well on the Daisy Bradford land, he had sold three rounds of investment certificates to dozens of local people. In return for a hundred dollars, each of the certificates entitled the buyer to 4 of the 320 acres Joiner had set aside for investors; this meant only the first eighty certificates were valid. Never one to let ethics stand in the way of fund-raising, however, Joiner had wildly oversold the certificates, selling rights to the same land to multiple buyers; one lease went to eleven different people. It was only a matter of time before someone found out. Worse, Joiner’s own driller, Ed Laster, had betrayed him to a Kansas oil company, selling off his drilling data and rock samples. The Kansas company had already begun leasing up nearby acreage.

As Hunt sat back to await the drill-stem test that afternoon, he knew none of this. He watched as Laster, standing up on the derrick floor, lowered the twelve-foot drill stem to the bottom of the hole, where it began boring into the earth. When they reached the planned depth it pierced a pocket of natural gas, which whistled out of the hole in a rush. Laster quickly pulled it up from the hole. A moment later, the rig began to shudder. The ground rumbled so violently, one of the derrick’s supports broke with an audible crack. Suddenly a shower of mud erupted from the hole, shooting as high as the top of the derrick, before calming into a small fountain, flooding the derrick floor. When the fountain ebbed to a stop, Laster dipped his finger into it and put it to his mouth. “Whaddya think? ” someone shouted.

Laster tasted oil. “It ought to make a pretty good well,” he announced, “if we can bring it in.”

The crowd surrounded Joiner, farmers in overalls thrusting their hands forward in congratulations. Joiner closed his eyes and leaned against a pine tree. “Not yet,” he said. “It’s not an oil well yet.” The hole would need to be stablized, a process that could take several weeks, before Joiner could determine how much oil he really had.

Still, there was no containing the rumors, or the excitement that began to spread through the downtrodden villages of Rusk County. By the next morning, in fact, people had begun streaming into Henderson. A line of shacks sprouted down at the main road, the locals selling hamburgers and cots; the little encampment was dubbed “Joinerville.” Each day that September more scouts and lease traders poured into the area. Taking a room in Henderson, Hunt called in his men from El Dorado and waded into the thick of the trading, swapping IOUs for four hundred acres of leases south and east of Joiner’s well; Joiner had almost everything north and west. As the fervor spread, Joiner was celebrated as a local hero. The newspapers proclaimed him “Daddy of the Rusk County Oilfield”; after that everyone called him “Dad.” The town of Overton feted Joiner with an all-day parade. When the inevitable finally occurred—one of his investors, comparing his certificates to others, realized he had been cheated and sued to place Joiner’s acreage in receivership—the
Tyler Courier-Times
rushed to his defense, denouncing the “slick lawyers” who dared to attack their savior. “It’s high time the independent operators had their inning,” an editor wrote. “Now, if this be bolshevism, then we’re bolshevists.”

It took almost a month for Ed Laster to ready the Daisy Bradford No. 3 for completion, laying the casing and cementing it into place. When they ran out of wood, they took to stoking the boiler with old tires. After the last drill test, Laster had blocked the hole with a cement plug, and by Friday morning, October 3, word had spread that he was preparing to drill out the plug and see what lay beneath. By nine o’clock that morning nearly eight thousand people had tromped through the woods to the drill site. Kids sold soda and sandwiches, while bootleggers hawked bottles of white lightning. All morning the clearing thrummed with anticipation. All that was missing was Joiner himself, said to be recovering from a bout of flu in Dallas.

By midmorning Laster had drilled through the cement plug and begun to run the bailer, which cleared mud and water from the bottom of the hole in hope of freeing up any oil. The bailer ran all afternoon and when night fell lanterns were lit so Laster and his crew could work into the evening. The crowds reaassembled when they resumed work in the morning, but by noon there was still no sign of oil. Joiner appeared then, climbing through the wire fence around the derrick with a young oilman named D. H. Byrd, known as “Dry Hole” Byrd for a string of fifty-six straight dry holes he had once drilled; Byrd, like so many of the eager young men who flocked to Rusk County that fall, would later become one of the wealthiest oilmen in Dallas. But Joiner’s appearance failed to bring any signs of oil. By nightfall the crowds began to disperse.

The next day, Sunday, October 5, Laster and his crew, now glassy-eyed with fatigue, continued swabbing the well. The farmers and townspeople began arriving after church services and remained through the day, but by the time darkness fell, there was still no oil. Again lanterns were lit, and again Laster and his crew worked into the darkness. Finally, around nine o’clock, Laster detected a faint gurgling sound deep in the well. For a fleeting second he smelled gas. “Put out the fires!” he hollered. “Put out your cigarettes! Quick!”

The ground began to rumble. A roar came from the hole. As Laster and his men dived for cover, a jet of black oil suddenly exploded from the derrick floor, arcing into the night sky, falling like rain on everyone. The crowd went wild, dusty farmers hugging their wives, grown men rolling in the oil-soaked mud, one worker firing a pistol into the air again and again. After a minute or two, Laster spun a set of valves, diverting the gush of crude into the waiting storage tanks.

Suddenly everything went quiet. Dad Joiner asked D. H. Byrd to measure the flow on the gauges. “Whisper it to me,” he said.

Byrd checked the gauges, then leaned in close to Joiner. “She’s flowing at sixty-eight hundred barrels a day,” he whispered.

For a split second Joiner lost his composure. “SIXTY-EIGHT HUNDRED BARRELS!” he yelled. “UNBELIEVABLE!”

By any standard, it was a massive well. The people of Rusk County went to bed that night convinced they were sleeping atop an ocean of oil. The professionals, however, weren’t so sure. Within days the flow from the Daisy Bradford No. 3 eased to 250 barrels an hour; worse, it was “flowing in heads,” that is, in uneven spurts, 100 barrels one hour, 500 the next. Within days many scouts were dismissing it as a freak.

Not H. L. Hunt. Great fortunes are built on great convictions, and from the moment he watched Joiner’s drill test Hunt was certain this was a giant field. On October 20, two weeks after the initial strike, he began drilling his first lease, south of the Daisy Bradford. Over the years several dry holes had been drilled east of the Joiner leases. It got Hunt to thinking. The more he studied the land, the more he became convinced that the field stretched north and west of Joiner’s well, on the four thousand acres Joiner had already leased. An idea began to form. Maybe, Hunt mused, the play wasn’t to drill near the Joiner leases. It was to
buy
the Joiner leases.

His opportunity, he sensed, lay in the old wildcatter’s legal troubles. Already his investors were beginning to sue. One lawsuit, seeking to force Joiner into involuntary receivership, had been filed in Dallas; if Joiner lost, all his leases might be thrown into the hands of a court-appointed receiver. Joiner tried to hide from process servers at the Hotel Adolphus, but a lawyer slipped a hundred-dollar bill to a bellboy, flushing Joiner out, then forcing him to attend a hearing on October 31. It was a confusing session, with Joiner’s attorney asking for a voluntary receivership, and by the time the judge gaveled it to a close a receiver had in fact been named, though Joiner retained control of his leases, at least for the time being. As the crowd filed out, no one was quite certain what had happened. It was then that Hunt, standing outside the courtroom, approached Joiner in the hallway.

“Mr. Joiner,” Hunt said, “I’m offering to buy you out lock, stock, and barrel.”

“Boy,” Joiner said before walking off, “you would be buying a pig in a poke.”

Hunt returned to East Texas more determined than ever to buy Joiner’s land. If he could only raise the money, he felt Joiner could be persuaded. Unfortunately, at the moment Hunt had a grand total of $109 in free cash. For several days he scurried between Henderson and Dallas, talking to every oilman he could find, including scouts representing several of the majors, but none were interested in a partnership with him, much less advancing him any cash. Finally he arm-twisted his Arkansas pal Pete Lake into a deal; Lake agreed to supply $30,000 in return for a 20 percent stake in Joiner’s leases. It was enough to get discussions started. He and Lake then returned to Dallas, determined not to leave until they had Joiner’s land.

Before leaving, Hunt called in three of his men from El Dorado. If the Daisy Bradford No. 3 did herald the opening of a vast new field, and if that field stretched north and west, then a discovery well being drilled by the Deep Rock Oil Company, northwest of the Joiner well, would tell the tale. Hunt had to know what Deep Rock was finding, and he had to know it before anyone else. Despite Hunt’s later denials, court documents would show that he cut a secret deal with the Deep Rock driller to supply his men with inside information in return for twenty thousand dollars in cash. Hunt positioned his three scouts near the Deep Rock drill site, where they stood ready to relay information to him as he dealt with Joiner. The price he would offer for Dad Joiner’s leases would depend largely on their reports.

When Hunt reached Dallas, he and Pete Lake checked into the Baker Hotel, just across Commerce Street from the city’s other fine hotel, the Adolphus, where Joiner was staying. The morning papers brought good news; two new wells drilled southeast of the Daisy Bradford No. 3 had come in dry, providing fuel to those who felt the Joiner well was a freak. Lease prices in Rusk County went into free fall. This was the best possible situation, Hunt sensed. Joiner, he wagered, might now be eager to sell. First, though, they had to smoke him out. Hunt tracked down an acquaintance named H. L. Williford, an oil field character who had located Joiner for him once before. Williford scurried across to the Adolphus, where he was told Joiner was again sick with the flu. Williford found him hiding in one of the bedrooms, and all but dragged him back to the Baker, where Hunt was waiting on the mezzanine.

It was Monday evening, November 24, 1930, seven weeks after that first gusher. The three men sat at a table. Hunt quickly came to the point. He was prepared to offer Joiner $25,000 in cash for his leases, plus $975,000 from the proceeds of whatever oil was found. It was more money than Joiner could expect to make in a lifetime. But if Joiner was impressed, he didn’t show it. They talked through the details, but in time the old wildcatter appeared to have second thoughts. He got up and returned to the Adolphus, promising to meet Hunt in the morning.

When the sun rose Tuesday, Hunt was ready. One of his scouts, Robert V. Johnson, was standing by at the Deep Rock well, which was fast approaching the coveted Woodbine sand; whatever the Deep Rock crew found, Hunt was confident he would know first. He was waiting in his suite when Joiner arrived. Pete Lake was there, as was H. L. Williford. “Boy,” Joiner said, addressing Hunt, “you’re gonna have to pay me more for these leases than what we’ve been talking about.”

“Well, Mr. Joiner,” Hunt replied, “what do you think they’re worth? ”

Joiner wanted $50,000 up front, plus more on the back end. They began to talk, about life, about their families, about East Texas, about the Daisy Bradford No. 3. Lunch came. They ate in the suite. At breaks Hunt would call for whispered updates on the Deep Rock well. By nightfall they were still negotiating. Dinner came. At midnight they were still talking. By dawn they had the outlines of an agreement, and Hunt telephoned his attorney, J. B. McEntire, and two stenographers. When they arrived, he and Joiner began dictating the terms. In return for all four thousand acres of Joiner’s leases, including the Daisy Bradford No. 3 and acreage surrounding the Deep Rock well, Hunt agreed to pay $30,000 upfront—all of it out of Pete Lake’s pocket. The back end, to be paid out of production, would be $1.305 million. The paperwork was exhaustive, and McEntire and his stenographers spent all morning hammering out the agreements. They were still writing late that afternoon when, around 4:30, Hunt received the call from East Texas.

It was his man in Henderson, Charles Hardin, relaying news from the Deep Rock site. “Mr. Hunt,” Hardin said, “I think they’re right on top of the Woodbine sand now.” Hunt returned to the paperwork. Four hours later, at 8:30, as they haggled over final details, Hardin called once more. Even over the telephone line, his excitement was palpable. “Mr. Hunt,” he said, “they’ve cored sixteen feet of material from the Deep Rock well, and ten and a half feet of it is saturated with oil.”

Hunt later insisted he had shared this news with Joiner; almost certainly he didn’t. Hunt now knew that the Daisy Bradford was indeed the discovery well of a large new field, perhaps a monumental one. Had Joiner known, he might have doubled or even tripled his asking price. But he didn’t, and the price remained unchanged. At midnight the paperwork was ready. Hunt and Joiner signed, then shared a celebratory plate of cheese and crackers. As Hunt recalled the moment, Joiner appeared thrilled. “Boy,” he said, “I hope you make fifty million dollars.” Even when news of the Deep Rock well shot through East Texas later that week, sending lease prices into the stratosphere, Joiner seemed happy. His troubles were over. He was rich. And if Hunt found even a fraction of the oil they expected, he would be richer still.

News of the historic deal broke on the front pages of the Dallas papers that Sunday. The men of Texas Oil were left speechless. It was, by wide acclaim, the most astounding business deal the state had ever seen; as the enormity of the East Texas field became apparent in coming months, it would be hailed as the deal of the century. An obscure interloper, a closet bigamist, a man just nine years removed from life as a professional gambler, and from
Arkansas
of all places, had seized the heart of the greatest oil field in history, a field that in the next fifty years would produce four
billion
barrels of oil. H. L. Hunt had snatched East Texas from beneath the noses of the slumbering majors, and most incredible of all, he hadn’t used a cent of his own money.