# Writing > Short Story Sharing >  KIOWA OIL and GAS (excerpt)

## Lonesome Cowboy

*KIOWA OIL and GAS (excerpt)*

Kiowa Oil and Gas Ltd. , formed in 1925 and struck gas in 1926. Kiowa&#180;s oil discovery stimulated renewed interest in the Watchatee Valley field.

In 1927 a pipeline was built to connect Watchatee Valley to Smokey River. In the 1920s this valley became known as "Hell’s Cauldron". Suffering from a lack of markets for excess gas, companies in the field burned it off in a giant coulee, hence the name. It is estimated that companies wasted approximately 90 percent of the field’s gas in this manner. 

***

Eva&#180;s small heart-shaped locket sparkles under the “Northern Stud&#180;s” stage lights. The bauble gently swaying from her neck with every twist and turn of her graceful body on stage. Her dance pole lit in its soft golden glow. Luke Black Elk follows her every move from his corner. Arms folded, long balck hair tied in a tail. Even The Cree would find himself fixated by the girl&#180;s entrancing dance routine like a man hypnotized by a campfire. 

"Dance pole, not strip pole" she&#180;d correct people in conversation.
"I&#180;m a dancer. Stripping is done by carpenters and meat cutters. I&#180;m an artist". 

The musky velvet walls of "The Northern Stud" flicker in strobes and rotating mirror balls as serpentine shadows are cast over lustfilled booze hounds and grease soaked oil patch workers. Kiowa Oil and Gas, the biggest operation West of the Watchatee. The brain child of one T .B. McLeod an Eastern native who found wealth and power working on the Hell&#180;s Cauldron Valley pipeline in late 1920s.

"Take it off ya whore!!!" wolf like howls and thunderous clapping , an oil patch worker springs out from a rowdy bunch sitting at a stage side table , mouth open , tongue dancing over his gap toothed smile, a meaty finger over piano keys. He rubs his hands as his eyes dance up and down feverishly taking in Eva&#180;s beautiful half naked body. He combs his greasy grey hair back with both hands and looking around he jumps on stage making a run at Eva. She lets out a scream as the drunk&#180;s hands reach out to grab her, but not fast enough. A giant log of an arm clotheslines the man out of no where, slamming him onto the stage. Luke Black Elk , bouncer, stands over the crumpled drunk, arms folded over his massive steamer-trunk chest. The man, eyes popping out, clutches his throat. 

“I can&#180;t breaf you Indian sumabeesh !!! ” 

Eva picks up her silk robe and quickly stands behind Black Elk who casually grabs the man by the seat of his pants and tosses him off the stage like a bale of hay. The drunk flies head first like a rag doll into the middle of a poker game, smashing the table in two . He slowly raises his head, blood and teeth now swimming in his mouth. He slowly turns onto his back amid a stew of table splinters , shards of glass, whiskey and poker chips 

"I&#180;m gonna kill you!!!" he spits out a gob of blood.

Drunk reaches for a gun pocketed in his snake skin boot but Luke&#180;s bowie knife flies across the room like pinning the man&#180;s hand to the hardboard floor with a hunter&#180;s accuracy. In an instant, 3 musclebound Kiowa oil grunts rush the stage jumping Black Elk.. The Cree struggles from the depths of this human mole hill. Eva picks up a chair and blindly smashes it against the pile.

“ Eva!!! Not me!!! THEM!!!” Black Elk jabbs left and right, his long jet black hair fanning out with every swing. Every one of his stone crushing blows landing with a thud, cracking something on someone, painfully. 

KA BOOM ! 

A shotgun blast rattles the windows. Eva stands on stage, smoking 12 gauge shotgun
in her hands, pointed at the ceiling. A chunk of roof board falls on a rigger. 

“boys either walk yerselves out or...” racks the gun
“I&#180;ll drag you out...either way I win”.

Instantly the room is filled with screams , the screech of sliding chairs and the sound of breaking glass as everyone makes a desperate dash for the exit out into the howling blizzard. Luke slowly walks up to the drunk, now screaming like a madman from the pain . Black-Elk ties back his long jet black hair and slowly bends to unlodge his knife from the boards. Cleaning the blood off the blade on his shirt sleeve he utters."You tell Ty Mcleod I ain&#180;t ever gonna sell, ya hear ? Never !"

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## B-Mental

Plenty of action in there Lonesome Cowboy. I work in the oilfield, so I know the type of characters you write about. Very well written, I'm looking forward to more.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

> Plenty of action in there Lonesome Cowboy. I work in the oilfield, so I know the type of characters you write about. Very well written, I'm looking forward to more.


Thank you sir for taking the time. Anything in particular you&#180;d like to comment on ? BTW B-MENTAL , don&#180;t forget to check out my other two short stories. I&#180;d like to get your take on those too!

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## B-Mental

As far as commenting on anything in particular... I really don't have much to say...The Cree are a northern tribe, if I am correct, and there were still plenty of racists even in the 20th century. There are places I've been where they still have the "no injuns" signs. That isn't really a shortcoming in your story though, because so many places were different. I like the story a lot, and I'll get on the other ones this evening.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

Right you are B-Mental. BTW, this is the intro to a longer story in a collection I&#180;m working on about the West.

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## B-Mental

Very nice, I've spent 7 years in the Texas Louisiana area, and 5 in Montana, (can't forget the winter in Alaska). Anyways, the wild west still exists. Love to read more of your stuff.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

> Very nice, I've spent 7 years in the Texas Louisiana area, and 5 in Montana, (can't forget the winter in Alaska). *Anyways, the wild west still exists. Love to read more of your stuff*.


Thank you sir for your kind words. And yes, the Wild West lives on...

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## AuntShecky

Re: Eva's profession.
Around 1940, H.L. Mencken coined the term for this type of dancer an "ecdysiast" after "ecdysis," the shedding of an
outer layer of skin by a snake, for instance.

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## DickZ

I cant tell what the guy is supposed to be saying when he utters _I can´t breaf you ..._ If I cant tell, its possible that there are others in the same boat.

Maybe it's a generational thing, and I'm just too old to understand today's lingo.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

> I cant tell what the guy is supposed to be saying when he utters _I can´t breaf you ..._ If I cant tell, its possible that there are others in the same boat.
> 
> *Maybe it's a generational thing, and I'm just too old to understand today's lingo*.


 :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:  " I can´t breath you son of a %$#% " . The guy just got clotheslined. Good call tho DickieZ.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

> Re: Eva's profession.
> Around 1940, H.L. Mencken coined the term for this type of dancer an "ecdysiast" after "ecdysis," the shedding of an
> outer layer of skin by a snake, for instance.



"H.L. Mencken is credited with coining the word "ecdysiast", which means 
"a person who stripteases". He did so in response to a request from a stripteaser who requested a "more dignified" way to refer to her profession." - WIKIPEDIA , searchword : Striptease

Nice work AuntSheck ! Any thoughts on the story itself ?

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## DickZ

> " I can&#180;t breathe you son of a &#37;$#% " . The guy just got clotheslined. Good call tho DickieZ.


OK - thanks for clearing that up. I knew he had been clotheslined, and that he was having trouble forming his words. I even understood the _son of a %$#%_  part. Saying _breaf_ while meaning _breathe_ makes perfect sense when you explain it. I should have used more ingenuity in trying to figure it out for myself.

I'm anxiously waiting for the Ty McLeod in this story to merge in with the Ty McLeod in _The 1921 Ford Roustabout_. I'm just afraid that one of them is going to get killed first. You pack so much action into these teasers.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

> OK - thanks for clearing that up. I knew he had been clotheslined, and that he was having trouble forming his words. I even understood the _son of a &#37;$#%_  part. Saying _breaf_ while meaning _breathe_ makes perfect sense when you explain it. I should have used more ingenuity in trying to figure it out for myself.
> 
> *I'm anxiously waiting for the Ty McLeod in this story to merge in with the Ty McLeod in The 1921 Ford Roustabout. I'm just afraid that one of them is going to get killed first.* You pack so much action into these teasers.


 :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:  can&#180;t wait either DickieZ cuz , believe it or not, *I* don&#180;t even know how this is gonna turn out dude ! These guys have taken on a life of their own!!!!

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## DickZ

Here's a nit-pick, but an important one because it says something about you as the author. The next time one of your characters tosses someone like a _"bail of hay,"_ make it a _"bale of hay"_ instead. There's a big difference.

We all make typos, but this one is a little more than a simple typo. It's not as bad as someone else's story which mentioned _"the wait of the ice"_ on trees after a storm, but it's still pretty noticeable.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

> *Here's a nit-pick, but an important one because it says something about you as the author*. The next time one of your characters tosses someone like a _"bail of hay,"_ make it a _"bale of hay"_ instead. There's a big difference.
> 
> We all make typos, but this one is a little more than a simple typo. It's not as bad as someone else's story which mentioned _"the wait of the ice"_ on trees after a storm, but it's still pretty noticeable.


Thanks for pointing that out. BTW, What *does* a mistake like that say about me, the author ?

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## B-Mental

As far as I can tell, LC its says you are human like everyone else (barring some critics who shall remain sub-human indefinitely).

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## DickZ

> Thanks for pointing that out. BTW, What *does* a mistake like that say about me, the author ?


I'll tell you backchannel - by private message. That's how I should have done this in the first place. It was tactless of me to carp in public, and I apologize for that.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

> I'll tell you backchannel - by private message. That's how I should have done this in the first place. *It was tactless of me to carp in public, and I apologize for that*.


What the heck ? Carp Dickie ! Carp ! So I got clipped bad by a homophone. I know I don&#180;t have an iron-clad command of the language and you can say it and that&#180;s perfectly OK. I respect you for it. One thing tho : Please don&#180;t stop reading my stories cuz of the grammar.

Thanks

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## Lonesome Cowboy

> *As far as I can tell, LC its says you are human like everyone else* (barring some critics who shall remain sub-human indefinitely).


Jeeez ! I ain´t getting the chair dude  :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:  B- Mental , just promise me ya won´t stop reading cuz of the grammar.

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## B-Mental

Well, I wasn't speaking of Dick Z. More of the lot of some critics that anonymously criticised some of my work. Anyways, I can't promise anything...but I can say that grammar wouldn't keep me away.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

> *but I can say that grammar wouldn't keep me away*.



Thanks dude!

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## Lonesome Cowboy

We got part 3 comin down the pipe yawlz!!!!

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## Lonesome Cowboy

Got more Ty Mcleod and The Morgan Twins comin yer way ladies n vermin!!!! :FRlol: 

Be sure to read my new excerpt : VIVA MAY-HEE-COE ...GAW DANG IT!!!

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## Lonesome Cowboy

been a long time since Ty McLeod n Smokey River

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## Lonesome Cowboy

Town of Kiowa, Colorado 
*The State of Colorado - Department of Personnel & Administration, Colorado State Archives. Dec 23, 1927. Retrieved 2007-09-02.*

The Town of Kiowa as we know it today was settled in 1859 along the banks of Kiowa Creek and was originally nothing more than a stage stop. Such trails as the Smoky Hill South (aka the Starvation trail), the Butterfield Overland Dispatch, and Wells Fargo made their stops in Kiowa on the way to Denver and the fold fields of the Rockies.

The original settlement was named “Deadwood” after Deadwood Dick McLeod ran the stage station and was one of the early settlers in the area. Sometime during the 1860’s the name was changed to “Middle Kiowa”. Why “ Middle Kiowa” you might ask? The reason was that at one time there were two settlements along Kiowa Creek-one named “High Kiowa”, the other “ Low Kiowa”. It is really unclear why the creek and settlements were named Kiowa. The Kiowa Indian tribe in Colorado spent most of their time further south, however it has been said that this area was their summer hunting grounds and compared to the other local tribes were usually “on the attack”. 

The two main tribes that were in this area were the Cheyenne and the Arapahoe.

In 1874, four horse thieves were caught about 15 miles up creek and brought into town before Judge Fahrion. For three days the trial lingered, finally on the third night, a group of about 50 masked men overpowered the sheriff and deputies and loaded the four men into a wagon. They took them to an outcropping of pine trees southeast of town and with the men still shackled together in twos, they were hung together in twos-with their shackles still on.

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## 108 fountains

I like the factoids at the opening; they give a good feel for the setting and the mood.
Im not sure what strip-bars were like in the 1920s (although I have a pretty good idea of what they are like now). I doubt if they used metal poles back then and am quite sure they did not have strobes and rotating metal balls. Other than that, overall the story was entertaining, action-packed, and conjured up a scene in my imagination. It appears this is a part of a larger piece, and if so, its a good introduction to Luke Black Elk and Eva. They have the potential to be interesting characters, and I hope youll develop them more fully in later chapters. 
At least on my computer screen, every time there is an apostrophe, it comes out as &#180, which is pretty distracting. I dont know if youre able to go back in and fix that, but it would be worthwhile to try.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

Thank you for the generous comments 108. Not sure this scene is set in the 1920s, but I should make it clearer tho, youre right. "Kiowa Oil" is multi generational.

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## 108 fountains

Ah, OK. I got the 1920s from the introduction you have before the actual story started. If that's not the case, you might want to work the time period of the setting into the story somewhere near the beginning.

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## Lonesome Cowboy

Been a while Online-Lit friends...See couple of old faces but plenty new.  :Smile:

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## Lonesome Cowboy

The Last Gentleman's Club

"There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it." George Bernard Shaw


***

Eva stares at her silver locket in her hand. Strobe lights flickering around her. 

"So this is it...Mom" she whispers "last show,last exit". 

She steps on stage at "Luke's Gentleman's Club" a small bar tucked away in the valley hills of Quint, a snow blanketed ghost town. Residents: Three. All inside the bar tonight. 

Wrapped in a crimson robe, Eva walks across the stage. The rough blizzard winds outside shaking the roof and walls like a tent. Music comes on : a cool blue sustained electric note fills the air. Her robe drops and like a magnificent bird opening her wings, she takes flight. Climbing her dance pole she soars over the one man crowd as the pounding beat slowly drowns out the din of the room. Her locket gently swaying from her neck with every twist, every turn. 

Alone, standing behind the bar Luke scans the room. Arms folded across his chest ,his long black hair tied back, he keeps an eye on their only guest tonight, old Mr. McDonough. There used to be hundreds in the place, waiting...broken, shattered, souls pulverized by the end of it all, stripped of their freedom, stripped of their humanity by despair, enslaved by an imminent demise, the destroyer: Apollyon. 

It was around the time when the first images appeared on TV. When they found out it there were no conspiracies and that it was all true. The worst thing, was that there wasnt going to be enough room for everybody. Then the looting, the riots, the killings...but not here, not in Quint, not in the valley. Mister McDonough was here to see Eva one last time. To be hypnotized, entranced by a burning silver flame on stage.

The computer controlled stage lights fade from blue to purple, a color that Luke remembers well. That walk along the trail last summer with Eva. 

"I'm an artist Luke" she stops and looks at him.

"Dancing's my life. When I'm up there on stage I am fearless. I can take on anything". She looks up at the hills surrounding the valley, pump-jacks littering the landscape, silent monuments to an era long gone. "Dont wanna work the tables, not the bar, not your back office...the stage." Luke takes a deep breath, shakes his head remorsefully wishing he could change things, looks up at the summer clouds rolling across the blue sky...

"yeah, mom would want this"

"Mom would want us to stay together, doing what we love" Eva reassures him.

Suddenly the blue sky over Quint , like ink clouding a glass of water begins turning an ominous purple. From the woods, like locusts, thousands upon thousands of birds fly off forming a giant dark cloud over the hills.

"Look, another electro-wave...its de-ionizing the atmosphere" both stare up at the dark shifting hues in the morning sky.

Slowly, like a dissolving watercolor the menacing purple begins to dissipate giving way to the skys radiant light blue once again. 

Eva, picks up a small rock, holds it in her hand. Imbedded salts and minerals in the quartz sparkling like tiny stars. 

"Apollyon" she mutters looking at the rock. She throws it across the road hitting a rusted old sign that reads: "Evacuation route number 3 : impact shelters 10 miles"

-------------

The line of cars from the Borealis parking lot stretches down the road
as far as the eye can see. Hundreds of cars parked in snow banks, on hillsides, in rows of two three and four. People frozen stiff, hands grasping from
under the snow for help that never came.

The Northern Lights burn bright over the Watachee Valley tonight. They burn bright, but are slowly eclipsed by the approaching meteor.
Eva stops and looks at the night sky as the meteor impacts the moon like a bullet shattering the finest porcelain plate in ultra slow motion.
In minutes rocks the size of Texas will be raining down on the planet...Eva turns and looks back at Borealis : the last Gentleman's club on Earth.

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