Chapter 17: The King Is Dead

Jimmy decided to give his pregnant wife another surprise. He grinned to himself and began to prepare for the biggest surprise he ever got her. A house came up for sale that seemed just right for Ruby.

Two things happened almost simultaneously. First Jimmy saw the ad in the paper for the house and a half hour later, he had a visitor.

Two days after the confrontation with Robert Seton at the Planters' Steak House, a representative for an independent oil company approached him at the paper.

"Mister Haggard, I represent Purdue Oil Exploration," The sleek looking man in a light wool suit greeted him.

"How did you get back here?" Jimmy asked. Right then the presses were silent and normal conversation was possible.

"I asked where you were and the young lady at the front counter directed me back here. I would like to talk to you about an option on your property."

"Not interested," Jimmy told him.

"You haven't even heard what I have to say so how do you know you won't be interested?"

"Because you don't interest me. I'm busy right now trying to teach two guys to work on the presses while I teach the third one how to repair electronics equipment."

"Forty thousand dollars and a dollar a barrel royalty on every gallon we pump out of the ground on your property."

"Deal," Jimmy answered. "Now please go away while I get set up for the afternoon edition." Jimmy walked away.

"How do I contact you to sign the papers?" the oilman asked desperately. This big man seemed so bland, almost simple.

"I'll be done here by noon. You meet me out front with the papers ready for me to sign and we can sit down for lunch while I read them over." Jimmy turned away and motioned to one of the trainees to follow him.

At one minute past twelve, Jimmy left the Newspaper building and walked toward the small restaurant where he usually had lunch. When the oilman joined him. Jimmy opened the door and went in first. He motioned to a table and sat. The oilman took a chair across from him and removed the papers from a large envelope. Jimmy held out his hand. As soon as he had the thin sheaf of stapled papers, he began to read.

"Hi, Jimmy," the waitress greeted him. "The stew is pretty good. Any ways, ain't nobody died from it yet."

"Please," Jimmy told her and went back to his reading.

"Well?" the oilman asked, "What do you say?"

"No." Jimmy looked across the table at him, "We agreed to forty thousand dollars and a dollar a barrel royalty. Now that's not what it says here at all. You used too many words here to say nothing here except you want to give me five thousand dollars and a dollar fifty a barrel royalty. You ought to try the stew here. It's pretty good as a rule."

"I don't understand. This is a standard agreement. You even get to retain surface rights to the land."

"Once you start to drill for oil that little five acre patch of land won't be worth anything for twenty years after you clear out, at least. My house won't be worth anything. Oh yes, I also need up to six months to relocate." Jimmy tasted the stew and smiled. "We'll probably be moved in ninety days."

"There are other considerations," the man told him and got no further.

Jimmy held up his hand and interrupted, "To me there is one consideration. You stick to the agreement, your first offer and give me up to six months to relocate."

"But..." he got no further.

"My stew is getting cold. If you can't keep your word, beat it." Jimmy buttered a roll and attacked his stew.

Without another word, the man reached inside his suit coat inner pocket and withdrew another envelope. He wrote "Six months from this date" and dated the document. He handed Jimmy a check for forty thousand dollars and a pen to sign next to the indicated "x." He shook his head in defeat.

Jimmy accepted a signed copy of the agreement, finished his stew, and left. The waitress told the oilman. "Ever since Jimmy hooked up with Ruby, he has been a changed man." She cleared the table and gave Jimmy a wistful look as he walked away from her. She, along with many others, wished they had not been so hasty when they called him "Clumsy Jimmy."

The oilman gave the waitress a blank look. "I only know he's hard to deal with." Then he, too, left.

Jimmy walked directly to his own bank. "I want you to verify this check and put a hold on the funds."

The bank manager looked at the amount of the check and raised his eyebrows. "Is there a question about the check?"

"Oh no, I just want to make sure the man does not change his mind. I figure I might need to be able to access this money right away." As soon as the transaction was completed, Jimmy left.

When he got back to the newspaper, he phoned the radio station. "This is Jimmy Haggard. Would you tell Ruby to come by the newspaper office after she does her show?"

"She's right here, Jimmy, she just came in," the new receptionist told him.

"Jimmy?" Ruby's voice came over the phone.

"Hi, Honey," Jimmy greeted her.

"There's a smelly old truck of big, thick pipes and all the timbers and steelwork to build an oil derrick parked in the field across the road from us."

"Any of that equipment on our property?" he asked.

"No, that's not the point. They are across the road from us."

"Honey, we can't do anything about that. Why don't you come by the paper after you finish your show and we go for a ride? Then we can get some Chinese and relax. I think I got another little surprise for you."

"Reba is with me. The station got some phone calls. It seems a lot of my younger listeners, people in their teens and twenties, liked her yesterday. If she works out she may be a regular on my show."

"Bring her too. I have to get to work. See you about four?"

"Okay, Jimmy, see you then." Ruby hung up and wondered what surprise Jimmy had for her this time.

"Lord, I hope he didn't spend over fifty dollars on it," she told Reba.

"Big Sis, you sure are lucky. If those clodhoppers back home spent fifty cents on a girl, they expected to get rewarded for a month after. Here you complain he spends too much on you." She shook her head.

Jimmy stood outside the newspaper building waiting when Ruby and Reba pulled up in front and stopped. Reba got in the back seat and Jimmy sat in front beside Ruby. He gave directions to the north side of town.

"Go up that driveway there," he directed.

"Jimmy, what have you done now? Would you please tell me what is going on here? Honey, you know I don't like big surprises. They make me cranky."

When they stopped in front of a large stone house Jimmy got out. A woman in her late thirties opened the front door and greeted them.

"Oh Miss Haggard, you are even more beautiful than the newspaper pictures show you. Please come in."

Mystified, Ruby joined Jimmy as the woman held the door open for them. Reba took her time as she got out and looked around. Her eyes took in the white rail fence and the horse that looked over the top rail at them. She hurried to catch up.

"Honey, if this house pleases you, it's yours." Jimmy smiled at his wife and hoped he had not messed things up.

Ruby got a hollow feeling in her stomach. "What about the house we have now?"

"It is going to be smack dab in the middle of an oil field in about thirty days, I figure. I'm guessing, but it's a good guess."

"Let me show you the house," the lady told Ruby. Ruby stared around her at the beautiful room. "We had it built just before the war started. Now my husband has been transferred to California. We both love this house. "Our son Wayne is the only one anxious to move to San Diego."

As if on cue a young man in his mid teens came in the front door. "Wow!" he exclaimed, "The strongest man in Oklahoma in our house. Wait till I tell the gang!" He stood and stared at Jimmy in open-mouthed awe.

Ruby gave Jimmy a smirk, and patted the young man's cheek. "I am so lucky to have such a famous husband." She laughed at her embarrassed husband.

A girl about twelve came out of the hallway and stared at Ruby and Reba. "Oh! Big Sis and you got to be Little Sis! In our house! Oh, wait till I tell the kids in school tomorrow. We all want red hair just like yours. You are both so beautiful."

Ruby laughed at being recognized. Reba did not know what to say or do. Jimmy smiled and said, "You're more famous than I am." He laughed at Reba's expression.

The woman led them through the house. The hardwood floors sparkled; the living room had a west looking picture window that showed the pasture where the horse grazed.

"The house is beautiful," Ruby finally said when they had toured the kitchen and the three-car garage attached to the house by a covered breezeway. "Jimmy?" she gave him a wary look.

"This is your surprise, if you want it, Hon." He looked into her eyes with a gentle smile. "I would have bought it outright but I wanted to make sure you wanted it first."

"Oh my god, Big Sis," Reba was stunned as she looked around them. "Oh, this is so beautiful."

Jimmy explained further, "There are four bedrooms. They built a mother in law cottage out back and there are two maid's rooms attached to the garage. There is also a barn and a tack room. You want it?"

"Jimmy, be practical. How can I take care of a place this big and do my radio show, as well as take care our baby?"

"You too cheap to hire a maid?"

"Wh-what? Hire a maid to do my work? Jimmy, what are you talking about?" Dumbfounded, she stared up at him as if he were a stranger.

"Ruby, didn't you read your new contract?" She shook her head.

"Honey, you make more than five times as much as I do at the paper. You can afford a whole bunch of maids."

"But ... but I ... Jimmy!"

"Ruby, you want this house or not?"

"Well yes, but..." She stood looking at Jimmy, confused and lost.

"We'll take it." Jimmy turned to the woman of the house. "I'll give you a check right now for the thirty-five thousand dollars and pay whatever else there is in expenses when we close. That suit you?"

The woman looked at Jimmy in wonder. Reba stared at him in awe. Then Ruby started to cry. "Jimmy, would you please slow down and let me catch my breath?" She looked lost. "We got to talk this out. You don't just go buy a house like you would a loaf of bread. You discuss it."

"Ruby, do you want the house or not?" Jimmy asked in an aggrieved voice.

"Well yes, but Honey, I don't even know how many bathrooms there are," she said in desperation.

"There is one for each bedroom and another with a shower in the horse barn," the woman told her. "Also, the house sits on fifteen acres."

"Jimmy," Ruby asked, "Can we really afford it?" She could think of nothing else to "discuss."

"Hon, I sold our house for forty thousand dollars. I think we can afford it. An oil outfit thinks there is oil on that property, so I sold it. I put the check in the bank and had my bank put a hold on the funds in case they changed their mind."

"Jimmy, is there oil on that property?" Ruby looked hard at him. Every day she learned over again that Jimmy Haggard was no simpleton.

He grinned, "There might be a little oil. I'll tell you this though, if there is it's better than fifteen hundred feet deep. Daddy hired a drilling company when I was little and they drilled down fifteen hundred feet and only got a few signs of oil."

"Honey, was that honest?"

"Well, if he hadn't been so busy cheating me and asked, I would have told him. He was so set on cheating me I never got a chance to volunteer anything."

Ruby shook her head at the complacent grin on his face. "Honey, you have changed since we first met. In fact you have changed a lot."

"Big Sis, what is going on here?" Reba had followed their conversation and could make little out of what was said.

"Jimmy just bought me a house," Ruby told her, then added, "He pretty much paid cash for it too." She looked confused.

Su Li greeted them at the door and escorted them to their regular table. "Ah, this must be the famous Little Sis. I see beauty runs in your family."

Reba blushed and Ruby answered, "She has a fair singing voice too."

"We want to celebrate tonight. Ruby just let me buy her a new house." Jimmy laughed at the expression on his wife's face.

"You are very fortunate, Jimmy Haggard, that your wife permits you to buy her many presents." She smiled at Jimmy and left.

Their waiter, a young man of mixed Chinese and European descent passed the menus out and suggested the Mandarin duck. He was especially solicitous of Reba.