Bell heard a loud report behind him. Another gunman? It seemed to come from the oil derricks. It was followed immediately by a metallic clanging noise like a blacksmith’s hammer. Then he heard a sharp retort like a blasting cap or a quarter stick of dynamite.
A blinding light flashed from the refinery.
A hollow Boom! shook the air. The explosion blew the top off a crude oil tank that stood in the outermost ring of tanks. Shattered planking tufted into the sky. Black smoke pillared. The first explosion, Bell surmised, had ignited the natural gas that rose from the crude oil and collected in the top of the tanks. The gas explosion had set the oil itself to burning.
That it threatened to destroy Spike Hopewell’s entire refinery was evidenced by the sight of gangs of oil workers arriving on the run with shovels and picks to dig a trench between the burning tank and its neighbors. They converged from the derricks and the refinery, the rag town, and the saloons. A gang rolled out a cannon on a two-wheeled gun carriage.
A field gun would be a baffling sight had not Bell studied the oil business from top to bottom to prepare for the Corporations Commission investigation. Regular procedure for fighting an oil tank fire was to shoot holes in the tank below the liquid line to drain the oil that fed the fire. Artillery allowed the firefighters to stay outside the lethal range of explosions.
One of the gun carriage wheels slipped into a shallow gully and sunk axle-deep in the wet, spongy ground. Bell raced to help, driving the Locomobile across the prairie ground as fast as the clumped grass would allow. He could see at the base of the roiling smoke column a diamond-bright core of flame growing wider, taller, and brighter.
Bell heaved his steering wheel hard left and drove as close as he dared alongside the cannon while keeping his own wheels on firm ground. He threw the towrope he kept coiled around the spare tires. The gun crew tied onto the carriage trail. Bell accelerated the powerful auto and dragged the cannon out of the gully. Plowing ahead slowly enough to let the men guiding it run alongside, he pulled it into a position that gave them a clear shot at the burning tank.
The intense heat was making the crude oil boil and foam into a maelstrom of red flame, white steam, and black smoke. Already the heat was too intense for the ditching gang. The men backed away. Suddenly the boiling, foaming oil tank exploded. Tentacles of liquid flame shot into the sky and cascaded to the ground, falling on neighboring tanks.
The firefighters dropped their shovels and ran. They barely escaped. Two more explosions in quick time sent lids flying. Two more tanks gushed geysers of flame that fountained skyward and collapsed on tanks as yet unscathed. An explosion breached the wall of a tank. Oil spilled, tumbling over the ground, across ditches, and splashing against a burning shack, leveling the flimsy wooden structure, and igniting.
The fires spread, gaining speed.
The flames leaped the outer ditch around the refinery. Several buildings erupted into flame, and soon the fire was slithering past the refinery toward the biggest holding tank in Kansas, which Spike Hopewell had built to store his glut of gasoline.
The cannon crew exchanged frightened looks.
“Shoot!” said Isaac Bell. “On the jump!”
More frightened looks. Most scattered, leaving Bell with three brave men: an independent wildcatter sporting a boss’s knee-high riding boots and watch chain, a gray-bearded Civil War vet in a forage cap, and a young farmer in a battered slouch hat.
“Can’t shoot gasoline,” said the wildcatter.
“Too volatile,” said the vet. “It’ll blow that tank like a nitro shot. Kill everyone within a mile.”
“But if the cannon doesn’t set it off,” said Bell, “the fire will.”
He thought fast and pointed at the 0-6-0 switch engine idling on the refinery siding. “Who can run that locomotive?”
“Me,” said the bearded old soldier.
“Steam it to this end of the siding close as you can to the tank.”
Bell pointed at a giant spool of drilling cable. The other two understood his plan immediately. Terrified expressions on their smoke-grimed faces said they didn’t like it.
“It’s our only chance,” said Bell.
The spool was six feet high. They extracted the loose end of the cable from the coil, put their shoulders to the spool, and commenced rolling it to uncoil the cable. Men watching saw what they were up to and came to help.
A rigger ran up with a monkey wrench and a sack of cable clamps, nuts, and bolts. “You boys must be loco,” he shouted over the roar of fire. “Guess I’ll join the crowd.” He bent the loose end of the cable into a loop, clamped it together, and dragged it toward the locomotive, while Isaac Bell and the others dragged their end to the gasoline tank.
Tanks were burning behind them and to either side. Columns of smoke rose from the incinerated crude, swirling like tornadoes. They climbed swiftly, joined high overhead, and turned the sky black.
Pursued by the fire, Bell and his helpers pulled the cable to the foot of the gasoline tank. It was as high as a three-story house. A ladder led up its iron side. Bell slung the loop over his shoulder and climbed. The men below pushed the stiff cable up, trying to relieve him of some of the weight. He was breathing hard when he reached the top and swung onto the wooden roof. The farmer followed close behind carrying a crowbar and an ax.
“Can you run get me that monkey wrench?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Chop a hole in the roof,” said Bell, swinging the ax with all his might. “Run,” he said again. “In case I throw sparks.”
The fires were advancing quickly. Another oil tank exploded and thick burning crude flew through the air. With very little time to pierce the roof, he thanked his lucky stars for the Northwest timber case when he’d masqueraded as a lumberjack. Tar, wood chips, and splinters flew.
He chopped open a hole at the edge of the roof, just inside the iron wall. The fumes that suddenly vented were almost overwhelming. His head spun. The farmer came up the ladder again, gasping for wind. He passed Bell the monkey wrench.
“What’s it for?”
“Anchor,” said Bell, fastening the wrench’s jaws firmly around the cable. “Run while you can.”
He shoved the wrench and the cable loop through the hole and wedged it tightly with the crowbar and the ax. Then he signaled the Civil War vet, dropped down the ladder as fast as he could, and ran toward him.
A space of about two football fields separated the gasoline tank from the switch engine, which backed away, drawing the slack out of the drilling cable. When it was tight at a long, shallow angle between the top of the tank and the siding, Bell swung aboard the engine. “I’ll take her.”
“Welcome to it.”
Bell put his hands on the throttle and quadrant, admitted steam to the cylinders, and backed away smoothly. “Nice and easy, now.”
“Fine touch,” said the vet. “Where’d you learn it?”
Bell eyed the cable, which was tightening like a bowstring. “Borrowed a locomotive when I was in college.”
The drilling cable was strong enough to do the job. And the switch engine had the power. But would his makeshift anchor hold fast to the tank’s iron wall?
More steam. Bell peered through the smoke. Was the wall bulging or was that wishful thinking?
“Where’d you take the locomotive?”
“Miss Porter’s.”
“Girls’ school?”
“Young ladies.”
A little more steam. It looked like a bulge.
Suddenly the cable flew high in the air.
“The wire busted!” yelled the vet.
“No,” said Bell, “the wall.”
A section of the tank’s iron wall, a panel six feet wide, popped a row of rivets, peeled open like a sardine can, and bent toward the ground. Gasoline cascaded.