The oil beneath the Sabine Valley promises a fortune, but the man drilling for it intends to leave nothing behind except poisoned land and buried bodies. To stop him, Clara Burrell must abandon the protection of the law and wage a different kind of war.
When black sludge begins pouring into a Slash B creek, killing cattle and fouling the ranch’s water, Clara discovers that Desmond Price has erected a massive oil derrick just beyond her property line. Armed with state permits, corrupt legal precedent, and an army of roughnecks and hired enforcers, Price can drain the petroleum beneath Burrell land while the courts insist that every barrel belongs to him.
Tom Caldwell and the ranch hands are ready to answer the invasion with iron, but Clara knows that a shooting war will only give Price the excuse he needs to destroy them. Drawing upon the engineering journals left by Bose Calderon, she begins attacking the operation where it is most vulnerable—its machinery, supply lines, steam pressure, and the dangerous geology beneath the drill.
Then Clara uncovers the true purpose of the derrick. Price is not merely stealing oil. He intends to breach an unstable underground formation and trigger a catastrophe vast enough to poison the county, destroy the Texas petroleum boom, and preserve the power of the industrial empire financing him. With the drill descending toward the reservoir and every legal avenue closed, Clara, Tom, and the next generation of the Burrell legacy must enter the oil camp and bring the towering rig down around its master.
The Slash B has survived armies, syndicates, and men who believed paper gave them the right to take whatever they pleased. Ride into the seventeenth Texas 1866 adventure and witness a brutal struggle for the land, the water beneath it, and a future threatened by the shadow of the derrick.
Genre: Western
When black sludge begins pouring into a Slash B creek, killing cattle and fouling the ranch’s water, Clara discovers that Desmond Price has erected a massive oil derrick just beyond her property line. Armed with state permits, corrupt legal precedent, and an army of roughnecks and hired enforcers, Price can drain the petroleum beneath Burrell land while the courts insist that every barrel belongs to him.
Tom Caldwell and the ranch hands are ready to answer the invasion with iron, but Clara knows that a shooting war will only give Price the excuse he needs to destroy them. Drawing upon the engineering journals left by Bose Calderon, she begins attacking the operation where it is most vulnerable—its machinery, supply lines, steam pressure, and the dangerous geology beneath the drill.
Then Clara uncovers the true purpose of the derrick. Price is not merely stealing oil. He intends to breach an unstable underground formation and trigger a catastrophe vast enough to poison the county, destroy the Texas petroleum boom, and preserve the power of the industrial empire financing him. With the drill descending toward the reservoir and every legal avenue closed, Clara, Tom, and the next generation of the Burrell legacy must enter the oil camp and bring the towering rig down around its master.
The Slash B has survived armies, syndicates, and men who believed paper gave them the right to take whatever they pleased. Ride into the seventeenth Texas 1866 adventure and witness a brutal struggle for the land, the water beneath it, and a future threatened by the shadow of the derrick.
Genre: Western
Used availability for Robert Hanlon's Texas 1866: Burrell's Shadow