Landman -

Luis hesitated. “The company men are gonna chew your ass.”

“Move the pad,” Clay said.

Clay knelt. The stone wasn’t a formal marker. It was a chunk of limestone, chiseled by hand. A child’s grave, probably. Maybe a fever took them. Maybe a snake. Out here, a hundred thirty years ago, you dug with whatever you had and you kept moving. Landman

He walked the perimeter of the grave one more time, tracing the faint depression in the earth. Then he climbed back in his truck and drove away before anyone could argue.

The next morning, the survey team found a previously unmapped fault line exactly where Clay had said the ground was unstable. No one questioned it. The pad moved. Oil flowed six days later. Luis hesitated

“They can try.” Clay lit a cigarette, the flare from his lighter catching the harsh lines of his face. “But I’ll tell you something, kid. My granddad was a wildcatter. He used to say there are two kinds of people in this business: those who make money, and those who sleep at night. I’ve been the first one. Tonight, I’m the second.”

“Neither. Worse.” Luis pointed toward a low ridge fifty yards from the new pad. “We found a grave.” The stone wasn’t a formal marker

Clay grabbed his flashlight and a rolled-up plat map. The wind had a knife-edge to it. When he reached the ridge, he saw it: a small, weathered headstone, no bigger than a shoebox, half-swallowed by mesquite. The name was worn smooth, but the date was still visible— 1887 .

“That’s not on any survey,” Luis said nervously. “We run the dozer another forty feet east, we go right over it.”