THE WELL

THE WELL

The world had held its breath for three days. People everywhere huddled around their tv sets, afraid to watch, yet drawn and held there as if by some irresistible and intractable power.

Everyone knew the little child was doomed. The whole thing was too much even for the hardened newsmen. Speaking in thickened voices and furtively wiping the moisture from their eyes, they stood before the cameras wearily reporting the latest distressing facts. It was early fall and the east Texas evenings were chilly, making their jobs physically uncomfortable as well as emotionally draining.

Not since millions of television viewers watched in horrified fascination as a crew of American astronauts miraculously brought a hopelessly wounded spaceship back from outer space had Earth’s people united in such fervent prayer.

Earth’s people had sent up millions upon millions of anguished pleas for the safe return of the rocket ship and its passengers. Some said the prayers activated some kind of invisible magnetic field that actually traveled to the damaged craft and pulled it safely home. The plight of the toddler in the well, however, seemed even more appalling and hopeless. Few had faith enough to believe the rescuers could pull the tiny girl from her deep, dark prison.

The little town of Walters had never witnessed such a storm of attention, certainly never the eyes of the world focused upon it. Walterites really didn’t know how to react. They felt just as stricken with horror as the rest of the world, but in addition felt a strange sense of responsibility. After all, this atrocity had happened right here in the middle of God’s country. Things this bad just didn’t happen here. Owen Jackson, the tall, skinny editor of the town’s only newspaper, found this reaction downright silly.

“What’s the matter with these people, Glenda?” he grumbled to his wife as they worked putting the latest edition of the WALTERS TIMES to bed. “You’d think the town’d been accused of throwing the little girl down that well on purpose.”

“I know,” Glenda sighed. Short and blond and just a little plump, she was leaned over the paste-up table pressing black tape around a society page ad. She raised and stretched to loosen the kinks in her back. “Have you noticed how down-in-the-mouth Jack Cooper’s been?” she asked. “I really don’t understand his attitude about this whole thing. He won’t even discuss it. Just walks away every time it comes up in conversation.”

Owen leaned back from his computer keyboard, pushed his glasses up over his head and squinted at her, a gesture that Glenda long ago learned meant he was thinking and searching his memory. He and Cooper were good friends and had been since they were teenagers.


“You know what?” he finally said, “I think I know what’s bugging Coop! You remember when he had the drilling business years ago? Used one of those old cable-tool rigs. I think he dug that well! He’s probably twisted things all around to make it his fault they can’t get that baby out! Can you beat that? I think I’ll go talk to him about it- might make a good feature story.”

He rose and grabbed a reporter’s note pad. “Be back afterwhile, Glenda,” he said on his way out of the office.

He found Cooper in a booth by the window of Pat’s Coffee Shop. He was not as tall as Owen but so wide and powerfully built that he seemed to fill the whole seat. He sat, shoulders hunched over the table, staring down at the cup clenched tightly in his fists. “Mind if I join you, Jack?” Owen asked. He didn’t wait for a reply but sat down and motioned the waitress for coffee. “Why are you so mopey these days?”

Cooper looked up. “I’m not mopey, O. Just don’t feel especially happy. Can’t a person be a little down around here without the newspaper investigating?”

“I remembered while ago that you dug that well they’re trying to get the girl out of, didn’t you?” Owen asked as the waitress brought his coffee.

“Yeah, what about it? It was capped off when I left it. Don’t know what’s happened with it since then. That was years ago.” Cooper replied shortly.

“Okay. What would you say about me doing a story on you, about drilling that well and all?”

Cooper was silent, staring into his cup again for several moments. “I don’t see how you can make much of a story out of that,” he said at last. “At least not out of what I’d want you to print. Not about how that was the job that lost me my religion.”

He shook his head and then added in a strangled cry, “I can’t even pray for that little girl now, and she’s down in a hole that I made!”

Owen patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “Yeah, I remember you had a lot of problems around that time, Coop,” he softly. “But that’s all behind you now. You recovered from the bankruptcy and your new business is booming. So what’ve you got to be down about? What’s eating you?”

Cooper stared intently at the autumn-tinted leaves the old oak trees brushed against the coffee shop windows. “O, I’ll tell you something I haven’t told anyone,” he started slowly. “But it’s off the record, OK?”

Owen nodded. “Ok, go on. Get it off your chest why don’t you. I’ve got plenty of copy this week. Don’t need another inch. Go on, tell me.”

Still staring out the window, Cooper began speaking softly. “Well, I only had about two days worth of work to get that well dug and I knew I could get it finished. You see, my bank note was way overdue and I’d been stalling til I could get paid for this job. The bank had given me one more day to get the money or they were going to repossess my rig. You know, I still believed in God back then and I’d been praying about my financial mess and it seemed like when this well job came up that it was the answer to my problems. But just about the time I was sure it was gonna work out, the drill hit a formation I thought I’d never get past. The drop hammer pounded and pounded and we wore out bit after bit. Finally put the casing in down to the obstruction but before I could finish the grouting around the outside of the casing, the bank shut me down. I had to cap it off and tell the customer he’d have to get someone else to finish it or dig another well.

“He didn’t have to, though, because the rural water district came in and he didn’t need a well anymore. I guess that’s why everyone forgot about that well being out there.” Cooper leaned back against the booth and sighed. “That was the final straw for my drilling business and I had to go into bankruptcy. I decided then and there that prayer was useless and if there was a God, He certainly wasn’t interested in my affairs. I mean,
Why did that ledge of super hard rock have to be right where I needed to drill? That little ledge of rock ruined me….”

A sudden hush in the coffee shop made him pause mid-sentence. “Turn it up!” someone shouted to the waitress who stood transfixed, peering up at the television mounted on the wall behind the counter.

A news bulletin about the little girl in the well was being broadcast. “Look, look!” people were shouting. “They’re bringing her up! They’ve got her out!” Cheers and laughter and tears mingled in the crowd ringing the well site, and in the coffee shop.

A great tide of relief and thanksgiving began that moment in Walters, Texas and flowed in huge waves around the globe. Children in far away countries danced with joy. Women who were perfect strangers hugged and cried together. Men slapped each other on the back and unashamedly shed tears.

But Jack Cooper and Owen Jackson didn’t cry until that evening during the 6 o’clock news when Jack Cooper got his religion back. They sat together in Owen’s den watching as a reporter interviewed the foreman of the rescue crew who pulled the little girl up.

“When we got to her we saw that she was saved from falling on down into the water, where she would have drowned,” the foreman said with a catch in his voice.

“She had fallen down the well in such a way that she was caught and held there by some kind of stone ledge.”

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