Nita's Eyes

A few years ago, I took a mineral lease not far from Lake Arcadia, Edmond’s water supply. I wanted to get an oil well drilled at a location about two miles south of Route 66. I became friends with Carroll L, the mineral owner and one day, just before lunch, he showed up at my office.

“Let’s go to lunch,” he said. “I’m buying.”

I had no other plans so we piled into his truck. Instead of taking me to lunch, though, he had other plans. We soon pulled up outside a house in Edmond.

“There’s someone here I want you to meet. Her name is Nita. She’s a seer and I’m going to have her read your cards.”

Nita was apparently expecting us, quickly ushering us to a back room complete with a table and deck of Tarot cards. She smiled and basked in the accolades as Carroll explained all the missing persons she had found for the police.

“I have a talent,” she admitted.

Nita was an attractive Oklahoma woman that in no way looked like a witch doctor or soothsayer, but she had a confident manner about her that caused me to trust her instantly.

Carroll, apparently, was more interested in learning if she thought there was oil and gas under his property than in listening to my fortune. Listen, though, he did because Nita dealt my cards and proceeded to predict my fate. I don’t remember everything she said. One thing I do.

“You ride a motorcycle, don’t you?” she asked. When I admitted that I did and had two motorcycles, a grave expression appeared on her face. Her next statement caused me concern. “You’re going to have a motorcycle accident and you’re going to lose a leg.”

I was still reeling from Nita’s prediction when Carroll changed the subject to his minerals. Nita thinks there’s a wealth of oil and gas beneath my property, don’t you Nita?

There was a moment’s hesitation between Nita’s answer and the look of doubt in her eyes. I knew right away that no matter what her lips professed about how much oil and gas we were going to find, her eyes were telling the truth that she believed.

We never made it to lunch that day, Carroll returning me to my office, confident that he would soon have a wonderful well drilled on his land. After our meeting with Nita the seer, I was not so sure. The meeting unnerved me to the point that I have never again ridden a motorcycle (well, okay, just once maybe.)

Nita’s eyes did not persuade me that there was no oil or gas under Carroll’s property and it took the drilling of two dry holes to convince me otherwise. While I don’t believe that Nita knew anymore about the oil and gas (or lack thereof) beneath Carroll’s property than I did, I’m still not going to run out and buy a new Harley.

Fiction South