Table of Contents
Part I The Advancement of Man
Introduction 3
I Should Be Dead 8
Tales at the Water Depot 13
Beyond the Eyes of Roosevelt 20
The Wild Bison 29
Williston Brewing Company 41
Great American Scam 52
Streetlights 63
A Fugitive at the Border 73
Edge of the World 83
Part II Free Market Rhapsody
The Sheer Emptiness of It 89
Nobody Lives Here 99
Evolution 107
Empire of Junk 117
Right-Minded People 125
Capitalism Is Legal 137
A Great Steaming Pile of Money 144
Ballad of La Bruta 152
Part III Of Riches and Reality
The Dinner Party 167
Peyton Place on the Plains 172
Deal Junkies 177
Going to War 185
The Derrick Goes Sideways 189
$100 Oil to $1 Beer 206
Nat Geo's in Town 214
Fracking Hell 226
Part IV Trials of Civilization
Wasteland 237
The Perils at Twenty Feet 247
Pipelining Blues 254
You Chose Oil over Us 261
Exodus 272
Bile of the Subterranean 286
Frigid Despair 294
This Is Your Treasure 302
Acknowledgments 313
Notes 315