In the mid 1970s, a band of men with little expertise in the oilfield
defied the hard ground of Giddings, Texas, to search for oil in a
barren, poverty-stricken land that was littered with dry holes,
shattered hopes, and empty pockets. Max Williams, the former hot-shot
basketball player at SMU, and Irv Deal had been in high-dollar real
estate until the real estate market collapsed. Both were facing the
wrath of hard times. Pat Holloway was a lawyer who operated drilling
funds but had never tested the ill-fated Austin Chalk. He drilled the
most and earned the most but lost it all in the shady confines of a
Dallas courtroom. Jimmy Luecke was a highway patrolman who stopped
Holloway for speeding one night and promised not to take him to jail if
the lawyer/oilman would agree to drill on his family’s land. Bill
Shuford was right out of college and more interested in finding the next
beer joint than his next job. Jim Dobos was a constable who used his
badge to lease land, struck it rich, and was found with a gunshot in his
head. Was it murder or suicide? Clayton Williams was the only big-time
oilman in the bunch, but in the beginning, he made the mistake of
employing the wrong geologist. Only those who used the geologic genius
of Ray Holifield found oil. Holifield had cracked the code of the chalk.
Gamble in the Devil’s Chalk is the true story of their fights, their
feuds, their trials, their tribulations, and their triumphs as they
discovered the second largest oilfield in the United States during the
past half century. Once they came, Giddings would never be the same
again.
