A ruthlessly ambitious farmboy connives his way to the top of the Oklahoma oil business during its early boom days.In the end, after years of backstabbing and dirty dealings, he must fight the enemies earned over a lifetime to hang on to his empire.

SYNOPSIS:

It seems the sheriff’s daughter, Becky Taft, is in the family way and Cliff Baily is the daddy.Cliff wants no part of that and as the story opens, he’s on the run from the sheriff’s men.

Cliff sees a train pulling out of a nearby switching yard and makes a run for it.He’s about to climb into an open freight car when Mack Fallon, one of Buck’s deputies, stops him.Cliff tries to persuade Mack to let him go and when that fails, he jumps him.Mack’s shotgun goes off in the melee, seriously wounding Mack.Cliff hops the fright, believing he’s killed Mack.

Cliff gets off the train in Fort Smith, Arkansas.His first night in town, he’s hired by Grandy Fitts,a local bootlegger, to run liquor into the Indian Territory.He changes his name to Cliff Logan.After a few weeks working for Grandy,

Cliff decides to go into business for himself.On his first run into the territory to sell his liquor to the owner of a general store, he’s ambushed by Grandy and one of his henchmen.Cliff kills them both. He takes the money he earned from Grandy plus the money he took from Grandy’s body and the store safe and buys the store.

Cliff marries a beautiful young Choctaw girl he’d met on the road during his liquor runs.He’s not completely motivated by true love.The girl, Lizzy, comes with 160 acres of land she’ll receive from the government in exchange for the dissolution of the Indian Territory and the creation of Oklahoma.Cliff hopes to find oil on the land.He hocks the store to finance the drilling, but comes up dry.

He meets a roughneck named Doc Durant who is on his way to work for a driller in the Redpool field near Tulsa.Cliff goes along, leaving a pregnant Lizzy behind.Cliff gets a job with the grizzled old driller, Fred Grubbs.He stays with Fred and his wife, Mae.Mae, a “handsome” woman in her late thirties, seduces Cliff.When Fred is killed in a rig accident, Cliff connives to force Mae to make him a partner in the drilling business.He succeeds.

After a couple of successful years in the drilling business, Cliff wants to drill his own wells.He comes up with a way to extort money from a couple of leasehounds to pay for the leases and the rig.He hires Doc as the driller.After drilling three dusters, Doc tells Cliff he’s certain he knows where the oil is, but Cliff is broke.Desperate, Cliff “borrows” some bearer bonds from Mae as collateral on a loan to pay for one more try.Doc has to shoot the well with nitro to bring it in (a risky operation), but he does it.Cliff pays off the loan and returns the bonds, think that Mae is none the wiser.Unfortunately, Mae has known about all of it, waiting to see if Cliff brings in the well.She tells Cliff that either they’re partners in the oil business or Cliff is going to prison.Cliff is trapped and has to take Mae on as partner in the new company, Maycliff Oil.

The business thrives and Cliff becomes one of the wealthiest men in the state.

Doc, now Cliff’s production manager, devises a new drill bit.He tells Cliff that he’s leaving .Cliff explodes.He orders his attorney to take legal action to take Doc’s bit design.The suit will ultimately fail.

Cliff notices a new clerk in the office, Alexandra (Alex) Stewart.She’s beautiful and only 17.He is drawn to her immediately, but she rebuffs his advances.One day Alex strides into Cliff’s office and informs him that she’s just closed on a lease that none of his other agents had been able to get.She asks him to make her a lease agent.Cliff turns her down, but she persuades him and gets the job.

A couple of years later, Cliff’s marriage to Lizzie is foundering and his son, Dewey, is a teenage alcoholic who is expelled from every school he attends.Alex is a district manager for Maycliff.Cliff orders Alex to put Dewey to work in her office.

Cliff is upset that none of his lease agents has been able to secure a drilling lease from a rancher named Bub Quigly.Cliff goes out to the ranch with Alex and tries to close a deal with Bub, first with persuasion, then with threats and bullying.Bub physically throws him off his land in front of Alex, humiliating Cliff.Cliff vows revenge.Cliff tells his company “enforcer”, Burt,to go after Bub.Burt burns down Bub’s barn, he poisons his cattle.

Cliff falls in love with his wife again, they reconcile.A few weeks later both Lizzie and Dewey are killed in a Maycliff Oil tank car explosion.

Doc Durant’s baby is found dead in his crib by his wife Irene.It appears to be a crib death.

Bub Quigley discovers Burt diverting oil from a tank into a stream that supplies his ranch.They shoot it out.Both men die.

Doc Durant is elected to the Oklahoma state senate.Cliff, afraid that Doc will come after him because of his history of illegal deals, runs for governor, thinking that he will be too powerful to be touched.He wins.Once in office, Cliff continues his crooked ways, taking kickbacks for state contracts and selling influence.

A couple of years later, an investigation is begun by the state DA and a panel is formed to carry out the investigation with Doc at its head.

Cliff tries to blackmail Doc into ending the investigation by producing the suicide letter Irene wrote in which she admits smothering the baby.Cliff will make it public unless Doc ends the investigation.Doc refuses Cliff’s demands.At this point Alex intervenes, telling Cliff that unless he backs off, she will report to the state police in Wisconsin that he is Cliff Bailey, wanted for the thirty year old murder of Mack Fallon.Cliff is forced to back off.It’s at this point that we learn that Alex is Cliff’s daughter.Her mother was Becky Taft, the girl he was running from all those years ago.