Chapter 2

I awoke with my head on a saddle and two dogs licking my face. I looked around and saw two horses and two mules wearing hobbles and grazing nearby; off to the side Fred was sitting on a rock waiting for me.

“Check to make sure that everything is as it should be,” he said “then we will finish our business.”

About half an hour later I told him that everything was as it should be and that I was ready for the next step.

“Good,” he said, “now for your quest. To make our investment pay a good return, you will be searching for a cache of gold, and the adventures that take place on your quest are what our viewers will be paying for.” With that he handed me a map and said, “I’m sure that you have heard of the Lost Dutchman’s mine in the Superstition Mts. that so many have looked for?” As I nodded my head he continued, “They are wasting their time; the old man just saw the scraps left over from an earlier mining operation. The real treasure is the gold that was removed from the mine many years earlier. Descendents of a Spanish governor of the area, Pedro del Peralta mined the location for many years until, in the early 1800s, they got on the wrong side of the Yavapai Indians who claimed the area. The family decided that as the mine was all but played out, they would pack the gold on 24 mules and move it all, along with the family to Mexico City.”

“So the gold is gone?” I asked.

“No,” he replied. “An Apache scout working for the family informed them that a war band of Yavapai warriors was just a few miles away and was closing in fast. To escape, they found a well hidden cave in which to unload the gold and then fled for their lives. As the war band closed in the leader of the family drew a map and gave it to the Apache with directions to give it to the family head in Mexico City. The family was massacred in what became known as the Peralta massacre. The Apache scout escaped but died a day later from a snake bite. We got the map from his body. You now have it in your hand. To answer the question that you are about to ask, we don’t want the gold because we could replicate as much as we want at any time, It’s of no value to us. To answer your next unasked question, if you tried to use the replicator to violate our deal, we would just turn it off. You can replicate more of the gold and silver coins you purchased, but not enough to break our deal. Your sense of honor was one of the reasons that you were on the top of our list for this project so we see the chance of you misusing the device is almost nil. Now, with all that settled, do you have any questions?”

“Just one,” I said, “won’t my actions change the future?”

“Not to any great degree,” He responded.” We have found that time is like a great river; anything you do will be a tiny ripple. Think of a pebble thrown into the Mississippi. Anything else?”

“Nope, I’m good to go,” I replied. With that Fred just faded away, without a goodbye or even a “kiss my ass.” A little rude of him, but then I didn’t think that we were ever going to be best buds.

I spent the rest of the day programming the replicator with everything I had, increasing my gold and silver supply, and charging it via the tarps that came with the mules. I also fooled with the animals, naming the dogs King and Rex, the mules Mutt and Jeff, and the horses Brownie and Paint. I found out that the nanos had programmed them to be very eager to please me. As the mules had light loads, I had added some grain and dog food for the first few days. As they ate, the mule’s loads would get lighter each day.