Legacy

My name is Randall Carter.  After High School I enlisted in the Air Force and my High School sweetheart Deloris Bahcan moved to Texas from Kansas, along with her parents.  We kept in touch and after I got out of the service I decided to visit her in Texas.

She lived in on a ranch now so she said; but to keep busy ran a restaurant in the nearby town of Haversburg just a few miles from the Mexican border.  She said according to when I said I’d arrive I would find her at the restaurant, its name was Dee’s Mexican Delight.

I had a pleasant trip down from my Kansas hometown of Topeka.  I arrived shortly after the lunch hour rush and had stopped and eaten before I got there.  Didn’t want to look like a  mooch.

It was a nice restaurant, square and nicely appointed inside and out. It sat in a shady area amongst large beautiful trees just atop a slight knoll. It could seat 150 at a time.

I did a double take when I found out she owned it.  I’d thought she just managed it.  Wow, how she has come up in the world in just four years.  She explained her father bought it for her to have as a hobby and give her something to do.  Her father had since passed away she said.  We exchanged memories and expressions of being very glad to see each other again.  Deloris’s father had been a rather well paid Engineer and she had wanted for nothing.  I on the other hand came from relatively poor parents and really didn’t have much to offer in worldly goods.

Deloris’s rather stocky overbearing arrogant mother had always made me well aware of that.  I was not close enough to the preverbal upper crust to even come close to being good enough for her daughter.  Deloris didn’t feel that way, but it certainly complicated life and the projected hopes I had.

Deloris told her assistant manager she was leaving a couple of hours early.

Deloris then told me to follow her out of town a few miles to “Rancho Deloris” which was now her home.  I said “Rancho”?  Deloris then said that Daddy had bought a small acreage and wee ranch house when they first came to the area.  He had also named it after her.

About forty minutes later we came to a fancy gated entrance that said Rancho Deloris above the gate.  About a half mile in and over a slight knoll, there was the ranch house.  It was the biggest most magnificent and opulent structure I’d ever seen.  By comparison the Taj Ma Hall looked like a one car garage, shacky one at that.  I thought this is what she calls “wee”.  I figured she would explain later.  We pulled up to the ranch house, but she left her engine running and hollered hop in.  I did and she drove to the top of a small hill behind the ranch house.  From there I could see down into a large valley.  In it there appeared to be a small town, about the size for two or three hundred people.

I ask Deloris what that place was.  She turned a little red like in embarrassed and replied “Delorisville”.  I said what?  She replied that the rancho acreage had expanded to four thousand acres with an average of twelve thousand head of cattle on any given day.  The town was like bunk houses and family quarters for some two hundred and seventy workers and their families.

I noticed even at a distance many fancy cars parked around Delorisville. Deloris said the workers all from Mexico were exceptionally well paid and rode ATV’s instead of horses to work with the cattle.

By now I was fully dumbfounded.  I said I know your father wasn’t hurting for money, but even the King of England couldn’t have funded this.  Deloris said, “my, my, are we a bit sarcastic?”  I was starting to get cross eyed trying to digest it all.  She quipped, in a teasing manner, the honest answer is Gold and more Gold. Gold had been discovered under the original ranch house and the one you know see was built around it.  I said wow!, never saw anything in the papers about it.  She said something’s one doe’s not broadcast.  I’d find out later exactly why.

We went back to the ranch house and went in.  Deloris hollered, mother, guess who’s here.  Mother came around the corner and after loosing her look of shock and trying not to replace it with one of  disappointment, she put on her very best fake smile.

She greeted me in a warm polite fashion, but her eyes said “How quick can you leave?”  Yes, same old bat, she hadn’t changed.  I figured what a wonderful mother-in law she’d make.

At least the old crow was a good cook and we had a very nice supper; after which Deloris gave me the cook’s tour of the house.

The tour took a while for it was a very large house.  Everywhere it dripped and oozed opulence.  Her father’s room which had been left untouched especially knocked my eye out as he had apparently been an avid pistol collector, primarily of the antique variety, but some modern.

There was stuff hanging on his bedroom wall that I knew from auctions I’d been at probably ran all the way from five to forty thousand dollars  each.  Some cased dueling pistols made me drool.  I knew I’d never live long enough to even have one of such quality, but I appreciated being able to view them.  I especially remarked with a wow! as three or four really stood out to me.

Then she took me on the final leg of the tour.  Through the kitchen and through a very skinny and austere looking door.   Not fancy like all the other doors.  That I thought odd.  Anyway the door opened to a flight of stairs that went down to a dirt floor basement that was as vast as the huge house.

It was pretty well lit up and had a lot of people working down there at various things.  Deloris said it was all necessary to the running of the ranch.  There were leather workers, a Blacksmith, tool makers, and many other crafts being applied.  Most noticeable was the small but well vented and efficient smelting operation.  Close by was eight or nine piles of raw gold.  I estimated at today’s prices about two million dollars per pile.  I almost fainted.  There were a dozen goldsmiths converting the gold to jewelry.

Deloris said that was to make it easier to dispose of on world wide market.  She said way over there by the flashing red light is the mine shaft.  Very dangerous place she said; should not go near.  I thought fine, no problem.

We spent the next few days riding the ATV’s to see all the beauty to be found on four thousand acres.  There was a lot of it.  Funny thing is, that Deloris didn’t seem to be bragging but simply providing matter of fact information.  That seemed a bit odd, but I’d understand that better later.

After about a week, late one afternoon as we returned to the house, a worker was waiting, frantic with tears in their eyes.  Deloris knew immediately something was wrong.  But when she found out exactly, it hit her like a ton of bricks.  Her mother had accidentally fell into the mine shaft.

I immediately said we must mount a rescue operation.  Deloris said nothing to rescue, no one could survive the fall.  I said well, we need to recover the body anyway.  She said no body to recover.  Its all over now, I’m free at last.  I loved my mother, but the wealth was the worst prison one could be in.  I’ll explain later.

I said how about a memorial service. She said not possible, too many questions that cannot be answered would be asked.  She said its mine now, but I don’t want it.

Please come with me to a lawyer’s office in town.  I need your support now very much.  I said of course, it’s a privilege to help.  She conducted much paper work business with the lawyer.  After which we went to her restaurant and  she asked me to wait there for her  while she went back to Rancho Deloris to conduct what she said would be some final business.

After about three hours I was beginning to get nervous, seemed like whatever she was doing, it was taking to long.  So out of concern I decided I’d waited long enough and headed back to the ranch house.

I arrived at the gate about the time Deloris was coming out in her SUV.

I started to back up to give her room to get out when there was a huge explosion coming from where the ranch house would have been.  A lot of smoke went up into the air and Deloris said “Thank God!, its over.”  Before I could ask her what she meant the most fearsome thing I’d ever seen came lumbering over the rise between the house and gate.

It was a creature about twenty feet tall, it was a mottled pink in color, had a body similarly shaped to that of a horse but with no tail or main.  A head a lot like a Tyrannosaurus, and with six legs that came to points like on a crab.

What was further startling was that it had a rider atop it. The rider was somewhat humanoid and bluish gray skin.  No hair and at the distance other features were not distinct.

It paused on the way by us and a telepathic voice was heard in our heads.  It said thank you for freeing us.  It then went on another three hundred yards when a huge bright mist began to shimmer in the early evening sky.  It came into focus like a picture on a TV and then in all its detail was a huge disc as big as three football fields.  The pink beast and blue rider stopped and a wide beam came down and enveloped them.  They were drawn up into it, then there was more shimmering and it disappeared.  We said, it must have been from another world, actually most likely another dimension.  We concured that such made sense. We were both stunned by the visage, me I think more than Deloris.

Deloris said I think its time you were told the entire story.  I agreed that would be helpful. I just figured it would be a wild tale, but interesting, especially since I knew it would be true.

She said a few weeks after they moved to the ranch, there was a huge noise and great cloud of dust from behind the hill behind the house.  Close examination in the morning showed there had been a huge impact by something; but no debris.  No one knew what to make of that, but come  to find out later it had been some sort of flying craft had crashed and like a bullet penetrated  deep at an angle into the earth leaving no trace of entrance point other than a lot of stirred up dirt.  Apparently it had stopped having slightly penetrated a small cavern under the house that no one even knew existed.

Some sort of intelligence had obviously been in it because it had bored an air shaft probably with a small laser tool about six feet across right through solid rock.  A few hours later my father started getting telepathic communications from the being and was drawn under the house to find the shaft.

The being said he knew our language from many years of monitoring our radio broadcasts.  He said he wished to survive even under imprisoned conditions.  He also knew what we valued a lot and that by coincidence there was a tremendous amount of it in that cavern.  That was gold. The being said there was requirements for things to allow his survival.  He was more than willing to pay dearly for those things.  It turned out that those things were pretty much three steers per day dumped into the air shaft.  Each time one was dumped an eighty pound bucket of gold could be drawn up.

That is how we ended up with an amount of gold probably equal to a forth of what was in Fort Knox.  My parents had grown greedy beyond belief.

All of that greed sickened me. I’m not against financial security or even having enough to also help others.  But that much individual wealth sickened me in my heart.  I couldn’t bear being around it all the time which is why the restaurant gave me purpose away from it all.

The papers you saw me having drawn up at the lawyers gave the rancho and all on it to the many good workers so they could continue to support themselves.  I gave the restaurant to the assistant manager who had been a good friend.  All I want to do now is go back to Kansas with you, get married and be happy.  That worked for me as I’d loved her for a long time.

We arrived at Topeka, quickly found a Justice of The Peace and were married without any fanfare.  That worked for us.  Surprised the tar out of my parents, but they were happy for us.

We went to my small apartment and Deloris started to unload her SUV.  In the process of that she said she was so happy I married her thinking she was stone cold broke having gave it all away.  She said I’m glad you didn’t marry me for my money; but do I have a surprise for you.  There was more on that SUV than I had any idea of.

Four of the pistols I’d really admired she pulls out saying I knew you liked them so I brought them along with family pictures and so forth.  Will help me remember my father a bit.

I said I was so very pleased, but what did she mean by “so forth”?  She replied two buckets of gold about one hundred sixty pounds worth, plus about two quarts of diamonds that Daddy had amassed.

I said I guess we won’t miss any meals.  She said that’s right.  Then she said lets go house hunting tomorrow.  Well we did just that, and to keep us out of trouble we started a large soup kitchen for the poor.  Deloris’s restaurant experience was a big help and we served a pretty nice menu free to the needy. Never ran out of funds to do so nor wanted for anything ourselves.  Even established a trust to make sure the kitchen kept operating even after we didn’t.