Chapter 23

The truck pulled away from the mine to be replaced by another as a bulldozer growled its way towards the new truck. Dust hung heavy in the air, kicked up by the huge tires of the truck moving through the desert. Ed blinked his eyes trying to rid them of dust, but it was a losing battle that would only be won when the dust settled back to the ground.

Outside of the trucks, it was hard to tell that this was an operational mine. Shouting over the noise of the bulldozer and truck, Calvin explained, “We are taking the wall away a little at a time, starting at the top and moving down to the bottom. The soil at the top is being sold as landfill. The next stratum is being crushed to form gravel for driveways. The layer below that is the one that we are interest in mining and we are processing that offsite. We can stop mining at any time and it will look like natural erosion.”

“Are we making money off each layer?” asked Ed.

“We are reducing the cost of mining. We can sell the soil and the gravel at market prices, which is less than it costs us to get it. We may be losing a little money on each truckload, but we would have to spend more to get at the ore any other way. Shoring up the vein would cost a fortune. We are reducing the cost significantly.”

It was hard to hear over the noise, but Ed understood the gist of what Calvin was telling him. The two men walked away to where they had parked their trucks, finding that Jack Clark was waiting for them. He approached with a hand extended and said, “Hello, Jack. I was just examining the mining operation.”

Smiling, Jack accepted the hand and shook it with a firm grip. He said, “Every night after they leave, I come by here to check out what they have done during the day. I’m amazed! You can hardly tell that they are mining here.”

“Are you pleased with the operation? Do you want any changes in how we are doing it?”

“I’m very pleased and can’t think of a thing that I would change.”

Calvin looked relieved to hear the property owner say that he was pleased and replied, “You’ve been very cooperative and that has helped a lot.”

“Hell, I’m making a fortune out of this,” replied the rancher. He was getting paid a percentage of every truckload that left the place and the amount was shocking. He had gotten a check for twenty thousand dollars at the end of the first month.

Terry, Ed’s protégé who had been put in charge of this endeavor, was proud to hear what the rancher had to say. They had established a fair lease that left them with lots of profit, and yet gave enough to the rancher to assure long-term cooperation. Ed turned to Terry and said, “You’ve done wonders here.”

“Thanks, but most of the credit goes to Calvin. Without his guidance, we’d still be planning how to mine this site,” replied Terry. The time spent with Ed had taught him the importance of sharing the credit with those that deserved it. Attempting to hog all of the glory had the opposite effect.

It was time to head back to the office and finish up the details there before leaving for North Carolina. Ed said, “Calvin? Jack? It’s been good seeing you. I’m very happy with how the operation is unfolding. If there are any problems, give me a call at the Arizona house and Cathy will get you in touch with me.”

Jack, not worried about having problems, replied, “Sure thing. I hope you enjoy it back east.”

Calvin laughed and said, “He’ll tolerate the east, but he’s a desert rat at heart.”

“You know me too well,” replied Ed. Turning, he went to his truck followed by Terry. The young man got in the passenger side and buckled up his seatbelt.

Driving away, Ed turned to Terry and asked, “So what do the early production numbers look like?”

“The mine pulled in a profit of a hundred thousand last month. That’s after all expenses have been covered,” answered Terry. He expected the monthly profit to increase since they had paid for a lot of the start up costs last month.

“That’s not bad,” replied Ed.

“We’ve been operating in the black since the second week of operations,” remarked Terry rather pleased by the accomplishment.

“Calvin knows his stuff.”

“Yeah, but you found a good site to dig.”

They rode comfortable with silence, each man enjoying the desert passing outside the truck in his own way. Sighing, Ed said, “I’m going to miss the desert. I’ve spent some time at the Druid College. It’s nice, but it isn’t the desert. The trees seem to swallow the sky. By the Gods and Goddesses, I missed the sky when I was there.”

“So you’ll be back here three times a year for a week each trip?”

Nodding to acknowledge the correctness of the summary of his plans, he knew that those future visits wouldn’t occur often enough to satisfy him. Saddened, Ed answered, “It won’t be enough.”

Terry, riding in the passenger seat, said, “Well, if you miss the sky too much, then you might want to take up sailing. Lots of sky over the ocean.”

Ed looked at Terry like he had just discovered a new rock. Very surprised, he asked, “Sailing?”

“Sure. An ocean is just another desert with water instead of sand,” replied Terry incorrectly remembering the lyrics to a rather famous song.

Ed was quiet the rest of the trip back to the office as he considered the suggestion. There were some nice aspects of that solution to his problem. It would still be a long drive to the shore where the boat would be kept. It was only an hour drive to Charlotte from the Druid College and would be a quick flight to the shore. That was doable.

They pulled into the driveway of his old home. Entering the house, he was struck by the fact that it wasn’t filled with his old furniture. For a moment, he had been transported back into time to when he had lived there with Kelly and Beth. He really hated leaving for the College since this town was his home.

Lynn, seated behind her desk, had waited all morning for Ed and Terry to return from the mine. She had gone through the books, checking and double-checking the figures she was going to present to him. It was her intention to give Ed a complete picture of his financial health before he left. When Ed had entered the office, she had been daydreaming of ways in which to thank him for all of the opportunities that he had given her. She wasn’t even thirty and been given responsibility for managing millions of dollars.

Startled by Ed clearing her throat, she looked up and blushed at the overtly sexual thoughts that had been going through her mind. Pointing to the conference table, Ed went over to it and sat down. Terry and Lynn followed him. As they settled around the conference table to begin the meeting, Ed noticed the tray with a pitcher of iced tea and glasses set out in the middle of the table along with a couple of bowls of mixed nuts.

After pouring glasses of iced tea for everyone, Ed took a handful of nuts and gestured to Lynn to run this portion of the meeting. With a smile, she looked over at him and said, “The last two months have changed your financial picture significantly.”

Raising an eyebrow, Ed wondered about her statement. He had reduced his investment in a couple of the more successful businesses and started the mine. Curious, he asked, “How much could it have changed?”

She said, “Well, you doubled your cash on hand and have become worth over a hundred million.”

“How?” asked Ed, incredulous that such a change could have occurred in less than two months.

“The software company that you had invested in, was sold for twenty-five million. You owned twenty percent so your share was a five million,” she paused to let that sink in. Getting pleasure out of the expression on his face, she added, “Another company just went public and your shares in the company are now worth about fifty million. One of the pizza companies has just franchised itself and they are opening offices across the country at a huge rate. Its value is now around fifty million as well. Your other company holdings have all increased in value to where they are now worth about twenty million.”

That much money bothered Ed and he sat back to think about what he could do with it. Sipping his iced tea, his mind worked on the problem. As Lynn started to shift in her chair, he answered, “Sell the shares in the company that went public. I don’t like investing in stocks. I prefer to invest in family owned businesses. Why don’t you and Terry take a million each as a bonus this year? With the rest, set aside thirty percent for taxes, ten percent for future investments, and use the rest for some national charity that is a little under-funded.”

Pleased at how well she had been managing the funds, Lynn was totally floored by Ed’s use of the money. She hadn’t worked so hard to take care of his investments to see him give all of that money away. Shocked, she sat back and said, “You want to give most of it away?”

He leaned forward with a smile understanding the nature of her reaction and that she hadn’t realized that she was now a millionaire. With a smile, he said, “Yes, give most of it away. Use the money so that it benefits the most number of people. Maybe use it to buy computers for high schools.”

“But, you are giving away almost half of your money,” replied Lynn still confused.

Sitting back, Ed said, “Let’s consider that software company that I helped start. That was an investment of about fifty thousand dollars. I’ve been getting about that same amount of money back every year since they started making money. The five million now is gravy that I’ve never seen or touched. Does it matter that I have it? Not really, I’m happy with what I have.”

Doubtfully, Lynn said, “Okay.”

“I’d rather think about what I accomplished with that money. For fifty thousand dollars, a young man realized a dream and produced a product that makes the world a better place. He now has fifty people working for him. Those fifty people have jobs, pay for houses, and take care of their families. Now that is really an accomplishment. Amazing what that little bit of money did.” Ed smiled as he thought about the last time that he had visited that company. It was a regular beehive of activity as people worked together to accomplish something bigger than anyone of them could have done alone.

Lynn looked at Ed, only then realizing what motivated him. The money wasn’t anything except a tool to make things better. She thought to herself how she would live if she were a millionaire and that was when she realized that he had given her a million-dollar bonus for the year. She screamed, “I’m rich!”

Laughing at her sudden realization of her new wealth, Ed said, “I wondered how long it would take you to realize that.”

Terry started to laugh and then came to the same realization about his situation. He was now worth a million. Ed said, “Before you get too excited, you had best look into the tax consequences of that bonus.”

Lynn was well aware of the tax issues associated with that much money. Every week, she had to go over to the house to work with Cathy and the IRS on Ed’s returns that he had to file every quarter. She would have to average that money over the past few years of earnings and follow the incredibly complex tax guidelines for paying taxes on that money. Still, the money that would be left over after paying taxes would be incredible. Glancing at Ed, she asked, “Would you be terribly upset if I chose to invest in the same companies as you?”

Shrugging, he replied, “Not at all. That might allow us to spread the risk around a little better.”

The news about the money had derailed her concentration on the subject of the meeting. For a moment, her mind struggled to find a reasonable way to get the meeting back on track. There wasn’t a good way to do that, so the change in topic was jarring. She said, “The mine is producing money far earlier than you expected. Two months ago we had halted reinvestment in other businesses so that you would have the money to build up the mine. Now that it’s making a profit, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Let’s just sit on the money from the mine for a while and see if something interesting crops up. Use the money from the other investments to help other folks starting new businesses,” replied Ed. He really didn’t have any plans for the money. Thinking about it for a minute, he said, “You might want to hire some assistants with some of the money from the mine.”

“Pardon?” asked Terry concerned about having to hire someone.

“You need someone to help you cover the consulting business so that you have the time to watch over the mine.”

Lynn looked uncomfortable and said, “I don’t really need an assistant.”

“Sure you do,” replied Ed as he turned his attention to her. He knew that she probably viewed it as a comment that she couldn’t handle her responsibilities, but that wasn’t the case. She hadn’t been growing lately and that distressed him. He added, “You need someone to cover you so that you can take some vacation time. Also, it’s time for you to head back to college.”

The suggestion took her breath away. She had been planning on taking business courses in the evening hoping to get a degree in business. With an assistant working for her, she could leave early if necessary to take an extra course every semester. Rather than fight the inevitable, she said, “That might be a good thing for me to do.”

Happy that all was established to his satisfaction, Ed said, “Great. Anything else? If not, I had better go. If anything should come up, call me in North Carolina. Odds are, I won’t be coming back here to live.”

His words made her aware of the finality of his life here. Lynn sat there staring at the table in front of her in dismay. Her daydreams for a farewell gift and a chance to thank him for taking the risk to hire her had fallen apart. Now, after all that he had done for her in the meeting today, there wasn’t any kind of a present that could possibly convey how thankful she was for his consideration. At that moment, it truly sunk into her mind that he was leaving.

Ed noticed her sudden change in mood and asked, “Are you okay?”

At the question, Lynn covered her face with her hands and started crying with big sobs that caused her shoulders to jerk. Staring at her, Ed had no idea what he had said or done that would cause that reaction. Looking over at Terry to see if he had a clue as to what was the matter, he found no answer there. Concerned, he stepped around the table and put an arm around Lynn in a move intended to comfort her. Instead, she started crying harder. After a minute, she stood up and ran out of the room, going into the room where all of the computers were kept.

Shocked by her unexplained behavior, Terry asked, “What’s going on?”