Page 80 of Trickster King

“I can think of one consequence: their eternal adoration,” the RPS agent groused. “They’re going to want a meeting.”

“After we resolve the safety issues, zone where Pat’s gold is at, and find out just how much wealth we have hiding under the surface there, we can do that. Still, it’s nice knowing where the gold in the area came from. How it got there in the first place? Who knows. I honestly don’t care. But seriously, Pat? How do you keep getting so lucky?”

“I fell into two holes. I wandered into fungus-infected pastures. How is that lucky?”

“You found eight hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold,” my wife informed me. “And if it’s seed gold, you’ve made literal millions through falling into holes and playing in the mud.”

As I hadn’t bothered to do the math, I blinked and attempted to process how I could have possibly found that much gold. “Pardon?”

“Now you’ve done it, Your Majesty.”

I must have made some strange expression, as my wife giggled at me and said, “Twenty five pounds. Sixteen ounces a pound if we’re talking standard pounds and not troy pounds. Considering we’re dealing with the RPS, it’s standard pounds. The going rate for regular gold is two thousand dollars an ounce. That’s eight hundred thousand, babe.”

Right. The laws of math indicated I had somehow pulled out almost a million dollars’ worth in gold from playing in the mud. “I don’t like this kind of luck, Randy. It makes me uncomfortable. Can I make a royal decree that all future gold pulled out of that ranch be put towards public services?”

“Only if you accept the finder’s fee for the gold’s value,” Randy countered. “You can use it for the vet bills for your rescues.”

“If you do that, I will only complain you’re taking up space in my barn,” my wife informed me. “It’s a good idea, and you should accept that. Give ten percent to anyone who does the mining work for the gold. That’s a fair payment for the work, it will bring in volunteers, and the majority will go to public services—and since they’re mining on behalf of the crown for public services, it’ll be untaxed. I can put together a bill to send through the political gauntlet. That’ll let us funnel any mined material being sold to benefit Texans into that program.”

I could see a mining operation accepting a ten percent cut, assuming they weren’t also the landowners, in which case they’d get thirty-five. “Does Texas have enough mining for that?”

“If we tap into the oil mining industry, we could do a great deal of good for the public.”

I considered my wife with interest. Texas had a thriving oil industry, and if we could take even a tenth of the market for public services, we’d never worry about our budget again. “Wait. Would any oil companies even consider giving us sixty-five to keep ten if they’re mining off kingdom-owned land?”

“Considering it would be an untaxed ten percent guaranteed, I could see oil companies offloading some of their sales to earn good favor. And those who own the land? Thirty-five percent profit off a barrel is some significant money when untaxed.”

The last time I had checked, crude had cost around seventy a barrel. “If they bite on that, they’re crazy, babe. They’d end up paying us more than if they just paid their oil taxes.”

My wife smiled. “I know that, you know that, and even their accountants know that—but they also know if they play the game, they can tell the public how much they’ve funded public services. That earns them goodwill. They’ll think they’re winning the game, except we won’t be approving their environmentally damaging bills. We’ll use the money they seed into our government to do public services—and reroute money into the regulations they hate. The earthweavers and waveweavers will love us, as we’ll be opening more jobs for them to make sure the mining operations don’t damage the environment. From top to bottom, we win.”

I loved my wife, especially when she decided it was time to put pesky politicians and the greedy back in their place, which was beneath her perfect heel. “The politicians are going to hesitate against passing the bill as participation will be optional. If they try to fuss over it, we just leak that the politicians are against public services. We win.”

“Yes, we do,” Jessica replied.

“Can you put that one on my desk? I want to get my dirty hands all over that bill.”

Giggling, my wife nodded. “I’ll remind you. Just don’t dodge sleep trying to do everything you want. You need sleep.”

“I’ll try. I’m not going to promise, but I’ll try.”

As promised, the RPS brought the kids over in time for dinner, and I put aside my trickster ways to settle back into the role of being a dad for a while. While I cooked for more than just my family, I did it because I wanted to. With a mix of vets, RPS agents, and Good Samaritans helping out, I didn’t worry about the rescues.

Unless something changed, they would survive. Day by day, they would learn to love the rest of their lives.

For three days, we chased and found peace, allowing the world to pass us by. Deidre, upon meeting the rescue horses, asked which one was the oldest.

I understood what she meant, and while I wanted to spare her from the heartache of saying a last goodbye to a horse, I introduced her to the old stallion. Then, like Eddie, she inquired if we could make room at the stables for him, and that she would handle as much of the work as we’d allow.

There wouldn’t be any rhinestone tack or long pasture rides, nor would there be much in the way of games at the arena, but she wanted to make sure he had a chance, too.

I expected the old horse would only live for a few more years, but we would cross that bridge when we got to it.

“Nobody warned me it was this hard to raise children,” I whispered to my wife when certain none of our herd could hear me. “Eddie picked a young one, and Deidre deliberately signed herself up for cutting a tail sooner than later. We’re going to have to buy stock in tissues.”

Jessica sighed. “We can’t protect them forever.”

No, we couldn’t. At the rate Adam kept playing with the filly, we’d have a third grain guzzler in our stable. “Adam’s not going to be happy with leaving the filly.”

---