“What I mean is simple. Who can ride and fight? Who can shoot at a man, and who has killed a man?” I love direct topics of conversation.

The table was silent. Only Brin stirred on his makeshift bed in the corner of the room. I sincerely hoped he didn’t decided to chime in on the conversation at this point. Brin did stay silent, as did everyone else. I worked on it from there.

“Living on the frontier is a dangerous life. So is traveling on the frontier. Once we leave this town, we rely only upon ourselves to protect ourselves. Man, woman and child.” I paused to look at all of their faces, including the women.

I continued assertively, “As your people well know, enemies give no quarter. We must all be on the alert. Everyone must be ready, willing, and alert. I predict that bad things await your kind in Europe. I think America will become a refuge and I propose to provide one to you. We will be adding an additional set of new enemies if we bring you into our world.”

“To survive, though, we must be a community - a complete and whole community, without exception and regardless of race, religion, or background. We absolutely cannot have a sub-community focusing on its members first. If you want to join us, we will need you to keep that part of your world specifically to sabbath-related activities and completely outside of commercial or other areas.” Damn, that was a major statement and definitely could have been worded better. I mentally cursed myself for having fun at the auction and not truly being prepared for this meeting.

This last part I had thought about, though, “We live in a territory that is not yet part of the United States. It will get there one day and, with your help, we will have a large say in shaping that state.”

I took a deep breath and put it plainly out there. “We, the gentiles and heathens, will fight to the death for you, if you are truly with us. If you plan to just be there as a separate society inside of ours, I will not allow it. We will return you back whence you came. So the choice you have is better than the black man's because you will not return to slavery like they would.” God, I needed to get laid. This shit was stressing me out. Drunk would have to do.

“Now, you must decide before suppertime tomorrow. I ask each of you to individually ask God in your private prayers for direction. I will forever protect your practice of that religion as is written in the rules but the complete separate society cannot exist if Rulo is to survive. I wish to hear from each of you separately after supper tomorrow. Until each man and woman has had their say privately, no more is to be spoken of this. I will see you all tomorrow.”

Huge roll of the dice - shooting for seven on cold dice, even. Sometimes boldness is the answer, other times it merely guarantees grand failure. I ordered a bourbon and talked about our plans and my hope to start a bank. I studiously avoided mentioning their specific contributions. After that, it was all conversation about vision and needs that I hadn’t thought of. Their women were conspicuously silent.

We had our food and conversation, then most of them took their leave. Only the Schumachers stayed behind. Surprisingly, he thought that I had said the right things, and his wife was right there with him. I had an inside ally, which might help. And we had offered the Rabbi a home.

I wished them all a good night, then kissed Aunty on the cheek and told her that we had arranged a carriage to carry her home. Amos was right there to announce that it had been waiting outside and had the fanciest carriage the town had to offer. The carriage would take both ladies home and I sent Brin with them for extra security. I was staying here and, in my mood, nobody would bother me.

With that I said my polite good-byes and made my way out to find a spot to talk with John and drink until the ‘Gretzkys’ showed up in a few hours. Maybe I could push that off until breakfast? Nah, I had to keep my discipline and talk business with John for the next few hours. If I had some time, I could go out and walk the stores.

Talking with John turned out to be a good decision. A cup of espresso with a cigarette realigned my perspective. I described the overall conversation with him and, after a moment, he offered his opinion. Of course, it was with his own particular slant, but basically he agreed with me. The biggest problem the Jewish and groups like them had, was that they cut themselves off from the rest of us.

I couldn’t help but agree with him on that. I’d seen enough of sub-cultures in the modern world to realize that their ‘cultural independence’ simply made them willful outsiders. Something a true outsider would give up their first born to avoid.

A slow glass of beer gave me time to ponder and I got to thinking that idealists were outsiders also. So ideas might be 'outside' also. Then patents came from ideas and amazing money could often follow. Hmm.

It had been a long and trying weekend, so, understandably, it took me a little while to tie everything together. My mind was tired and I kept mentally flipping to tangents. It was frustrating, to say the least. I was truly ready to call it a weekend, when the connection began to emerge.

Ideas were money, huge and timeless money, if done correctly. They could be enough to sustain endless generations. But could we find a way to stay anonymous?

In the electronics bay of my camper, I was sitting on the mother lode of money. I needed to play my cards correctly to take full advantage of it.

I had a vast electronic storage system that had within it, probably mixed in between the Disney videos, a big archive of actual patents.

I held the key to most of the best money-making ideas of the next two hundred years.

So much for Wiki-surfing being a waste of time.