Chapter 1
This Crazy Hole time travelers adventure starts off with John Mathers.
It was 1995 in Ohio, and eleven-year-old John Mathers had just returned home from watching the new Young Guns movie with his grandfather, Dr. Mickey Mathers, and John's best friend, Billy.
Mickey was the only father figure young John had during his youth since his father left when John was three years old. So John would spend countless hours listening to Mickey's stories about old western outlaws.
Mickey also gave John old dime novels that he read over and over again. One of John's favorite stories was about an outlaw named Bart Stone who had half of his right ear sliced off during a saloon fight. Bart traveled with his sidekicks Charlie Chandler and Jimmy Templeton where they roamed all around the Arizona, New Mexico, west Texas, Colorado, and Nevada areas. They robbed banks, trains, and stagecoaches from 1880 to 1883. Jimmy was caught during one of the robberies in 1882 and sentenced to a year in Arizona's Yuma Territorial prison. He was released on September 1883.
Bart was also suspected of killing three men but was never arrested or went to trial so it was all unsolved crimes.
After 1884, Bart and Charlie disappeared and were never seen again in the Phoenix area. Some folks heard stories they moved to San Francisco and lived the good life off all the money they stole. Some heard stories they were shot and killed in the Superstition Mountains in 1883 after he buried their loot from robbing the Mountain Rock bank.
Hundreds of treasure hunters spent countless hours while they searched the Superstition Mountains for Bart's suspected buried loot. They explored those rocky and dangerous trails and always came up empty-handed. This was a goal of Mickey's during his golden years of retirement from teaching history. He started research and hoped he could find the buried treasure. This would be an excellent find for his book he had in work on old western outlaws.
In the movie theater, John sat mesmerized and munched on popcorn while he watched Emilio Estevez play Billy the Kid on the silver screen. This was the second time he saw this movie after it came out a couple of weeks ago.
John also wore a bullet on a gold chain around his neck. He loved that bullet as his grandfather gave it to him last year and told him it was rumored to have once belonged to Billy the Kid. It probably didn't, but John believed his grandfather. So while he watched the Young Guns movie and when Emilio would shoot someone, John touched his bullet.
The movie ended, and Mickey drove John and Billy back to Julie's house. Julie was John's mother. After Mickey parked in her driveway, John and Billy hopped out of his car.
"Let's play. Go get dressed, and I'll meet you in my backyard, Billy," John said while he ran to his front door.
Billy ran over to his house next store to John's.
Fifteen minutes later, John ran out the back door and into his back yard. He was dressed in a black cowboy outfit with a black hat and had a paper bag in hand. He had a cap pistol in a holster that hung off his belt. He pretended to look mean while he strutted to the other side of the house.
Up against the corner of the house were pieces of cardboard taped together and marked with a Sharpie. It looked like a bank tellers window from the old west. John dragged the teller's window out to the middle of the yard and dropped the paper bag behind the cardboard tellers window.
Billy ran over into John's backyard in black pants, white shirt, and a black bow tie. He knew his position while he ran over behind the teller's window.
From the kitchen window, Mickey watched John and Billy play. Mickey smiled as he thought it was cute.
John walked twenty feet away from the cardboard bank. He pretended he rode a horse into town and stopped. He pretended he got out of the saddle of his invisible horse. He gave Billy the one-eyed evil stare then whipped out his cap pistol.
He strutted over to Billy. He got inches from the cardboard bank and aimed his cap pistol at Billy, who raised his arms pretending to shake in fear.
"Give me all your money!" John commanded.
Billy pretended to shake in fear while he held out a plastic bag full of pennies through the window.
John snatched the bag of pennies and shoved them in his pants pocket.
"Move just one inch and the famous old western outlaw, John Mathers, will shoot you square between your eyes!" John snarled at Billy then whipped out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. The paper had a taped picture of John in his cowboy outfit with a handwritten "Famous Outlaws Of The Old West" titled with some drummed up words about John's outlaw ways.
"See, I'm in the history books," John said while he shoved his pretend newspaper in Billy's face.
From inside his house, Julie walked up to Mickey, who still watched John from the kitchen window.
"What's so interesting, Dad?" Julie asked while she stood by Mickey's side and placed an arm around his shoulder.
"John's playing with his friend, Billy," Mickey replied.
Julie looked out the kitchen window and saw John with his cap pistol aimed at Billy. She gave a look that she disapproved then glanced at her watch. "He needs to be doing something more constructive than playing those kinds of games," she said.
"Oh, he's all right. He's just doing this for fun," Mickey said.
Outside at the pretend bank, Billy scratched his nose.
John saw this and pretended to be pissed while he closes one eye, took aim, and fired his cap pistol at Billy.
Billy clutched his chest in extreme fake pain.
He staggered backward from the cardboard bank.
He twirled on one foot then dropped to the ground.
He twitched on the ground. He went limp and pretended to be dead.
"Johnnie, it's time for your baseball game. The coach said you're pitching today, sweetie!" Julie yelled from the back door.
John looked irritated at his mother then looked back at Billy.
"I'll rob the stagecoach after baseball, Billy," John told him.
Billy stood up. "Okay," he replied, then ran off to his house.
"Mom! Never call an outlaw sweetie!" John yelled out a little embarrassed while he ran to Julie.
During the next five years, John became more and more infatuated with old western outlaws. It was because of the movies and books that glorified the lives of criminals such as Jesse James, and Billy the Kid, that infatuated John.
It was now 2003 and John, now nineteen years old, and moved to the Phoenix, Arizona area. His mother and grandfather had died, and he was on his own.
He found an apartment in Mesa, to the east of Phoenix. John had his grandfather's uncompleted manuscript titled "Arizona Old Western Marshals and Outlaws," and it was the unfinished chapter of Bart Stone that drove him to choose Phoenix as his new start in life.
He had grand plans to discover the buried treasure of Bart Stone and finish his grandfather's manuscript and become rich off the sales of the book. John got an apartment and lived off the rest of his money from the sale of his mother's house and the money his grandfather left him.
John spent countless hours at the library where he conducted research on Bart Stone.
He found a picture of Bart in a book titled "Outlaws and Lawmen of Arizona," and it showed his right ear with part of it sliced off. But he could never find any leads on any buried loot from Bart Stone.
John eventually met Melvin (Mel) Lincoln, an eighty-year-old Apache Indian with a long white ponytail. Mel spent most of his free time at the library where he read newspapers and magazines.
Mel befriended John and told him countless tales about the old west around the Phoenix area during the 1880s. His stories of the old west were passed down from Mel's grandfather Victorio and his great grandfather, Merijildo, a tracker during the eighteen-eighties. Numerous stories were about outlaw Bart Stone and his sidekick Charlie Chandler.
John's library research and stories by Mel also revealed information about numerous old towns near Phoenix during those times.
The town of Oak Creek was once located eight miles northwest of Miners Needle in an area a few miles north to the unincorporated area of Tortilla Flat. The town was close to Canyon Lake. Oak Creek was founded in 1867 and was abandoned around 1887. The only remains of Oak Creek are a few faded tombstones hidden amongst some bushes.
Stone Valley was located in what is now Desert Ridge. It was founded around 1869 and abandoned in 1895.
Rattlesnake was once located near Sun City. It was founded in 1873 and abandoned around 1892.
Mountain Rock was located in what is now Gilbert. It was founded around 1877 and abandoned in 1894.
And of course, all these towns circled Phoenix, which was settled in 1867. This was where most of the residents of those abandoned towns moved for grander opportunities.
The Butterfield Overland Stagecoach made daily runs to all of the towns, as a trail linked all cites together. The main office of the Butterfield Overland Stage Company was located in Phoenix.
John also learned of a rail line that ran from Dodge City to Albuquerque then to Phoenix. By 1880 it had stops at Oak Creek, Stone Valley, and Rattlesnake before ending in Phoenix.
The Southern Pacific Railroad Company operated the rail line with its main office located in Phoenix. Greedy management eventually bankrupted the company in nineteen oh two, and the rail line was abandoned after the train was sold.
John had previously hiked all over the mountains around Phoenix using the information he found at the library, the Internet, and from Mel's stories. He never located Bart's buried loot and was extremely disappointed.
John also frequented all the antique stores around Phoenix and hoped of finding some information on Bart Stone hidden in some old desk or other objects. He came up empty-handed but bought all sorts of old western junk that eventually cluttered up his apartment.
In 2004, John's money was running out, and he had one thousand six hundred and ninety-eight dollars left. So he landed a job with the Western Snacks and Vending Machine Company located in Apache Junction. He worked as a driver who went around and stocked vending machines in various businesses around the Phoenix area.
But John's obsession with old western outlaws continued, and he didn't give up on his grandfather's manuscript, he just put it on the back burner.
Also, during 2004 John met Angie Dawson. She was nineteen years old, beautiful with shoulder-length hair. She started working at the Western Snack and Vending Machine company as a clerk in the accounting department.