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The drive to the ranch house covered at least a couple miles. This was a big spread. Whatever Doc Jenkins did, he had the land to do it on. Probably ran a few head of cattle, but Dan hadn't seen any. He saw the house in the distance, along with a couple of oversized barns and various other buildings, and headed in that direction.

Men with guns always unnerved him. And the man standing on the porch was cradling a shotgun. Dan slowed the car and stopped in a graveled area about fifty feet from the front steps, opened his door, and leaned out.

“Doctor Jenkins?” Was that a nod? Dan couldn't tell but the man didn't put the gun down. “We have an appointment for this morning. I'm with United Life & Casualty.”

“Mr. Mahoney, isn't it?” Finally, the gun was placed on a chair by the door. Dan pulled closer to the porch and got out.

“Sorry about being inhospitable—too many lowlifes out this way. By the way, call me Buster.”

Interesting that driving a year-old Cherokee, wearing pressed chinos, and a long-sleeved checked shirt could brand him as a lowlife. Maybe it was the lack of hair. But a couple weeks' growth—a good quarter inch—surely kept him from looking like a skin head.

“Coffee? Beer?”

“A little early for a beer…how 'bout coffee?”

“You got it.” With that his host turned on his heel and the screen door banged behind him. Dan noted that the gun remained behind so he followed Buster up the steps, through the living room and into a spacious kitchen at the back of the house.

“Pull up a stool. This is as good a place to talk as any.”

Dan agreed. The room was spotless—gleaming appliances everywhere and not ones from Walmart. Kitchen Aid for the small stuff and Wolf and Viking for the larger. Walk-in freezers, double-doored fridges—Dan wondered if there was a Mrs. “Doctor” Jenkins or if good ol' Buster was the gourmand.

“Lived out here long?” Dan couldn't quite see Buster as part of the locals.

“Land was an investment before it was home. It's taken awhile to get it right.”

Ducking an exact answer of time, Dan noted. “I'm assuming it's a working spread…cattle? Sheep?”

“Prairie chicken.” Buster put a mug of something awfully black in front of Dan with just the hint of scum near the edge; then scooted a sugar bowl and creamer his way. Judging by the coffee, Buster was not the cook in residence.

“Prairie chicken?”

“Um hm. You must have seen the gate? Had it specially done.”

“I'm guessing there's a story here?” Dan poured a healthy dollop of cream into his cup only to watch tiny white chunks pop to the surface. Oh boy. How was he going to get out of drinking this curdled mess?

“I oversee a government grant to save them. They thrive in grasses, the more variety, the better. They were just about extinct in these parts. Haven't been any in decent numbers since the thirties. But the emphasis on bringing the short-grass prairie back paved the way for saving its inhabitants.” Buster took a sip of beer. “Home brew. Oughta try it.”

“Don't mind if I do.” Dan carried the cup of vintage coffee to the sink and quickly dumped it when Buster turned to pull another unmarked beer bottle from the closest fridge.

“This one's frosty.” Buster leveraged the top off using an opener hidden beneath the counter. “Just the way they should be. But I bet you didn't come all the way out here for a beer and a chat.”

Dan chuckled. He was beginning to feel a lot more comfortable with the shotgun out on the porch. And Buster without firearms was affable enough. “No, I didn't. I'd like to ask you some questions about what you lost in the heist. I understand you have a claim?”

“I have a claim but I didn't lose anything, per se.”

“I don't understand.”

“Follow me. Let me show you something.” Buster put his beer on the counter and walked toward the living room but this time turned down a hallway and led Dan into a five hundred-square-foot office. Three computer screens seemed to all be churning out graphs or lists of numbers. File cabinets lined one wall and shelves of books another.

“Looks like you do some serious work here.”

“Know anything about the government? They give you some money to do something and you'd better account for every penny. We're the biggest save-the-prairie chicken operation in the U.S. I'm in the process of getting all this info online, but it's taking forever. I've got some help with data-entry, but it's not enough.”

“Out of curiosity what sort of records do you keep?”

“Well, this cabinet contains the results—weights, number of eggs, hatchings, males versus females living to maturity—for twenty-five pair raised on blue grama. No supplement feeding. While this cabinet same criteria, different forage.” Buster tapped the side of an even larger cabinet. “Another part of my research covers grasses—we're losing a lot of the natives—fires, drought, the expansion of civilization. Prairie chickens and a tough, lush groundcover go hand in hand. But I didn't drag you back here to talk chicken. That's my real passion.” Buster pointed to the wall above the desk and then continued to turn in a circle pointing to the other three walls. “Comics. For every cover you see mounted in those glass cases, I have the full original in a safe deposit box in Albuquerque.”

“I've got the feeling I'm looking at a lot of money?”

“A couple million.”

“Really?” Had Dan heard correctly? He certainly had no idea.

Buster nodded then added, “Bet you don't know when the first speech bubble appeared.”

“Got me on that one.”

“
Hogan's Alley
, 1895 by Richard Felton Outcalt. I have comics from each of the five ages—Platinum, 1835 to 1937; Golden, 1938 to 1955; Silver, 1956 to 1969; Bronze, 1970 to 1979; and the Modern age, 1980 to the present.”

“And the bank heist involved a comic?”

“Yes. I had sold a 1938 Superman to a trader in Boston. I put the comic hermetically sealed and packaged for shipping in the vault in Wagon Mound. Lawrence Woods was overseeing the transaction—verified that the book was there and was going to oversee the wire transfer and subsequent shipping.”

“Which I assume was never done?”

“It was slated for Tuesday—the day after the holiday. But that morning when the discovery was made, the transfer was halted.”

“Why? You said you didn't lose anything.”

“Might as well have. Someone broke into the case, removed the comic, then sat down on the floor and read it. A pristine copy now has a folded back front cover and a tabbed page—like the kid was interrupted while reading and just tossed it aside. Do you believe that?”

“You said, ‘kid.' Do you believe that a young person or persons tunneled into the bank?”

“Who knows? Do you see an adult taking the time to read a comic in the middle of robbing a bank?”

“What is the comic worth?”

“In pristine condition, $330,000.”

“And now?”

“I've sent it to authenticators for assessment. The price could go as low as fifty grand.”

“So your claim is—”

“Lost revenue because of altered condition occurring during the break-in.”

“Possibly in the amount of $280,000?”

“Correct. Needless to say this has caused me a great deal of consternation—let alone disappointment for the buyer.”

Dan nodded, “I can understand that. But kids…doesn't add up.”

“I think the fact that someone took the time to read it when he did, indicates addled thinking—drugs, maybe? And, if so, then tunneling in there could have been all about money to keep them supplied.”

“A possibility. Makes sense that they took the wrong turn altogether—got into the room of safe deposit boxes and not the vault. Amateurs might do that.” But that didn't explain the sophisticated laser equipment, Dan mused to himself. That was one bunch of tech-savvy kids.

“How 'bout another?” Buster pointed at Dan's empty bottle.

“No, thanks. Good stuff, though, but I need to get going.”

“Would you like to see some real chickens?”

“As opposed to those over the gate?”

Buster chuckled, “Yeah, you could say that. Back of the house here is one big incubator. Come on, I'll show you.”

Well, why not. It wasn't like he had anything really pressing. And Dan was a little curious. Hatching prairie chickens? Sounded interesting.

“First building is just one oversized greenhouse. The government is paying the big bucks to preserve the prairie grasses…find a sustainable fertilizer, grow more drought-resistant, bug-free strains—those are their main concerns.”

“Any luck?” They were walking between the house and a Quonset hut-shaped building of about a thousand square feet. Dan stood to one side while Buster unlocked two padlocks. There it was again, that attention to safety by locking everything up.

“Actually, a cross between
Andropogon gerardii
and
Schizachyrium scoparium
—in layman's terms “big bluestem” and “little bluestem”—is giving us a stronger version of the parents. So far, it seems to be outperforming blue grama.”

Dan followed Buster into the structure. Growing-tables in precise rows stretched from front to back each holding fifty to a hundred small containers with green shoots poking up. Dan waited while Buster pressed several buttons on an electrical box and watched as panels in the ceiling slid open.

“These are about ready to be transplanted but need to be hardened off before it's back to nature.” Buster picked up a small planting cup from a table near him. “Shoots need to be over six inches high. This is just one of over two thousand samples that need to be planted before the first frost.”

“Impressive.” And Dan meant it. This was one well-run operation. “That's an interesting plant.” Dan pointed at the corner nearest him. “Another hybrid?”

“Not exactly, but it is part of the research model. Trying to find cheap hardy chicken feed. This plant also makes good hedge-row cover. But it's underrated. Lost its popularity. In my day and maybe yours, too, a tablespoon of this plant's tonic kept a lot of children healthy.”

“Castor oil?”

“One and the same. More than one generation of grandmothers swore by it.” Buster pointed to a side door. “Go through there and you'll see a fairly successful cross of native juniper with ornamental juniper. We'll be ready to set out seedlings with the grasses end of next month. And one greenhouse over, you'll see an array of houseplants. Originally, we'd hoped to finance a part of all this by supplying local nurseries. But we're just a little too isolated to make that kind of operation really worthwhile.”

Dan didn't know anything about greenhouse growing, but what he was looking at was a huge undertaking. “You can't do all this by yourself.”

“Got about half a dozen workers come by four hours a day. We're between shifts at the moment so the place's empty.”

Something told Dan he was glad he wasn't there to check green cards. But maybe if you worked on a government project you were given some kind of immunity. Dispensation for working with prairie chickens? The government was involved in more bizarre things, he was sure.

“Think we've seen about all there is to see here. Let's check on those chickens. Follow me.”

Dan fell into step behind Buster but stopped just inside the door to the third Quonset hut. Breathtaking. Cage after cage all with automatic waterers and tube-filled food dishes. And incubators lined the walls. Fifty? More? Dan knew there were a lot. But it was the pens on the floor in front of him that had made him stop.

All baby animals are cute. Something his grandmother would say every time he tried to make a case for bringing that “cute” baby squirrel in the house to raise or a “cute” kitten found in the ally. But just being cute wasn't enough to get his grandmother to allow an expansion of his critter collection. More than once the saved “cute” one was taken to the vet's or a wildlife rescue center. But prairie chickens, now that personified cute! Grandma couldn't have turned those down. Pen after pen of feathered fluff from about walnut size to rounded grapefruit, some with mothers in attendance, some not, spread out before him.

“Kinda takes your breath away.” It was obvious that Buster was proud. “Every pen you see is slated to be released one flock at a time over the next two months. They're banded and a few have radio transmitters. The tracking will begin in November.”

“Is this your first release?”

“First release of this quantity. We've had two years of relative success with smaller samples. Now it's time to increase the numbers.”

“Awe-inspiring. Thanks for the tour.” He followed Buster back through the greenhouse and then the kitchen.

“Oops. Don't want to be running off with this.” Dan held up the empty beer bottle.

“Let me take that.” Buster took Dan's empty and set it in the sink. “You know where I live if I can be of any further help.”

“That the latest in prairie chicken formal wear?” Dan pointed to a rhinestone tiara on the counter. For all the world it looked like a Bitsy castoff.

A laugh. “Kids. My granddaughter visited last weekend with her two—turned the place upside down looking for this.” Buster slipped the tiara in his pocket.

As they walked past the shotgun on the porch, Dan wondered if it was kept locked up when kids were around. He could only hope Buster was as diligent with his grandkids as he was with a couple thousand baby birds.

***

The five miles back to town gave him time to reflect—in hopes that some of the pieces were ready to fall into place but something wasn't adding up. Two days of interviews and the only thing taken was apparently the one thing of greatest value in the vault—Gert Kennedy's necklace. That made sense until he thought of the amount of time and work it took to get to it. Well, there was the comic, but its value obviously wasn't known and it wasn't taken. But kids? Druggies? “It's not what you think.” So, where did that bit of wisdom fit in? And why try to keep him out of Wagon Mound? Keep him from doing his job? Pretty drastic to try and kill someone over an insured necklace. And his job was cut and dried unless someone thought he might uncover something else, giving that someone a reason to—