She moved on slowly, examining first the bathroom, then the small room that had served as a bedroom. This latter had a huge dresser that, she hoped, might prove a gold mine, but all she found was an empty, crumpled-up packet of Cration cigarettes and—in the bottom drawer—a Farmers’ Almanac from 1938.

She picked up the almanac. It was foxed with age. As she flipped through it, she found various markings in faded pencil. Some dates were underlined; others had check marks beside them. There were a couple of marginal notes as well, in a crabbed, barely legible hand.

She thought a moment. Nineteen thirty-eight. Gower would still have owned the ranch then. Even if those scribblings belonged to someone else, there could be important information hidden in the pages. She took an evidence bag from her carryall, slipped the almanac inside, and sealed and marked it. Then, taking a last look around the room to make sure she had missed nothing, she exited and walked into the living room.

She stood inside the doorway and took a deep breath. This was the last place left. Through the ragged curtains of one dirty window, she could make out the PFC, leaning the chair back at a dangerous angle and flipping the pages of his magazine. She paused briefly to clear her thoughts and then began taking in the room, trying to envision what it had been like eighty years before, when it had been a home instead of a ruin. She let her eye linger on each item in turn: the frayed sofa; the table with its two chairs; the framed pictures hanging on the cracked walls; the shelves displaying various bric-a-brac.

She moved over to the shelves, examining each item in turn: some ancient Reader’s Digest collections and other books; a few empty wine bottles that must, to some eye, have seemed attractive; the stack of magazines, cowboy hat, and Parcheesi board Watts had pointed out.

Corrie let a finger trail over the spines of the books. It left a line in the dust behind it. There were some Zane Grey titles, a Gideons Bible courtesy of the Sage Brush Motel, and a well-thumbed copy of Early Legends of the Western Frontier by one Hyman S. Zim. She took this last book down and flipped through it; though it was battered and obviously well read, there were no notes as there had been in the almanac. Still, it was likely this had been one of Gower’s own books, and it might contain references to something that could prove helpful. She slipped it into another evidence bag, made for the couch, then—remembering the likely rat infestation—sat down at the rickety table instead. Its wooden top was as busy as a Keith Haring painting with carved doodles, drawings, and messages—most likely made by bored soldiers, waiting for some drill or test or whatever. There were a couple of dates: July 1945, Sept. ’44. These must have been made by Trinity workers. A few of the carved drawings were crudely anatomical, and the messages of the “Kilroy was Here” variety. Corrie dutifully snapped pictures of them anyway. Then she put her camera away and sat back in the chair—gingerly—with a sigh.

It had been worth the effort to get the warrant, if only so she wouldn’t kick herself later, wondering if she’d missed the one step that would have cracked the case wide open. Even so, it seemed likely that when Gower’s land was confiscated, the man must have taken everything of value—especially if it had to do with treasure hunting.

Then she paused. Would Gower have taken everything with him? If so, what was he doing crossing the desert near the ranch on July 16, 1945?

She’d done more background research on White Sands and the Trinity test since her first trip onto the base. Despite what the great-grandson had said, when Gower first left his farmhouse, the land was only being leased by the government for the White Sands Proving Ground. It wasn’t until later that the parcels of ranchland were taken permanently, and by the 1970s they were all an integral part of the missile range. In 1942, when the Gowers were evicted, Jim Gower had every reason to think he’d get his ranch back before long—nobody knew an atomic bomb was soon to be detonated in the neighborhood—and maybe he hid something awaiting that return.

Maybe. Perhaps. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Time to admit she’d found nothing. She stood up. Time to go.

As she did so, her eye fell on the two magazine covers, framed on the wall across from her. The frames looked rough and handmade, like some her own father had made to decorate their trailer. The illustrated covers had been shellacked into place, the varnish now brown and cracking.

She walked over to them. Once again, her mind went back to her mother’s trailer in Medicine Creek. She had put some pretty tacky things on the walls, too—but nothing quite so tacky as this. One of the covers was an ancient issue of Arizona Highways, surely the most boring periodical known to man, with a blackand-white picture of Sunset Crater. She recognized the volcanic formation from slides of a trip to the Grand Canyon her class had taken in eighth grade. But not her. Corrie’s mother, of course, had nixed the idea as too expensive. God forbid she should run out of money for booze and Kools …

The other frame contained a 1936 cover from the Saturday Evening Post. Its banner informed Corrie it was an illustrated weekly founded by Benjamin Franklin, and that it cost five cents. The painting splashed across the cover was probably a scene from some Western yarn within: a man on horseback, rounding a bend in a high prairie trail to see a tiger rattlesnake perched menacingly atop an abandoned .50-90 Sharps buffalo rifle.

At least this picture promised some action. Corrie took it down, curious to see the framing work close up. As she did so, her fingers touched something attached to the back.