The clerk looked surprised.
“I thought you’d pressure me.”
“No.”
May smiled faintly.
“I’ve had enough people doing that.”
Two days later, June McAllister walked into Sheriff Tomlin’s office voluntarily.
She gave a statement.
Then something even better.
An email.
Calvin to Vernon.
Lot 214 description stays generic. No serial. Sell as-is under $500 if possible. If outside collector interest develops, pull lot and call me.
May read it three times.
Under five hundred.
The whole auction was not supposed to establish market price.
It was supposed to create a clean sale record.
Once Calvin, through some third party or perhaps his own bid, acquired it at public auction, he could claim legitimate purchase.
Then authenticate it later.
Sell it for tens or hundreds of thousands.
Samuel’s ownership dispute would disappear beneath an auction receipt.
At least that seemed to be the plan.
The county attorney agreed.
Fraud investigation opened.
Vernon hired a different lawyer.
Calvin stopped answering questions.
Midwest Agricultural Recovery’s records were subpoenaed.
The company had almost no real operations.
It existed primarily to transfer equipment from Rusk-owned properties to auctions.
Lot 214’s internal acquisition sheet valued the tractor at $120.
But another document in Calvin’s private file estimated:
Potential historic unit, restored auction value $175,000–$300,000 subject to authentication.
May stared at the number.
Three hundred thousand.
She had walked into a barn with eighty-six dollars.
Her father’s old machine could be worth more than their farm mortgage.
But money quickly became secondary.
Another line appeared in Calvin’s notes.
Cutler estate unlikely aware. Daughter not mechanically active.
May laughed when she saw it.
June Harris looked at her.
“What?”
“Mechanically inactive.”
June smiled.
“Want that framed?”
“Maybe.”
The criminal case moved slowly.
The tractor remained impounded as evidence for six weeks.
May visited twice.
The second time, Henry came.
They stood behind a locked county storage fence.
May looked at the rust.
“Should I restore it?”
Henry nearly shouted.
“No.”
She laughed.
“Why?”
“You preserve it first.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Restoration replaces history.”
“Preservation stabilizes it.”
He pointed.
“That paint might be factory test paint.”
“Those brackets might be prototype.”
“That seat may be wrong, but we document before changing.”
May nodded.
“Dad would’ve rebuilt everything.”
“Your dad was a mechanic.”
“You’re becoming a historian.”
“I don't know if I want that.”
Henry looked at her.
“You raised a paddle.”
“That’s how it starts.”
Authentication came from Deere historical archives months later.
Not full factory certification—records were incomplete—but enough.
XFD-17-004 was indeed one of a small group of pre-production evaluation tractors built during development work for a later commercial configuration.
Unit 004 had been shipped to Nebraska for field testing.
After the program ended, it remained at a regional dealer and was later included in a bankruptcy asset liquidation.
Cutler Repair purchased it legally.
The brass custodian plate with Samuel’s name had likely been added during a later evaluation period when Samuel, then a young mechanic, serviced the machine for field-use documentation.
Its rarity exceeded even Henry’s first guess.
Only two other units from the batch were known to survive.
Neither retained as many original experimental components.
Collectors began calling.
Fifty thousand.
Eighty.
One hundred twenty.