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Some men dig for gold. Others dig for glory. But Fort Stockton Smith—known to most as “Forty,” and to a few as “Farty”—digs for things best left buried under courthouse records, bootlegging tunnels, and one suspicious outhouse just off Highway 285.

His hat was too wide. His boots were too loud. And the black 1953 Mercedes-Benz 170 Va he drove—stretched, retrofitted, and made up to look older than it was—hummed like it held secrets from two world wars and one particularly wild night in Juárez.

It wasn’t just any car. This was The Dial Car—a cinematic relic of Hollywood fakery repurposed for Texas-sized truth-seeking. Built for stunt driving in a movie no one in Pecos had actually seen, the car had suicide doors, cam-lock belts, and enough steel plating underneath to survive a goat stampede or a misguided drone strike. She was long. She was low. She was held together by dreams, welding beads, and an unregistered fuel cell. She was perfect.

Trouble at the Terracotta Tank

It began, as many of Forty’s adventures did, with a phone call from Sister Thelma—keeper of wayward souls and semi-retired blackjack dealer.

“They’re draining the Terracotta Tank,” she whispered, “and they found bones.”

Forty didn’t ask whose. He just shifted the Mercedes into first, yanked the hydraulic handbrake to make an unnecessarily dramatic exit from the Dairy Twin parking lot, and peeled out so hard a high schooler dropped his corn dog.

The journey out to the tank involved one jackrabbit, two livestock gates, and a confrontation with Deputy Clovis Rawlins, who still hadn’t forgiven Forty for what happened at the town Easter pageant involving a smoke bomb and a papier-mâché burning bush.

But that’s another tale.

At the drained basin, archaeologists were in short supply. Instead, a group of teenagers wearing vape cloud hoodies pointed at something sticking out of the mud—something metallic, circular, and etched with what looked like a map of the Davis Mountains… and the phrase: Crown of Coronado.

Forty’s breath caught. Not because he believed in lost Spanish treasure. But because Crown of Coronado was the code name of a World War II smuggling ring that used ghost towns, back roads, and oil leases to hide stolen art—and one reportedly priceless camshaft carved from Aztec jade.

Chase Through the Chinati

Next thing he knew, Forty was being followed by a flat-black Dodge Ram with no plates and more antennas than the Fort Stockton radio tower. Whoever they were, they weren’t locals. The driver had tactical sunglasses and a haircut that said “I did a semester in Langley before washing out.”

Forty gunned the Mercedes down a ranch trail, kicked up caliche dust, and pulled a lever marked “DO NOT TOUCH” (added during the car’s stunt days, he assumed). The lever activated a release of fake smoke and a jolt of something that felt like nitrous—or maybe just backpressure from the modified exhaust.

The chase wound through the Chinati Mountains, the Mercedes careening with an agility it had no business possessing, its modern brakes and coilovers keeping it stuck to the trail like a deer tick on a coonhound. The rear window cracked. Forty laughed. He hadn’t had this much fun since the Bluebell heist of ’97.

The Ram clipped a saguaro. Forty fishtailed past an abandoned drive-in movie screen and vanished behind a cattle gate that opened automatically when his front bumper nudged a rusted CB radio.

Some say the trail ends there. Others say the car grew wings. Only Forty knew the truth: he’d found an old movie prop tunnel used during the filming of The Great Jalapeño Robbery. Hollywood trash was Fort Stockton treasure.

Showdown at Oil Patch Cadillac-John Deere

Back in town, Forty parked the Mercedes under the neon glow of Oil Patch Cadillac-John Deere—where old money, new tractors, and conspiracies collided in the back office.

Inside waited Lucinda, hair curled like a 1950s starlet with secrets in her pocketbook. She’d decoded the map—turns out the “Crown of Coronado” was hidden inside a fake oil derrick built during a tax evasion scheme in the ’80s, just off I-10 near the exit nobody uses.

But someone else had the same clue: Baron Mayor Goodman, land baron, dance hall owner, and suspected frontman for the Lost Vegas Syndicate. He entered flanked by two men in bolo ties shaped like dollar signs.

“You always were the prettier Smith,” Goodman said. “But I’m the one with the keys.”

Forty reached for his whip. Forgot it was at the cleaners. Reached instead for a clipboard and bluffed, “You forgot to file Form 97-B: Municipal Antiquities Recovery.”

Goodman flinched. His lawyer once lost a case on a Form 96-T.

That’s when the Mercedes, rigged with remote ignition (originally for stunt resets), started up on its own. Lucinda gave a little nod—she’d hit the button on her lipstick case. Forty dove through the suicide door like it was 1939. Lucinda followed, heels clacking. The Mercedes roared to life, headlights flaring yellow like angry fireflies.

They peeled out of the dealership, taillights flickering as the old stunt brakes hissed. Goodman gave chase in a gold Lincoln Navigator with a vanity plate that read GR8MAYR.

The Derrick and the Decision

They reached the derrick just as the sun dipped behind a thundercloud. Lightning cracked. Coyotes yipped. A trapdoor opened at the base of the derrick—either the result of pressure from the tires or divine cinematic timing.

Inside was the camshaft, glowing green, shaped like a religious relic but clearly meant for a ’39 Packard Twelve. Lucinda gasped.

“It’s… beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Forty said. “But it won’t pass emissions.”

They had just enough time to take a photo before the derrick began to shake—maybe because of a hidden booby trap, or maybe just old West Texas rot. They bolted. The derrick collapsed. The Navigator hit a mesquite. The camshaft stayed buried.

But the story? That would live on at the Grounds for Divorce diner, printed on laminated menus and repeated with increasing embellishment by Hairless B29.

Some say Forty still drives that black Benz around Southwest Texas, searching for the next misfiled myth, the next misidentified fossil, or the last chicken-fried steak at the end of the world.

And if you listen real close, just past midnight, you might hear the whisper of polycarbonate glass and coilover suspension heading west toward trouble.

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