Diesel shook his head. “Grizzly bear? I don’t think that would work either. Do bears even like rice?”
Wyatt shrugged.
“Maybe a whole horde of wild grizzlies could accomplish this level of destruction, but even that’s a stretch and where are the bears now?” Diesel asked the question, but knew there wasn’t an answer.
“That was the farmer’s initial concern, beyond the money lost for this crop. Where are the beasts responsible located now? Will they come back?”
“Wild boars?”
Wyatt nodded. “I would have said that, but there are no tracks. Boars leave lots of tracks coming and going when they are causing trouble.”
“Right.”
“There could be tracks under the water.”
“Imprints that are now compromised by all the water, so that won’t give us any clue as to what could be responsible for this.” Diesel pushed out a sigh. He was flummoxed by this situation. Had never seen it before.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“When did this happen?”
Wyatt tipped his head back. “Sometime in the night. An alien transport came in yesterday, right?”
“Yep. Last night.”
“Any creatures you know of that consume rice like this?”
“Not to my knowledge, but that isn’t saying much. Lots of alien folks don’t always share every detail of their personal lives or intimate knowledge of what things they must do in order to survive.”
“I get it. But have you ever heard of this before?”
“Nope. Never.”
Wyatt hooked his thumbs in two belt loops. “I hate to say this to you, Diesel, but you’re no help at all.” His brother-in-law followed that observation with a big grin.
“I’ll take that as a win, since you didn’t call me paranoid.”
“Oh? Has that been a problem for you lately?”
Diesel shrugged. “I’m worried about Indigo Smith roaming around here somewhere waiting to cause trouble.”
“Yeah, I’ve been keeping an eye out.” He pointed to the defiled rice paddy. “Could this have been him?”
Diesel started to shake his head, then stopped. “Space potatoes. I don’t know if it was Indigo or hereto previously unknown rice-consuming space creatures or what. I’m not an authority on every single species in all the galaxies or all the proclivities of the ones I am acquainted with. Perhaps I should check with someone else.”
Gage came to mind. Or perhaps he could find an authority on Alpha-Prime. However, letting their home planet in on any difficulties the colony faced always had to be measured against what they might do with the information. He didn’t want to be singularly responsible for burning down the Earther colony’s way of life, only to find out an unknown Earth bug infestation was responsible for the stripped rice paddy.
“Who would know?” Wyatt took his hat off to wipe his brow with his forearm, and replaced it square on his head.
Diesel cast about his semi-addled brain and said, “I have an idea.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“Sure, why not.”
They got back into Wyatt’s cruiser. “Where to?” the sheriff asked, turning the key and gunning the engine.
Diesel pushed out a long-suffering sigh. “Let’s go talk to my wily aunt Dixie.”
