R. A. Lafferty 
The Wagons 

You think you know all about prairie dogs but I bet you don’t even know this. You see, in the very middle of every prairie dog town and about four feet down there is a pile of gold. Lafferty was the winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Award and a six time Nebula Award Nominee. His quirky style made his work hard to pigeonhole and market, but he still managed to influence a wide array of today’s best writers. Simply on of the best writers the science fiction and fantasy field has ever produced.