Tamarack River Ghost

by Jerry Apps

  “There’s more.”

  Oscar reeled in his line and tossed it out again.

  “Well, you gonna tell me the rest?” asked Fred.

  “You wanna hear it?”

  “Well, sure. You don’t tell a damn story and then stop in the middle of it without tellin’ how it ended. What kind of story is that?”

  “Thought maybe you wanted to go back to payin’ attention to your fishing.”

  “I am payin’ attention to my fishing. You gonna finish the story or not?”

  “Ain’t much more to it,” said Oscar. He cleared his throat and continued. “And this part’s a little more sketchy.”

  “Well?” said Fred.

  “I felt like another person was standin’ right next to me. I couldn’t see nobody, but it sure felt like somebody was standin’ there. And the weirdest part, when I sensed the other person nearby, the smell of pipe tobacco smoke was strongest.”

  “Couldn’t see nobody else, huh?”

  “That’s what I said, but sometimes you can’t see a ghost. The more I thought about it, the more sure I became that the Tamarack River Ghost was watching the river with me that morning. That old ghost is out there lookin’ for his resting place, and when he ain’t doin’ that, he’s takin’ care of this valley. You bet he is.”

  “Gives me the shudders just to think about it,” said Fred. “You oughta add what you just told me to the tale you tell at the festival. Put a little scare in the folks.”

  “I might just do that. Might do that.” Oscar reeled in his fish line. “Damn fish ain’t bitin’. Think I’m going home and have a beer. You wanna beer, Fred?”

  8. Nathan West Industries

  Josh flipped on his computer and waited for it to boot up. He looked out his office window and thought about the conversation he’d had with his boss. He knew about the demise of several major newspapers around the country, but somehow he never believed it would happen to Farm Country News. He thought that the paper’s niche audience, people interested in farming and agriculture, would continue subscribing and advertising. He was obviously wrong about that.

  Before the conversation with Bert, he hadn’t thought much about his future as a journalist. He’d been far too busy researching and writing stories—like the series that he’d just done on the Lazy Z feedlot operation in Missouri—stories that he hoped made a difference for the future of farming and agriculture in general. Now he began to wonder if he even had a future in journalism.

  The computer screen glowed, and Josh clicked on his e-mail program. Since he’d been working undercover at the Lazy Z, he’d not kept up; now he stared at a list of 150 messages waiting to be opened, most of them junk—online shoe stores, sporting goods specials, deals from three different computer companies. He worked down the list, starting with the oldest and moving to the most recent, systematically deleting the junk and sifting through it for anything that might be important. He double-clicked on a message with the subject line “Nathan West Industries Expanding Operations.” The body of the message was a press release:

  Nathan West Industries (NWI), with corporate offices in Dubuque, Iowa, announces today the purchase of substantial acreage in Ames County, Wisconsin. NWI plans to build a major hog-raising, farrow-to-finish operation on this new property. Once the company obtains the necessary permits, NWI will construct state-of-the-art buildings and equipment to care for a herd of 3,000 sows that will farrow about 75,000 hogs a year.

  Nathan West Industries has hog operations in Iowa and North Carolina; this will be its first in Wisconsin. The company has a long history in agriculture, beginning as a grain storage and shipping operation in 1868, when the company bought midwestern farmers’ wheat and shipped it by steamboat down the Mississippi River.

  In 1960, NWI opened its first broiler-chicken operation; it started its first feed-processing plant in 1965, which specialized in hog, beef, and poultry feed. Its first beef feedlot operation began in 1970. In 1985, NWI opened its first farrow-to-finish hog operation near Monona, Iowa.

  Today, Nathan West Industries is the third largest agribusiness firm of its type in the United States. NWI is looking forward to a long and profitable future with its new operation in Ames County.

  Josh hit the print button and a couple of minutes later was back in his boss’s office. He dropped the e-mail on Bert’s desk.

  “Do you know about this, Bert?” Josh said.

  His boss skimmed the piece of paper, then rubbed his hands through his shock of unruly gray hair.

  “When’d you get this?”

  “Just now.”

  Bert took his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “This is a big story,” he said. “Could be as big as the Lazy Z feedlot series.”

  “Nathan West hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing, has it?” Josh asked.

  “Nope, not that I know of. But the company keeps a lid on everything it does. It’s privately owned; nobody knows how big it really is or how much money it makes. I do know that it’s one of the biggest integrated meat-producing outfits in the country.”

  “I can see where this conversation is going,” Josh said.

  “Yup, get out there and find out as much as you can about them. Folks here in Wisconsin need to know before they give the final OK for NWI to build.”

  “There’s one thing I’m not going to do,” Josh said.

  “What would that be?” Bert asked, smiling.

  “I don’t think I’ll apply for a job there. I don’t need another brick missing my head by a few inches.”

  Bert sat back in his chair and laughed his characteristic deep belly laugh. Josh had to laugh too, even though his experience working undercover at the Lazy Z feedlot was still a bit fresh.

  “I’d suggest you start at the university in Madison. Talk to Bill Evans in the agribusiness studies department. Saw some research findings from that department about these big hog production operations.”

  “I took a course from him when I was in college,” Josh said. “Wonder if he’ll remember me. I sure remember him. Could hardly stay awake during his lectures.”

  “Try to stay awake this time, Josh.” Bert laughed again.

  Josh returned to his office and began searching the Internet for everything he could find about Nathan West Industries before traveling to Madison and meeting with Evans. His phone rang, breaking his concentration.

  “This is Josh Wittmore,” he said.

  “Mr. Wittmore, this is Natalie Karlsen; we met in Ben Wesley’s office.”

  “You’re the conservation warden.”

  “Yes, I am. I was wondering if we could meet for coffee,” she said. “Ben suggested it; he said we might be able to help each other.”

  “Sure,” Josh answered. He remembered that underneath the gun belt and badge he’d seen quite an attractive young woman. Besides that, she might be a contact to have and the source for some news stories. “Where and when?”

  “How about tomorrow at ten, the Lone Pine Restaurant. You know where that is?”

  “I grew up in this county; I know the Lone Pine. See you there.”

  Five minutes before ten, Josh pulled open the door of the Lone Pine Restaurant. He had not been inside the place since he’d returned to Willow River; it hadn’t changed. A mounted deer head with glass eyes stared down on all who entered the place. A stuffed northern pike hung next to the deer head, and shotguns and deer rifles of various sizes and calibers graced another wall of the restaurant as they had when Josh last visited the place. An old-timers’ table at one end of the big noisy room had its usual half-dozen to sometimes ten retired farmers and merchants from the area, discussing everything from who was sleeping with somebody else’s wife to why the president of the United States wasn’t paying more attention to farmers. For Josh, it was like the place hadn’t changed at all since he left ten years ago. Mazy, Lone Pine waitress, greeted him as soon as he stepped inside.

  “You look familiar,” Mazy said.

  �
�Josh Wittmore.”

  “Of course. You’ve grown up.”

  “Haven’t been in here in a while. Quite a while.” Mazy had put on a few pounds and her hair had streaks of gray, but otherwise, like the rest of the place, she hadn’t changed.

  “You back in town?”

  “I am. Working for the Farm Country News.”

  “You don’t say. That’s a good paper.”

  “I’m having coffee with Natalie Karlsen,” Josh said.

  “The game warden?” Mazy lifted an eyebrow.

  “One and the same.”

  “Find yourself a booth or a table, your choice. I’ll point her in your direction when she comes in.”

  Promptly at ten, Natalie came through the door. Josh watched as Mazy motioned toward where he was sitting. Eyes turned when the warden walked across the crowded restaurant floor, as they did whenever a law enforcement officer entered the place. Some of the old timers couldn’t get used to the idea that the county’s conservation warden was a woman.

  “I tell you, what are we gonna see next?” one old timer muttered. “Who ever heard of a game warden being a woman?”

  “Well, there she is,” another fellow said. “Quite a looker, too.”

  Good to see you again,” Natalie said when she arrived at the little table in the back where Josh had sat down.

  Josh stood up and wondered if he should shake her hand or just stand there. Somewhere he’d heard that you never shake the hand of a lady unless she offers it first. Josh figured this would be especially so if the woman wore a badge and carried a firearm on her hip. Do you ever shake hands with a law-enforcement person? He didn’t have the answer. For some reason, she unnerved him.

  Natalie offered her hand. It was soft and warm, yet her grip was firm and authoritative. Josh had known lots of women, but never one wearing a badge. Natalie quickly picked up on Josh’s discomfort. She smiled pleasantly, and once more Josh was drawn to the big brown eyes that defined her face, eyes that sparkled when she talked. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. She wore no makeup.

  “How’s it going?” she asked.

  “OK,” Josh said. “Trying to find my way around a new office.” Josh wondered why she wanted to meet with him. He had become quite wary as the years passed. When people wanted something, some coverage in the paper, they contacted him. But often times when he called someone, they avoided him. He’d come to understand that some people just didn’t like “the press.” Josh had also become quite good at reading people, seeing through the veneer and uncovering who they really were and what they really wanted. But he was having trouble reading Natalie Karlsen. He had no idea what she had on her mind, but he doubted she merely wanted to get acquainted with him.

  “Lots going on here in Ames County these days,” Natalie said.

  “It seems that way,” Josh answered. He wondered how long it would take her to say what she really wanted. Josh had little patience for small talk—he saw it as a major waste of time. He wished when people had something to say, they would say it. But he also knew that farm and small-town people seldom got to what they had on their minds until they marched around the topic several times. Over the years, he had learned to listen patiently and wait for information he was seeking. And now this good-looking young conservation warden, who Josh noticed was not wearing a wedding ring, was doing the same thing. When he met her, he wouldn’t have taken her for the beat-around-the-bush type. He soon discovered that she wasn’t.

  “Remember when we met the other day?”

  “Of course,” Josh said.

  “You mentioned that you’d just interviewed Dan Burman and had seen him cutting up some goat meat.”

  “Yes.” Josh wondered where Natalie was going with the conversation.

  “Did you know Burman is suspected of poaching deer?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well he is. I got a solid tip that he had had been shooting deer out of season.”

  “Really,” Josh said. “He told me he was cutting up goat meat.”

  “I know, that’s what you said. I don’t know how to say this politely, so I’ll just ask.” Natalie looked more than a little uncomfortable when she blurted, “Did you tip off Burman that I might be paying him a visit?”

  “Did I what?” Josh asked, a little too loudly, wondering if he had heard correctly. People at nearby tables glanced over, and he lowered his voice.

  “I haven’t talked to him since the day I was out there.”

  “Well, I think somebody did. The sheriff and I drove out to his farm— and all we saw were two goats. No venison.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me,” Josh said, pushing back from the table and sounding more defensive than he intended. He had hoped for a much more pleasant meeting with Natalie, but she sure knew how not to impress a man. Unbelievable, he thought. She has the gall—but maybe her attitude just goes with her work. And maybe she is like me—never trusting anybody.

  “Sorry,” she said smiling. “I couldn’t imagine that you had done it, but I had to ask.”

  Josh said nothing as he sipped the coffee Mazy had delivered to their table.

  He couldn’t think of how to reply. Inside, he was furious. No one had ever accused him of anything like this before. He took a last drink of coffee, stood up, and said, “Got to be going; got a big story brewing.” He tossed some money on the table and stomped out the door. As he left, he thought, There’s a woman I’ll avoid.

  9. Dr. William Willard Evans

  Josh Wittmore turned his pickup onto Highway 22 and headed for Madison and the University of Wisconsin campus there. He’d made the trip many times when he attended the UW in the late 1990s, and he remembered it as a pleasant drive. It was but eighty-five miles from his home farm, and only seventy-five miles from Willow River. He was surprised how little traffic had increased since he’d left the county ten years ago— only a car now and then. As he drove south from Montello, he passed the occasional Amish buggy, with a single horse trotting alongside the road, the buggy’s occupants deep in the vehicle’s dark interior shadows.

  As he drove, he scarcely noticed the fall colors that were appearing everywhere. The long hills lining the big marshes between Montello and Pardeeville were especially striking, as they were studded with bright red and yellow maples. October was a beautiful time in Wisconsin, but Josh drove on, noticing not much of anything out his window.

  Josh planned to think through the questions he wanted to ask his former professor about these relatively new massive hog operations that had sprung up in several parts of the country. He’d done enough exploring on the Internet to learn what was going on in North Carolina, where some of the largest operators did business. He’d learned that one company alone had more than fifteen hundred operations, with seven hundred thousand sows total, in that state alone. That same company operated a slaughter-house there that butchered thirty thousand hogs a day.

  All these facts and figures swirled around in his head as he drove, but he couldn’t concentrate. He kept coming back to his meeting with Natalie. He was furious with this woman, conservation warden or not. Nobody had ever accused him of doing something dishonest, but she had. Why would she even think that he would tip off Dan Burman about a possible conservation warden visit? All he said was that he’d interviewed him and saw him slicing up some goat meat. No crime in cutting up your own goat meat. He felt sorry for the man, dirt poor with scarcely enough food to take his big family through the winter.

  Josh had met people like the warden before: those who jumped to conclusions before they had all the facts. When people had done this to him previously, he’d crossed them off his list of contacts and tried to avoid them. He couldn’t easily do this with Natalie. But he would try to stay out of her way. He would do his job, and she would do hers, and when they overlapped he’d be cautious, very cautious. But something else had happened at their meeting. Something about Natalie had gotten to him. True, she’d unnerved him with her accusation. She didn’t know
how close she’d come to having Josh Wittmore jump up and tell her off. He had a bit of a temper, which had gotten him in trouble before. Now, he was asking himself why he hadn’t said more. Why hadn’t he confronted this badge-wearing, gun-toting woman? He didn’t know why. And that’s what was troubling him as he drove on toward Pardeeville and then south to Arlington, Deforest, and on into Madison.

  Evans had sent Josh a permit for the university parking ramp next to Steenbock Library on the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences campus. Josh parked his pickup, walked around the library, and headed up the hill toward Agriculture Hall, to the offices of the Department of Agribusiness Studies. It had been ten years since he’d been in Agriculture Hall, and memories of his college days came flooding back. The agribusiness offices were on the third floor of the old building; the stairs creaked as they did when he had climbed them to the auditorium where several of his classes met. It was in the Agriculture Hall auditorium that he suffered through Professor Evans’s Introduction to Agricultural Economics in 1997. Thinking back to the course, in which he’d received a C, he wished he’d paid better attention. So much of what he wrote about these days required a solid grounding in the economics of agriculture.

  He stuck his nose through the Ag Hall auditorium doors—students filled nearly every seat, and a professor stood on stage, pacing back and forth while the students stared at a PowerPoint presentation. The screen was filled with mathematical formulas. Josh remembered his college days, when his math professors wrote with chalk on a huge blackboard that stretched across the front of the big room. PowerPoint seemed an improvement. At least he could read the numbers.

  He continued up the stairs to the third floor and found the offices of the Department of Agribusiness Studies, which had been called agricultural economics when he was in school. An administrative assistant directed him to the office of Dr. William Willard Evans, department chair. She gently knocked on the door.

  “Come in.” Josh recognized the deep voice.