Tamarack River Ghost

by Jerry Apps

The week after deer season, when the hullabaloo about how many deer were shot in the state and why the DNR wasn’t doing a better job of managing the deer herd had subsided a bit, Josh’s phone rang.

  “Farm Country News, Wittmore,” Josh answered.

  “This is Natalie.”

  “Natalie, how are you?”

  “Surviving.”

  “Say, I saw your Freddy story in the paper. Good one.”

  Josh heard Natalie chuckling.

  “The reason I called is, I was wondering if you’d like to do a

  ride-along—come with me tomorrow afternoon while I check some fishing licenses. I’m going over to the Tamarack River. It might be a chance for you get another Tamarack River story.”

  Josh glanced at his calendar. “Sure, what time?”

  “How about I pick you up at your office at 1:30? I’ll have my truck.”

  How different Natalie looked when she was in uniform! And she was different. Josh looked for a hint of the attractive young woman who’d bought him dinner and who had snuggled up to him when they danced. This Natalie, this woman with a pistol on her belt, was all business.

  “What’s this?” Josh asked when he climbed into the pickup. He saw a leather-bound book lying on the seat. He picked it up.

  “Oh, sorry,” Natalie said as she took the journal from Josh and stuffed it in the glove compartment. “It’s just my journal.”

  “You keep a journal?”

  “I try to. I don’t have a whole lot of time to write what I want to write.”

  “I’ve got the same problem,” said Josh. “What I write is for the paper— seldom do I have time to write anything for myself.”

  They continued driving, neither speaking.

  “Nice day,” Josh said, breaking the silence. A bright sun on the fresh snow made everything sparkle.

  “Beautiful day. Should bring out the ice fishermen. Ice fishing is usually best soon after the lakes freeze—the fish are still pretty active then,” Natalie said.

  She parked the big pickup in the parking lot at Tamarack River Park.

  “Looks like I was right,” Natalie said as she counted the cars and pickups in the lot.

  The backwaters of the Tamarack had been a favorite ice-fishing place for as long as anyone cared to remember. A recently frozen area just around the corner from the park already had a half-dozen fishing shanties on it.

  “You ready?” Natalie asked. She pulled on her parka. “Can get a little chilly out there with the north wind coming down the river.”

  “I’m ready,” said Josh. He had a camera and a clipboard.

  The first shanty they came to looked new. It was constructed of plywood with two-by-six runners underneath. A puff of wood smoke came from the stove pipe stuck through the shanty’s roof.

  As they approached they read the little sign above the door, “Oscar Anderson & Fred Russo, R.R. 1, Tamarack Corners, WI.”

  “In case you didn’t know,” Natalie told Josh, “there are several laws that refer specifically to ice fishing. One is that shanty owners must have their name and address on the outside.”

  Natalie knocked on the door of the shanty. “Conservation warden,” she said in a firm voice.

  “Come on in.”

  Upon entering, Natalie and Josh spotted two older gentlemen hunched over holes drilled in the ice. They each held a jigging pole, a short fishing pole with thin monofilament line attached.

  “How you guys doing today?” she asked, by way of greeting.

  “Fair to middlin’,” answered Oscar as he pulled up his line.

  “How many lines you got in the water today?” Natalie asked. She talked quietly.

  “Well, let’s see. I got one, and Fred’s got one,” Oscar said. “When you get our age, about all we can handle is one line apiece. Takes a younger guy to keep up with three lines.”

  From the answer to her question, Natalie quickly determined that these old fishermen knew that three lines was the limit.

  “Could I see your fishing licenses?” she said politely.

  “Yup, you sure can,” Fred said as he began digging for his billfold buried deep within his heavy woolen trousers. Oscar began looking for his license as well.

  Natalie glanced at computer generated, not-very-fancy-looking licenses and said, “Aren’t you the guys who caught that big northern that burned down your shack a few years ago?”

  “We are,” said Fred. “Biggest dang fish we ever caught. Mean bugger, too. Came right up out of the fish hole, one just like this ’un. Fish took after us. Started floppin’ around the shanty liked it owned the place. Well that damn fish tipped over our stove. Fish burned down our shanty, right down to the ice.”

  “I read the story in the paper,” Natalie said, smiling.

  “Yup, people didn’t believe us. Didn’t believe that big old fish had done what it did,” said Oscar. “But we know the truth, don’t we Fred? We know what happened.”

  “What’d you do with the fish?” asked Josh, quite taken by the story.

  “Well that’s the problem. When that old fish tipped over our stove and the shanty began burning, we got the hell out as fast as we could. You suppose we could find that fish—cooked or not? Nope, couldn’t find ’im. Musta flopped back down the hole. That’s what musta happened,” said Fred.

  “So what’ve you caught today?” asked Natalie, changing the subject.

  “Nothin’. We ain’t caught a single fish. Not one. Too nice a day, I guess. Fish takin’ a vacation,” said Oscar.

  “Good day for fishin’ though. Good day to be out on the ice. You wanna stop back a little later, we’ll be fryin’ up some of my venison sausage. Pretty good stuff.”

  “No thanks,” said Natalie. “But thank you for the offer—and good luck.”

  “Thanks. Kinda looks we’ll be needin’ a little luck if we’re havin’ any fish for supper,” said Oscar.

  “What a pair of characters,” Josh said when they walked toward the next shanty. He remembered that his father had talked about Oscar and Fred.

  “That they are,” said Natalie. “But they’re good guys. Salt-of-the-earth types who wouldn’t do anything wrong if their lives depended on it. Wish we had more of them around.”

  Josh noticed that several people were moving around from shack to shack. Obviously, the warden’s presence on the ice had not gone unnoticed.

  The next shanty, a few yards beyond Oscar and Fred’s, had seen better days. At one time it had been covered with black tarpaper, which now was coming lose in several places. A piece of cardboard covered what had once been a window. The door hung crooked on its hinges. The words “Dan Burman, R.R. 1, Tamarack Corn________” had been painted in white on the shanty’s wall. The words were badly faded, and part of the address had ripped away. Both Natalie and Josh recognized the name as that of the person Natalie had accused of game poaching.

  “Conservation warden,” Natalie said as she knocked on the sagging door.

  She knocked again. “Conservation warden—anybody home?” Both she and Josh heard scrambling inside the dilapidated shack.

  Natalie pushed open the rickety door to find Dan Burman and his son Joey frantically stuffing panfish down the ice hole in the middle of their shanty. Josh stayed outside.

  “Conservation warden,” Natalie repeated. Josh was astonished at how much authority she could put into her voice. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Catch and release,” Burman muttered. Both of his arms were wet to his elbows. Joey had just handed him a good-sized bluebill that he was prepared to push down into the fish hole. “Catch and release.”

  “I don’t think so,” Natalie said. “Just stop what you’re doing and show me your fishing license, Mr. Burman.” Joey dropped the bluegill back in the pail that stood next to him. Burman pulled out his billfold, found his license, and handed it to the warden, who looked at it and handed it back without comment.

  “How old are you, son?” Natalie asked, looking at the nervous you
ng man sitting on a wooden bench nailed to one side of the shanty.

  “I’m . . . I’m fifteen,” the young man stammered.

  “Yeah, he’s fifteen,” the senior Burman said. “Big kid for his age. Good fisherman, too.”

  “Mr. Burman, is this your fishing shanty?”

  “It is. Seen better days, but it’s every bit mine,” Burman said, a hint of a smile on his face.

  “How many fish you got in that pail?”

  “What pail?”

  “That one standing next to your son.”

  “Got a few keepers. Most we throw back. Got us a few keepers in the pail. Make a few good meals for the family.”

  “What do you say we take the pail outside and count your keepers.”

  “OK by me,” said Burman. “Joey, grab up that pail and take it outside.”

  “Would you dump the fish out of the pail, please,” Natalie said to the young man once they had all exited the shanty.

  Joey dumped the flopping fish and water onto the ice. Burman, his eyes adjusting to the bright light outside the shanty, focused on Josh.

  “Say, don’t I know you?” Burman asked. He had several days’ growth of whiskers covering his craggy, weathered face.

  “Yup,” Josh said, extending his hand. “We met out at your place a little while back, when I interviewed you. Josh Wittmore.”

  “That’s right—what you doin’ traipsing around with the game warden?”

  “Still doing stories on the Tamarack River Valley. Need to have something about ice fishing. Seems pretty popular.”

  While Burman and Josh chatted, Natalie counted fish. Burman’s son looked on.

  “I count forty-five,” Natalie said. “What’s your count?” she asked, looking to the young man.

  “I get forty-five too,” he said. Both the warden and the young man knew that twenty-five was the limit for each fisherman, and they were just five shy.

  “Nice bunch of bluegills you got there,” Natalie said. “Just make sure that when you get to fifty you pull up your lines.” She didn’t mention that she’d caught them pushing fish back down the hole—she had no idea how many they’d already caught past fifty, but without evidence, she could issue no citations.

  “You guys have a good day, now,” Natalie said as she and Josh walked on to the next shanty to repeat the routine.

  On the way back to Willow River, Natalie and Josh chatted about the afternoon.

  “I was a little surprised to see Dan Burman and his son out there,” Josh said.

  “I wasn’t. Guy’s a good fisherman, good hunter, too. Too bad he’s always pushing the legal limits.”

  “He’s got a big family to feed,” Josh said. “He’s barely making it.”

  “Still got to obey the law,” Natalie said.

  They drove on, neither saying anything for several miles. Josh, usually a good judge of character, simply was confused about the difference between Natalie Karlsen conservation warden and Natalie Karlsen dinner date. Today he had seen Natalie the conservation warden, and he had been impressed. She knew her job, and she knew it well. She was firm with people, yet pleasant. He still harbored the deeper question—what did she want from him?

  15. Valley History

  Josh sat at his computer at Farm Country News, working on the second in a series of stories he’d planned about the Tamarack River Valley. His brief history of the valley had appeared in Farm Country News this week, with a couple of photos he had taken of the river and an overview shot of the valley itself.

  The Tamarack River Valley: A Brief History

  The Tamarack River defines the western boundary of Ames County in central Wisconsin. The river and the valley surrounding it were formed by the glacier that ground its way through this part of what eventually became Wisconsin. The glacier began retreating about 10,000 years ago, followed by the return of plants and animals, and eventually Native Americans who lived on these lands for many years.

  Although Wisconsin had become a state in 1848, this part of central Wisconsin remained Indian country until the U.S. government signed a treaty with the Menominee Indian Tribe that had lived on these lands for centuries. In 1851, government surveyors laid out the townships and created the section and quarter-section lines, before offering the land for sale. Since the area was settled, the Tamarack River Valley has seen many changes, although the river itself, flowing southeast toward Lake Winnebago, has remained a constant in the lives of the people who live and work in the valley. As one old timer said, “The Tamarack River is always the same but ever changing.”

  During the logging era in northern Wisconsin, from the mid-1850s to the early 1900s, the Tamarack River served as a “logger’s highway.” Each spring, when the ice went out, the logging crews that had piled huge logs on the river’s banks during the winter dumped them into the river for their trip south to the sawmills in Oshkosh and Fond du Lac. Log drivers, daredevil loggers who rode the river south with the logs, accompanied the logs, keeping them in the current and breaking up logjams when they occurred. Injuries and even deaths were not uncommon during the spring log drives.

  In the spring of 1900, a logjam on the Tamarack took the life of Mortimer Dunn, a farmer in the valley during the summer months and a logger during the winter. A family gravesite contains a marker for Dunn, but his body was never found. Some local residents claim that Mortimer Dunn’s ghost still haunts the valley as it searches for his grave. Others say that the Tamarack River Ghost looks out for the valley and the mighty Tamarack River.

  Farmers, many of them immigrants from northern Europe, but some from upstate New York, first settled the valley. From the 1850s until the 1880s, the majority of these farmers grew wheat. But then, over a period of a few years, wheat yields declined because of disease and an insect called the chinch bug, which sucked the juices from the wheat plant. Most valley farmers then took up dairy farming. Many also raised hogs, sometimes a few sheep, occasionally some beef cattle, and small flocks of chickens that provided eggs and meat for the table, and a little extra money for groceries. They became diversified farmers, not depending solely on one enterprise for their income.

  The Depression years of the 1930s challenged the Tamarack Valley farmers. A few lost their farms because they couldn’t make mortgage payments. But most hunkered down and carried on. Cucumbers and green beans became popular cash crops for most of the valley farmers, especially those with large families. From planting to harvesting, both crops required considerable hand labor. From late July through August, valley farm kids could be seen in their cucumber and bean patches, earning enough money for school clothes and supplies, Christmas presents, and sometimes even enough for a new bike or a .22 rifle.

  The valley land was not rich, especially not as fertile as farmland in the southern counties of Wisconsin. But for several generations the Tamarack River Valley supported the family farmers who lived there, raised families, and sent them to school.

  Electricity did not come to the Tamarack River Valley until after World War II. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, valley farmers also bought tractors and put their draft horses out to pasture, although they would not sell them. “Never can tell when a good team might come in handy” was a comment often made by farmers who had grown up driving horses and had come to love and respect them.

  In the southern part of the Tamarack River Valley, several cranberry growers established cranberry marshes in the years following the Civil War. Most of these cranberry growers still operate, and in recent years they have done well with an expanded cranberry market in the United States and around the world.

  Today, the Tamarack River Valley faces two major outside forces— developers who see the river property as prime land for golf courses and condo development, and industrial agriculture that sees relatively cheap land that can be used for large, confined animal operations. Future stories will discuss these new challenges for the people of the Tamarack River Valley.

  16. Fred and Oscar

  Fred and Os
car enjoyed another day of ice fishing in their little shack on the backwater of the Tamarack River.

  “Say Fred, you gettin’ any bites on that fancy new rod you got for Christmas?”

  “Does it look I’m gettin’ any bites? You going blind as well as senile?” answered Oscar, who fished from a second hole within their little shack.

  “Well don’t get huffy about it. Ain’t my fault your new rod don’t work.”

  “New rod works just fine. It’s the fish that are the problem,” said Fred.

  “Now it’s the fish you’re blaming.”

  “Gotta blame something. Probably that lady game warden’s really the problem. She put a jinx on our fishing. That’s what happened. You get a lady game warden prancing around on the ice checking on fishing licenses, and you just don’t know what’s gonna happen,” said Fred.

  “Kinda of a looker, she is,” said Oscar, smiling.

  “‘Looker,’ what in hell do you know about who’s a looker and who’s not?”

  “I may be old, but I ain’t blind. Underneath all that uniform and badge and stuff is a helluva good-lookin’ woman,” said Oscar.

  “So now you’re like an X-ray machine, huh?” said Fred.

  “Gotta use a little of your imagination, Fred.” Oscar touched his finger to the side of his head. “Keeps life interesting. Yup, it does. Keeps life interesting.”

  “I don’t know about you, Oscar. You’re not only getting senile, you’re acting like you’re eighteen again.”

  “Nothing wrong with thinkin’ that you’re eighteen. Helluva lot better than thinking that you’re eighty. Helluva lot better.”

  The two old men sat quietly for a time. A stick of pine wood they had stuffed into their little box stove crackled and snapped. A stiff breeze from the northwest blew down the Tamarack River and whistled around the corner of their comfortable fishing shanty.

  “What’d you think about the history piece in the Farm Country newspaper, Fred?”

  “What history piece?”

  “You read the paper, don’t you?”