Tamarack River Ghost (14 page)

“Seems the rabbits here in the valley get just a little harder to kill every year. Started huntin’ them with a BB gun when I was kid, then turned to a .22 single shot, then a .22 semi-automatic. Then got me a .410, which worked pretty good for a few years. But now, well now, it takes a .30–30 to knock over one of these Tamarack River bunnies.” He said all of this with a straight face, knowing full well that he was blowing smoke at the conservation warden.

Natalie did not smile at his little firearms litany.

“Well, I’ll be on my way, then,” said Burman. “You folks have a good
day now.” Burman pushed off into the woods on his snowshoes, the snow packing under them. He did not look back.

“Burman has the gall. He’s hunting deer out of season and in broad daylight, too.”

“Said he was hunting rabbits,” Josh said, a big smile spreading across his face.

“Right, rabbits. We both know what he was doing, and he knew we knew it, too. One of these days I’m gonna catch him. You just wait. One of these days. Meeting him sure spoiled a decent round of cross-country skiing. Ruined it.” Natalie’s face was red.

“It’s not quite that bad. Still a nice day. Sun is shining, snow is sparkling,” said Josh. “Hey, let’s ski back to the truck, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee over at Christo’s; it’s only a skip and a jump from here.”

Natalie quickly perked up with the thought of coffee.

At Christo’s, several other people were drinking coffee and hot chocolate and enjoying the view out the big window that faced the snow-covered, solidly frozen Tamarack River a hundred yards away.

“Nice view,” said Natalie.

“It is that,” answered Josh after ordering two cups of coffee from Costandina. He hung his parka over the back of his chair and helped Natalie remove her parka and hang it over her chair. She wore a wine-colored sweater that went well with her blonde hair and brown eyes. With her parka removed, she let her hair settle over her shoulders.

“What do you think about the big hog farm proposed for this valley?” asked Josh.

“The DNR is watching the whole thing closely—they’ve got to pass muster with our people before they can get their permits.”

“Think they’ll get the permits?”

“If they meet the requirements. How are things going at
Farm Country News
?” Natalie asked, changing the subject.

“Not so good. Electronic media are killing us. Our advertising is drying up. Our subscription list is down.”

Natalie quickly realized that she shouldn’t have asked the question.

“The paper is closing down some of its bureaus—one of the reasons I’m here is we had to close down the Illinois bureau,” said Josh.

“That’s too bad. I’ve read other papers were having problems. I didn’t know the farm papers were in trouble too.”

“I’ve told my boss we should do more things electronically—maybe even have an electronic edition. But he’ll have none of it. He’s an old-school editor—darn good one, too. But he’s not about to change much. He knows what good journalism is all about, and he doesn’t waiver from it. Not one bit.”

“I expect it’s good to have principles,” said Natalie.

“It is. No question about it. But I keep hoping that those of us in the newspaper business can keep our principles and keep our jobs, too.”

“It’s a challenge,” said Natalie. “State keeps cutting back our budget too. We’re all expected to do more with less. That’s been the state’s mantra for the last few years. I try to keep my principles though. Try not to cut corners.”

After a few minutes, their coffee arrived, and Josh and Natalie sipped the fresh, strong brew Christo’s had become known for. They looked out the window at the winter scene—sunlight bouncing off the snow-covered landscape and a snowmobile hurrying down the frozen, snow-covered river. In the distance they could see where the river turned as it hurried on toward Lake Winnebago.

“Paper did come up with a new idea though,” said Josh, still thinking about their conversation. “We’ve decided to accept what we are calling community contributions—it’s what we used to call freelance writing. We’ll see if that’ll generate some interest, maybe even increase our subscriptions a little. We’re running the announcement in this week’s paper.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Natalie said.

“According to Bert, we gotta do something, or we may very well go under. I can’t believe that will happen—we’ve been around since the 1860s.”

Josh took another long drink of coffee, looked out the window at the winter landscape, turned, and smiled at Natalie, who sat across from him. She smiled back. They both sat quietly for several moments, neither saying anything.

“Place will sure be different if there’s a big hog farm just down the road,” said Josh.

“Change is inevitable. Everything is always changing. That’s just the way it is.”

“But does it have to be that way?” asked Josh.

Natalie didn’t answer. She stood up, and Josh helped her into her parka. He caught a hint of her perfume.

Josh needed a break. He’d been hunched over his computer keyboard most of the morning. On his way for his third cup of coffee, he walked by his boss’s open door.

“Josh, you got a minute?” Bert asked.

“Sure, how are things with you?”

“I’m afraid I’ve got more bad news. Have a seat.”

“So what’s happening?” asked Josh.

Bert took off his wire-rimmed glasses and put them on the pile of budget sheets in front of him.

“I had to close the Indiana and Ohio bureaus this week. Laid off twelve people. I hated to do it, but had no choice. Only three bureaus left: Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. And things don’t look good in Minnesota.”

“Advertising revenue still down?”

“Way down. We just lost another big account. National Beef Feedlot folks—pulled their ads and said they’d never run another ad in our ‘decrepit paper,’ to use their exact words.”

“They didn’t like my stories?”

“That’s about it. Damn fools couldn’t see that the stories you wrote would help them in the long run. Help them police some of their bad actors so the public would get off their case about animal treatment and air and water pollution.”

“That’s how it goes some days. I wrote what I saw, and it wasn’t pretty.”

“That’s what a newspaper is supposed to do. Dig out the facts and let them fall where they may. No holds barred. That’s what a good newspaper
does, and that’s what this paper has done for nearly 150 years.” Bert pounded his fist on his desk to make his point.

“Of course, it’s the damn Internet that’s killing us. Just killing us. People are not reading print newspapers any more, especially the young people. And advertisers, well when subscriptions go down, advertisers began disappearing too. I just don’t know where it’s headed, Josh.”

Josh was one of the first to arrive at the Tamarack Town Hall on this cold January evening. A foot of snow had fallen the previous day, and although the snowplows had been through to clear the roads, a stiff northwest wind continued to blow, making for questionable visibility and difficult driving. He wondered if many people would turn out for the meeting, which had been announced in the
Ames County Argus
and over the local radio station as “an opportunity to learn about Nathan West Industries’ new hog operation planned for the Tamarack River Valley.” When Josh opened the door, he spotted the county agricultural agent, Ben Wesley, setting up folding chairs.

“How you doing, Josh?” asked Ben.

“Doing okay, kind of miserable night to be out.”

“That it is. You forget how winter can be up here in central Wisconsin?”

“Nope, I didn’t,” said Josh. He stamped his boots to remove the snow from them, took off his coat, and began helping Ben with the chairs.

By 7:30, a steady stream of people had trudged through the snow, howdied each other, and crowded into the little building. The Tamarack Valley School had closed in 1955, and at that time the township purchased the building for its meeting and voting place. Most of the time, the building, which could hold up to seventy-five people, was sufficiently large for town board and community meetings, but by 8:00 p.m. it was bursting at the seams. Every chair was taken, people stood in the back, and still others were trying to push through the door.

“Looks like we got ourselves a hot topic,” Curt Nale, town chairman and vegetable grower, said to Ben.

“Appears so,” said Ben. “These big factory farms stir up people, both pro and con.”

Ben motioned toward Josh. “Curt, I want you to meet Josh Wittmore; he works for the
Farm Country News
these days, but he grew up on a farm over near Link Lake.”

“Heard you’d moved back to Ames County.” Curt shook Josh’s hand.

“Glad to be back. One of my assignments is writing a series on the Tamarack River Valley. Didn’t expect a hot issue would be a part of the story,” said Josh.

“Valley’s been pretty quiet. Folks got a little upset a few years ago when the golf course came in with its fancy log condominiums; just like they were upset when it came, they were upset when it went bankrupt. Some of the people around here get pretty agitated about land taxes, their own mostly. When the golf course left, the tax base went down a little,” said Curt.

A red-faced man, overweight and out of breath, walked up to Ben and shook his hand. “How you doing, Billy,” said Ben. “Meet Josh Wittmore with
Farm Country News
, he just moved back here from the Illinois bureau.”

Josh shook hands. “Josh, this is Billy Baxter, editor of the
Ames County Argus
.”

“Great to meet you,” said Josh. “You don’t know me, but I know you. My folks still live near Link Lake, where I grew up. And we forever subscribed to the
Argus
.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Baxter. “Glad to hear it. Keeping subscribers these days can be a challenge.”

“Tell me about it,” said Josh. “It’s a challenge for
Farm Country News
as well.”

The two newspapermen continued chatting as a man clutching an armful of equipment came through the door and hurried to the front of the room. Ed Clark, the regional representative for Nathan West Industries, was in his mid-forties and balding. He wore khaki pants, a blue blazer, and a sport shirt open at the collar. When Clark spotted Curt Nale, he put down his equipment and shook the town chairman’s hand. He also said hello to Ben and shook his hand as well. It was obvious that Clark had made sure that he knew the community leaders well ahead of scheduling this meeting.

“Ed, meet Josh Wittmore from the
Farm Country News
,” said Curt.

“Josh, this is Ed Clark, with Nathan West Industries.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Clark. Josh noticed his firm handshake and his way of looking you straight in the eye when he shook your hand. Josh was impressed with the man’s confidence; he had surely faced many crowds of doubters and naysayers about large-scale farming over the years. Big hog farms, multi-thousand-cow dairy operations, huge poultry-raising enterprises, and cattle feedlots had split the rural communities where they located. People were either for or against them, with feelings strong on each side. The situation reminded Josh of what he’d heard from his folks about the closing of so many one-room country schools just like this one. In the 1950s, the issue had torn up rural communities to the point where some neighbors still didn’t speak to each other because of how they came down on the issue. He hoped this planned hog facility wouldn’t do the same thing.

Clark, who worked out of NWI’s Dubuque headquarters, had been in the community for a couple of days, driving around, talking to people in both Willow River and Tamarack Corners and walking over the land his company had purchased. With the former Tamarack River Golf Course covered with snow, it was a bit difficult for him to envisage just where they would place their buildings, and he had no idea yet what the company would do with the vacant log-faced condo buildings. When the company purchased the property, it had considered the condos as possible housing for employees—that still seemed a reasonable idea, except there were far more condo units than potential employees.

A few minutes after eight, Curt Nale called the meeting to order.

“I’m pleased to see so many of you on this cold, blustery, wintry night. We’ll get to the business at hand in just a few minutes. But before we get to talking about pigs, Ben Wesley, our county agricultural agent, has a word.”

Ben walked to the front of the room to applause; nearly everyone in the room had worked with him at one time or another, and he was well liked.

“Thank you,” he said. “Ames County is changing, as most of you know. And agriculture is changing, sometimes faster than some of us want it to. Tonight we’re going to learn about a new farming operation that is
planned for Ames County. I know many of you have questions—that’s a good thing—we all should be well informed when we face change. I want you all to know that I am always open to your questions about agriculture and land use, as I have always been. Give me a call or stop by the office. Now I’ll turn the meeting back to Tamarack town chairman Curt Nale. Curt.”

“Thank you, Ben. As you all know, Nathan West Industries of Dubuque has purchased the old Tamarack River Golf Course and plans to establish a hog farm there. It is seeking a zoning change from the county to return the golf course to agricultural land, and it has submitted its plans to the Department of Natural Resources to obtain the necessary permits. But I’ll let Ed Clark from Nathan West tell you all about what the company has in mind. Oh, before I turn the podium over to Mr. Clark, let me say that this is not a decision-making meeting—that is, we’ll not do any voting about anything. We are here to learn what Nathan West is planning. A lot of rumors have been floating around, so let’s find out what these folks really have in mind. Mr. Clark.”

The audience applauded politely, waiting to learn more about its potential new neighbor in the valley and what this internationally known company planned to do with land that had once been three family farms. A tall, thin young woman standing in the back of the room raised her hand and then began waving it back and forth so Clark might allow her to speak. He ignored her.