Tamarack River Ghost (6 page)

“
Farm Country News
.”

“I heard of that. Good farm paper. Been around a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, it has. Started right after the Civil War. Well, I’ll let you get back to your meat cutting.”

“Enjoyed talkin’ to ya. Say, you wouldn’t want a hunk of this here goat meat, would you?”

“No thanks, but I appreciate the offer.”

As he left the barn, Josh did not see the deer heads and hides stashed deep in the shadows of the old building. He crawled into his pickup, turned around, and steered down the narrow driveway toward the country road. As he left he noticed Mrs. Burman looking out the kitchen window. Her face was expressionless.

Josh arrived back at the courthouse around four in the afternoon.

“How’d the interview go?” Ben asked when Josh entered his office.

“Burman’s quite a character. Down on the government. Down on the DNR. He seems to be a tough old codger.”

“Yup, that sounds like Burman. I don’t know him very well. He’s never set foot in my office, but he’s hanging on. Making a living out there on that poor river-bottom farm.”

Just then, Warden Natalie Karlsen knocked on Ben’s office door a couple of times and stuck in her head.

“Sorry to interrupt, but are we on for lunch tomorrow?” asked Natalie.

“Yup, got it on my calendar. Meet you at the Lone Pine at noon.” Ben regularly met with the county forester, the DNR warden, the fellow doing soil conservation work, the Farm and Home Administration person— people whose work overlapped with his.

“Got it,” said Natalie. She was wearing her warden’s uniform, complete with sidearm.

“I want you to meet someone,” said Ben. “This is Josh Wittmore, a writer for
Farm Country News
who just moved back here and is working out of the head office. Josh grew up here in Ames County, on a farm just out of Link Lake.”

“Good to meet you,” said the warden. “I know your boss, Bert Schmid, well. Good newspaperman. Good guy. Good farm paper too.” She shook Josh’s hand. He noticed she had big brown eyes and a nice smile. Could this be the person Dan Burman was talking about? The dreaded, overly snoopy DNR game warden?

“Josh is writing about the Tamarack River Valley and all the changes going on out there,” said Ben.

“Just getting started,” said Josh. “I was talking with Daniel Burman this afternoon. He was butchering a couple of goats.”

“Goats?” asked Natalie.

“Yup, that’s what he said.” The warden’s expression changed to that of someone who looked like she’d figured something out—had put some pieces of a puzzle together.

“Got to be going,” said Warden Karlsen rather abruptly.

“Nice meeting you,” said Josh.

“Same here,” she said, smiling. “See you around.”

“Wonder how she takes all the guff,” Josh said after Natalie left.

“Yeah, she gets a lot of it. Especially from the folks over in the Tamarack River Valley.”

“So I noticed.”

Josh and Ben talked for a few more minutes about poor farmers in Ames County, and about other people Josh might interview to flesh out his story. Then he drove to the
Farm Country News
office, south of Willow River on Highway 22. He arrived a few minutes after five. The clerical staff had left, but Josh noticed that the lights were still on in Bert’s office.

Bert looked up when Josh walked by.

“Josh, you got a minute?”

“Been doing an interview out in the Tamarack River Valley. Thought I’d check my e-mail and see if I had any phone calls.”

“Have a chair,” said Bert, a rather rotund man in his mid-sixties with nearly white hair. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, which he removed when Josh entered the cluttered office. Papers and books were piled everywhere on the floor and overflowed from the old wooden desk where Bert sat, staring at sheets of numbers spread out before him. Several plaques hung on the wall: “Best Agricultural News Editor—1990,” “Friend of 4-H Award—1992,” “Service to Agriculture Award—Farm Bureau—1985.”

“Drop those papers on the floor,” he said, motioning to a chair by the desk. “Take a load off.”

Josh expected him to ask about his story and what he’d been learning,
how the interviews were going, and how he might help Josh as he put it all together. He didn’t expect what he heard.

“Not a good year for
Farm Country News
, Josh. Not a good year at all,” said Bert. He put on his glasses and pointed to some numbers on the page in front of him.

“I thought we’d run some pretty good stories. Maybe as good as we’ve ever done,” said Josh. “That stuff we did on the Lazy Z got a lot of attention.”

“Yes, it did, but I’m not talking about the stories, Josh. The stories have been great. We’re just not making enough money. Can’t run a paper without money.” Bert stabbed his finger at a number on the page.

“How bad is it?” asked Josh.

“It’s bad, Josh. Worse than I thought. This year, for the first time in our history, we’re probably going to lose money. We’ve been in the black every year since
Farm Country News
came out, and that was 1868. Wasn’t long ago we scarcely had room for all the advertising that came our way; now we’re lucky to keep some of the oldest accounts.”

“What’s going on? People seem to be reading our paper.”

“Not like they used to. First off, we’ve got only a fraction of the farmers in this country that we once had and we’re losing more every year. Farmers are our best customers. Our subscriptions have been dropping every year since the 1960s—not a lot in any one year, but enough so that it adds up.”

“Maybe we need to do more promotion, show up at more farm shows, make sure we get to the state and county fairs,” said Josh.

“That’s how it once worked, but now our pencil pushers tell me it’s not profitable any more. It costs more to put up and staff an exhibit than it’s worth,” said Bert. “And, as you know, subscriptions don’t pay the bills. Never have. It’s advertising.”

Josh had never paid much attention to the
Farm Country News
advertising department. His sense of journalistic ethics had always told him that what he wrote and how he wrote it should never be influenced by who does or does not advertise in the paper.

“Advertising revenue keeps us afloat,” Bert continued. “And the Internet is killing us. Our want ads have essentially disappeared. Now people can
go to the Internet and advertise for nothing. It doesn’t cost them one damn nickel to advertise on Craigslist. I can’t blame people for doing it.”

Quietly, Josh sat listening to his boss and wondering about the future— his future as a journalist. He had worked at
Farm Country News
since he graduated from the University of Wisconsin and was now especially pleased to be working out of the paper’s main office and living back in his home county.

“So, what are you gonna do?” asked Josh, a feeling of dread beginning to roll over him.

“What I thought we’d never do. We’ll have to close down some bureaus. I’m trying to decide which ones we can keep. Hate to close any. Never laid off anybody before. Fired a few people, but that’s different.”

“That’s terrible,” said Josh.

“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever known. It’s not for public consumption yet, but the first to go will be our Springfield, Illinois, bureau. That’s one of the reasons I moved you up here, so you wouldn’t get the wrong idea when I closed the place down.”

Bert had a sorrowful look on his face. Once more he removed his glasses and looked Josh in the eye.

“What do you think, Josh? Is there another alternative? I’ve given up on Illinois, and the Indiana bureau isn’t doing very well either, nor is Ohio. Minnesota seems to be doing OK, same for the Iowa bureau.

Josh, not sure if he should share what he had on his mind, said quietly, “I have one suggestion.”

“Let’s have it; I need all the ideas I can come by.”

“Have you thought about us putting out an online edition?”

Bert’s reaction was like someone setting off a bomb in the office. His face turned beet-red, and he clinched his fists. “It’s the goddamn Internet that’s ruining us—ruining all the newspapers in the country. I would never do that. Never do that.” Bert slumped back in his chair.

Josh, surprised at the outburst, sat quietly. Josh knew that Bert was the majority stockholder in
Farm Country News
, so he knew the man had a lot at stake in whatever decision he made.

“You know what happened to the
Milwaukee Sentinel
, you’ve heard
about the
Capital Times
in Madison, and the
Rocky Mountain News
in Denver—it had published since 1859. And the
Tucson Citizen
, in the business for 138 years. And the
Ann Arbor News
in Michigan—around for 174 years. And lots more. Their print editions all gone under. Killed off by the goddamn Internet,” said Bert. He was rubbing both of his hands through his thick gray hair.

“The last thing I want to do is be taken in by that thing that seems to grab everybody’s attention these days. I thought we would be immune. We’re one of those so-called niche papers. But it’s happening to us, too. Damn Internet is out to get us, like a tiger on the prowl, without one ounce of ethics or concern about accurate news.”

Josh could think of nothing else to say. He stood up to leave. “I’m sorry,” he said. When he looked at his boss, he could see tears in his eyes, something he had never seen before.

Natalie quickly put two and two together when she heard Josh’s comment about Dan Burman cutting up goat meat. Two plus two did not equal goat; two plus two equaled venison. Deer killed out of season, the result of poaching, something that she had high on her agenda to stop.

Natalie called Sheriff Clarence Bliss and asked if he’d like to ride along to the Burman place. She told him she had a hunch Burman might be poaching deer. Both she and Bliss knew that such a visit could be dangerous; a poacher cornered is an unpredictable person. Of course all poachers had weapons, usually powerful ones.

Bliss, in his mid-fifties, bald, and on the plump side, agreed to ride along—“Always agree to ride shotgun for a lady cop,” he said. Bliss didn’t differentiate among police officers, deputy sheriffs, state troopers, or conservation wardens; he called them all cops. He had accompanied Natalie on other arrests, especially when she thought things might become a little dicey. Of course, Natalie served as a backup for the sheriff on occasion as well.

It was about eight in the evening, a moonless night, when Natalie pulled by the sheriff ’s office. On the way out to the Burman farm, she described how she had heard rifle shots the other night, when she was out on patrol,
looking for deer poachers. She hadn’t seen anything and had no evidence that Burman might be involved. But she’d heard rumors about the Burman family and how dirt poor they were and how they regularly killed a deer or two to help them through the long Wisconsin winters.

“You ever think about giving old Burman a pass?” the sheriff asked. He knew about the Burmans’ situation, probably better than the warden because he had been in Ames County for twenty years.

“I can’t do that,” Natalie said curtly. “You let one poacher off the hook, and before you know it, every Tom, Dick, and Harry will be shooting deer out of season.”

They traveled along the narrow country road in silence for several miles, neither saying anything. Soon, they arrived at the Burman farm and turned in.

“I’ll go up to the door,” Natalie said. “You stay here in the truck until I find out what’s what.”

A skinny farm dog raced out to meet the warden’s truck, barking loudly. The kitchen door opened and a tall, thin man appeared, framed by the light behind him.

“Who is it?” he yelled into the night.

“Conservation warden,” Natalie said. “Natalie Karlsen. Are you Daniel Burman?”

“That’s what folks call me. Whaddya want?”

“Wondering if I could look around a little.”

“What in hell for?”

“Just want to look around a little.”

“In the middle of the night? What in hell you expect to find in the middle of the night?”

“It’s only eight-thirty.”

“Who you got with you in your truck?”

“It’s Sheriff Bliss.”

“The sheriff. What you got him along for?”

“Can we look around a little? Check some things out?”

“Go right ahead. Look till you’re blue in the face.”

“You wanna come along with us?”

“Why the hell for?”

“Just thought you might like to see what’s going on.”

“Gotta put my shoes on. Good God almighty. What’s the world comin’ to?” Burman muttered as he disappeared into the house.

“Keep your eye on him, Sheriff, I don’t want to see him coming through that door carrying a deer rifle,” said Natalie. The sheriff had gotten out of Natalie’s truck, quietly closing the door.

“I’m way ahead of you,” the sheriff said as he stood off to the side, his hand ready to pull out his sidearm.

In a few minutes, Burman appeared wearing his barn coat and dirty cap; both reeked of cow manure. He carried a flashlight.

“Well, you just go look around to yer heart’s content,” Burman said. “What you lookin’ for anyway?”

“I’ll tell you if we find it,” Natalie said. “What building is that?” she asked as she pointed to a little shack-like structure a short walk from the house.

“It’s my woodshed. You wanna look in my woodshed?”

“Might as well,” said Natalie. She and Burman walked to the small, dark outbuilding.

“Nothing here but wood,” Natalie said after flashing her light around the inside of the little building. “What about the lean-to on the barn? Can we have a look in there?”

“Sure, look away.”

The trio walked over to the lean-to. Burman pulled open the door. The hinges squeaked.

Natalie flashed her light around the lean-to and spotted two skinned animals hanging from a crosspiece.

“Well, well,” Natalie said. “What have we here?”

“Couple of dead goats. Ain’t no law against butchering your own goats, is there?” Burman said. He tugged on his dirty cap.

Natalie and the sheriff walked close to the carcasses. They saw a couple of fresh goat hides on the floor, along with the severed heads.