Tamarack River Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page A

Pa,” the sixteen-year-old boy holding the light said. “Got ourselves a nice buck and a fat doe.”
    “Looks that way, Joey. We better get them gutted out quick and into the pickup ’fore somebody comes snoopin’ by. Heard that nosey lady warden has been on the prowl in the valley. Don’t know why the hell the DNR and their wardens spend so much time trying to pinch us poor folks. Don’t understand it a bit.”
    With the freshly killed deer in the back of their old pickup, they slowly drove home, with their lights out, but a half mile from the field where they shot the deer.
    Natalie Karlsen, Ames County conservation warden, sat in her four-wheel-drive, Ford F-150 extended-cab pickup with the windows down, listening. Twenty-eight years old and single, she had served a couple of years in the U.S. Army Military Police before becoming a warden. She was not a big woman, only five feet six, but she kept in excellent condition. The one thing people noticed immediately when they talked with her were her big, expressive brown eyes. She kept her long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. After only two years on the job, she had gained a reputationfor being tough. She had earned considerable respect, especially from other law-enforcement officers in the county, including the county sheriff. Of course, she also had her share of enemies—it goes with being in law enforcement.
    Natalie carried a .40 caliber Glock on her duty belt. In her truck she also had a .308 Remington rifle and a Remington 12-gauge shotgun—all standard firearms for a Wisconsin warden. A laptop computer in the pickup allowed her ready access to both the Internet and the mobile data computer radio system so she could do an immediate check on license-plate numbers and other necessary information and keep in close contact with the sheriff and local police networks. The computer screen glowed in the darkness.
    Earlier in the week, Natalie had gotten a tip that game poachers were at work in this part of Ames County, where the deer population was heaviest. A woman had called the ranger station in Willow River and left a curt message.
    “I heard rifle shots last night. Somebody is shooting my deer. I think Dan Burman is one of them. Look into it.” She didn’t leave her name, only said that she lived in the Tamarack River Valley and that the warden should do her job. “Our taxes pay the warden’s salary. Why isn’t she doing something about this?”
    Lately, game poachers had become Natalie’s biggest headache. She’d parked her pickup on a little hill overlooking the Tamarack River Valley where she had a view of the valley in two directions. Though small in stature, she had a way about her that few people challenged—maybe it was the badge, perhaps the gun at her belt, or, more likely, her way of staring down a game violator without so much as a blink. As a result, she’d had few problems apprehending everyday violators—fishermen with more than their limit, boaters without life jackets, those sorts of folks. Poachers were different, a tougher bunch, more difficult to catch in the act, and more dangerous, too. Some would just as soon shoot a conservation warden as an illegal deer.
    Natalie remembered the story her father told about a conservation warden in Adams County back in the 1930s. The warden heard about gamepoachers and had apparently run into an outfit that was shooting deer and selling the meat in Chicago. The poachers jumped the warden, stripped off all his clothes, tied him to a tree deep in the woods, and left him. This happened on a Saturday. Some kids walking to school Monday morning heard the warden’s yells. He had nearly died of exposure and was covered with ant bites, as an anthill was near the tree where he had been tied.
    The moon was just coming up, and Natalie could see steam rising from the river in the distance, little horsetail clouds that formed when the cool early fall air collided with the warmer water. It was a typical