Tamarack River Ghost Read Online Free PDF

evening in late September. The temperature had climbed into the high fifties during the day but had dropped rapidly with the sunset, as had the wind. The only sound Natalie heard was an owl’s call, eerie yet pleasing, far off in the hills. Otherwise it was dead still. The smells of fall were all around, dead leaves that had fallen from the aspen and birch trees and dead grass alongside the country road where she parked.
    Natalie heard many stories about the Tamarack River Valley and wondered how many were true. She’d heard that a ghost and his dog roamed through this valley, especially on cool, quiet nights like this one. People claim to have heard the tinkle of the dog’s little bell on still nights when the moon was down and the wind was up. Some even said they heard the log driver’s song, “Ho Ho, Ho Hay, keep the logs a-going.” Natalie didn’t believe in ghosts, yet she still listened for these sounds. She’d heard the Tamarack River Ghost story several times; she’d like to run into him and his dog.
    Natalie thought about all she had learned about the people living here in the valley in the two years that she’d been conservation warden. She’d learned that some of the farmers, now third and fourth generation, lived on the same property as their pioneer ancestors. Many were dirt poor, yet they stayed on because something more than money kept them on the land.
    She thought about the dozen or so younger farmers, members of the Ames County Fruit and Vegetable Growers Cooperative, who were doing reasonably well on their farms, growing vegetables for the Willow River Farmers Market, and selling their produce directly to restaurants and grocery stores. She knew many of them and considered them some of herstrongest allies in the county, because they were, as she was, committed to taking care of the environment.
    The cranberry growers in the southern part of the valley also came to mind as she sat waiting. Here was another group of families who had lived on the same land since the 1870s, but, different from some of their hard-scrabble neighbors, these farmers were making money as the cranberry market was growing and expanding, even internationally.
    Natalie wondered how such different people managed to get along with each other; yet they did, living side by side year after year. Sure, some had left, moved off to the cities to find work, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, when agriculture changed dramatically here in the valley and across the United States. Some of the valley farmers sold their farms to city folk in Madison and Milwaukee who wanted second homes in the country or land for hunting. So the part-time city person became a part of the mix of people in the valley. Additionally, several people who had grown up in the valley returned there to retire.
    Natalie had backed her vehicle into a driveway to a cornfield that had yet to be harvested. If she heard or saw anything, she could fire up her pickup and be on her way in a matter of seconds. She poured a cup of coffee from the thermos she’d filled when she left her cabin just after dark. These deer poaching cases took time and lots of lost sleep. Last year, she had spent fifteen September and October evenings looking for poachers. All she found was a young couple looking to get better acquainted. She had scared the wits out of them when she shined her flashlight into the window of their car and discovered both of them stark naked.
    “Better get your clothes on and get out of here,” she told them.
    “You’re not gonna tell anybody, are you?” the embarrassed young woman pleaded. She was holding up a blanket to cover herself.
    “Just get yourself decent and be on your way,” Natalie said, more sternly than she had intended.
    Natalie sipped her steaming coffee, taking a moment to inhale the smell of the brew. She liked coffee. It had become her partner on many a long, lonely night on guard duty in the army and now as a warden.
    Some parts of waiting