Tamarack River Ghost (19 page)

He read this week’s submission—a short essay and a poem.

Josh read both submissions a second time and decided to run them both in the next issue of the paper. He was sure the second one would generate some interest. Reading the material took his mind off the paper’s problems and his own, should the paper go under. He thought about how much money he had in the bank—not much—and how long he could live without a job. For the first time since he’d begun working at
Farm Country News
, he pulled up his résumé on his computer and scanned it. It would take him a while to bring it up to date. He’d prepared his last résumé when he graduated from college. Lots had happened in his life since then, lots of water under the bridge, even though until now he had kept the same job.

He thought again about Natalie and her cabin, how warm it had been while a fierce blizzard raged outside and they drank wine and ate chocolate cake in front of a blazing fire. He thought of the smell of her hair and her subtle perfume, and the touch of her gentle hands on his neck—and more.

After living in central Illinois for ten years, Josh had forgotten how miserable the month of March could be in Wisconsin. One day a promise of spring, with temperatures creeping into the high thirties, the snow turning mushy and eaves from the snow-covered rooftops dripping, and the next, another snowstorm and temperatures hanging around zero. On the one hand, a depressing month, with seemingly constant reminders of winter, and on the other, a month of giddy anticipation at subtle hints of spring—the first green grass on the south side of a building, Canada geese winging north in long
V
s, the first sandhill cranes arriving.

Josh sat at his computer; he had difficulty focusing this Friday morning, even though the sun was up and, for the first day in several, it felt like spring when he stepped out of his apartment and walked to his pickup. He remembered how when he was growing up on a farm on a morning like this his father would say, “You can smell it; you can smell spring in the air.”

He was thinking about Natalie; he hadn’t seen her for several days and found it was hard to think of anything but her. He wondered what her true feelings were for him. He also couldn’t take his mind off his newspaper, which clearly faced major financial problems, perhaps even more serious than his boss had shared. He forced himself to think of the emerging story about Nathan West. With the county zoning committee’s approval, they would build a hog facility in the Tamarack River Valley and change that community forever. He thought about the questions he would ask when he visited the Nathan West farm in Iowa in a few days. “What do you feed the hogs at different ages? How many days from birth to market weight? How do the hogs react to close confinement?” He wondered how
he would be received; many of the big factory farm operators were not that keen on letting reporters in on their operations. They had gotten too many black eyes from the anti–big farm movement that seemed to be growing in prominence in recent years.

He jumped when the phone on his desk rang.

“This is Natalie.”

“Good to hear your voice. I was thinking about you this morning.”

“That’s good.” Her voice was soft, so different from the voice she used when she was asking a fisherman for his license. “Would you like to go with me to the annual Smear Tournament at Christo’s this weekend? It runs Saturday and Sunday afternoons. You and I could be partners.”

“A what?”

“Smear Tournament—where we play cards and win prizes.”

“I haven’t played Smear since I was a kid; I don’t think I remember how.”

“Oh, you’ll catch on quickly. Once you learn, you never forget.”

“I’ve never been very good at card games, no matter what they are.”

“I’ll help you. I’ll add an incentive, too.”

“And what would that be?” Josh smiled when he asked.

“I’ll cook dinner for us, at my cabin—complete with chocolate cake.”

Shortly after noon on Saturday, Natalie pulled up in front of Josh’s apartment in her little Honda Civic. She wore black slacks and a pale blue sweater and had tied her hair in a ponytail. “You ready to kick some butt?” she asked when Josh pulled open the Civic’s door and stepped inside.

“If you mean, am I ready to play Smear, you’ve got to be kidding. I tried to remember how to do it, and I’m lost. Somehow I got the rules tangled up with seven-card stud.”

“Forget about poker. Anybody can play poker; it takes a skilled card player to play Smear.” She smiled broadly when she said it.

“That’s what I’m afraid of—any card-playing skill I left behind when I was in high school.”

“Oh, quit being such a worrywart; I’ll show you how. The game is easy.”

When they arrived at Christo’s, they saw eight tables with four chairs at each.

“Sixteen teams of two start in the tournament,” Natalie said. “I registered us two weeks ago so we’d have a place.”

“Two weeks ago, before you even called me?”

“Sure, wanted to make sure we got in. People try to get in this tournament from all over the place. Several come from Wisconsin Rapids and sometimes as far as Oshkosh and Appleton. This is a big deal.”

“Right,” said Josh, smiling.

“Well it is. People around here take Smear seriously—you should remember that.”

Josh and Natalie checked in with the tournament leader, Don Happsit the barber, himself a noted Smear player. He and his wife, Marcella, had won the tournament just two years ago. Once you win, your name goes on a plaque and you can’t compete anymore.

At each table was a small laminated card, with the rules for the game. Josh began reading:

Josh finished reading and looked across at Natalie, who sat patiently waiting. The second team at their table arrived, and they introduced each other. They learned their names—John and Florence Grabowski from Wisconsin Rapids—and found out that they had been participants in the tournament every year for the past ten. When Natalie explained that Josh had not played the game since he was a kid, they agreed to do a practice round. They had time, as the tournament wasn’t scheduled to start for a half hour.

Natalie dealt the cards, two at a time, until each person had eight. She put the last two in the middle.

Josh looked at his hand and placed the cards in the same suit together. He had the 8, 9, 10, and king of diamonds, a 7 of clubs, an 8 of hearts, a jack of spades, and a queen of clubs. He stared at them, not having the first idea whether he should bid or not. Florence looked at her hand and bid three.

Natalie walked around and glanced at Josh’s card hand, only because it was a practice hand. “Looks like the best you can do is pass—not a great hand.”

“I told you I never have any luck,” Josh grumped.

“Be patient, there’s always the next round; remember it takes twenty-one points to win the game, and at best a team can earn six points in a round.

Now it was John Grabowski’s turn. His hand included the ace, king, jack, and 7 of hearts plus the ace and king of spades. He bid five on his hand, with a sure count of the high (the ace) and the low (the 7) and, with
the king, strong prospects of taking one or both jokers—without even needing help from his partner, or a lucky draw from the center two cards.

Natalie glanced at her cards, and quickly said, “Pass,” knowing that she couldn’t bid six, which would be a near perfect hand. John reached for the two cards in the center; they were a 7 of diamonds and a queen of spades, no help to his hand, so he discarded both of them.

They began playing, with John taking all the tricks; not only did he have all the counting cards—high, jack, two jokers, low, but he also had game, the sum of all the cards taken in the tricks.

By now, teams had filled in at all the tables, and Don Happsit began his little welcome spiel, which included reminding people to look at the instruction cards on the tables for any questions about which cards counted for what. “Also,” he said, “if there are any questions about anything, I’m the guy with the final answer.” He said it with a big smile on his face, as he remembered how a couple of years previously a big argument developed over whether you had to always play a trump card if a trump card is played and you have one in your hand. You do.

Josh glanced around the room. He recognized Fred Russo and Oscar Anderson playing as a team on the far side of the room. Fred wore a red-and-black-checked wool shirt, Oscar a green-and-black-checked wool shirt. He saw Brittani Martin and a fellow he assumed to be her husband. The rest of the people were strangers to him.

With the tournament started, John Grabowski began dealing the cards, while Josh tried to remember what he had just learned in the practice round, attempted to recall some of the rules from when he played as a child, and glanced occasionally at the instruction card Natalie had placed in front of him. He passed the first round, and Florence Grabowski won the bid and earned four points for Team Grabowski. The next round, Natalie bid four, won the bid, and Team Karlsen-Wittmore took in six points. The very next hand, Josh, with an ace, king, and queen of hearts, bid four, and Team Karlsen-Wittmore took in another five points. He and Natalie were now ahead ten to four. Their luck holding, Natalie bid four the next hand, and, with Josh holding both jokers and the low, they won six more points, bringing them to a total of sixteen to four.

“Beginner’s luck,” John Grabowski muttered when Josh’s next hand contained an ace, king, jack, and 10 of clubs, plus the 7, which was low. Team Karlsen-Wittmore picked up six more points and handily won the game, twenty-two to four.

They would play two more games with the same partners. The team winning at least two games would move up; the losers would be out. Josh’s beginner’s luck failed for the next two games—indeed he had become a little overconfident and had overbid his hand a couple of times, resulting in becoming “set,” which meant his team had to subtract the amount he bid (and lost) from what it had already won. By 3:00 p.m., Josh and Natalie were back in Natalie’s Honda, on their way to her cabin. Both had had a good time, even though they had not moved up in the tournament.

It was a pleasant drive back to Willow River. The temperature had climbed into the low fifties, the snow in the fall-plowed fields had mostly melted, and sprigs of green grass appeared along the roadside.

“Are you still planning to visit the big hog farm in Iowa?” Natalie asked. He had told her about the planned visit as a way to add another dimension to the story he was writing about the hog farm planned for the Tamarack River Valley.

“I am. In fact I’m leaving for Iowa tomorrow morning.”

“So, what’s your take on factory farms, Josh?”

“What do you mean, ‘What’s my take’?”

“Are you for or against them?”

“It’s not that easy. The story is complicated. Besides, I’m a journalist, and we need to keep our own opinions in check when we’re working on a story.”

“So, you don’t have an opinion?”

“I do. But I’ve got to keep an open mind. There’s a lot of misinformation and a lot of emotion out there—on both sides of the question. My job is to sort through it all and come up with the truth.”