Tamarack River Ghost: A Novel

5. Tamarack River Valley

29 Tamarack River Valley 5 Josh parked his Ford Ranger in the Ames County Courthouse parking lot. He had an appointment with the county agricultural agent, Ben Wesley, whom he hadn’t seen since he graduated from college. Now that Farm Country News had given him a promotion and transferred him from the Illinois bureau to the home office in Willow River, he was reacquainting himself with his home county. Josh grew up on a small farm west of Link Lake, twelve miles from Willow River; his folks, now retired, still lived on the home farm. He would now have an opportunity to occasionally visit them. As a 4-H member, Josh had gotten to know the agricultural agent well. He had fond memories of showing cattle at the Ames County Fair and attending the end-of-the-year 4-H achievement program, always held in the courtroom. When Josh arrived in Willow River a week earlier, he drove down Main Street and noted the changes that had taken place since he’d left the county. He saw that the population had increased a little, to 3,010, but it was still a small place when compared to cities like Green Bay, Oshkosh, Madison, and Milwaukee. The first thing he spotted was the new Willow River High School, on the west end of town. He noticed a second stoplight as well. For years, Willow River had the only stoplight in all of Ames County. Driving slowly down Main Street, he saw what had been a clothing store and now housed All Such and More, a place that sold used stuff, everything from clothes to books, flower vases to dishes. He stopped there and bought an almost-new leather jacket for five dollars—he’d seen one like it in a Madison store for two hundred dollars. As he slowly drove down Main Street he saw the offices of Jensen, Jensen and O’Malley, a law firm that had been in Willow River since the 30 Tamarack River Valley 1920s. He drove past the two taverns on Main Street, there since he came to Willow River as a kid with his folks: Joe’s Bar and Johnny J’s Saloon. He remembered walking by them and smelling stale beer and secondhand tobacco smoke. Several of the once thriving businesses on Main Street had closed their doors since he left after college—a pharmacy, an office supply store, a big grocery store, a bakery—all gone, the buildings vacant with For Sale signs in their windows. At the stoplight, he turned north toward Link Lake and spotted the Willow River Hospital and Clinic. The clinic was new. So was a dental office next to it. Back on Main Street, he traveled east, past the new McDonald’s and Culver’s restaurants, and past the big Buy It Here grocery store with a statue of a life-size Angus steer standing out front. He saw the Ames County Argus’s new building. The weekly Argus was a newspaper nearly as old as Farm Country News. Its handful of reporters, several of them stringers, covered all corners of Ames County; its circulation was primarily households in Ames County and thus was not a competitor of Farm Country News, which covered much of the Midwest and concentrated on agricultural stories. Josh looked for the Lone Pine Restaurant that he remembered standing on the far east side of Willow River. He found it, but now it was a part of the Willow River Plaza—a strip mall with an Ace Hardware store, an Amish furniture place, and a small-engine repair shop, all scrunched together with no attempt at architectural aesthetics. He swung south, off Main Street and past what had been cucumber receiving and salting stations, now warehouses or mostly old abandoned and graying buildings. He drove past the new Farmers Co-op Feed Store, and then past the Ames County Fairgrounds, where he saw a couple of new metal buildings, but it mostly looked the same as it had when he was a kid in 4-H, showing calves there. Josh pulled open the courthouse door and walked down the long hall to the agricultural agent’s office, past the register of deeds office and the county clerk’s office. 31 Tamarack River Valley Brittani Martin, office manager, smiled when Josh entered the ag agent’s office. “What can I do for...