The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County (27 page)

Most mornings Marilyn joined Karl over breakfast. She had become quite impressed with Karl and the contributions he had made toward both the enhanced Fourth of July celebration and the wildly successful Trail Marker Oak Days. She realized that a number of people in Link Lake were unhappy with Karl, especially when they learned that he worked for the mining company. It was Marilyn who suggested to Karl, “If I were you, I would lay low for the next several weeks, until things quiet down a bit more at least.”

Karl was smart enough to figure that out for himself, thus he seldom appeared downtown but spent most of his time at his cabin and at the coffee bar.

A couple weeks after Stony Field's column asked people from around the country to write letters to the backers of the sand mine, Marilyn confided in Karl that they had received several thousand. Outside of the village board, the mayor, and the executive committee of the Economic Development Council, no one knew this and Marilyn wanted to keep it that way. Marilyn told Karl that Billy Baxter from the
Ames County Argus
had inquired about how many letters they had received. Marilyn told him they had gotten a few, but not enough to warrant doing a story.

Karl listened to all of this but didn't respond. He was not one to keep secrets from people—he believed they had a right to know what was happening in their community. But then he quickly reminded himself that he had done the same thing; he had people believing he was someone different from who he really was. He felt more conflicted than he had ever remembered feeling. There was something about little Link Lake that was getting to him, crawling under his skin, making him examine things about his life that he had not thought about before.
Maybe it's because I'm getting older. Maybe that's why I am feeling as I do these days
. But never before had he felt that he was being dishonest with people. He had always prided himself in being an upfront what-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of person.

Before he had signed the contract with Alstage, he had done considerable research on the company—some of these companies had broken zoning and environmental laws and he did not want to work for any of them. But the Alstage Sand Mining Company appeared to have abided by all the laws and regulations as they developed mines. Even with all of the controversy the proposed mine created in the Link Lake community, the mining company was not dishonest about any of it—or at least it didn't appear so. They had been right up front from the very beginning of the negotiations with the village; they had even contributed several thousand dollars toward the village's summer events. And what did they get for all of their efforts? A million-dollar machine blown to bits.
I was the one that was being dishonest by not telling people from the beginning that I worked for the mining company. I was the dishonest one, not Alstage
.

After his mornings at the Lake Coffee Bar, he returned to his cabin and spent most afternoons fishing and thinking. These late summer days were not the best for fishing, but he did manage to catch the occasional large-mouth bass and usually a bluegill or two, all of which he returned to the lake.

His thoughts took him in two directions. When he wasn't pondering whether he'd been dishonest by not letting people know who he really was, he couldn't stop thinking about the photograph that he saw hanging on Ambrose Adler's wall. It reminded him so much of his mother as he remembered her when he was a little kid growing up in California. As the years passed, he had not been close to his mother—she was always working hard at her job, and he traveled the country. He realized now that it had been several months since they'd talked, and he decided to give her a call one evening after he had returned from fishing.

“Mom, it's Karl.”

“Oh, Karl, it's so good to hear from you. Where are you?” Karl's mother had given up trying to keep track of her widely traveled son.

“I'm in Hicksville, Wisconsin,” answered Karl. “In a little village called Link Lake. I'm staying in a cabin on the lake, quite a nice place.”

“Where did you say you were?” his mother asked again.

“Link Lake, Wisconsin. Have you ever heard of the place?”

“No, I guess I haven't,” said his mother after another pause. “What are you doing there?”

“Oh, I'm working for this mining company that's planning to build a sand mine in the village park. It's been quite a struggle. Lots of people are opposed to having a sand mine in the park. One of the problems is there is an old oak tree that people claim is historic. They call it the Trail Marker Oak.”

“Oh, really,” his mother said quietly.

“Then there's this environmental writer who has stuck his nose into the fray. Do you know of a writer called Stony Field?”

“Yes, yes, I do. Everyone knows about Stony Field,” his mother replied.

“Well this Field guy has gotten people all steamed up in opposition to the mine. It's quite a mess. It's an interesting place, though. It's grown on me. I met this old farmer, named Ambrose Adler, a strange old guy who grows vegetables and talks to animals. But he's interesting. He stutters so badly I can hardly understand him. But there's something about the guy that I like.”

“He does sound interesting,” his mother said quietly. “And a little different.”

“And you know what? He has a photograph hanging on his wall that reminds me of how you looked when I was a little kid.”

“Oh, Karl,” his mother said. “It's been a long time since you were a kid—how could some old photo remind you of me? Have you met anyone else interesting there?”

Karl answered, “Let's see. Then there's this woman who owns the Link Lake Supper Club. Her name is Marilyn Jones and, well, she can best be described as a go-getter. Unfortunately, it seems she wants to take the village in a direction that many of the people don't want to go, especially those interested in preserving the history of the village and such things like this Trail Marker Oak. All that this Jones woman sees is jobs, jobs, jobs. She thinks preserving history gets in the way of progress. I mostly disagree with her on that point—but I've got to be careful with what I say, as I'm working for the mining company, and she was the person who convinced the village board and the mayor to bring in the mine in the first place.”

“My, it certainly sounds like you've got your hands full,” Karl's mother said.

“Everything really got tense a few weeks ago when somebody blew up one of the mining company's big drilling machines.”

“Really! Who did it?”

“We don't know, but everybody is sure worked up about it.”

“You better be careful, Karl. Maybe you should pack up and leave that place.”

“I'll be fine, Mom. I've been in tight spots before. Trying to work through these situations is what I get paid for.”

“Well, you be careful. You hear me?”

“I hear you, Mom, I'll be fine. Don't worry about me.”

After he hung up, Karl thought,
Something's not right with Mom. She didn't sound like her old self. Is she having problems at work?
He was well aware that all newspapers were cutting staff and tightening down.
Is she worried about her job?

46

T
he rains in central Wisconsin had stopped in mid-summer, and now the hot August sun dried out the countryside and challenged the corn, soybeans, and vegetable crops that were not irrigated. Anyone who did not have irrigation, and that included small vegetable farmers such as Ambrose Adler, saw their pumpkins, squash, and cucumbers wither, their sweet corn leaves curl, and their potato vines turn brown. With no rain for weeks, Ambrose kept his vegetable stand open only three days a week as he didn't have enough produce to keep it well stocked.

The temperature each day climbed into the nineties, and only dropped into the seventies in the evening. To add to the increasingly dry conditions, a stiff southwest wind blew each day, helping to further dry the countryside, turning grass brown, drying up cow pastures, and even killing little trees, especially the pine trees that a few tree farmers in the area had planted in the spring. The air was filled with dust, dirty brown dust that was picked up by the wind and turned the sky the color of chocolate by late afternoon. Dust sifted through open windows and gathered on furniture. Dust gathered on the corn leaves, on the soybean leaves, on the goldenrods that struggled to bloom, on the brown grass alongside the highways, on the leaves of the oaks and the maples. Dirty brown dust everywhere.

Farmers in the Link Lake community who attended the Church of the Holy Redeemed and the Baptist and the Methodist churches prayed for rain on Sunday mornings and looked to the west every evening for an answer to their prayers. The dry weather continued. One week. Two weeks. Three weeks. Everyone kept their eye on the sky every evening, and they listened to the NOAA weather forecasts, watched the TV weather news, and heard nothing but the same forecast, day after miserable hot, dry, dusty day.

The talk at the Eat Well never strayed from the weather. Same conversation at every table every morning.

“Do you remember anything like this?”

“Reminds me of the 1930s.”

“Will it ever end?”

“Damn dust is gettin' to me.”

“Hot wind keeps blowin' every day. Every damn day.”

Oscar and Fred talked about it.

“You remember back in the 1950s when we had a stretch of hot dry weather like this, Fred?” asked Oscar Anderson.

“I do. I remember cutting our second crop of alfalfa; first crop had been decent, but the second crop, well, I don't think we got more than 150 bales off of twenty acres. Worst damn yield of hay I ever had.”

“That dry spell was a lot like this one. Hot sun every day. Damn old wind blowing out of the southwest that dried up everything that wasn't already dried up.”

“Hate to change the subject, Fred, knowing how well we all like to complain about the weather, but you heard anything more about the sand mine?”

“Nope, ain't heard one word. Not one single word. All anybody talks about is the drought.”

“You see any protestors at the park?”

“Nope, everything is quiet there since the big explosion.”

“Well, I don't like it. I'll bet you my bottom dollar, Fred, that mining company is gonna come in here, cut down our Trail Marker Oak, start diggin' a big hole in the park, and stir up more dust than we got in the air right now. Read somewhere that these sand mines stir up a lot of dust— and dangerous dust, too. The kind that'll get in your lungs and raise hell with your breathin', eventually kill you.”

“Really. I didn't know that,” said Fred.

“Well, it's the truth. We're in for some tough times.”

“Can't believe they could get much worse than they are right now, what with this drought and hot wind blowin' every day.”

“You just wait, Fred. Just wait. What's goin' on right now is nothing compared to when that sand mine opens. You just wait and see if I ain't right.”

The two old men sat quietly for a time, sipping their coffee. Fred ran his finger over the arm of the empty chair at their table, removing a coat of fine dust.

“When do you suspect it'll rain?” asked Fred, breaking the silence.

“Oh, it'll rain. Always does. Hope we don't have a big storm.”

“Geez, Oscar. One minute you're complaining about how dry it is and the next you're worried that if it does rain we'll have a storm.”

“Only speaking the truth, Fred. The truth that comes from eighty years of livin' in this place.”

At six on a September morning the following week, it was already eighty degrees with a weather forecast of high nineties, maybe even one hundred degrees. Fred and Oscar had settled into their chairs at the Eat Well and said little or nothing since arriving. They sat staring out the window enjoying the cool air-conditioned room, for neither of them had air-conditioning in their farm homes.

Oscar broke the silence. “Do you know what I saw this morning on my drive in to town?”

“Let's see, you saw a dried-up cornfield, a dried-up soybean field, a few dead trees, and a deer walked across the road in front of you. Oh, you maybe also saw a bald eagle feasting on a road-killed raccoon. How am I doin'?” said Fred.

“I'll give you this, you got one helluva imagination.”

“Got to be good for something.”

“So you wanna hear about what I saw?”

“I suppose you're gonna tell me whether I wanna hear it or not,” said Fred.

“Well, you wanna hear about it or do you just wanna sit there grumpin' and sippin' on your coffee and worrying about the drought?”

“Go ahead, I'm all ears,” said Fred.

“I saw a bank of clouds just off the horizon to the west.”

“You saw a bank of clouds?”

“That's what I said. I saw a big bank of clouds just climbing over the horizon.”