The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County (30 page)

“Good God, Karl, just when I thought things had calmed down a little your damn company pulls a trick like this. At least you could have let me know ahead of time—given me a heads-up or maybe asked me what I thought of the idea. You could have done that.”

“I thought you were too busy with the reconstruction of your supper club. I thought it best not to bother you.”

“Not bother me! Not bother me!” Marilyn shouted into the phone. “When people in Link Lake see what you're doing, everything is going to hit the fan once more. What were you thinking?”

“I . . . I guess I wasn't thinking. Guess I should have let you know.”

“Well, my guess is by this time every damn person eating breakfast at the Eat Well Café this morning is talking about it. And I'll bet you my last dollar that Emily Higgins is already organizing an emergency meeting of the historical society. What do you think we are? A bunch of country hicks?”

“I . . . I,” stammered Karl. “If I would have to do it over again, I would have let you know. I screwed up.”

“Well, I've got to talk to the mayor and the executive committee of the Economic Development Council. Dammit, Karl, I thought you were smarter than this. A lot smarter.”

“It wasn't my idea to keep this a secret,” said Karl quietly.

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F
red Russo had already been sitting at his place at the Eat Well for nearly ten minutes before his friend Oscar Anderson arrived.

“Geez, you get lost this morning?” asked Fred, when Oscar arrived, out of breath. He tossed his John Deere cap on the chair next to him.

“No, I did not get lost. But I did have an interesting experience on my way in.”

“It seems you often have an interesting experience. You see a buck deer in the road, or maybe a fox, or a bear? Lot of bears around these days. We didn't have any bears, now they're here. Big buggers, too. Guy on the other side of Link Lake had a picture on his trail camera. He said that old bear would go four hundred pounds. Now that's a lot of bear. So what did you see on the way in?”

“Well, I thought I would stop at the park to see what was going on.”

“So what possessed you to do that? Why'd you stop at the park this time of day?”

“Didn't you get a phone call from Emily?”

“The phone rang, but I didn't get there in time. What'd she have to say?”

“Emily said that the mining company moved a drilling machine into the park last night and brought along with them some armed guards. By the way, she's calling an emergency meeting of the historical society for seven tonight, at the museum meeting room.”

“Middle of the night, huh? And armed guards, too?”

“Yup, so I thought I'd stop at the park and see for myself. See what was goin' on.”

“And?” said Fred.

“Hold on, Fred, I'm gettin' there.”

“Well, I hope so. Ain't got all day hearin' you march around the bush without tellin' me what's in it.”

“Well, I park my pickup alongside the road by the park entrance. I get out and walk over toward the Trail Marker Oak, wonderin' if they'd cut it down already.”

“Did they?”

“Nope, that old oak was standin' there just as proud as could be, like nothin' had ever happened or was gonna happen to it.”

“None of what you said sounds all that exciting.”

“I haven't got to the exciting part.”

“And?”

“Well, like I said I was walking across the road toward the Trail Marker Oak when this guy jumps out from behind that old tree and yells, ‘Halt!' Well I just about dropped my drawers.”

“What kind of guy?”

“He was dressed in that camouflage stuff that army guys wear these days, even had a kind of mask across his face. Never saw anything like it. Scared the hell out of me.”

“So what'd the guy say, besides ‘Halt'?”

“Oh, what I didn't tell you is he was carrying one of them big old assault rifles, the kind you see guys on TV using.”

“He point it at you?”

“Nah, not quite. But he was ready to. I think he was ready to do what he thought needed doin'.”

“I'll bet he thought you were some kind of terrorist dressed up like an old farmer.” Fred laughed when he said it.

“Fred, it isn't funny. That guy meant business. And before I could say anything, two more guys jumped out of the bushes that looked just like the first one. The first guy then said, ‘I'd suggest you move along. This is Alstage Sand Mining Company property.'”

“He said that?”

“Yes, he did. And I almost said that he was full of it, that this was a public park and he should stand aside. But you know, Fred, you don't argue with three guys ready to point their assault weapons at you. You bet you don't. So I turned around, walked back across the road, climbed in my pickup, and drove here. I haven't run up against guys carrying big guns like that since I was deer huntin' twenty years ago, got lost, and stumbled onto this guy's property that he patrolled with a thirty-ought-six. Scared the hell out of me then. But these guys at the park looked even more dangerous. These bastards mean business.”

“Looks like them mining folks are gettin' serious,” said Fred.

“More than serious. Things are gettin' downright scary. What in hell is happening to Link Lake? Think you can make the meeting at the historical society this evening?

“I'll be there,” said Fred.

“We gotta do somethin' about this. We can't have guys dressed like commandos and carryin' assault weapons scarin' the hell out of Link Lake citizens. It's just not right. Link Lake is not like that. Never was, and never should be.”

“Say, Oscar,” said Fred with a big smile on his face. “You have to stop at home and change your underwear after that little encounter? Is that the real reason you were late this morning?”

Oscar smiled. “See you at the meeting tonight.”

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I
believe you all know why we are here,” said Emily Higgins as she called the Link Lake Historical Society meeting to order. She began by sharing the information she had gotten from a variety of sources, including what she had heard from Officer Jimmy Barnes and from Oscar Anderson, who chimed in to elaborate on his story, making it considerably more exciting than the reality of what had happened.

“We now have a drilling machine in the park, along with armed guards carrying big rifles that, according to Oscar, appear ready to shoot with the slightest provocation,” continued Emily.

“Is there anything at all we can do?” asked someone from the back row.

“I don't know,” answered Emily, “but that's why I called this meeting, to see if we can come up with something. There must be something we can do.”

“Is the Trail Marker Oak still safe?” someone else asked.

“Oscar stopped by the park this morning, and he said it was still standing. In fact Oscar said one of the armed guards was hiding behind it. Isn't that right, Oscar?” Emily said as she nodded toward him in the front row.

“Yup, that's right. Scared the bejeebers out of me when this guy with a gun jumped out from behind that old oak,” said Oscar.

“What if we organize a group to protest at the park, like we did before?” someone asked.

“I wouldn't recommend it. I think that's what the mining company expects us to do—that's one of the reasons they have the guards. Somebody might get hurt,” said Emily.

“I think the only hope we have is to let Stony Field know what's happening,” said Fred Russo. “If Stony Field knew about what was goin' on, what he'd write in his column might make a difference. Might put a stop at least to this armed guard nonsense. Looks like there's no stoppin' the sand mine though. They're hell bent on goin' ahead with the project.”

Someone else suggested that Emily talk with Karl Adams, perhaps go out to his cabin on the lake and see what he could do to help.

“I doubt that would do any good. What could he do? He's just small potatoes in that big Alstage Sand Mining Company,” said Emily.

After an hour or so of lamenting, complaining, and wringing hands, the group disbanded and headed toward home. Ambrose Adler had sat in the back row and had taken in the entire conversation. He knew what he must do when he returned home that evening.

Once back at his house, he gave a few treats to Ranger and Buster, unlocked the door to his secret office, and pulled up to his big, dependable Remington manual typewriter. He rolled in a fresh sheet of paper and began typing.

Ambrose removed the sheet from his typewriter, folded it, and placed it an envelope addressed to Stony Field Column, P. O. Box 4678, Los Angeles, CA, the same address where he had mailed the column these many years.

As he often did, Ambrose included a little handwritten note. “Gloria,” he wrote in his careful script:

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