This time Josh took the initiative. It was a bright, sunny Sunday in January, a fine day to be outside. He decided to call Natalie to see if she’d like to go cross-country skiing. It was a wild idea. He didn’t even know if she knew how to ski. And besides, this might be one of the weekends she worked.
She answered on the first ring. “Sure, I’d love to go,” she said when Josh posed the question. “I’ll rustle up my skis and be ready when you get here.”
Josh now remembered he didn’t even know where she lived. “Where is ‘here’?” he said.
“Oh, you don’t know where I live, do you?” She gave him the address, a cabin on Copperhead Lake, a couple of miles east of Willow River.
The temperature hung around twenty degrees, but without a wind and with bright sunshine it was about as nice a winter day as anyone could ever want. The snow piled along the road was still fresh and clean, since the latest snowfall had only been a couple of days earlier. Josh decided on the Tamarack River Park; it had new trails that spread out along the Tamarack River and snaked through the nearby pine woods and marshes.
They traveled along the snow-packed road for several miles in silence, enjoying the winter views. How different Ames County looked in winter: all of nature’s sharp edges were rounded. The vivid colors of summer were now blacks, grays, and whites, with an occasional pine tree providing a splash of green.
Their skis crunched over the cold snow. Otherwise the park was quiet, not a sound as they moved along the trail. Snow hung from the pine trees, the white contrasting with the green. And a bright blue sky with a warm sun added the final note to perfect the scene.
When they stopped to rest, Josh dug his camera out of his pocket.
“Can I snap a picture?” he asked.
“Sure, snap away,” said Natalie, a big smile spreading across her face.
“Want to see it?” asked Josh. “It’s a good one.”
“Nah, let’s move on.”
They skied along quietly for nearly a half hour, one following the other, enjoying the winter day and each other’s company. Josh turned a corner in the woods and stopped abruptly. A person holding a gun stood next to the ski trail. He was smiling.
“Mr. Burman,” Josh blurted out. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” By this time, Natalie had caught up with Josh and turned the corner as well, and saw Burman with a gun.
“Mr. Burman,” she said. Burman was wearing snowshoes, the old-fashioned kind made of bent wood and leather.
“Madam game warden,” said Burman, bowing a bit. He held the gun in the crook of his hand, the barrel pointed downward.
“What . . . what are you doing out here?” asked Natalie. She wished she were wearing her sidearm and badge.
“Huntin’ rabbits,” said Burman. “Tryin’ to find me a few rabbits. Kids like fresh fried rabbit meat.”
“With a deer rifle. You’re hunting rabbits with a .30–30 Winchester?”
“Yup, I am.” Burman smiled, knowing that rabbit season was still open and that deer season had closed back in late November.
“Seems the rabbits here in the valley get just a little harder to kill every year. Started huntin’ them with a BB gun when I was kid, then turned to a .22 single shot, then a .22 semi-automatic. Then got me a .410, which worked pretty good for a few years. But now, well now, it takes a .30–30 to knock over one of these Tamarack River bunnies.” He said all of this with a straight face, knowing full well that he was blowing smoke at the conservation warden.
Natalie did not smile at his little firearms litany.
“Well, I’ll be on my way, then,” said Burman. “You folks have a good day now.” Burman pushed off into the woods on his snowshoes, the snow packing under them. He did not look back.
“Burman has the gall. He’s hunting deer out of season and in broad daylight, too.”
“Said he was hunting rabbits,” Josh said, a big smile spreading across his face.
“Right, rabbits. We both know what he was doing, and he knew we knew it, too. One of these days I’m gonna catch him. You just wait. One of these days. Meeting him sure spoiled a decent round of cross-country skiing. Ruined it.” Natalie’s face was red.
“It’s not quite that bad. Still a nice day. Sun is shining, snow is sparkling,” said Josh. “Hey, let’s ski back to the truck, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee over at Christo’s; it’s only a skip and a jump from here.”
Natalie quickly perked up with the thought of coffee.
At Christo’s, several other people were drinking coffee and hot chocolate and enjoying the view out the big window that faced the snow-covered, solidly frozen Tamarack River a hundred yards away.
“Nice view,” said Natalie.
“It is that,” answered Josh after ordering two cups of coffee from Costandina. He hung his parka over the back of his chair and helped Natalie remove her parka and hang it over her chair. She wore a wine-colored sweater that went well with her blonde hair and brown eyes. With her parka removed, she let her hair settle over her shoulders.
“What do you think about the big hog farm proposed for this valley?” asked Josh.
“The DNR is watching the whole thing closely—they’ve got to pass muster with our people before they can get their permits.”
“Think they’ll get the permits?”
“If they meet the requirements. How are things going at Farm Country News?” Natalie asked, changing the subject.
“Not so good. Electronic media are killing us. Our advertising is drying up. Our subscription list is down.”
Natalie quickly realized that she shouldn’t have asked the question.
“The paper is closing down some of its bureaus—one of the reasons I’m here is we had to close down the Illinois bureau,” said Josh.
“That’s too bad. I’ve read other papers were having problems. I didn’t know the farm papers were in trouble too.”
“I’ve told my boss we should do more things electronically—maybe even have an electronic edition. But he’ll have none of it. He’s an old-school editor—darn good one, too. But he’s not about to change much. He knows what good journalism is all about, and he doesn’t waiver from it. Not one bit.”
“I expect it’s good to have principles,” said Natalie.
“It is. No question about it. But I keep hoping that those of us in the newspaper business can keep our principles and keep our jobs, too.”
“It’s a challenge,” said Natalie. “State keeps cutting back our budget too. We’re all expected to do more with less. That’s been the state’s mantra for the last few years. I try to keep my principles though. Try not to cut corners.”
After a few minutes, their coffee arrived, and Josh and Natalie sipped the fresh, strong brew Christo’s had become known for. They looked out the window at the winter scene—sunlight bouncing off the snow-covered landscape and a snowmobile hurrying down the frozen, snow-covered river. In the distance they could see where the river turned as it hurried on toward Lake Winnebago.
“Paper did come up with a new idea though,” said Josh, still thinking about their conversation. “We’ve decided to accept what we are calling community contributions—it’s what we used to call freelance writing. We’ll see if that’ll generate some interest, maybe even increase our subscriptions a little. We’re running the announcement in this week’s paper.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Natalie said.
“According to Bert, we gotta do something, or we may very well go under. I can’t believe that will happen—we’ve been around since the 1860s.”
Josh took another long drink of coffee, looked out the window at the winter landscape, turned, and smiled at Natalie, who sat across from him. She smiled back. They both sat quietly for several moments, neither saying anything.
“Place will sure be different if there’s a big hog farm just down the road,” said Josh.
“Change is inevitable. Everything is always changing. That’s just the way it is.”
“But does it have to be that way?” asked Josh.
Natalie didn’t answer. She stood up, and Josh helped her into her parka. He caught a hint of her perfume.