As Josh followed the road into the former golf course, he saw bulldozers working, moving huge piles of soil in preparation for the buildings. A big concrete truck grumbled ahead of him, its enormous red body slowly turning, diesel fumes spurting from its silver exhaust pipe. As he topped a little rise, he could see the Tamarack River in the distance, a blue ribbon contrasting with the browns of construction, moving quietly as enormous equipment loudly tore up the landscape. As he approached the now abandoned condominium development, he spotted a small sign, “Nathan West Office,” with an arrow pointing toward the end unit. He parked his pickup, got out, walked to the door marked “office,” and stepped inside.
“Good to see you again,” said Ed Clark, emerging from a back room. He extended his hand to Josh.
“How’s it going?” asked Josh.
“See for yourself,” said Clark, motioning his arm toward all the building activity visible through the open door.
“Mind if I record our conversation and snap some photos?”
“Don’t mind at all,” said Clark, smiling. Together they walked toward an enormous building that appeared nearly completed.
“Tell me about this building,” said Josh. “How big is it? What will it house?”
“This building is 82 feet wide and 740 feet long. It’s where we’ll house our bred sows.”
“How many?”
“About three thousand is its capacity.”
“Not many buildings this big in Ames County,” said Josh as he snapped several photos.
“Want a look inside?”
“Sure do.”
The inside of the windowless building was gleaming white—the ceiling, the walls, the dividing gates. Everything smelled new: the freshly painted walls, the poured concrete floors in the aisles, the new wooden slated floors in the pens. Banks of lights in the ceiling made the building brighter than daylight. As far as Josh could see were pens, designed to hold about fifteen sows each. Josh remembered the visit to the Nathan West facility in Iowa, one almost identical to this one. He once more noticed the automatic feeding stations, shiny and new, with their computerized systems that recorded how much feed each sow ate. He noticed the automatic watering systems as well.
“Everything is controlled by computers,” Clark pointed out. “This will be the most up-to-date, most state-of-the-art hog facility in the United States, likely in the world. We’re quite proud of what we’re able to do here.”
Josh snapped several pictures before he returned outside.
As he pointed to a yellow Caterpillar bulldozer working a few hundred yards from where they were standing, Clark explained, “Over there will be our farrowing house, where the little pigs are born and where they will stay for eighteen to twenty days.”
“What else is on the drawing board?” asked Josh.
“We’ve just begun working on our nursery building, where the little pigs grow to about forty-five pounds. Once they reach that weight, we move them into our finishing houses, yet to be constructed. By the time they are six months old they’ll weigh about 260 to 280 pounds and will be ready for our processing plant in Dubuque.”
“Impressive,” said Josh as he continued snapping photos.
“We’ve got lots to do before we bring in our first sows. But if everything goes according to plan, and the weather stays decent, we should have our first hogs on site by early fall.”
“Mind if I wander around a bit and take some more photos?” asked Josh.
“Wander away; if you have any questions I’ll be in my office. Thanks for coming out.” Josh shook hands with Clark and thanked him for the tour, then climbed back in his truck and followed the winding road through the golf course toward the river. He hadn’t realized how beautiful a site this was, with the slightly rolling hills of the former golf course, now returning to the grassy prairie it had once been, with the river flowing peacefully along one side. Josh found his way to the little cemetery, located on the top of a little rise overlooking the river and surrounded by a woven wire fence, a little wire gate on one side. There, Josh could see the new construction in one direction and the Tamarack River in the other. He parked his truck, pulled open the gate, and stepped inside. Green grass and dandelions greeted him, growing between the gravestones. One large gravestone had the word “Dunn” etched into it. Smaller tombstones read “Amelia Dunn, 1867–1932,” and “Albert Dunn, 1890–1893.” There were gravestones for other Dunns as well.
To the left of Albert’s tombstone, a slightly larger one read:
Mortimer Dunn
Father, Log Driver, Farmer, Woodcarver
May 15, 1865
April 15, 1900
This was the first time Josh had seen the grave of the legendary Mortimer Dunn, the Tamarack River Ghost. Josh felt a shiver down his back as he stood quietly looking at the gravestone with the river flowing gently along a few dozen yards away. It was a clear and sunny May day, yet Josh felt something strange, like someone was nearby, although he could clearly see that no one was there. He briefly thought he’d caught a whiff of tobacco smoke, and in the distance the sound of a little bell. He remembered the many stories he’d heard about the ghost and how it came in the night, searching for its grave. He recalled how many people thought the former golf course had failed because an early condo buyer claimed to have heard the ghost the first night he was there and left immediately. Josh’s scientific training and his journalistic, objective mind told him that ghosts didn’t exist, that there was no such thing. But now, after what he had just experienced at the gravesite, he wondered if there might be some truth to the many tales he’d heard about the Tamarack River Ghost.
He returned to his truck and drove slowly back to Willow River, thinking about his experience. I wonder what the Tamarack River Ghost thinks about this hog farm? He chuckled. He said aloud, “There are no ghosts. There is no Tamarack River Ghost.”
Back in his Willow River office, Josh checked his e-mail. There was one from the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Agribusiness Studies:
We regret that the results of one of our department’s research projects were prematurely released at a meeting held in Willow River, Wisconsin, in April. As a result, some of the data presented were incorrect. We regret this and apologize if the incorrect information inconvenienced anyone in any way.
William Willard Evans, PhD
Department Chair
Josh read the e-mail a second time. It was a bit ironic, especially the statement about inconveniencing anyone. He wondered what the accurate research results showed. His guess was that the percentage of those approving building the new hog facility in the Tamarack River Valley was much smaller than reported; indeed the results likely would have shown a majority opposing the plan.
Josh immediately picked up the phone and punched in the numbers for the Department of Agribusiness Studies. In a minute, he was talking to his old professor.
“Josh, it’s good to hear from you again. How can I help?”
“I’m calling about the e-mail I just received from you, the one saying some of the early research results of the Tamarack River Valley survey were in error.”
“Unfortunate. Very unfortunate. Shouldn’t have happened.”
“Can you tell me what the results really showed? I assume you now have the correct information.”
“We do—thankfully none of the preliminary findings were published, only presented at the meeting in Willow River. Give me a minute, and I’ll find the correct information.”
Soon Evans was back on the phone; Josh figured he would be receiving many calls like his and would have the information handy.
“What would you like to know? I’ve got the accurate data in front of me.”
“For now, I’d like to know what percentage of the people sampled in the Tamarack River Valley approved of a big hog operation coming into their neighborhood.”
“Okay, I’ve got it right here, both the numbers of the preliminary report and the accurate numbers. The preliminary numbers for the Tamarack River Valley respondents were: Yes—75 percent, No—20 percent, No opinion—5 percent. These were the ones that were inaccurate.”
“Yes, I know,” said Josh. “I wrote them down when your graduate student shared them at the meeting.”
“The accurate numbers are: Yes—40 percent, No—55 percent, No opinion—5 percent.”
“So 55 percent of the Tamarack folks disagree with the hog operation coming to their community?” Josh raised his voice a bit.
“That’s what the correct figures show.”
“The preliminary figures said 75 percent were in favor—that’s quite a difference in numbers, wouldn’t you say? Quite an error?” Josh asked. His voice had an edge to it.
“Clearly an error—unfortunately, a big one. The preliminary numbers should not have been presented.”
“Thank you, Professor Evans. Thank you for being candid,” Josh said. “As soon as you have the complete report ready, make sure I get a copy.”
“You’re on the list.”
Josh hung up and sat back in his chair. He could tell by Evans’s tone of voice that he was embarrassed about what happened. Josh, knowing something about university departments, also knew that a department’s reputation was extremely important, especially when it came to attracting outstanding students, and it was even more important for obtaining research grants.
The department, nearly a hundred years old, had carried out outstanding research that had assisted the agriculture community in untold important ways. But it had surely muffed reporting its most recent research findings. He decided to run the e-mail as he had received it, as a sidebar to the story he was writing about Nathan West’s progress in building its new facility, and he decided to run the corrected preliminary figures. He would wait for the complete report to write a longer piece about the research.