Whistle While You Plow: Whistling River Lodge Mysteries, #2

1

Sharp thorns pierced my leg. Warm blood oozed down my calf and into my stout hiking boot. I stopped and bit back a curse or six.

Hector, I called to the head groundskeeper for the Whistling River Lodge and Golf Resort. Hector! Your goats missed something! I yanked my leg up and down trying to dislodge the blackberry vine now twining upward toward my thigh and reaching higher with every movement.

Damn non-native invasive species. In my world this was a serious curse. I wanted a stronger one; a lot of more emphatic curses caught in my throat.

Craig Knutson, my tall, square jawed, blond Viking of a security chief approached with a gas-powered brush whacker slung over his shoulder. Oh mighty resort manager, Glenna McClain defeated by a plant. You chase serial arsonists, ghosts, bigamist ex-husbands, and lead a pack of killer poodles, but you are defeated by a blackberry.

But I saved the lodge, I muttered as I yanked my leg backward, trying to dislodge the offensive vine, and wished I hadn’t. The thorns dug deeper. A new trickle of blood dampened my wool sock and told me it had drawn first blood. It wouldn’t be satisfied until it tasted more.

I knew these plants. And I hated them with a vengeance.

I’ll find some garden clippers. Or maybe another goat, Craig said, escaping further. He turned and nearly ran for the cart track at the top of the berm, his long whacker held out to his side so he wouldn’t trip over it. He disappeared to the other side of the berm.

I didn’t usually lose sight of him, no matter how hard he tried to blend in to his environment. There was a kind of radar between us. But I was his boss and workplace romances go nowhere fast.

I’d given my garden clippers to one of Hector’s nephews half an hour ago, so now I had no means of escaping the blackberry short of ripping my jeans to shreds to escape the thorns.

The Scottish god of golf courses was due to pay us a visit before the end of summer. I had called in favors, persuaded and coerced investors and bank managers, and the previous owner of the clear-cut to sell the land to the resort. My job, my own investments, and my reputation stood on the line for whipping this scrubland into a tournament level golf course.

Today’s demolition of overgrowth was only stage one.

I’d donated a rusting hulk of an antique steam tractor on the Lodge property in return for an organization of agricultural steam enthusiasts throwing a festival and contest to uproot and roughly plow the field. That would be stage two and it would happen tomorrow.

At the moment, standing perfectly still seemed my only defense against lethal entrapment. So I leaned against the giant Douglas fir stump and waited.

A sudden chill breeze sent a single bracken fern down by the river dancing. I’m not superstitious, really, I’m not, I refuse to be, but that kind of oddity presaged chaos.

The goats gave that bit of bracken a wide berth too.

Hector ignored me, and the dancing fern. The squarely built man wearing a billed cap turned backward lunged and tackled a pony-sized goat. It bucked. He clung. Gary-the-goat-guy zoomed in with a noose for the beast. He led it back to a temporary corral for his herd. He’d gathered fifteen of his thirty animals. The rest wouldn’t come easy. Too many tasty treats remained for them in the neglected clear-cut.

These goats had gone a long way toward getting the overgrowth under control. Except for the effing vine ensnaring me. This was one of the sturdy Himalaya plants with big succulent fruit in high summer, and thorns as big as my thumb, and not a native.

As far as I could see, across the sixty acres, hundreds of wide stumps jutted up from interwoven brush. The goats had munched sword ferns, blackberries, hackbush, and other opportunistic plants until their bellies bulged and they belched rancid green stuff. Beyond the meadow-to-be, down a steep five-foot embankment, the wild, and swollen Whistling River chuckled to itself as it made its merry way from glacier to junction with the Sandy River four miles downstream. A stray breeze traveling the river must be what set that one fern bouncing while all its neighbors remained still.

Hector righted himself and brushed off his jeans. His smile showed white teeth gleaming through his dirty face. But his eyes never strayed toward the river.

Blackberries. I spat the word. You said that goats consider blackberry canes a delicacy and won’t leave a single one.

But they missed this one, Glenna! Craig, minus his brush whacker, had returned without clippers. He bent to inspect the best way to remove the offensive vine from my jeans with his bare hands. He hadn’t grown up on the mountain and didn’t pay attention to repeated warnings to wear gloves.

They are goats. They’re not perfect. But they sure cut down on my work, Hector said, joining us.

I felt more and more trapped by the proximity of the stump and the vine that had a mission in life to ensnare me and stab without mercy. One more movement by me and it would sink its teeth into me with those dagger-sized thorns.

These acres are ready for your tractor pull, Hector nearly crowed in triumph. My crew will finish whacking the bigger scrub after dinner. Can I keep one of the goats afterward? They’ll cut down on maintenance around the edges of the golf links.

"They are eating machines. When they run out of weeds, they’ll move on to decorative shrubs and... and heaven forbid, eat through the hedge to get to your roses."

He cursed in Spanish and turned his attention to the critter nibbling the drawstring on his hoody sweatshirt. He grabbed it by the neck and held tight until Gary could return with the noose.

Craig picked at the vine trying to find a safe place to grab it and pull it free of both me and the ground. The more he tried to disentangle me, the more it twined and twisted back on itself.

You are enjoying seeing me trapped way too much, I snarled at him.

He flashed me an endearing smile and returned to trying to tame the vine.

I knew that smile. He used it well when questioning guests about minor crimes that occasionally happened on resort property.

Goats ignored this vine, along with the ferns and flourishing wild grasses growing around this former giant Douglas fir. The plant life seemed determined to keep me close to the biggest stump in the field: five feet high and equal that in diameter.

And the single bracken fern by the river continued to sway to a tune only it could hear.

Was it linked to the stump in some arcane way?

Oh, get out of the way and let me do this, I snarled at Craig.

He backed off, holding his hands at shoulder level and palms out. His square jaw worked as though he were suppressing a laugh.

The groundskeepers and Hector’s teenaged relatives seemed determined to work the fringes of the field, well away from me and my temper.

Or was it the stump they avoided?

I. Am. Not. Superstitious.

The vine clung to me and reattached almost as quickly as I removed it. As if to mock me, I heard a sarcastic bleat from the opposite side of the field. Sure enough, one of the smaller ruminants stood chewing an innocuous sword fern ten yards away.

Ah, there she is, Hector said. You want I should bring her over?

Just cut the vine into manageable-sized pieces, I said through gritted teeth. I finally jerked my leg violently away from the blackberry. The vine broke about six inches above its roots, leaving another two feet or more twining around me. Of course, I lost my balance and had to steady myself against the rough bark of the largest stump in the field. The heavy diamond shaped scales of bark remained in place. I only scraped three knuckles that bled.

Hector produced clippers from his hip pocket and snipped the vine into four pieces. Why couldn’t he have done that ten minutes ago?

Now that I didn’t need it, one of the biggest goats ambled over and inspected the toothsome new spring leaves. It was as tall at the shoulder as my Newfoundland Retriever Big Al. The buck eyed the blackberry as critically as my dogs assessed a scent trail they were tracking.

I’d left all three of my pack, Al and two miniature poodles, locked in my office. I didn’t have time to brush out all the debris their fur would pick up in this field.

If that’s the worst of the hazards left in this field, the tractors should make short work of the stumps, I said optimistically, holding out my leg to entice the goat to eat the remaining vines, but hopefully not my jeans or boot laces.

This big one won’t pull easy. Hector’s Hispanic accent thickened as he pointed to the stump I was leaning upon. He only did that under stress.

This old man could be a problem. I stamped and shooed the goat away from the boot lace that dangled enticingly close to the chewing machine.

I stood on tiptoe and curled my fingers over the top of the stump in order to survey the burnished cut surface of the Douglas fir.

Before it fell to a cross-cut saw, this massive bit of living steel would have towered two hundred feet above ground. The distinctive bark pattern had not yet succumbed to hungry insects or beavers—hence my bleeding knuckles.

Old Man’s not going to give up his hold on the earth easily, Hector muttered, slapping the top of the stump. A stray breeze off the river ruffled his dark hair. He shifted his hat, with the Lodge’s evergreen-cone logo, so it shielded his eyes. The wind gusted stronger and nearly tore it off his head.

The goat bleated and bounded toward the corral and his herd mates. Something had spooked him enough to make the confining pen more enticing than an open field with more scrub to eat.

I lifted my head and faced into the wind, sniffing. From the west, warm and salty. Not going to get much weather from that for... I tasted the air again and let it bathe my face. Forty-eight hours. That’s all we need to get the stumps pulled.

At least the canyon wind isn’t moaning and groaning, Hector said quietly.

When unequal air masses lined up on either end of the Whistling River canyon, the moaning wind signaled wild weather changes, from good to bad in twenty minutes, or bad to good in three days. Today it remained benign.

Sometimes I believe the local Indians. The canyon wind is the lost souls of all those who died on the mountain trying to find their way home. Hector crossed himself and bent to cut back a scraggly gorse bush, not meeting my gaze. His accent had grown thick again.

I don’t think a whole team of those steam tractors will even loosen this stump. I punched the thick bark of the monster, happy to change the subject. No one talks openly about the ghosts that are rumored to haunt my lodge or the canyon.

The wind ate Hector’s next words. His helpers had drifted acres away and well out of earshot. We might as well have been alone in the world.

I shivered.

Might have to dynamite it, Hector said, ruthlessly staying on topic.

Last resort. I groaned at the list of permits we’d need for explosives. And the amount of paperwork I’d have to do to get them. Me. One of the perks of running my lodge was that I got to do all the paperwork. Me. No one else.

We were running out of time to get this land cleared for the tractors before sunup tomorrow.

A flicker of movement along the tree line by the river caught my attention again. The bracken fern had stilled its joyful dance. Had another goat wandered that way?

A skinny old man carrying a bottle of beer coalesced out of the shadows. Not one of the groundskeepers. Not a stray goat.

George, I whispered. George Ramstedt, the previous owner of the lodge, my mentor and friend. A drunk who skirted taxes, immigration, and the mob.

He’d been murdered last autumn.

Still, a part of him hung around watching over me and the lodge we loved. I don’t really believe in ghosts. But still….

I seen him too. Hector’s words barely reached my ears. He crossed himself again and kept his eyes on the ground.

He... he doesn’t usually show up in daylight, I said on a semi-dismissive gulp. Though the sun had drifted past noon several hours ago, we still had hours before twilight and sunset.

Never during the day, Hector agreed. Always at night. Must have something important to tell you.

Something important about this stump, I whispered.

2

S ay cheese, called the professional photographer for the antique tractor pull. He snapped a picture and held up his hand for us to stay in place while he checked the digital image.

I stood in front of the antique Russel tractor. Bill and Christie Vandeveer, who had lovingly restored the red and yellow monster with the tasseled canopy stood beside me. For the commemorative photo, they had dragged along their friends who’d helped with the restoration, and the current president of the Cascade County Antique Tractor Association.

I hate having my picture taken, I muttered around gritted teeth. Early afternoon on Saturday and the monster stump still stood dead center in the field. Three huge tractors had worked on it and hadn’t dislodged so much as a rootlet.

Get used to photographers buzzing around you. Mel Saltini bounced behind me, making sure he wouldn’t be in the picture. The short, slight, octogenarian (the only man I knew who was shorter than me) waggled his bushy eyebrows. He looked like one of those birds with big tufts above his eyes that rivaled his beak of a nose in length. He had more energy than a man of sixty should have, let alone eighty.

You, Glenna McClain, are fast becoming a local celebrity, what with bringing this lodge back to life and all, he continued after the next telltale click of the camera shutter.

The photographer stepped back and checked his laptop. Shaking his head, he moved back into place and adjusted the tripod a micrometer to the left.

I love this lodge but I’m not the only one involved in keeping it going. I glanced fondly over my shoulder to where I could just see the irregular roofline of the hotel above the berm that separated this field from the established golf course. The whole community has worked hard to keep us going and growing these last few years.

Raised it up from the ashes of George Ramstedt’s mismanagement, you mean? Mel spoke too loudly, not just because of the steam whistles and grinding engines. Mel was hard of hearing and much too vain to wear a hearing aid.

Don’t suppose you need a real cook to bring the Canyon’s Restaurant around? he asked, winking at me.

You may be the best Italian chef in three counties, Mel, but André is Cordon Bleu trained and doing quite nicely at bringing in the customers and satisfying them.

To prove my point, André maneuvered through the crowd with a tray of nicely salted soft-pretzel-cheese-nuts mix in tiny paper cups. Free samples to entice people to linger and take their dinner in the restaurant. The special spice mix baked into the snacks made my mouth water. But then, most everything André cooked enticed my senses.

His secret ingredient is Worcestershire sauce, Mel whispered. Any hack can make things taste good with that stuff.

I patted Mel’s shoulder, surprised at how thin he’d gotten over the winter. I’d never thought of the short dynamo as frail until now. We all thought he’d live forever. A font of local history, he told stories about the people and places that made up our mountain community. I mined his memories ruthlessly for a volume of local history I was working on. In my spare time. When I had some.

You’re the best in three counties, not just Italian food, I said contritely.

"Best chef in three counties? He glowered at me from beneath those magnificent eyebrows. Best on the west coast! He pounded his chest proudly. Let me make you my pasta primavera and then tell me that fake Frenchie is a better cook."

I nodded in agreement. Your tiramisu won international awards. Don’t suppose you’d sell me the recipe?

"My blasted family thinks I should give that recipe to them and let them sell it. They say they want to make sure it doesn’t get lost when I die. But I got news for them. It’s all taken care of. They’d only sell it on eBay for quick cash. They go through money like the river over a waterfall—in full spring spate, he growled. So ditch that Frenchified phony and put me back in the kitchen where I belong. I’ll make tiramisu for you every night."

I can’t afford the calories. Or you, Mel.

There is that. The best doesn’t come cheap. He ambled off to accost someone else with his outspoken opinions on everything from the weather to the usefulness of clearing this acreage of stumps to the worthiness of the food offered today. On the field, we only had basic outdoor festival fare, hotdogs, hamburgers, and soft drinks, except for André’s free samples.

A high-pitched whistle screamed across the hollow. Just a steam tractor, not the usual ghostly moan of air funneling through the narrow Whistling River Canyon.

I cringed, and just in case, touched the weather app on my newest smart phone—a lot more memory, speed, and gadgets to keep me in touch with the lodge and the world beyond. When you run a resort hotel in the foothills of Mt. Hood that caters to outdoor activities, checking the weather reports eighteen times a day is a way of life. The weather app just made it easier. I loved my new smart phone that did everything but brush my teeth for me.

I was waiting for the toothbrush app any day now.

I checked the skies to see if they agreed with the benign forecast. They did. For the moment.

In western Oregon, if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute. If you don’t like the forecast, change the channel.

Not to worry, Bill Vandeveer whispered into my ear as we stood straighter for the next photo beside other tractor aficionados. "We consulted the Farmer’s Almanac before we set up this shindig. Clear weather all weekend. If you jump every time a machine releases steam today, you’re going to be more fidgety than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

I’m usually better at hiding my nerves. Today, having fifteen antique steam tractors pulling stumps from the clear-cut was too important for me to hesitate over any of the million tiny details. I did my best to forget the ominous portent of seeing George’s ghost yesterday.

Smile, the photographer called, and clicked almost before he finished saying it.

Then I caught sight of Craig Knudsen, who had escaped the photo op. He claimed anonymity, which made it easier for him to circulate through the crowds around the edges of the clear-cut and root out petty crime and disturbances before they happened.

He stuck out his tongue and twisted his face into a parody of a clown grin. I couldn’t help but laugh.

Just then the shutter clicked and the photographer grinned before he checked the digital blowup. The group of ten members of the Cascade County Antique Tractor Association relaxed and shifted to admire the Russell that made our backdrop. Last autumn it had been a rusting piece of junk under decades of blackberry vines. I dutifully patted its bright yellow wheels and admired the red and gold tassels on the canopy.

Bill and Christy Vandeveer chuckled at my hesitancy. The Russell was just too damn big, noisy, dirty, and smelly for my taste. All of the steam tractors were.

Bill gazed off into the distance, intent on the grinding gears, hissing boilers, and the grunts of men and women shoving more dry wood into the firebox of a huge gray tractor down on the field.

The driver maintained a full head of steam while waiting for his crew to affix chains to his rig and run them around the big stump. The biggest and most recalcitrant stump in the field. Teams of draft horses hauled the smaller stumps toward the overflow parking lot where locals with chainsaws could break them up for firewood and remove them after the event.

The driver of the belching gray tractor (I think it was a Case, but I couldn’t be sure since the paint hadn’t been fully restored yet) opened his steam vent twice in quick succession, signaling to the bystanders and participants that he was ready to begin his attempt to pull the stump. There were rules and points awarded for each attempt, but I didn’t understand them. Didn’t need to.

Bill pulled his head out from the guts of the Russell to watch. He patted the machine as affectionately as the horse handlers did their animals.

The horses placidly ignored the tractor whistle. I guessed they’d participated in enough Steam Ups to know that the sounds would not hurt them.

This is so much fun! Craig Knudsen enthused now that the photographer was packing up his arcane gear. You had a truly great idea enlisting the antique tractor enthusiasts in this project.

He rubbed his left thigh absently.

What’s up with the leg? I asked quietly. It gave me the opportunity to admire his long legs clad in buff-colored jeans. His green plaid shirt and western-cut brown corduroy jacket, while within the hotel color scheme, were not even close to uniform. One of the blackberries attack you when you weren’t looking?

That old bullet wound from my police days. The so-called reason he worked for me after early retirement from the Stanley Mills police department. But in six months I’d never seen a hint of disability. Until now. Even then the ache didn’t seem to slow him down. Some of the shotgun shrapnel trying to work its way to the surface. It wasn’t impinging a bleeder at the time and the surgeons were more concerned with replacing my knee than digging out all the metal. Doc says he can now take it out with a quick slice and three stitches. Next week. Maybe the week after, whenever we get a clear space. I’ll be off my feet for a couple of days.

Well, that was one secret he’d allowed to wiggle out of his cache of them.