Bough Cutter

by Jeff Nania

  “What things were those, Sheriff?”

  “A piece of long gray, almost white hair and a piece of long cut tobacco, like the kind you might roll in your cigarettes.”

  “A lot of people got gray hair and roll their own smokes,” Ed replied.

  “True enough, but not everybody with gray, almost white hair who rolls their own has a daughter who was running around with the murder victim.”

  Ed stared at me, and then he burst out laughing. The laugh turned into a racking cough that brought Stella to the room.

  “Ed, here. Take some of this cough suppressant,” Stella said, handing him a medicine cup.

  “No, no, I am fine, Stella. The sheriff told me a funny joke, and it got me laughing.”

  “Fine. I’ll leave you boys alone then.”

  Ed handed me the photo album, open to a particular page.

  I took the book and was looking at young Ed Lockridge, dressed in the uniform of Army Special Forces, with sergeant stripes on the sleeve, wearing the iconic Green Beret on his head.

  “Vietnam. After three tours, I’d had enough. Came back home, married Stella, and we’ve been here ever since. I am guessing that’s not what you want to hear, though, is it? You’re damn smart, Sheriff. I knew you’d figure it out.”

  “The first one was Travis Winslow, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was, but I didn’t intend to kill him. It just worked out that way. Crystal was in love with him. He was a drug dealer, and Crystal did whatever he wanted her to do. She got caught dealing drugs for Travis. We hired a fancy lawyer and made a deal. If Crystal turned state’s evidence against Winslow, then all the charges against her would be dropped. They would also help us get her into a residential treatment facility. We were hopeful. In some ways, Crystal was made of stern stuff. When she first found out she was pregnant, she stopped doing drugs. Stella was getting ready to be a grandma, making blankets and baby moccasins. It was a good time for all of us, and Crystal did her best to be a good mom.

  “But even though Crystal’s cooperation landed Travis in jail, when he was on bail, he started coming around again, and Stella said I needed to shoo that boy away. I pretty much know everything that goes on in the backcountry around here, and I knew that Travis was poaching walleyes up at the dam. He’d spear ’em on Thursday night and take them to his customers the next afternoon in time for the Friday fish fry. I parked my truck back in the bush and waited for him to show up. Eventually, there he came, drove in, and parked. He threw out a couple of coolers and started walking across the top of the dam with a spear. The fish were thick, and he had four big ones almost right away. Once he was busy, I walked down to where he was fishing. He saw me and stopped. Then he walked toward me, running his smart mouth all the way. He said bad things about my little girl. Then he turned his back and started looking for walleyes again.

  “I knew no talking to him was ever going to keep him away from Crystal. I found a stout oak branch by the edge of the road, just the right size and weight. I walked back to where Travis was fishing, got next to him, and called his name quietly. I learned to use a whisper in the war. He turned to look at me and started to open his mouth again. I swung the branch and hit him in the head as hard as I could. He fell to the ground, right at the edge of the dam. Then I just put my boot against him and pushed him into the water. That was that; no more Travis. You know what really bothered me about the whole thing, Sheriff? I had to leave the walleyes. I sure hated to see nature’s bounty go to waste.”

  “Did Stella know what really happened with Travis?”

  “No, she never did, and I never told her.”

  “For a while, things were good. With Travis gone, we didn’t have to worry about court or him coming back. Then Crystal started running with a real bad apple. She would leave and not come home for days at a time. Amber was with us, so she was okay, but Crystal would show up at all hours. There was no doubt she was using drugs again. I tracked down her and her new boyfriend. I found out they were hanging around at the casino. I kept an eye on him as best I could.

  “Pretty soon, I figured out that he was meeting one of his people every Friday in the driveway behind an old lodge by Ghost Lake. I went up there, hid in the woods, and waited. It was like clockwork. They would show up, talk for a minute, exchange duffle bags, and be on their way. The other guy always left first. Then Martin would leave a while later. The next week I was waiting when he showed up. It was no good. He had Crystal in the car with him. She got out, and they were having some sort of argument. The bastard walked up and slapped her so hard he knocked her down to the ground. I could hardly stand by and let that happen, but I had to. I just needed to wait.

  “The next week, once his friend left, I snuck up on him. He was, like most criminals, cowardly. I stuck my gun in his ear and told him to drive to a spot at the end of the driveway and the beginning of the forest road. He thought I was robbing him. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him that I was Crystal’s father. I told him I saw him hit her and I knew that he would never do it again. Then I shot him, and I was glad to do it. I would have liked to skin him and hang him in the woods half alive,” he explained.

  “Ed, where is the gun you used?”

  “I was afraid you’d ask me that,” Ed replied.

  He reached behind his head under his pillow and pulled out a war-worn Browning high-power handgun, hammer back, and almost certainly with a round in the chamber. He pointed it at my chest and held it there, his hand steady.

  I had made a foolish mistake. I was sitting a few feet from a man who had just recounted two of who knew how many murders. I let our friendship cloud my vision with his failing health making me see him as harmless. Harmless he was not; I had misjudged a killer. We looked into each other’s eyes. Except for the faint hiss of oxygen, the room was deathly quiet.

  “Ed, what are we going to do here?” I asked.

  “Sheriff, you have got to be more careful,” he replied.

  In a smooth move, he flipped the gun around and gave it to me butt first. I gently took the out of his hand.

  “Thanks, Ed,” I said.

  “Got that my first year in Nam. Holds fourteen rounds, never had a jam. I’d hate to see it sawed in half or sunk at the bottom of Lake Superior. Sheriff, I know you need to hear all this, but I am getting pretty tired.”

  “How about the meth lab, Ed?”

  “Not willing to be done, eh Sheriff? I’ll go as long as I can.”

  “I’d appreciate that, Ed,” I said.

  “They were making poison and selling it. When my sweet little Amber showed up at that party, it damn near killed Stella and me. I made it my job to track those bastards down, and I did. I still had some blocks of C-4 brought home from the war. I used it for blowing beaver dams and the like. But I wanted everyone to know I meant business, hoping they would leave town. I took three five-gallon buckets of gas, diesel, and cheap Styrofoam cups and set them next to three blocks of C-4. I have a bunch of remote detonators and timing devices that made it home with me. Then I blew the drug lab into orbit. I want to say I am happy that LP man didn’t get hurt. I never expected to see anyone else.”

  “How about Tyler Winslow?”

  Ed’s head started to droop. His eyes closed and then reopened. He didn’t speak for a minute or two.

  “Tyler Winslow gave Crystal the drugs that killed her. Tyler tried to talk to Amber at Thanksgiving. He told Amber he was her uncle, her dad’s brother. He scared the hell out of her. She kept trying to get away from him. Then Crystal stepped in. She told Amber to go help us make fry bread. Amber did as she was told but kept watching her mother. Crystal and Tyler went to the back of the cafeteria, and Amber saw Tyler give her something. She put it in her pocket, and then Crystal came back to help us cook. She and Amber got in a real donnybrook at home that night, Amber accusing her of getting drugs from Winslow. Crystal told her that if she said anything, she’d have to go back to jail, this time for a long time. She told Stella an
d me the whole story after her mom died. She cried her heart out, and we tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault, but she blamed herself. That poor girl through no fault of her own has been strapped with some heavy burdens.”

  We sat in silence for a while before Ed fell asleep again. I didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t going anywhere, so I got up to see Stella. When I stood, he spoke again.

  “Sheriff, wait a minute. I need to tell you one more thing,” he said with effort. His breathing was coming hard.

  “I have one regret. I will forever be sorry that I didn’t kill more of those drug dealing devils.”

  Ed closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

  I tucked the Browning pistol in my waistband under my coat and walked out to see Stella. We talked briefly, and I left.

  I took the drive along Spider Creek slowly. There didn’t seem to be a need to rush. Once on the highway, I took the first turnoff I came to, taking the backroads to town. Balsam boughs were heavy with snow. Plow banks filled the road shoulder. I was back at my office, and although it felt like three days, I had been gone less than three hours.

  Everybody was still busy working away when I walked in, and then the room became silent. I asked them all to sit around me so that we could talk quietly.

  I told them the story of Ed Lockridge. A man whose boundless goodwill had brought so much to the community. War-hardened as a young man, Ed returned to make his home in the great Northwoods of his youth. He married Stella, the love of his life. Soon they were blessed with a daughter. They wanted nothing more than to be together and live in peace. It was not to be. Evil came to their door and threatened everything Ed cared about. He was a warrior and made a warrior’s choice—eliminate the enemy. Bad men died, and it would be hard to argue that the world was not a better place for it.

  No one said a word. I explained how I had arrived at Ed as a suspect. His confession and recall of the incidents sealed the case. I would talk to the DA tomorrow and ask him how to proceed. Tonight, though, I needed to go home to find my place, to find my peace.

  The house phone rang at six the next morning. It was Stella. Ed had passed away in the night. He had begun his journey, and she and Amber had been by his side. •

  38

  The dead-end road to Spider Creek had cars parked on both sides and all the way out to the highway. Two sheriff’s deputies were on-site to direct traffic. The funeral ceremony was a mix of anglicized and Ojibwe traditions. Even though Ed was not Native American, he was known as a true friend to the Ojibwe. The minister from the Spider Lake Church offered prayers as did tribal elders. Drummers played and we sang songs of joy, songs of sorrow, and songs that told the story of our lives. Afterward, we gathered on a high hill overlooking Spider Creek, where Ed’s ashes were given to the wind.

  Ed’s deathbed confession spurred a great deal of discussion between law enforcement officers involved in the case and the DA about how to best handle the situation. Ricardo firmly believed that we should keep it our secret.

  “Let the dopers think there is still somebody in Namekagon County just waiting around the corner to shoot ’em or blow ’em up. It can’t help but keep some riff-raff out.”

  In the end, we decided to share the story with Bill Presser. For the second time since I moved to Spider Lake, the local paper was sold in bundles right off the truck. Reporters flocked to town, each looking for their own angle. Scott Stewart, the county board chair, made himself readily available to anyone who wanted to interview him.

  Len, DA Hablitch, and I held a joint press conference. The room was packed. No matter how hard they tried, we would not let the reporters take us where we wouldn’t go. Ed Lockridge was not a crazed backwoodsman or hermit living in a cave stalking the innocent citizens of Namekagon. He was a man who wrongly took the law into his own hands in an attempt to protect his family.

  Amber and Stella moved in with Julie and me and stayed until the press left town. Even after they returned to their cabin, Stella and Amber sought comfort by visiting our home often. We welcomed them. Ed’s death left them feeling lost. They would recover, but for now, they grieved. We were becoming an extended family of sorts—Stella, Amber, Bud, Julie, and me. We ate many dinners together, each of us taking turns at the stove. Stella loved her turn in the kitchen. She and Ed had done everything together, and she said it felt like she had lost one of her arms.

  One night we had all finished dinner, and I was cleaning up while Bud, Julie, and Amber were playing Uno. Stella asked me to come outside for a minute. She walked over to her truck and removed what looked like an old military satchel, olive drab in color and well worn.

  She handed it to me and said, “Sheriff, I don’t think we’ll need these anymore. You better take them.”

  Inside the bag were timers, detonators, and two blocks of C-4 plastic explosive. I looked at her, and she held a finger to her lips and said, “Shh, shh, shh. Don’t ask.” Then she walked back into the cabin.

  The next morning, Julie and I snowshoed across the two-foot-thick ice of Spider Lake. There was no threat of breaking through, but in some places, the ice was windswept clean. In other places, the same wind had moved snow to depths measured in feet, making snowshoes a necessary accouterment. Today not even a breeze was blowing and there was almost no noise other than the crunching of our footgear. Spider Creek had mostly frozen over, but one area defied the cold and remained open. The hushed noise of flowing water joined us. A mature bald eagle stared down from the top of a majestic old white pine, hoping for a chance at a fresh fish dinner. The ice anglers had followed the fish to a rocky point further down the lake. At that moment, Spider Lake and all the things wild and wonderful that came with it belonged to just Julie and me.

  When we reached the opposite shore, we climbed the bank and came to rest on a large flat rock gazing out at the winter panorama. The love of my life sat close to me, her beautiful blue eyes contrasting with rosy, red cheeks. Against all odds, happiness had found John Cabrelli. Life could not possibly get any better. Then it did.

  She looked up at me and spoke the most wonderful words I had ever heard, “If the offer is still open, the answer is yes. Yes, I will marry you. I would love to make you Mr. Carlson.”

  I have never arrested anyone for drugs in a duck blind.

  Warden John Holmes, 1939–2017

  In memory of Jerry Wakkinen—

  A good man.

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  About the Author

  Jeff Nania is a former law enforcement officer, writer, conservationist, and biofuel creator. He is the author of three fiction books, the award-winning Figure Eight (2019), Spider Lake (2020), and Bough Cutter (2021) in his Northern Lakes Mystery series published by Little Creek Press. His narrative non-fiction writing has appeared in Wisconsin Outdoor News, Double Gun Journal, The Outlook, and other publications.

  Jeff was born and raised in Wisconsin. His family settled in Madison’s storied Greenbush neighborhood. His father often loaded Jeff, his brothers, and a couple of dogs into an old jeep station wagon and set out for outdoor adventures. These experiences were foundational for developing a sense of community, a passion for outdoor traditions, and a love of our natural resources.

  Jeff has been recognized locally, statewide, and nationally. Outdoor Life Magazine named him as one of the nation’s 25 most influential conservationists, and he received the National Wetlands Award for his wetland restoration work. The Wisconsin Senate commended Jeff with a Joint Resolution for his work with wetlands, education, and as a non-parti
san advisor on natural resources.

  Now a full-time novelist, Jeff spends as much time as possible exploring outdoor Wisconsin with his friends and family.

  Visit www.feetwetwriting.com for more.

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