by Jess Lourey
“Good morning.” His voice was mellow, cheerful. “I need information on the history of Battle Lake. Where do you suggest I start?”
I smiled. It was serendipity, baby. I filled him in on the pieces I knew from my recent Recall article, focusing on the details that I thought would impress him. I explained that the village of Battle Lake was platted Halloween 1881 for Torger O. and Bertie O. Holdt. By 1885, there were 182 residents of the village, but newspaper references allude to unusual amounts of bad luck being visited on the inhabitants—mysterious plagues, crop rot, and intense weather were only the beginning. The first white settlers found Ojibwe burial mounds scattered in the region, forty-two near the lake’s inlet alone. Local legend had it that whoever took over the land that had once belonged to the Indians would be cursed.
Ninety-some years later, the settlers’ descendants, filled with church-supper-type guilt, used city funds to erect a twenty-three-foot fiberglass Indian warrior, complete with faux-leather beaded pants and brown moccasins molded onto him. They called him Chief Wenonga, after
the Ojibwe chief who originally named the town, and planted him in Halverson Park on the north side, where he forever looks northeasterly across the lake at his old battle site.
His statue looked exactly like one of those little plastic Indians that came with the cowboys in a bag of a hundred in the 1970s, but in full garish color. That, in fact, is when the Chief was built—1979. A fiberglass monstrosity popular with tourists and the trophy mentality of central Minnesota. I had splashed a photo of him—full headdress, six-pack abs on a half-naked body, tomahawk in one hand, other hand raised in a perpetual “How”—in my Lady of the Lakes article. The stereotyping killed me, but I had to admit as I snapped the photo that if I were a single, twenty-one-foot-tall fiberglass female, I’d be cutting my eyes at the Chief.
“Fergus Falls will have even more information,” I told the patron, wrapping up my story. “It’s the county seat. Or try the East Otter Tail Museum in Perham. We pretty much just carry brain candy.”
He smiled at me. I could tell by the way his eyes crinkled at the corners that my first estimate of his age had been correct—about a decade older than my soon-to-be twenty-nine, give or take a year. His teeth were strong and white, and I chose to ignore the fact that he was short, only a couple inches taller than my five foot six. He was also stocky, with a broad chest and ample arms extending from his white polo shirt. He had on the Teva-type sandals that suggest activity, and his khaki shorts revealed strong and evenly haired legs. I hate patchy leg hair on guys. You wonder what’s rubbing what. Around his waist he had tied a blue-checked flannel shirt.
I held out my hand. “My name is Mira James. Can I ask why you’re interested in the town’s history?”
He took my hand with his warm, hammy fist and shook it firmly. I’d lay money that he held it a little longer than necessary. “My name is Jeff Wilson, and I’m working for a company that wants to bring some business this way. I need to get the lay of the land, so to speak.”
“So you’re like a surveyor?” I asked, disappointed. I was hoping he was something cool, like an independently wealthy explorer or a psychiatrist who didn’t mind house calls.
“Something like that,” he said, chuckling. “I’m an archaeologist.”
Ooh. I quickly added that to my list of cool things a guy could be. “Well, this town could use some more business. And I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding whatever you need about the town’s history. It’s pretty straightforward Minnesota stuff.”
“The paper history search is the least exciting part of my job,” he said, leaning on my counter. “The fun stuff is hiking around the area and surveying the land.”
“I bet that’s fun,” I said enthusiastically. I loved being outside in the green. “There’s some great hiking around here. What area are you going to check out?”
“A mile and a half southeast of town.”
“Over by the old Jorgensen farm? It’s beautiful over there. I just hiked in those woods,” I lied. I wanted to connect with him.
“Actually, it is the Jorgensen farm. I understand there are no heirs, and the estate can’t afford to pay the mortgage, so it’s due to go up for sale.”
“Mortgage? From the way people tell it, the Jorgensens have owned that land for years.” I hadn’t been in town long, but I had visited Sunny enough to be current on local gossip.
He shrugged. “Things happen, people need to borrow money against their property. It’s pretty common in farming communities.” He looked around the small library and back at me. “You’re welcome to come out there with me, Mira,” he said, trying out my name. “I’m doing a preliminary exam this afternoon. We could get some grub
afterwards.”
Some part of me knew better than to go out with a guy who used the word “grub” when asking someone on a first date, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt because he wasn’t from around here. How little I knew.
“Have you ever eaten an Indian onion?” Jeff pulled the lone purple flower out of the ground. A baby bulb, white and covered with dirt, dangled off the end.
“Nope,” I said, “and if that’s your idea of ‘grub,’ this date’s over.”
He laughed. “I was just thinking that if you ever got trapped on the Minnesota prairie, you’d be able to survive if you knew how to forage.”
“Thanks, Pa, but me and Mary always carry pemmican in our bonnets just in case,” I said dryly. “So what exactly are you looking for out here?” I made a sweeping gesture toward the Jorgensen acreage.
“Evidence of artifacts, burial grounds, ceremonial sites, that kind of thing. We have to make sure we don’t disturb anything where we dig and build.”
“But wouldn’t that be in the town records?”
“Not necessarily. A lot of official records involving Native Americans are spotty at best. The government did quite a bit of shady dealing back then.”
“So what if you did find evidence of sacred ground?” I tried to stand lightly while glancing around surreptitiously for any bony, angry fingers pointing out of the ground at me.
“It would depend how much area the artifacts covered.”
“What if they were wall to wall?” I asked.
“Then likely the theme park would need to be built elsewhere.”
“Theme park?” I asked, amazed. I put my full weight back on my feet. “You’re going to build a theme park out here?”
“Not me. The company I work for. Trillings Limited.” He grimaced slightly as he said the name.
I was too self-involved to be much of an activist, but the rolling hills, arching oaks, and dancing bugs really were beautiful, and the air moved a soft breeze laced with the smell of apple blossoms and spring wildflowers. I wiped the sticky white sap from the milk flower I was twirling onto my pants. “But you come off as Mr. Granola. You’re going to destroy all this to build some plastic carnival?”
He tensed slightly. “Not a carnival. A heritage museum with outdoor attractions. It will glorify the original culture of this region. It’ll be an outdoor museum with various distractions for kids.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. “You mean like the Paul Bunyan Land Amusement Center, glorifying big blue oxen and enormous pancakes? Or like the statue of Chief Wenonga, glorifying the twenty-three-foot Indian warrior? Sounds pretty cheap to me.”
I thought briefly about cleaning my social filter. These bursts of metallic honesty hadn’t won me any long-term relationships to date. Nope, I decided a full second later. I meant what I said. I softened my forehead wrinkles as a compromise.
He looked hurt but laughed softly. “This land is important to me, too, Mira. That’s why I’m here. I need to make sure it’s regular land. And if it is, they’ll build the heritage museum and you’ll see that it’s very tasteful. People will see authentic Dakota and Ojibwe homes,
artifacts. They’ll get to see and respect how the original people lived. Sure, there’ll be a couple rides, maybe
a Ferris wheel, but you need that to draw people out here.” He touched my cheek and pretended to brush something off. “I’m working for a very responsible company, Mira. Or they never would have sent me out here.”
His warm hand softened me a little. “Well, the locals will never go for it,” I said grumpily. “They’re all garage sales, jelly jars with quilted, ruffled covers, and mailboxes shaped like fish. They like it slow and clear, and a Native American theme park isn’t that.”
“You’ll see, Mira,” he said, laughing ruefully. “It’ll bring jobs, and as far as progress goes, it’s pretty harmless.” His hand was still on my cheek, and he looked at me with a peculiar light in his eyes, like he’d just remembered something that had been nagging at him. He leaned in closer. “You know, you’re very attractive when you’re righteous.”
“Mmm. You should see me when I’m drunk,” I said, immediately wondering why I said it. I tried to smile, but my lip caught on my tooth. I looked away and pushed some imaginary hair from my face to distract him from my double-crossing mouth. The cosmopolitan me was supposed to be much cooler than this.
He pulled back and grabbed my hand impulsively with a half-smile on his face and then towed me off into a slow hike, and we both quietly contemplated our surroundings.
The green in Minnesota springtime is so intense it becomes a smell and taste along with a color. It is a vital, almost desperate green. The trees and grass and shrubs and plants seem to know that they only have four months or so every year to stretch, so like a painter with only one canvas, they throw out everything they have in a wild flourish. This turns a simple oak into an exotic rainforest masterpiece and a white ash into a monument that feeds the eyes. The yellows and whites of the spring prairie wildflowers contrast and deepen the nearly audible activity of life in the outdoors.
I ran my fingers through my hair and was surprised by thoughts of my father forcing themselves into my head like angry bees. I missed him the most when I was outside in the spring, and I didn’t know why. It certainly wasn’t because we ever spent much time outdoors together. Most of my memories are of him sitting in front of the television, in his hand a glass of vodka that he would claim was water. It was funny how much more I was thinking of him now that I had returned to the backwoods.
Jeff stretched his fingers around my hand and pulled me back into the moment, making me realize that I had been squeezing his right hand tightly. I flashed a lips-only smile at him and looked away. We walked for a long time in silence, each of us studying the land for different reasons. It took us over an hour to circumnavigate the hundred-plus acres that made up the Jorgensen estate.
“I need to head toward the middle of the property now,” Jeff said. “You tired yet?”
“Not at all.” I reached down and plucked a buttery dandelion and held it to my face. The warm, hairy smell tickled my nose and made me smile. I recognized wild honeysuckle as we passed the edge of the woods, but when I pointed it out to Jeff, he corrected me.
“That’s actually columbine,” he said, leaning down to break off a blossom and bite the sweet nectar balls on the end of the watermelon-colored flower. He handed me another blossom, and I did the same. “I’m actually surprised at the number of wildflowers already in bloom. It must be this warm early spring.” He pointed out the patches of white dotting the field in front of us. “Those are bladder campion all around there.” The bright petals looked like a simple oat flower, but underneath every one was a large swelling. I was familiar with them. As a child, I used to pull open reams of them, always looking for what caused the swelling. I think I expected to find baby worms, or pearls.
“And of course these are wild strawberries.” He pulled me into the woods and pointed out the miniature, jagged, three-leaved plants, some of them looking ready to sprout tiny blooms. “Nothing like eating wild strawberries. My mouth waters just thinking about that tartness . . .” His voice trailed off, and he let go of my hand as he stepped off the trail. “Well, I’ll be,” he said softly, and leaned down. In the rich undergrowth of the forest edge, there was a stalk, eight inches or so, protected by a large, showy leaf. On the end was a simple white flower with a yellow pistil.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked, to no one in general. “It’s a bloodroot. Come here, Mira.”
I knelt beside him and heard the crisp snap of a juicy green. He held the severed flower in front of me, red-orange sap dripping from the bottom. “See that?” he asked me. “The bloodroot bleeds.”
“Maybe we should become blood brothers,” I joked.
The sunlight dappled his hair and eyes as I looked at his excited face. I was surprised at how comfortable I felt with him, considering I had only met him that afternoon. In my experience, it takes an hour or two for some major flaws to surface in a potential partner, flaws that usually only intensify the closer I let him get. Jeff was skating by pretty well so far, but I was sure something would float up. The strange thing was, I found myself hoping I was wrong. I held out my hand, palm up, and smiled weakly.
“It’s a deal,” he said, laughing. He rubbed some of the sticky orange sap on my palm, some on his, and then we clasped hands, my right to his left, and he kissed me softly on the lips. It reminded me of what I always wanted to happen when I was an adolescent girl and would run off into the woods to play with my friends. We would make up games, like “Run from the Prince,” or “Look Stricken under the Tree Waiting for the Prince,” or “Where’s My Prince?” The basic plot was waiting for a boy, preferably a prince, to come and whisk us away. Sickening, to be sure, but I guess all that practice was paying off now.
The warm stickiness melting on our joined palms was pleasant, but it made further intimacy difficult. We both stood and walked back out into the warm sun. He shivered.
“Cold?” I asked.
“It is only May in Minnesota,” he said. “That sun can be a little deceiving. So anyhow, Mira, what brings you to this part of the world? You seem a little incongruous out here.”
I hope he didn’t mean out in nature, because I was really trying to fit in. “Oh, I grew up in a small town a lot like this one.”
“What was that like?”
I immediately felt the familiar defensiveness, the need to distance myself from my past. “Nothing much.”
Jeff looked at me quizzically, then turned away. “We all have stuff we’d like to get away from. How about we make a deal? I don’t ask you about your past, you don’t ask me about mine, and we’ll take this as it comes.”
It was too good to be true. “Deal, blood brother.”
“It is beautiful here,” he said vaguely, rubbing my back. “And it’s a good place to spend a summer, or longer. It’s always good to refocus before forging ahead. And speaking of which, I need to take some field notes as we walk. You mind?”
I shook my head as he pulled out a worn leather notebook and an exquisite pen. I’m a sucker for good pens. As he scratched out his notes, I followed alongside, feeling the warm sun coax out my freckles. The world felt a lot more right for me than it had in a long time. We walked, almost touching, exchanging body heat and stories in hushed voices, giggling like old friends, and smiling at the sky.
When we ended up at my place early that evening, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. And when he kissed me, it itched like new love.
I felt overwhelmed and like I was in the right place at the right time. “I could make us some supper,” I suggested.
His face was inches from mine, and he was looking at me with warm, predatory eyes. I felt fireworks in my pants. I think I may have even smelled sulfur. He leaned in purposefully to finish the kiss, and either my legs buckled or we both decided to drop to the floor and make love like forest creatures.
“Morning,” he said sleepily as I shifted in the bed.
“So that’s what you meant by ‘grub,’-” I said, laughing. I looked at the cool early-morning sun spotting his hairy chest. We never had gotten anything to eat the night before. “I th
ought you meant supper.” I tried to feel guilty about being easy, but I just couldn’t muster it. I felt too safe and cozy, in a way I hadn’t with Bad Brad or my two boyfriends before him.
Jeff pulled me toward him and kissed me, and either he was getting even better at it or we were starting to meld. “So how long did you say you plan to stay in this town? You’re definitely not cut from librarian cloth.”
I looked across the room at the full-length mirror on the closet door. My hair was tousled with a fair-sized screw knot making shadows in back, my gray eyes a little puffy but otherwise acceptable. I had never liked my pointy nose, but sometimes I convinced myself my lips made up for it. They were perfectly curved and plump, at least when I wasn’t smirking. My boobs, on the other hand, were doing that awkward, lying-down-in-different-directions, every-nipple-for-herself thing that Playboy boobs never did. I pulled the sheet up and leaned into the crook of Jeff’s arm. “I’m taking a break from life,” I reminded him. “I’ll know when it’s over.”
“So you don’t mind working at the library?”
“And the newspaper,” I said. “Nope, I don’t. I’ve been going to school for almost six years in a row, and it’s time for a break. I can finish my master’s when Sunny gets back.”
I was happy to hear a conviction in my voice that hadn’t been there yesterday. I had never been certain about school. Growing up, I had always planned to be a psychologist or a lawyer, but somehow English fit. A master’s seemed like the next natural step after I earned my BA. Plus, there’s not much to do with a four-year degree in English, short of opening an English store.
“I miss college.” He played with my hair and looked at the ceiling. “Pennsylvania is a beautiful state, and the U of P in Greensburg has an amazing archaeology lab. I felt like we were discovering everything for the first time. Digs were like Christmas.”
