Back when the concept of the Jeep was first developed in the early part of World War II, it was intended to be a small utility vehicle, but the concept of “bigger and better” perverted the original vision. In time, the military grew the original vehicle into the oversized, overpriced gas hog called the HUMMV, and civilian jeeps grew as well, although some of the original vision remained. The Erikson family Jeep CJ-5, Jack’s normal vehicle, was nearly thirty years old, so retained some of the original idea of being small, so four kids, two coolers and a dog just about had it filled to overflowing. Vixen had a cooler down on the floor of the right front seat, her legs straddling it; somehow room was found in the back for the second cooler, although Alan and Summer had to squeeze apart enough to make room for Stas. At that, there wasn’t much room for him.

Though Jack had a canvas top he mounted on the Jeep for winter, it was just too nice to ride around in an open vehicle in the summer, at least what little summer managed to happen in a north woods town like Spearfish Lake. In a month, maybe a little more, the top would have to go back on the Jeep, so the chance to enjoy it had to be grabbed while it could. The wind noise made it hard to talk in the Jeep while it was at speed, and there were a few miles when they had to get up to close to the limit while they were running down the state road. But in a few miles Jack turned off onto a graveled woods road, and soon after onto one of hundreds of two-rut tracks that ran hither and yon throughout the forest.

Now it was quiet enough that they could talk. “You know,” Alan said from the back, “We were saying last week that we all needed to get our heads together about where we’re going to college, but what with everything else that has happened we just haven’t been able to do it.”

“True,” Vixen said as she tried to memorize the road. Jack knew the roads in this area like the back of his hand, and though she’d been out to the pond several times with him she couldn’t have found it on her own on a bet. “There’s just been too much happening, but nothing has changed my mind that it would be nice for all of us to go to the same school if we can.”

“It’s going to have to be a large school to handle all our interests,” Summer pointed out. She didn’t have to explain what she meant; they’d gotten that far in their discussions earlier in the week. None of them were much on liberal arts – Jack was heading into wildlife biology and it seemed likely that Vixen was going to be trying that area as well. Jack was a veteran birder and wanted to get into doing something with ornithology and Vixen was leaning that way. Alan wanted to go into engineering, and she had plans to go into nursing.

“Could be,” Jack said from behind the wheel. “There are a lot of places that offer a good range of courses. We could get them at Northern or Lake State, for example, and those aren’t real far from home. But those schools have football teams.”

“We may have to live with it,” Alan sighed, “but I don’t want to. I’ve had enough of having to put up with jocks. The idea of our putting our heads together on this was to avoid jock schools, and that’s most of them.”

“I still think we need to talk with Cody and Jan Archer before they head back to wherever it is they’re going,” Jack pointed out. “I know that place does nursing, because that’s what Jan does, but I also know it’s a small school that doesn’t do intercollegiate athletics. The hell of it is, I don’t know where it is, or even the name of the place.”

“We need to find out,” Summer said flatly. “I mean, it already sounds like a winner to me, but that doesn’t say it would be a fit for you guys.”

“Might be for Vixen and me,” Jack replied thoughtfully. “If they do nursing they ought to have some kind of a biology program. Most of what Vixen and I really want to do is going to probably be postgraduate stuff anyway, and that’s a different can of worms. But it would be nice to have a good fit for what we want to do in grad school.”

“It still leaves a big question mark for me,” Alan pointed out, “but there’s no way of telling at this point, and not much we can do about it until we can talk to Cody and Jan, anyway.”

“I’ll try to get hold of them after we get back tonight,” Jack said. “Or even talk with Cody’s mom tomorrow morning. Vixen and I are going to be giving a birding class over at Spearfish Lake Outfitters, and that might be a good chance to learn more about it.”

“Let’s not try to talk about it right now,” Vixen suggested. “There’s nothing new that can be added to what’s already been said. We’ve still got some time to work on it, and today is supposed to be for celebrating not having Frenchy to kick us around for a while, not to agonize about where we’re going to college.”

“In a way, you’re right,” Jack laughed, “but it’s also to celebrate the fact that we’re going to college in a year. And where’s Frenchy going to be in a year? Not looking at leaving for college, that’s for sure.”

“With any kind of luck, the only place he’ll be going in a year is back to jail,” Alan laughed. “I mean, we all knew we were going to be leaving him behind in Spearfish Lake, but I didn’t think we’d be leaving him behind quite this soon.”

“So long as we’re leaving him behind, I’m happy,” Jack said, turning down another nameless two-rut at an equally nameless intersection.

“I’m just hoping things will be toned down at the school this year, with Frenchy and Payne gone,” Summer said hopefully. “Maybe they can come up with someone good to be the principal, and maybe some of the football bozos will crawl back under their rocks.”

“Maybe it’ll help a little,” Alan commented glumly. “But even with some of the worst of the football bozos gone there’ll be plenty left where they came from.”

“Maybe it’s just because Howie plays football,” Jack said, “but I don’t think we should be lumping all the football players together as being bad. There are some good people there, but they’ve been overshadowed by the bad apples for too long. Payne in the Ass just made things worse and Will-Fart didn’t help.”

“You know,” Vixen said, “I’d almost rather we didn’t talk about school today, either. We’re going to be heading back all too soon. Nobody is going to be happier than me to have the next few months over with, but I don’t want to think about it right now.”

“What do you want to talk about?” Jack asked.

“How about birds?” she replied. “That’s something I’m interested in, and it’s a safe topic. Do you have any new adventures in mind for us?”

“Not really, but the fall migration will be starting soon. By the time we get back to that depressing place you don’t want to talk about we’ll start to see some of it. Alan, Summer, one of the things Vixen and I have been talking about is maybe doing a weekend trip down to Horicon Marsh or over to Seney to check out the fall waterfowl migration. If we time it right we can find huge rafts of migrating birds all over the place, and when they take flight it’s really something.”

“You know I’m not a big bird freak like the two of you, but that sounds like fun,” Summer smiled. “It’d be fun to get away for something like that. When will that happen?”

“A few weeks yet,” Jack told her. “Obviously we’d have to do it on the weekend, but if we can get the folks to go along with it maybe we can miss a football Friday.”

“That has potential,” Alan agreed. “I’d rather watch birds than football.”

“Any other ideas?” Vixen asked.

“Well, there’s supposed to be an eagle’s nest out on the other side of 919, but I don’t know for sure where,” Jack said. “Eagles don’t always use the same nest from year to year so I don’t know if it would be active. I’ll have to see if I can find out a little more about it.”

“Bald eagles?” Vixen asked. “I’ve never seen one, or if I have I haven’t identified it. That might make for a fun bird watching trip sometime.”

“Like I said, I’ll have to see if I can find out more about it,” Jack promised. “I don’t even know where it is for sure. We probably won’t be able to do anything about it until the first of the week.”

Although it was a first date – and in fact a first-ever date for both of them – it seemed a little strange for Ashley to be picking up Lyle, but it came down to who had a car and who didn’t. Lyle would have liked to have a car, but he also realized that it cost money, and he had a better use in the future for what money he was able to save. He was able to use one of his parents’ cars on occasion in the evening, but with them both at work he was pretty well stranded during the day. Ashley had a Dodge that was a dozen years old and had seen better times long before, but at least it was fairly reliable for running around town and could be trusted to make a run the twelve miles to Albany River. Risking it as far as Camden was another issue, but it wasn’t something that concerned her right at this moment.

Still, under any circumstances it felt a little strange to be a girl picking a guy up for a date, such as it was, but Ashley didn’t care all that much. It was a date, after all, with a guy she knew to be a nice one if nothing spectacular – and a nicer guy than she’d ever dated mostly because she’d never really dated a guy before, something she really didn’t want to admit to. At least it resembled a date, and maybe it could be the start of something.

It was a touch embarrassing for Lyle, too, to not have a car to take Ashley out with, but it was something he had to live with. After all, to him it wasn’t a date, just a couple of friends who planned on hanging out together for the afternoon. Still, it was hanging out with a girl, and he was nervous as he waited for her to drive up.

Finally she pulled to a stop at the curb in front of his house. He’d seen her coming, headed out to meet her, and just hopped in the right side. “Thanks for the ride, Ashley,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t pick you up.”

“No big deal,” she smiled. “At least I’ve got the wheels. Are we still all right for going down to Albany River?”

“Sure, fine with me,” Lyle told her.

Ashley hadn’t even put her car into park, so she just stepped on the gas and pulled away from the curb. “I hope you don’t mind going down there,” she said, “but I spend enough time around the Frostee Freeze.”

“Fine with me,” Lyle said again. “It beats hanging around the house and waiting for something to happen, and all too often it doesn’t.”

“Yeah, me too,” she agreed. “I guess I talk on the phone a lot, but it’s not the same thing as actually doing anything.” That was an understatement, she thought. She spent an awful lot of time on the phone gossiping about this and that, mostly about other people. Rarely did she do anything that gave anyone the opportunity to gossip about her, and that was kind of frustrating, because it meant that she wasn’t doing anything worth gossiping about. Maybe this would start to turn things around for her.

“I know you talk around a lot,” Lyle said. “At least you get to hear about what’s going on. I don’t get to hear very much.”

“Well, you know how it is,” she sighed. “There’s really not all that much happening, so when some little thing happens everybody has to talk it to death because there isn’t much else happening. Then when something important comes along like Frenchy getting thrown in jail or Payne leaving, we don’t know what to do about it but talk about it some more.”

“Yeah, that was really a surprise about Payne leaving,” Lyle agreed. “I didn’t hear about it until I was helping out with the basketball skills practice this morning, but everyone was all full of the news. He may have liked the football players a lot, but the basketball players didn’t have much good to say about him.”

“Well, neither did anyone else,” Ashley said. “There isn’t a lot of time to replace him, either, with school starting so soon. I suppose that means they’ll be picking someone from the school, rather than bringing someone in from outside.”

Lyle thought it over quickly. While he’d overheard a private conversation, this was Spearfish Lake and the news was going to get out quickly. Besides, he knew Ashley was a gossip and was always trawling for fresh stuff to talk about. This might be a favor that would gain him some points with her. “For sure,” he smiled. “It’s going to be Mrs. Wine.”

“Mrs. Wine?” Ashley said in amazement. “Lyle, are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure,” Lyle grinned. “Mr. Hekkinan showed up in the middle of practice and had a long talk with her out in the back yard. After the practice broke up I heard Mrs. Wine telling Miss er, Mrs. Mykelhoff about it. Mrs. Wine asked Mrs. Mykelhoff to take over the skills sessions since she was going to be taking over as principal on Monday.”

“Oh, my God!” Ashley said. “That’s going to be so cool!” My God, she thought, this was news of the first order! If she’d been sitting at home and hearing about this she’d be grabbing the phone so quick it wasn’t funny. It was possible that no one really knew about it! But she was heading down to Albany River with Lyle, and while in theory she could get on her cell phone and pass the word, it would be a very rude thing to do, and might screw things up with him before they got started. On the other hand, apparently only Lyle had heard about it, and as he was with her he wouldn’t be telling anyone else. She could keep her hands off her cell phone for a while, but Jesus, getting on it was tempting!

“I think so,” Lyle grinned. “The people on the basketball teams are going to be the ones getting away with everything, but they’re mostly people who aren’t in the habit of pushing people around.”

“Yeah, there’s nobody on the basketball teams who feels like they have to prove their manhood by kicking someone’s ass,” Ashley smirked. “Especially the girls.”

“If they did, it’d be Mrs. Wine who’d wind up doing the ass kicking,” he laughed. “I’ll tell you what, she isn’t going to put up with much of the shit that’s gone around the school.”

“Oh, boy,” Ashley grinned back. “I’ll bet the football team isn’t going to be happy to hear that little piece of news.”

“Serves ’em right,” Lyle snorted. “They deserve it.”

Both the Spearfish Lake Police Department and the Spearfish County Sheriff’s Department are on the small side. Serious crime is not unknown in their jurisdictions, although it’s relatively rare, and mostly the policemen and deputies deal with minor issues, which is not very different from anywhere else. During the day on weekdays, usually only one and sometimes two sheriff’s department cars patrolled around the county, which is rather large, and only one police department car would be on duty in the city. They ramped up the coverage when things were anticipated to be somewhat busier, such as Friday and Saturday nights.

The police department and sheriff’s department are located across the street from each other near the edge of downtown in Spearfish Lake, with the courthouse located next to the sheriff’s department. The men and the management of the two departments had the habit of working closely together, backing each other up if need be – and with as few officers as could be found on duty at any one time, it happened fairly often. There were times when the Spearfish Lake City Council might get their fur up at the report of a city car responding to a call halfway across the county, but when that happened the police chief could point out the number of times the sheriff’s department had responded to a call in the city when a city officer was tied up doing something else. All in all, the system worked well.

Part of the reason it worked well was that Spearfish County Sheriff Steve Stoneslinger and Spearfish Lake Police Chief Charlie Wexler were good friends, and often got together to coordinate what they were working on, or at least pass information back and forth. Sometimes they got together just because it was lunchtime and they weren’t doing anything important.

Thus it was that someone passing by Rick’s Café out by the railroad yard around noon on Friday would have noticed one of the brown and white sheriff’s department cars parked outside next to one of the police department’s blue and white cars. Technically, Charlie Wexler was on patrol, although on his lunch break; Stoneslinger wasn’t on patrol, but drove one of the county cars anyway. However, at the moment the only thing either of them was investigating was the warmth of the coffee and the quality of the hamburgers, which were hot and pretty good, as usual.

“Well, this morning ought to quiet things down around town a little,” Stoneslinger observed, referring to the courtroom action earlier in the morning.

“I hope,” Charlie smiled. “I sure didn’t expect things to go down that easily, though. It helped that LeDroit is as dumb as he is obnoxious.”

Both of them had known that Frank “Frenchy” LeDroit had been a problem for a long time – mostly a bully who liked to beat up on people, but he had a lot of the kids he’d beaten on so intimidated that it had been hard to pin anything on him. However, that had given LeDroit the idea he was above the law, and someone with that attitude is bound to trip sooner or later. By being a little cute, and with a little help from Stoneslinger, Wexler had been able to arrange for LeDroit to trip over his own feet.

“I doubt he’s learned his lesson,” Steve replied. “Maybe a few months on ice will give him a little attitude adjustment.”

“He’s going to need more than a little attitude adjusting,” Charlie shook his head. “Somehow I get the feeling that this isn’t the last time he’s going to be your guest.”

“Probably not,” Steve replied, “but it ought to cool down things for you for a while.”

“Yeah, but there’s always something,” Charlie agreed, taking a sip of his coffee. The weather was really a little warm for coffee, but it tasted good anyway. “Football practice starts Tuesday, and tomorrow is Saturday. You know what that means.”

“Yeah,” the sheriff sighed. “Sure would be nice to break up the party for once, just on general principles. I mean, we always know it’s going to happen, but somehow we never get the word on where until it’s too late.”

“And then we’ll both hear about it for months afterward,” Wexler agreed. It was not a new subject. Both were well aware of the tradition of the Spearfish Lake High School football team to have a beer bust before practice opened, in spite of the fact that every one who showed up at the party was committing a misdemeanor, Minor in Possession of Alcohol, to be precise. Whoever it was that provided the beer for the party was committing a felony, specifically, Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor.

It wasn’t as if breaking up the party wasn’t a priority of both of them, rather more Stoneslinger’s than it was Wexler’s, since the party usually took place out in the woods somewhere, outside the city. But as Steve had said, usually they’d heard about it too late, and a couple times when they thought they’d had a good line on the party’s location somehow the word slipped out that they were on their way. It seemed likely to both of them that somewhere in one of the departments there was a leak, possibly a former football player who was aware of the tradition, but there was no way to be sure.

“Well, there’s a chance it’s been broken up already,” Charlie replied hopefully. “I’m pretty sure LeDroit was going to be the one organizing it. I’ve never been able to pin anything on him, but I get the idea he’s brought an awful lot of beer into town.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that too,” Steve agreed. “He would have been the logical one. But with him out of action, what do you want to bet that someone else will try to take up the slack?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Charlie sighed, “but it might be a break for us. I mean, if someone wants to organize it and get the beer together, they’re going to have to start from pretty close to scratch, rather than doing it right with lots of security. I mean, in the past, whoever organized it usually kept the location pretty close to their chest until the last minute, and then someone led the gang to the party site. If they’re doing this in a hurry, they might not be quite as careful. We might get a peep or two of what’s going on in time to do something about it.”

“Yeah, you might have a point at that,” the sheriff admitted. “It means that we have to keep our ears on, though. But you’re right about them going out to the site in a caravan. Maybe the thing to do is to get some people we trust in civilian cars and plain clothes, and just set up surveillance on the more obnoxious football players. Someone might be able to tail them out to where the party is going to be held.”

“That might work,” Charlie replied thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t surprise me if one or both of those buddies of LeDroit’s are there, even if they can’t play football.”

“They might want to pull back from that,” Stoneslinger pointed out. “I mean, just because they know we’re going to be keeping an eye on them. But someone not quite as close to them, say, Scotty Parsons, he’ll be there with bells on.”

“True,” Charlie nodded. “Eddie Awkerman also comes to mind as a possibility. The word was going around that they had a pretty good party last weekend. We didn’t hear about it until it was over with, of course, but really, I wasn’t looking since I was out of town. I had a part-timer on who was more interested in busting people for thirty in a twenty-five. If he’d heard about something like that he wouldn’t have known what to do about it.”

“It’s too bad you have to depend on part-timers like that,” the sheriff sympathized.

“I don’t have much choice, and I have to use them when I can get them. It’s not all bad. If I had to bust a party like that I’d take as many out-of-town part-timers as I could get my hands on, mostly because they wouldn’t know who to leak word of the raid to. But some of them are from as far away as Camden, and I couldn’t get them up here quickly. A couple hours’ notice, well maybe.”

“Well, all I can say is we ought to keep our ears on and put out some feelers,” Stoneslinger said. “Maybe we can get enough warning that we can set something up.”

“I don’t like to say this,” Charlie shook his head. “If we do find out about the party and raid it, we’re going to need everyone we know who wears blue or brown. As soon as we show up, kids are going to scatter in about forty different directions.”

“That’s true,” Stoneslinger admitted, “and worse, we need to keep as quiet as we can that we have something happening, or word is going to leak on it. We’ll have to keep it real close to our chests. But I sure would like to bust that party and bust it good. We get laughed at too much for letting it go on.”

“I wouldn’t mind busting it either,” Charlie smiled. “I really would like to get some of those kids in a courtroom, especially since now as we won’t have Bryson Payne running around bitching about police brutality against kids just being kids. I’ve heard that crap out of him all too much the last few years.”

“I have too,” Stoneslinger smiled. “Maybe if we can carry it off we can restore a little order around here.”

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.