Simon Hope by Jim Bates, Arnie Palmer

My assistant, Jan Walkin, knocked on the door, took three steps across the floor, and dropped a sheet of paper on my desk. “Here’s the report, Simon.” She shrugged her thin shoulders. “Such as it is.”

            I turned to her from staring out the second-floor window of the office I rented. “Such as it is?” I asked. “That’s a helluva thing to say.”

            Jan puffed up to the full height of her four-foot-ten-inch frame and said, “It’s a helluva business you’ve got going here, Simon.” She pointed to the one book on the bookshelf behind my desk. “Pretending to be like your hero.” It was my treasured collection of Sherlock Holmes.

“So…What’s your point?” I asked.

“What’s your favorite story?”

            “The Woman in Red.”

            “Conan Doyle’s first full-length novel. Right?”

            “Exactly. I love that one.”

            “What else?”

            “Well, there’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

“Another novel.”

“Correct. And The Adventure of the Dancing Men and A Scandal in Bohemia and…”

            “Right. Short Stories. And if I stood here all day, I’m sure you’d name them all.”

“Well…”

I flushed, embarrassed. She was right. I had loved Sherlock Holmes since I was twelve years old. Ever since my aunt had given me the Complete Sherlock Holmes shortly after I’d come to live with her after my parents had been killed in a car accident. My older brother and sister had died, too. I had been in the same accident and was in bad shape physically and emotionally, but I eventually recovered. Physically anyway. It's been a long time emotionally. Twenty-five years but who’s counting? Ha, ha. Escaping with Sherlock has helped immensely.

            “So what?” I said.

            “I know you want to be a detective like him. I respect that.”

            “Your point being?”

            She nodded at the photos on the wall. Scotty, the Tennessee Walker, who I’d found in a stud farm in Iowa. Hector, the German Shepard guide dog I rescued from a breeding kennel north of Minneapolis in Chisago Country. Snowflake, a terminally ill boy’s treasured kitten who had wandered off and been locked in a storage shed for a week. I’d found them all. It’s what I did. I found lost pets.

            “My point is that Sherlock used his smarts and intuition to solve crimes, find jewels, and stop wars from happening. You…” She pointed at my photos on the wall. In addition to the three I’d mentioned there were over a dozen more. “You just…” She slammed her hand on my desk making me jump. “Oh, I don’t know. It just seems like you aren’t trying hard enough.” She shook her head. “Like you’re just pretending to play detective rather than truly being one.” She pointed to my framed photo of Jeremy Brett as Sherlock on the corner of my desk. “Mark my words, your hero Sherlock would just laugh his ass off.”

            With that scathing comment, she turned on her heel and left. Oh, yeah, I said to myself. Well, we’ll see about that! Not the pithiest retort, I’ll grant you, but hell, I didn’t want to piss her off any more than she already was. Once we’d been lovers. Now? Now I was lucky she was working with me.

Her words were harsh, and, compared to Sherlock Holmes and his abilities, probably true. But I couldn’t help it. I liked my job. I liked animals. My best friend for years was my aunt’s big tabby cat named Rusty.

I looked around my office. I liked my Persian rug and the false fireplace. I liked my microscope on the rolltop desk in the corner and the hat rack with the black top hat I wore occasionally. So what if I tried to replicate Sherlock Holmes’ living room? It worked for me.

            Jan’s concern was that there wasn’t much money searching for lost pets and my time would be better spent at a “Real Job” like being a mailman or working for a big box store, two occupations I’d tried but found deeply unsatisfying. Nowadays my part-time gig as a voice actor in commercials helped cover expenses if work in the pet rescue world was slow. Producers loved my English accent. I was considered the go-to guy for Mrs. Compton’s Magnificent Marmalade.

            I sat back and glanced at the report Jan had left. I’d tracked down a poodle named Lulu who’d taken up with a bloodhound named Rex in southwest Minneapolis and all was well. I was contemplating what the resulting puppies would look like when Jan stepped into my office.

            “Phone call,” she said, pointing to the light blinking on my desk phone. We still had a landline. “A Mrs. Jorgenson. Something about a missing dog.” She raised her eyebrows and mouthed, Again. But she smiled as she went back to her desk. I did too. Arguing with her made me realize how much I liked my job. And Jan. Not everyone was so fortunate.

            I picked up the receiver. “Simon Hope here,” I said. “How can I help?”

            I listened, interjecting occasionally, taking notes all the while. When she was done speaking, I summarized our conversation: “So, your Pomeranian doggy Snuffy ran off last night and you’re worried. You live west of Minneapolis near Lake Minnetonka. Is that correct?”

“Yes. I’m incredibly concerned. Coyotes have been sighted in our area.”

I said, soothingly, “Please don’t worry, Mrs. Jorgenson. I’ll be out there within the hour and start the search. I’m sure I can find Snuffy.”

“Oh, thank you!”

            I stepped to my coat rack, put on my tweet jacket and my Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap. I was all set. I headed out the door. The game was afoot. Snuffy was loose and needed to be found before something horrible happened to her. I was just the man for it.

            I adjusted my cap and waved to Jan as I walked out the door. If she rolled her eyes, I didn’t notice. I was already on the hunt.

About the author 

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in over 500 online and print publications. To learn more and to see all of his work, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

The Paddlefish by Jim Bates, Arnie Palmer

The first time I heard the story was in the early 80s when we were sitting on the back of the houseboat where he lived after he came back from Vietnam. It was in a tiny marina on the Mississippi River just downriver from Wabasha, Minnesota. I was eight years old at the time. Uncle John was writing in his journal and sipping on his ever-present tumbler of Jack Daniels. Mom had dropped me off for the weekend.

“Have a good time,” she’d said. Then she winked, lit a Marlboro, and drove off in a cloud of dust to be with her boyfriend.

Uncle John and I had been spending a weekend a month together for as long as I could remember. I loved being with him, and I’m pretty sure he felt the same way.

He looked up as I walked onto the deck. “Hi Sport,” he said. “How they hanging?”

I laughed. I liked that my uncle didn’t pull a lot of punches around me. However, I did turn red at the comment before answering, “Fine. I guess.”

“Good.” He patted a deck chair next to him. “Come on. Sit and keep me company.”

Uncle John was a fishing guide. After he’d returned from Vietnam in the early 70s, he told people he was looking forward to spending time on The River as we called the Mississippi and that’s what he did. He used his savings to buy the houseboat we were now on and spent his time guiding fishermen up and down The River. They fished for largemouth bass mostly, but sometimes bigger fish like walleyes and northerns and even the occasional muskie. He was a well-respected guide because he was quiet and competent and knew the ways of the river well.

He pointed to a cooler next to us. “There’s a coke in there for you.” He grinned. “I know you like it.”

“Thanks!”

I took out an ice-cold can, popped the top, and took a long drink. It was late afternoon in August. The temperature was nearly 95 degrees. Even though we were shaded by the tall cottonwood trees on the shoreline, the coke tasted great.

Uncle John sipped his whiskey, made a few notes in this journal, and closed it. He turned to me. “Hot enough for you?”

I took another drink. “Yeah.” I wasn’t much of a talker.

He nodded and we looked out over the water. We were in a wide part of the river with the other side about half a mile away. Like on our side, the far shore was lined with tall cottonwood trees. Gulls flew back and forth and eagles’ nests were visible in the crowns of some of the trees. Up river a few hundred yards was the quaint town of Wabasha with a population of around 3,000 people. In front of us, we watched pleasure boats cruising up and down sharing the river with a smattering of fishing boats. I counted two heavily laden barges, one going upstream, one going down.

Uncle John looked at me. “I love it here,” he said. “It’s so peaceful.”

I grinned. “Me, too.”

He’d given me a book earlier in the summer called Life on the Mississippi and I was enjoying reading it. It was about Mark Twain (pen name for Samuel Clemens) and growing up on the Mississippi and working on a steamboat. I was fascinated by the history of back then on the river in the 1870s, and I loved being on the houseboat with Uncle John.

He turned to me and asked, “Did I ever tell you about me and the paddlefish?”

I was all ears. “No. Why? What happened?”

He grinned. “I caught one once.”

“Really?” Paddlefish along with sturgeon and channel catfish were considered the big three when it came to monster fish in the Mississippi.

“Yeah. I was about your age. My friend Eddie and I were fishing the shoreline a few miles south of here. We were in an old wooden boat and just drifting along using the oars to keep us straight.”

“What bait were you using?”

“Balled up dough and corn tied in a sack of cheesecloth.”

“Going for catfish?”

“Yep. Big ones.”

Channel catfish hid in the muddy banks of the river. They could get big, four feet long, and weigh up to forty pounds.

“Cool!”

“Yeah. We fished for about an hour before we got our first bite.” He looked at me. “It was huge.”

“Wow!”

“Yeah. It was so big, it started pulling the boat into the main channel of the river.”

My eyes went wide. “No kidding!”

“I kid you not. It pulled us downstream and then switched and pulled us upstream.”

“That’s incredible!”

“Yeah. We fought it for an hour.”

“What happened?”

Uncle John sighed. “We lost it. It broke the line.”

“No!”
            “Yeah. It got caught on a snag or something.”

“Oh, geez, that’s too bad.”

“But we did get a look at it. It was a paddlefish. We saw the paddle. It was a huge sucker. Maybe six feet long. Had to weigh a hundred pounds.”

“Oh, man, that’s so cool!”

Uncle John grinned and took a sip of his whiskey. “It truly was.”

How could a young boy not love the Mississippi after a story like that? And I did. I grew up to work for the Department of Natural Resources and was eventually assigned my dream job of patrolling the Mississippi between Wabash and south to Lock and Dam Number Three. It’s been a great life.

I’ve read Life on the Mississippi more times than I can count. And I still visit with Uncle John. At eighty he’s as spry as ever. He still lives on his houseboat and even does a little guiding. These days I’ve got stories to tell him, and we talk a lot back and forth. But none of my stories are as good as the paddlefish that got away. Not even close.

 

About the author

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in over 500 online and print publications. To learn more and to see all of his work, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Ants by Jim Bates, Arnie Palmer

 

Ants

By Jim Bates

Arnie Palmer

It was a small town. The cool morning air belied the heat that was sure to come later that day. The sun’s rays were diffused through the tall maples on the tree-lined street. A Mourning Dove was cooing a few houses down on a telephone wire.

The young boy who sat at the curb didn’t care about any of that. He was having the time of his life playing with ants, watching them scurry back and forth in the sand, marveling at their incredible intent. How fun! He found a blade of grass and set it next to them. They ignored it. He looked around and found a dead fly. He carefully placed it in the sand. Success! Two ants discovered the carcass and tugged at it until they were finally able to pull the body away to wherever their home was. He marveled at how well they worked together, moving the large insect. This was great!

Suddenly a voice from the house behind him broke his concentration. It was his grandma.

“Breakfast!” she yelled. “Come quick! Now!”

Oh, oh. She sounded mad. Like usual.

Slowly the boy stood and brushed sand from the seat of his blue jeans. He looked over his shoulder toward the house. It was a small squat structure with sagging wooden steps. His grandma stood at the door with her arms crossed over her boney chest. His mother had dropped him off five days earlier. “You’ll stay for a month,” she’d told him. “It’ll be good for you.”

He’d never been so lonely.

But not so much now. Playing with the ants was the most fun he’d had in those five days, and he was reluctant to leave. However, Grandma was a stern, no-nonsense woman. He knew he had to obey her.

He squatted so he was close to the level of the street. “Goodbye,” he said to his new friends. “See you later.” He waited for a moment listening. Then he smiled a big smile. He was right! He thought so. The ants were telling him to hurry back. “ I will,” he told them. “As soon as I can.”

He waved goodbye and walked up the sidewalk. His grandma met him at the door.

“What are you doing out there playing in the gutter like that?” she demanded.

The boy looked at her. She was tall and thin and boney and wore her long grey hair wrapped so tightly around her head he could see her skull. Her faded housedress hung limply. She smelled of camphor from the oil she rubbed on her skin. She scared him to death.

“Nothing,” he mumbled meekly in response to her question. “I was just playing.”

“Humpf. Well, get inside. Breakfast is waiting.”

She stalked through the door, and he followed behind, but not before turning one last time. He looked toward the street and secretly waved to his new friends. He couldn’t wait to get back to them. “I’ll see you soon,” he whispered. “I promise.”

 

About the author

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in nearly 500 online and print publications. To learn more and to see all of his work, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com. 

 

 Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

August by Jim Bates, Arnie Palmer

Let me tell you, August in the Northwoods in not the most fun time to be there. First off, it’s hot. Which is fine. Especially if you live near a lake like we do. Just run down the dirt road behind our cabin to Lake Moraine and jump in and cool off. Right? Sure, go ahead. We tried it once, me and Allie and Andy. We lasted about ten minutes. The water was great, nice and cool and refreshing. There was light wave action and the lake was pretty was sparkling. Overhead the sky was a deep blue with a few puffy clouds. Perfect, right?

Not quite. To that lovely scene we must factor in the bugs: the mosquitoes, the gnats (black flies) and deer flies and horse flies! Oh, and I forgot to mention the hundreds of varieties of ticks (at least). Man, the blood sucking never ends.

I once read story entitled Eaten Alive about a guy who had nearly lost his mind when he got lost in a dense Northwoods forest and the aforementioned insects attacked him mercilessly and nearly did what the title implied: ate him alive.

And they were bad on that day we went swimming, that was for sure, swarming all over us, getting in our mouths and noses and ears, chewing and biting our arms and legs and shoulders and back. In a word - pure hell. Well, two words, but you get my drift. It was bad. And during the season in August, they’re the worst.

            So why we decided to go pick blueberries in August is beyond me, but we did.

            “Come on with us,” Meg said, loading Andy and Allie into the Honda Fit. “It’ll be fun.”

            I pointed down to the lake. “Don’t you remember that time I took the kids swimming? We were almost…”

            “Yeah, yeah, I know. You were almost eaten alive. I know,” she said, chiding me. Like I’ve said before. I’m not really what you’d consider a woodsman by any stretch of the imagination. Don’t get me wrong, I like being up north, especially in the security of our small town, but when it comes to living actually ‘in the woods’ I’ll leave that to those better suited for it. Like Jack and Linn and Arnie and Amber. And, now, apparently, my wife. She poked me in the side with her elbow. “Come on, Lee.” She turned to the kids. “What you guys think? Should Daddy go with us?”

            Their chorus of resounding “yeses” sealed the deal. I went.

            From our cabin, we drove to Arnie and Amber’s place on a dirt road for five miles through jack pine forests and bogs, kicking up a plume of dust the entire way. It had been a dry year which knocked back the mosquitoes a little bit, but no matter. The black flies and deer flies and horse flies happily filled the void.

            Arnie was with Jack half an hour west cutting wood in the Superior Forest so it was just me and Meg, Amber and Linn and the kids, Andy, Allie, Sam and Willow.

            As we drove up, Amber came out to greet us, brushing away gnats (black flies) as she approached. We got out of the car and she hugged Meg. “Glad you could make it.” She waved at me over the roof of the car. “Nice to see you, too, Lee.” She grinned and tossed me a can of Northwoods Off insect repellant. “Meg said the bugs like you a lot. That’s too bad. It must be something in your blood.”

Was she kidding around? Was I genetically predisposed to be an attractive meal to every single flying, buzzing and biting insect known to man? “Really?” I asked, buying immediately into her theory. It made sense in a strange, weird way.

She smiled, showing me her white teeth. Into her second month of being pregnant, she looked happy with herself and with life. “Naw. I’m just kidding.” She smacked at a particular bothersome horsefly. “They like everyone.”

“Great.”

“Don’t worry about it. Spray yourself down with that Off and you’ll be good to go.”

So, I did. Liberally. I also sprayed Andy and Allie who covered their eyes and giggled and would barely hold still. They were pretty excited to go berry picking with Aunt Amber which was their new name for her ever since they were told last month she was going to have a baby. Why they chose to call her that I have no idea.

With the kids sprayed, Amber said, “Okay, let’s get going.”

“Where are we off to?” I asked, brushing away some gnats. The spray worked to keep them off me, like the name implied, but they seemed to hover at a point just outside the range of effectiveness of the spray, about a foot. I guess I’d have to learn to live with them and that bothersome fact. At least they weren’t landing in mass and feeding on me like a human smorgasbord.

Meg was just grinning at my discomfort. “Come on, Lee. Man up. It’ll be fun. A whole new experience.”

Meg was taking to Northwoods life in a big way. Not only was she happily running our home daycare for Andy and Allie and Sam and Willow, she was also forever taking them on field trips out in the woods and fields near us identifying birds, trees and wildflowers. She had happily assisted me in cutting firewood over the winter, taking over for a few weeks when I’d injured myself with the ax, and Amber was teaching her the basics of home caning. Hence the trip to the woods to collect blueberries. Meg and Amber and Linnwere going to make blueberry preserves and blueberry pie. My mouth watered just thinking about eating both of them. So, I was all in, as far the picking went. Hopefully the spray would help make keep the swarming hordes at bay.

Amber drove her rusted out, dust covered pickup. What it lacked in looks it made up for in serviceability. It ran like a top. (Amber was just as good a mechanic as Arnie, maybe better.) Meg and I and Linn crammed into the front on the bench seat while the kids rode in the open back with the admonishment from Amer to ‘keep your butts on the floor’. Which they did.

We drove deep into the jack pine forest, turning right and left at various intersections until I had no idea where we were. Amber and Meg and Linn chatted away about the kids, her pregnancy and canning preserves while I looked out the window. There was nothing but pine trees as far as I could see. Not a building in sight, either. We were on state land so it was just going to be us and the forest and the insects. And, hopefully, blueberries.

After about fifteen-minutes, Amber leaned over and asked me, “Lee, have you ever picked blueberries?”

I shook my head. “No.”

She grinned. “You’re in for a treat.”

I nodded in agreement. “I hope so.” In fact, the further we drove into the forest, the more worried I became. “What about bears?” I asked her. “Don’t we have to worry about them? And cougars, I added. I heard someone saw cougar tracks last week.”

Amber smiled at me. “Lee, this is their forest. We’re the interlopers here. We’ll go in, do our thing, pick our berries and get out. As quick as we can, okay? It should be fine.”

Good advice, but why was it the only word that stuck in my mind was ‘should’?

“You’re the boss,” I said, trying to lighten the moment.

She grinned. “I am. Stick with me.” She pointed to Meg. “Like you wife says, it’ll be fun.”

Meg looked at me and smiled. “See?”

A few minutes later Amber pulled the truck off the side of the road. “Okay, everybody out.” We did as we were told. We were in a clearing in the forest. The ground cover looked to be nothing remarkable, just low growing grass and fragrant wintergreen, a plant common in the area.

“This is it?” I asked skeptically.

“Yep,” Amber said. “Look closely.”

I squatted down so I was close to the ground and did as I was told. After a minute my eyes adjusted to what I was seeing. “Oh, wow,” I exclaimed. “Incredible.” I’d never seen anything like it. We were standing in a blueberry patch that stretched through the clearing as far as I could see. I stood up. “Amber, this is amazing.”

She grinned and put on a wide brimmed straw hat. “It is, isn’t it? I’ve been picking here since I was a girl. Back then, I’d come with my mom and grandmother. It was my great grandmother who’d discovered it, maybe a hundred years ago.”

“Wow,” was all I could say.

Next to me Meg said, “Um, Lee? You might want to close your mouth. The bugs, you know.”

“Funny.”

“Let’s get going,” Amber said. She handed out gallon buckets to each of us, kids included. Then she directed us. “We’ll just work through the clearing.” She looked at the kids. “Pick, don’t eat.” They nodded solemnly. “And stay together.” She looked at Meg and me and Linn. “Everyone.”

“Okay,” we all said.

Then we got to work.

I have to say, it was fun being in the forest with no one around but us. After the wildlife got used to us we heard birds singing, woodpeckers tapping on trees and squirrels chattering nearby scolding us. I especially liked hearing the wind blowing through the pines like a loud whisper.

The berries were on low growing bushes about a foot off the ground. The kids made their way easily through the huge patch, but us adults had to bend over. It was hard work and sweaty work, but Amber kept us entertained with stories of her youth growing up on the Turtle River Reservation. She had a horse named Quicksilver that she rode every day and even entered barrel riding competitions in local rodeos. “I don’t ride anymore,” she told us when we asked her about it. Not enough time these days. Maybe when the kids are older.”

Meg and I glanced at each other. Amber was a good, kind and caring person, and we were both thinking the same thing: that we hoped that dream could eventually come true.

We’d been the clearing for about an hour and each of our buckets had been emptied once into a larger container. We’d moved away from the road deeper into the pines, staying together and working hard. Now that we had been picking for a time, the rhythm of the task was Zen-like. And, like I’d been told earlier by Amber, it was pretty fun.

But then the bear showed up. Yeah, a bear. A black bear with a cub. It was Willow who saw it first.

“Mom.”

“What, honey?” Willow glanced at her daughter.

Willow pointed. “Look.”

Amber stood up and followed where her daughter was pointing. “Oh, my god.”

Meg and I stood up. “Shit,” I said.

“Shush,” Amber admonished me. “She doesn’t see us. Their eyesight isn’t the best. Plus,” she tested the breeze with a finger, “the wind is blowing away from her towards us, so she’ll have a hard time smelling us.”

Meg grabbed my arm and whispered. “Just do what Amber says, okay?”

Which was good advice, because my mind had gone blank for a moment. Meg knew me well enough to know that when it came back, all I would think of doing was grabbing the kids and running for the truck.

Cooler heads prevailed. Amber took over and whispered to the kids. “Andy, Allie, Sam and Willow, listen up. Walk very slowly to me.” Which they did. While they were doing that, Amber turned to us adults and said, “When the kids get here, we will all walk as quickly and as quietly as we can to the truck. Okay?”

“Okay,” we whispered.

“The key is not to startle her. Okay?”

“Yes,” we whispered again.

And that’s what we did. We held out kids’ hands and hurried through the woods. I had Andy and Meg had Allie and we all still held onto our buckets, which was pretty amazing when you thought about it.

I glanced over my shoulder once. The momma bear, as Amber called her, and her cub were methodically working their way through the berry patch moving away from us. If they’d seen us, they’d ignored us. Incredible as it may seem, the entire experience, which could have ended horrifically, ended quite well.

Later, back at Amber’s we were sitting around her kitchen table having coffee. The kids were outside looking at the two goats Amber kept for making cheese.

Amber took a sip from her mug, “Well, that was the last thing I expected. I mean there are bears out there for sure, but usually they stay away if they sense humans in the area.”

“I’m just glad no one was hurt,” I said.

Amber took a bite of her cookie and chewed thoughtfully. “You know, we haven’t had much rain. Maybe the momma and the little cub were chowing down on those berries for a little extra moisture or something.”

“Do you see many bears?” Meg asked.

“Not really. Like I said, they’re around, but they really do stick to themselves.” She paused. “As long as they have enough food.”

I looked at the gallon buckets of berries lined up on the kitchen counter. And the big container bulging with berries on the floor next to it. “Well, I’m glad we did it. Picked the berries, I mean. It was fun to be in the woods and it was cool to see the bear and her cub.”

Amber winked at Meg and said, “We’ll make a woodsman out you yet.”

They both laughed. I kind of got it, I think.

Oh, and those blueberry preserves and that blueberry pie? They were the best I’d ever tasted. Meg told me she thought seeing the bear and the cub might have had something to do with it. You know what? I think she might be right.

 

About the author

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. His stories and poems have appeared in nearly four hundred online and print publications. His collection of short stories “Resilience” was published in early 2021 by Bridge House Publishing. Additional stories can be found on his blog: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com.  

 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half to the project.