A Killing in Kittson County

These last couple of weeks before the summer solstice contain the purest light of the year and the highest hopes. The days are still getting longer, but that quits as it must on the solstice. These days remind me of the time many years ago when I plowed land up in Kittson County near the Canadian border.

I worked for a farmer who was based near Badger. He had bought lots of land about an hour's drive to the northwest in Kittson County which is in the very northwest corner of Minnesota. To the north is the province of Manitoba and North Dakota is to the west, across the Red River.

It was gravel roads all the way up to these new lands. I drove my own vehicle, a 1970 AMC Rebel wagon. My employer provided my gas and paid for my driving time. The fields had been carved out of the woods, and were relatively small and irregularly shaped compared to the fields back in Roseau County. Not many people lived in this area anymore. I could go all day without seeing another human, though every other day someone from the Badger farm would haul up fuel for my tractor.

The tractor was a Ford four wheel drive monster. It had a commodious cab with air-conditioning and a radio on which I listened to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and got an education in Canadian politics and culture.

I was supposed to grease the tractor and plow before I started work for the day, but the mornings were cool and the equipment was covered with dew, so I waited till later in the morning to grease everything. Working by yourself, you can bend the rules a bit. The mornings were beautiful, like the mornings we're having now. When I arrived at the tractor, the cobwebs in the woods sparkled with dew. Sometimes a deer would observe my funny looking green wagon before waving its white tail goodbye.

One of the farms was different in that someone still lived there. Mrs. Barder's husband had died recently and she had decided to sell the farm, but didn't want to leave the place she had lived for the past fifty years, even though the nearest town was twenty miles away. So my employer gave her a life estate on the house.

When I worked at the Barder farm I'd have a chat with Milly before I started work. One morning she asked if I'd do her a favor.
"Sure," I said.
"See that wire?" she said.
I could see a wire attached to a stake in the front yard leading into the tall grass that surrounded her house.
"That wire's attached to a trap and there's a skunk in the trap."
I followed her around the house and saw a skunk struggling in a leg-hold trap. Actually I just saw the tall grass waving back and forth. I took Milly's word there was a skunk in there.
"Can you shoot him?" she asked.
I am not a hunter. I have shot guns to see what it was like, then I put them aside. I trap nuisance squirrels at home in a live trap then let them go five miles from home.
"But you can't shoot him here. He'll stink up the house."
Milly had a plan. We would attach one end of the wire to my bumper and she would drive my wagon past me and I would shoot the skunk.
"Here you go," she said. She handed me a single barrel shotgun that looked like it had been used at the Alamo. The barrel was wrapped with wire to hold it to the stock.
"You know how to use this?' she asked sensing my reluctance.
What little machismo I have came to my rescue. "Of course," I said.
I figured out how to break open the barrel and inserted the shell she handed me. I untied the wire from the stake and attached to my rear bumper. I was in a dream-like over-my-head sort of state as Milly hopped into my car. I stood a good ways from the house and she drove by me at a high rate of speed with the skunk spinning in the trap behind. You don't have to be an expert shot to hit anything with a shotgun.
We dragged him into the field and Milly retrieved her trap. Later I plowed a furrow beside the skunk and pushed him (with a long stick) into it. I felt sorry for the skunk, but felt glad I was able to help out an old woman. Milly's long gone now and I expect the skunk has visited her in that place where the sun always shines.

Nature's Web