Corkscrew Ridge

By Ron L Winter

Paul Kostner searches for his roots and a genuine self-image when he decides to move back to the land in a rural community of total strangers. He abandons the social life of a faculty and small city for a society of farmers and local businesses. He leaves the company of a beautiful woman bound for administrative success and bonds to a wounded farmstead he struggles to heal. In the process he hopes to reconnect with a teenage daughter, sobriety, and his soul.
The journey is hard and heartbreaking, but he finds gentle mentors among the strong-willed country folk who teach him the many things he needs to know to live the simple life. From construction and gardening to logging and bulldozing, Paul learns by taking chances and listening to the old hands.
As his love of a dream is transformed into a love for the land and community, another kind of love dares to smile.

Kirkus Reviews:

Corkscrew Ridge by Ron Winter extols the healing power of nature in this peaceful, appealing novel.
On an old farm in need of love, Paul Kostner discovers what can happen when one returns to nature. When he comes across an old run-down farm, something comes alive inside him. This farm could give him a new life, one that harkens back to his childhood, one that is full of promise and renewal. ...Liz has survived a failed marriage and a failed restaurant, but it has left her bitter and angry. But Paul’s presence...may be just the healing force that she needs.
...Winter has managed to put together a well-crafted narrative.
Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ron L Winter
• Release date: Dec 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985084110

Ron L Winter

Ron Winter grew up on a farm in central Wisconsin. After a career that included secondary and community college teaching, factory work, and carpentry, he is retired to a 200-acre forest paradise on Corkscrew Ridge in Dunn County, Wisconsin.In addition to his writing, Ron operates his bulldozer, tears down and rebuilds the old farmstead, harvests and sells birch for charity, plants trees, and gardens.He lives with Mary, his wife of twenty years, not far from his two children and two grandchildren in the Twin Cities and close to his two stepchildren and grandchild.

Book preview

Corkscrew Ridge

By

Ron L Winter

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

Ron L Winter on Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, their dialogue, and their involvement in actual historical events are constructed from the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Corkscrew Ridge

© 2012 by Ron L Winter

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopying), recording, or otherwise – without prior permission in writing from the author.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-9850841-1-0

Cover Photograph by Lynda Winter

Learn more at: www.ronlwinterbooks.com

To Dad,

who taught me to question,

to respect the common man,

and to appreciate the sanctity of work.

Table of Contents

Preface

Reviews

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

About The Author

Preface

Paul Kostner searches for his roots and a genuine self-image when he decides to move back to the land in a rural community of total strangers. He abandons the social life of a faculty and small city for a society of farmers and local businesses. He leaves the company of a beautiful woman bound for administrative success and bonds to a wounded farmstead he struggles to heal. In the process he hopes to reconnect with a teenage daughter, sobriety, and his soul.

The journey is hard and heartbreaking, but he finds gentle mentors among the strong-willed country folk who teach him the many things he needs to know to live the simple life. From construction and gardening to logging and bulldozing, Paul learns by taking chances and listening to the old hands.

As his love of a dream is transformed into a love for the land and community, another kind of love dares to smile.

Reviews

Corkscrew Ridge by Ron Winter extols the healing power of nature in this peaceful, appealing novel.

On an old farm in need of love, Paul Kostner discovers what can happen when one returns to nature. When he comes across an old run-down farm, something comes alive inside him. This farm could give him a new life, one that harkens back to his childhood, one that is full of promise and renewal.

…Liz has survived a failed marriage and a failed restaurant, but it has left her bitter and angry. But Paul’s presence…may be just the healing force that she needs.

…Winter has managed to put together a well-crafted narrative.

Kirkus Reviews

Chapter One

Paul Kostner drove east out of Stillwater across the St. Croix River on the iron drawbridge. Far below and slightly up river sternwheelers were starting their first spring runs. He could almost identify the people lining the decks. He hoped that they couldn’t identify him because Fran was on one of them explaining his sudden illness to their friends. He saw the drawbridge lights flash red in his rearview mirror as he climbed the steep bluff into Wisconsin.

Highway 64 took him past the technical college where he taught and out onto giant ridges and into secluded valleys where old farmsteads curled up, protected from the winter winds. He was searching for a community that he hazily remembered passing through after a long afternoon wedding reception. The memory had since called to him, confirming his desire to change the direction of his life. He wanted to find it again, to know if the message was real.

He turned south off 64, passing a few dairy farms and some others that raised beef. But most old homesteads had remodeled houses with smooth lawns and fences that separated them from the outbuildings and barns that were caving in. He returned the waves of strangers cleaning their yards.

In the distance he saw part of a gravel road that turned on a hill and seemed to climb into another realm. He looked for the most likely turnoff that would begin that road. As soon as he hit the gravel he rolled down the windows and drank in the spring air. His head was clearing and his grip on the steering wheel loosened. He felt that he was driving into the past, into his youth, into a life that he had unwisely abandoned.

He stopped even with a deserted farmstead, peering between the trees that lined the road. There was a long, faded red barn with a small concrete silo topped by a cone roof and a white house with a porch along one side and a couple of chimneys. He backed the car until he saw the faint tracks of an overgrown driveway. Dried canary grass parted before the hood of his car as he pulled around behind the trees shielding him from the road.

A few minutes after he turned off the engine, the local inhabitants resumed their routines. Birds carried bits of string and grass to their growing nests in various junk cars. Butterflies and bees visited flower after flower. Squirrels chased each other in mating play along limbs and up vines that hung down from large oaks and evergreens. The air had a light smell of earth and manured fields as it gently moved dead grasses and new, shiny leaves. A spider began to anchor one corner of its web to his radio aerial. A bumblebee came in his window and stayed a short time before judging his world sterile.

Overgrown buildings lost their distinct lines, blending into the yard, the yard fading into the forest. Subliminal sounds and fragrances brought back his youth. He saw his dad come out of the haymow dripping with sweat, his blue work shirt sticking to his back. He felt the tangled pain of a failed marriage loosen and sensed the burden of popularity.

Hours later, he entered his apartment in Stillwater, made a sandwich and scrambled eggs. He didn’t take his food to the large window overlooking magnificent bluffs and the river. He sat in the kitchen refusing to relinquish the experience, refusing to return from his youth. As the sun set he shut off the phone and began a sleep in which thousands of tiny repairs were begun on his soul.

He awoke to Fran’s boots clicking on the floor, and when he opened his eyes he saw her tight jeans stretch as she bent over him. Brush your teeth, she said quietly.

After sex he closed his eyes and returned to his youth. He saw a dozen blackbirds lined up on the highline wire over the cattail swamp. They rested in the cool evening air in front of a pink and golden sunset. Occasionally one blurted a call that sounded like an old telephone ring. But thirty years ago there were no phones out there. Just along the highway and in town. Aunt Hattie answered two shorts and a long with a loud, shrill voice that cut through the hum and static.

Fran, always full of energy after sex, was making an elaborate breakfast from a sack of specialties she had brought. I knocked forever before I let myself in.

I really slept... he began.

Everyone asked about you. I wish you would’ve been with me. Jack really thinks he is making progress ... Are you listening to me? She allowed herself a tone used sparingly and for great affect.

I just needed some time away, time to hear myself. I don’t like to be entertaining. I’m tired of smiling and I’m drinking too much. Paul looked down at her painted toenails and momentarily wondered how her toes could be so perfectly shaped after being jammed into her clicky heels day after day.

The semester will be over in a month. Maybe we could drive out west for a week or so before my seminar...get a change of scenery. She set his plate by the window overlooking the river and poured a large mug of coffee for him and a small flowered cup for herself.

Aren’t you going to eat? he asked.

I have toast coming. I gained a pound yesterday...the buffet was glorious. And...if I don’t take it off today, well, you know how I am.

He smiled slightly, I admire your discipline.

People shaped like Mom have a harder time getting to the top. And that’s what I’d look like without discipline.

Normally he would have repeated how wonderful and beautiful her mom was. But today he ate quietly, trying to bring the blackbirds back.

You seem distant, she observed. Are you worried about work?

No. Work is fine, the students are pouring it on, he smiled broadly. Some should transfer to the university electronics program. They really understand…

Fran laughed, My expensive jeans and boots, sex and breakfast and you’re pensive. Electronics and students and you’re alive again.

I’d like to call my lawyer, he faked a grimace.

I hope you don’t spend another day sleeping in your apartment. Just when I told everyone you were sick, bug-eyed Wilson says he saw you driving over the bridge. He gets to me...well, anyway, maybe you could recover enough to show my nephew your stock car this afternoon. I kind of promised.

Sure. He can drive it.

Paul. Sammy is twelve. He’s four feet ten.

Perfect.

Perfect? Fran was truly alarmed, What do you mean, ‘perfect’?

I shouldn’t have said ‘perfect’. I should have said that I’ll give him a scary ride.Sometimes you worry me, Paul. Before...when I asked you how much you liked sex with me...I thought you mumbled, ‘Aunt Hattie’.

It’s not me, he smiled. It’s you. You and bug-eyed Wilson.

I’m leaving you with the dishes. I’ll pick up Sammy. How was sex?

Great. Perfect. As he kissed her, he remembered the old crick trail and the spring flood swirling and the culvert sucking the wild current in and shooting it out the south end. In the July heat it would be a fourth full, moving so slowly that water striders rode lazily through, walking from one side to the other on the placid surface.

On Monday one class was finishing labs on amplifiers, another was writing programs to control traffic lights and a third was troubleshooting a telephone circuit. These were the marvelous weeks when all of the introductory work paid off.

Paul was able to brush off faculty-administration politics, side with the union, and only half-listen to Fran as she constantly maneuvered herself to a more advantageous position in management. Her arch-rival Jeremy Wilson was doing a pretty good job in directing off-campus business training and had a complimentary article in the local paper. This had Fran clicking the halls in her heels, dressed to the max, and organizing faculty awareness programs. Wilson seemingly bumbled around, stumbling onto relationships and ideas that turned out contract after contract for the district.

Friday afternoon Paul loaded 60 five-page tests and 30 lab reports into his briefcase, straightened his desk, and left half an hour early to avoid invitations from coworkers and directives from Fran.

Forty-five minutes later he was parked in the farm yard. Just as he was starting to correct the essay parts of the tests, a school bus roared past creating a cloud of dust that settled over everything. He caught a glance of the woman driver in a long-billed cap, sunglasses and a plaid wool shirt. A half-mile down the road, the red lights flashed. Within a minute she was going through the gears smoothly, boring down on the next stop.

Paul blew the dust off his test stack and went back to work. Three hours later he was down to the multiple-choice questions that he could do at home in a half-hour. It was a beautiful early evening as he carefully walked around old refrigerators and ranges that people had dumped, past five junk cars and an old delivery truck sunk to the axles in the dirt. Finally he rounded an old outhouse to relieve himself. He paused by the farmhouse to peer through a broken window. The smell of rotting mattresses and skunk scent matched the visual decay and destruction of vandals.

He drove down the road to where the bus had stopped and found a man just coming out of the barn. My name is Paul Kostner.

The man set down a bucket and jacket, How do you do. He held out his hand, I’m Jake Bockler. Good to meet you. Are you the fellow parked down on the Johnson place?

Paul shook his hand, gesturing with his head, Is that the Johnson place?

Yup. Old Caleb Johnson and his wife Elva built it, and his son Johnny ran it for a time. He, Johnny that is, had problems: died relatively young.

It’s a beautiful spot. I didn’t see any ‘No Trespassing’ signs, so I parked in the yard. Do you think the owner would mind?

Jake shook his head, "It’s a family from the Twin Cities, I guess north of the cities. He’s an electronics engineer, nice fellow...beautiful children, movie stars, all of them. Now, the strange thing is that he bought it from the Johnsons and his name is...

Johnson. smiled Paul. "I grew up on a farm and that place is so beautiful. I’d love to have twenty acres...

The Johnson place is two hundred acres.

Paul shook his head, Two hundred acres is way more than I need. Anyway, it doesn’t seem to be for sale.

It isn’t for sale, nodded Jake. But with the garbage dumping, vandalism, and general deterioration, Casey might part with it. He just can’t keep it up. I think they have other properties south of here. I tell you, Paul, we would sure like some young couple to clean that up. Bring in some playmates for the grandkids.

An hour later Paul had the address and phone number of Casey and Alberta Johnson.

By Sunday evening Paul and Casey Johnson had walked part of the land and Paul found that he had more than half of Casey’s price in his savings account.

He convinced Fran to visit the property with him that Tuesday after work. When he turned into the driveway she looked out at the yard and house in horror. Something’s wrong here. It’s a dump… a total disaster. What a nightmare.

I could clean this stuff…

What would you do with all of this land? Two hundred acres…I can’t even imagine two hundred acres."

It’s mostly forest. I can harvest lumber. Casey says that the wood is valuable...

You were a child when your father retired, you don’t know how to farm.

Well, I wouldn’t farm...I mean I wouldn’t have a herd of cattle.

Why don’t you get a few acres near the technical college, raise a garden.

Fran, this land is unbelievably cheap, a steal, most of it isn’t good farmland. It’s so beautiful. I wish you would walk in the woods with me...

She refused to leave the car. Paul, I’m not a woods person. Maybe you could clean the place up a bit, burn the buildings and resell it. I’d even go in with you on a plan like that...

He sensed an alien whose cute shoes would defile the land. He hastened to return her to her world of finished wood and bagged dirt in gaily-printed pots. You’re right. I’ll take you back now. There are rusty nails and old fence wires in the grass. I wouldn’t want you to need a tetanus shot.

Halfway back to Stillwater, she tried to smooth over her rejection of his surprise. I know you’re searching for something. I’m sorry I was so critical. Maybe someday, maybe when you get some of the trash cleaned up...maybe I could try again.

Maybe so. Wave upon wave of relief swept over him. Why had he brought her out to the land? It began to cloud up.

When he returned to the farm that Friday afternoon, he had his tent, sleeping bag and camping gear. The trunk door was bungeed over an old lawnmower he bought at the Diamond Consignment Store. It threatened rain as he began to mow a twenty-foot by thirty-foot spot on the old lawn. It took a long time to check every square foot for old boards, door handles, wire, and a dozen other items half-buried in what had been a lush lawn, smooth as a croquet court. When it was cross-mowed and the grass raked off to the side, it was beautiful. So he mowed around an old rose bush and under the giant oak trees. Several times a minute he stopped to take an item to either a burnable pile or a metal pile. He had to stop himself because he wanted to clean it all up, to somehow pull out the old cars and appliances, to smooth and prune.

He had set up his camp before the first drop of rain. Then the light overcast sky let down a soft, straight-lined rain. Young sunflower leaves channeled the water to a slow drip off their tips.

The rain rinsed the road dust from the plants, intensifying the world of green. The blue-green of chives matched the green of the lilacs. The lighter green of the pine needles–lighter still morning glories gone wild–framed old hostas bordering mossy boards that had fallen from the roof soffit. An old gate attached to its post more by wild grape vines than its rusty hinges began to turn from silver gray to a darker, wet tone. He noticed the old mailbox post surrounded by wild rose bushes and he wanted to put a box there, one with his name on it.

The scent of earth and dead grass, of old boards and green grass clippings rose into the damp air that brought sounds from the great forest close to his ear.

The rain turned to a fine mist, not disturbing the surfaces of shallow puddles. Goldfinches began to fly to the gravel road to fill their crops with tiny stones. Deep blue indigo buntings and wrens flitted into pools to bathe.

Then the rain began again, harder now, hushing all sounds, quieting his mind. He was in contact with a thousand generations of his ancestors. They were in his mind, in pathways that only these sounds and smells and sights awakened. He closed his eyes and as he drifted off to sleep with them, they murmured approvingly. He dreamed of them, the ones who had kept the lineage alive through terrible cold, avalanches, painful hunger, swift currents that pulled them under, wild animals and enemies. They didn’t speak of anger or happiness, of satisfying mates or work. They listened to the rain and drew air into their lungs, air that smelled like this air.

When he awoke the rain had stopped and he realized that he hadn’t eaten all day. So he left his camp and headed for a bar-restaurant he had passed on 64 in the village of Eagle. Fifteen minutes later he walked into the Eagle Eye Saloon. He was greeted by a big man with a handlebar moustache and a toothpick parked in one corner of his mouth. What’ll ya have?

What’s for supper? He looked around the empty bar and saw an archway leading to a small room with three tables, all occupied.

The man laid a simple menu on the bar in front of him. There’s food, but I guess you’d have to sit at the bar.

Bar’s fine. Chicken dinner looks good.

The chicken dinner is good. Pat does chicken like your Aunt Hattie.

Paul laughed, I had an Aunt Hattie.

How was her chicken?

Good. Excellent.

That’s what you’re gonna get, the toothpick switched sides of his mouth, something excellent. Want a beer with that?

Coffee. What’s in that old creamery building across the street?

That’s a sore subject. And, he grimaced, you’re talking to the most biased man on that subject.

Really.

Well, it’s a free country. People can do what they want. But they bought the old creamery, spent a lot remodeling it, making it into a restaurant. This chef fellow and his wife were serving fancy, haute cuisine. So while they’re going absolutely broke, they ruined my business. There isn’t enough business in this area for two places across the highway from each other.

You survived.

Ya. By hanging sheet rock all day and tending bar most nights. Like I said, I’m the wrong guy to ask. I got to hating ‘em. I seldom look at the building any more. It was a kind of a landmark. We used to sneak into it when we were kids.

The dinner came on one large plate. He was right: Pat knew how to fix chicken like Aunt Hattie, maybe better.

The next morning he made an exhaustive examination of the farmstead buildings and grounds. He went to the house and gingerly walked sagging floors strewn with papers, old clothes, and mattresses. In some areas he felt the need to test the integrity of the floor every few steps by stepping heavily while forming a plan to save himself should his foot go through. But it held up. On the second floor the walls were marked with satanic symbols and other graffiti. He felt sorry for the house, defenseless against ignorance and abuse. All of the surfaces were covered by dust except for the old piano. It was clean but terribly out of tune.

The granary was clearly a total loss, but a sort of garage with large crossbuck doors was in good shape and held an old John Deere tractor that was missing one rear wheel. The barn had a main hay barn center with a high peak and on one side there was a small lean-to milking barn for 12 to 15 cows. On the other side of the hay barn was a similar lean-to for horses and calf pens. The roofs of the lean-tos were rotten and that had ruined each of the structures. Paul decided that he could save the center hay barn part. He went through the milking barn, stepping over planks with ugly spikes sticking up. As he poked his head into the concrete silo, pigeons flew out through a hole in the roof with a loud fluttering of wings. Paul tried a few sounds in the echoing chamber. Soon he was Swiss yodeling.

By late Sunday he had made a few short excursions into the forest. Some parts were open and beautiful while others had a combination of prickly ash and blackberry briars that defied traversing without thick jeans or chaps.

On Monday Fran appeared unusually busy in her office and brushed by him hurriedly in the halls. He knew that he had missed another party or task or date. He spent little time trying to remember his commitments. The end of the semester was closing in and there were many loose ends to tie up and grades to line up for final tallying after the last tests and lab reports. Graduating students were beginning to ask for letters of recommendation and employers had phone messages that not-so-subtly asked for information that he was not authorized to give. When an employer asked about a student that he could never, under any circumstances recommend, he would leave a message like: In regard to your interest in Jim Plake, I’m reminded of how we bobbed for apples at our elementary school Halloween party.

Amidst the long hours and tension, there were islands of peace and anticipation as he drew diagrams of the farmstead and ordered a county plat book that would set out the property lines and give him the names and addresses of the neighbors. Before the end of the week he knew that there was no turning back. He called Casey and met with a local banker. Mutual friends had been listening to Fran and tried to counsel him away from the decision he had already made. A marketing student from the Eagle area had somehow heard of his interest in the farm. The Johnson place has a terrible reputation, Mr. Kostner. People went crazy there…

Are you saying that there’s some sort of evil… he began.

Ask the neighbors, she interrupted.

But his buddy Hank quietly encouraged him, "Don’t listen to any of them. They don’t know anything about the subject. They’re city folk, university folk; they never cleaned a barn or cut wood. They buy bonds and hire someone to lay the

Reviews for Corkscrew Ridge

[j4t4thomas · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

this is my favorite type of book to read – take an imperfect hero (or heroine)—none of these cookie-cutter types, thank you very much—and take them out of their element and see what happens. Steven King is great at this, and while “Corkscrew Ridge” by Ron Winter is light years from being a macabre horror story, there were the elements of reaching within one’s self and discovering weaknesses and strengths that were not there before that I enjoy reading about. Sometimes it is hard to transition from one relationship to another, and sometimes we don’t know when to take chances. In this novel, the hero Paul has taken it upon himself to buy a farm that is in serious disrepair. In a way it matches his feelings about life, and he goes about trying to improve both. While this book was not without its faults, and it could probably benefit from a round of proofreading, I’d have to say that I liked it and would read more from this author in the future.

[mark2williams_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting read. The author has a way with words, but sometimes it seemed like he was focusing on the wrong things. He’d wax poetic about the details of the landscape, but I was unsure about important character’s qualities and motivations, or some plot points. There were times that I felt there was too much emphasis on the mundane day-to-day actions of a farm, and wished there could have been more tension or action. But if you are into slower paced novels that are more literary in style, than this is a good book to read. I actually liked it, I just think certain points could’ve been improved upon, and the ending seemed rather rushed and neatly wrapped up for my tastes. Not too bad, but not my favorite, either.

[readergurrl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a lovely story about starting over and learning to love again. It is more about relationships and internal struggles and personal journeys than it is about action and external conflicts. If there was something I wished there could have been more of would be that I didn’t get the full sense of struggle that I’d think someone like Paul would be experiencing on many levels. Things just sort of “happened” then worked themselves out. I’ll say that the writing was very good, however, and the descriptions made me feel like I was right in the story the whole time. Recommend for fans of literary fiction

[bellareadz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this book in one night! I loved the way that Mr. Winter writes and he has a great “voice”. I was pulled into the story right from the beginning and didn’t want to stop reading until it was over. While the premise may not be entirely unique, of new beginnings and connecting with other broken souls, I enjoyed the relationships between all the characters, although I wish that Paul would’ve spent more time with Liz and less with Fran. Also, I would’ve liked to see more interaction with his daughter, but overall this was a nice book and I really enjoyed reading it. Recommend to fans of Nora Roberts, Pat Conroy, and Nicholas Sparks.

[sam_ryan_20 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

4.5 stars...A sweet, heart-warming drama about the power of moving on and learning who you are deep down once all the comforts of our normal world disintegrate away. In “Corkscrew Ridge”, Paul Kostner decides to take on a run-down farm and with the help of new friends along the way, turns it and his life around. To me the best part was how easy to read and how authentic the book felt. I could tell the author really knew his stuff, and it showed. The characters were good, although I felt a few more could have been more fully fleshed out. I do think this author has a lot of potential and I’d definitely be interested in checking out more of his work in the future. There were a few editing glitches—nothing that lessened my enjoyment any, but they were there. Recommend for fans of women’s fiction and dramas.

[clairebearzz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Paul is a teacher at the local tech college when he comes across a farm (the old Johnson place) that he decides to take over and try to save it. I could see this novel being really appealing to people who are really interested in farming and gardening activities, as they are discussed in great detail in this novel, almost at the expense of a plot. Things just sort of unfold along the way, and there really aren’t very many parts where we as a reader become very emotionally invested in the characters or the outcome of events. However, this isn’t entirely bad, as it made for light hearted reading that is perfect for a rainy day indoors. The author manages to write beautiful descriptions that transport the reader to another time and place and plops us right down in an unfamiliar world (at least for this city gal) and exposes us to a different life, yet with characters we can all identify with on some level. Recommend for fans of drama, light romance, and literary fiction.