Not Observing Beavers

Not Observing Beavers

         by Duog Riener the Cross

Babbitt the beaver plied his way through the waters off Margaret's Point and took in a strange sight ashore. He saw two men squatting before a strange contraption whacking each other on the back and leaping up and down. Babbitt slapped his tail and the gunshot of it made the men dive for the granite, arms over their heads. When they got up again they looked at Babbit and pulled their guns and fired shot after shot at where he swam. The spurts of water about him made him swim under the surface where they could not see him. Then he rose closer to them where they did not expect him and slapped his tail again and dived and found a spot to hide where he could watch unobserved. They fired randomly into the water here and there two dozen times and then went back to work.

        They took wire beside them and leading into the bush. They bared the ends of the two leads. Then they attached these to the box before them. Babbott watched closely. When they had done this, they reached each of them into his pocket for some wad of some sort to stick into their ears. Then they looked at each other and held thumbs up in the air for a moment, dancing a little, nodding, smiling and generally giving all the signs of affirmation and agreement. Then they crouched before their "thing" and put their hands together on the little cross above it. Not to be nitpicky about the whole mechanism, Babbitt thought, but these two are imbeciles, as complicated as they make a little thing. Why all the exuberance? Before he could think again, the men looked into the forest, nodded once more, and plunged their hands downward, at the same time falling flat on the rock before them.

        A second passed and then a roar to beat the drums of Hades split the known world and orange and yellow light as of three suns blazing filled the bay. Babbitt slapped his tail three times and dove down very deeply indeed into the sound.

        The men, now while Babbitt was not looking, rushed from their spot into the woods and began to search for a safe way over the fallen stone and jagged rock, product of the dynamite blast. When they got to where the sticks had been shoved into a crevice between two huge slabs of granite, what they saw made them hold each other and dance and jump and shout. There before them gaping a crater stood where a tree had once been. A crater six feet wide and seven deep. They leapt inside and began to inspect the rubble. They then shouted again with enough noise for babbitt to rise and tentatively glance about him once before slapping and disappearing anew.

        Gold! They had lots of it! And a whole vein of gold showed where the deep hole was clear to the bottom. Yellow, six inches wide, disappearing north into the hardpack. Quartz white, gold yellow, disappeared into the great pink granite as neatly as Babbitt disappeared into the water. From a distance the two heard insane slapping of tail on water. They stopped, paid it a second's heed, and returned their attention to the new wealth. No one must ever know of this place. No one must never be told. They would have to cart out enough only that they could walk unnoticed about town and city. They could not fill their knapsacks and pockets with it till they bent under the load, for then, surely, someone would ask them what they carried, or a policeman would force them to empty their pockets, and he would see the twenty-four karat rock and know. No, they must forever be discreet and bring out only as much at one time as they could do without suspicion. Could they carry out this act of will? Could they believe in themselves for the long-haul, or would they begin to think, when they were rich and drove big cars, that they were being nitpicky and tell a lover, or a wife, or a friend about some aspect of it? Gold rushes were caused by the smallest hint. The smaller the hint the bigger the goldrush. Tell one person, an invalid, or a person even with eyes set narrow in his face, or one with eyes set too widely there, and men and women would begin to follow them wherever they would go. Canoes would swoop down on them as they canoed. Men with revolvers would suddenly appear out of the gorse as they hiked home and shoot at them if they didn't tell. No, they must keep the secret. In the next installment I will tell you how they proceeded, and what near misses they encountered, and caused both by foolishness and by accident, too.