The Secret of Me, the Tree, and the Beady-Eyed Whatever

My belly collided with something hard. The thing squirmed, scaring the peacefulness right out of me and sending me into a fit of thrashing. My head shot up and out of the water as I gasped and spit and flailed my arms, but whatever I’d bumped into was no longer beneath me. It took only a couple of blinks for me to realize it wasn’t gone, it had just relocated. There, just before me, staring in its spooky, mesmerizing, don’t-you-wish-you-knew-what-I-was-thinking, kind of way, was that sneaky beaver.

We were eyeball to eyeball, both of our faces partially submerged, and if I’d had the energy to laugh I would have caterwauled at the top of my lungs. Someday they were going to find my frozen, drowned body, and when they did, my nose would be missing, bitten off by a begrudged beaver taking his revenge for the loss of his wooden prize. Somehow that just seemed awfully funny. But revenge wasn’t what the creature had on his mind, and to this day, some sixty-five years later, the telling of what happened next sounds like a whopper of a fish tale even to me.

Flipping over, the beaver swat his big, scaly tail at me, swam away, then came back and did it again. I didn’t know what squirrelly games he was playing, but at that point I was past the point of caring. It wasn’t until he all but slapped my face with his wriggling posterior that I finally got it.

Gingerly, I reached out and grabbed that meaty tail and held on. He gave me a look that I swear said, “Finally, stupid human!” then he kicked off toward shore, his ebony webbed feet paddling for all they were worth. That beaver never veered off course even once as he towed me toward the riverbank, his swimming prowess strong enough for the both of us.

There was a cacophony of sound on shore, and my muddled mind thought I heard my dad screaming my name. Waterlogged and lifeless, I struggled to push my head further above the water and stare at the riverbank. Glory be, it wasn’t imagination. Beaver and I were headed straight for a swarming, squalling mass of aunts and uncles, police, firemen, and a goodly portion of neighbors. I would later learn that a fisherman had witnessed the river swallow me up and had sounded the alarm. Apparently, he’d also spread the panic. People were falling all over each other trying to do something, even if it accomplished nothing.

Just then the river rescue boat came into view behind me, its searchlight making sparkling polka dots on the late afternoon water. The thumping roar of the outboard motor warred with all the clamoring on shore until it was nigh on impossible to distinguish a single sound.

Still too far out to be saved by landlocked helping hands, yet in water too riddled with roots and river debris for the boat to reach us, Mr. Beaver pulled up, turned and looked me in the eye. His giant teeth chattered some kind of beaver alarm, and I could tell the commotion was spooking him. He bristled, yet he didn’t flee. Sandwiched between the deafening screams of the land brigade and the smelly rumbles of the idling boat, we hung there, bedraggled and breathless, giving each other the eye.

Huge splashes erupted as several men jumped into the river somewhere below me, and in short order they strung a long rope between the rescue boat and the shore. Clinging to the lifeline every few feet, the floating men constructed a human dam to stop my southward drift. The current would deliver Mr. Beaver and me to the waiting men in no time. Still the creature stayed, wanting to go, but for reasons I will never understand, holding steady instead. His beady eyes never left me.

Somewhere I found the strength to let go of his thick battering ram of a tail and hold myself aloft in the water.

“Go, Mr. Beaver,” I whispered. “Go! Go!”

Someone might get the wrong idea, and I didn’t want him shot. I’d seen the hunter’s rifles cradled in the arms of several would-be rescuers, and I knew some might think him a threat, or, the makings of a fine hat.

“Go!” I shouted as loudly as my raw throat would permit, but there was no need. With one last flick of his tail, Mr. Beaver dove deep and left the rescue.

Though what happened next was as much a blur as not, I’ll never forget looking up into Uncle Martin’s eyes and seeing tears bubbling there. Wrapped in a dozen blankets, my face barely exposed enough to see anything at all, I watched him weep as he carried me through the woods to a waiting ambulance. My mom and dad flanked us on either side, alternately thanking God and reassuring me that I would be as right as rain in no time. I didn’t mean to ignore them, but I just couldn’t get past being in the arms of a soaked-to-the-skin, tearful, “damned kids belong in the kitchen”, Uncle Martin.

“Ma’am….Ma’am…”

. . .Oh, sir, hold on now, let me tell you what happened next. You see, I spent a few days in the hospital, for I guess my scrawny body was a bit colder than even I knew, and the longer I was there, the more frustrated I got. It was terrible. I couldn’t get a single body to believe me about that beaver. Isn’t that something? You believe me, don’t you? What’s not to believe? He was as real as that gun on your hip, he was. . .

“Ma’am…please! I told you, I just need to see your driver’s license and your car’s registration.” The vexed cop shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, his worn patience and his desire not to bully the old lady warring in his head. He’d been trying to get a word in edgewise for longer than he cared to admit, and he was sorely regretting pulling her over at all. But short of employing his weapon, he was at a loss of how to get her to stop talking.

. . .And then when I got out of the hospital, I was dead set on getting back to that river and finding my furry friend. Adults all around me had other ideas, but I was determined. That beaver saved my life, and I was going to make plenty sure he was well fed and happy. I owed him. Mr. Beaver was my hero. I….

“Okay, okay, Ma’am, you know what? I’ve got to go. You just drive a little slower next time, okay? I don’t want to have to stop you again. . . believe me.” The officer tucked his citation book into a pocket and back-stepped his way to his cruiser as fast as he could motivate in reverse. As he drove past her seconds later, he shook his head and congratulated himself on his escape. With the staggering number of words spilling from her mouth, her fairy tale could have gone on long past the last hour of his shift, and no ticket was worth that. In his rear view mirror he saw her wave vigorously at him as if he’d just departed from a tea party instead of a “pull-over, you’ve broken the law” traffic stop, and he wondered if she knew how lucky she was that he was such a nice guy to let her off the hook. What he didn’t see was the broad grin that stretched across the old lady’s face as she started her car and pulled back onto the road. And what he didn’t hear, but he surely should have, was the tale’s ending that she continued to tell even though he was no longer listening.

. . .And, that, Mr. Policeman, is the secret I learned in the late fall of ’32. You see, if you mess up, you merely provide a bigger, better diversion to occupy the thoughts and attentions of those who might have a bone to pick with you, and they’ll never bring it up again. That’s what happened to me. That pea escapade was never even mentioned once I took a trip down the mighty Mississippi with a beady-eyed beaver. Imagine that. Yes, it’s a right handy secret. And you know what? It still works as well today as it did in ’32. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Policeman?