Busy as a Beaver

Chapter 20

As soon as we got back to Willow Bay, Jason dropped off Sophie at home, then turned to me.

“Where do you want me to drop you off?”

“Just in the park is good,” I replied. As soon as Jason stopped in the parking lot, he looked around.

“It’s getting late. I’m coming with you.”

“Ok, but I hope you’re not wearing a jacket you actually care about.”

“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” Jason grumbled a few minutes later as he pulled a twig away from his face. “How on earth did someone get here to attack your beavers?”

“They came from the residential side.”

“Why didn’t we come from the residential side?”

“That involves trespassing.”

“Oh, like that’s ever stopped you.”

I made a rude gesture as we kept going, eventually reaching the clearing where the beavers had set up their lodge and dam.

“Stay back a bit,” I told him. “Beavers aren’t super trusting animals, they might not come out if they see you until I’ve introduced you.”

“Alright,” Jason said, moving towards the trees. I turned to him and laughed.

“Are you afraid of the beavers?”

“They have really big teeth, ok?” Jason half-whispered, and I giggled.

“They’re not going to hurt you.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“You grew up in New York City the son of some major gangster. How on earth are you afraid of beavers?”

“We don’t have a lot of wildlife, ok? And the raccoons that live in the city would eat you if they got the opportunity. I figure beavers are the same.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I laughed as I made my way towards the lodge. Instead of going straight there, however, I made my way past the lodge and towards the dam at the far end of where the beavers had been building. I could just see the pipes that had been set up by the man I’d been connected with by my friend at Wildlife Services.

Because the owner of the property had refused to help, it had made the work a little bit more difficult for the wildlife worker, but it had gotten done.

The pipes were a relatively new system used to redirect troublesome flows caused by beavers. Although this wasn’t exactly a majorly disruptive beaver flow, I figured it was the best work-around to both keep the beavers safe and stop the owner of that property from continually coming to attack them. Thanks to the work-around, the pipes allowed water to flow more naturally until it reached the area before the dam, at which point the water accumulated once again. This resulted in both parties being happy: the beavers had all the water they needed to keep the entrance to their lodges underwater, and the creek was back to its normal level behind the houses.

“Hey, is anyone there?” I called out, and a few seconds later, Naba came waddling out.

“Hello, human. Has our problem been solved?”

“I think so.” I nodded. “It turned out it was the human who lives four houses up the creek. He was upset because your dam caused the water level on his property to rise, but I got a man to come in and do some work with pipes, and now everyone should be happy.”

“Oh, good. Thank you so much,” Naba said. “I can’t believe he was that upset. We were just trying to live here.”

“Yeah, I think he overreacted, personally.” I glanced over at Jason, wondering if I should introduce him, but he still seemed hesitant to come over and actually meet a beaver. Big city people were weird.

“We are used to humans not being kind to us, sadly,” Naba said. “It was nice of you to stick up for us.”

“Not a problem,” I replied with a smile. “I’m going to keep the cameras and the spell going until I’ve had a chance to speak with the guy, just in case.”

“Alright. Thank you again. The fourth house up, you said?”

“That’s right.” I nodded.

I said goodbye to Naba and made my way back to Jason.

“Come on. Let’s go back home.”

The next morning, before the vet clinic opened for the morning, I made my way back to the house where the owner who hated the beavers lived. I wanted to let him know that he wasn’t going to have any more issues with the water levels.

As I walked up the street, however, something seemed a little bit off. Was that a tree that had fallen over? I stopped, my mouth gaping open at what I saw. That shining sports car that had been sitting on the road in front of the house I was going to had been completely destroyed. The large tree in the front yard had mysteriously fallen directly on top of it.

And going by the teeth marks in the trunk, I knew exactly what had done it.

It looked like the beavers weren’t going to take the destruction of their property sitting down.

Great. If the guy came out and saw his car looking like that, and with beaver marks all over the tree that had taken it down, things were not going to end well for that little colony. I looked around carefully to make sure no one was peeking through the windows watching me, then pointed at the base of the tree.

“Fulgur percutiensroa,” I muttered. A bolt of lightning sprung from the tip of my finger and landed right at the base of the tree, where the beavers had broken it. Now, instead of it being obvious that the beavers had destroyed the car, it looked like an errant strike of lightning had hit the base of the tree instead.

Sure, it wasn’t super likely, and lightning didn’t exactly work that way, but no one would be able to argue that was what had happened. Not unless they believed in magic, that was.

Making my way up to the front door, I paused for a split second, and then knocked. I was met with a scowl from that same man a few minutes later.

“What do you want?”

“I just wanted to let you know that I had the man who works with the Wildlife Service re-route the creek further down, so it should be back to normal for you all the same.”

“Good.” The man scowled.

“Are you going to leave the beavers alone now?”

“So long as they don’t mess with my property,” the man muttered.

“Good. And if you do have any issues with them, come to me first,” I said. “I take the safety of the wildlife in this town very seriously, and believe me, if I find out that anything has happened to these beavers, I will make sure you’re punished.”

The man’s scowl grew. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll leave the dumb things alone, as long as that thing you did to keep the water level down worked.”

Good. That was the promise I wanted.

“Thank you,” I replied. “Now, when I came up here, I couldn’t help but notice…is that your car parked out front?”

“The Mustang? Yeah, that’s mine,” the man said. “Been working on her for ages.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say, but mother nature wasn’t a fan,” I said to him, motioning towards the car.

“What the—” the man cried out as he noticed the damage, rushing out past me in his bare feet. “Oh God, what happened?”

“It looks like a lightning strike,” I said with a shrug.

“Freaking mother nature,” the guy said, pacing around his car. He reached out to stroke the destroyed paneled siding.

“It was insured, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, but insurance doesn’t cover how much I loved this car,” he replied.

“Sorry,” I said awkwardly, heading off. I couldn’t help but think that he definitely deserved what he got, though. He tried to mess with the beavers’ home, so they messed with him. At least it sounded like the beavers could live in peace now.