The Giant Forest - COMPLETED - True to life adventures of preteens.

Destroyer or Savior or Both

Sycamore was more puzzled than he should have been by the train whistle and the light directly in front of him that was quickly growing larger. Still he was disoriented. He started to walk towards the light, singing to himself, "I sees the light!!"

Sycamore came to a bridge that spanned the creek he had crossed previously. Looking over the edge he guessed that he might have been three times his height above the water or a bit more than 15 feet.

Slowly, slowly, he counted the railway ties as he made his way across the bridge. "One, two, three, four, er, ...." he turned his head to look behind and start counting again, "One, two, three, four, five ..." When he paused to look between the ties at the running creek below he would lose count and have to start again.

"CRRAAAAACCCCKKKK!!!"

One of the old railway ties gave way to the big fellow's weight. Sycamore fell through slicing one arm on the tie he just broke through and hitting his other arm at the elbow on the tie in front of him. He had tried unsucessfully to catch himself. The bill of his TOWN ball cap struck a tie, flew off and landed above on one of the rails.

"Kersssplash!"

Sycamore landed with a hard jolt in the creek below, standing upright in water up to his knees.

Rumbling overhead went the train.

"Plink. plunk."

Sycamore's ball cap followed him into the creek, landing nearby ... in two pieces. The train's wheels had cut the ball cap in half. Sycamore picked up each of the two pieces and held them together as if magically they might heal back together. They didn't. He tried to put the ball cap on, but both pieces fell back into the creek and started floating away from him. He scratched his head.

Sycamore tried to free himself from the creek bottom. The water was up to his knees. His feet were nearly buried in the muddy bottom. The challenge was to free himself without losing either of his sneakers. His right foot, with the sneaker still on was eased out without any trouble. When he pulled up with his left foot, his heel started to come out of the shoe. He thought to curl his toes up and pull. His foot came out! Leaving the shoe behind. He reached into the creek to fumble around to find his shoe getting himself wet up to his left shoulder and all of his left side. He found the shoe and pulled it out of the gooey bottom.

With one shoe on and the other in his hand and his complete left side wet as having gone swimming and his right side still dry, Sycamore started sloshing his way toward the bank of the creek. He only made it a couple of steps before the water started getting deeper.

He had waded into water that went up to his waist. He found himself in the deep water section upstream from a dam built by a beaver.

The creek was coming from behind. Standing in the pool of water ahead of him he could see the handiwork of one of the giant forest's smaller creatures. Under his considerable weight, his feet sunk deeper into the mud below the surface. He was now in a pool up to his mid chest. He stood there with his arms raised in the hallelujah position with a shoe in one hand.

"I hopes I don' loose the udder shoe."

As he tried to move toward the bank again he felt the water rush a bit stronger against his back.

"Hmmm... That's funny! A creek that acks like a message chair."

The creek's flow got stronger still.

"Whazzat?" Sycamore asked himself as he heard a large splash near the dam.

He leaned forward, bent over and stared straight ahead, his eyes having adjusted to the darkness.

The current grew stronger.

He leaned forward a bit more until the entire front of his upper body was also in the water and only his head remained out.

Staring back at him were two small eyes! It was a beaver.

Sycamore couldn't speak beaver. Of course, nobody can speak beaver. Even beavers can't speak beaver. But Sycamore could see that something was wrong. The beaver he had stared face to face a moment ago appeared to be frantic. Beavers can't make facial expressions either but Sycamore saw something in the eyes of the beaver looking back at him. The look was one of desperation.

"Yous in trouble, beaver?" Sycamore asked not expecting an answer.

The creek was coming on stronger still as the beaver was mightily holding up his or her (Sycamore couldn't tell) underwater home.

"Lemme help ya. Ars you 'fraid yer dam is gonna break?"

When Sycamore fell into the water, the flow of the creek picked up force where it went around Sycamore and put increased pressure on the unfinished dam causing the dam to begin to crumble.

Sycamore had confidence that he could move any of a few branches to free up the animal easily enough. But as he reached for the largest of the branches the beaver showed Sycamore its teeth.

"Whoa there! I's jus' tryin' to help."

Sycamore reached again. This time he could almost detect a growl.

The animal strained but Sycamore didn't dare reach towards the dam again.

"Wazz goin' on? How can I help?" Sycamore asked the animal as the creek flow picked up strong enough that the dam might give way any moment and send both of them downstream.

Sycamore tossed his shoe to the bank. With both hands free now he put one of each of his two big hangs on two different branches to hold them in place. The water deepened to where Sycamore could no longer see the matching TOWN emblem on his sweatshirt.

The beaver seemed to be right at the point where it was going to lose its battle against the rush of the creek, when unmistakably Sycamore saw two sets of eyes pop up from beneath the surface of the creek. Sycamore raised up on the two branches he was holding every so slightly. Immediately two baby beavers popped up their heads just above the surface and began paddling towards the bank. The mama beaver (Sycamore decided it had to be a mama though he still wasn't sure), let go of its clutch. The dam immediately began to crumble away and started chasing Sycamore's split ball cap down stream.

Sycamore couldn't decide if he were the instigator of the catastrophe that came upon the beaver family or if he were their savior. He stood there unmoved by the run of the creek but in awe of this parent who was willing to risk its own life to save its youngsters. This beaver parent would defy an intruder 10x its size, while standing its ground ... to save its own. What parent wouldn't do that for their children?

"Ah gits it now. You were protectin' your love ones. Even you might lost your own life and havta fight off a big brute like me, you wasn't gonna give in tills they were safe. Ah gits it. I wish my parents did love me that much," Sycamore said wistfully.

The beaver followed its kits to the bank, planted its tail behind and stood up on its hind legs and looked back at Sycamore.

"Don' worries about me. I'm okay," Sycamore said as he waded over to the shore and sat down next to the beaver and his shoe.

"Do you minds if I call you Bob?" He wanted to say Barb, his mom's name, but it sounded more like 'Bob' when Sycamore said it. In any event he had both genders covered by the name he intended to give her or him by the sound he made trying to say it.

Sycamore and Bob sat next to each other while the two little ones scampered over to the shallow pool next to the creek bank and dove in ... to play.

"Wheres we go now?" Sycamore asked nobody in particular while he put his shoe back on.