Читать книгу Beavers and Gardeners - Aivar Lembit - Страница 4

In spring, after the stream had started to rumble, a young beaver family coming from the gullet of Aedoja downstream, settled down in the shade of Tammiku hill. Here the river made its last major turning and then rushed downwards into a small lake swarming with springs.

The travelling beavers Mirt and Märt gazed at the brink surrounding the banks of the stream. The sandy loam shores seemed to be suitable. There were adequate alder brush and willow bushes shooting into the sky.

“We’ll stay here,” Mirt thought being really tired of the journey that had started from Aedoja in the morning, ”we have enough material here and something to nibble at.”

“Wait a second,” Märt calmed her down. ”We didn’t come here for a year or two. There were alders and birches at Aedoja too.”

”Yes, and there were angry gardeners there as well. No such people here, the latest footprints date back five years from now.”

Märt frowned at the thought as always, when he suspected Mirt of acting too hastily. Haste meant nothing good.

”That doesn’t mean anything that they are not here today. We have to investigate it. They are not here today, but may come tomorrow – and then what? On the move again?”

”Damn you and your fears,” Mirt shook her head. “This way we’ll not make it anywhere! Keep travelling all the time! Soon the land will dry up and then – no roof above the head and no place to stay with the cubs to hide away from the otter, any stray dog can sink its teeth into them, not to mention the lynx.”

Märt kept quiet as if he had given in. It was clear that his wife was really serious about the matter. The young about to be born soon needed a home, warmth, food and had to be protected against predators.

“Gardeners are not always the worst ones. Yes, that was terrible what happened at Aedoja, but here everything is totally different, I can feel it!”

”I really want to believe it is so!” Märt agreed. “We’ll stay here; at least now nobody comes here besides stray cats and dogs.”

“You see what I mean; we have to be protected also against them!”

Considered and done; it was time to explore the shores hereby more closely. Snow water had been blocked and beavers felt with their guts that high water was going to retreat within a few days, in some time the turbulent flows would be replaced by tiny brooks.

Märt explored the ground again and was convinced that the hill was made of pure sand. Digging a den and scooping out burrows would be a task of a couple of hours during the night. He was more interested in the ruins made of rotting logs.

Storm-tattered shed-like buildings seemed as if left for elements to be tangled. Mirt had been right, there were no gardeners here, the wind and rain had even dispelled their smell.

The ruins definitely meant that gardeners had lived here and not a very long time ago. The building by the river had a door torn off and Märt swam closer to the dark entrance. The floors of the building were bulging due to moisture and smelt of mud and mould. In the next room Märt found a bench made of alder boards, a rusted tin bowl and a lot of traces of dried birch branches. He had noticed such kind of sheds by gardeners’ dwellings already earlier.

He knew that saunas were places, where gardeners liked to smell birch branches in the hot steam after which they poured cold water on them and then jumped straight into the river with a horrible scream. Märt was not surprised by these crazy tricks any more. Gardeners were really a little bit out of their mind, weird and it was good there was no sign of them over there.

It actually did not mean anything that this place was neglected now! Märt sensed the invisible danger still hanging in the air. Once some kind of gardeners had lived there, new ones may come there any time. A new war may break out again; old fears that had haunted them at Aedoja may come back again.

Märt left the shed-like cottage and looked at the brink of the hill. On the background of the dark night the contour of a log house covered with plaster partly fallen off at places, the moss-covered roof and a chimney reaching out of the roof could be seen.

Life had taught Märt that it was wise to keep away from such silhouettes. Such a house was used by gardeners for sleeping and the distance of the dwelling from the protective river was too far to hide fast in case of danger. Because of that Märt finished his exploration in the settlement of former gardeners and headed back to Mirt, who was impatiently waiting for him on the other bank of the river.

”Everything OK?” she glanced towards him questioningly.

Märt shrugged to let her know about his sceptical attitude to the place chosen by her.

“Gardeners,” he muttered.

”Where?” Mirt shouted with surprise. “There was nobody there!”

”But they’ll come. You can be quite sure of it!”

“Oh!” Mirt gestured and by that the decision was made.

Being succumbed Märt went to explore the side of the hill, where the streams of the river merged. As predicted, the water level had decreased half an ell. Spring voices were approaching and the arrived ouzels were after wading worms on the surface of the ground. Now it had started and one had to be careful not to miss the moment when the water level was the lowest and the slope nicely loose for digging a den.

Märt shuddered a little when the wind carried the sound of dogs’ barking from afar. Fortunately, the sound did not come any closers. It was evidently a gardener walking his dog in the forest. Märt thought he had heard the squeak of a leather belt pulled tighter coming through the bushes on the brink of the hill. It was a pleasant sound to his ears. The creature as big as an Alsatian was not allowed to leave the master’s side. Gradually the steps and the dog’s panting moved farther away and Märt could breathe with relief.

He remembered too well the feverish days at home in Aedoja in March, when two beagles came panting and entered their underground lodge corridors. They were not alone. Beagles were too eager for that and they always moved together with gardeners. It was the case also this time. Märt was ready to take poison that somewhere behind the bushes two men were standing with guns and were aiming at the entrance of the lodge through which the yelping dogs had invaded the beavers’ den. On that day the yelping of dogs meant that Märt’s happy childhood had just come to an end.

“Go this way, they won’t follow you from here,” old Kart pointed upwards towards the secret passage dug in between roots, covered with a pile of branches on top.

To tell the truth, Märt had been afraid of that. He glanced at the parents, who had frozen at the spot with determined faces and did not say a word. Kart and Kärt had to see that he was ready to stay with them and fight till the end if it was going to be that way.

“Go, go, you are still young, everything is just in front of you and it’s time to start your own life. This lodge has been our home and we have grown old here. We do not intend to leave all our memories gathered here and move away because of the stupid gardeners.”

Märt knew that his parents had been right, their life was there. It was hopeless to convince them. They had not dug an emergency exit from the lodge to the ground because of that.

Beagles’ yelping and the muffled thuds of approaching steps came closer, he knew that a ruthless fight for life was about to start, and if not for life then for honour and respectability, and for the last time he looked back at the ones who intended to stay, and giving in to Kart’s last wordless gesture, started his unbearably difficult journey. It took him a moment to get out of the tunnel and hide himself under the thicket through which he could see blinding rays of light. It was daytime outside.

As he had expected, two gardeners with guns pointing at the entrance of the lodge were standing on the other side. The habitat of eager beavers had somehow happened to be in their way. Märt remained there in order to be the last witness to see what was going to happen at the entrance of the beavers’ lodge.

First nothing else but the yelping of dogs and the weak barking from the lodge could be heard. Contrary to the gardener’s expectations no one came out of the lodge.

Then one could hear the whining of beagles, but not the screaming of beavers, and a dachshund covered with blood crawled out with his hind legs in front towards his master.

“Oh, shit!” one gardener spat angrily and lowered the gun. “Beavers have bitten them, Tuks has no nose anymore and your Pontu’s head has been bitten off, it hasn’t come back!”

“Let me see!” the second gardener reached towards the entrance of the lodge.

”Pontu! Pontu! Pontu!” he called mournfully, but in answer he could hear only the whistling of the sly March wind in his ears.

“Don’t put your hand in the lodge; they’ll bite your fingers off! You know which kind of teeth they have? As sharp as a chisel.”

“Yep!” Pontu’s master scratched his head. ”Seems that we’ve lost our dogs. There is nothing else to do than to throw a dynamite stick in and blow the whole lot up!”

An ear-splitting explosion shook the forest and formed an unmarked grave for beavers, who had remained there because they had felt too old to start their life anew in some other place.

“That’s all for now!” two gardeners sighed with relief. It seemed that they were satisfied with the results of their day’s work. The dachshund with the torn head, which seemed no good for hunting any more, was executed on site by a gun shot. If Pontu had managed to survive despite the beaver’s teeth, it evidently perished together with the beaver family and was buried in the deep lodge, which the explosion had turned into a joint burial chamber for them all.

”Now I have seen which kind of creatures they are – these gardeners, they have no mercy even when their own kind has become useless!” Märt thought with mixed feelings of pain and bitterness.

He waited for a while until the gardeners had gone away and got on the move himself. There was nothing to be done there: he knew that this site was his parents’ grave – he had to put up with that, they had lived there and now it was their last resting place. Märt did not want to spoil the peace of this burial site. His duty was to find himself and Mirt, who was in a family way, a new and better place, build a lodge, found a castle that would protect them against both – the other creatures and the gardeners, who liked to hunt them.

He had seen this last wish in the eyes of old Kart, who had sent him to the secret passage. That was why he became anxious every time he heard the sound of moving dogs and gardeners walking them in the forest. That was why he was worried, when he saw gardeners’ footprints near the deserted dwellings opposite the river bend that had been chosen for the new lodge. The history of beavers and gardeners had been a history of battles and he wanted his home last more than one winter, so that it would be a place, where he, Mirt and the cubs could live peacefully ever after until the end of their days without being afraid of beagles.

The spring weather became warmer and warmer and the water level in the river dropped by a couple of feet. It was not possible to wait longer; Mirt had been strangely withdrawn for the last couple of days. Märt started to dig. The surface consisted of sand and had become soft thanks to the melting snow and the work advanced faster than expected. By the end of the day the entrance into the lodge and the den were ready, but Märt dug a narrow passage from the back of the lodge into the willow thicket, covered it carefully with pieces of moss and rotting timber lying around in big quantities. While preparing this escape route he still heard the approaching yelping of the beagles in his ears, from which he had had to escape already once before, when he had to leave his home behind.

After lining the living chamber in the den, he could invite Mirt in. It was high time. A week later they were not alone in the lodge any more. Two beaver cubs called Karu and Maru - named after the way the surrounding environment had welcomed them on the first day of their arrival.

”Strong and slow like a bear,” said Mirt, following the movements of the first-born cub and that was how the name got stuck to him. His brother on the contrary was boisterous and impatient and tended to fight for every tiny piece of food that had to be divided evenly.

”Restless like a fireball,” said Mirt, but Märt shook his head and did not agree. “That is too long, how are we going to call him? Let’s call him Maru - it’s shorter, and easier to say for us and also for him.”

Days went by and the dropping water level at the entrance of the lodge reminded Märt and Mirt and their fast-growing cubs that it was time to start thinking about how to dam up the stream and prepare the dam site. The entrance into the lodge was a tunnel by which stray otters could easily come in and attack the tiny cubs.

During the first days Märt piled up mud in the narrow part of the river bed and stamped it into a solid bank on the bottom of the river. The water level in the stream started to rise higher and the entrance into the lodge became flooded with muddy sediment water. By the entrance Märt dug a hollow at the bottom of the river to have adequate depth for diving into and coming out of the den.

The corridor leading into the living-room in the lodge ascended in the ground, so it was possible to keep it dry when hustling and bustling and making preparations for nocturnal activities. Märt did not touch the emergency exit that opened on the brink of the hill, being afraid to draw attention or leave any scent for unfriendly creatures to trace.

During the next couple of weeks no rain fell, the days were unpleasantly dry, the water level in the river dropped and the entrance into the lodge above the water level could be exposed. Märt understood that covering the river bottom was not enough.

”It’s time to dam up the stream,” he informed Mirt calmly but seriously.

Mirt nodded without saying anything, ”I’ll come with you.”

They both were aware of the danger building a dam could bring along: the dammed up river started to rise by every day, it would flood the forest floors and the gardeners’ fields and the thick blood running in the gardeners’ veins would make them come and destroy the dams built by beavers.

“Yes,” Märt thought. ”It would be good if it were their only problem!” They had never been afraid of construction work, not to mention building dams. Gardeners could not compete with them and this challenge made them sneer and chuckle cheerfully.

”Let’s take some bigger sticks first,” he told Mirt. ”Let’s place them against the flow and wait until they gather mud and other debris in between them.”

Both of them took a proper tree trunk and swam to the narrowest place in the river prepared for the dam.

Mirt placed the root of the bush she had been carrying by the one carried by Märt, adjusted the branches a little to join them better, stuck her head out of the water and suddenly noticed two one-metre-tall gardener brats standing at the distance of about five metres. They also spotted Mirt and became speechless like her. For a short moment they stared at each other with wide open eyes in silence, then Mirt dived and hit the water with a light slap by her tail and with a couple of strokes caught up with Märt moving in front.

“There are children by the river, two small kids,” she said in a hurry, when he questionably looked at her.

“Kids?” Märt repeated in surprise. “And small? Are you sure that they are alone?”

“Yes,” Mirt said, ”two little kids, a boy and a girl, and nobody else was seen!”

“Wait!” Märt said, ”I’ll go and have a look. It is somehow funny! Small children don’t move around alone!”

Mirt hurried back to the tiny cubs left alone. Her heart had started to pound faster without noticing. But Karu and Maru were fast asleep, happy with their stomachs full and Mirt calmed down after having seen them.

But Märt came back with more anxious tones in his story.

“Nothing good!” he shook his head. ”It is what I was just afraid of. They are not simply just small kids and they are not alone at all. At this age children never go around all by themselves, not to mention that the place is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by marsh and forests.”

“Who are they then if not children? Do you think we should be afraid of these tiny people?”

Märt could not but grunt knowingly, “They are not small children but young gardeners. They have not come here alone, big gardeners are together with them. I could clearly smell them and heard their voices echoing by the ruins of the deserted dwelling.”

Mirt dried her wet hair. It could be seen that the discussion did not make her happy at all and tried to ward off fears imposed on Märt.

”Maybe I don’t exactly know what happened at Aedoja. When we were living at Varsaniidu, we didn’t have such rows with gardeners, there’s no need to be afraid of the worst. Kids are kids, I didn’t see any hostile faces, their eyes were kind and they curiously looked around, nothing else.”

“I have been to Varsaniidu, the gardeners didn’t have such fields there as you can see here upstream. When they puny potatoes and carrots remain under water due to the rising water level, they will start blaming beavers and look for their dams, this is the way it is and we can do nothing about it!” explained Märt wisely.

“But every child grows up and becomes a gardener one day,” he added after taking a short break, “and nothing good may be expected from the gardeners, otherwise they wouldn’t be gardeners!”

In response to the story Mirt sullenly scratch her hair that had become wet after diving and worriedly looked at the beaver cubs tossing in their deep sleep.

They were too small to know anything about the surrounding world and the hazards threatening them on behalf of the grown-up gardeners.