Thomas Doty – Storyteller

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Too Late for Beavers

By the time the December sun rises over Tryon Creek, it's too late to see beavers. Beavers are dawn and dusk creatures. To watch them glide the slow-flowing creek, I have to be here before the first sun lights the frosty landscape, before joggers and their dogs run the wilderness out of the woods.

I'm too late for beavers. Their tracks pattern the bank of the creek and there are grooves in the mud where they dragged their tails. But December days are short, and beavers are catching what sleep they can in lodges that dam the creek.

Too late for beavers. Now the winter sun, now the joggers, now the last leaves drop through the frosty air.

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