Free Down River by Karen Harper Page A

lots of red ones. But it’s over the gorge, heading west!”
    “Can we wave something? If we only had something for a signal!”
    “It may circle back if they’re searching. If they’ve found evidence we put a kayak in the river, maybe they’ll look below the falls, and that’s where we’re heading—right now. Come on. We’ll sleep when we get back to the lodge. Let’s pick some more blueberries and head out.”
    She helped him gather their goods and stuff themin the tent that made his pack. The drone of the plane faded, but at least it wasn’t dark, and Mitch’s shouting seemed to have made the wolves move on. Now they had to move on, too.

6
    “I t will take us an hour to hike around that lake up ahead!” Lisa cried after they’d walked about two hours. “How did the stream we’ve been following turn into a big body of water?”
    “Beavers dammed it up,” Mitch said. “See them over there?”
    He pointed to a group of them. Each sleek, brown animal looked busy as a—Yes, an apt old adage, she thought. Every beaver she could see in or out of the water was either moving wood or gnawing at it, and their half-submerged, haphazardly piled homes were visible from here, a village of them.
    As they got closer, Lisa saw the mud-and-stick dams were also embedded with rocks and tree trunks. “Amazing,” she said. “And look at their little humped houses.”
    “They’re called lodges. I own one Alaskan lodge, but they own a whole chain of them.”
    The sleek furry heads made little waves through the water as the beavers ferried logs, propelling themselves with their large flat tails. Several of the animals were quite close by, gnawing at trees along the bank of the lake.
    “They’re smooth in the water but clumsy on land,” Lisa whispered, “but then we all have our own habitats.” She thought of herself, a South Floridian, a fish—no, a beaver—out of water here in Alaska. And had she ever actually seen a beaver, even at a zoo? To be so close up, so intimate, was awe-inspiring. She could even see what appeared to be baby beavers, playing atop the dam, chewing leaves and twigs.
    “Do they actually eat wood?” she asked. “It looks like they’re chewing on the sticks for food.”
    “They eat the inner bark layer, something like the way we’ve been chewing on the inner birch bark.”
    Fascinated despite her predicament, Lisa moved a bit closer to the fringe of the pond, until a big beaver, glaring at her, swam closer and smacked its tail, spraying water. The splash resounded, echoed. She expected to see the other beavers scatter, but they didn’t. The defender flaunted his big square front teeth and smacked the water again.
    “Why don’t the others hide if we’re a danger to them?” she asked, despite the fact she could tell Mitch wanted to move on.
    “He wants to scare you away, not warn them. Come on. We’re rocking their boat, so to speak, and we have a long way to go.”
    “This place is starting to remind me of the AnimalPlanet cable channel, but close up and personal,” she said as she turned reluctantly away.
    “You must watch one hell of a lot of TV these days—this last year,” he said, flexing his back muscles. “You’ve mentioned a couple of shows since we’ve been walking, including that Survivor show—though I could see why—and something about that old movie, The Wizard of Oz. Staying home a lot lately?”
    That annoyed her. He was goading her, implying that since he’d left, she had no social life. Even out here, even if it was true, she wasn’t going to let him get away with that.
    “Of course, now that you’re helping others bond and build great relationships,” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm, “you’re too busy and fulfilled to waste your time on such plebian pastimes as television. You’ve probably been using sad illustrations of your own family and former fiancée to contrast how great you are at personal relationships. Everyone in your past has