Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 21:01:49 -0800 From: Charlie Ford Subject: The Great Beaver Hunt When I was a teenager growing up in south Georgia my summers were filled with boredom and excitement. The hot and thick air could be seen as it floated past your face, usually accompanied by the swarms of mosquitoes that thrived in the climate. Robert Drawdy, one of my best friends and crony's in youthful crime and adventure, shared many of those summers with me. Our families attended the same church, he, his brother Ken, and myself attended the same school, and because of that we were colleagues in the search for ways to fill our days with excitement. Robert and I were best friends. Robert was a large young man. He wieghed in at about 250 at that point in life, and being a teenage young man of about 16, that made him a whopper of a fellow. He spoke with a slow southern drawl that could only be compared to cold syrup rolling down a snow covered mountain which we had none of in south Georgia. His flat top haircut, the norm for that time in life, was cut to perfection. You could look across the top of his head and it appeared to be a plain of hair so solid, that if it had been stiff enough, you could have rolled a cue ball from front to back with no interference. Robert was my buddy, my cohort, my friend. There was not much we didn't do together in those days. Nor much we would not do for one another. I think of him often now that adulthood has made its responsiblities known in my life. I long for those carefree times of fun, adventure, and irresponsibility. I, in my own right carried some sizable proportions. I wieghed in back thena t about 250 but was a few inches taller than Robert so I appeared a bit slimmer and trim than he. On both our minds was the question of how to make money. we needed it for things like gas, and girlfreinds, and that occasional visit to the bootlegger who was named Willie B and lived across the Olcmuggee river in Lumber City, Georgia. One of my favorite memories of Robert and I is "The Great Beaver Hunt". My grandfather was a County Commissioner in the county we lived in. The major industry then, as it is now was Hazehurst Mills, a division of Amoco Fabrics and Fibers. The 'mill" as we called it made carpet backing. In fact they produced 80% of all of the carpet backing on the market back then. The industry waste water was channeled out through a series of ditches that ran out of town and into a swamp area just south of town. Over the years beavers had dammed up a the creek that ran through the swamp and the county commissioners decided to contract with someone to destroy those dams and kill the beavers off so that the ditch could run as freely as possible. Robert and I decided that we would take a shot at alleviating the problem and in the process make us some spending money. We spoke with my Grandfather about our grand entrprenuerial idea and he agreed that it would be a good thing for us to give it a try. Robert and I were extatic with the fact that we had been given the OK to be the beaver dam destruction contractors. Little did we know that the task would require an amount of work worthy of many men, and much machinery. We had been offered a bounty of $35.00 on each beaver we killed and brought out. On top of that Robert and I felt that we could also skin each beaver and sell the hides on the open market. Niether of us knew whether there was an open market or not, we just sort of figured there was and when the time came, we would find it, thereby selling the hides and striking it richer than we could dream. On a balmy day in late July Robert and I suited up. We dressed in our finest hunting gear, which was a part of the wardrobe of every south Georgia kid that ever grew up. We slipped on our briar britches so that the thicket of the south Georgia forest would not shred our legs as we trampst through. We covered our upper bodies with camel brown shirts and jackets much to thick for the time of year. We loaded our 12 gauge shotguns with buckshot so that whatever we shot at would be sure to die and immediate death. It was imperative to bring out each marsupial body so that we could collect our reward of $35.00 for each of the drain stopping, buck tooth varmits. We donned our hunting caps also made of thick cotton material. We fotted ourselves with the heaviest socks and boots we could find in our closets. We cinched the laces tight in anticipation of solshing through the swamp. We looked like two Rambo's when we walked out the front door of my Grandmothers house, serious looks of determination led our psychy. No one stood in our way, no one dared. I have always said that there is nothing more dangerous in southern Georgia than a redneck with a badge and a gun. On this day the two most dangerous and determined men were Robert and myself. We walked toward my 1963 Buick le sabre with fire in our eyes, and ruthless slaughter on our brains. We were on an important mission that in our minds would save the mill from total and complete ruin, thereby saving our town in the process. The Buick Le Sabre was given too me by my Grandmother. She had purchased it in 1963 when she decided at the age of 58 that she wanted to learn to drive. She had been dependent on my Grandfather and he scared her with his vehice piloting abilities. My grandmother was the ultimate backseat driver. After losing patience with Grandaddy and almost killing three or four people, my Grandmother decided that it wasn't in her best interest to drive, so she passed the car on to me. Of course it was ten years old when I took control of the ocean going vessel, but it only had 27,000 miles on it at the time. By the time The Great Beaver Hunt got underway the car had many more miles on it, and was not as elagant as it was when my grandma owned, or should I say, had possession of it. She still owned it. On this day that car became our comand vehicle. I sat in the drivers seat and steered us toward the general area of the swamp. Robert sat in the passenger seat and scoped out our route like any good navigator would. Niether of us spoke except to discuss the mission at hand. Finally we pulled onto the Bell Telephone Road, the road that paralelled the swamp that housed the beavers in question. The Buick didn't have air conditioning so we were sweating by the time we arrived. Sweat in the southern Georgia summer is as natural as mosquitoes, it didn't daunt us at all. Robert and I assessed the area and decided on our point of insertion. We pulled our car into the driveway of Big Jim McLoon and blew the horn. Big Jim had a big dog that could be quite viscious named Brutus and as dangerous as we were, we were no where near as dangerous as Brutus. Big Jim's wife came to the door and yelled out to the car, asking "Yes, can I help you?" Robert and I disembarked the war Buick and walked toward the house. Brutus stood at bay awaiting the comand from his owner. he wanted to bite our legs so badly he could taste it. he sared not do that though when the boss, Mrs. McLoon was in charge, and he would surely have been beaten for insubordination if he would have charged wiithout permission from the hand that fed him. We explained to Mrs McLoon what our mission was and asked permission to leave the comand vehicle in her yard. She said that it would be no problem, and smiled sort of snidely as we walked back to the Buick to discard our keys, wallets and such. We just left them laying in the front seat with the windows down, hazlehurst had maybe one crime per year back then and that one was a misdermeanor so we were not worried about thieves at all. It is not so innocent anymore, these days people lock everything. It was early afternoon and hot, I remember if Mrs. McLoon knew something we didn't. the smirk on her face when we told her of our mission bothered me. Did she raise killer beavers in her house?, Was she going to send Brutus in to chew our legs off after we entered the swamp? The mystery was played on my teenage mind like debt does these days, oh the innocence of youth. Brutus was even smiling as we walked toward the woods clad in all our battle gear, he knew something too. Robert and I walked through the McLoon's backyard, around the edge of the vegetable garden and up to the edge of the woods that bordered the wetlands. We held our shotguns on our shoulders as any good soldier would do. Mine being an old 12 guage automatic my Grandaddy had given me, Robert sporting a brand spanking new Remington 1100 automatic that shined in the summer sun like a new penny. He had saved most of the summer to buy the gun. We stood at the woods line and assessed our alternatives of entry. The darkness was eery as we peered into the war zone to be. The mosquitoes hummed in the twilight created by the over hanging trees. We spke quietly as we stood there. I am not sure if we did this because we didn't want the beavers too hear us, or the mosquitoes, either way, our mission was about to unfold. We walked along the line and finally found an entrance point. An animal trail, probably we assumed, left by one of the dam building culprits offered us a place to insert without making much noise. We entered. As I led the way, Robert walked behind. I remember imagining that this is how it must feel to be in Vietnam. Soldiers walking in a line looking ahead as far as they could so as to see the enemy before the enemy saw them. I readied my weapon for action by bringing it down off my shoulder and dropping it into a forward point position, Robert followed suit. Suddenly we heard a noise in the distance. About thirty clicks out and to the right we heard water splash with a violent rage. Our senses hieghtened. Robert nor I spoke after the noise. Instead we lloked at each other and used hand signs to direct our next path through the wilds of the south Georgia woods. Actually we were only 15 feet or so into the edge, but it felt as if we were deep in the jungles. I picked up another trail and moved along. Robert flaired out to my left and as silently as possible we moved across the area toward the location of the splash. If I stopped, Robert would stop, when Robert continued on his path, I continued on mine. The leaves below our feet had been saturated by some cooling summer showers the day before, so moving in silence was not that difficult. Easy and easier we moved along through the dense brush that grew on the floor of the forest. The pines that stood tall around us were silent except for that occasional slow breeze that would make them whisper in a hissing sort of tone. The breeze cound not reach us and now sweat poured more freely from our brow. I am not sure if the perspiration was caused by the tension, or the fact that the woods blocked the breeze. Most likely it was a little of both. Finally we were within 20 feet of where we had heard the splash that had so excited our minds. I sunk down into a squat, Robert did the same. I peered slowly and ever so quietly over the edge of a mound of dirt left from the dredging of the creek a couple of years prior to this summer. The water still rippled from the disturbance we had heard. I pointed over into the pool and Robert eased into position so that he could also view the area in question. Nothing was there except for the ripples. We stood completely still for a few moments hoping the varmit would once again come and show his face to us. A mosquitoe sung its shrill sound as I squatted there on one knee. He was landing so instead of using my hand to swat him, I used my breath to blow him away from my face. Robert was the first to break the silence. He whispered over too me "Charles, I think he is gone on down stream". I said, "I think he swam upstream, look at the ripples". He assessed the pool of water and nodded his head. He then crooked his head int eh direction of upstream and stood and eased in the direction of the nod. I stood and eased along behind him. We were about twenty feet apart, nce again serpentining our way through the density of the forest. Suddenly robert stopped, I stopped, he started and I once again started. I snapped my fingers so as to get roberts attention. he looked at me and I motioned for him to move back from the water a bit so we could confer on the direction we would take in our mission. I had noticed that the woods were getting wetter and the swamp was getting bigger. We stepped over a few more feet and found a small clearing shere we could spread out our county map. We found a place on the map that we thought was our location, whether it really was or not, to this day i am not sure, but we dicided it was. I explained to Robert that the swamp widened along through here and that there was no doubt we were going to have some rough going ahead. He agreed. We decided that the best way to proceed was to get into the water and walk the creek, right down the middle of the swampy mess. My justifcation for the manuever was that we would become part of the beavers element and at the same time be able to appraoch silently which would add to ur deadly force. I don't remember but I think john wayne contributed to this plan, I ahd seen the movie "The Green Beret" around this same time. My thoughts were on war and the the stragies that go with it. Robert confirmed that this would be a good plan and added that water moccassins could not bite under water. Now I don't know if this is true or not, but I know they can bite on dry land, so I agreed with him as he had agreed with me. We had reached consensus, and that would be our new plan of attack. The problem was that we needed a volunteer to test the depth of the water in the middle of the creek, if only Brutus had followed us in, but then he was only two foot tall, and a Labrador at that. I volunteered to test the water. We both eased back to the bank and I stepped off the edge. As soon as I stepped off I heard somthing drop from a tree into the water, I looked and saw a wter snake slither through and across the stream. He wasn't paying any attention to us so I proceeded on into the black stream. the first step was about a foot deep, the second was two foot deep, the third three, and the last and final step was four feet deep and up to my ribcage. Robert asked if it was getting any deeper and shook my head "no". He eased in behind me. I stood and watched him enter. Robert was shorter than I so when fully in the creek run he only had his head and shoulders exposed. He draped his mshotgun across his shoulders and proceeded to take the lead. I followed walking behind like i was the seargant or something. Robert and I moved our feet through the mud of the bottom. Each time we would step we would sink a little only to find solid ground about 6 inches under the muck. The next step forward would suction the bottom of our boots as though we were walking on glue. This was definitely the best way to go. The mosquitoes were still whirring around our heads and I think they were probably to stunned to bite us, simply because human heads were not supposed to be this close to their home. I believe it caught them totally by surprise and they were treating us as museum pieces rather than their next meal. Robert broke the water ahead as I eased along behind him. We had walked approximately 30 yards when we came upon our first beaver dam. We decided to walk over and take a look. We had taken about two steps towrd it when the water around us moved. We could feel its pressure as something just under the surface swam past us at a fast rate of speed. Robert stopped and asked did I feel it, I said "hell yes I felt it! 'What the hell do you think it was"? He said "I don't know, did your Grandaddy say if there were any gators in this creek?" I explained that I had never asked him, and if there were they would not bother us, at least I didn't think they would, I said silently under my breath. Robert said "I think it's time we hit high ground for a minute". I concurred and moved toward the top of the beaver dam in an unslothful saturated gate. we climbed to the top of the dam and started evaluating the structure we had happened upon. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye i saw a swirl in the water, Robert saw it at about the same time. He sited his shotgun on the target and fired a round of buckshot into the pool. I followed suit with another round trying to lead the swirl like I would a quail leaving its roost. The splash was tremendous, and the echo through the swamp drifted from us and faded into the distance. The birds ceased to chirp, the squirrels seeked out their dens, and suddenly the swamplife knew we had invaded their boundaries. all was quiet, but nothing was dead. I asked Robert if he saw what it was. He said "I don't know, but it came out from this damn dam". We both laughed at his use of the American language. His slow southern drawl, even slower than mine, made it an even better laugh for me, since I was the listener. We decided that we would try to dig into the dam and flush out the other beavers that might be in cohabitation there. I suggested that one dig and uncover while the other watched for flushed beavers trying to hasten an escape. Then after a few minutes we would switch places and that way we could make progress, do some work, and some hunting all at the same time. He agreed and said that he would take the first watch, I leaned my shotgun against a nearby tree and started uncovering our potential inaugural bounty. Impending death, and the money it would bring playing my psychy as I dug, and removed limbs and logs from the heep. A beaver dam is an amazing piece of construction. Basically all it consist of is trees, brush, and dirt. The problem is that it's ingredients are laid out so strategically by the beaver that it is almost impentrable by man. That is of course unless you are using dynamite or some other explosive to blast it apart. Robert and I were way to young for that level of beaver warfare, so we used our teenage bodies, and the work ethic developed by a few years of summer farmwork to free the culprit from its den. Needless too say, those work ethics,although noble, are not as affective as a good deafening BOOM! The sweat the coolness of the creek had helped to subside once again broke through my skin and rolled down my face. It dripped to the ground from the tip of my nose as i pulled one tree away, tossed it aside, and reached down to grasp another. I toiled for about 20 minutes tearing the limbs and brush from the dam with my purpose in mind. exahustion and hard breathing came on fast in the heat of the afternoon and I finally turned to Robert and asked him to dig a while. He handed me his shotgun and we exchanged places, me going to drier land, and he onto the disaryed pile of beaver construction. I stood on the hill that was only two feet above where Robert stood, and watched the water for swirl or any other sign of action caused by the human disturbance of the mound. robert exhausted even quicker than I and suggested that we give up on this work and once again retreat to the coolness of the swamp water so that we might kill a beaver. besides as he explained and jusitfied, "That is where we will earn our money, by killing the rodent himself". I agreed so back into the dismal black cool water we stumbled. We continued our upstream trek with more fervor than before. The walking grew easier and our hard breathins subsided to normal once again. Once again Robert took the lead position and blazed the watery trail ahead. I followed ever on guard, wanting, tasting the kill like I was a hungry woulf in search of a meal. Suddenly I heard another large splash, only this time it was not in the distance, it was right in front of me. Robert had unknowingly found the deepest part of the creek. As I looked toward him his head sunk out of site, then his brand new shiny shotgun disappeared into the mirk of black water, for a split second I was alone. Robert bobbed back to the top of the water spitting and sputtering like a man in panic, which I think he was at the time. He frantically instructed me to take his shotgun, which I did, as he sunk back into the mire, thrashing to find some simblance of solid ground on which to place his feet. There was none to be found so deeper once again he sunk, all the way to the muddy bottom. Again he bobbed upward and this time he treaded water with his arms out to his side. I broke into uncontrollable laughter as his wet head surfaced in front of me. He spat the polluted water from his mouth and excalimed "Stay where you are, it's deep right here". I said "I think I figured that part out. Are you alright?" He confirmed that he was in some not so nice terms. I am glad the preacher wasn't here to hear the language that poured from that youth's mouth. He swam to the edge of the creek run and proceeded to climb the slick muddy bank. He grabbed onto a tree branch, and attempted to pull himself up only to break the branch and clumsily fall back in. he cursed a few more terms of non-endearment and finally after struggling pulled his large body out of the water. I stood and watched the entire ordeal with his and my shotgun in hand and a large grin smeered across my muddy face. After a few moments I moved backward and up the bank. I walked over to where he sat by a tree taking off his boots. He was dripping wet from head to toe. I asked him "Did you see any beavers while he was down there"? He looked up at me and in a not so nice tone said "No, I didn't smart ass!". I laughed once again and sat down beside him chuckling even more. I suggested that we give up the ghost on this little trek, and he agreed that we may as well. We sat a minute or two, and after swatting a few mosquitoes got up and trekked out of the woods. we walked about two hundred yards back down the side of the road where the Buick comand car awaited us. Mrs. McLoon saw us as we walked up and asked if we killed any beavers. I explained that we had not, but we saw a good portion of the creek. I expalined that Robert had seen more of it thatn I had. She laughed and said she noticed that he looked a bit wetter than I. She smiled and asked if we needed a towel to put in the car seats. I told her that I had something and that we would be fine, but "thanks anyway", she asked if we were gonna go back in, I told her not today, but we might be back next week. She explained that we could park in her drive anytime we needed too. I once again expressed our thanks and that we might just do that next hunt. She vacated to the house where I am sure she laughed like she hadn't laughed in a long time. Robert and I drove back to my house where he went straight to his car and said he wa going home to dry off. I asked him if he wanted to meet up town later on that evening. he said "yeah, the excorcist, that scary movie starts at the drive in tonight, wanna go see it?" I said "Sure, I'll see you in a while". he asked if I'd pick him up and I told him I would. I went in and took a bath and reflected on my freind and I's day of beaver hunting. That would be the last day of beaver expeditioning for Robert and I. I later learned that he found one laying dead beside the road and sold him to the county for the bounty telling them that he had killed him in that swamp. I didn't care, he needed the money just as bad as I, so whatever. he bought beer with the money and he, Ken, and myself rode around in the country and drank our fill. They were my friends and we shared most everything. Since those days Robert and I have drifted apart. College took me away from Hazlehurst after high school graduation in 1975. I cannot say that I was glad to be gone from my buddy, but I would have died if I had stayed in that small town. I had other adventures and dreams to live out. Robert went on to Technical school and is now a diesel mechanic. He was always an industrial sort of guy. On any given day you could drive up to the Drawdy homeplace and there in the yard you would find him re-building a lawnmower engine, or making an attempt at welding with his Dad's new welder, just ordered from Sears and Roebuck. Robert will always be one of my favorite old buddies. I will never forget my good friend and adventure partner. He and his memory means more to me than most things I have accumalated over the years of adulthood. He still lives in southern Georgia and still works as a diesel mechanic. I see him every few years and we review the same old stories of our youth. Although he probably tells them just the opposite from me. To him, it was me that sunk deep in the creek that day, and him that stood holding the guns. You know it really does not matter anymore, I love him anyway. Thanks for tolerating the rambling's. Charlie Ford Possibilities Development (703) 684-7689 Resume available upon request "79" VW Bus, The Mothership www.tiora.net/~keen/charlie/charlie.html "Wider still and wider.....shall thy bounds be set"