The sun had set but it was still light and I had to get over and check the traps before I lost the ability to see. Snow clung to my boots and it was deeper than I had expected. There was no sign in the snow ahead of me and the small aspen tree cut down by a beaver, all of its branches removed, had a small pile of snow on every part of it. Feeling had returned to my right hand as I slapped it against my side to get the blood moving again. I wondered what I would find, and I wondered what I would do once I found it.
The meadow gave way to an opening in the brush that led to the trail that ran behind and below the pond, past the rusted old Franklin stove and along a deer trail to the edge of the beaver dam. I used the ice pick I carried with me to test the dam in front of me, covered with snow, concealing the holes and uneven footing. A soft gray slush covered the pond and I could hear the trickle of water running over the top of the dam creating a small pool behind it with a stream that ran into the rushes and disappeared. Snow blanketed everything except the running water and in the failing light the scene took on a magical aspect. The stakes used to hold the trap in place in the deeper water before the outflow over the dam were still in place and so was the stake that held the chain of the trap. Nothing had set it off yet. With a feeling of relief, I turned around and headed for the second trap, this one in a small channel between the rushes off to the side of the main body of the pond. Darker still, I knelt in the slush, and delicately felt down into the water with my bare hand probing slowly for the top of the metal frame of my trap for any sign that it had been tripped. My fingertips felt two bars of cold steel still in place beneath the surface. I replaced the sticks and limbs used to conceal the top of the trap and made my way in the dark back to the truck. There would be no work to do tonight.
