The Maple Men

"Go find your own place!"

Walter Cleary, Toronto's busiest real estate developer, couldn't relax.

Something was moving in the shadows of the roots emerging from the river bank. Each time he tried to concentrate on fishing his eyes wandered back to it.

He recalled the tales of the little people, or 'maple men', that he heard as a child. His grandfather told him the Indians contrives such stories to keep strangers away from their stills. Walter Cleary snorted gleefully with the memory.

They were Maples, though. Several had grown so close their roots intertwined. It reminded him of a ball of snakes.
He glared at the sinewy colossus: 'you want me to leave your little world alone, do you? Well I'm Walter Cleary! I chop down green things and replace them with concrete, brick and steel. And if you bother me again I'll do it right here where you live!'

It was cathartic. He was still giggling when he remembered the pint of bourbon in his knapsack. The first swig was heaven. Bourbon always tasted best on a fishing trip.

'Mink would be the most likely culprit' he mused. He was lifting the bottle to his lips when he glanced toward the mass of roots.

'Impossible.' he muttered, reaching for the fillet knife in his knapsack.

By the time he rose to his feet a second one appeared, and then there were more than he could count. Walter Cleary looked into the countless angry eyes of his suddenly swarming foe, fighting only briefly before he was lashed into immobilization.
He tried to scream, but his cry was drowned out completely by the whoops and war cries of the perhaps one hundred relatively diminutive natives dragging him into the shadows of the maples.