Ursus of Ultima Thule by Avram Davidson Page A

the beech tree. Something comes as though the thicket were mere fern grass. Something comes crashing, comes trampling, comes on all fours, comes walking upright. Stands, stopping. Peering this way and that. Paws and head swaying. Issues a cry, part roar, part growl. Part challenge, part question. Puzzled. Vexed. Brute. Bewildered.
    Bear
.
    Bear
.
    Bear
.
    A moment passes, or does not pass; endures without end. Then the bear coughs, grunts, sighs, brushes at one ear. Gurgles deep within its shaggy chest. Ambles and shambles down to the river. Stands there without motion. Then makes gestures which no bear has ever before been seen to make — or so it seems to the watcher up high. Who has ever seen a bear take off its skin before? Who has ever seen a man inside a bear before? Who has ever seen a man stride into the water and leave an empty bearskin lying on the bank behind, gaping empty, eyeholes looking up, sightless, at the sky?
    Has anyone — ?
    • • •
    Arnten plucked up his talisman and, though it was the familiar-most of any object he had with him, he studied it as though he had never seen it before. Almost, for that matter, he had never seen a bear before. Perhaps he had seen live bears one or two times — dead ones, before they had been all skinned and dismembered for food and hide, several times. The carving did not seem to have changed. The bear was still certainly a bear — except that it still certainly had man’s feet. He could not recall that he had ever observed the feet of living bears, these must have been concealed in grass or underbrush, or perhaps he had just not been looking; likelier he had had his eyes (as he crouched fearfully out of sight) on the paws of the forelimbs, on the fearsome jaws. Perhaps
all
bears had man’s feet. But then a clear picture came to him of the four paws of one dead bear, cut off for the pot — and all were
paws
, none truly feet. And yet, might it not be that bears, alive, had feet like men, and that these changed at death? As for the bear below? Truly, he had not noticed. He did not know.
    Well, regardless, he knew what he had to do now.
    He watched the man (formerly bear) swimming strongly in the water, bobbing under, emerging with hair all sleek, shaking his head, then resuming his swim, finally passing out of sight around a bend in the river. He would certainly be back. But Arnten was certain that he would not be back at once. Unencumbered by any burdens, all of which he left in the hollow, he climbed carefully down; he ran, eyes racing between three places — the ground, lest he stumble — the water, lest the man, returning, see him soon — the bearskin, lest — lest what? Lest, perhaps, and most horrifying by far, the empty skin somehow take on life and move, either toward or away from him. For a second it did indeed seem upon the point of doing so and he gasped in fright. But it was only the wind raising a worn corner.
    He seized the skin and ran, flinging it across his shoulder and feeling it on his back, bounding and bouncing. He could see it, feel it, thankfully he could not hear it, he had no desire or reason to taste it. He could smell it, though, and its reek was very strong, partly bear, partly man. All these things he perceived without being aware of concentrating on them. He concentrated first on getting out of sight of the water. And then he paused to think of what he should do next.
    And, with a start, realized that he had already done something. Perhaps he should not have, perhaps he should return and undo it. But he knew he would not. That which he had so greatly desired, the one whom he had so straightly sought, the source of his being and his childhod’s woe, man or bear or man bear or bear man, the witchery creature which had been his weakness and must now be his strength …
    “I am afraid,” he whispered.
    True, That One In The Water clearly had desired to see him, had left a trail for him to follow perhaps not as clearly as if it had