East

Neddy

ROSE WHISPERED SOMETHING, but I couldn't hear it. Her eyes were fixed on the trees that lay a stone's throw away.

"A white bear, Neddy," she said, louder.

But by the time I turned to look, there was nothing there.

Rose dragged me over to the whitebeams and the two of us examined the ground for markings of a large animal. "You believe me, don't you?" Rose asked. There was nothing to show a bear had been there.

And yet I believed her, though I did not say so.

"'Tis almost suppertime," I said abruptly, and began to lead the way back. Rose took off her cloak and, folding it as she walked, trotted along beside me.

"What is it, Neddy?" she said.

"Nothing," I replied, trying to keep my voice normal. "It's gotten late..."

But I was lying. I was frightened. Not of the white bear, at least not for myself.

"Are you sure?" she persisted.

"Yes."

Rose gave me one last sidelong glance.

"I wish you had seen it, Neddy. It was so large, and its eyes..." she said. "I get this feeling it wanted something. And that it was sad."

"Must be your imagination," I said, making my voice light and teasing. "This time of year it's still too warm for a white bear. And you know they don't come this far south, even in winter. Perhaps it was a white doe. Their eyes sometimes look sad."

But of course I was lying. For I had seen the eyes of a white bear, that time years before. And I felt sure it was the same one.

I knew about white bears. After that day when I had looked into the eyes of the white bear that saved Rose, I set out to become an expert on them. I would interview everyone I came into contact with, to see if they had ever seen a white bear or if they knew anything of white bears. Most knew nothing. My main source of information turned out to be a peddler who had traveled into the far north and had once even been on a Saami expedition of white-bear hunters.

"Before going out on the ice to hunt the white bear," the peddler told me, "the Saami taught me. They said I must know the isbjorn by heart if I was going to hunt him. They called him the Great Wanderer or Ghost Bear. Other names they used are: He Who Walks Without a Shadow. Ice Giant. Nanook. The Traveler. Great White. Sea Bear." The peddler paused, letting those names settle into my memory.

"The white bear is a solitary wanderer, never moving with a pack or even a mate. He walks on all fours, but when he stands he is nearly ten feet tall." The peddler raised one hand as far as he could above his head.

"He lives by his sense of smell," the peddler continued. "There is a Saami saying about white bears: 'A pine needle fell in the forest. The hawk saw it. The deer heard it. The white bear smelled it.'

"His eyes are black. His nose is black. His paws are black and the five claws on each of his paws are black. The rest of him is snow white."

I listened to the peddler, my eyes held by a scar carved into the skin just below his hairline. Maybe a white bear had given him that scar, with a thrust of black claw.

I learned more. I learned that the white bear's habitat lay well to the north of us, in the region where snow can remain on the ground for twelve months of the year. It is true that an occasional white bear had been known to travel as far south as our farmhold, but only very rarely and only during the deep winter months.

I learned that the white bear's eyesight is not as good as its sense of smell, but that it is still very strong. The bear has an extra eyelid to protect its eyes from snow glare, and it can see underwater and through a driving blizzard.

I learned that of all bears, the white bear is the most fur-clad, every inch of it covered except its nose and paw pads, and the fur is dense and soft. It has forty-two teeth, including long, sharp canines for piercing flesh. It eats meat but can also survive on berries and grasses if it has to. The white bear's strength is legend. It is said it can kill with one swipe of its paw.

I even wrote a white-bear poem. It began

Ghost bear wanders, always alone,;

king of the north,

dispensing death from his traveling throne.

It was shortly after this effort that I decided I wouldn't be a poet after all.