John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Anon the trail led me to a little stand o' hardwoods, and I could hear Mr. Bear a-grumbling up ahead. I had no weapon on me save my skinning-knife, and so I crept toward the sound as quiet as I could manage. 'Twas no great trick to find him, he was growling so; I came on a little clearing and there he was, a fat black rascal that hadn't bedded down for the winter. He was a male, not quite full-grown — on his hind legs he would've stood as high as your shoulder — and he was worrying a rotten piece o' log to get the grubs on't. I'd just commenced to wonder where the salvage had got to, when a hand came down on my shoulder, and there stood Billy Rumbly himself, looking wise and cheerful as ye please. He led me farther down wind and out of earshot and told me he meant to kill the bear unless I laid a claim on't.

" 'Why, Billy,' says I, ' 'tis not likely I'll take on a bear with a skinning-knife so long as I'm sober, and I'd urge no fellow man to try such tricks.' For I saw he had no weapons on him save his two hands. But he only smiled and declared he'd show me a trick he'd learnt from some western salvages, that were said to use it as a test o' courage when two men quarreled o'er some squaw's favors. I judged 'twould be worth the watching, nor was I mistaken — nay, i'Christ, 'twas the oddest piece o' hunting I'll behold in my life!

"The first thing he did was find two straight saplings, one no thicker than your thumb and the other twice as thick, and snapped 'em off low in a certain way so that the break was a hand's-breadth long. I offered him my knife to point 'em, but he declared 'twas a breach o' the rules to use a knife or any weapon thrown from the hands, and made the best of't by peeling back splinters from the break. One sapling he made a rough spear from by stripping off the branches, and the other he broke off short for a kind of dagger; then we crept to the clearing, where Mr. Bear was scratching his back against a tree, and for all the frost had scarce commenced to melt, Billy fetched off all his clothes, picked up his sticks, and stepped into the clearing dressed in naught but the rag-strip bandage on his thigh."

Ebenezer observed that Mary had set her jaw and closed her eyes.

"The bear left off scratching and watched him make some salvage sort o' prayer. But when Billy moved toward him he ambled off round the edge of the clearing. Billy set out at a run, hollowing some gibberish or other, but instead o' turning on him or running down the path, the bear made for a stout young oak near the middle o' the clearing and commenced to climb. I stepped out and called 'Bad luck, Billy,' for I never doubted the chase was done; but the bear was scarce off the ground ere Billy was climbing after him, pole in hand and dagger 'twixt his teeth, and never a care how the rough bark flayed him as he climbed! At the first branches, twice your height, the bear stopped to look down, and grumbled and waved his forepaw. Billy shinnied up close and poked as best as he could without a proper purchase, but he got no more than a growl for his pains. I offered to fetch him a longer pole, and learned 'twas a breach o' his murtherous rules to take help from any wight soever or change weapons once ye've touched the bear — I'll own I felt then, and feel yet, he was hatching these customs as he went along, but he followed 'em like Holy Orders.

"In lieu of changing weapons, he changed his plan o' battle and commenced to jab at the bear's face, taking care the brute didn't catch the pole in his teeth or strike it out o' his hand. I guessed 'twas his object to drive the bear farther up the trunk and gain the branches for himself, where he could do more damage with his spear, but instead the animal moved around the trunk to protect his face, and hung his great hindquarters over Billy's head. Yet so far from giving o'er the bout or scrambling away, Billy seemed as pleased as if 'twas just what he'd designed: he gave a whoop and thrust his pole as far as ever, where I need not mention! The bear gave a squeal and tried to get at the spear with his forepaws, but Billy thrust deeper; he climbed a little distance up the trunk and was undone the more by slipping back, and at length he fell, with such a hollowing as ye never heard. In that same instant Billy was on him; he drove the short stake in his throat and sprang away ere I myself had grasped the fact that the bear was down.

"By the time I found a tree o' my own to hide behind, the bear was on his feet and thrashing after the pole, that stuck out behind. All the while, Billy stood empty-handed in plain view, not three yards off, and goaded the bear to attack him; when he did, Billy led him five times round the oak tree, and the poor brute fell down dead."

"Marry!" said McEvoy. " 'Tis as brave a trick as I've heard of!"

"And as gory," Ebenezer added, speaking loudly for the trapper's benefit. " 'Tis a wondrous tale, Mr. Russecks, and yet — you must pardon my rudeness — I cannot but wonder what this feat hath to do with my poor friend Miss Bromly."

"Nay, friend, there's naught to pardon," Harvey replied. "I wondered the same myself, the while I watched, why it was he had set out half mended to match his strength with a bear's, when all the evening past he had talked o' naught save the laws and customs o' the English. He had been that eager and quick a scholar, ye'd have thought he was training for a place in Court — but look at him now, astride o' his kill to drink the hot blood ere the beast's fair dead! The very type and essence of the salvage!

"But I had not long to wonder. When Billy had drunk his fill he went to the creek and washed his body from top to toe, for the tree-bark had cut him as raw as a keelhauled sailor, and he was dirty and a-sweat besides. E'en now the rules he'd set himself were in force; he would have none o' my skinning-knife, but commenced to flay the carcass with an oyster-shell from the creek, and albeit he allowed me to make a fire, he stayed naked as Adam till his work was done. 'Twere a half-day's labor to flay out such a beast with a wretched shell, and I feared he'd catch his death ere the chore was done; but he made me a gift o' both hide and meat, declaring he craved nor the one nor the other, and flayed no more o' the carcass than was required to lay back a deal o' fat. This he gouged by the gobbet onto a foot-square piece o' the pelt, the which he had reserved for himself, and then skewered o'er the fire till it commenced to render. His object, I saw, was to lard himself with bear-grease from heel to hair, as is the wont of salvages from time to time, and as he worked I began to fear that betwixt this bear-hunt and the happenings of the day before, there was a certain dark connection. Nor was I wide o' the mark, for when he was greased as a griskin and reeking like Old Ned's lamp, he gorged himself on the balance o' the fat and then took up his oystershell and gelded the bear — "

Ebenezer and McEvoy expressed their bewilderment, but Mary, who had been so withdrawn throughout that one wondered whether she was entranced or asleep, now opened her eyes and sighed a knowing, compassionate sigh. " 'Twas what I expected, and less than I hoped for, Harvey. And Roxie is mistaken — 'twere a waste o' time for me to see her, don't ye think? Ah well, in any case the story's clear."

"Haply 'tis clear to you," complained the poet, "but I grasp naught of't."

" 'Tis no deep mystery," the trapper declared. "What the bull hath always signed to civil folk, the male bear signifies to the salvage Indian. But not only do they look on him as the emblem o' virility; they hold farther that his carcass is great medicine in matters o' love. Hence the manner of his killing, that Billy had explained before, and hence that larding with his hibernation-fat, the which they say feeds the fires o' love as it warms the bear in winter months. As for the other, 'tis widely believed in the salvage nations that if a man lay hold of a buck-bear's privates, bind 'em up in a pouch o' the uncured pelt, and belt 'em so with a bearhide thong that they hang before his own, then his potency will be multiplied by the bear's, and Heav'n help the first poor wench that crosses his path! I asked him, 'Is't the Church Creek girl thou'rt bound for?' And albeit he would not answer me directly, he smiled a dev'lish smile and said 'twould please him if I'd pay him a call some day or two hence, when he and Mrs. Rumbly had found my cabin on Tobacco Stick Bay and set up housekeeping! By's speech ye'd take him for a merry English gentleman; yet there he stood like the living spirit o' salvage lust! Much as I feared for the poor girl's honor, I pled with Billy Rumbly to move with caution, inasmuch as I supposed she'd be on her guard to shoot him dead. But he said, 'No English pistol e'er killed a bear,' and went his way."