SPRING? 02/20/2022

Spring is out there today causing some seasonal commotion, but it's a fraud, a cosmic, meteorological con job. It's never the most pleasant season, but it is the most interesting. Life is underway. Stuff is beginning to ooze. Higher temps mean lots of melt, meaning lots of mud - deer daintily nibbling winter worn, bruise tinted apples under the stunted old tree, skinny black squirrels already scampering, four fat black crows like cannon balls chasing bald eagles across the creek, 40 degrees, thin river ice. However, like I said, it's one big con. We're not through February and could still have a blizzard into April.

And yet.

We had a full moon over new snow only days ago, so bright you could actually see animal tracks imprinted in the virgin meadows. That's what I look for when I see a fresh snowed field - what crossed it? How long ago? Why did it stop? Where did it go? Deer. Turkey. Coyotes, Rabbits. Black squirrels. Raccoons. Mice. Fishers. Weasels. I once actually saw a kangaroo rat hop across my garden, but they're a desert breed, not even supposed to live here. Well, as least, one does. Did. I'm sure something got it. It always does.

I don't always recognize the tracks, especially when the weather warms, when the edges of the snow and ice melt and run. Coyote? Dog? CoyDog? CoyWolf? I don't know, yet something was there that isn't there now, but will be again. It's like any other mystery, isn't it? Awe and wonder waiting to be solved except you can't solve it, never will, and you know it. Still, here you are, somewhere in the mix of it, not worrying about the tracks at all. Yours are there, too.

I once tracked a bear in Montana. I knew he was there, had even seen him once, but this time I decided to follow him to see, well, to see why he went over the mountain. There's another story here, but this one comes first.

Bears have always fascinated me - a huge, muscular, lumbering powerhouse that bounds like a greyhound, fast as a race horse for thirty yards (all it needs), shreds stumps because it wants to, flips boulders like tiddly-winks, swallows a bleating sheep wool and all. Deranged humans who believe they are soul mates with wild predators risk getting disemboweled when they croon lovingly and open wide for a hug.

I've seen both black bear and grizzly, but never arms length close and never more than seconds - a quick flash through brush, a ramble at fifty yards, back hair on a barbed wire fence, piles of poop the size of hubcaps. Remember I said I had never seen one up close? Still true. Never seen one up close. But, I did hear one. Up close. Real close. So close he could have removed my head from my shoulders without my ever having seen him. I've never killed one nor do I expect to. For the squeamish, ease up. That's not what this is about. I had a shotgun with me, but only because I had hunted grouse for dinner, and, anyway, that bear would brush off those tiny pellets of birdshot like a horse tail flicking nits.

It was an unusually warm fall. Dusk was maybe an hour away. I went down to a spot in the creek where I'd seen him pass. He wasn't there, but his paw print was, not the biggest one, but, still, who cares. That's a bear track, and it's fresh, and wider than my foot, and that bear is up there somewhere and I'm gonna find him. There is no other focus.

It'd been dry, and the creek was really shallow. so I simply followed it, slowly, softly, step by step. No toe to heel or heel to toe but the whole foot set down at once. Evenly. You don't want anything to crack underfoot. You want the wind in your face.

It grew darker as I moved but not too dark to spot a clear print with water seeping into it. He had just been here! Right there! Here! He's out there. I knew that grizzlies are known to circle back and come up behind you, but this guy was a black bear with a much less aggressive attitude, at least, the years I'm talking. Nowadays, they've become more unpredictable. Just last summer one charged up a creek bank towards a horseman on the trail, and, yet, I've stood and watched a sow

with three cubs peacefully wander east along the same creek bank hoovering blueberries.

I stood and watched water seep into the print and tried to picture the creature that left it there. I just wanted to see him. So, I started up the creek again then - I'm not sure why - I climbed a hill and crossed a clearing. It would be dark soon, but I wasn't worried about getting home. I just wanted to see what I could see.

There was barely light to see when I stopped next to a large clump of brush, maybe a low hung evergreen, I'm not sure, but what I am sure of is the ghastly, carrion yawl that lacerated the air and drove tracers of ice through my veins. That bear, hidden in that patch, was close enough to kill me. Afraid to move. Afraid to stay still. Slowly, very slowly, I stepped backwards until I was out of critical distance. I never saw him, never heard the chomping of jaws or any nother warning. He faded quietly back into the night.

I once thought of buying an ancient bearskin coat at some roadside junk yard when I taught at UConn, way before my wild west coast days. It hung from the limb of a scrubby tree, a bum's coat in need of serious repair and probably a bucket of disinfectant, but it intrigued me, so I tried it on. The heft of it was an unexpected shock. Let me explain.

Put on a trench coat, any good looking top coat - Saville Row, Macy’s, Brooks Brothers, Burlington - you're wearing a coat, looking snappy but, still, you’re a guy wearing a coat and proud of it. Why not? You earned it. You’re a well dressed guy in a shirt and tie. Ready to join forces. Go for it. No slouch there.

But

A Bearskin Coat

Sleeves to slip on, bone toggles as clasps, encasing its bearer in the beast itself, the weight of it overtaking the body, hunching with power, the power of the beast. Put on a bearskin coat, and you become the bear. News Flash. Think what you will, but you will never have the power of that beast because you are not that beast, and you are not akin to that beast. Why not a gorilla suit? No telephone booth needed. Try to hug one. It’s breath is awful, and it will kill you. I do, however, believe in Halloween. Have fun. I mean it.