A Lion Among Men Part 4

"No. They go to human places."

"Like Tenniken," said the Lion, pus.h.i.+ng it now, but unable to resist. "You know, Tenniken. The human settlement, where I understand soldiers are stationed. Soldiers loyal to the Wizard of Oz."

"Oh," offered Ursaless, attentive, "the great WOO."

Cubbins intercepted that one for Brrr. "WOO. That's what we call the Wizard of Oz. The Great and Wonderful WOO."

"And if there is such a creature," said Ursuless, "may he stay where he is and we stay where we are. Anyway, we're not subjects of any Wizard. He doesn't rule the Great Gillikin Forest."

"Far from it," said Caraway Coyle, belching.

"He's never even been here," said Shaveen.

"We'd tear him limb from limb, if he existed," said Caraway Coyle. "Watch me do a three-quarter snarl. It's so cool." He obliged, looking suddenly like a hydro-encephalitic dog with a mosquito in its nose.

"I thought he was the Wizard of all all Oz," said Brrr, trying to bring them back to it. Oz," said Brrr, trying to bring them back to it.

"Anyone can name himself whatever he wants," said Cubbins. "Wizard of Oz or WOO or the King of Beasts."

"I know this much," said Brrr. "He sends human soldiers into our forest."

"A good reason to stay out of his way," replied Cubbins. "Deep down, we wild Bears are unrepentant followers of Ozma, though she has been long disappeared from the public eye and is presumed dead. Still, we carry a torch for her. In her time, she was less hostile to beasts in the wild than the current administration is. May she come again. They say she will return to rescue Oz in its time of tribulation."

"Who says?" asked Brrr.

"General prophecy. Common sense. I don't know."

"People who say it, say it," barked Ursaless.

Cubbins continued. "Well, all I want to know is, what's keeping her? It's tribulating enough these days. Threat and panic everywhere you turn. We have to wait until it gets worse?"

"Listen to smartypants there. We never believed in Ozma," said Ursaless. "I never did, so you never did either. I'm the Queen."

"I don't believe in you, you, so there," said Shaveen, though when the Queen glared at her she pointed at Brrr. so there," said Shaveen, though when the Queen glared at her she pointed at Brrr.

"You have your hands full, governing this crew," murmured Brrr.

"Well," said Ursaless, "some say the brighter among us left for the human world. More possibilities for advancement, et cetera. Maybe they had more get-up-and-go. Personally, I think it takes character character to stay here and hold down a court. Maintain a presence in the ancestral wild. The forest bucolic." She made it sound like a paradise, the pestering flies, the drunken circularities repeated by an inbred family. "Anyway, when we bother to believe in her, we wait for the return of Ozma. No good comes of commerce with humans. Mark my words, you Lion." to stay here and hold down a court. Maintain a presence in the ancestral wild. The forest bucolic." She made it sound like a paradise, the pestering flies, the drunken circularities repeated by an inbred family. "Anyway, when we bother to believe in her, we wait for the return of Ozma. No good comes of commerce with humans. Mark my words, you Lion."

"But do they come back? Your cousins in the human world?"

"Cubbins, can you help our guest? I'm growing weary of giving an audience." She let loose a flagrantly stagy yawn, and returned to the dollop of honey dripping off a wedge of comb the size of a small boulder.

Cubbins nodded to the others and jerked his head to the Lion: this way, friend. The Lion followed him, trying hard not to waggle his rump. As he pa.s.sed, though, the Bears made remarks under their breath.

"Captivating family you have here," said Brrr, when they were far enough away to avoid being overheard.

"Go easy on them," said Cubbins. "They can't really help it. It's what happens to us Bears."

"You go loopy on honey?"

"I don't think the honey has much to do with it," said Cubbins, "though I can't really be sure. I don't care for fortified honey yet, so I don't partake. Still, I've observed that a taste for the stuff develops as Bears mature. In any case, I suspect it's just that we don't have much of a race memory, that's all. Bears are creatures in the present. Any Bear who finds that the present just isn't enough, enough, well, that Bear strikes out for the human world-the Tenniken of which you speak, or other parts. Maybe they want to see if they can acclimate themselves to a weight of memory under which humans live and are pinned. I have no idea if they manage, for they never come back. Maybe the WOO gets them. Who knows?" well, that Bear strikes out for the human world-the Tenniken of which you speak, or other parts. Maybe they want to see if they can acclimate themselves to a weight of memory under which humans live and are pinned. I have no idea if they manage, for they never come back. Maybe the WOO gets them. Who knows?"

Perhaps that was what happened to Brrr's parents. Maybe they entered the world of humans. But he didn't want to talk about it to Cubbins: all this curiosity was a new thing. Likely born of hearing how lovingly his friend Jemmsy had remembered his own father as he lay dying. For the first time Brrr tried the gambit of changing the subject. "How did you come to be sheriff?"

"I'm just the youngest. The youngest is always everything important, except the Queen, of course. I'm the sheriff, and the bursar, and the accounts receivable department, and the chaplain and the social affairs committee and the historian. As soon as someone accidentally has another cub, I will yield my place to him or her. The youngest is in charge around here. We forget as we grow. Or did I already say that? It worries me when I repeat myself accidentally."

"You're fine," said Brrr.

"You haven't said why you're leaving the wild for a human settlement."

Brrr didn't want to speak yet about Jemmsy. It was his secret. His mistake, maybe, or maybe the key to his own rare and beautiful future. In any case, he wasn't sure if he wanted Cubbins coming along. Cubbins was a lot more adorable than Brrr. Cubbins might move into the cottage of Jemmsy's father while Brrr was kept on a leash in the yard.

"I have some books to return to a library. For a friend," he said, becking his head at the leather-bound stack of them.

"Books!" said Cubbins. "What are you doing with books books in the Great Gillikin Forest, for crying out loud?" in the Great Gillikin Forest, for crying out loud?"

"Returning them. As I said."

"But where'd you get them?" Cubbins was riven with book-l.u.s.t. "Let me see, may I? Three Treatises on the Liberty of Speaking Beasts Three Treatises on the Liberty of Speaking Beasts. What's that one with the faded gilt-Ozma Incognita. Oh, my. A trove. And chosen to appeal to the likes of us."

"Well, don't get your grubby paws all over them. They're not mine to loan."

"What's this silvery emblem?"

"A medal," said Brrr. In a softer voice, with a tone of hesitation, as if nearly too modest to continue: "A commendation for bravery, as it happens."

"I'd never have guessed it," said Cubbins, piercingly earnest, though his eyes were still on the books.

"If you don't mind, I have a schedule to keep," said the Lion. "It's a busy life, mine. As I'm learning. Now, can you set me on any sort of a path that would be useful, do you think?"

"The Tenniken that we Bears have never visited and don't believe in lies south by southwest," Cubbins said without sarcasm. "The only way I can tell you for sure brings you uncomfortably close to Cloud Swamp. Though maybe you wouldn't mind that the way we Bears do."

"I never heard of the place."

"Cloud Swamp? Oh, it's a soupy section of the woods. A wetlands, I suppose you'd call it. Not all that far from here, most of the time, though it has a weird tendency to be migratory. Imagine not knowing about Cloud Swamp."

"I had no parents to tell me about it," said Brrr dryly.

"Well, it's the haunt of the Ozmists."

"Ozmists. Who are they? Secret defenders of the deposed line of Ozma that I'm learning about?"

"Good guess. But no. Ozmists are-well, for lack of a better term, I guess you'd call them ghosts. Or particles of ghosts."

"Migratory ghosts." Brrr tried to keep his voice level. "Ghosts ancient or modern?"

"I don't know. We Bears avoid Cloud Swamp most of the time. Perhaps we give up our pasts, as you have seen, whether we like it or not. But ghosts-wow. Ghosts are nothing but but pasts. Look, if your parents are dead, you might find one or both of their Ozmists in Cloud Swamp, and at least learn why they called you Brrr. And maybe why they went and died on you, and so forth." pasts. Look, if your parents are dead, you might find one or both of their Ozmists in Cloud Swamp, and at least learn why they called you Brrr. And maybe why they went and died on you, and so forth."

"I never said my parents were dead."

"No, you didn't, but where are they, then? Living the high life among other talking Animals and humans in the wonderful welter of Oz?"

"If they are ghosts-well-can ghosts ghosts hurt?" hurt?"

"You mean, can they hurt you? I doubt it," replied Cubbins. "They're just notions, aren't they? Dissolving shrouds of an individual? Still, to be fair, don't take my word on it: For all I know, it's ghosts who have spooked us Bears into being so forgetful. We can never remember if we ever accidentally ventured into Cloud Swamp. I only know we haven't been there since I've been in charge. That's all I'm sure of."

Brrr wasn't sure he relished the idea of meeting the nub of an idea without its mortal husk, though he couldn't think how to say this.

Cubbins shrugged. "Just a thought. Maybe you don't want to know if your parents are dead or not. If it doesn't appeal to you, head on past. You'll find your Tenniken. To the south, more or less. But I don't know where it is exactly. Someone else will have to tell you."

"Too bad," said the Lion. "If you'd had better information, I might have paid you with one of these books."

Cubbins looked disappointed, but he spoke with characteristic brio. "It's okay. Anything I might read I would only forget sooner or later."

"It must be hard to be the only Bear with a brain," said Brrr.

"I'd love to come with you. But someone has to keep this pa.s.sel of friends on the straight and narrow. If I didn't remind them, they'd forget the answer to the tired rhetorical gibe, Does a Bear s.h.i.+t in the woods?"

Brrr didn't want to share with Cubbins any final glory he might achieve in Tenniken, but on the other hand, if Brrr were accidentally to meet up with the Ozmists he intended to avoid, company in the form of a little Bear sheriff would be welcome. "If you walked away from here, your family would forget you in a minute," said the Lion. "What kind of a loss is that? Don't sacrifice yourself to them. They won't even notice."

"I get something out of this," said Cubbins. "It doesn't hurt to have a family, you know, even a troubled one. At least I know where I am. What are you looking for in Tenniken, anyway? You think your parents went there?"

Brrr snapped his mane. "It's my own business," he said.

"You really should start at Cloud Swamp and find out what you can, you know. It might help you narrow your search. Why spend time hunting for forebears if they're dead?"

"Thanks," said Brrr, "but no thanks." Then he gave up his airy att.i.tude. "Truth to tell, without a companion, I don't dare venture into anyplace called Cloud Swamp."

"Cloud Swamp? What's that?" asked Cubbins, but when the Lion shot him a look, the cub's eyes were twinkling in mischief. "You better get along now. My family party here is agreeable, but they can be disagreeable, too, and the mood can s.h.i.+ft in an instant. Better make your way before they get suspicious that you're going to kidnap me or something. One thing they do know is that they'd be lost without their baby cub to give their lives what little meaning and history it still has."

"And you went out hunting for blueberries on your own."

"One misdemeanor a day is enough, I suppose."

"It's been a mighty pleasure," said the Lion, and he meant it. He was sorry to leave Cubbins. "Good luck to you. If I ever make it into the human world, I will hope to run into you there someday, too. You deserve better than this."

"Life is unpredictable," said Cubbins. "I don't imagine we'll meet again, but who knows. I'll look for a Lion with a sway in his swagger. Just kidding."

"If I wanted to avoid Cloud Swamp, now," said the Lion, "which way would I go?"

"From this point on the streambed, you may choose left or right. If you can just keep to the uplands, you'll skirt it entirely," said Cubbins. "Good luck to you, very Brrr."

- 4 -

URSALESS, THE Queen of the Bears, had said it straight: Queen of the Bears, had said it straight: Sometimes I recall oddments without even trying Sometimes I recall oddments without even trying. Who knows when memory, unbidden, will burst out and take hostages? Clearly the question of Yackle's had snapped some ancient chains Brrr had used against all this.

And this wash of recollections had become a slick along which Brrr careered, like it or not. Brrr's recall of what had happened before before seemed limited to apparent causes of what had happened seemed limited to apparent causes of what had happened next next. The future reshapes the memory of the past in the way it recalibrates significance: some episodes are advanced, others lose purchase.

But his intention, starting out, had been to avoid Cloud Swamp. Hadn't it? His curiosity about possibly meeting his spirit-ancestors was more than mitigated by the fear of coming across the ghost of Jemmsy. Wasn't ready for that. Not until he had delivered the medal to Jemmsy's father. Not until Brrr deserved his own personal medal for courage that a grateful pride of grieving soldiers might press upon him. Not till he could show his missing clan that he had survived on his own. Survived and triumphed. Cloud Swamp could wait until then.

Though wherever Tenniken might turn out to be, Brrr couldn't seem to get there without tending downslope. Every path that he found leading upland reversed its grade, perversely, around the next stand of houndstooth hedge or outcropping of granite. Leaving the path also proved futile: he'd met an interlocked network of chalky cliffs, too sheer to climb. The chasms that he came across proved too wide to leap. And again with the houndstooth hedge.

Eventually, despite his hopes to avoid any lowlands, hunger drove him downhill, as in the moist gloom he could see knuckles of cobbleberry vine displaying their sweet green fruit like so much vulgar jewelry. Brrr fell on the treat avidly. The aftertaste of the cobbleberries was tart, reminding him that the berries were in second growth. The spring was moving on.

He became possessed by the notion that time might harbor a hunger of its own, a hunger it fed by gobbling up long strings of minutes, courses of hours, harvests of seasons one after the other. This notion, too, was probably born of watching those Bears in their eternal present, unaware of time pa.s.sing, unaware of cobbleberry vines forcing out a last, tangy collation of the season.

A few moments later, Brrr wondered if perhaps the berries he'd gobbled down had begun to ferment. His usual gingerish footing became a bit heavier, even clumsy. His head grew dense, and a miasma of undecipherable impressions closed in on him like marsh gas. Not long thereafter he fell to his chin and rolled over onto his back, dozing with open eyes. The stars lifted their myriad eyes to watch him wince over the clenching of his intestines.

If the stars showed, it must be nighttime. No cloud of ancestors on the horizon to obliterate the constellations.

Very few forest creatures were out and about tonight at their nocturnal ch.o.r.es and hobbies. In fact, he could detect no motion but the papery rustling of wind in sedge-gra.s.s. No frog dove into the stagnant ditchwater. No mockingbird traced her alibis into the gloaming.

There weren't even any mosquitoes, which was not only pleasant but impossible, especially in a swamp.

A swamp it certainly was; perhaps a rising one. The small hillock on which Brrr had settled seemed ringed by a steely salver of water-so calm that the constellations were reflected in it perfectly. You couldn't make out the seam where the water ended and the sky began. It was more like being aloft among the heavenly bodies than adrift below them. The air was uncolored, characterless, neither sweet nor cold, neither clear nor moving.

Poison cobbleberries? Maybe, he thought, I have died, and so all life around me has died, too, for what proof have I that life should go on when I do not? After all, what kind of a life is it that is not pestered by insects? A perfect one, and since life is not perfect, this cannot be life.

With a sense of calm, or was it a paralysis, he realized the stars were moving toward him, very slowly, growing infinitesimally larger but no more distinct. At first he thought: Maybe these are the ghosts of trees that have rotted in Cloud Swamp, for that's where I must be, like it or not.

Then it seemed like a host of s.h.i.+mmering midges in a corps de guerre corps de guerre. (Was this where all the insects had gone? Magnetically drawn to the hollow-in-life that a ghost colony might be, filling in the vacuum with the smallest fleck of indivisible yet visible living matter?) Now they were airily shaping themselves into bouquets, like giant heads on tapering necks, like volutes of blossom on slowly spiraling stems. Nearing and nearing, possessed of both presence and distance.

"I don't believe in ghosts," said Brrr, to himself or to them, or both. Hoping they might be offended and leave.

They began to circle about him. The nearer they drew, the more of a family feeling they took on. Was it because, once a creature became a ghost, it s.h.i.+rked off the differentiations of biological diversity and, uniqueness annihilated, became just shades of life? Footfalls of the past?

"I have the distinct feeling I'm not in Oz anymore," said Brrr. Now he was speaking aloud to keep up his courage-such as it was.

The specters wreathed themselves around him. As they tightened the circle, their separate margins began to merge. Before he was swallowed up in a blancmange of foggy apparition, he gave out a thunderclap of a roar. It appeared to make no impression on the creatures, but he was glad he could still roar. It meant he wasn't dead. Presumably.

"Excuse my volume; I have no self-control," he said. Well, why not talk to the phantoms? He had meant to avoid Cloud Swamp at all costs, but opportunity was presenting itself. And conversation was his only skill.

"Begging pardon for the intrusion. Frightfully thoughtless of me," he went on. "Is there a spokesperson among you who can answer a question or two? If you've time to spare?"

There was a sort of drumming in the air, as if a billion miniature throats were clearing themselves. Languidly the sound resolved, its pitch rising and consolidating toward a common note. But it died out, bearing no word for Brrr upon its pressured breath.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said more forcefully. "I am, in actual fact, the King of the Forest."

No reply. The apparent lack of interest on the part of a congress of ghosts shamed Brrr. It also frightened him. Of course they would realize he was no kind of king at all. He organized his thoughts with more honesty.

"I didn't come here to disturb your rest," he stated. "Indeed, I hoped to pa.s.s without pestering you. Shall we just nod courteously and say 'Good-bye' or 'p.i.s.s off' or whatever's appropriate and then breeze on our separate ways?"

The a.s.semblage of ghosts seemed to hover, listening, or drumming its fingers against its forearms, so to speak. Tacit. As yet uninvolved.