May 29, 2025 15 min read

The Great Big Bear

A new story featuring Atticus, Oberon, and Starbuck, plus birds

The reason I chose a crow for this month’s banner bird shall become clear...

I’m really enjoying the return of the green and all the songbirds that have migrated north. Getting outside and listening to the birds is the best possible thing. We’ve had persistent rains so the bird sanctuary paths are muddy as heck and I haven’t really walked them as much as I normally would have by now, but I’m still getting some pretty nifty shots. Ready to see?

1. A yellow warbler! 2. Another yellow warbler! I love them. They are such winsome buttery buddies. 3. I really liked this pair of fellows but focused this pic on the white-throated sparrow. 4. This is a very smug chipping sparrow. He just ate some birdseed so he’s feeling good about his life choices. 5. Female red-winged blackbird, which you don’t see as often as the males. 6. Male red-winged blackbird. 7. A tree swallow who isn’t in a tree. 8. A pair of common terns. I believe the one on the bottom is saying NOT NOW, GARY, JEEZ 9. A male cardinal.

This month’s story returns us to Atticus and a rather ominous development. WATCH OUT!

It’s set in Yukon Territory, specifically Vuntut National Park, which has "no established access routes, designated landing areas or facilities. Access by land, water and air is possible, but a trip requires careful planning and independent travel skills.” Yeah. I’ll say. Old Crow is the nearest settlement to the south, and you have to fly into it. There are no roads in that part of the world, and yet the archaeological record shows that humans have lived there for millennia. You get 24-hour sun in the summers, which means abundant plant life and lots of happy critters, but whoa dang, so many mosquitoes and black flies too. Best not try it unless you have a full-body suit of mosquito netting. One of the fascinating animal populations of the area is the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which has fluctuated but overall doubled in size since the turn of the century. Many people up north depend on it for their food and clothing. This CBC segment on Old Crow from three years ago is really spiffy because it shows you what they’re doing to combat climate change and gives you a glimpse of life up there, so you might dig it not only as an introduction to the story, but as a wow-I-did-not-know-that-but-now-I-do kind of thing.

The Great Big Bear

By Kevin Hearne

The world’s elementals had gradually become better at asking Owen or Granuaile to take care of things I used to take care of because they had the ability to shift planes easily and I didn’t. The simple fact was that when there was an emergency, I could no longer get there fast enough.

Brighid’s project of constructing a hundred new Old Ways was helping with that, however, because I didn’t need to plane shift to use them: I simply needed to know where to step, in which sequence, and I could walk a narrow path between our world and Tír na nÓg, and then out again to a different spot in our world. The elementals requested that I make such a journey to the Yukon Territory, specifically to a spot in Vuntut National Park, just north of the Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation. There were no bound trees in the area, so neither Owen nor Granuaile could get there faster, and I had more experience with the type of problem at hand.

There was a tear in the reality of the world—a portal of sorts, albeit a small one—that was sapping strength from the Vuntut elemental. If it weren’t closed, parts of the land would begin to die off. I was to investigate and close the portal.

“Ready for a road trip, buddies?” I said to Oberon and Starbuck. Their ears perked up and their tails wagged.

<Always! Where to?> Oberon asked.

“Canada.”

<Canada! That’s where they have the peameal bacon, right? Fried up hot and slapped on a bun?>

“Good memory. Yes! But we will be sampling something else. We’re going quite far north, so once we’re finished with our errand, I’m going to seek out caribou stew.”

<Yes stew!> Starbuck said.

<Atticus, you must tell me where this stew lands on the gravy viscosity scale!>

“What?”

“Okay, uh…four or five, I guess. Full-bodied without being chewy, not quite pudding but thick.”

<What’s a caribou?>

“All true,” I said. “But before we go, I have to tell you that our primary objective is to find a tear in the world and heal it, and that will involve a long trek across marshlands and tundra. The stew would be a reward. If you’d rather not go, I can bring you a doggie bag.”

<No nuked stew!> Starbuck said.

“So you’re okay with wading through a muddy, bug-infested hell for a bowl of stew?”

<Atticus, I am surprised you don’t understand how much we’re willing to suffer for tasty victuals by now.>

<The suffering just makes the food taste better,> Starbuck added. <Plus you can make the bugs leave us alone with your super-big-powerful-Druid…powers.>

“Okay. Let me write a note to Rose and we’ll get going.”

Rose was getting used to my sudden disappearances now; she understood my responsibilities as I understood hers as a detective inspector in Launceston. We made it up to each other by traveling to spots around the world on her days off. She rather liked quick weekend getaways to Kyoto, Prague, or Lima, just a few of the many major cities that had Old Ways to them.

For this emergency, a new Old Way would be built to a remote First Nations village called Old Crow, a place only accessible to most people via airplane. They had to fly in diesel fuel to run their electric generators in winter, but enjoyed solar power in the summers. They were above the Arctic Circle so they experienced the midnight sun; it would never be dark once we got there.

Coriander escorted us and taught me the steps to the Old Way, and we emerged on the eastern bank of the Porcupine River just north of Old Crow.

The village only housed about two to three hundred individuals, and they were dependent on hunting and trapping for their livelihoods, as well as some short seasonal work in agriculture.

<Wow, Atticus,> Oberon said, his nose in the air. <This sure does smell different than Tasmania.>

<Crisp! Musky! And a bit of cooking grease!> Starbuck added.

As we began our long run north to the National Park lands, I told them a wee bit about the history of the place.

“People have been living here more than eight thousand years,” I said. “We know that from bones found in the area. This river over here that winds and twists like a ribbon is called the Porcupine River, and the Porcupine Caribou Herd is the largest in the world and also has the longest herd migration in the world. The First Nations people here and in Alaska and the Northwest Territories depend on that herd for food and clothing. They use every part of the caribou and waste nothing.”

<What do they do with the anus?> Starbuck wondered.

“I…will have to ask someone about that,” I said. “If they throw that one part away, I don’t think anyone would blame them.”

These northern lands are sparsely populated and most of the world forgets that people still exist in these areas. The people who live here prefer it that way. Whenever they hear about sensational news stories to the south, they say no thanks, none of that for me. There is the whisper of wind and the soft chuckle of rivers, the chattering of Arctic ground squirrels and the chirping of migratory species raising their young in the endless northern days, and this constitutes their newsfeed. They work and relax outside as much as possible, since the winters force them to remain inside for months.

And the outside was glorious. Wildflowers and shrubs enticing the attentions of bees and butterflies, muskrats in the ponds and rivers and wolverines ranging across the land, Arctic foxes hunting field mice and porcupines munching on the season’s bounty. Past the boundaries of Old Crow, the smells of humanity disappeared, and we reveled in unspoiled nature. There were no cars up here. There had never been and would never be cars up here, no rumbling guzzle of decanted dinosaurs in fiery engines, and it felt like the earth knew that somehow and breathed easier.

Vuntut the elemental greeted me and gave me strength and speed for the run north through the First Nations territory to the National Park, and even with its help it took us a couple of hours. We startled quite a few critters along the way with the speed of our passage—nothing expected humans or dogs to run that fast, and the dogs complained intermittently that they wanted to stop and smell this or that—these were novelty asses, after all—but I promised we could take our time coming back, but not before the job got done. Gaia’s work needed to be top priority.

We saw the anomaly long before we could make out any details.

The Arctic Circle isn’t known for its vast forests—there are only a few species hardy enough to handle the winters at the southern edges of it, and once you get up to permafrost, forget it. Even so, those trees aren’t towering specimens. The only thing you’ll see towering are mountains, but those can’t be confused with dark looming pillars of menace any more than the Toronto Maple Leafs can be confused with a winning hockey team.

Oberon’s eyesight was much better than Starbuck’s and he said something first as we approached something that did not belong. It was further away than nearby trees yet it was much taller than them.

<Uh, Atticus?>

“Yes?”

“No. It’s moving a little bit.”

<Yeah. Maybe it’s one of those floppy airbag guys like you see in front of car dealerships. Just tall and ridiculous but totally harmless, right?>

“Maybe. But there aren’t any car dealerships up here.”

<That’s a good thing,> Starbuck said. <Those commercials are the worst.>

Oberon gamely speculated. <Hey, maybe it’s for a food cart! There’s a guy up ahead who’s selling caribou stew and caribou sausage, caribou flank steaks, caribou fajitas, all the good stuff, you know, and he’s got one of those inflatable things so you know where to find him in the tundra.>

“That’s a fabulous idea and I would like it very much to be true,” I said. “But I don’t think it is. That is not a food cart ahead of us.”

<Yeah. I guess not.> Oberon snorted at a sudden thought. <Hey, you know what would be the worst, Atticus? What if that’s like, a great big bear? We’re in the range of grizzlies and they get awful big.>

“If that’s a bear, then that is the greatest, biggest bear I’ve ever seen. Bears should not be taller than pine trees. That would be a kaiju bear.”

<Why can’t we have a kaiju food cart instead?> Starbuck whined.

We all tried to make the shape ahead of us look like something else besides a grizzly standing on its hind legs, but as we got closer, it only looked more and more like it, and Vuntut’s guidance to the tear in the world was leading us straight for it.

Soon enough the truth was inescapable, despite our wishful thinking: That was a great big bear. A grizzly the size of Godzilla. And it was watching our approach.

<You said we would suffer bogs and bugs,> Oberon complained. <But this is what pastors on TV call the sin of omission, Atticus. If you had listed that bear as an option back home, we would have stayed there and watched Murderbot and eaten nuked stew later.>

<I am giving this place a one-star review on Yelp,> Starbuck added.

“I didn’t know there was a kaiju bear here,” I said. “Only that there was something wrong in the area. I was supposed to investigate.”

<Well, that is definitely something wrong in the area. Can we close the investigation and go home now?>

“No, I have to take care of it. That thing shouldn’t exist.”

“Oberon, I don’t even have a direct line to the Winnipeg Jets, much less the Canadian Air Force. But there may be something else I can do. Stop running for a second, let me scope this out.”

We all stopped running perhaps three hundred yards away from the bear. If it fell to all fours and pursued us, I’m sure the ground would quake and it would be able to catch us with little effort. But while it was watching us and growling, it seemed little inclined to move. We were perhaps too puny to register as a true threat.

Its eyes, black as the abyss, were larger than my head. Its fur was snarled with tangles and the surface rippled and pulsed from some inner undulations.

And my eyes were drawn for some reason to its left leg—a subconscious pattern recognition that something was awry. There was a thin black hose or branch or pipe leading from its heel to a thicker collection of such pipes, all of which emerged—or disappeared—into a narrow gap in the earth at the base of some scattered boulders. That was the tear—those pipes were wedging open a portal no bigger than the entrance to a badger’s den. There was no dark warlock or cackling madman nearby. Just those inscrutable black rods and one of them leading to the bear.

Perhaps it really was an inflatable of some kind, except that rather than being filled with air, it was swollen with energies from another plane.

I triggered the charm on my necklace that bound my sight to the magical spectrum and confirmed that something wholly unnatural was going on. The original grizzly bear was long gone; in its place was only hellish malevolence, and it was indeed being channeled through that unwholesome appendage leading from the portal to its heel.

Vuntut the elemental could not perceive this the way I could. This thing was not of earth and therefore invisible to the elemental’s senses except for a perception of wrongness and the drain of its energy.

//Demon bear// I told Vuntut through the tattoos that connected me to the earth. //Avatar to fight it advised//

//Manifesting now// came the answer, and the earth began to rumble and churn off to our left and much closer to the bear.

<Atticus, what’s happening?> Oberon asked.

“Stay here,” I told him and Starbuck. “There’s nothing you two can do against this.”

The bear’s gaze tore from us to look down at this new development closer to its personal space. The earth roiled and rose with a collection of rocks and tightly packed sediment into a living sculpture of a kaiju caribou. The grizzly let loose with an earsplitting roar and descended to take a swipe at the head as it was still forming. I took the opportunity to advance while its attention was directed elsewhere and watched it pulverize the rocks and earth with its enormous paw, scattering it like so much fertilizer on a plowed field. The caribou wobbled unsteadily for a second but then recovered, more rock and earth flowing up to form a new head.

This distraction allowed me to square up and chuck my hatchet, Buainteoir, directly into the bear’s left rear leg. I did not expect its reaction to be so violent—I doubted such a huge creature, protected by so much muscle and fat, would feel the blade as anything more than a small bite. But faced with an enormous caribou of earth and stone and me, a wee human of mere flesh and bone, it chose me as a target for its next counterattack. Perhaps because Buainteoir had sank entirely into its flesh and disappeared. Perhaps because the Cold Fire binding engraved on its blade was doing its work to unmake it and it felt the end was near. Regardless, it threw up its head in a roar and then whirled to locate me, dead black eyes searching for a target. Its right paw crossed over, long claws the size of schooners digging into the earth to my left and the wall of its footpad coming to wallop me, except that it lifted me up and away, scooping up a huge divot of earth with me on top of it and I was simply hurled into the air. And then, while airborne, the bear exploded like that whale on an Oregon beach, tons of meat and fat and bone expanding outward and altering my course midair as some chunk of it collided with the earthen saucer I was on, and all I could think to do as I fell was cradle my arm behind my head to protect it when I hit the ground.

That might have saved my skull—in fact, it certainly did, because I felt the bones in my hand and wrist shatter, and my ribs took a beating too. All around me, bear meat and blood continued to rain down from the sky and while it was gross, I thought it wasn’t so bad. It was over now, and I could heal from this.

Except it wasn’t over.

That odd collection of black piping began to lengthen and fold and move with a purpose. They were not a collection of plumbing supplies or kindling: They were legs. Extremely long legs connected to a dark ovoid shape that emerged into full view from the black hole and rose into the air as even more legs telescoped from the portal. It was a monstrous harvestman, commonly known as a daddy longlegs, two stories tall or more, and it stared directly down at me with multiple glowing red eyes. The screech from its heinous mouthparts was at first a sibilant atrocity like a bow scraped across cat guts by a beginning violinist, but I realized that it was saying something. Like my name.

“Sssssiodhachan,” it hissed.

There was little I could do to fight it off. If I summoned Buainteoir to a broken hand, that wouldn’t do much good except to break it some more. Time to rally reinforcements.

//Charge the leg planted in the hole// I told Vuntut. //Break connection to other plane//

The kaiju caribou immediately charged, which I thought might distract the monster, but the harvestman didn’t react. It was focused solely on me.

“I will have my revenge,” it said, and then the caribou’s antlers plowed through the leg anchoring it to hell. It snapped like a dry twig and its vocalizations cut off. It staggered briefly before crumbling entirely to ash.

Propping myself up on an elbow, I saw the portal collapse on its own without anything there to keep it open.

//Relief// Vuntut said. //Gratitude//

//Glad to help / Need healing//

The giant earthen caribou dissolved back into the landscape while energy flowed into my body, bones resetting and knitting and pain receding. It would take a while to fully heal, but I could do that while hiking back to Old Crow, and the dogs could enjoy smelling whatever they wished to smell.

Of more concern to me was who had possessed that harvestman and opened the portal in the first place. What was it trying to accomplish?

Revenge. On me. It had used my old Irish name, too.

There were most likely many souls in hell by now who wished me ill, but only one would have the requisite knowledge and power to open up a portal from the other side: Aenghus Óg.

This obviously hadn’t been his grand design. It felt more like proof-of-concept, as if he simply wanted to see if he could crack open the door and get his foot in there.

But I did my best to keep my worries off my face. Oberon and Starbuck were overjoyed at the destruction of the Great Big Bear and told me that this adventure proved I was superior to all other humans who had ever lived. They frolicked in the tundra and enjoyed themselves and made snorty noises of joy when we eventually got back to Old Crow and found someone willing to sell us a bowl of caribou stew.

It really did taste amazing after all the work we’d done to earn it, and I felt better. There are few worries that can persist for long against a good meal with friends, and I would not let Aenghus Óg steal any of my contentment again. If he managed to escape hell himself instead of simply possess a couple of minions, I would be ready.