There were other fantastic creatures on earth; in one place it was said there were huge animals with an arm on their face that they used to hold things and drink with; the sea contained fish as large as houses; some birds of the air not only looked like mice but were blind as well, so really Nephilim shouldn’t have unleashed such a furor. True, they were enormous, some said ten feet high, others nearer fifteen; true, they looked like human beings although they weren’t — but then so did certain giant apes — true, their existence had been unknown to man, but so had that of the white northern bears.
Even so men were dispatched after them. Spring after spring groups of hunters would leave the villages along the coast and set off into the forest to hunt them.
The reason for this was that the rumor concerning the Nephilim arose at about the same time as another rumor. For several generations women had been disappearing in Nod, and not just one every ten years or so, as in the valley Noah came from, but several each year. Two had been found, presumably because their absence had been noticed almost at once, and a search instituted immediately. Both had been heading into the forest, walking completely alone, and didn’t react to the voices calling them, they just carried on walking, slowly and almost like sleepwalkers. They didn’t even react when the men caught up with them and held them still. They just stood quite quietly staring ahead in a way that filled those around them with unease. They weren’t looking at the trees in front of them, nor at the landscape that stretched away behind the trees, or the sky above them. It was as if they were looking into themselves, one of them said later. Someone else said it was as if they could see something the others couldn’t. As if there was something there, right in front of them, which only she, the woman who seemed to be sleepwalking, saw.
Although no living person had seen an angel with his own eyes, they knew enough about them to realize that they were mixed up in this.
Then the first sightings of Nephilim came in, and the matter was settled. Nephilim were half angel, half man.
It was the progeny of these angels that expedition after expedition was sent out to find. But they came back with nothing more than a hazy glimpse here and a half-effaced print there. Until one spring sixteen years before. Three young men, who were homeward bound after overwintering way up in the northeast of the forest, killed one almost by accident. They had followed a river southward for several days, and even though they were short of time, for the spring melt would soon be too great for them to negotiate the flood that lay between them and Nod, they had remained for almost a full day in the forest above some rapids, enthralled by the sight that greeted them from below: five large bears stood in the river catching fish while three cubs tumbled about on the bank. There was something almost humanly lighthearted about the bears’ activities, perhaps that was why the men couldn’t tear themselves away from them. The bears were on all fours in the river and looking down the rapids. The air was flashing with fish. If the fish were too far away, the bears let them pass, if they were within reach, they raised a paw and struck them in flight. Sometimes they would do this standing on their hind legs. The cubs on the bank would occasionally pause in their play and stare at them. If the time between taking each fish got too long, they ambled up the rapids and found a new fishing place. Some of the fish, flapping between their jaws, they ate as they stood out there, some were taken to the bank, where the youngsters approached them inquisitively, only to gobble them down in the next instant, growling at each other.
The sun shone, the salmon leaped, the bears fished, the three men lay watching. It was late into the afternoon by the time the bears had had their fill or become bored — for there was no doubt that fishing gave them pleasure — and the three men decided they might as well set up camp there. A fire was lit on the rocks above the rapids, a tent erected in the forest behind, some salmon caught, fried, and eaten, while the sun sank into the forest and its last rays caught them in their ruddy glow.
A whole winter spent together had left the three of them thoroughly fed up with each other. But on this evening the atmosphere was good, perhaps because their attention had been focused on something outside themselves. It was as if all resentment and petty annoyance was washed away, they sat replete and content around the fire and talked. The day had been a good one, they could agree about that, and, sleepy as they were, the night would doubtless be as well.
One of them got up and went down to the river to drink and wash. The rocks were slippery, he went carefully, stooped by the current, pushed his head under, jerked it up with a gasp, drank a few mouthfuls, got up, and began to walk up the mountainside again.
He had long suspected that the other two were ganging up on him, or rather, he knew that they were, and instead of taking the direct route back to them, he veered off to one side so that he could watch and listen to them from a concealed position. He’d been doing this for several weeks, and although he hadn’t yet caught them doing anything blameworthy, except on one occasion, when they were laughing together, without him quite having caught what they were laughing at, he knew it was just a matter of time. Sooner or later they would give themselves away.
Had it not been for this, and the fact that he was standing on a ledge of rock just a few yards below his cronies, watching them minutely, he would never have seen what he did.
Only three yards or so behind the camp, half hidden by the trunk of a tree, stood a creature staring at them. It was almost human in appearance, but not quite, and this difference, which he never managed to define exactly but only vaguely sensed, was what made him shout.
“Behind you!” he cried. “There’s something behind you!”
Both of them rose and took a few steps back. The creature was already making off into the forest. The one who’d seen it ran forward to the fire, grabbed the loaded gun that they always kept by them, took aim from the edge of the forest, and shot.
He could see quite clearly that he’d hit it in the arm, for the limb seemed to be slung out from the body. It halted for a moment, looked down at the wound, and clapped its other hand over it before continuing.
“I got it!” he shouted, and turned. “Come on!”
Without waiting for the others, he began running into the forest. When he reached the spot where he’d last seen the thing, he stopped and stood listening with his eyes fixed on the ground.
It was making its way down to the river.
As the camp lay downstream, and the river was too wild to cross, it would have to follow the bank upstream. If his memory served him right, the watercourse trended to the east a little farther up. If he ran straight on, he should be able to cut the creature off.
Gun in hand, he ran on through the forest. After a while he came to the river, settled himself down behind the trunk of a fallen tree, and waited. It was a perfect spot to lie; the mountain rolled gently down to the bank until it was level with the water maybe a hundred yards further down. The mountain was bare, the ground open: if it came up here, it wouldn’t have a hope of getting away.