Great Bear Lake (11 page)

“Come on!” Toklo called. He had pushed his back half into a bush with shiny dark leaves; Lusa could only see his shoulders and his face. She dived in beside him, almost squashing Ujurak, who crouched among the branches close to the trunk.

“Here.” Lusa dropped the chicken carcass and tried not to gasp for breath too obviously. “I told you I'd find some food.”

“You told us it was easy to get food from flat-faces,” Toklo pointed out. His fur was sticking up in all directions, and one of his claws was bleeding. “You nearly got us killed!”

“No, I didn't!” Lusa protested. “It was just bad luck that the flat-face came out. That dog was too small to hurt us. And anyway, I
did
get us something to eat.”

Toklo nosed the chicken suspiciously. “I'm not eating that,” he grunted. “It stinks of flat-faces.”

“What?” Lusa's pelt grew hot with anger. “So it's okay to eat food you catch, but not to eat what I find?”

“See? I
catch
food, you just
find
it. Or steal it from flat-faces. That shows how squirrel-brained you are,” the big grizzly cub growled. “That's no way for a bear to hunt.”

“Well, it's the way
I
hunt,” Lusa retorted. “At least I got something. Do you want us all to starve to death?”

“You don't understand. You're not a proper bear.” Toklo turned and pushed his way out of the bush, padding
farther off into the woods.

Lusa met Ujurak's doubtful gaze. “You'll have some, won't you?” she pleaded. Her belly was still grumbling; the potato sticks hadn't been enough to satisfy her, but what she really wanted was to see her friends eating food she had provided.

To her dismay, Ujurak shook his head. “It's not natural to eat flat-face stuff,” he said. “Besides, it smells yucky!”

“Fine!” Lusa huffed. “I'll eat it myself.”

She gulped down the mouthfuls of chicken, crunching the bones, but it felt like chewing on wood. Toklo was right; she wasn't a proper bear. Her paws were meant for climbing trees, not for opening flat-face cans and stealing their food.

The chicken felt heavy in her belly as she and Ujurak followed Toklo into the trees and left the flat-face dens behind.

When Toklo and Ujurak found a hollow sheltered by bushes, Lusa climbed a tree and huddled miserably on a branch. She couldn't sleep.
They would be better off without me
.

 

The next morning Ujurak took the lead again, skirting the flat-face dens in a wide circle. The trees thinned out and gave way to tough moorland grass patched with clumps of thorn bushes. Lusa shivered as the chilly wind buffeted her fur. She felt vulnerable without branches overhead, without the comforting murmurs of the bear spirits. Ujurak led them straight across the moorland, their shadows padding dark alongside them as the sun reddened.

Rounding an outcrop of rock, Lusa halted in surprise to see three or four grayish white animals slowly wandering the
hillside, their heads down as they nibbled the rough grass. “What are those?” she asked.

“Sheep,” Ujurak replied, at the same time as Toklo growled, “Your next meal.” Adding, “Stay back, both of you,” he flattened himself to the ground and began to stalk the sheep, keeping downwind of them.

Making use of a dip in the ground where a tiny stream trickled along, Toklo crept almost close enough to touch the nearest sheep before he rose up on his hindpaws, roaring with his forepaws splayed. The group of sheep split up, letting out a terrified bleating as they ran in different directions. Toklo tried to drop down on one of them, but it leaped away; his forepaws grazed its rump as it fled.

Toklo let out a snarl of fury and gave chase. The sheep dodged rocks and scattered between bushes, but Toklo stayed hard behind one of them, whipping around to cut it off before it could escape. At last he put on a burst of speed and barged into its side, knocking it over. Lusa saw the sheep's legs kick frantically, and then it was still.

Toklo grabbed the sheep's neck in his jaws and dragged it back to where Lusa and Ujurak were waiting.

“Great kill!” Ujurak said, his eyes shining.

Toklo nodded to acknowledge the praise. He dropped the carcass at their paws. “Eat,” he invited, settling down beside the sheep to tear off a huge mouthful for himself.

“Thanks, Toklo!” Ujurak dived in right away.

Lusa hesitated. She felt awkward and frustrated. Toklo had provided them with good food, and all she could do was eat it.
She still felt hot with shame when she remembered her own efforts at hunting.

“Thank you,” she mumbled after a few heartbeats, and crouched beside Ujurak to eat. The meat of the sheep tasted rich and warm, but Lusa felt as if every mouthful would choke her. She didn't deserve it. She hated being so dependent on Toklo, when he clearly didn't like her and didn't want to talk to her.

He had judged her from the start, just because she had grown up in the Bear Bowl rather than the wild. If only he knew how much she had learned since leaving the Bowl, how much closer she was to being what he would call a proper bear now. She didn't always get things right, but she always tried.

Why does he have to be so angry? Hasn't he ever made a mistake in his life?

That night the cubs sheltered among
thornbushes, and the next day continued their trek across the moorland. Toklo pushed them on at a fast pace, and Lusa was panting when they finally reached the crest of the hills. In front of her paws the land fell away in long slopes to a valley. A river wound its way along the bottom; Lusa's claws dug into the grass when she saw how wide it was: She could hardly make out the opposite bank.

“Is that where we're going?” she asked.

Ujurak nodded. “The Pathway Star leads us across the river.”

“And how do you suppose we're going to get to the other side?” Toklo growled. “I'm not going to swim.”

“We'll find a bridge,” Ujurak said.

Lusa nodded, secretly pleased that she wouldn't have to swim so far. She didn't doubt that she could, but she would feel very exposed, with no overhanging trees to hide her from passing firebeasts or flat-faces.

Twilight was gathering by the time the bears reached the
edge of the river. On the flat riverbank Lusa found her paws sinking into the grass and water welling up around her paws, soaking her fur. Padding alongside the river, she had to steer a winding course among clumps of longer grasses and reeds with feathery tops. The air was full of the scent of water and the thin, piping calls of strange birds.

“I hope we can find somewhere dry to sleep,” she murmured to Ujurak.

Toklo beckoned them over to a hollow near a tumble of rocks, but the grass at the bottom was wet and spongy.

“This is no good,” Lusa protested. “We'll get soaking wet.”

“Then find somewhere better,” Toklo snapped.

Lusa bit back a sharp retort. They were all tired and anxious; she knew it was important to find somewhere soon, because there was so little time to sleep now that the nights were so short. “But I'm not sleeping in a swamp,” she muttered to herself.

“What about among the reeds?” Ujurak suggested. “We'd be hidden there.”

“The reeds are
growing
in water, bee-brain,” Toklo replied.

In the end they had to settle for a hump of tussocky grass with only a straggling bush for shelter. Toklo settled down with his back to the others and his paws clamped firmly over his snout. Damp and miserable, Lusa listened to his snoring, and to the quieter breathing of Ujurak. She peered upward for a glimpse of the Bear Watcher, wanting the reassurance she always felt under that quiet gaze, but clouds covered the sky.

At last she fell into a fitful doze, and was woken in the morning by the splashing of rain on the marshy ground. She crept out from the scant shelter of the bush, trying to shake water from her pelt. In front of her the river stretched out in a silver-gray expanse, reflecting the cloudy sky. Raindrops pitted its flat surface. The far bank was barely visible through the rain.

Behind her she could hear grunts and rustling as Toklo and Ujurak woke. The big grizzly padded past her without a word, heading toward the river. Ujurak followed him.

“If we have to swim we won't get much wetter,” Lusa grumbled to herself.

Toklo's ears twitched. “I'm not going to swim. How many more times do I have to tell you?”

Ujurak found a track leading through the reeds to the edge of the river, where they could drink. The current rolled on, deep and silent, the surface bouncing with raindrops, and rain hid the far bank. Lusa stifled a pang of fear at the mist-shrouded emptiness.

A loud honking from overhead interrupted her thoughts. Lusa looked up to see a flock of geese swooping down out of the sky. They skimmed the surface of the river with tremendous squawking and clattering, to land on the grass a few bearlengths downstream.

“Could we catch one, do you think?” Lusa asked hopefully.

Before any bear could reply, a ripple of movement passed among the geese.
Maybe they heard me,
Lusa thought. The whole flock took to the air again; she watched as they whirled across
the sky, then lined up in a ragged snout shape and flew off downriver to vanish into the mist.

“They've gone,” Lusa said, disappointed. She turned to see if Ujurak was watching the geese, too.

But the small brown cub had vanished. Wildly she looked up and down the river, but all she could see was Toklo raising his snout from the water and shaking off the drops.

Lusa ran to his side. “Ujurak has gone! He was standing right beside me.”

Toklo didn't reply. He just gazed downriver in the direction the geese had taken.

Lusa's belly lurched. “He changed, didn't he? He's flying away with the geese.”

Toklo nodded, then settled down on his haunches and started grooming the knots out of his fur. Lusa watched him for a moment; she felt awkward because Toklo didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that their companion had vanished. “What if Ujurak doesn't come back?”

The big grizzly cub glanced up. “Don't worry, he will.”

“But what if he doesn't? What will we do? We can't read the signs without him.”

Toklo didn't reply, just kept on tugging at a particularly stubborn knot.

Lusa didn't dare go on asking. Ujurak
had
to come back! He was the only one who knew which way to go; he wouldn't just leave them like this. But she couldn't stop thinking how much easier it would be to reach the place where the spirits danced if you could wing your way through the sky in the shape of a
bird, instead of trudging along on the ground as a bear.

Finally Toklo seemed satisfied that his pelt was as smooth as he could make it. He looked up and faced Lusa. “Ujurak
will
come back.” His voice was full of confidence. “I know he will. We don't have to worry.”

Lusa was startled by his faith. Toklo hadn't known Ujurak for much longer than he had known her, and yet he clearly trusted the younger cub. Even if he didn't trust her, it might be a sign that Toklo wasn't as scornful of other bears as he pretended to be.

She nodded. “Then we'll wait.”

“You don't have to,” Toklo said, a rare gentleness in his tone. Lusa could hear the words he hadn't spoken.
But I do
.

He
needs
Ujurak!
The realization broke on Lusa like the sun rising, chasing away the darkness of the night. Compassion for Toklo filled her; he had just proven that no bear could truly exist alone. Not even Oka: Her choice to abandon her cub had driven her mad.

At least she wasn't alone when the flat-faces came for her
. Lusa knew Oka had been glad of her company that long, echoing night.

Long grasses grew at the water's edge, trailing into the river. Lusa tore off a mouthful and chewed it, refreshed by the moist stems. After a few moments, Toklo padded down the bank for another drink, a few bearlengths farther downstream. Then he began to eat the succulent grasses, too.

Lusa crept along the bank until she was close enough to reach out and touch Toklo's shoulder with her muzzle.

Toklo jumped, almost choking on his mouthful of grass.
“Don't sneak up on me like that!” he spluttered. “What do you want?”

“Why won't you swim? I know you can. All bears can.”

Suspicion flared in Toklo's brown eyes. “What do you want to know for? It's none of your business.”

Lusa's instincts told her to turn away, not to bother him anymore. Instead she gathered her courage. “I thought you might tell me, that's all.”

For a long moment, Toklo stared at her. Then he looked down at his paws. “I'm scared,” he confessed.

“Why?”

“I—I can feel the spirits trying to drag me under.” He didn't look up at Lusa. “I think maybe Tobi is trying to drown me, because he's lonely in the river, or maybe it's Oka, punishing me because I lived when her favorite cub died.”

“But Oka wouldn't do that,” Lusa said, trying to keep her voice steady. “She loved you very much.”

The two cubs stared at each other for a long moment. Then Toklo turned away, his shoulders hunched. He tore up another mouthful of grass. “I don't care what my mother felt,” he mumbled.

Please, Arcturus,
Lusa prayed,
tell me what to say
.

“Flat-faces brought Oka into the Bear Bowl,” she began. Toklo stiffened, but he didn't turn to look at her; he just kept champing on the grasses. “She was really thin, as if she'd been starving. She was so unhappy and so angry, and at first I didn't understand why. She had food and shelter, and the flat-faces were kind, they really were. But Oka didn't seem to care about
getting her strength back. She just wanted to get
out
, back to the wild. She kept throwing herself at the fences, trying to break her way through.”

There was no response from Toklo. Lusa just had to believe that he was still listening.

“I've always
known
bears don't have to live in a Bear Bowl,” she went on, with an edge to her tone.
I'm not as dumb as he thinks!
“My father, King, was born in the wild, you know. I always loved hearing his stories of what life was like there. And I thought Oka might have some good stories, too. But she didn't want to talk to me. She just lay beside the fence with her eyes closed.”

She wondered whether to tell Toklo about the time when Oka attacked a flat-face. She suspected that Toklo wouldn't share her feeling that the attack had been a dreadful thing to do; after all, he would have attacked a flat-face cub if Ujurak hadn't stopped him. But she couldn't leave it out, because it was why Oka had died without having a chance to find Toklo.

“Oka had been in the Bear Bowl for about a moon when she clawed a flat-face,” she continued in a rush. “He'd come to feed her, and she charged at him and knocked him over.” She suppressed a shudder as memories of the flat-face screaming and his blood splashing onto the grass flickered in her mind. “She held him down and clawed him, and he howled in pain. It was terrible.”

Toklo's ears twitched; he was certainly listening now. “What does attacking a flat-face have to do with me?”

“Nothing….” Lusa searched for the right words. “Oka was just so angry that she couldn't find you again. She had lost
both her cubs—how do you think she felt?”

Toklo gazed out across the river. The rain had eased off and the clouds were breaking up, letting a gleam of sunlight through.

“Oka told me about you and Tobi.” Lusa pressed on gently. “Because Tobi died, she thought you would die, too, and she couldn't bear it. That's why she sent you away to take care of yourself. She was so sorry. She didn't mean to hurt the flat-face, she was just grieving so much for you and Tobi.”

A low, throaty sound came from deep in Toklo's chest, and he turned his head from side to side as if he were trying to shake off a stinging insect. For the first time he looked Lusa full in the face. His brown eyes were clouded.

Lusa wanted to press herself against his shoulder to comfort him with the warmth of her pelt, but she didn't quite dare.

“After the attack, the flat-faces took her away,” she said. “She never came back. They…they wouldn't have returned her to the wild. Oka knew that. She was thinking about you, all the time. She was sorry for what she did to you. She—”

“She wasn't sorry!” Toklo growled. “If she had really cared, she wouldn't have sent me away.”

Lusa's heart sank and she turned her head to look at the river sliding past.

Then she heard the beating of wings above her head. A goose was swooping down out of the sky, stretching out its legs for a landing. As soon as its feet touched the ground they began to thicken; its body expanded and brown fur flowed over it, swallowing up its feathers. Its wings became forepaws
and its beak changed to a snout. Within a heartbeat Ujurak stood in front of them, a few bearlengths from the water's edge.

Lusa was too frozen by relief and astonishment to move. Ujurak trotted up to them. “Hi,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“You came back!” Lusa exclaimed.

“Of course I came back. Did you think I wouldn't?” Ujurak gave her a friendly shove. “I'll always come back.”

“Where have you been?” Toklo asked. His voice rasped with anger; Lusa wasn't sure if he was angry with her for telling him about Oka, or with Ujurak for taking off like that without warning.

“Flying with the geese,” Ujurak replied, his eyes stretching wide. “They are so scared, and hungry. Their nesting grounds are shrinking, and they can find hardly anything to eat as they fly toward them.”

“But did you see anything useful, like a place to cross the river?” Toklo prompted.

“Yes,” Ujurak answered, the faraway look in his eyes clearing. “Farther downriver there's a flat-face bridge made of gray stone. It's huge, and there are firebeasts using it to cross.”

“All right, let's go. Show us where it is.” Ignoring Lusa, Toklo strode off downriver with Ujurak trotting behind him.

Lusa followed. She wished she could have done more to help Toklo understand his mother's sorrow.
It's my fault,
she told herself.
I didn't say it right
.