Great Bear Lake (27 page)

As Kallik and Taqqiq approached the
edge of the forest with Miki, the sun sank behind the trees, tinging their tops with gold. The lake shone like ice and the breeze dropped to nothing.

Kallik remembered the first time she had been there, and how she had fled in terror from the black bears.

How could I have been so stupid? They're just bears like us
.

“Will you be okay now?” Taqqiq asked Miki, halting underneath the outlying trees.

“Fine, thanks.” Miki gave them a small nod, stiff with pride now that he was back on his own territory.

“Good-bye, then,” Kallik said, touching his shoulder with her muzzle. “May the spirits walk with you.”

“And you,” Miki said. He was already shuffling backward, ready to vanish into the trees.

Kallik and Taqqiq started to return across the marsh.

“Hey, Miki!” The voice came from above; Kallik looked back and spotted a couple of black bear cubs sitting on the branches.

Miki glanced up. “Chula! Ossi!”

“Are…are the white bears coming?” Two sets of bright, scared eyes looked at Kallik and her brother.

“No,” Miki told them. “These bears just brought me home. We're safe now. The white bears don't want our food, or our trees.”

“We were so worried about you, little one.” Kallik saw a full-grown she-bear creep out along a lower branch beneath the cubs.

In another tree, a large male bear peered down at Miki. “Praise to Arcturus! You have brought our cub home,” he called. “It's a sign that the forest still belongs to black bears!”

There was a sound of twigs snapping and leaves rustling as the faces of black bears peered down from the edge of the forest. Their eyes gleamed like stars from the shadowy trees.

Taqqiq let out an amused huff. “Black bears are as weird as white bears.”

Kallik didn't think it was funny. The black bears were obviously waiting for the white bears to attack, crouched in the trees, scared and convinced they were about to lose the forest, and their only source of food by the lake. If Taqqiq couldn't see that, then he wasn't really sorry. But Kallik wasn't going to give up on him—or give him another chance to cause trouble with the black bears.

“Come on,” she said. “The others are waiting for us.”

 

Padding back across the open marshland with Taqqiq at her side, Kallik's thoughts were in a whirl. Nanuk had told her to
go to the place where the spirits danced. She longed to travel there with Lusa and the others to see if Nisa appeared in a swirl of light, dancing over the ice. But how could she leave Taqqiq, when she had only just found him?

She halted where a small stream gurgled into the lake and listened to a strange low moaning, like the wind but deeper. She couldn't tell where it came from but it echoed around the lake, and flowed into her mind, washing away her muddled thoughts. Was her mother trying to tell her something? She strained to make out any words, but it was like trying to listen to an echo of the wind. Except that now she knew what she had to do.

“Come with me, Taqqiq,” she said.

Taqqiq stared at her. “What?”

“Come with me, to the place where the ice never melts.”

For several heartbeats Taqqiq didn't reply. His eyes were wide with shock.

“Please,” Kallik insisted. “I don't want to lose you, not after I searched for you for so long.”

Her heart sank as Taqqiq shook his head. “I don't think I can. The other bears won't want me.”

“You don't know that. Come with me, and we'll ask them.”

Then the low moaning stopped and her doubts came back. Perhaps they wouldn't want two white bears with them after all.

Toklo swam back across the lake
as the sun dipped behind the forest. He could feel the cool water soothing his cuts and bruises, and the splashes from his pawstrokes sparkled in the fading sunlight. This time, he had no fear of the spirits pulling him under; instead, he longed to feel his mother's pelt brushing beside him, or a playful tug from Tobi on his fur.

“Mother? Tobi?” he called, but a strange silence had spread across the lake. The water was calm, and the only sound was his own splashing.

All of a sudden, the water turned gold, dazzling him. Toklo looked up. As the sun touched the horizon, the sky seemed to be on fire, and on the far shore, the forest looked black against it. He struck out with his legs and headed toward the brown bear territory. Ahead of him, he could see brown bears gathering on the shore. Oogrook was standing on the parley stone, gazing across the lake. Around him, full-grown bears stood singly or in groups, while small cubs bounded among them, splashing through the water and kicking up sand.

Oogrook lifted his muzzle and let out a strange low moaning sound. It echoed around the lake, getting louder as more bears joined in. The sound seemed to be pulling Toklo toward the shore, giving strength to his tired legs. Before he knew it, he was treading in soft mud and looking up at the brown bears.

He stood in the lake for a while, feeling the water lap under his belly. He had done it! He had spent a day and a night on Pawprint Island, and made it back to the brown bears. He felt something bump against his leg and instinctively plunged his paw into the water. His claws sliced through flesh and he pulled up a fat salmon. He held the fish in his jaws as he waded out of the water toward Oogrook. The bears parted to let him through and he dropped the salmon on the parley stone. It flapped a few times, then went still.

Oogrook stopped moaning, and in the quiet Toklo could hear the lapping of the lake and the hissing of the wind in the trees once more. The old bear dug his claws into the salmon and held it up for all the bears to see.

“It's a sign!” a bear called.

“The salmon will return!”

“The cub has done well,” Oogrook declared. “Arcturus honors him, and through him, he honors all brown bears.”

The bears began barking and huffing. Toklo hoped Shoteka was here to see his triumphant return at the end of the Longest Day.

“Well done, little cub,” Oogrook murmured, looking down from the parley stone. “You will be remembered on all the
Longest Days from now until memory fades.”

Toklo nodded. He knew he had done well; he knew that most of these bears hadn't expected him to make it back from the island. But there was more to be done. The future of the bears didn't rest on a single salmon.

He looked up at Oogrook, knowing he could never explain what he was about to do. Maybe he didn't need to: The old bear stared into his eyes, then nodded, just once.

Toklo turned and padded through the noisy bears, and slipped quietly back into the water.

Lusa and Ujurak sat on the
ridge, looking down at the white bears gathered by the lake. Some stood with their feet in the water, staring into the setting sun. Others lay on the pebbles, their muzzles touching the ripples at the edge of the lake.

The setting sun turned the water to gold. All the sky seemed to be on fire. Lusa could hear the white bear Siqiniq's voice as the ceremony began.

“Sun, we say farewell to you….”

She glanced at Ujurak.
So what now?
Her paws were itching; was it time to leave the lake and continue with their journey? “Ujurak, are you ready to—”

Ujurak raised a paw to silence her as Siqiniq's voice carried through the air. “Sun, leave us now, so the dark and the ice may return….”

“When I was a white bear, I longed for the ice, too,” Ujurak whispered. “Ice is the spirit of the white bear. It feeds them, it gives them shelter, it keeps them safe from flat-faces. But it's melting away, faster and faster, and they fear one day it will be
gone. What will the white bears do then?”

Siqiniq's voice came again. This time he was facing the white bears with his back to the lake. “Go now in the protection of the spirits. And may the ice greet you when you arrive home.”

There was a stir of movement on the beach as the bears began to separate.

Lusa and Ujurak sat and watched the sky grow dark. The white bears became pale shapes farther down the hill and along the lakeshore. Lusa guessed they were looking for sleeping places, away from the hardest stones on the beach.

There was more movement close by, and Lusa saw Kallik and Taqqiq climbing the slope. She bounded down to meet them.

“Have you come to say good-bye to Kallik?” she asked Taqqiq.

Taqqiq muttered something inaudible, looking at his paws. Lusa gave Kallik a puzzled glance. “Is he okay?”

“He wants to come with us,” Kallik explained. “But—”

“I never said that!” Taqqiq interrupted.

Kallik suppressed a sigh.

Lusa looked up the slope and saw Toklo appear beside Ujurak. His pelt was dripping wet and he looked exhausted, but his eyes were bright as ever.

“Let's go talk to the others,” Lusa suggested, leading the way back up.

Toklo was licking his wet fur, holding up each paw to dry
the fur between his claws. Ujurak was looking up at the sky. Following his gaze, Lusa saw that the Bear Watcher had appeared, running tirelessly around the Pathway Star.

“Our path is laid out for us,” Ujurak said. “It is time to leave. Who will come with me?”

“You know I'm coming!” Lusa replied at once. “I want to see the spirits dancing in the sky, even if I have to go where the trees don't grow.”

Ujurak nodded. “What about you, Toklo?”

Toklo stood up, shaking some water off his pelt.

“Come on, Toklo,” Lusa urged him. “You know we'll miss you if you stay behind.”

“I'll come,” said Toklo. “I was always going to come.”

Lusa felt a jolt of relief. She wasn't sure that she understood Toklo yet, but he was part of their journey, as important to it as Ujurak was. “Kallik?” she prompted.

“I want to come, but…” Kallik turned to her brother. “What do you think?”

“I think you're all crazy,” Taqqiq grumbled.

“But think about it!” Kallik pleaded. “There'll be ice…. Endless Ice that never melts. We'll have food all the time, and we'll be safe from flat-faces and firebeasts. Don't you want to go find it? And we'll see the spirits in the sky. Oh, Taqqiq, please come!”

Her brother turned his head away. “
They
won't want me.”

“Yes, we do,” Lusa said at once. She wasn't particularly concerned about Taqqiq coming, but if Kallik refused to be parted
from her brother, then Lusa wanted Taqqiq to join them.

“The way is open to any who want to follow it,” Ujurak added.

Toklo said nothing, just glared at Taqqiq as if challenging him to make a decision. Lusa could see that he wasn't finding it easy to forgive the white bear for attacking the black bears. Well, she hadn't forgiven Taqqiq for that, either. She just wanted Kallik to come with them.

Please,
she begged silently. She knew that if Toklo refused, Kallik would give up her own dream of finding the place of endless ice.

“Come on, Toklo!” Lusa bounded over to the brown bear and gave him a nudge. “Taqqiq is okay.”

Toklo let out a disbelieving huff. “All right,” he muttered, “but if he lays so much as a claw on any bear, I'll rip his pelt off.”

“Way to be welcoming!” Lusa huffed.

“Please, Taqqiq.” Kallik locked gazes with her brother. “We'll find the ice.” She looked around at the stretch of mud, pebbles, and sparse grass that led down to the waterside. “You can't stay here, and we'd be together.”

Taqqiq hesitated. “Okay,” he said at last. “I'll come with you.” Reluctantly he dipped his head to the others. “Thanks.”

Ujurak lifted his head again, sniffing the air. “This is the way,” he said, beginning to pad along the lakeshore, away from the territory of the white bears.

“How do you know?” Taqqiq objected, then looked as if he wished he hadn't said anything.

Fear prickled Lusa's pelt as a low growl came from deep in Toklo's throat, and Taqqiq swung around to face the grizzly. Were they going to start fighting
already
?

“Don't get angry,” she told Toklo. “Taqqiq doesn't know Ujurak yet.” To Taqqiq she added, “We don't know how Ujurak knows what he knows, he just does. He'll get us there, don't worry.”

Taqqiq still looked doubtful.

“Come on!” Kallik urged him, giving him a shove in the direction Ujurak had taken. “We're going to find the ice!”

Taqqiq moved off at last, loping after the small brown bear. Toklo followed, still keeping a wary eye on him. Lusa fell in beside Kallik to bring up the rear. As she padded along, she looked up as the sky began to brighten and the Bear Watcher faded in the orange light of dawn.

“Thank you for watching over us,” she whispered. “We will see you again soon.”