Great Bear Lake (5 page)

Lusa stood beside Ujurak on a
flat rock jutting out from the ridge. After they escaped from the wolves, the shape-shifting grizzly cub had led them back into the mountains, where they trudged on for days with little food or water, and no shelter from the relentless, claw-sharp wind. Lusa jumped at every unexpected noise. Sometimes she thought she could pick up the distant scent of wolves, but to her relief they never caught sight of any slinking over the rocks.

Toklo padded up to join them. “How long do we have to stay up here?” he huffed. “There isn't a sniff of prey.”

The air was full of the scent of freshwater; a few bearlengths below where the cubs were standing a stream gushed out from a gap among the stones and leaped from rock to rock down the mountainside until it vanished into the trees far below. Instead of replying to Toklo, Ujurak slid down and drank from the spring.

“Do you
want
to starve?” Toklo snapped. “If you ask me, we should never have left the forest.”

Ujurak looked up; glittering drops of water sparkled on his muzzle. “Our path has divided,” he replied. “Our way is out of the mountains now, following the water. My mind is full of the sound and scents of water.”

“Well, of course it is!” Toklo muttered. “You're standing with your paws in a stream!”

He scrambled down the slope until he stood next to Ujurak. Lusa followed and dipped her nose in the stream. The water was cold and delicious; she couldn't remember when she'd last enjoyed a drink so much.

I'm sure this water isn't sick,
she thought, remembering Ujurak's unhappiness on the night they escaped from the wolves.
Maybe Ujurak is worrying about nothing
.

Toklo dipped his head to drink, too; while his snout was plunged in the stream, Lusa checked him over, giving him a good sniff. His eyes were clear and his scent was just the same; he was bad tempered, but no more than usual. Drinking from the stream didn't seem to have done him any harm, even though Ujurak-deer had been convinced the water was sick.

Ujurak padded a few paces farther down from the ridge and waited for the others to finish drinking. His eyes were bright and eager.

“This stream is a sign, right?” Lusa said, as she and Toklo scrambled down to join him. “I wish I could understand them like you do. Will you show me how?”

Toklo let out a snort. “One bear seeing invisible signs is quite enough. You'd be of more use, Lusa, if you learned to hunt properly.”

Lusa puffed huffily. “You're just jealous because Ujurak can change into all kinds of creatures and receive messages from the spirits.”

“Ujurak has fluff in his ears, that's all,” Toklo replied.

Lusa glanced at Ujurak. She wondered if he would be hurt by the older cub's scorn, but the look Ujurak gave Toklo was warm and friendly.
He understands Toklo's moods a lot better than I do,
Lusa told herself.

“I'll show you the next sign,” Ujurak said to her. “Then maybe you'll understand.”

Lusa couldn't restrain a little bounce of excitement. “Thank you!”
And maybe Toklo will understand, too
.

“For now, I know we have to leave the mountains,” Ujurak said, gazing at Toklo. “Isn't that what you wanted?”

Toklo sighed. “Okay. Lead on.”

Ujurak set off confidently downward, along the edge of the stream.

 

The sun felt warm on Lusa's back as she followed Toklo and Ujurak down a grassy slope, weaving their way among scattered pine trees. They were leaving the mountains behind now; the foothills looked gentle and welcoming, with softer ground underpaw. Lusa sniffed the warm air.
There must be
something
good to eat here!

In the far distance were more mountains, blue and mysterious, with snow-tipped peaks. The sky was blue, too, arching overhead; even after moons of traveling, Lusa had never imagined it could look so huge, until she felt like a tiny black beetle
crawling across the grass.

“Hurry up! You're slower than a snail!” Toklo growled.

She broke into a run to catch up with her companions. They were a strange pair to be traveling together, Lusa thought: one so friendly and the other one angry all the time, even grouchier than the grizzlies in the Bear Bowl.

“I'm going ahead to check for danger.” The big grizzly cub jerked his head in the direction of a thorn thicket. “You two hide in there until I get back.”

“Okay,” Ujurak said. “Be careful.”

Lusa watched Toklo pad away. He might be grouchy but he was brave, too. She crept underneath the bushes beside Ujurak, feeling her fur snagged by the thorns on the low-growing branches. Once under cover she flopped down, grateful for the chance to rest and rasp her tongue over her sore pads.

“Is it much farther to the place where the spirits dance?” she asked.

Ujurak shook his head, confusion in his bright brown eyes. “I don't know. I just know which way we have to go.”

“If you've never been there before, how will we know when we get there?” Lusa persisted. “Will we see the spirits?”

“I don't know that, either,” Ujurak confessed. “But there will be a path of fire waiting for us in the sky. When I go to sleep, that's what I dream of.”

A shiver of anticipation made Lusa's fur stand on end. She wanted so much to see the fire in the sky, and the spirits dancing—though how could they dance when every bear knew that their spirits went into trees when they died?

“What will we do when we get there?” she asked.

“The spirits will show us,” Ujurak replied solemnly.

Lusa fell silent. She wished she could be as close to the spirits as Ujurak was, but she sensed that it didn't really matter. She trusted Ujurak to get them where they were going.

“Come on!” Toklo's voice interrupted her dreaming. “Let's get a move on. It's safe for now—there isn't even a butterfly stirring around here.”

Lusa pulled herself out from the thicket to see the big cub already several bearlengths away. Ujurak padded beside her as they followed in Toklo's pawsteps. Lusa snuffed up the scents of green growing things, enjoying the feel of the cool grass that brushed her paws. All the world seemed deserted in the heat of sunhigh, just as Toklo had said. The only movement Lusa could see was the tiny dot of an eagle, hovering high above.

“I wish
I
could be an eagle,” she said wistfully, as she watched the bird's outstretched wings slicing through the air. “Flying looks like fun. Can you teach me how, Ujurak?”

Ujurak shook his head. “I don't know how to fly when I'm a bear. Besides…” He turned his head away and his voice grew sad and quiet. “In other shapes, you learn too much. I think I'd be happier just being an ordinary bear.”

“Learn too much?” Lusa didn't understand how any bear could
not
want to know more about everything. Then she remembered the night when Ujurak had led the wolves away. “You mean what you said after you changed into the deer? About the water being sick?”

The brown cub nodded. “Every time I change into another creature, I realize that a bit more of the world is dying. Sickness is spreading everywhere—in the air and water, and deep inside the earth. There's too much of it to fight! What am I supposed to do?”

By the time he finished speaking he was shaking uncontrollably, his eyes staring into the distance as if he could see something dreadful ahead. Lusa pressed herself against his flank.

“You don't have to do anything,” she told him. “It's not your fault. Even if the world is sick, it's not your responsibility to put it right.”

“Then whose is it?” Ujurak turned that horrified gaze on her. “Remember the dead forest? What if everywhere was like that?”

“It won't happen,” Lusa said. “And even if it does, I'll be here to look after you. Toklo will, too.”

Instead of replying, Ujurak jerked his head up, startled, as pawsteps thudded toward them. While they talked, Toklo had drawn ahead; now Lusa saw him doubling back, his muscular legs propelling him up the grassy slope.

“Ujurak, is something the matter?” he panted when he halted beside them.

“No, I'm fine,” Ujurak replied. He cast a quick, anxious glance at Lusa, as if he didn't want Toklo to know what they had been talking about. Lusa didn't intend to tell him. Toklo would probably say it was nonsense.

Toklo looked closer at the little brown bear. “Then why
have you stopped? I looked behind me and…and you weren't there!”

Ujurak shook his shoulders, rolling his baggy pelt from side to side. “I'm still here, aren't I? We're coming now. Lusa?”

She followed the two brown bears as they padded side by side down the slope. Toklo's shadow fell across Ujurak's back so that there was just one shadow on the ground, with eight legs. Her own shadow looked small and fuzzy, flitting over the grass beside her. For a moment she wished she were walking between Toklo and Ujurak so that Toklo's shadow covered them all, keeping them safe, moving them forward on many tireless legs.

At the foot of the slope they came to a rocky outcrop where water trickled between moss-covered stones and fell into a pool below. Toklo plunged his muzzle into the water without hesitating. Lusa waited for him to finish drinking, wondering if this water was sick like the stream under the trees two nights ago.

When Toklo backed away, Lusa padded up to the pool and took a deep sniff; all she could sense was water, moss, and rock. She glanced at Ujurak, but the brown cub said nothing; he was gazing into the distance, and his eyes looked full of clouds. Lusa dipped her snout and drank. The water was cool and clear, and she felt energy pouring through her as she swallowed.
The spring on the ridge was good water,
she thought.
Maybe this is, too
.

Ujurak drank, too, but reluctantly, and only a few mouthfuls. Being convinced that the world was dying must be a huge burden, like trying to carry a full-grown grizzly on his back.
Perhaps he'd stop worrying when they got to the place where the bear spirits danced.

When they had all drunk as much as they wanted, Ujurak stood still for several heartbeats and stared at the sky with his head cocked on one side, before leading the way along a narrow track at the bottom of a valley. Green hills swelled gently on either side, speckled with thick, leafy bushes. A warm breeze blew into Lusa's face, carrying the scent of beetles and worms and other tasty things, but she didn't want to ask to stop in case Ujurak lost his fragile trail.

They followed the track as it curved around the foot of the hill. On the other side the ground fell away until they could look down across wooded slopes, fading into the distance. Way below, Lusa spotted the gleam of a river running through the trees, and beyond it a stone path, with tiny glittering specks that she knew were firebeasts racing up and down. They were so far away that she couldn't hear their roaring.

The sun had begun to slide down the sky by the time the cubs rounded a shoulder of the hill and came face-to-face with a tumble of rocks and earth, shaggy with ferns and grasses. The path forked; one part led back toward the mountains, while the other zigzagged across the downward slope and into the forest. Toklo, who had taken the lead, came to a halt, growling softly in his throat. He stretched out his neck, sniffing the air as if trying to decide which way to go.

Lusa turned to Ujurak. “Is there a sign?”

Ujurak trotted forward until he stood at the exact point where the track forked. He stood still and tense, his eyes
flickering back and forth. Lusa clamped her jaws shut and forced herself to be quiet.

At last Ujurak relaxed and tipped his head, inviting Lusa to join him. “Is there a sign? Can you read it?” she demanded as she bounded up to him.

Ujurak ignored a heavy sigh from Toklo. “Yes, look.” He faced the direction that led into the mountains, pointing with one paw at a huge boulder right in the middle of the track, halfway to the top. “That's blocking the way,” he explained. “But the other path”—he swiveled around to face the forest—“is clear, as if it's telling us to go that way.”

Lusa thought about that. The boulder wasn't really stopping them from taking the upward path if they wanted to; all they would have to do was squeeze around it. But the lines gouged into its surface gave it a forbidding look, like a huge bear with an angry face. She shivered, deciding that she didn't want to go that way anyway.

“It's as if the spirits are warning us,” she whispered, hoping Toklo didn't hear.

Toklo let out a snarl. “Not you as well! Why am I stuck with
two
squirrel-brains?”

But he swung around and headed along the downward track without any more argument.

Ujurak set off after Toklo and Lusa had to run to keep up. Soon they reached the first pine trees; Lusa relaxed when she heard bear spirits murmuring in the branches above her head. Leaf-shadows dappled the ground and she felt the crackle of pine needles under her paws. Looking up, she saw crisscrossing
branches outlined against the sky. Peace flowed into her like rain filling a hollow, and she felt a sense of familiarity that she had missed up in the mountains. Already she could scent water and make out in the distance the rush of the river she had seen from the upper slopes.