The Last Wilderness (12 page)

Ujurak was beginning to feel a little stronger and finding it easier to talk. ‘I’ve heard that name before,’ he said. ‘Some . . . someone I met told me about it.’
No need to mention that Qopuk was a bear
.

Tiinchuu nodded. ‘The people here – ’ he began, and broke off at the sound of a loud, drawn-out clattering from outside.

Ujurak sat up again, his heart beginning to pound.
What’s that? It’s louder than a firebeast!

Tiinchuu calmed him with a hand resting briefly on his shoulder. ‘I have to leave you for a while,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘You should try to sleep.’

‘Where are you going?’ Ujurak asked.

‘Today the village is expecting visitors from far away,’ the healer replied. ‘And it sounds as if they’ve arrived. I have to go and meet them.’ His tone was grim; Ujurak realised that he wasn’t looking forward to the meeting.

‘Visitors?’ he echoed.

‘There are people who respect our ways,’ Tiinchuu explained. His dark eyes were sombre. ‘But there are others who don’t want the wilderness to stay wild.’

‘What others?’ Ujurak asked hoarsely.

‘Hunters who do not respect the animal spirits as my people do,’ Tiinchuu said. ‘Men who want to cover the wilderness with roads and houses. And others . . .’ He frowned. ‘Others who want to rip the heart out of the earth for their own profit.’

Ujurak’s eyes widened. He didn’t understand what Tiinchuu meant, but it sounded terrifying.

‘Don’t worry,’ Tiinchuu said. ‘While there is breath in my body I will fight the change that is coming, and I’m not the only one.’

I
n his dreams, Toklo found himself in a thick forest. Branches arched overhead and rustling in the undergrowth betrayed the presence of prey. He let out a growl, rearing up to score his claws down the trunk of a tree.

This is my territory! Better not mess with
me
!

A mule deer stepped out of the bushes and stood in a clearing just ahead of him. Toklo bunched his muscles, ready to hunt it down, but as he bounded forward he seemed to fall over his own paws. He woke to find himself underneath the rocky outcrop with Lusa and Kallik beside him and a faint dawn light seeping across the sky.

Toklo sat up, yawning and giving himself a vigorous scratch with one paw.
That was a weird dream!

Beside him, Kallik huffed out a breath and opened her eyes. When she saw Toklo, she heaved herself to her paws.

‘I’m glad you’re still here,’ she murmured.

Toklo nodded. ‘For now.’

He was relieved that Kallik seemed to understand that he couldn’t stay forever. Soon he would have to take the path of a brown bear into the forest, but he knew that however much he tried to explain, he would never make Lusa see that it was the only choice he could make.

‘I’m hungry. Let’s hunt,’ he said out loud.

Padding out into the valley, he snuffed at the air for the scent of prey, and spotted a rabbit nibbling at the long grasses on the edge of a pool. Kallik saw it too; with a brief nod she glided forward, skirting the rabbit in a wide circle so that she could come at it from the other side.

When she was in position she jumped forward with a fearsome growl. The rabbit started up, saw her, and fled straight into Toklo’s paws. He killed it with a blow to its spine.

‘Great kill!’ Kallik said, bounding up. ‘We should try that again some time.’ Then her eyes grew
shadowed, as if she remembered that they wouldn’t have many more chances to hunt together.

Toklo picked up the rabbit and carried it back to where Lusa was still sleeping. As he approached, the little black bear grunted, stirring, and passed her paws over her face. ‘Morning already!’ she yawned, scrambling up. ‘We’d better go back to the flat-face dens and see how Ujurak is doing.’ Her eyes shone as she turned to Kallik. ‘Maybe he’ll be ready to come back with us today!’

‘Hang on,’ Toklo said. ‘Eat first.’

‘Oh, thanks. I’m starving!’ Lusa’s eyes shone as she tore a mouthful from the rabbit. Toklo could see that she had put their argument of the night before out of her mind. He guessed she had managed to forget that he was going to leave.

When they had finished eating, Toklo and Kallik followed Lusa as she bounded eagerly back down the trail towards the flat-face denning area. Toklo’s belly churned as he worried about being spotted by the flat-faces, and he was relieved when Lusa slackened her pace as they approached the dens.

‘We know that we can trust the healer,’ she murmured, ‘but –’

‘
You
trust the healer,’ Toklo interrupted. ‘I’m not so sure.’

‘I think Toklo’s right,’ Kallik put in. ‘He helped Ujurak because he’s in the shape of a flat-face. But how does he feel about bears?’

Lusa shrugged. ‘I suppose you could be right. In any case, it’s true that we can’t be sure about the other flat-faces. We’d better make sure they don’t see us.’

It was not long past sunrise, but already one or two of the flat-faces were walking between the dens. Toklo, Lusa and Kallik ducked into the shadows under an overhanging roof as a flat-face walked past with a large, shiny object dangling from one paw. Loud noises issued from it, and a high-pitched sound was coming from the flat-face’s mouth. As he passed another of the dens the door opened and the female who Ujurak had said had a goose spirit appeared and called out to him.

While they were talking, Toklo, Kallik and Lusa slipped quietly around the back of the dens and headed towards the one where the healer lived. Toklo crept up to the window and stretched up his paws to brace himself so that he could peer through. Lusa
squeezed up beside him and Kallik joined him on his other side.

Inside the den Toklo saw that Ujurak was sitting up, propped against the flat-face pelts. The healer sat on the bed beside him, feeding him something from a bowl. Toklo could hear that they were talking to each other, though he couldn’t understand the flatface words.

‘Look, he’s better!’ Lusa yelped. ‘He’ll be able to come back to us soon.’

‘Yes, he’s fine now,’ Toklo agreed. With a long sigh he stepped away from the window of the healer’s den, dropping down on to all four paws. ‘Ujurak is safe,’ he said as Lusa and Kallik followed him. ‘His life isn’t in danger any more. It’s time that I followed my own path.’

‘What?’ Lusa’s eyes stretched wide. ‘Last night you said you would stay!’

‘I said “for a while”,’ Toklo reminded her. ‘But now that I know Ujurak’s OK, I can leave. I’m not responsible for him any more.’ Toklo knew he had done more than enough by bringing them this far. Now it was time to do what his mother had said, and live on his own.

‘But . . .’ Lusa’s voice choked. ‘I’ll miss you.’

Kallik padded up and rested her muzzle on the little black bear’s shoulder. ‘A time always comes for parting,’ she murmured. ‘I had to learn that when Taqqiq left. It’s no use trying to hold on to someone when they want to be somewhere else.’ Looking deep into Lusa’s eyes, she added, ‘Let him go.’

Lusa said nothing, her dark eyes still full of misery, but she stepped back and stood at Kallik’s side.

‘Thank you, Kallik,’ Toklo said. His heart ached at the thought of leaving his friends, but he knew this was what he had to do. ‘The spirits go with you both,’ he added.

‘And with you,’ Kallik responded.

Lusa nodded sadly. ‘Goodbye, Toklo.’

Toklo turned and headed off up the caribou trail. At the far side of the flat-face denning area he stopped to look back. Lusa’s black pelt had been swallowed up in the shadows, but he could still see Kallik, gazing steadily after him.

Toklo reared up on his hindpaws for a moment in a final farewell. Then he turned and headed off alone, into the mountains.

‘I
hope Toklo will be OK,’ Kallik murmured when the brown bear had disappeared up the valley.

‘I’m worried about him,’ Lusa whimpered. ‘Why did he have to go off on his own?’

Kallik shrugged. ‘It’s what brown bears do. But I’m going to miss him.’

She turned back to the healer’s den to take another look at Ujurak. But as she pressed her nose to the shiny clear stuff in her efforts to get a better look, the air was split by a terrible clattering noise.

Kallik sprang away from the window. Turning toward the sound, she saw a metal bird hovering further down the valley. It was heading for the denning place. For a few moments it clattered above
the dens, its metal wings whirling, then swooped down towards a stretch of open ground.

‘What is it?’ Lusa yelped, her voice shrill with fright.

Kallik’s heart was pounding and her breath came harsh and fast. Memories exploded in her mind, of her terrifying flight with Nanuk underneath that other metal bird, the one that had fallen out of the sky. She remembered the fire, the sudden rush of freezing snow, and watching Nanuk die, leaving her all alone.

‘They take bears away!’ she replied to Lusa, fighting panic.

‘We’ve got to hide,’ barked Lusa as they watched the metal bird settle on the ground, its whirling wings slowing to a stop.

Clinging to the shadows, they crept towards the edge of the denning place and then made a dash for the outcrop of rocks where they had hidden with Toklo the night before. From there they peered out at the metal bird.

Its side slid open and three male flat-faces got out. They wore black pelts and carried thin, square objects in their paws; sniffing, Kallik picked up a harsh,
unnatural tang, and her pelt prickled with disgust.

‘I’ve never smelled flat-faces like these before,’ she whispered to Lusa. More acrid scents came from them, scents like nothing Kallik had smelled in the wild.

‘Who are they?’ Lusa asked, but Kallik couldn’t find an answer.

The three flat-faces stood together for a moment, talking in soft voices. They looked nothing like the flat-faces in this denning area; their pelts were different and their head-fur was short and sleek. Kallik wondered if the metal bird had brought them from far away. She wished it would take them back again.

Suddenly the doors of several dens were flung open and some flat-faces came out. Kallik shoved Lusa back into the cover of the rocks. ‘Don’t let any of them see us,’ she hissed.

‘Maybe they’re going to fight each other,’ Lusa suggested. ‘Like brown bears do if strangers come into their territory.’

Kallik poked her snout from behind the rock to see the flat-faces who lived there going up to the strangers and holding out their front paws to be shaken. It didn’t look like they were angry that the other flat-faces had come.

The flat-faces led the visitors into one of the biggest dens. The healer emerged from his den and went to join them.

‘It’s some sort of flat-face gathering,’ Kallik reported to Lusa. ‘I wonder what it’s for.’ She kept her gaze fixed on the door where the flat-faces had disappeared. Could the healer have guessed that Ujurak wasn’t a real flat-face, and then told those others, who had come in the metal bird to take him away?

We should never have brought Ujurak here
, she thought.
But he was dying! What else could we have done?

‘We have to get Ujurak out of there,’ Lusa declared. She was obviously thinking the same thing. ‘Quickly, while all the flat-faces are talking.’

Kallik looked around for any flat-faces that were still outside, but the spaces between the huts were empty. She guessed that most of them were in the big den. ‘Let’s go,’ she whispered.

They raced across the open ground and halted in front of the door to the healer’s den. Lusa studied it.

‘Be quick!’ Kallik urged her.

‘Keep watch,’ Lusa hissed, not taking her eyes off the door. A moment later she squeezed one paw into the gap between the door and the door frame, and
wriggled it around. For a long time nothing happened; Lusa was muttering under her breath, while Kallik’s pelt prickled with fear that one of the flat-faces would come out and spot them.

At last Kallik heard a click. ‘Got it!’ Lusa puffed, pushing the door open.

Every hair on Kallik’s pelt stood on end as she followed Lusa through the door. This was totally wrong: bears didn’t go into flat-face dens! But Lusa didn’t look scared, only cautious, and Kallik couldn’t let her rescue Ujurak alone.