The Last Wilderness (13 page)

Looking around, she spotted the shiny gap in the wall that they had peered through. Her heart pounded; she hated the feeling of being shut in, with flat-face stuff all around her. But the air was full of the tang of herbs and caribou meat, soothing after the harsh scent of the metal bird.

‘We have to hurry,’ Lusa said. ‘We don’t want the flat-faces to catch us in here.’

Kallik glanced anxiously back at the open door, hoping any passing flat-face wouldn’t notice anything wrong. Then she followed Lusa over to the nest where Ujurak was lying. There was hardly enough room for them to squeeze through the flat-face stuff
that filled the den. Kallik brushed against a wooden slab standing on four flimsy legs; a round white thing fell off the top of it and smashed on the floor, sending sharp little fragments bouncing into the corners. Kallik’s heart thudded, but no flat-faces burst in to find out what the noise was, and she managed to reach Ujurak’s side without knocking anything else over.

He looks so small!
Kallik thought, pity welling up inside her at the sight of the skinny flat-face cub half buried in the flat-face pelts. Ujurak’s face was white, except for a spot of red on each cheekbone, and his tangled fur was slicked against his head. But he was breathing evenly, his eyes closed in sleep, and he seemed quite peaceful.

‘Do you think he’s strong enough to come with us?’ Kallik whispered.

‘He’s got to be.’ Lusa raised a paw and shook Ujurak’s shoulder. ‘Ujurak! Wake up! We have to get out of here!’

Ujurak let out a grunt and burrowed deeper into the pelts without opening his eyes.

‘Ujurak!’ Lusa gave him another prod. ‘Wake up!’

This time Ujurak’s eyes flickered open. For one
startling moment he gazed at Lusa and Kallik as if he didn’t know who they were.

He can’t have forgotten us!
Kallik thought in dismay.

Then recognition flooded into Ujurak’s face. He reached out and plunged a paw into Lusa’s fur, exclaiming something in flat-face talk. His voice was hoarse, and it seemed to hurt him to speak.

He can’t talk to us any more!
Kallik realised.
What if he doesn’t understand us, either?

‘Do you remember where you are?’ Lusa asked him urgently. ‘In the flat-face dens beside the caribou trail?’

Ujurak looked puzzled. Lusa exchanged a frustrated glance with Kallik, and then went on, as if somehow she could communicate her desperation to Ujurak, even though they couldn’t understand each other’s language.

‘A metal bird landed here. Some new flat-faces got out, and now they’re all having a gathering in one of the big dens.’

‘We need to leave now,’ Kallik added, her fear rising with every moment they spent inside. ‘Something’s going on, and it’s not safe here any more.’

Ujurak sat up, looking from Lusa to Kallik and
back again. His face had cleared, and when he spoke again it was with bear words, though his voice was hoarse and difficult to understand. ‘Yes, I remember.’

Unsteadily he got out of bed and tottered over to the fire, where some flat-face pelts were hanging on a wooden frame. Slowly he put on the pelts; they were too big for him, and he had to roll them up so they didn’t hang over his skinny paws. Kallik noticed that he slipped something small into a pouch in one of the pelts.

‘Why does he need all that flat-face stuff?’ she asked Lusa. ‘If he changed back into a bear, he would have his own pelt.’

Lusa shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s not strong enough to change yet. It’s better that he takes these pelts to keep warm while he’s still a flat-face.’

Ujurak turned back to the bed, stripped off one of the pelts that lay there, and wrapped it around his shoulders. Slowly, still unsteady on his hindpaws, he crossed the room to the door and peered out.

Crowding up beside him, Kallik saw his eyes widen as he spotted the metal bird. The sound of voices was coming from the big den; Ujurak pointed at it and
looked at the bears, a question in his eyes. ‘In there?’

‘That’s right,’ Lusa said impatiently. ‘Now let’s go, before they come out and catch us.’ She gave Ujurak a nudge, trying to get him moving.

Ujurak ventured out into the open, padding softly on bare pink paws.

‘At last!’ Lusa muttered, turning down the valley, back in the direction of the plain. ‘Hurry up!’

But Ujurak didn’t follow her. Instead he sneaked along the line of dens until he reached the big one where the gathering was taking place. He edged open the door and listened for a moment. ‘Wait for me,’ he whispered.

‘No!’ Lusa gasped as she watched Ujurak slip inside and close the door behind him.

Kallik shot a horrified glance at Lusa. ‘What is he doing?’

‘I don’t know.’ Lusa’s frustrated growl was quite unlike her. ‘I think being a flat-face has turned his brain to fluff.’

Swinging around, she headed for the rocks where they had hidden before. Kallik bounded after her, huffing out her breath in relief as they reached the shadows they cast, out of sight of the flat-faces.

‘We can’t leave him there,’ she whispered.

Lusa nodded. ‘I know. But we can’t get him out without being seen. All we can do is wait.’

U
jurak closed the door of the big den behind him and slipped into the shadows. Waves of heat and cold swept over him, and he was afraid he was going to be sick. The wooden floor felt hard and cold under his bare feet, and he pulled his blanket closer around him.

The den was one big room with a raised platform at one end. Three flat-faces in black clothes were seated there, along with three of the villagers. Tiinchuu the healer was one of them; Ujurak hadn’t seen the other male flat-face or the female before.

Benches were set out in the main part of the room, below the platform. More of the village people were sitting there, with a few younger males on their feet, leaning against the wall; they were all so intent on
the platform that no one had noticed the arrival of Ujurak. He thought he caught a flicker in Tiinchuu’s glance, as if the healer had spotted him lurking there, but he didn’t give Ujurak away.

One of the strangers rose to his feet, a fistful of papers in one hand. ‘This is our proposition,’ he began. ‘You know that there are vast reserves of oil underneath the Coastal Plain. The company I represent wants to drill for it, and they’re prepared to offer you a fair price for the rights.’

His voice was quiet and he smiled as he talked. Ujurak thought that he looked kind. It sounded as if he was offering something that the villagers would want. So why had Tiinchuu looked so grim when he left his den to come to this meeting?

‘We’ll give you more money than you’ve ever seen in your lives,’ one of the other visitors added.

The villagers glanced at one another and murmured to their neighbours, hiding their mouths with their hands. Ujurak could see that most of them didn’t like the idea. They kept repeating the word ‘oil’ as if it was something important.

Ujurak frowned, puzzled.
What’s money? What’s ‘oil’, and why do these men want it?

He shivered. Pain had begun banging in his head like a woodpecker rapping on the trunk of a tree. The voices of the flat-faces pulsed loud and then soft in his ears, and he missed the next few words.

‘. . . a poor living here,’ the man in black was saying when Ujurak could listen again. ‘You need jobs. You need hospitals and all the benefits of modern development. Allowing the oil companies on to your land will give you all this.’

Tiinchuu, who had been sitting with his eyes fixed on his clasped hands, looked up. ‘Senator, we are not poor,’ he stated calmly. ‘Not in the things that matter. We drink clean water and breathe pure air. The spirit of the land is strong. We –’

The male flat-face Tiinchuu had called ‘Senator’ let out an irritated snort, and gestured with his fistful of papers as if he was flicking away a fly. Ujurak didn’t think he looked quite so kind now.

‘We are rich in our hearts,’ Tiinchuu finished, ignoring the visitor’s reaction. ‘Not even the oil companies can put a price on that.’

‘Just a minute.’ One of the younger males standing by the wall of the hut took a step forward. ‘You’re not speaking for all of us, Tiinchuu. It’s hard to make a
living here, and not all of us want to struggle for the rest of our lives.’

‘He’s right.’ Another young male at the far side of the hut sprang to his feet. ‘And the Senator’s right. We have families to think of. I worked for an oil company in the east, and life was better there.’

‘Then what did you come back for?’ someone called out.

‘You know why he came back,’ another villager replied, sounding annoyed. ‘To look after his parents.’

Ujurak could hardly make out the last few words as comments rose from every part of the room. Someone else yelled, ‘Sit down!’

‘We have a right to be heard!’ the first young man protested.

Ujurak shrank into the shadows as the angry voices rose.
What if they start fighting? Will they get out their firesticks?
A hubbub of voices rose around him, and he lost track of what the flat-faces were saying. But he could smell the adrenalin scents of anger and fear.

Ujurak could sense the mounting impatience of the three black-clad men as they listened to the villagers’ arguments. The Senator spoke again. Ujurak missed
what he said because another wave of heat swept over him. His knees felt weak, and he leaned back against the wall to stop himself from falling.

‘You hypocrite!’ The female villager on the platform sprang to her feet and faced the Senator, glaring at him furiously even though her head reached only to his shoulder. Ujurak was reminded of Lusa standing up to Toklo. The Senator looked taken aback, as if he hadn’t expected any of the villagers to defend themselves so fiercely. Then Tiinchuu spoke, more calmly than the others. ‘The oil under our land won’t last forever. What will happen to us when it has run out? What will we eat, when the caribou no longer migrate past our village? Our ancient ways will be forgotten.’

‘You don’t speak for the whole tribe,’ the Senator said. ‘Times have changed.’

Tiinchuu shook his head. ‘I do not claim to speak for everyone. Here, every single one of us has a voice, and we will hear it. We’ll take a vote,’ he went on calmly. ‘Raise your hands if you want to allow the oil company to develop our land.’

For a moment, no one moved. Then the young men who had spoken in favour of the oil raised their
hands, along with a few of the other villagers. They looked at one another almost guiltily, as if they realised that few people agreed with their view.

Tiinchuu nodded. ‘And now those who don’t want the oil company to come here.’

It was as though a forest sprouted in the hut as most of the villagers raised their hands. ‘That seems clear enough,’ Tiinchuu said to the strangers.

The Senator’s mouth twisted into a hard, flat line. ‘I expected this. I know how stubborn you people are. You’ve refused to allow drilling before, so it’s no surprise that you’ve refused again. I’m sorry, but if you won’t give us access, we’ll have to take it.’

Ujurak felt the villagers around him stiffen in shock.

Tiinchuu’s eyebrows lifted. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We came here for oil, and we
will
have it. The good of the whole country is at stake.’

Ujurak felt a jolt of fear in his belly. The Last Great Wilderness wasn’t safe after all. These flat-faces obviously thought they had the power to destroy it, in spite of anything the villagers could do.

‘Save the wild!’ he called out hoarsely, but none of the flat-faces heard him.

The villagers were springing to their feet, shaking their fists at the men on the platform.

‘You can’t do that!’

‘The land is ours!’

‘Get out of here, and don’t come back!’

The men ignored the shouts of protest. The Senator thrust his papers back into a square pouch, then beckoned to the other two to follow him out of the hut.

Ujurak pressed himself into the corner of the room as the visitors swept towards the door. But there was nowhere he could hide properly. The Senator halted, looking shocked. His cold grey eyes softened.

‘Who is this?’ he demanded, pointing at Ujurak.

Ujurak flinched as the villagers all turned to stare at him.

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before,’ the woman with the goose spirit answered, craning her neck to give Ujurak a closer look.

To Ujurak’s relief, Tiinchuu pushed his way through the crowd and laid a hand gently on his shoulder. ‘I found the boy unconscious on my doorstep,’ he told the strangers. ‘I’ve treated his injuries, and he’s getting well. I’ll take him back to rest now.’

He began to propel Ujurak towards the door, but the Senator thrust him aside. ‘This is monstrous!’ he exclaimed. ‘This boy is seriously ill; I can tell that just by looking at him. He needs urgent medical care.’

‘He’s getting all the care he needs.’ There was an edge to Tiinchuu’s voice.

The Senator let out a sigh. ‘I mean modern facilities – the kind that
you
don’t have.’

Ujurak let out a cry of terror as the Senator stepped forward and picked him up. Tiinchuu grabbed the man’s arm, but his companions pushed the healer away.