The Last Wilderness (15 page)

A
breeze rustled through the tops of the trees as Toklo padded over a bed of cool pine needles. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the gurgling of a stream. He drew in a long breath, full of fresh forest scents, and let it out in a sigh of satisfaction.

This is the right place for a bear to be.

Travelling without taking any particular direction, he revelled in the sensation of being alone. He didn’t have to listen to Lusa’s chatter any more. He didn’t have to stand and wait while Ujurak examined a stone that might tell them where to go. He didn’t have to look into Kallik’s eyes and glimpse the hard, empty, icy wastes she longed for.

Toklo was thinking instead about carving out his own territory. He stayed alert for scratch marks on
trees that warned of the presence of other grizzlies, but he didn’t see any.
Pretty soon
, he thought as he clawed some berries from a bush and gulped them down,
as soon as I’ve found the right place, I’ll set some scratch marks of my own
.

As he wandered further into the forest, he realised that he didn’t feel as if he was exploring. Instead his surroundings had a strange familiarity.
That’s it!
he thought, halting in surprise.
I feel as if I’ve come home
.

‘Fluff-brained or what?’ he muttered to himself, even while a warm sensation of comfort and safety was coursing through him from his snout to his tail. He had moved around so much with his mother and Tobi that he had never felt that he was at home before. They were always moving on, always padding restlessly from den to den, trying to find a place where they wouldn’t be disturbed by bigger bears who didn’t want them on their territory. This place felt more familiar, more reassuring than anywhere Toklo had been for a long time.

I remember that kind of bush
, he thought as he ambled on, passing a thick shrub with dark, glossy leaves.
Oka told us it’s no good to eat
.

His ears pricked as he heard the sound of a bird
hopping on a branch above his head.
‘Look at the bird over there.’
Oka’s voice seemed to sound in Toklo’s head.
‘That means there’ll be juicy maggots at the bottom of the tree, if we can get there first.’

Toklo padded over to the tree and sniffed, turning over the scraps of bark and twigs that littered the ground. Soon he exposed a cluster of fat white grubs, wriggling in the light. He licked them up with his tongue and crunched them.
Delicious!

Further on, he heard the splash of a stream, and he stood on a jutting grey rock to gaze down into the peat-brown water. He remembered Oka teaching him and his brother not to stand on the green, mosscovered rocks.
They’re too slippery. You could fall
.

Toklo took a drink from the stream, then leaped across it and journeyed on. Memories were crowding in on him now, and he began to run, feeling sheer joy in the bunching and stretching of his muscles and the sensation of wind in his fur. Bushes slapped lightly against his pelt, and his ears filled with the song of the forest. He could almost sense two bears running alongside him, one large, the other much smaller.

Oka! Tobi! I’ve come home!

A bird shot upward right underneath Toklo’s paws, chattering crossly at him as it landed on a branch. Toklo halted, panting and glancing from side to side to make sure that no other bears had spotted him being so foolish.
Oka and Tobi are dead. It’s just me now
.

Toklo took a deep breath and dug his claws into the ground.
That’s fine. I’m glad to be alone
.

He was pleased with what he’d seen of the forest so far. There wasn’t a big river where he could catch salmon – or at least he hadn’t found one yet – but there were streams to drink from and plenty of signs of other prey. He picked up a trace of ground squirrel scent, and his jaws watered at the thought of succulent newkill.

As Toklo emerged into a clear patch on the hillside, he heard a thrumming noise from above the trees. His fur prickled as he cast a wary glance into the sky and spotted a metal bird skimming over the treetops. Then he relaxed as the sound died away, leaving the forest peaceful once more.

Dismissing the metal bird from his mind, Toklo gazed at the forest around the grassy meadow.
All this could be my territory
, he thought.
My home
.

A raucous cry from behind him startled him out of his thoughts. He turned to spot a woodpecker clinging to a tree trunk a couple of bearlengths away. Its pale head and spotted feathers stood out clearly against the rough bark.

‘Er . . . hi there,’ Toklo muttered, a bit embarrassed to be talking to a bird. ‘Do you know you’re in my territory?’

‘Chawk!’
the bird replied.

‘I guess you don’t know, or care,’ Toklo went on. ‘But it’s true.’ All those moons of travelling, all the bare and hungry places he had passed through, had brought him here to this place, where he could be a true brown bear. ‘Not a black bear. Not a white bear,’ he informed the bird. ‘A brown bear. The way I was always meant to be.’

‘Chawk!’
said the bird.

As the harsh cry died away, the forest seemed to grow still around Toklo. In the silence, a shiver passed through him.
The forest is very
big.
It’ll take me
ages
to explore
. . .

‘But that’s OK,’ he said aloud, trying to sound confident. ‘I’ve got plenty of time.’

The first thing, he realised, was to make a den.
A proper den, not just a temporary place to shelter under a bush or beside a rock. He tried to picture what Oka had done when she had built them a den. Toklo remembered his burning resentment that he had to stay and learn what to do while Tobi was allowed to go off and chase beetles.

Furious with Oka and his brother, Toklo hadn’t paid much attention. He had never imagined that Oka would leave him so soon.

She didn’t mean to do it. She loved me. Lusa said so.

He wondered if Oka had realised even back then that Tobi would never live to build a den of his own.

Shaking his pelt, Toklo realised that he knew how to build a den. He had listened reluctantly, distracted by Tobi’s happy cries, but he had listened all the same. He sniffed around the roots of the trees at the edge of the clearing, watched by the woodpecker with its head cocked on one side.

These aren’t the right trees
, he told himself.
Oka said to find one that doesn’t shed its leaves in the cold season, so it shelters the den from rain and snow
.

He pushed a few bearlengths further into the forest until he came to a row of dark-needled pines growing along the sloping bank of a stream. The woodpecker
darted along behind him, as if it wanted to see what he would do.

This is a good place
, Toklo decided.
There’s water, and bushes near the stream that would be good for hunting. There might even be mountain goats in the clearing
.

Toklo rejected the trees at the bottom of the slope, knowing that if there was heavy rain the stream would rise and flood his den. He found a good thick tree a little further up, but its roots were so tangled that he knew he would never be able to make the hole big enough. Finally, near the top of the slope, he found the perfect spot beneath a tree whose lowgrowing branches almost swept the ground, to give extra shelter. He padded around it until he worked out where he would be protected from the prevailing wind, and where he would have to dig to get the most warmth from the sun during the day.

There’s so much to think about! But that’s OK, because it’s what bears do
.

Still watched by the woodpecker, Toklo started to dig. He was surprised how hard it was to force his claws through the roots of grass and the hard-packed earth. Oka had made it look so easy, with her huge paws and sharp claws.

My claws are blunt
, Toklo thought, drawing back from the beginnings of his hole to examine them.
Oka used to sharpen her claws on a tree where deer had stripped the bark. I guess I’d better do that
.

He set off again. He had to pad many bearlengths further into the forest before he spotted a tree where the bark had been peeled away, exposing the grey trunk beneath. Reaching up as high as he could, Toklo scraped and scraped until his paws were sore and his claws ached.

‘That will have to do,’ he panted.

Looking up at the tree, he suddenly forgot about his throbbing paws.
I’ve marked a tree! This is really my territory now
. Pride filled him up like rainwater in a curved leaf as he examined the scratches: high up to show how tall he was, deep to show his strong, sharp claws.
No bear will mess with me now!

On his way back to his den site, Toklo marked a few more trees, reaching as high as he could with his front paws. The woodpecker still followed, chattering with annoyance as if it didn’t like the marks Toklo was making.

‘Tough!’ Toklo told it. ‘This is my territory now, and these are my trees.’

Back at his chosen tree, he started digging again. He worked faster now, but it was still hard going. His legs ached and his claws felt as if they were going to drop off. Earth showered everywhere, making his eyes stream and his pelt itch.

At last Toklo realised that the light in the forest was changing to red. The sun was going down. His den was still only a scoop no deeper than his belly.

I’m starving!
he thought, backing out of the hole and spitting out earth.
I’ve got to take a break from digging and find some prey
.

Wincing as he put his sore paws to the ground, he shambled down the slope to the stream and jumped from rock to rock until he found a small pool.

Toklo leaped in, relishing the cool shock of the water as it rinsed his fur. Tiny silver shapes darted away from him. Revived by the water, Toklo pounced, slapping his paw down on one of the fish and feeling it wriggle against his pad. Thrusting his snout into the stream, he bit into the fish and swallowed it.

The fish was small, but its taste tingled in his mouth. Toklo waded further into the pool, managing to catch more of the tiny fish, until the survivors had all fled into the unreachable shallows around
the edge or into crevices among the rocks.

Finally Toklo heaved himself out of the stream too tired to hunt any more. He padded back upstream and climbed the slope to curl up in his unfinished den. Satisfaction surged over him. He didn’t care that the den wasn’t finished. It was his, in his own territory, and he had eaten prey he had caught himself.

The den felt cold without Kallik, Lusa and Ujurak curled up beside him, but Toklo wriggled deeper into the hole, out of the chill night wind, and was comforted by the familiar scents of earth and trees and halfburied roots. Soon his eyes closed and he slept.

The next morning Toklo bounded out of his den, determined to get on with his digging, but his paws were sore, and the muscles on his shoulders felt as if they were on fire. When he started to scrape at the earth again he found it was much harder to make progress. He kept coming up against roots and had to push his snout into the hole and bite them through.

I’m fed up with this!
he thought, backing out of the den with a long, gnarled root in his jaws. He dropped it and pawed at his mouth to try to get rid of some of the dirt.
I’m going to take a break and explore some more
.

He set off up the mountain, the morning sunlight filtering through the trees and warming his fur. Before long he came upon a deer trail, the scent strong and recent, and further on he picked up traces of ground squirrels.

When he reached the top of the ridge the forest was denser, the trees mostly the same dark pines as where Toklo had made his den. Sometimes he had to push his way through undergrowth, making a path for himself. The air was quiet and hushed, with few birds calling. Toklo found that he was looking around for the woodpecker.

Bee-brain!
he scolded himself.
It’s only a stupid bird
.

There was a bitter chill in the air in spite of the sunlight, and where the rays didn’t penetrate, the earth beneath Toklo’s paws crunched with frost. Beginning to feel thirsty, he looked for a stream, but he couldn’t find one or hear the sound of running water anywhere.

I don’t want this part of the forest in my territory
, he decided.

Leaving scratches on a few trees, he headed back towards his den, padding along the ridge to descend by a different path. Further along, he followed the scents
of grass and clear air and emerged in an open meadow. Rabbits were feeding a few bearlengths away.

Toklo tried to creep up on them, but his sore paws made him clumsy. The rabbits started up and fled, their white tails bobbing through the grass. Toklo gave chase, but his muscles ached so much that they easily outdistanced him.

Huffing in annoyance, Toklo gave up and padded back towards the trees. Before he reached them, he almost tripped over the body of a ground squirrel. Its pelt was slashed as if a hawk had killed it and then dropped it. Toklo sniffed it warily; it smelled fresh, and he tore into it.

‘It’s not as good as prey I caught myself,’ he mumbled around a mouthful. ‘But it’s better than nothing.’
And it shows this is a good territory
, he added to himself.
There’s plenty of prey here to feed me
.

His belly comfortably full, Toklo settled down in the shade at the edge of the trees and snoozed with his nose on his paws. A grunt roused him; blinking, he raised his head to see another brown bear nosing its way out of the trees a few bearlengths away. It was a young male, a bit smaller than Toklo, with powerful muscles and a frosting of gold on the
surface of its fur. So far it hadn’t seen him.

‘Hey!’ Toklo growled, standing up. ‘What are you doing here?’

The other bear whipped round. His fur bristled. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘This is my territory,’ Toklo told him. ‘Didn’t you see the clawmarks?’

The other bear huffed scornfully. ‘What, those little scratches? I thought they were made by a ground squirrel.’