The Last Wilderness Page 12

  Ujurak watched curiously as she picked up a long black thing like a flat snake and wrapped it around his arm. He knew about healing as a bear, and he had learned a bit about flat-face healing from the healer in the village, but he had never come across anything like this. How is this snake-thing going to help me?

  The female was doing something that made the snake tighten around his arm. Ujurak’s heart began to pound with alarm. Is it going to crush me?

  ‘It’s OK,’ the female said soothingly. ‘It only takes a minute.’

  As she finished speaking there was a long sighing sound from the snake and the pressure on Ujurak’s arm relaxed. He blinked in confusion as the female put the snake away again.

  What was that all about?

  ‘Now open your mouth,’ the female said as she bent over him again. ‘Let me have a look.’

  Obediently Ujurak made his jaws gape as wide as he could.

  ‘What happened to you, young man?’ she asked.

  ‘I ate a fishhook,’ Ujurak rasped.

  The woman’s eyes opened wide with surprise. ‘You did, did you? Hang on a minute.’

  She left the room, and returned a moment later with a male flat-face; he was short, for a flat-face, and his head-fur was grey and wispy. ‘Let’s see your throat, Ujurak,’ he said.

  Ujurak opened his mouth again, and the male flatface peered into it with a tiny, bright light on the end of a stick. ‘It’s healing well,’ he said after a few moments. ‘Did they give you any medicine for it in Arctic Village?’

  ‘Yes, a lot.’ Ujurak wanted to make sure that these flat-faces knew how well the healer had looked after him. ‘I was asleep some of the time, so I don’t know everything that Tiinchuu did. But I remember echinacea for the infection, and elderberry for fever.’

  The male nodded, his eyes bright with interest. ‘Good. Very good. Anything else?’

  ‘There were little white things called pills. I had to swallow them with water.’

  The flat-face nodded again. ‘I think we’ll give you some more of those pills,’ he said. Turning to the female, he added a few words Ujurak didn’t understand.

  What does he mean? Ujurak wondered as both the flat-faces went out, leaving him alone. But he was too exhausted to worry for long. For a few moments he struggled to keep his eyes open, but the bed was so comfortable that he gradually relaxed and sank into sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:

  Kallik

  Kallik opened her eyes and peered out blearily across the mountain slope. She still felt exhausted; her muscles shrieked a protest when she tried to move, and her belly cramped with hunger. Her pelt pricked with fear, but there were no threats nearby, nothing but the empty ridge and the lonely cries of birds.

  Managing to sit up, she looked around and saw Lusa lying close by her, mud streaking her black pelt. She was so still that Kallik’s heart began to pound in panic, until she spotted the gentle rise and fall of her friend’s chest.

  Seeing her, Kallik remembered the terror of the day before, when flat-faces had carried Ujurak away in the metal bird, ignoring Lusa when she had tried to stop them.

  ‘You were very brave, my friend,’ she whispered, nosing Lusa’s shoulder. ‘But it didn’t do any good.’

  She remembered their frantic chase, scrambling up the mountain slope with the metal bird high above and falling further behind with every desperate pawstep, until at last they lost sight of it.

  ‘Ujurak . . .’ Kallik murmured. ‘What are they doing with you? Will we ever see you again?’

  Lusa stirred, then sat up with a gasp.

  ‘Lusa?’ Kallik said. ‘Are you OK?’

  For a moment Lusa stared at her as if she didn’t recognise her; then her eyes cleared and she relaxed. ‘I’m fine, Kallik,’ she replied. ‘I just had a weird dream. We were trying to chase the metal bird, and it changed into Ujurak.’ She hesitated, scuffling her paws in the marshy grass. ‘We’ve lost him, haven’t we?’

  ‘I guess we have,’ Kallik whispered.

  She didn’t want to talk about their friend. Lusa sat and hunched in on herself, her eyes gazing into the distance. Kallik couldn’t bear to see her look of desolation.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, giving the little black bear a nudge. ‘We need to eat. Let’s go and look for food.’

  For a moment she thought Lusa was going to refuse. Then the black bear let out a sigh. ‘OK,’ she agreed listlessly.

  A stiff breeze was blowing along the ridge, but sunlight lit the valley slopes in front of them.

  ‘Suppose we go down a bit,’ Kallik suggested. ‘It’ll be warmer there, and we can get out of the wind.’

  Lusa trailed behind her as Kallik led the way down the slope into the next valley. At the bottom a lake reflected the sky; around its edge trees and long grass offered the bears some shelter where they could forage among the berry bushes.

  Kallik kept a lookout for the best berries and guided Lusa towards them. They had foraged together like this countless times before, but now Kallik couldn’t hide from herself that something was missing. The berries seemed tasteless, but it was too hard to work up the enthusiasm to go hunting for other prey. We need Toklo and Ujurak, she thought. We should be four, not two.

  A pebbly spit of ground jutted out into the lake. Kallik padded along it to the end and gazed down into the water, wondering whether she could catch a fish. But she didn’t see any flash of silver; the water was clear and empty.

  Dipping her snout to take a drink, Kallik turned back to see Lusa standing forlornly at the edge of the lake. She quickened her pace to return to the black cub.

  ‘I can’t see any fish,’ she reported. ‘Are you still hungry? We could look for grubs under some of these stones.’ She pointed her snout at a scattering of flat rocks a little further around the lake.

  Lusa shrugged. ‘If you want.’

  The sun rose in the sky and began to sink again as the two she-bears halfheartedly searched for grubs. Later, their bellies full, Kallik and Lusa sat beside the lake, watching the shadows lengthen.

  ‘We should find somewhere to den for the night,’ Kallik said. ‘Maybe there’ll be a sheltered spot among the trees.’

  ‘I guess we can look,’ Lusa replied.

  Kallik led the way into a nearby copse and discovered a small hollow under the roots of a tree. She and Lusa squeezed into it together.

  ‘Try to get some sleep,’ Kallik urged Lusa. ‘Maybe things will be better tomorrow.’ But she knew that her words were empty, and Lusa wasn’t deceived.

  Kallik felt as though she was lying on every sharp pebble, every pointed scrap of twig, in the whole wilderness. Sleep was impossible; though Lusa was crouched beside her with her paws over her nose, Kallik could tell that the little black bear wasn’t asleep, either. Stars began to appear through the branches of the tree above her head, clustering so thickly that the sky looked white through Kallik’s half-closed eyes.

  ‘Kallik?’ Lusa sat up suddenly, startling Kallik out of a doze. ‘Kallik, I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to look for Ujurak. I can’t let the metal bird take him away. No bird can fly forever, so I’ll follow the way we saw it go, and find it wherever it landed.’ She hesitated, gazing deep into Kallik’s eyes, then added, ‘I’ll understand if you don’t want to come with me. I know you want to go back to the ice, and . . . and I wish you luck there . . .’ Her voice trailed off miserably.

  ‘What are you, fluff-brained or something?’ Kallik nosed Lusa’s shoulder. ‘Of course I’m coming with you.’

  Joy flooded into Lusa’s eyes, and she sprang to her paws. ‘Really? You’re sure?’

  ‘As sure as I’ve ever been.’

  ‘Then let’s go!’

  As Kallik followed Lusa back towards the lake, she thought about how quickly she had made the decision to look for Ujurak. She had felt the pull of the ice so strongly for so long, and she had been ready to find her own path there, without the others. But since Ujurak had got injured, she had felt the bond wi
th her friends grow stronger than the draw of the ice. Ujurak needs our help, and now Lusa needs me.

  Kallik and Lusa trudged side by side through the darkness. All was silent except for the sighing of the wind and the occasional cry of a night bird. At last, exhausted, they stopped to rest on the crest of a hill, with dawn a pale silver line on the horizon.

  ‘I hope we’re going the right way,’ Lusa murmured.

  ‘This is the direction the metal bird was flying,’ Kallik pointed out. ‘It has to come down to earth sooner or later.’

  Lusa let out a faint sigh. ‘Kallik . . .’ she began. ‘There’s something I want to tell you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You remember my accident on Smoke Mountain? When the firebeast struck me?’

  Kallik nodded.

  ‘I had a dream afterwards. My mother came to me and told me something I didn’t understand. And I still don’t understand it.’

  ‘What was it?’ Kallik prompted. She wasn’t sure why Lusa wanted to talk about this now, but her curiosity was pricked.

  ‘She told me I had to save the wild.’

  Kallik stared at her. ‘Do you know what that means?’

  ‘No,’ Lusa replied, shaking her head. ‘But I know it has something to do with Ujurak. He had a dream that told him the same thing. And do you remember when he said our journey wasn’t over? Well, deep down, I feel just the same.’ She let out a bewildered huff of breath. ‘But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, without Ujurak.’

  ‘We’ll find him,’ Kallik assured her. She couldn’t quite agree with her friend that their journey wasn’t over yet; she had always believed that her own journey would end on the ice. But she wouldn’t abandon Lusa, or Ujurak, whatever it took to find him again.

  Huddled together, the she-bears dozed on the hilltop until the sun had risen above the horizon. The pale sky gradually deepened to blue, dotted here and there with small puffs of white cloud; the wind dropped to a gentle breeze.

  When they went on, Kallik felt her spirits lighten. Lusa seemed certain that they’d find Ujurak, and her chatter gave Kallik a new surge of optimism.

  ‘I wonder what Ujurak will be when we find him,’ Kallik said. ‘Wouldn’t the no-claws be scared if they saw him changing into a brown bear?’

  Lusa let out a little snort of amusement. ‘Or a goose, so he could fly away!’

  ‘That would be great,’ Kallik replied. ‘Then he could find us!’

  ‘I wonder what Toklo is doing now,’ Lusa murmured.

  ‘Oh, chasing prey, scratching marks on trees, just being a brown bear,’ Kallik said. ‘You know that’s what he always wanted.’

  ‘Chasing all the black bears away,’ Lusa went on with a huff of amusement. ‘Or maybe he’s caught a caribou at last!’

  ‘And now he is sitting in a cave, roaring at passing squirrels,’ Kallik added.

  Crossing a stream, they followed its channel down a long slope covered with tough, springy grass. The sun was high overhead, dazzling on the water. Kallik’s belly growled; it seemed a long time since the berries she had eaten on the previous day, when they had been too tired and discouraged to forage properly. It didn’t seem right, just being with Lusa. There was an emptiness around them that couldn’t be filled with hunting or talking about Ujurak.

  ‘I wish Toklo was with us now,’ she whispered.

  ‘So do I,’ Lusa replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

  Lusa

  Following the stream around a spur of the hill, Lusa and Kallik came to a place where the land fell away more steeply in front of them. The stream cascaded down in a series of small waterfalls and joined a wider river in the valley below.

  As they drew closer, Lusa could see that the river flowed fast and deep, the water foaming around boulders that poked out of the current. The opposite bank was steep and rocky, and it looked a long way away.

  ‘That looks dangerous to cross,’ Kallik commented as they drew to a halt on the bank. ‘Do you think we should go upriver or downriver?’

  Lusa hesitated, snuffing the air and glancing undecidedly up- and downstream. ‘Ujurak was best at this,’ she murmured. ‘He always seemed to know which way to go.’ She padded forward until she stood on the very edge of the bank, with water rushing along past her paws. ‘Remember what he used to do?’ she continued. ‘You have to look at all the possibilities and see how you feel about them.’

  While Kallik looked up and down, Lusa examined the two directions carefully. Upstream the river was a narrow, raging torrent, foaming around rocks, with thornbushes crowding close to the water’s edge. Where she and Kallik were standing, the water glided along more quietly, but a little way downstream it divided around a rock. The sharp black outline stuck up out of the river like a bear’s paw, with the current pounding it and gushing around it in a tumult of white foam.

  Lusa’s paws tingled. There was a sign here, if she could just work out what it was.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Kallik confessed, breaking into Lusa’s thoughts. ‘What do you think? Which way will lead us to the metal bird and Ujurak?’

  Thoughtfully Lusa pointed her snout upriver. ‘That way looks narrow and shaded,’ she said. ‘And the current is too fast around the rocks. It doesn’t feel right to me. And downriver –’ she turned and pointed again – ‘look at that rock! It’s as if it’s blocking the way. We shouldn’t be going up or downriver.’

  Kallik was gazing at her with doubt in her eyes. ‘Lusa,’ she said, ‘you’re not telling me we have to swim across here, are you?’

  ‘Yes!’ Lusa felt a sudden surge of confidence. I’m right! This is what we have to do. ‘I know it’s not perfect,’ she began, ‘but unless we cross here we might have to travel skylengths before we find a better place. And look at the way the sun is shining on the water, making a sparkling path. The spirits are telling us that’s the way we have to go.’

  Kallik caught her breath. ‘Yes! I see it too! You are clever, Lusa.’

  Lusa shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed. ‘I’m just trying to work out what Ujurak would have done. Let’s go!’

  She bunched her muscles, ready to jump in, then hesitated, remembering the huge river they had crossed with Toklo and Ujurak. She had almost drowned then . . . She swallowed nervously. I’m a black bear, she reminded herself. We’re the best swimmers of all the bears. And this river is nowhere near as wide as the other one.

  But she still couldn’t forget the feeling of the black water closing over her head, her ears roaring with bubbles, and her nose and mouth filling with something that made it impossible to breathe . . . She shivered.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Kallik asked. ‘We can find a different way if you want.’

  Lusa forced herself to shake her head. ‘I’m fine,’ she insisted. ‘We’ve seen the signs, so we know this is right.’

  In her heart she was certain that whoever had sent the signs to Ujurak had also sent this one to her. She had to trust in that power, and accept the guidance.

  ‘Let’s go!’ she barked.

  ‘Wait!’ Kallik shouldered Lusa away from the edge of the river.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Lusa asked, confused. ‘I’m OK, honestly.’

  ‘I know,’ Kallik told her; she was keeping herself between Lusa and the river. ‘And I’m willing to give this a try. It’s just . . . well, look at the current. I think if we want to go across the river, it’s no good to swim straight across. We have to swim as if we want to go upriver. The current will drag us the other way, and we should end up where we want to be.’

  ‘But won’t crossing like that take longer?’ Lusa asked, impatient to be moving.

  ‘Yes, and it will be very tiring. But at least we won’t get washed away.’

  Lusa studied the fast-flowing water. She imagined a stick floating out from the bank and shooting downstream as soon as it reached the middle of the river where the current was strongest. To reach the shore directly on the other side, the stick would have t
o start higher up along the bank, to be carried down as well as across. ‘OK, we’ll do it your way,’ she said.

  She launched herself into the river, striking out forcefully against the current. Immediately she felt its strong pull, tugging at her legs. But she kept on paddling determinedly, with Kallik swimming at her shoulder, nudging her upstream. Lusa huffed and puffed as she fought the drag of the river, almost swimming sideways as she tried not to get swept away. Gradually they drew closer to the opposite bank.

  Just as she was beginning to think that the danger was over, she heard a yelp from Kallik. ‘Lusa! Watch out!’

  Lusa glanced over her shoulder to see a fallen tree branch being carried downstream, turning over and over in the white-tipped water. She was swimming straight into its path.

  Pumping her legs desperately, Lusa tried to swim out of the way of the branch, but she was too late. The branch crashed into her and she was sent tumbling down the river, her legs flailing as she tried to stay upright. Her head went under the swirling water. She fought her way back to the surface, but she had lost her sense of direction. All she could see was water bubbling past her snout.

  A moment later all the breath was driven out of Lusa’s body as the current flung her against something hard. Half dazed, she realised that she was pinned against the huge rock she had noticed earlier.

  ‘Kallik! Help!’ she choked out.

  Lusa fought against the current, struggling to prise herself away from the rock, but all the terrifying power of the river was trapping her there. There was no escaping the crushing weight of the water. It roared in her ears, nose and mouth; she could feel her strength draining away by the instant. She tried to breathe and took in a mouthful of water.

  I’m going to drown!

  Then she felt strong claws fastening to her pelt. Peering through the surge of water, she made out the drenched white shape of Kallik by her side. The white bear was pushing her across the face of the rock. Lusa felt the current gushing around the side as it caught her, and Kallik held on to her as it dragged them both away downriver.