Great Bear Lake Page 15

“Don’t gulp them too fast,” the mother bear said. “If you do, they’ll give you a bellyache.”

  Miki plunged into the nearest bushes under the trees and began to munch the berries. Lusa checked at the edge of the bushes. “Won’t they mind?” she asked, jerking her head in the direction of the other bears.

  “No, ’course not,” Miki reassured her. “We have to take what we can get. Come on,” he urged as Lusa still hesitated. “They’ll all be gone if you don’t hurry.”

  Lusa padded up to the nearest bush and tore off a mouthful of the berries. Yuck! She curled back her top lip. The berries looked juicy, but they were hard and dusty, and close up she could see that the sun had shriveled some of them. But if the other bears were eating them, so must she, because it meant there wasn’t a better supply of berries somewhere else.

  “There should be more than this,” Miki muttered.

  “It’s so long since I saw any berries worth eating, these don’t taste too bad,” Lusa admitted, stretching up to reach the fruit growing on the topmost branch.

  Miki grunted. “The bears you came with can’t have been much good at finding them,” he mumbled through a mouthful.

  A few other bears had arrived, standing at the edge of the thicket and huffing anxiously as they looked for a clear space where they could feed.

  “About time,” one of them complained as Lusa and Miki finished stripping their share of berries from the bush and padded back under the trees.

  They settled down in the shadows. The light was fading out of the sky, and the forest was growing darker. The bear spirits whispered softly above Lusa’s head as she licked berry pips from her paws. She wondered if they were saying sorry for the meager food supply.

  Miki blew out a long breath. “I’m still hungry!” he complained. He hauled himself to his paws and padded a couple of bearlengths to a moss-covered stone at the foot of a nearby tree. “Hang on, I think there might be something under here….”

  Lusa joined him, puzzled. It looked like a perfectly ordinary stone. “You can’t eat that,” she said. “Unless you mean the moss is good to eat?”

  “Well, it would be okay if you were really hungry,” Miki said. “But I can show you something better. Watch.”

  He hooked a paw under the stone and flipped it over. Lusa peered down; the soil he had exposed was covered with fat white wriggling things. They smelled damp and earthy.

  “What are those?” she asked.

  Miki’s brown eyes shone. “Grubs. They’re pretty good. You want to try?”

  “Mmm…” Lusa’s mouth watered again. “They smell really juicy!”

  She and Miki crouched down at the edge of the soil and began to eat. Lusa crunched up the grubs, enjoying the way they burst in her mouth and the taste of the fat white bodies. “They’re really good!” she exclaimed.

  Behind her she heard the pad of pawsteps, and a voice whining, “My tummy’s empty!” Turning her head, Lusa saw a thin she-bear with a cub even smaller than Lusa and Miki.

  The cub was butting its mother in the side. “I’m hungry! I want something to eat now!”

  “I’m looking for food.” The mother bear sounded harassed. “You’ll have to wait till I find something.”

  Reluctantly Lusa got up from the soil patch, where there were still plenty of grubs left. “Come on,” she said to the she-bear. “You can have some of these.”

  The she-bear gazed at her in disbelief, while her cub instantly darted forward and plunged its muzzle into the wriggling grubs. “It’s okay,” Lusa said softly. The mother bear gave her a quick, awkward nod and crouched to eat beside her cub.

  Miki got up and joined Lusa. “You must have bees in your brain!” he muttered into her ear. “Giving away food? No bear would care if you starved to death.”

  Lusa looked at him. “But I would care if another bear starved to death because of me.”

  Miki sighed, swiping his tongue around his muzzle. “I guess we’ve had enough for now.” Giving Lusa a nudge, he added, “Let’s climb.”

  Lusa yawned; she really wanted to curl up and sleep. But she followed Miki to the nearest tree, watching how expertly he raced up the trunk to a high branch. Lusa bounded up after him, pleased that she was nearly as good as he was.

  From up here, she could see above the other pines to the shore of the lake. Black bears were emerging from the trees, each with a spray of leaves and berries in their jaws. They laid them at the water’s edge, beginning to form a twiggy barrier just out of reach of the waves.

  “What are they doing?” she called to Miki, who was clinging to a swaying branch on the other side of the trunk.

  “I think they’re getting ready for the ceremony,” he replied. “I’ve never seen it before, but the bears I came here with told me about it. At dawn, we’ll all gather by the lakeshore, and the oldest bear will welcome the sun on the Longest Day.”

  “What are the berries for?” Lusa’s stomach growled at the thought of all that food, even dry and dusty berries, just lying there.

  “To honor the spirits.” He didn’t tell her how, exactly, and Lusa suspected he didn’t know. “I’m going to sleep,” he added with a huge yawn. “It’s safe up here. The brown bears won’t bother us.” His voice sank to a whisper. “One of the bears I traveled with said she’d seen a grizzly bear kill a black cub and eat it!” He shivered. “Best to stay away from them.”

  “Grizzlies don’t eat black bears!” Lusa protested.

  “How do you know?” Miki twitched his ears in surprise. “Were there brown bears in your Bear Bowl?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “And you all lived together?” Miki sounded disbelieving.

  “Not exactly.” Lusa squirmed; Miki’s questions felt like ants crawling in her pelt. “The brown bears were in a different part of the Bowl. We could talk to them through the fence, though.”

  “So they might have eaten you, if they could have gotten at you.” Miki sounded triumphant, as if he had proved his point. “The flat-faces knew, or why would they keep the brown bears away from you? That proves they’re bad.”

  “No, they’re not!” Lusa blurted out, irritation getting the better of her. “I traveled here with two brown bears, actually.” At least, I suppose Ujurak is a brown bear. Most of the time. “So I do know what they’re like. They looked after me and fed me. We were friends.”

  “Friends?” Miki’s eyes stretched wide. “I’ve never heard of that before. Whatever made you want to travel with grizzlies?”

  “It’s a long story,” Lusa began. Quickly she told Miki how Oka had come to the Bear Bowl, and sent Lusa to find her son Toklo with a message. “When I found him, he was with another grizzly cub, called Ujurak. He’s the most amazing bear!” She leaned closer to Miki, eager to make him understand just how remarkable Ujurak was. “He knows stuff other bears don’t know, and he’s on a journey to find the place where the spirits dance in the sky. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I decided to go with him and Toklo.” She was about to tell him how Ujurak could change into other animals and even birds, but Miki interrupted her.

  “Well, you’ve found black bears now,” he said, as if that was all that mattered. “So this is where you belong.” He shifted on the branch until he had wedged himself into a comfortable position, and closed his eyes. Almost at once his slow, regular breathing told Lusa he was asleep. He wasn’t interested in hearing about brown bears. He was a black bear: He obviously thought Lusa was only traveling with brown bears until she found bears just like her.

  Lusa settled down with her pelt pressed close to his, but she stayed awake, listening to the murmured conversations of the black bears nearby in the forest.

  Miki’s right, she thought. This is like coming home, among other black bears. I’ll be a proper bear with them. I’ll be able to hunt for the same food and stay under the trees, close to the bear spirits. I’ve even made a friend, she added, as Miki let out a little grunt.

  As she drifted to sleep, Lusa gazed out through
the branches at the lake. The sun was touching the horizon on the far side, staining the water pinkish red like the color of berries. A dark shape was bobbing among the waves, halfway between the shore and a distant island. Lusa blinked, peering at it more closely. Is that a bear out there? Drowsily, she wondered what it was doing. I’m glad it’s not me.

  She yawned and closed her eyes. The bear in the lake had nothing to do with her. She was safe with her own kind, and that was where she would stay.

  I’m going to miss Ujurak and Toklo.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Toklo

  I am with you, Toklo, the waves hissed.

  “Go away!” Toklo growled. “I don’t want to be dead like you. Leave me alone!”

  By now he was so far out that the choppy water was buffeting him from both sides, making it hard to swim in a straight line toward the island. He spluttered as a wave broke over his nose, and his head went under. Flailing his paws, he struggled up again; he was so low in the water that he could barely see the island, and the weight of his sodden fur was dragging him down.

  I’ll never make it, he thought despairingly.

  His limbs felt heavy like lumps of wood. He had never been so tired. It was a massive effort to keep on paddling and kicking out with his hindpaws, and he couldn’t tell if he was making any progress.

  Maybe Shoteka was right. I am weak. Mother? Tobi? Can you see me now?

  The voice echoed inside his head. You are strong, Toklo.

  Toklo felt bulky fur, slick with water, brush against his flank. His head whipped around, but he couldn’t see anything except the choppy lake water. The sensation came again, more strongly this time, and with it a once-familiar scent.

  Oka was swimming with him.

  On his other side he became aware of a smaller shape, stick-frail among the waves, but pressing strongly against his side. Tobi! They had come to drown him, just as he knew they would.

  Panic gripped Toklo in icy claws. He didn’t want to drown! He lashed out with both forepaws, trying to thrust the shapes away from him. Thrashing frantically, he gulped in another mouthful of water and went under again. As the water closed over his head he found that he was trapped in an eerie, gray-brown world of strange shadows and flickering shapes. Faint outlines of two brown bears, one large and one pitifully small, spiraled around him.

  You’re drowning me! he raged. Let me go!

  His paws flailed and his limbs grew heavier, and he began to sink down to the bottom of the lake. Pain clawed through his chest as he fought the urge to breathe. It would be a relief to give in.

  Okay, you win. Oka, Tobi, here I am.

  Toklo shut his eyes and let the black cloud fill him up, first his paws, then his legs, then his body sinking lower and lower, and finally his head, until his ears buzzed with nothingness and he saw nothing but darkness behind his eyelids. Is this how it felt when you died, Tobi?

  There was a jolt, and Toklo’s eyes flew open. Water dragged at his muzzle, which was moving steadily up toward a shimmering light. He felt himself being shoved again, harder this time, on both flanks. One push was stronger than the other, so he swerved through the water toward the lighter push. He fought to look back. The two bear spirits were behind him, nudging him with their shoulders.

  Up, Toklo! Swim toward the light!

  Toklo flailed his front legs, trying to drag himself through the water. The light rushed nearer and nearer, and suddenly his head broke the surface and he was gulping air, the best air he had ever tasted, which filled him up and sent the heavy black cloud spinning out of his head.

  That’s right, Toklo! Breathe! The high-pitched voice of his brother rang in his ears.

  Swim, Toklo! his mother urged him, her bulk still supporting him in the waves.

  Swim! Tobi added. He sounded much stronger and happier than he had been when he was alive. Swim with us, Toklo. I’ll help you.

  Their bodies surged underneath Toklo, bearing him up. Some of his exhaustion ebbed away, and suddenly swimming wasn’t as hard as it had been before. He stretched out his front paws and scooped the water behind him, sending his body slick as a fish through the waves.

  “I’m swimming!” he shouted.

  Yes, you are, said his mother. She sounded proud and sad at the same time.

  Toklo tried to look around, but waves splashed in his eyes and he couldn’t see the bear spirits anymore. “You saved me!” he barked. “You didn’t let me drown!”

  “You are my son, and I love you. I want you to live for a long, long time. Tobi and I will be waiting for you, always. But not before it is your time to join us. Go carefully, precious Toklo.”

  “I will,” Toklo replied, with a strange choking feeling in his throat that made it hard to speak. “Good-bye, Mother. Good-bye, Tobi.”

  Good-bye!

  Good-bye!

  Toklo faced ahead again, and felt his mother and brother fade away from his sides. He didn’t need them to help him swim now. He was pulling himself through the water, keeping his muzzle above the waves and breathing steadily. Oka and Tobi hadn’t wanted to drag him down with them, and now he missed them even more.

  He was leaving the open water behind at last; the waves stopped splashing over his muzzle, and the surface flattened enough for him to catch a glimpse of the pine-clad island ahead. It loomed above him, a dusty mound of earth and brittle grass, dotted with tall skinny trees.

  “Pawprint Island!” he whispered.

  Toklo felt his forepaws scrape on shingle. He dug in with his claws and stood up, bracing himself against the waves rolling in behind him. The water reached up to his shoulders. He began to wade to the shore. As the water grew shallower, he turned once more and looked back at the rippling black lake. The silence pressed around him, deafening him. Suddenly, he didn’t want to be alone.

  “Mother! Tobi! Don’t leave me!”

  With water washing around his paws, he wondered whether he should go back into the lake to look for them.

  No, Toklo, whispered the waves. It is not your time.

  Toklo swung around and trudged up the shelving lake bottom until he could clamber onto a boulder. He shook the water out of his pelt and looked around.

  “I’ve done it,” he said aloud.

  The sun had dropped below the horizon but there was still a pale light in the sky, and the night wasn’t entirely dark. Only the lake was black and the hills around it, silhouetted against the gray sky. On the distant lakeshore he could just make out the shapes of brown bears, and farther around the lake where the forest reached down to the water, he spotted the shadows of black bears under the trees. He wondered if Lusa was among them, but the bears were too far away for him to make out one particular cub.

  Toklo turned away from the lake. I have to spend the Longest Day here, so I might as well explore.

  The ground sloped gently up from the water. The shingle beach gave way to grass, and then to shrubs and a few stunted trees. Toklo pushed his way into the undergrowth. It felt dry and crackly, as if it hadn’t rained for a long, long time. There were no bear scents here, no pawmarks or droppings to suggest that he was not alone. This is my territory, he reminded himself, pushing down the empty feeling inside him. He reared up on his hindpaws and scored his claws on the trunk of the nearest tree. They left deep, satisfying scratches behind. Even if there were no other bears to see them, Toklo knew they were there, and knew they meant that this place belonged to him.

  Padding farther into the undergrowth, he spotted a weasel slinking under the bushes, its body low as it searched for prey. Instinctively Toklo began to stalk it; saliva filled his mouth as he crept forward, setting his paws down one at a time on the brittle pine needles. The weasel was scratching the ground underneath the bush. Toklo paused; the breeze was blowing in his face, carrying the creature’s scent into his jaws and over his tongue. Toklo lunged under the bush and slammed his paws down on the weasel, snapping its neck. He scooped it up with his claw then crouched low, sinking his teeth into its warm
flesh, savoring the juices as they filled his belly.

  Oogrook had told him that the fate of all the bears rested on his shoulders. Toklo didn’t know how swimming to the island would help, but he had done it. Perhaps the sight of the weasel was an omen of more prey for all the bears, not just him. He stood up and began to climb the low, scrubby hill in the center of the island. He felt the tingle of renewed strength in his limbs, and as he padded along he wondered if this was what Shesh had meant by the spirit of Arcturus coming to him on the ancient Paw Print.

  From the summit of the hill, he could see the entire island. On the side where he had swum ashore, the ground climbed steadily upward, covered by trees and bushes. On the other side, the hill fell away more steeply, covered by thin, tough grass. It ended in a cliff, with the lake water washing around sharp rocks far below. Toklo shuddered, glad he hadn’t come ashore on that side.

  The wind buffeted his fur and stung his eyes as he stood facing into it. It carried the scents of salt, ice, and fish, and the strange scent of bears that seemed to be a mixture of all three. Toklo peered into the gloom; these were bears he had never encountered before, and his pelt tingled with a mixture of curiosity and alarm. On the distant shoreline he could just make out their shapes, huge figures that looked carved out of ice against the gray rocks. The wind carried the sound of roaring to him across the water; they sounded fierce. Toklo was suddenly very glad to be alone on the island, and hoped that the strange bears didn’t like swimming.

  He trudged back across the stretch of grass and into the trees. He decided to make himself a den, and sleep until the sun rose on the Longest Day. He remembered seeing a comfortable-looking hollow near the beach, with a twisted pine tree hanging over it, shedding its needles on the ground to make a soft nest. He retraced his pawsteps and found the hollow, which was a bit too shallow to shelter him if it rained, but judging by the dust on the ground, that was unlikely. He snapped off some thin twigs that might scratch his eyes when he crawled into the hollow. Then he wriggled in and lay down, shifting around among the pine needles until he was comfortable.