Great Bear Lake Page 4

  Lusa puffed huffily. “You’re just jealous because Ujurak can change into all kinds of creatures and receive messages from the spirits.”

  “Ujurak has fluff in his ears, that’s all,” Toklo replied.

  Lusa glanced at Ujurak. She wondered if he would be hurt by the older cub’s scorn, but the look Ujurak gave Toklo was warm and friendly. He understands Toklo’s moods a lot better than I do, Lusa told herself.

  “I’ll show you the next sign,” Ujurak said to her. “Then maybe you’ll understand.”

  Lusa couldn’t restrain a little bounce of excitement. “Thank you!” And maybe Toklo will understand, too.

  “For now, I know we have to leave the mountains,” Ujurak said, gazing at Toklo. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  Toklo sighed. “Okay. Lead on.”

  Ujurak set off confidently downward, along the edge of the stream.

  The sun felt warm on Lusa’s back as she followed Toklo and Ujurak down a grassy slope, weaving their way among scattered pine trees. They were leaving the mountains behind now; the foothills looked gentle and welcoming, with softer ground underpaw. Lusa sniffed the warm air. There must be something good to eat here!

  In the far distance were more mountains, blue and mysterious, with snow-tipped peaks. The sky was blue, too, arching overhead; even after moons of traveling, Lusa had never imagined it could look so huge, until she felt like a tiny black beetle crawling across the grass.

  “Hurry up! You’re slower than a snail!” Toklo growled.

  She broke into a run to catch up with her companions. They were a strange pair to be traveling together, Lusa thought: one so friendly and the other one angry all the time, even grouchier than the grizzlies in the Bear Bowl.

  “I’m going ahead to check for danger.” The big grizzly cub jerked his head in the direction of a thorn thicket. “You two hide in there until I get back.”

  “Okay,” Ujurak said. “Be careful.”

  Lusa watched Toklo pad away. He might be grouchy but he was brave, too. She crept underneath the bushes beside Ujurak, feeling her fur snagged by the thorns on the low-growing branches. Once under cover she flopped down, grateful for the chance to rest and rasp her tongue over her sore pads.

  “Is it much farther to the place where the spirits dance?” she asked.

  Ujurak shook his head, confusion in his bright brown eyes. “I don’t know. I just know which way we have to go.”

  “If you’ve never been there before, how will we know when we get there?” Lusa persisted. “Will we see the spirits?”

  “I don’t know that, either,” Ujurak confessed. “But there will be a path of fire waiting for us in the sky. When I go to sleep, that’s what I dream of.”

  A shiver of anticipation made Lusa’s fur stand on end. She wanted so much to see the fire in the sky, and the spirits dancing—though how could they dance when every bear knew that their spirits went into trees when they died?

  “What will we do when we get there?” she asked.

  “The spirits will show us,” Ujurak replied solemnly.

  Lusa fell silent. She wished she could be as close to the spirits as Ujurak was, but she sensed that it didn’t really matter. She trusted Ujurak to get them where they were going.

  “Come on!” Toklo’s voice interrupted her dreaming. “Let’s get a move on. It’s safe for now—there isn’t even a butterfly stirring around here.”

  Lusa pulled herself out from the thicket to see the big cub already several bearlengths away. Ujurak padded beside her as they followed in Toklo’s pawsteps. Lusa snuffed up the scents of green growing things, enjoying the feel of the cool grass that brushed her paws. All the world seemed deserted in the heat of sunhigh, just as Toklo had said. The only movement Lusa could see was the tiny dot of an eagle, hovering high above.

  “I wish I could be an eagle,” she said wistfully, as she watched the bird’s outstretched wings slicing through the air. “Flying looks like fun. Can you teach me how, Ujurak?”

  Ujurak shook his head. “I don’t know how to fly when I’m a bear. Besides…” He turned his head away and his voice grew sad and quiet. “In other shapes, you learn too much. I think I’d be happier just being an ordinary bear.”

  “Learn too much?” Lusa didn’t understand how any bear could not want to know more about everything. Then she remembered the night when Ujurak had led the wolves away. “You mean what you said after you changed into the deer? About the water being sick?”

  The brown cub nodded. “Every time I change into another creature, I realize that a bit more of the world is dying. Sickness is spreading everywhere—in the air and water, and deep inside the earth. There’s too much of it to fight! What am I supposed to do?”

  By the time he finished speaking he was shaking uncontrollably, his eyes staring into the distance as if he could see something dreadful ahead. Lusa pressed herself against his flank.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” she told him. “It’s not your fault. Even if the world is sick, it’s not your responsibility to put it right.”

  “Then whose is it?” Ujurak turned that horrified gaze on her. “Remember the dead forest? What if everywhere was like that?”

  “It won’t happen,” Lusa said. “And even if it does, I’ll be here to look after you. Toklo will, too.”

  Instead of replying, Ujurak jerked his head up, startled, as pawsteps thudded toward them. While they talked, Toklo had drawn ahead; now Lusa saw him doubling back, his muscular legs propelling him up the grassy slope.

  “Ujurak, is something the matter?” he panted when he halted beside them.

  “No, I’m fine,” Ujurak replied. He cast a quick, anxious glance at Lusa, as if he didn’t want Toklo to know what they had been talking about. Lusa didn’t intend to tell him. Toklo would probably say it was nonsense.

  Toklo looked closer at the little brown bear. “Then why have you stopped? I looked behind me and…and you weren’t there!”

  Ujurak shook his shoulders, rolling his baggy pelt from side to side. “I’m still here, aren’t I? We’re coming now. Lusa?”

  She followed the two brown bears as they padded side by side down the slope. Toklo’s shadow fell across Ujurak’s back so that there was just one shadow on the ground, with eight legs. Her own shadow looked small and fuzzy, flitting over the grass beside her. For a moment she wished she were walking between Toklo and Ujurak so that Toklo’s shadow covered them all, keeping them safe, moving them forward on many tireless legs.

  At the foot of the slope they came to a rocky outcrop where water trickled between moss-covered stones and fell into a pool below. Toklo plunged his muzzle into the water without hesitating. Lusa waited for him to finish drinking, wondering if this water was sick like the stream under the trees two nights ago.

  When Toklo backed away, Lusa padded up to the pool and took a deep sniff; all she could sense was water, moss, and rock. She glanced at Ujurak, but the brown cub said nothing; he was gazing into the distance, and his eyes looked full of clouds. Lusa dipped her snout and drank. The water was cool and clear, and she felt energy pouring through her as she swallowed. The spring on the ridge was good water, she thought. Maybe this is, too.

  Ujurak drank, too, but reluctantly, and only a few mouthfuls. Being convinced that the world was dying must be a huge burden, like trying to carry a full-grown grizzly on his back. Perhaps he’d stop worrying when they got to the place where the bear spirits danced.

  When they had all drunk as much as they wanted, Ujurak stood still for several heartbeats and stared at the sky with his head cocked on one side, before leading the way along a narrow track at the bottom of a valley. Green hills swelled gently on either side, speckled with thick, leafy bushes. A warm breeze blew into Lusa’s face, carrying the scent of beetles and worms and other tasty things, but she didn’t want to ask to stop in case Ujurak lost his fragile trail.

  They followed the track as it curved around the foot of the hill. On the other side the gr
ound fell away until they could look down across wooded slopes, fading into the distance. Way below, Lusa spotted the gleam of a river running through the trees, and beyond it a stone path, with tiny glittering specks that she knew were firebeasts racing up and down. They were so far away that she couldn’t hear their roaring.

  The sun had begun to slide down the sky by the time the cubs rounded a shoulder of the hill and came face-to-face with a tumble of rocks and earth, shaggy with ferns and grasses. The path forked; one part led back toward the mountains, while the other zigzagged across the downward slope and into the forest. Toklo, who had taken the lead, came to a halt, growling softly in his throat. He stretched out his neck, sniffing the air as if trying to decide which way to go.

  Lusa turned to Ujurak. “Is there a sign?”

  Ujurak trotted forward until he stood at the exact point where the track forked. He stood still and tense, his eyes flickering back and forth. Lusa clamped her jaws shut and forced herself to be quiet.

  At last Ujurak relaxed and tipped his head, inviting Lusa to join him. “Is there a sign? Can you read it?” she demanded as she bounded up to him.

  Ujurak ignored a heavy sigh from Toklo. “Yes, look.” He faced the direction that led into the mountains, pointing with one paw at a huge boulder right in the middle of the track, halfway to the top. “That’s blocking the way,” he explained. “But the other path”—he swiveled around to face the forest—“is clear, as if it’s telling us to go that way.”

  Lusa thought about that. The boulder wasn’t really stopping them from taking the upward path if they wanted to; all they would have to do was squeeze around it. But the lines gouged into its surface gave it a forbidding look, like a huge bear with an angry face. She shivered, deciding that she didn’t want to go that way anyway.

  “It’s as if the spirits are warning us,” she whispered, hoping Toklo didn’t hear.

  Toklo let out a snarl. “Not you as well! Why am I stuck with two squirrel-brains?”

  But he swung around and headed along the downward track without any more argument.

  Ujurak set off after Toklo and Lusa had to run to keep up. Soon they reached the first pine trees; Lusa relaxed when she heard bear spirits murmuring in the branches above her head. Leaf-shadows dappled the ground and she felt the crackle of pine needles under her paws. Looking up, she saw crisscrossing branches outlined against the sky. Peace flowed into her like rain filling a hollow, and she felt a sense of familiarity that she had missed up in the mountains. Already she could scent water and make out in the distance the rush of the river she had seen from the upper slopes.

  “Toklo, do you think there will be salmon in the river?” Ujurak asked.

  “Might be.” Toklo still sounded grumpy. “If there are, just stay out of the way till I catch one.”

  Lusa’s belly rumbled at the mention of salmon. The last proper meal they had eaten had been a muskrat Toklo had caught in the mountains. Apart from that, on the bleak mountain ridge, they had survived on berries and insects grubbed up from the ground. Lusa had never tasted salmon, but Oka had told her how delicious it was, back in the Bear Bowl. Even better than blueberries, the grizzly had said.

  The sun was sinking, casting long shadows across the water, when they came to the river. Curiosity attacked Lusa like a tormenting fly as she realized that the path divided again, going along the bank in both directions.

  “Ujurak, can I try reading the signs?” she begged. “Please!”

  Toklo shook his head and padded off to stand at the very edge of the river and peer down into the eddying water. Ujurak touched his muzzle to Lusa’s. “Try.”

  Lusa paced forward to stand where the track divided. She stood, still and alert, looking up and down the stream. Upstream the track looked boggy and overgrown. Here and there the bank had crumbled into the river, and bushes stretched out their thorny branches, barring the way.

  Downstream was no better. The track was firm and dry, but there was little undergrowth to provide cover. Lusa remembered how terrified she had been when the wolves were chasing her and there were no trees to climb. Now that they were off the mountain, they should be safer, but this path still looked too open.

  Lusa couldn’t see anything that suggested to her that one way was better than another. What am I supposed to be looking for? she wondered, with an uncertain glance at Ujurak.

  The brown cub nodded encouragingly. “The answers are there. Just look.”

  Briefly Lusa closed her eyes, imagining that she could see the Bear Watcher shining down on her. Arcturus, she prayed, please show me.

  When she opened her eyes again the forest looked brighter, the colors more intense. The muddy patches upstream seemed wider and deeper, and the bushes seemed to stretch out twiggy paws to trap her. But her pelt prickled with apprehension as she imagined trying to find cover in the scanty undergrowth downstream.

  I have to choose one, she thought desperately.

  Then she realized that she had a third choice. The river in front of her looked cool and inviting, and according to Toklo it might be full of tempting salmon. Her paws tingling, she turned to Ujurak.

  “We cross the river,” she announced.

  She winced as Toklo let out a scornful snort, but she ignored him. It was Ujurak who would tell her whether she was right.

  The small brown cub nodded and pride filled her from her nose to the tips of her claws. “That is our way.”

  “What?” Toklo’s voice was outraged. “Bears don’t swim.”

  “Of course we do!” Lusa was shocked that there was something she knew that Toklo didn’t. Grunting with delight, she flung herself into the river, rejoicing in the surge of water around her. She ducked her head and came up again, then dived deeper until she could scrabble her paws among the pebbles on the riverbed.

  When she resurfaced she looked back at the bank to see Toklo and Ujurak standing side by side, watching her. Ujurak looked fascinated, but Toklo’s expression was fierce.

  “Come back!” he ordered.

  Lusa ignored the command. “Come on in, it’s lovely!” she invited.

  Ujurak took a step toward the water’s edge, but Toklo stayed where he was. “Come back now,” he repeated. “We can’t cross here. I told you, I don’t swim.”

  “All bears swim,” Lusa argued, batting at the water with her paws so that drops splashed up and glittered in the sunlight. Why was Toklo making such a fuss, when any bear could see he was wrong? “Try—like this.” She demonstrated how she moved her paws through the water. “You’ll love it.”

  Ujurak teetered on the edge for a moment, then plunged into the river and paddled over to Lusa. His brown eyes sparkled. “I feel like a fish!”

  “Come on, Toklo,” Lusa repeated. Satisfaction surged up in her, as strong as the current, to think that for once she wasn’t the weak black bear who didn’t know how to live in the wild. This was something she could do better than Toklo. “What’s the matter?” she added. “Why won’t you try?”

  The big grizzly cub began pacing up and down the bank, pausing every now and then as if he were about to dive in, then starting to pace again. “I…I don’t get along with water,” he muttered.

  Lusa didn’t understand what he meant. After all, he had to get into the river to catch salmon, didn’t he? She’d never seen a grizzly catch fish but she was pretty sure the fish didn’t leap onto the bank to be eaten. “Just jump in,” she said. “Your paws will know what to do.”

  “Come on!” Ujurak called. “It’s easy! You’ll be fine.”

  With an impatient growl, Toklo crouched on the riverbank, his muscles bunched with tension, and threw himself into the water. His head went under; when he reappeared he was flailing his paws frantically, using far more energy than he needed, but making slow progress toward the opposite bank. Lusa swam over to keep pace with him, and saw that his eyes were wide with terror.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re doing great.”

  Toklo’s head whippe
d around to face her. “Leave me alone!” he snarled, swiping a paw at her.

  Alarmed, Lusa backed off. But Toklo’s attempt to smack her had broken the rhythm of his strokes. He took in a great gulp of water and sank.

  Lusa gave him a couple of heartbeats to resurface, but the grizzly didn’t appear. Icy fear, colder than the current, crept through her fur. Maybe he really couldn’t swim! What if Toklo drowned, after she had persuaded him to jump into the river?

  Lusa dove deep into the water, keeping her eyes as wide open as she could; swinging her head from side to side, she spotted a dark, bulky shape a short way downstream. It was Toklo being swept along by the current. He was floundering helplessly, his eyes and mouth wide open in alarm, bubbles of air streaming up to the surface from his jaws.

  Lusa’s stomach lurched. They couldn’t lose Toklo! All three of them belonged together, on the journey to see the spirits dance. One shadow, many legs.

  Swimming toward Toklo, Lusa gave him a hearty shove upward. As their heads broke the surface, she felt a stinging blow on her shoulder. Toklo had lashed out at her with his claws. She wasn’t sure if he was still trying to attack her, or just thrashing around in panic because he thought he was drowning.

  “Stop it!” she gasped. “Swim, like I showed you.”

  Ujurak’s head bobbed beside her in the water. His snout was pointing upward, his neck crooked back to keep his nose in the air, and his legs paddled so hard he was making waves of his own.

  “Can I help?” he spluttered.

  “No—keep back!” Lusa couldn’t imagine how she would cope with both of them in trouble. “Toklo, swim! Move your paws like this!”

  Toklo coughed up a mouthful of water. “Don’t let me drown!” he begged.

  “You won’t drown,” Lusa promised, shoving her shoulder underneath him to support his bulk in the water. To her relief, he started paddling again, though panic still glittered in his eyes. “I can manage now,” he gasped.

  “Okay.” Lusa wasn’t sure he could, but she let him go ahead, staying close and keeping an eye on him. He was tiring himself out with those clumsy strokes, and the far bank was still a long way away.