The Last Wilderness Read online

  ‘That was close!’ Kallik breathed.

  Toklo nodded. ‘Let’s get a move on.’

  Lusa took the lead again, trying to slink through the darkness as if she were only the shadow of a bear, until they reached the back of the healer’s den. Light streamed out of a window and cast a golden patch on the ground.

  Lusa padded up to the window. Standing on her hindpaws, she rested her forepaws against the wall of the den and peered inside.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN:

  Toklo

  Toklo crept warily up to the flat-face den and peered through the shiny stuff, like solid water, that blocked the hole in the wall. A fire burned at one side; even out here, Toklo could smell strange fumes coming from it, and he blinked to chase away a sudden feeling of dizziness. But in spite of the odd smell, it looked warm and cosy inside, with flat-face pelts spread on the floor and hanging from the walls.

  Lusa and Kallik pressed their noses to the window on either side of Toklo, peering into the den. Toklo studied the old flat-face who had taken Ujurak in. The flat-face had his back to the window, blocking the bears’ view of Ujurak, who was lying next to the wall. Now and then Toklo caught a glimpse of one of the old flat-face’s pink, furless paws as he reached out to pick up or put down some small, silvery object.

  I guess he’s still trying to get the line out of Ujurak’s throat, Toklo thought. His paws are very small, and much nimbler than ours. Maybe Lusa was right to bring Ujurak here, after all.

  Then the flat-face healer moved, and Toklo got a clear view of Ujurak for the first time. Still in his flatface shape, he lay on his back in a flat-face nest, partly covered by pelts.

  ‘He looks dead!’ Kallik whispered, her voice horrified.

  Toklo didn’t reply, but his belly clenched and he gritted his teeth to stop himself from howling aloud. Ujurak lay so still; his flat-face skin was a sickly grey. His eyes were closed, and Toklo couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

  ‘He’s not dead,’ Lusa said reassuringly. ‘The flatface wouldn’t be trying to help him if he was.’

  Toklo found it hard to believe her. What did flat-faces know? Besides, if Ujurak wasn’t dead now, he might die soon, and there was nothing Toklo could do. He hated the feeling of helplessness; like the geese that scattered when he tried to creep up on them, everything that was happening was flying out of his control.

  Just briefly, when he had hunted the caribou alone, he had been at peace. Now he felt as though nothing would ever go right. One thought kept nagging at him, refusing to leave him alone: It was my fault Ujurak turned into a goose. If I hadn’t had that dumb idea . . .

  Hot panic flooded through him. His heart thudded as he remembered the guilt he had felt over Tobi’s death and the way Oka had abandoned him; he knew he couldn’t carry the weight of that guilt again.

  No, it wasn’t my fault, Toklo told himself. It wasn’t my fault.

  Gradually his heart steadied and the scorching terror ebbed away. I’m not Ujurak’s mother, he told himself. It’s not my responsibility to keep him safe.

  He remembered the last time Ujurak had been injured, when the firebeast had struck him as they crossed the bridge on the way to Great Bear Lake. Then Toklo had felt as if he were the star-bear in the loneliest, darkest part of the sky. He had failed to protect Ujurak; he had felt utterly worthless.

  Not this time, Toklo asserted, taking a few deep breaths. Ujurak should be able to take care of himself. Why is he so stupid? Why does he always get into trouble?

  Suddenly a faint choking sound came from inside the den. Toklo caught his breath. ‘That was Ujurak!’ he exclaimed. ‘He’s not dead.’

  The old flat-face bent over Ujurak again. A silver claw-shape flashed in his hand. Toklo’s belly clenched with anxiety as Ujurak’s limbs spasmed and his skinny flat-face arms flailed. Then the Ujurak-cub relaxed, and the flat-face healer straightened up, stretching out a hand to smooth back Ujurak’s tangle of head-fur.

  Glancing away from the window, Toklo saw the moon hanging over the forested mountain slopes. Longing gripped him, sharp as a wolf’s fangs. That’s where I belong. Endless forests were the right place for a brown bear; that was where he should be, not hiding here in the shadows, on the fringe of a flatface denning area.

  Toklo’s mind flew back to when he and Tobi were tiny cubs, still living in their BirthDen with Oka. He recalled the very first time Oka had taught them how to hunt.

  ‘See this stick?’ she had said, dropping it in front of them. ‘I want you to pretend it’s a hare. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Chase it?’ Tobi guessed, his eyes sparkling.

  A pang passed through Toklo as he remembered that there had been a time when Tobi hadn’t been so ill. Even though he wasn’t as strong as Toklo, none of them had realised how sickly he was. Oka hadn’t been so anxious about him, and Toklo had been able to love him without being irritated by his weakness.

  ‘That’s dumb, squirrel-brain!’ Toklo had replied to his brother. ‘You can’t chase a stick. This is what I’m going to do!’

  Toklo leaped on the stick and sank his teeth into it, shaking it from side to side and finally dropping it at Oka’s paws. ‘I killed it, didn’t I?’ he yelped.

  ‘You did,’ Oka growled approvingly. ‘Come on, Tobi, you try.’

  Tobi jumped on to the stick, stretching out his front legs to grip it with his claws, but he slipped as he landed and rolled over on his back. The stick went flying.

  ‘Your hare just escaped,’ Toklo huffed in amusement.

  Oka let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Tobi, you’re not trying!’ she scolded. ‘How do you expect to feed yourself when you’re full grown if you don’t learn now?’

  Tobi sat up, shaking scraps of leaf-mould off his pelt. ‘I’ll stay with Toklo,’ he replied. ‘Toklo, you won’t let me starve, will you?’

  ‘Course not,’ Toklo barked. ‘I can catch enough prey for both of us. Watch!’ He pounced on the stick again, and this time it snapped cleanly in two between his paws.

  ‘No,’ Oka scolded. ‘You’re both wrong. Brown bears live alone. That’s the way it’s always been. It’s our greatest strength, that we don’t need to depend on any other bears to survive. We’re responsible for ourselves, and no one else.’

  There had been a grim determination in her tone; even as a young cub, Toklo had wondered what made her insist so strongly that brown bears must live on their own. Although now he knew it was how most brown bears chose to live, he still felt that for Oka it had been more than that, some instinct deep inside her that rejected all companionship.

  Lusa wriggling next to him brought Toklo back to the present. Inside the den, the old flat-face had disappeared, leaving Ujurak sleeping in the nest, wrapped in pelts.

  That flat-face is trying to help, Toklo thought. But I still can’t be sure Ujurak will be OK. I can’t leave yet.

  Sighing, he glanced once more at the tree-covered mountains, silvered by the moonlight. They looked so peaceful, and his paws itched to carry him up there, under the shadows of the branches.

  ‘Soon,’ he whispered too faintly for his companions to hear him. ‘I’m coming soon.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE:

  Ujurak

  Ujurak crouched on the floor of a cave, shadows clustering around him. His throat throbbed with pain, and a deathly weariness was spreading through all his limbs. His paws scuffled on the hard stone beneath him, but he didn’t have the strength to get up. His senses swirled into a whirlpool of night.

  Suddenly a blur of white light penetrated the darkness. Ujurak blinked, trying to focus. In front of him an Arctic hare had hopped through the mouth of the cave. Its snowy pelt glowed as if the moon had fallen to the earth and filled every hair on its pelt.

  ‘Come,’ the hare said. ‘You must leave this place.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Ujurak croaked, the pain in his throat stabbing deeper as he tried to speak. ‘I’m too tired.’

  ‘You must.’ The hare’s voice grew more commanding.
It turned and hopped a pace or two back towards the cave mouth. Glancing over its shoulder, it warned, ‘You cannot stay here.’

  Something about the hare compelled Ujurak to follow, as if the two of them were connected by an invisible thread. Once again he scrabbled his paws against the stone, and this time he managed to heave himself up. His limbs felt too heavy to move; all he wanted was to sink back into the comforting darkness.

  ‘Follow me,’ said the hare. ‘All will be well if you come out of the cave.’

  Ujurak staggered forward step by painful step, following the pure white light of the hare. The cave mouth drew gradually closer; Ujurak began to notice light filtering into the cave from outside.

  As he struggled onward, the light grew stronger, a golden light that gradually filled his eyes, blotting out the sight of the hare. He felt cool, fresh air blowing toward him from the mouth of the cave, carrying the warm scents of summer.

  At last Ujurak took the final step that brought him outside, leaving the dark cave behind him. Golden light blinded him, but from within it the voice of the hare rang out joyfully.

  ‘Well done! There’s nothing to fear now. You are safe here.’

  Ujurak blinked and opened his eyes to find himself lying in a nest in a flat-face den, wrapped in warm pelts. At one side of the den a fire was burning. Smoke drifted from it, tickling Ujurak’s nostrils with the scents of healing herbs. He recognised one that he used to chew into a pulp and put on wounds, and another that soothed pain. Yet another scent was unfamiliar.

  In spite of the fire and the pelts, Ujurak couldn’t stop shivering. His throat burned as if the fire had scorched it. When he tried to remember what had happened, and to decide what he ought to do next, he felt as though he was groping his way through a fog.

  Gradually Ujurak became aware of a steady mumble of words coming from one side of the bed, barely audible above the crackling of the fire. He couldn’t understand the words; turning his head, he saw a flat-face sitting beside him. He was a broadshouldered man with a lined, weathered face and long grey head-fur swept back from his forehead and tied into braids, caught at the ends with bright beads and feathers. His hands were square and looked strong. Ujurak thought he looked familiar; after a moment he recognised the man who had come out of the den where the little flat-face had gone for healing.

  ‘You’re awake,’ the flat-face said. He was speaking clearly now, his face creasing into a smile. ‘Welcome to my home. My name is Tiinchuu.’

  ‘What happened?’ Ujurak asked hoarsely. ‘Why am I here?’

  ‘You swallowed a fishhook,’ the flat-face told him. ‘It nearly killed you. But I visited your spirit in the form of a hare, and brought you back. Your animal spirit is strong.’

  He visited me . . . Ujurak thought confusedly. Is he like me? Can he be a hare and a flat-face too?

  He struggled to sit up, and discovered how weak he was; he couldn’t resist when the healer placed one gentle hand on his shoulder and pressed him back on to the bed.

  ‘Lie still, little bear,’ Tiinchuu said. ‘You’ll soon be strong again.’

  Ujurak struggled to clear his head, but the heavy smell of the smoke made it hard to think. His vision kept blurring, and the room swam around him as if he were looking at it through water. A brightly coloured mask on the wall seemed to leer at him, then faded back into mist.

  ‘Don’t try to talk,’ the healer went on. ‘I’ve taken the fishing line out of your throat, but the wound needs time to heal.’

  Reaching into the shadows, he showed Ujurak a small bowl that held a long length of almost transparent fishing line, with a wicked barbed hook at one end. A couple of clots of blood still clung to it. Memory drifted into Ujurak’s mind: the pain in his throat and his desperate efforts to breathe.

  ‘It’s all over,’ Tiinchuu reassured him. ‘I have given you shepherd’s purse to stop the bleeding, and echinacea for the infection.’

  Rising from the side of the bed, he moved away from Ujurak’s range of vision. When he returned, he carried another small bowl with a few tiny white things at the bottom of it.

  Ujurak flinched, pressing himself into his pillows. ‘What are they for?’ he croaked.

  ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Tiinchuu smiled again. ‘There are many ways of healing, and these pills will work with the herbs to make you better.’

  Gently he raised Ujurak up with an arm around his shoulders. Ujurak felt that he was expecting him to do something, but he didn’t know what it was.

  ‘Take one of the pills and put it on your tongue,’ Tiinchuu explained after a moment. ‘Then you can swallow it with this water.’ He reached for a cup from the table beside the bed.

  Nervously Ujurak picked up one of the tiny white pills; it was hard to grasp it with these unfamiliar flat-face fingers.

  ‘It will hurt to swallow,’ Tiinchuu said as Ujurak hesitated, staring at the pill. ‘But you need to do it, and you’ll feel better later.’

  Ujurak gave him an uncertain nod. He put the pill on his tongue; Tiinchuu held the cup for him and tipped water into his mouth. In spite of the pain in his throat, Ujurak managed to swallow.

  ‘Good,’ Tiinchuu said. ‘That will do for now. You can have more later.’

  Ujurak didn’t feel any different after he swallowed the white pill. But from what Tiinchuu said, it must be powerful for healing. Maybe the white stuff came from a different sort of herb, one that grew hard white berries. Ujurak would look out for it.

  Tiinchuu let Ujurak lie down again and retreated from the bedside; Ujurak heard him moving around the den, the sound pulsing loud and soft as waves of heat and cold chased one another through Ujurak’s body.

  What happens now? Ujurak wondered. He didn’t feel as if he belonged here. He longed to be outside, under the open sky, travelling with others beside him . . . others? Which others? Dimly he realised that he had forgotten something important. I’m not a flat-face, I’m a . . . I’m a . . . When he tried to remember, his memories dissolved like snow falling on water. He knew his life hadn’t begun the moment he woke in this warm, fragrant den. But what had come before? The knowledge of who he really was drifted away in a fog of weariness and pain.

  Tiinchuu reappeared with another cup in his hand. Aromatic steam came from it.

  ‘Drink this,’ the healer said, sitting beside him on the bed. ‘It’s wintergreen tea. It will soothe the pain and help you to sleep. There’s elderberry in it too, to bring down your fever.’

  He raised Ujurak’s head and held the cup to his lips. The warm liquid was comforting, but Ujurak’s nervousness increased at being so close to a flat-face.

  ‘That’s right,’ Tiinchuu murmured as Ujurak sipped from the cup. After a moment, he added thoughtfully, ‘You’re not from here, are you?’

  Ujurak shook his head.

  ‘I thought not. Will anyone be looking for you – your parents or friends?’

  Anxiety flooded through Ujurak and he struggled once again against the sleep that was enveloping him. This flat-face seemed so close to guessing his secret. Whatever that is.

  He opened his mouth, not knowing what he wanted to say, but Tiinchuu raised his hand for silence.

  ‘Rest, don’t talk,’ he ordered. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for talk when you’re stronger.’

  Setting the cup aside, he let Ujurak lie back on the pillows and tucked the blankets more closely around him. Ujurak began to feel warmth creeping through his body, and his eyelids grew heavy.

  ‘You should sleep now,’ Tiinchuu told him. ‘But first, let me give you these. They are charms that will help you get well.’

  He folded Ujurak’s hand around three small carvings. Ujurak uncurled his fingers and stared at them. Three bears – brown, white, and black, tiny, but so vividly carved that they almost seemed to be alive, looking up at him with worried, questioning eyes. They had names, whispering in Ujurak’s head, prompted by the shapes of the tiny carved creatures. Memories spun from the mist that filled his mind: three figur
es plodding ahead of him, outlined against the horizon; mountains filled with the smell of burning; swimming a great black river that pulled at his fur and tasted bitter and slimy; sleeping and hunting and walking on, on, on through scorching days and nights that passed in a flicker of shadows.

  Toklo.

  Kallik.

  Lusa.

  And Ujurak, brown like Toklo, a bear like all four of them. Pushing them onward, led by the voices that told him they hadn’t reached the end of their journey, that more had to be done before the wild could be saved.

  I am a bear.

  Ujurak gazed up at the healer. How could he possibly know?

  ‘You . . . you called me little bear,’ he whispered.

  The corners of Tiinchuu’s eyes crinkled in amusement as he pointed to the window of his hut. Ujurak saw three wet bear snouts pressed against the glass.

  ‘Friends of yours, I think,’ Tiinchuu said.

  Ujurak smiled as he made out Lusa, Toklo and Kallik’s faces, glad beyond words that they had stayed so close to him.

  He closed his hand around the three carvings, thinking sleepily that it felt strange to have skinny little fingers rather than a paw. Comforted by the presence of his friends, he slipped easily into sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

  Kallik

  ‘He’s alive!’ Kallik yelped. ‘Ujurak is alive!’

  ‘Get down!’ Toklo pushed her away from the window. ‘The flat-face has seen us.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Lusa dropped to all fours beside them. ‘He won’t hurt us. Look how he helped Ujurak.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Toklo agreed. ‘It looks like Ujurak’s going to be OK.’ Sounding reluctant, he added, ‘Maybe all flat-faces aren’t bad. Of course, the healer thinks Ujurak is a flat-face. I wonder what he’d do if he knew he was a bear?’

  Kallik moved a little further from the window and looked around. The rain had completely stopped and the wind had risen, chasing ragged clouds across the sky. The moon shone fitfully through the gaps between them, and Kallik could make out the steady shining of the Pathway Star.