Bear Adventure (11 page)

The bear cub on Amazon's lap pricked up its ears, and then squirmed even further into her midriff, as if it were trying to lose itself entirely in her.

Frazer stood up and approached the treeline.

‘What are you doing?' Amazon hissed. ‘Come back by the fire.'

‘They're a long way off still,' Frazer replied. ‘And we need more wood.'

He went into the forest again, and Amazon heard the swish and hack of the machete.

‘It's a bit green,' he said, when he came back, ‘but I think we need to build the fire up as much as we can.'

Seeing Frazer take the wolf situation seriously was both a relief and a shock to Amazon. She'd secretly hoped that he would laugh at the wolf threat, thereby showing it to be a figment of her imagination.

Well, clearly he wasn't laughing. But having him calm and resolute in the face of this new danger was a comfort. Of sorts.

Frazer loaded most of the wood on to the fire. But there was one long straight piece that he held back. As Amazon watched, he used his knife to strip off the bark. Then he sharpened the end of the stick, and finally rotated it slowly in the fire.

‘Spear,' he said, quite unnecessarily.

‘Really?' replied Amazon. ‘I'd never have guessed. I thought it was a toothpick.'

That made them both laugh, which broke the tension. But then something caught their attention, silencing them again.

It was Goldilocks that heard it first, pricking her ears: the unmistakable sound of something moving through the undergrowth. Frazer gave Amazon the machete, put his knife in his belt, took his spear and stood in front of the fire. In the flickering firelight he looked strangely timeless to Amazon. Standing there with the spear and the knife, he wasn't a modern boy from Long Island any more, but a Native American brave, or an Ancient Greek, or an aboriginal hunter.

And then a second noise was added to the sound of the creature moving heavily through the forest. And it was a sound that made Amazon's blood run cold. It was a high, haunting, heartbreaking sound. It did not sound to Amazon like any living creature, any animal that she had ever seen or heard or read about. She had been stalked by killer bears and tigers in Siberia, and hunted by sharks in Polynesia, but
she had experienced nothing like this. It seemed not to belong to the realm of nature at all. It was the sound of a soul in torment, a ghost, or a ghoul.

As she looked, she saw the courageous and resolute Frazer first take a step back and then retreat behind the fire, putting its flames between him and whatever wretched, bloodsucking, soul-stealing being it was that was approaching them.

And then the high keening sound became clearer and they heard it for what it was.

‘I WANT MY MOMMY!'

‘What the …?'

Frazer and Amazon exchanged baffled glances, and then looked back to where the voice was coming from. A moment later, a tiny figure stepped – or rather staggered – into the circle of flickering light cast by the fire.

It was a child – a little boy of perhaps six years old. His blond hair was matted and filthy, his face smudged with dirt and tears, and his clothes hung from him in shreds. He was wearing a single shoe.

They both knew straight away who it was.

‘Ben?' said Amazon, rushing towards him. ‘Ben Waits?'

The little boy's face was filled with emotions too complex to read – certainly too complex to belong in the face of a child so young. There was hope and fear and, the topmost layer, a sort of anger or outrage. It was an expression that screamed out the child's
sense of injustice, that overpowering feeling that something had happened that
just wasn't fair
.

‘You're not my mommy! Where's my mommy?'

Without another word, Amazon swept the little boy, who was, indeed, the lost Ben Waits, into her arms and hugged him.

The child fought against her for a few seconds, kicking out with his one good foot, and pummelling Amazon's back with his tiny fists. But then he subsided into heart-rending sobs, as Amazon comforted him.

‘We're going to take you to your mummy,' she said. ‘You'll see her soon. And your daddy.'

‘You talk funny,' said the little boy. ‘You say “mommy” all wrong.'

‘Tell me about it, kid,' said Frazer. ‘She's from some rainy little island next door to Europe, where they haven't learned to speak proper American. Now come on, little guy, and get warm by the fire.'

They sat on the platform that Frazer had made, and gave Ben some trail mix and a chocolate bar, which he ate first with suspicion and then in a frenzy.

The child was clearly traumatized. He wouldn't let go of Amazon as he munched. She tried to ask him about where he'd been, and what had happened to him, but he would not answer. In fact, he seemed unable to even hear what she was saying.

They had almost forgotten about Goldilocks, but the baby bear woke at the smell of the chocolate. She was still trapped in the tight embrace of the
backpack, but she squirmed and snuffled and grumbled, and made her presence felt and heard.

Ben looked up and saw the cub, ghost-pale in the dim light. The effect on him was instant. He went rigid with fear, and then tried to scramble away.

Frazer grabbed him. At the same moment he realized what must be going through the little boy's mind – the report had said that his party had been attacked by a spirit bear. The sight of even this tiny specimen had brought back what must be terrible memories.

‘Hey, it's OK, little man. This is just a baby we're looking after. He's on his own as well, like you.'

Ben appeared to calm down a fraction, but still he stared intently at the bear cub as Amazon let her lick at the smears of chocolate on the wrapper. Her antics were so cute and amusing that the boy's look soon softened, and the first hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

‘Do you want to hold her?' asked Amazon, thinking that it might help to cure his fear.

Ben shook his head, and was about to say, ‘Nah.' But the decision was taken out of his hands, as Goldilocks finally escaped from her prison, and jumped into the boy's arms. After a second of shocked silence, Ben exploded into giggles.

‘Hey, I've got my own real-life teddy bear,' he said. ‘I'm so lucky. Wait till I tell them at school. They'll think I'm making it up, so you'll have to tell them
that it's true. Can I have him to keep? What's his name? Why is he whitey-yellowy? Is he a real bear? Where's his mommy?'

‘She's a girl and she's called Goldilocks,' said Frazer. ‘We're just looking after her for a while. We're going to take you both back where you'll be safe.'

Frazer and Amazon looked at each other, and then at the two newest members of this particular TRACKS expedition, who were now rolling around together on the floor of the platform. Amazon wondered if this feeling within her of protectiveness and pride might be what her parents felt – heck, what all parents feel – for their child.

Frazer was just about to say that it was time to settle down to get some sleep, when another voice interrupted. A voice that sent a chill through them all, from the little bear on up.

It was the long, slow howling of a wolf.

The bear and the boy scooted round in between Frazer and Amazon on the platform, with the flames of the fire in between them and the wolf howl, as if the flames could burn away the terror of that spectral voice.

But then that one wolf howl was joined by another, and then another, until the whole forest seemed to resound and echo with their voices, like a great organ in a cathedral.

Frazer spoke to Amazon in a tense whisper.

‘You stay back here in the shelter,' he said. ‘It's not much, but it'll give you some protection.'

‘What? Where the heck are you going?'

‘Keep your hair on. I'm just going to use some of the wood I collected earlier to set up perimeter fires. We want to keep them as far away as possible.'

‘But they wouldn't really attack us, would they? The story your dad told us about his father … I mean, he said it was incredibly uncommon for wolves to attack people …?

‘It is uncommon. But now we've got both a young child with us and a baby bear. Bears and wolves don't get on. Bears kill wolves when they can, and wolves will kill and eat bear cubs if they come across them undefended.'

‘Well,' said Amazon, determination making her stick her jaw out, ‘this bear cub is definitely defended!'

‘I hear you, Zonnie. But we've also got Ben to look after. Wolves are afraid of adult humans, but kids … well, we're definitely on the menu.' Then he leaned forward and plucked a stick from the fire. ‘Luckily we've got humanity's oldest friend right here, and it's time to call in a favour.'

‘At least take your silly spear,' said Amazon, her harsh words failing to conceal the concern in her voice. She held out the short spear. It was surprisingly weighty and solid. Even holding it made her feel a little more secure.

But Frazer shook his head.

‘You keep it for now. The wolves are still miles off. And I've got work to do.'

Amazon retreated right back into the lean-to shelter with Ben and Goldilocks while Frazer quickly built up a ring of smaller fires round their encampment. It didn't take long, as he had already dragged in plenty of wood, and he could easily get the fires going using logs from the first fire, which was still burning brightly in front of the shelter.

Frazer looked at his handiwork and nodded.

‘They'll burn out before morning,' he said, half to Amazon, half to himself, ‘but it may still be enough …'

He went to crouch beside Amazon in the shelter. Ben and Goldilocks, both exhausted, had already fallen asleep.

‘You get some shut-eye too,' said Frazer. ‘I'll wake you in a couple of hours.'

But it wasn't Frazer who woke Amazon. It wasn't Frazer because he was himself fast asleep, nestled next to her in the thick bed of pine branches. And nor, although the fire had died down to embers and she was shivering, was it the cold that interrupted her dreams.

It was the low, urgent growling.

She opened her eyes and saw what she had dreaded. A dark shape was edging towards them, barely visible in the light from the sickle moon and the scattered stars. But the fact that Amazon could only just make it out didn't change the fact that there was only one thing that this could be. She tugged at Frazer's sleeve.

‘
Whaaa?
' said her cousin groggily.

‘They're here,' she hissed. ‘The wolves.'

It normally took endless minutes of nagging and shoving to get Frazer out of bed, but now, like Amazon, he was wide awake in a second.

‘Where?' he said. ‘How many?'

Amazon pointed into the gloom. ‘There. I don't know how many. I think I only saw one. But it's hard to tell.'

Frazer sprang up, and reached for the spear he had placed just inside their shelter. He knew that, like most predators, the wolves responded instinctively to animal behaviour: act like prey and they treated
you like prey. Act like you yourself were a vicious predator and they'd think again.

And yes, it looked to him as though there was only one of them. Wolves will hunt alone, but not usually against anything larger than a hare. They needed the whole pack to bring down bigger animals, and Frazer had decided that tonight he was going to be the bigger animal.

So he dashed towards the dark shadow, yelling out a war cry and thrusting with his home-made spear. And, as he lunged forward, he also kicked at one of the logs protruding from the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. The wolf – a lean and hungry-looking male – snarled and snapped, but then cringed back from the onslaught, slinking into the night.

‘Help me get this fire going again,' said Frazer over his shoulder to Amazon. ‘He'll be back soon enough with the rest of the pack.'

He was talking bravely – and had acted with courage – but Frazer was frightened. Their only hope was the fire. He quickly worked at building it up, pushing the four logs together, and piling more wood on top. He used pine cones to help get it going. They burned brightly, but not for long. He used his machete to trim two more pine branches, each as thick as a broom handle.

He looked back and saw Amazon encircling Ben with one arm and the baby bear with the other.

‘I'm going to need you out here, when they come
back,' he said. ‘We've got to show the wolves that we're not afraid.'

‘But these two …' protested Amazon, signalling helplessly with her hands.

‘Ben,' said Frazer, looking into the boy's wide eyes, ‘I'm going to need you to do a very important job. You have to look after Goldilocks for us. She's only a baby bear, and she'll need someone to cuddle her while we scare these silly wolves off.'

‘I'm not afraid of wolves,' said Ben, sticking out his chin. ‘I'll bash them if they try to hurt my bear.'

‘I know you will!' said Frazer, grinning despite the desperate situation.

Amazon arrived at his side. She looked at her watch.

‘It's four a.m. What time does it get light?'

‘About five. We've an hour. Take this.' He gave her one of the pine branches. ‘Light it in the fire if … when they come back.'

Amazon nodded, but said nothing. She didn't have to. They both knew they were going to be fighting for their lives.