Island of Shadows (17 page)

Behind her Kallik heard Lusa mutter, “What's made him so scared? He doesn't look hurt….”

Toklo slowly padded forward. The smaller bear trembled, but he stood his ground, until Toklo was close enough to bend down and touch him on the shoulder with his muzzle. “Why are you so frightened?” he asked softly.

Kallik's heart beat faster as she heard the protective tone in Toklo's voice.
He sounded like that with Ujurak….

“Tell us your name,” Toklo went on.

“It's … it's Nanulak.”

“And what happened to you? Did you get lost in the blizzard?”

Nanulak blinked up at Toklo. “White bears chased me and attacked me,” he whimpered. “I had to hide to get away from them.”

“Why would they do that?” Yakone's voice was a deep rumble. “Did you steal their prey?”

Kallik saw Toklo shoot a reproving glance at Yakone.

“No!” Nanulak glared indignantly at Yakone. “I would never do that. They just came out of nowhere and jumped on me!”

Kallik felt a stab of guilt and discomfort. She knew that white bears could be fierce, but she found it hard to imagine they would attack another bear without being provoked. Then she remembered how Taqqiq and his friends had kidnapped the black-bear cub at Great Bear Lake. She knew not all white bears were as honorable as Yakone.

“You poor thing!” she murmured. “I'm so sorry. No wonder you were scared of me and Yakone.”

“But why are you all by yourself?” Toklo asked. “What happened to your family? Why couldn't they protect you from the white bears?”

Nanulak shuffled his forepaws in the snow, not looking at Toklo. “My family doesn't want me,” he explained in a small voice. “My mother and my half brother and sister drove me away because there wasn't enough prey for all of us.”

Kallik heard an outraged gasp from Lusa, and she saw Toklo stiffen. Of course, he knew exactly what it was like to be driven away by your mother. But before Toklo could speak, Yakone stepped forward.

“What about your father? Didn't he help you?”

Nanulak shook his head. “No. He's a white bear, you see.”

“What?” Kallik stared at Nanulak for a moment, hardly understanding what he had told them. If his father was a white bear and his mother was a brown bear, did that make him half of each? She hadn't realized that brown bears and white bears could have cubs together. But now that she looked more closely at Nanulak, she could understand the puzzlement she had felt earlier. His head and shoulders were shaped more like hers and Yakone's, even though his pelt was brown.

“Where's your father now, Nanulak?” she asked.

“I don't know.” Nanulak sounded desolate. “He doesn't live with us anymore.”

Kallik stretched out her neck, intending to press her snout gently against the young bear's shoulder, but Nanulak flinched away, and Kallik left the movement unfinished, unable to show how much she sympathized with him. She felt much closer to him now that she knew he was half white bear.

“Then you can come with us,” she announced. “We'll look after you. We won't let the other white bears harm you.”

Toklo nodded. “You can trust us.”

Nanulak stared at them, his brown eyes round like Toklo's. “Do you really mean that?”

“Of course we do,” Lusa said.

“And you'll really protect me if the white bears come back to get me?”

“Just let them try,” Toklo growled.

“Thank you.” Nanulak took a step forward, so he was standing close beside Toklo. “The white bears hate me because I'm half white bear and half brown bear.”

A low rumble came from Toklo's throat. “That's ridiculous!”

“Even before my family drove me away, the white bears used to attack us,” Nanulak went on. “All my family, but especially me. And now that I'm on my own, I'm too small to fight them.” He gave Toklo a long look and stretched up as if trying to make himself equal size. “I'll be fine now that I'm with you.”

“Who were these white bears?” Yakone prompted. “Do you know where they are now?”

“No.” Nanulak's voice quivered. “I ran away and hid. I don't know where they went.”

“Can you describe them?” Yakone persisted. “So we have some idea what to watch out for?”

“I told you, I don't know!” Nanulak's voice rose to a high-pitched squeal of terror. “I was too busy hiding. They were white bears! Big white bears!”

“But—”

“Back off!” Toklo snarled, pushing himself between Yakone and the cowering brown bear. “Can't you see you're upsetting him?”

Yakone stepped backward. “Okay, okay. I just want to find out what happened. If we're going to protect him, we need to know what we're protecting him
from
. I'll never believe that any white bear would just attack a cub.”

Toklo pressed his muzzle comfortingly against Nanulak's shoulder. “Ignore Yakone,” he said. “No bear is going to hurt you.”

Kallik stood watching the two brown bears close together for a moment, surprised to see how quickly Toklo had leaped to the smaller bear's defense.
Yakone was only trying to help.
She felt a light touch on her shoulder and turned around to see Yakone. There was a doubtful look in his eyes.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he murmured, too softly for any bear but Kallik to hear him. “Do we really want to take responsibility for this bear? There must be other bears around here—his kin—who can look after him better than we can.”

“His mother drove him away,” Kallik pointed out. “And his father has gone off somewhere. He doesn't have any bear to take care of him.”

Yakone shook his head slowly. “I don't know…. We'll have to take him all the way to the Frozen Sea … or farther.”

“Then that's what we'll do,” Kallik retorted.

“But only white bears live on the Frozen Sea, or so you've always told me. Would Nanulak even
want
to travel there?”

“When we get there, he'll go with Toklo.” Kallik forced herself not to add “cloud-brain.” She was disappointed that Yakone would even consider leaving Nanulak behind, when the small bear needed help. And she was exasperated by the way that Yakone and Toklo always had to argue with each other. “He's coming with us, and that's that.”

Toklo set out, the younger bear still huddling close to his side. Yakone crouched down for Lusa to scramble onto his shoulders, and Kallik brought up the rear. Even though she had spoken so firmly in favor of taking Nanulak along, she realized that Yakone had a point. Another member of the group, especially one as needy and vulnerable as Nanulak, might be more than they could handle.

Then she remembered her own family, how Nisa had cared for her and Taqqiq, and how she and her brother had played together on the ice. It had felt so wonderful to belong to them and be part of a family.

“We're a kind of family,” she murmured to herself. “A strange one, but a family all the same. Nanulak will fit in. We can't possibly leave him behind.”

Lusa glanced around uneasily, wondering if
the white bears who had attacked Nanulak were still in the area. The snow was falling so thickly their white pelts would be almost invisible until they were up close. Though she couldn't imagine abandoning the small bear, she knew that they were all in danger while he was with them.

Her mind was in a whirl.
I can't believe this! Bears attacking Nanulak for no reason, except that he's half white and half brown?
She knew about bears fighting for territory or prey, but this was completely different.
And his family driving him away into a blizzard! Thank the spirits we found him before the white bears did.

I wonder what Ujurak would do
, she asked herself.
I'm sure he would want to look after Nanulak.
But she wasn't certain that she and her friends would be able to fight off the hostile white bears if they came back and attacked them as well.

Looking down from Yakone's shoulders at Nanulak trotting beside them, she tried to push these worries out of her mind. “I'm Lusa,” she called down to him. “The white bears are Kallik and Yakone, and the brown bear is Toklo.”

Nanulak just gave her a brief nod. Lusa guessed that she was still too unfamiliar for him to be friendly. She didn't suppose he had ever seen a black bear before. He wouldn't even look at her.

“We're traveling to the Frozen Sea,” Toklo told Nanulak. Lusa was surprised at how gentle he sounded, his voice full of concern. “Is that okay with you?”

Nanulak looked confused. “I don't know where that is,” he replied, “but I guess it's okay. All I want is to get off this island. I don't care where I go after that, so long as the white bears can't find me.”

“Wait—we're on an island?” Kallik pressed up to Nanulak, making the little bear flinch away into the shelter of Toklo's flank.

“I knew I was right,” grunted Toklo.

Kallik cast her gaze into the distance, confused. “But… I thought the Frozen Sea was just over these hills.”

“No. I told you.” Nanulak's voice grew sharper, and Lusa thought she could detect a trace of anger in his eyes. “I've never heard of this Frozen Sea,” he went on. “This is an island, but it's a long way to the other end.”

Kallik and Yakone glanced at each other.

“So we have to cross another ocean,” Kallik said bleakly.

Lusa felt her heart sink. She knew that they would have to travel beyond the Frozen Sea before she would find the right place for black bears: a place where the sun shone and there were berry bushes and stones where delicious grubs were hidden. If they were still a long way from the Frozen Sea, there would be a lot more ice to cover first. She sighed.

“Maybe it's a good thing we met you,” Toklo said to Nanulak. “You can help us find the quickest way off the island.”

“I'll try,” Nanulak responded, sounding a tiny bit more confident. Toklo bent down and nuzzled his ears, deliberately shortening his strides to match the smaller bear's.

Lusa blinked. For a heartbeat she had thought that she was watching Toklo and Ujurak, traveling side by side as they had done for so long.

Is this bear going to take Ujurak's place in Toklo's heart?

As they trekked on through the heavily falling snow, Kallik and Toklo started ranging from side to side, searching for prey. Nanulak still stayed close to Toklo.

Toklo might find it hard to hunt if Nanulak doesn't give him a bit of space
, Lusa thought.

But the smaller bear's nervousness didn't become a problem, because there was no prey to hunt, just the empty landscape stretching in all directions.
All the animals are in their holes
, Lusa realized, licking a snowflake off her nose.
And we can't dig for moss and leaves in the middle of a blizzard.
She huddled down into Yakone's fur, trying to forget the gaping hollow in her belly.

Lusa was soon drowsing, in a half dream of luscious berries and plump grubs, when she was roused by Kallik's voice.

“Over there! Look—no-claw dens!”

Peering through the snow, Lusa could just make out walls and roofs, almost hidden behind piled-up drifts. One or two yellow lights shone out from the windows as the daylight faded.

“What are flat-faces doing out here?” Toklo demanded. “Nanulak, do you know?”

The smaller brown bear shook his head. “I'm a
bear
,” he pointed out. “We know about the no-claws, but we don't go near them.”

“But we need food, and they might have some,” Kallik said. “Lusa, should we give it a try?”

Lusa caught a surprised glance from Nanulak, as if he hadn't expected Kallik to consult her.
I may be small
, she thought with a faint stirring of annoyance,
but I know a bit about flat-faces.

“Why not?” she replied to Kallik. “We won't find anything else to eat until the snow lets up.”