The Burning Horizon (12 page)

It's almost like being back on the ice!

Suddenly a new sound jerked her back to the present, sharp and jarring in the peaceful dusk.

Flat-faces!

Their raucous chatter was the first warning the bears had that flat-faces were nearby. A moment later a small herd of them wearing brightly colored pelts appeared along a path that zigzagged down from the nearest ridge.

“Hide!” Toklo ordered.

Kallik glanced around wildly. They had come too far away from the trees to reach them without being spotted, and the flat plain didn't offer much cover big enough to hide three bears.

“There!” Yakone hissed, jerking his muzzle toward a cluster of rocks a few bearlengths away.

He took the lead as the bears galloped toward the rocks and forced themselves into a tiny space beneath an overhang. Crushed together, they peered out at the flat-faces.

Kallik couldn't believe that they were really hidden in their narrow refuge. She felt like the flat-faces would spot them at any moment, and waited tensely for their bellowing to break out.

I can't see any firesticks, but that doesn't mean these flat-faces don't have any.

But the flat-faces passed by, chattering happily, not paying any attention to the bears.

“Honestly,” Toklo muttered, scrambling out from the overhang when the sounds of the flat-faces' pawsteps had died away, “are they blind and deaf? Couldn't they even scent us?”

“I don't think they can scent anything with those tiny snouts, thank the stars,” Kallik said, shaking her pelt.

Yakone was gazing around. “We have to rethink our route to stay away from the flat-faces,” he decided. “The caribou aren't moving as fast as us, so that means we can take a longer route with more shelter.”

Toklo nodded. “Back among the rocks,” he agreed. “Then we can hide more easily if we need to.”

Together the bears left the open plateau and climbed part of the way up to the ridge. They had to scramble among rocks and around trees, and sometimes plunge through patches of snow to get to more comfortable ground. Kallik's pelt prickled with the effort of staying alert for the signs of more flat-faces.
The awful creatures are everywhere!

As they rounded a bramble thicket, a sudden squawk startled them as a grouse exploded from the ground and battered its wings around Toklo's head. Toklo lashed out a paw, but the bird swerved away and vanished into the trees. Kallik's heart pounded as they gazed after it.

“Too bad I wasn't faster,” Toklo grunted. “That would have helped to fill our bellies.”

“Never mind the grouse,” Yakone said, padding onward. “What about the caribou? We can't see them from here. I'm
afraid we've gone too high.”

Toklo led the way through a patch of scrubby bushes to a jutting rock where they could look down onto the plateau. There was the caribou herd. Toklo gave a grunt of satisfaction at the sight of them, very small from this distance, surrounded by their dust cloud.

“We haven't lost them,” he said.

Watching the progress of the caribou, Kallik felt a new surge of determination.

Hold on, Lusa! We're coming!

A shaft of burning light pierced
Lusa's skull. Slowly she struggled back to consciousness and saw that a beam of sunlight was shining through a gap in the wall, high over her head. The noise of animals and birds filled the air.

Taktuq's gruff voice came from close beside her. “Oh, you're awake.”

Lusa's heart thumped with shock as she remembered where she was. She scrabbled to her paws and turned to the old black bear, who was crouched beside the bars of his own cage.

“I have to get out of here!” she gasped. “I have to find my friends!”

But her head still hurt so much she could barely stand, and her fur had a strange smell that reminded her of the flat-face healing den at the Bear Bowl.

“Did something happen to me?” she asked, sniffing her chest.

“The flat-faces took you out of your cage at sunrise,” Taktuq replied. “You're injured, right?”

“A mule kicked me,” Lusa said.

Taktuq gave a grunt of surprise. “What were you doing that close to a mule?”

“I was traveling with three other bears . . .” Lusa began, and launched into the story of meeting the long line of mules and trying to batter their way through to escape from the herd of flat-faces. “I ran away and lost my friends in the chaos,” she finished. “Flat-faces found me and brought me here.”

“And it's these friends that you want to find, right?” Taktuq checked.

Lusa decided not to tell him that one of the other bears was brown and two were white. “Yes. They're like my family,” she explained. “We were on our way to Great Bear Lake. That's why I have to escape, or I'll never get there.”

“The flat-faces will have treated your injury,” Taktuq told her. “That's what they do.”

A spark of hope woke inside Lusa. “And if I'm okay, they'll take me back to the mountains?”

Taktuq twitched his ears. “I don't know.”

The noise from the other creatures was making Lusa's headache worse. She flopped down beside the cage bars, too miserable to look for a way to break out.

“Why don't you go outside?” Taktuq suggested, sounding more sympathetic. “The fresh air might make you feel better.”

Lusa raised her head. “Outside? We can get out?”

“Sure. I told you before, remember? Look, it's this way.”

Taktuq stood up and lumbered to the back wall, where he
pushed against the flap in the cage door. It swung open, and he scrambled through.

Lusa padded to the back of her own cage and pressed her forepaws against the flap that had been solid and unmoving the night before. This time it swung away from her easily, allowing her to wriggle through the flap and into the open. Sitting on the warm, damp grass, Lusa took in long gulps of air. It wasn't really fresh: She could pick up the scents of flat-faces and firebeasts, but it was certainly better than the stale air inside the den. There wasn't as much noise out here, either.

Ahead of Lusa stretched a long, thin pen enclosed on three sides by tall walls of silver mesh. Behind her was the wall of the den. Taktuq was in a similar enclosure on one side of her, and the coyote was on the other side. A line of other enclosures stretched in both directions.

Lusa glared as the scrawny, reddish-gray coyote padded up to the mesh and gave her a sniff, then turned away as if it was bored. Lusa noticed that it was walking unevenly and turned to Taktuq.

“The coyote's limping. What happened to it?”

“I have no idea,” Taktuq replied. He didn't sound as if he cared, either.

Being surrounded by all these different creatures was making Lusa deeply uneasy. She tried to tell herself that it was just the same as the Bear Bowl, but she wasn't able to convince herself. In the Bear Bowl, there were no savage creatures like the coyote to bother her.

Besides, I've seen so much since then. I could never be content in the Bear Bowl now.

Meanwhile, Taktuq had stretched out in a patch of sunlight, turning so that his gray-furred belly was warmed by the rays. “Tell me about this Bear Bowl you come from,” he said. “Why did the flat-faces put you there?”

“I was born there,” Lusa corrected him. “My whole family was there.” She didn't want to go too deeply into her memories of the Bear Bowl, because she knew she'd never make Taktuq understand. Even though she was glad of his company, the effort of talking to him was making her headache worse again. “I'm a wild bear now,” she murmured.
And I have to escape, or I'll never see my friends again. And I'll never get to Great Bear Lake to meet Miki and his family.

Lusa began to investigate the enclosure, sniffing around the mesh and looking for places where she could break through or dig her way out. But the mesh went right down into the earth, and she couldn't find any weak points. At the far end of the enclosure was a door, but it was shut tight, and far too small to escape through anyway.

As she snuffled her way around the enclosure, she caught a sudden strong whiff of coyote scent and jumped back as the creature beside her snapped its jaws at her, a paw's width away from the mesh. “Get away from me!” Lusa barked, scuttling out of range.

She heard Taktuq chuffing with amusement.

“It's not funny!” Lusa yelped. “I was hunted by a pack of coyotes once.”

“Really?” Taktuq sounded impressed. “How did you escape?”

“We jumped onto a firesnake,” Lusa announced proudly, then added, “Do you know about firesnakes?”

The old bear nodded. “My mother told me about them. And I remember hearing them screech sometimes, before I lived here. I can't believe it agreed to carry you.”

“It didn't
agree
. I'm not sure it even knew we were riding on its back. It was scary! But we couldn't run any farther, because my friend Yakone hurt his paw in a flat-face thing with teeth.”

Taktuq looked puzzled, then obviously decided to let it go. For a few moments he was silent. “You're lucky to be alive, if all that's true. Sounds like you'd be better off staying here,” he said at last.

In one corner of Lusa's enclosure there was a small wooden shelter, and beside it a log lying on the ground. Nearby was a bucket of water. She went to get a drink, then began padding the length of the silver mesh restlessly, hating the feeling of being shut in when she had traveled freely all the way to the Endless Ice and back.
How did I ever survive in the Bear Bowl?

“For the spirits' sake, settle down,” Taktuq muttered irritably. “Listening to you walk in circles is making me tired.”

Lusa ignored him. The coyote was bothering her, too; it had taken to padding alongside her, keeping pace with her on its own side of the mesh. It kept casting quick glances at her, its jaws wide and its pink tongue lolling.
It can't reach me through the mesh,
she thought.
At least, I don't think it can,
she added with a shiver.

Trying to take her mind off the disgusting creature, Lusa
remembered her vivid dream of Ujurak among the caribou. “Can you tell me more about the caribou?” she asked, swerving back to Taktuq's side of the enclosure.

“I think there was one here,” the old bear replied. “But that was a few seasons ago. It didn't stay long.”

“No, I'm looking for a whole herd of them,” Lusa responded. “You said they come here at this season.”

Taktuq let out a snort. “What do you want with caribou? Black bears don't eat them, and they're big enough to trample you.”

“I know,” Lusa said. “But I think I'll find my friends if I can find the caribou.”

There was a stir from the other enclosures, and the two gray-furred flat-faces appeared, carrying bowls of food. They began pushing the bowls through the small door at the end of the pens.

Investigating her bowl, Lusa found it filled with grapes and chunks of apple, which she chewed up happily. In his enclosure, Taktuq was gulping his food down with cheerful snorting noises.

A rank scent drifted into Lusa's nostrils, and she looked sideways to see that the coyote was crouching over a bowl of raw, strong-smelling meat.
That's right . . . eat it up,
she thought.
You can't have black bear today!

A third flat-face had come out with the older, gray-furred ones and stood watching Lusa while she ate. This flat-face was the cub Lusa had seen when she first arrived. It had long, dark
head-fur, and spoke in a soft, high-pitched voice, which made Lusa think this was another female. After a few moments she came right up to Lusa's enclosure. The older flat-faces looked on warily at first, but when the young flat-face reached her hairless paw through the mesh, the older female darted forward and drew her gently away. She seemed to be explaining something in a quiet voice, touching the young flat-face's paw several times.

Lusa watched curiously, half-frightened and half-fascinated to be so close to these flat-faces. As she finished her bowl of fruit, the older female gave the young one an apple and pointed at Lusa with encouraging sounds. The young flat-face crouched down and rolled the apple through the mesh.

Lusa hesitated, wondering if it was a trap.
But I'm still hungry, and the fruit is so delicious. . . .
She crept closer to the mesh, reached out a paw to snatch the apple, then darted away again. The young flat-face let out a happy yelping sound.

“Becoming a pet now, are you?” Taktuq grunted. His head was tilted intently to pick up all the details of what was happening.

Lusa didn't know what he was talking about.
It was just some fruit, right?

The young flat-face leaned on the mesh, watching Lusa eat the apple, and with the pressure of her body, Lusa noticed that the mesh was coming away from where it was attached in the top corner. Dropping the remains of the apple, she launched herself upward, scrabbling for the weak point.