The Last Wilderness (19 page)

As the daylight faded, Toklo stared unseeing into the shadows of the forest. ‘Oh, Ujurak,’ he murmured. ‘Did I abandon you too soon?’

L
usa was looking down into the Bear Bowl. She could see Yogi scrambling up the Bear Tree, while King slept in the sun. Her mother and Stella were nosing through the fruit that the flat-faces had brought.

This is weird
, Lusa thought.
Why aren’t I down there with them?
With a jolt of sadness she knew the answer to her question:
Because I don’t belong with them any more.

So where am I?
she wondered. Looking around, she saw that she was standing above the Bear Bowl, surrounded by flat-faces. Fear shivered through her.
They’ll catch me and take me back!
Then she realised that though she could see the flat-faces, she couldn’t hear them. Their mouths were open as if they were
talking and huffing out the sounds that showed they were pleased, but they were completely silent. And none of the flat-faces seemed able to see her.

This should be fun!
Lusa thought.
I could do anything I like, and they’d never know!

But all she wanted to do was look down at her family in the Bear Bowl. She saw Ashia leave Stella and amble across to settle down in the shade underneath the ledge. She put her nose on her paws and closed her eyes.

‘Hello, Ashia,’ Lusa whispered. ‘It’s me, Lusa. Are you dreaming about me, like I’m dreaming about you?’ Ashia’s ears twitched as if she had heard Lusa speak. ‘I’m OK, you know,’ Lusa went on. ‘I’ve got friends now, and I’ve learned how to live in the wild. You don’t need to worry about me.’

As Lusa gazed down at her mother, Ashia suddenly seemed to be drawing further and further away, until the whole of the Bear Bowl was only a dot in a blaze of sunlight that swallowed up everything else. Lusa let out a terrified cry as she realised she was falling, falling . . .

She landed on the ground with a bump that jarred every one of her bones. Her eyes flew open. She still
lay under the bush where she had crawled the day before after her escape from the river. Her body hurt as if she had really fallen from the sky. Rain hissed softly down; the bush wasn’t thick enough to shelter her, and raindrops trickled through her pelt to her skin. Raw cold gripped her like the claws of a giant grizzly.

Kallik lay curled up next to her, snoring. Lusa watched her for a moment, reluctant to disturb her, then gave her a tentative prod with one paw. They had already lost time; they had spent a whole night under the bush and now a new day had dawned. They had to move, to keep on searching for Ujurak.

Letting out a grunt, Kallik opened her eyes. ‘You OK?’ she asked Lusa.

‘I’m fine.’
Sore, exhausted and scared, but still fine
. ‘Thanks to you, Kallik.’

Kallik shook her head as if she was flicking off a troublesome fly. ‘Great spirits!’ she muttered. ‘I feel as if I’ve been pounded by a grizzly.’

Shakily she heaved herself to her paws; Lusa did the same, wondering if her legs would support her. The struggle in the river had weakened both of them, she realised.
Will we make it?
she wondered.
Can we
keep going until we get to the place where they’re keeping Ujurak?

Side by side Lusa and Kallik padded to the riverside and lapped a few mouthfuls of the water.

‘Which way now?’ Kallik asked. ‘Do you know where the metal bird went from here?’

Lusa sighed. ‘I’m not sure any more, but I think it’s this way.’ She pointed with her snout. ‘Otherwise, why did the spirits tell us to cross the river?’

‘That makes sense,’ Kallik agreed, trudging off in the direction Lusa indicated.

Lusa followed, splashing and slipping through the mud as she and her friend scrambled up the hillside at the far end of the valley and started down the other side. Her belly was shrieking with hunger, but in all the bleak landscape she couldn’t see anything to eat.

‘I’m starving,’ she grumbled, half to herself.

‘Me too,’ Kallik said. ‘And there’s not even a sniff of prey.’

Lusa snorted. ‘I bet all the prey is too sensible to be out in this rain. They’ll be hiding in their burrows.’

‘I wish we were too, but we can’t.’ Kallik sighed. ‘If only it would stop.’

Far from stopping, the rain was growing heavier, pouring down in a silver-grey screen that blotted out their view of the land ahead. The she-bears stumbled on, their belly fur caked with mud and their pelts soaked and dripping, clinging to their frames. Lusa couldn’t remember ever being so cold and tired.

We’ve got to find food, or we can’t go on.

She peered through the rain until she spotted a scattering of boulders poking out of the ground. Grunting with effort, she turned one over; her belly growled at the sight of worms and grubs wriggling around in the soil she had exposed.

‘Hey, Kallik! Over here!’

The white bear splashed towards her, and together they licked up the grubs, turning over all the stones that were small enough to move. There weren’t enough grubs for either of them to feel full, but having something in her belly made Lusa feel better.

Later they found a few berries, though Lusa guessed other bears had already scoured the bushes, leaving just the smaller, shrivelled fruit.

‘We really need meat,’ Kallik muttered. ‘Where’s Toklo when we need him?’

A long way away by now
, Lusa thought. ‘Yes, he’d be
able to catch something,’ she said aloud. ‘He was always better than us at scenting prey.’

The grey daylight finally faded. Lusa and Kallik spent the night uncomfortably squashed together in the scant shelter of an overhanging rock. By the following morning the rain had stopped, though clouds still covered the sky.

‘Today should be easier,’ Lusa declared, crawling out of their makeshift den and shaking her pelt to air it and get rid of the debris stuck to it. She still felt stiff and tired, but the pain of her bruises was beginning to fade and strength was returning to her legs. ‘At least it’s dry.’

‘And we can see where we’re going,’ Kallik agreed, emerging to sniff the air at Lusa’s side.

But the landscape ahead didn’t give much hope of prey. Rough open land stretched in front of them, scattered with ponds fringed with reeds. And even though the rain wasn’t falling any more, the ground underpaw was still muddy; Lusa’s paws sank into it at every step.

‘There won’t be any prey in this,’ she muttered.

‘I suppose we might find a frog or two,’ Kallik said with a sniff of disgust.

She had hardly finished speaking when a rabbit burst out of the reeds beside a pool and pelted across the grass. Lusa let out a yelp and hurled herself after it, with Kallik a pawstep behind. But Lusa’s legs still felt weak and shaky, and the rabbit easily outstripped them. She halted with a growl of frustration when she saw it dive down a hole.

‘We’re hopeless!’ she exclaimed.

As the day wore on, they didn’t spot any more prey. The ground was still too wet, and there was no sunlight to entice the creatures out into the open. Lusa’s legs were starting to ache, and she wondered how long she could keep going.

I’m not giving up! If Kallik can do this, so can I!

A stiff breeze began to blow, breaking up the clouds to let a gleam of watery sunlight through. It carried with it the scent of more rabbits; Lusa sniffed hungrily, but all she could see was a scattering of holes in the sandy bank they were passing. Like all the other prey, the rabbits were sheltering in the warmth of their burrows.

‘I wish we were on the ice,’ Kallik murmured, her attention on the horizon where the ocean lay hidden behind a ridge of broken rock. ‘I could
hunt better there than on the land.’

Lusa halted, staring at the rabbit holes. ‘Show me,’ she suggested.

‘What?’ Kallik looked puzzled.

‘Pretend those rabbit holes are seal holes,’ Lusa explained, pointing with her snout at the bank. ‘Show me what you would do.’

‘OK.’ Kallik blinked, excitement creeping into her voice. Lusa guessed she had never expected to be able to use her ice skills on land.

Picking out a rabbit hole a little way away from the others, Kallik went on. ‘That’s a hole in the ice, OK? We’re going to creep up to it and crouch down beside it and wait. We have to be very quiet and not move around, or the seal – sorry, the rabbit – will realise we’re there.’

‘OK, let’s do it,’ Lusa whispered.

She followed Kallik as the white bear crept over to the hole and lay down beside it with her muzzle on the ground. Lusa could hardly believe that a bear as big as Kallik could move so quietly. She did her best to copy her friend, easing herself to the ground on the opposite side of the hole, pleased when she didn’t make a sound.

‘This is fun!’ she exclaimed, wriggling to get comfortable. ‘It’s almost like playing with Yogi in the Bear Bowl!’

‘Shh!’ Kallik hissed.

Lusa mouthed
Sorry!
and settled down to wait.

Soon Lusa felt that the moments were dragging by.
I never expected it would take as long as this
.
I can’t believe Kallik is so patient!

She was convinced that some sort of bug was crawling around in her fur, but when she lifted a paw to scratch it Kallik gave her such a fierce look that she froze into stillness again. The wind blew cold through her pelt and a blade of grass tickled her nose so that she wanted to sneeze. She wanted to give up, but she didn’t dare suggest it while Kallik was so focused on the hole.

Lusa was staring at her paws when a tiny scrabbling noise came from inside the burrow. When the rabbit popped its head out, all she could do was stare at it. She had waited so long that she had forgotten what to do.

While she was still staring, Kallik pounced. One large white paw swiped the rabbit across the neck, then dragged it out of the hole.

‘That was brilliant!’ Lusa barked, springing to her paws. ‘Great catch!’

‘It was your idea,’ Kallik replied, but she sounded pleased.

With the rabbit dangling from her jaws she padded along the bank until she came to a shallow cave, just big enough for them to shelter from the wind and share their prey. Lusa followed and squashed in beside her, water flooding her jaws as she took in the rich, warm scent of rabbit. She forced herself not to gulp down all her share at once, aware that it might have to keep her going for a long time.

‘Wouldn’t Toklo be surprised?’ she said between mouthfuls. ‘I wish we could show him how to hunt like that.’

‘Me too,’ Kallik replied sadly.

Lusa nodded. ‘But we can show Ujurak,’ she insisted. ‘We’ll catch up to him soon. We’re
not
going to let the flat-faces keep him.’

A
spatter of rain roused Toklo in the middle of the night. The forest was dark; clouds had covered the sky and no gleam of moon or stars pierced the branches. Wind made the leaves thrash and set the branches to creaking.

At first no more than a few drops of rain fell, but gradually it grew heavier, sweeping on the wind into Toklo’s inadequate den. He squashed himself into the bottom, but his back was still exposed, and the branches of the tree gave him very little shelter. The rain began to soak his pelt, and tiny streams of water trickled into the den until he was crouched in a puddle.

This place is no good after all
, he thought irritably.
Tomorrow I’ll have to start searching all over again
.

As soon as dawn light started to filter into the forest he left the den that had taken such effort to dig. The rain became heavier and heavier. His fur was water-logged, weighing him down, and at every pawstep he picked up clods of mud that made it hard to walk. His paws felt unsteady on the sodden ground, and he kept slipping into muddy holes. He was trying to search for shelter, but he could hardly see because of the water streaming down his face.

‘I’m bee-brained to be out in this,’ he grumbled, shaking his head in a vain attempt to get the rainwater out of his eyes. ‘I should be dry in a den, like any sensible bear.’

But he felt too wet and tired to start digging another den now. Besides, he had other, more urgent needs. He couldn’t remember when he had his last proper meal, and hunger was tearing at him like claws.