River of Lost Bears (3 page)

Toklo glanced back at Kallik and Yakone. “I'll fish for us all,” he called.

Yakone stiffened. “Do you think I can't hunt here?”

“You can't yet,” Toklo pointed out, though he sounded gentler than before. “But that's okay. I'm happy fishing like a brown bear again.” His eyes sparkled. “Let me hunt for us. You can rest.” He nodded toward a stretch of flat rock beside the shore. “The stone will be warm from the sunshine.”

“Warm!” Yakone snorted. “I'm sick of being warm.”

Kallik nudged the white bear. “Stop being such a grumpy old seal.”

Toklo snorted with amusement. “I was a grumpy old seal on the ice,” he reminded Kallik. “It's hard feeling like a useless cub again, that's all.”

“I'm hardly useless,” Yakone grumbled.

Toklo waded away into deeper water as Kallik and Yakone settled onto the flat rocks and Lusa padded through the shallows, the stones shifting beneath her paws. She suddenly spotted a cluster of smooth silver fish, each a little longer than her foot. They were moving like shadows in the water around her paws. Excited, she lifted her forepaws and splashed them down onto the nearest fish. Curling her claws, she felt for soft flesh. Something hard jabbed her pad.

A stone!

She hooked out a long, flat rock and stared at it, disappointed. Where had the fish gone? Had she really moved so slowly?

A huge splash behind her made her drop the stone. Toklo had jumped into the rapids. Water raced up against his wide back and splashed over his shoulders as he ducked his head beneath the waves. He loomed up again with a huge trout between his jaws and strode dripping to the shore. He laid the trout proudly onto the smooth rock beside Yakone and Kallik.

Lusa watched Yakone's gaze flick along Toklo's sodden pelt.

“It's a messy way of catching fish,” the white bear huffed.

Toklo tossed his head. “But it works.”

Yakone poked the trout. “It's more luck than planning,” he grunted. “You don't need any of the skill and patience it takes for ice fishing.”

“When you've finished grumbling, you can eat it.” Toklo shook himself, showering Yakone and Kallik with silver droplets, and then headed back to the river. “I'm going to catch another one.”

Lusa felt a rush of happiness. Now that Toklo was back in the forest, fishing swift, swollen rivers instead of the dead waters of the frozen sea, nothing seemed to bother him. Not even bad-tempered white bears. She waded farther upstream, her eyes fixed on the fish flitting tantalizingly around her paws. She spotted one as it darted into the shallow water pooled between two rocks. With a hiss of excitement, she followed it and pounced, spearing it with her claws before it had a chance to escape.

“Look!” She held it up for Kallik to see. “Black bears can fish, too!”

Kallik was eating. She looked up and swallowed. “Well done, Lusa!”

Lusa trotted back to join the white bears and dropped her fish beside the half-eaten trout. She wrinkled her nose, unimpressed by the sour tang her catch had left on her tongue. How she missed the sweetness of fruit!

Toklo emerged from the river with another fish in his jaws, just as he'd promised. He dropped it on the rock beside Kallik and settled down to eat.

“Look.” Lusa nudged her fish toward him. “I caught it myself.”

“Very good!” Toklo rumbled.

Yakone sat back on his haunches and began gnawing at a forepaw. “How do you get the dirt from between your claws?”

Toklo lifted a drenched paw. “The river's washed mine clean.”

Kallik nudged Yakone's shoulder with her muzzle. “The sooner you learn to hunt in the river, the cleaner your paws will be,” she teased.

Yakone snorted and padded down to the river's edge. With a growl, he jumped in and stood in the shallows while the water raced around his paws. “You know why the water here is in such a hurry, don't you?” His eyes flashed, suddenly mischievous.

Lusa took the bait. “No, why?”

“Because it wants to get to the Melting Sea, where it can be
proper
water.”

Toklo tore a strip from his fish. “Don't tell me you prefer it salty!”

Yakone lapped from the river. “This stuff's got no taste.”

“Don't be mean about the forest!” Lusa scowled at Yakone. “At least you can drink river water without being sick.”

“Ow!” Kallik's yelp made Lusa jump.

“What's the matter?”

Kallik was twisting desperately, trying to reach something in her flank.

Lusa stiffened. Had something bitten Kallik? She glanced along the crevice running between the rocks beside her. Were there snakes here?

Toklo nosed Kallik's muzzle out of the way, then plucked a pinecone from her fur.

“I sat on it,” Kallik complained, and lapped at her sore flank.

Lusa snorted with laughter. “Just be glad it wasn't a teasel.”

Kallik blinked at her. “A teasel?”

“Like a pinecone but much pricklier,” Toklo explained.

“Great.” Yakone padded heavily from the water. “More forest treasures to discover.”

Lusa gazed at him earnestly. “You'll get used to it,” she promised. “And then you'll see what a wonderful place the forest is.”

As she spoke, a deep growl rang from the trees. Lusa's pelt bristled with fear. “What was that?”

Toklo was already beside her, teeth bared. “I'm not sure,” he said, letting the fur stand up along his spine, “but it sounds fierce.”

Toklo flexed his claws. He had
started to recognize the scent flooding from the forest. “Get behind Kallik, Lusa.” He pushed in front of the two white bears. “I'll deal with this.”

Lusa hesitated, staring wide-eyed into the trees.

“Now!” Toklo's growl hardened, and Lusa scrambled backward, fur on end. Toklo was cursing his own stupidity.
I should have realized this was some bear's territory.
How had he missed the scent?
I'm such a fur-brain! Splashing about in the river like this was my home.

The bramble bushes swished ahead. Toklo stiffened as a black bear swaggered from the trees. He was full-grown, half as big again as Lusa, and though still a head smaller than Toklo, his body was lean and tough looking. His muzzle was scarred, his ears torn. His muscles were solid beneath his bristling pelt. This was a fighter.

The black bear stared at them, eyes hard as flint. “What are you doing here?”

Toklo stared back. “We're just passing through.” If it came to a fight, he'd win easily, just because he was so much heavier than the black bear.

“And helping yourself to my fish,” the black bear snarled. He took a step forward, clearly not intimidated by Toklo's size.

Toklo thought fast. Perhaps this bear was more dangerous than he looked. Perhaps he had friends nearby. Whatever, this wasn't a battle worth fighting. “Sorry about the fish,” he said. Toklo heard a growl rumble in Yakone's throat, suggesting the white bear would rather fight than apologize, and he shot him a warning glance.
We don't need to prove we can beat a black bear!
“We've been away from the forest for a while,” Toklo went on. “We're not used to smelling out territory yet.”

The black bear peered past him at Kallik and Yakone, muzzle wrinkling in disgust. “
They
shouldn't be here.”

Kallik strode forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Toklo. “Who says so?”

Toklo's fur lifted along his spine. Kallik's tone carried a threat. He glanced anxiously at Lusa. Her eyes were round with alarm.
Back off, Kallik,
Toklo thought.

The black bear's fur bristled. His lip curled. “I say so,” he snarled. “And so do the other bears who've seen
white
bears traveling where they shouldn't travel.”

Lusa darted forward. “Have there been other white bears in the forest?”

“Too many,” the black bear snapped. “There's been talk about white bears coming inland. They should stay on the Melting Sea where they belong.”

Lusa blinked at him. “But these bears are helping us—”

Toklo cut her off. “Look, we're just passing. We don't want your territory, and we won't take any more of your fish.”

The black bear narrowed his eyes. “Then I'll let you go this time,” he rasped. “But I don't want to see you again.”

“Thanks,” Toklo said quickly. Indignant heat flashed beneath his pelt. Didn't this bear realize they'd beaten enemies three times his size?

Kallik must've felt the same. She stiffened beside him. “What do you mean, ‘thanks'?” she whispered.

“Let's just go,” he hissed back. “If he wants to think he's letting us off lightly, that's up to him.”

“Why are you whispering?” the black bear snapped.

Toklo turned around to meet his gaze. “I was just explaining that we're going to leave.”

“Yeah.” The black bear snorted. “White bears are pretty dumb.”

Toklo's claws itched. He pressed them harder against the rock to stop himself from swiping the bear across his muzzle. “We're going, okay?” He turned and padded upstream.

He could feel the black bear's angry gaze on his back as he led Kallik, Yakone, and Lusa over the rocks. “Let's stay close to the river.” He glanced at Kallik, catching her eye to make sure she understood. Their lives had been hard enough on this journey. It would just be easier to stay out of the black bear's territory.

Kallik nodded, but Yakone was still growling under his breath.

“We should have chased him away,” the white bear muttered. “We outnumbered him three to one.”

“Four to one,” Lusa corrected him.

Toklo blinked at Lusa. “Would you have fought a black bear?”

Lusa huffed. “I'd fight any bear who was a bully!”

“I know you would.” Toklo thought of Taqqiq's thieving friends. Lusa had faced them as bravely as a brown bear. “But you heard what that black bear said. The bears here don't like white bears on their land. If we'd fought him, word would have spread. Then we'd have to fight every bear between here and—”

“And where?” Yakone challenged. “Do you even know where we're going?”

Lusa scrambled ahead. “He'll know when we get there.”

“If we follow the river toward the setting sun, I'll find my home in the mountains.” Toklo felt certainty like a stone in his chest. The river scent had woken an old longing that tugged at his heart, a longing for the place that he had once called
home
.

Yakone caught up with him. “Are you sure we should be traveling with you?” he grunted. “If what that bear said was true—if the bears here hate white bears in their forest—maybe we should leave you and Lusa to travel alone.”

Toklo's chest tightened. What if Yakone persuaded Kallik to go back to the Melting Sea? They'd promised to stay with him and Lusa till they got home!

Kallik's growl sounded behind them. “We travel where we like, Yakone. No bear's going to scare us away. Not now, when we've come this far together.”

“But if we're just going to attract trouble because we stand out here—”

Lusa stopped and turned on Yakone. “That bully would have driven you off whatever color your fur was.”

“It
was
his territory.” Kallik nudged Yakone gently. “Would you have picked a fight with a bear on his own territory on Star Island?”

“I guess not.” Yakone glanced toward the forest. His nostrils twitched as though he was checking for scents.

Toklo picked up the pace, leading Lusa out of earshot of Kallik and Yakone. “I'm not letting Yakone split us up.”

“He's just nervous.” Lusa glanced back at the white bear. “Don't you remember our first days on the ice? Everything seemed so strange.”