Great Bear Lake

by Erin Hunter

  There was a murmur of unease among the bears, and a few turned away as though they didn’t want Miki to be their problem.

  “Siqiniq will know,” said the old male bear. “Ask her, Kunik.”

  “I heard the question,” grunted a rasping voice; whoever was speaking was hidden from Lusa behind some larger bears. They shifted apart to reveal an ancient-looking she-bear, her flanks tucked up so that all her bones stuck out through her thin pelt.

  “That’s Siqiniq, the oldest bear,” Kallik whispered in Lusa’s ear.

  Siqiniq swung her head to look at the bears around her, who were gazing at her hopefully as if she could send Miki back to the forest with a twitch of her nose. “The bears who stole the black cub must take him back. That is their duty. If they appease Silaluk by putting right what they have done wrong, the peace on the Longest Day will be preserved, and the ice will come back.”

  Kunik shrugged; his fur crumpled into deep folds where it didn’t fit his thin body properly. “Your faith humbles us all, Siqiniq,” he said. “But I do not share your faith that these young bears will ever do what is right, not for themselves or for every white bear.”

  Siqiniq moved to the edge of the bears and stared down at the lake. “Maybe,” she commented, so quietly that Lusa hardly heard her over the wind. “But theirs will be the price to pay if they don’t. Silaluk sees all, that much I do know.”

  Lusa followed her gaze toward the shore, where four white bears were sprawled on the ground beside a clump of thorn trees. In the middle of them, trapped by their long legs and massive bodies, was Miki. He scrambled at one of the bears, trying to get past, but the white bear cuffed him and sent him rolling backward. Miki squealed and the four white bears huffed with satisfaction.

  “Miki,” Lusa whimpered.

  “Taqqiq and his new friends.” Kallik’s sad voice spoke at her shoulder. “Kunik’s right: They’ll never take Miki back to the forest. Which means we might have to fight them if we want to help him. Lusa, are you sure about this?”

  “Quite sure.” Lusa squared her shoulders. “There’s no one else to help Miki. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Toklo

  Toklo paced up and down the pebbly beach. The sun was starting to slide down the sky; already shadows were spreading under the trees in the middle of the island. Soon the Longest Day would be over.

  Lusa was long disappeared. She had swum away from him toward the shore where the white bears were, determined to rescue her friend. Toklo didn’t think he would ever see her again.

  She’s gone. All that is over.

  The black cub had left her home, and gone a long, long way into the wild. She had no idea how to live there or what dangers she would have to face. But she had survived, and in spite of everything, she had found the bear she was looking for.

  Me. She did all that for me.

  Deep shame swept over Toklo. Because she was small and didn’t know the same things he did, he had assumed Lusa was a coward. Instead, she was the bravest bear he had ever met. She had gone alone to the white bears’ territory because one of her friends was in trouble. She had gone back into danger, and left Toklo behind.

  “I could go look for her…” he murmured.

  He stopped pacing and looked across the lake at the territory of the white bears. He could see pale shapes on the shore, which could have been bears or rocks, but no sign of the small black bear.

  “Then I’d die, too….”

  He sat down at the water’s edge and sank his nose onto his paws. The shadow of the nearby pine tree lengthened and covered him like soft black fur.

  “But I might be able to help her….”

  He thought about how Shesh and the other brown bears were relying on him to spend the whole day on the island so that the fish would come back. If he left before sunset, he would be letting them down. “Spirits, help me! I don’t know what to do.”

  A dark flicker in the sky caught his attention. He lifted his head and watched a sleek black bird swoop lower and lower on widespread wings, circling the island as if it was looking for prey. Suddenly, it folded its wings against its body and tipped forward into a dive straight toward the ground. As it descended, it stretched out its claws. When its feet touched the ground, the bird’s legs thickened and its body expanded, sprouting brown fur between its feathers, thicker and thicker until the feathers vanished. Its wings stretched into forepaws and its beak swelled and blunted to a snout.

  Ujurak!

  Shock froze Toklo’s paws to the ground. He couldn’t move or speak; he just stared at the small brown cub as he approached and gave Toklo’s shoulder a friendly poke with his nose. “Hi, Toklo.”

  Toklo found his voice. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Is Lusa here?” Ujurak asked.

  “No,” Toklo answered.

  Ujurak looked around the island, confused. “But I saw her, in my head. She called my name. She was with you, Toklo.”

  “Lusa was here,” Toklo admitted. “But she left again. She was upset about a black cub that the white bears took. She thought she could rescue it, the berry-brain!”

  Ujurak padded down to the edge of the lake and waded a few pawsteps out into the water. Then he glanced back at Toklo. “We have to find her. Are you coming?”

  “Not you, too.” A flame of guilt flickered through him. “I’m sorry, Ujurak, but I promised I’d stay here until the end of the Longest Day. You were there! Then Arcturus will send back the fish.”

  “Now who’s the berry-brain? The spirits can’t send fish, not even Arcturus. They don’t have the power. All they can do is guide bears like us, help us to do the right things. And I bet Arcturus would want us to find Lusa. In fact, I know he would.”

  Toklo stared at him in disbelief. “But I thought—”

  “I mean it, Toklo. Lusa is more important than skulking here on your own.”

  Toklo’s claws raked the ground. “Can’t I wait till sunset and then come to help?”

  “No.” Ujurak had never sounded more certain about anything. “She needs us now.”

  For nearly a whole day, Toklo had felt like a brown bear, alone and fierce and strong. He liked it, but with the choice at his paws he had no doubt what his answer must be.

  Lusa, his friend, needed his help.

  He nodded, and waded out into the lake after Ujurak.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Kallik

  “See those rocks over there? That might be a good place to hide.”

  Kallik looked where Lusa was pointing, and spotted an outcrop of broken stones with a thornbush growing over them. They were about halfway from the tower to the thicket where Taqqiq and his friends were guarding Miki.

  The sun was sinking down in the sky; a luminous twilight spread over the lake as the Longest Day drew to an end. Kallik’s pelt tingled. All the things she had done since her mother died, every part of her long, long journey, even the moment when the blazing metal bird fell from the sky, hadn’t seemed as dangerous and terrifying as what she was going to do now.

  Just then, she noticed two bears swimming in the lake, heading for the spit of land.

  “Lusa,” Kallik said, nudging the small black cub beside her.

  “Yes, I can definitely hide behind those rocks,” Lusa said, staring down.

  The two bears in the lake were wading onto the pebbles.

  “Lusa!” Kallik repeated.

  Lusa glanced at the flat-face tower. “It’s going to be tricky getting Taqqiq away from the others,” she said anxiously. “Especially with Miki.”

  Kallik stopped listening. She was staring in disbelief as the two bears walked out of the water. They were brown! Siqiniq was right: There were brown bears as well as black ones! How many more kinds of bears were there in the world?

  “Lusa! Look!” Kallik squeaked as the brown bears began climbing up the rocky slope toward them.

  Lusa spun around. “Toklo! Ujurak!” she cried.

  Kal
lik watched in amazement as the black cub bounded down to the two brown bears and pushed her muzzle into their fur to greet them. “I can’t believe you came!”

  “You can thank Ujurak for that,” the biggest bear said gruffly. “You know what he’s like when he gets an idea in his head.”

  “But how did you know I needed you?” Lusa asked the smaller cub.

  “I just did,” Ujurak replied. “I heard you calling me, in my head. I knew I had to find you.”

  “This is Kallik.” Lusa led the two brown cubs up to Kallik. “Kallik, this is Toklo and Ujurak. We’ve traveled a long way together.”

  “Hi,” said Kallik. “Er…welcome to the white bears’ territory.”

  Lusa shot her a bemused glance, then pointed out Miki, who had wriggled under the thornbush to get away from Taqqiq and the others. “The white bears stole him,” she explained. “But I’ve got a plan to rescue him.” She told the brown bears her idea about luring Taqqiq away to give Miki a chance to escape.

  “I think you’ve got bees in your brain,” Toklo said when she had finished. “But I can’t think of anything better.”

  Ujurak stared down at the white bears. “I’ll go with Kallik to speak to the white bears,” he said. His voice was calm.

  “But you can’t!” Kallik protested. “You’re brown. The white bears will attack you, and—” She broke off. “Your…your fur.”

  Streaks of white had begun to appear on Ujurak’s brown pelt. While Kallik stared, the white patches spread and melted into one another. At the same time Ujurak swelled up inside his new pelt, and his body shape altered, his muzzle stretching out and his ears shrinking, so that within a few heartbeats Kallik was gazing at a white bear exactly like herself.

  “Spirits help us!” she whispered. “What’s happened to you?”

  “Don’t worry,” Lusa huffed, giving Kallik’s shoulder a friendly lick. “He does that all the time. Just be grateful he didn’t turn into something less useful, like a goat.”

  “Can we get on with this?” Toklo sounded impatient. “You’re not going to stand there all day chattering, are you?”

  He led the way down the hill toward the rocks Lusa had pointed out. Kallik followed, keeping a watchful eye out for bears. If any of them spotted Lusa or Toklo, their plan would fail before it had even started. As they reached the rocks, there was a furious roar from more than one bear. They crouched in a dip behind the rocks, half hidden by plants that straggled over the edge and the branches of the thornbush. They peeped out through the screen of stems as one of the bears who had been taunting Miki confronted a full-grown bear who had left the main Gathering.

  “That’s Imiq,” Kallik said, pointing with her muzzle to the younger bear. “He was in favor of invading the forest. The other one’s Kunik, who thinks Miki should be returned to the forest and the black bears left in peace. Most of the other bears agree with him,” she added for the benefit of Toklo and Ujurak, who hadn’t heard the earlier debate.

  Kunik leaned forward and cuffed Imiq with his forepaw. “When you’re older, maybe you can make decisions that affect all the other white bears,” he growled. “But right now, you do as we say. The black bear cub goes back to the forest, now.”

  Imiq reared up on his hind legs, striking the air and snarling. Kallik winced; if he could look this fierce when he was still a cub, she didn’t want to make an enemy of him for future Longest Days by the lake.

  “Are they going to fight?” Lusa whispered.

  “I hope so,” muttered Toklo. “If they sort this out by themselves, we might not have to rescue Miki after all. I don’t want that white bear clawing my pelt, thank you.”

  Kallik looked down at her paws. “Imiq won’t listen to Kunik. He’s too proud. Too stupid! Kunik is trying to help Miki, but he’s just making things worse.”

  She looked at her brother and his friends. They were on their paws, watching Imiq. Salik was saying something, but Kallik was too far away to hear what it was. Suddenly Salik, Iqaluk, and Manik lumbered toward Imiq, their loose pelts rolling on their shoulders, leaving Taqqiq with the black cub.

  “Oh, no,” Kallik whispered. “Kunik can’t fight them all! The other bears won’t help him—they know there’s supposed to be peace on the Longest Day. If Imiq and his friends win, they’ll invade the forest and attack the black bears!”

  “Then we have to rescue Miki now,” Toklo decided gruffly. “If we get him out of there, Kunik or whatever his name is can sort out the other bears. Let’s do it now, while the bears are distracted. I’m going back to the flat-face building. I’ll be waiting up there in case you have any trouble.”

  “Thanks, Toklo,” Lusa replied.

  “The spirits go with you,” Kallik said, fear for Lusa suddenly surging up inside her. She looked so small beside the other bears.

  “I’ll be fine,” Lusa promised, though her voice sounded very small. “When it’s over, I’ll meet you by the lake.”

  White-bear-Ujurak nodded as if there was no chance their plan would fail. “Come on,” he said to Kallik.

  Kallik let him take the lead as they padded down to the thicket where Taqqiq and Miki were. Ujurak even smelled like a white bear. The others wouldn’t recognize him, of course, but they would never, ever suspect he wasn’t one of them.

  “You again!” Taqqiq sprang to his paws as Kallik and Ujurak approached. He gave his sister a hostile glare. “I told you not to come back.”

  “I can go where I like,” Kallik pointed out, feeling less scared of him now that she had Ujurak with her.

  Behind Taqqiq she could see the little black cub whimpering as he crouched under the thornbushes, his eyes wide and scared. Get ready, she told him silently, wishing there was a way she could warn him what they meant to do. As far as Miki could see, two more of his enemies had just arrived.

  Ujurak dipped his head in greeting to the other bears.

  “Who are you?” Taqqiq demanded. “I don’t know you. What do you want?”

  “I’ve come to tell you to let the black cub go back to the forest.”

  “And you’re going to make me?” Taqqiq sneered. “I’m so scared, I’m shivering in my fur!”

  “Oh, stop being such an idiot, Taqqiq!” Kallik dug her claws into the ground. She would have liked to swipe them over her brother’s ear, but it was vital not to let a fight break out before Miki had a chance to escape. “It’s a question of doing what is right.”

  “No, this is called surviving,” Taqqiq growled.

  “White bears don’t live in forests,” Ujurak told him. “They live by the sea and on the ice, where the spirits of the white bears live.”

  “My mother respected the spirits, and look where that got her,” Taqqiq said scornfully.

  “Don’t talk about Nisa like that!” Kallik snapped.

  “She’s dead; she can’t hear me.”

  Kallik could hear the anger and pain in her brother’s brutal words. “Don’t you remember how scared you were when she died?” she prompted. “When you were left alone?”

  “I’m not scared now,” Taqqiq grunted. “Not of anything.”

  “I never said you were,” Kallik told him. “Not now. But when you were a little cub…when our mother was killed by that orca…you were scared then, you know you were.” Taqqiq didn’t respond, but he dropped his gaze to his paws. “Do you think it’s right to make another bear feel like that?” Kallik persisted.

  “I miss our mother,” Taqqiq admitted quietly. He slashed a claw through the pebbles on the shore, a mixture of grief and confusion in his eyes. “It was all wrong after she died.”

  “I know.” Kallik took a pace forward and touched his shoulder with her muzzle. “I miss her, too. But we’ve found each other again. That has to be a good thing. It’s what she would have wanted, I know.”

  “Maybe,” Taqqiq mumbled. He hesitated, then pushed his muzzle roughly into Kallik’s shoulder fur.

  “This cub is scared like that now, because you took him away from the fore
st,” Kallik went on, feeling as if she was on the edge of convincing her brother.

  “We’re not going to hurt him…” Taqqiq protested, but he sounded uncertain.

  Squinting past her brother, Kallik noticed that Ujurak had padded over to Miki. He looked as though he was just sniffing the cub, but Kallik could see he was really whispering into his ear. Miki had stopped whimpering, and was listening, bright-eyed. Kallik searched for something else to say, to distract Taqqiq from what Ujurak was doing.

  In the moment’s silence, Imik’s voice carried through the air. “Taqqiq! Are you coming?”

  Kallik knew time was running out. “Please, Taqqiq. Don’t you remember how Nisa told us that burn-sky is hard, but that we have to believe that the ice will come back? White bears have lived like this forever.”

  The fur above Taqqiq’s eyes furrowed. “But what if the ice doesn’t come back? We’ll have to find a different way of living.”

  “But that doesn’t mean we have to hurt other bears. Besides, the ice will come,” Kallik insisted. “And when it does, everything will be all right….”

  Taqqiq met her gaze, but before he could speak, Imik’s voice came again. “Taqqiq!”

  Kallik continued more urgently, “Let this bear go. Stealing from the black bears won’t—”

  Pounding pawsteps and a roar of rage from Salik interrupted her, and he landed a stinging blow on her ear. Ujurak pushed in front of her, facing the furious white bears. All four of them clustered around; Kallik could see their lips peeled back, baring sharp teeth, and their claws at the ready.

  “What are you doing here?” Salik gave Ujurak a hard shove in the chest with his shoulder. “I’ve not seen you before.”

  Ujurak tilted his head on one side. “Have you seen every bear on the beach?”

  “Don’t get clever with me!” Salik gave him another shove. “Why were you messing around with our cub?”

  “He’s not yours,” Ujurak said.

  Just then, Kallik saw Miki shoot out from under the thornbushes and dash off. Go, Miki! One of the other bears followed her gaze.