Bear Adventure (8 page)

‘That's it,' said Amazon, her eyes suddenly dry, and her face set as hard as the rock that the tiny bear stood on. ‘I'm going to go and save that cub.' She clamped the helmet down on her head, picked up her bike and stood with one foot on the pedal.

‘Amazon, you're nuts,' said Frazer. ‘Don't you realize how dangerous a cougar is to us? It could easily kill a human. And that's without taking the chances of a landslide into account. I can't let you do this, cuz. My dad would never forgive me if –'

‘You can't stop me, Frazer,' she said, shrugging off his hand. ‘I thought the point of being in TRACKS was to save animals? Well, I've already killed one, and I'm not going to stand aside and watch another die. If the mother was still alive, that old cougar wouldn't dare bother the cub. I'd never forgive myself if I didn't at least try.'

And then, without giving Frazer another chance
to argue her out of it, she pushed off down the murderous slope.

Frazer, stunned, watched her go.

This was a nightmare.

It was also the chance to go for it like he'd never gone for it before. With a long-suppressed cry of ‘
Woo hoo!
', he kicked off after his cousin.

If Frazer enjoyed the crazy ride down the mountain, Amazon certainly did not. The long cycle through the forest didn't require any real mountain-biking skill, and even the terrifying jump over the gorge demanded more nerve than ability; but this was different. She had to use every particle of her being to keep from falling off – a fall that she knew might easily break her neck or set off another landslide that would finish her off, along with the baby bear, the cougar and probably Frazer as well.

She had to use all her natural balance to compensate for the constant sliding and skidding of the wheels; all her strength to keep the frantically bucking handlebars in line; all her intelligence to pick out the best route as she hurtled down the slope; and all of her nerve to keep the disabling waves of panic at bay.

Her eyes constantly flickered in a triangle, the three points of which were the bear, the cougar and the section of mountain right in front of her.

Twice she almost fell, but both times a well-placed
foot kept her upright, at the cost of a few more millimetres of sole worn off her trainer.

Amazon was vaguely aware of Frazer behind her. Partly it was the uncanny sixth sense that she had developed for knowing his whereabouts. But mainly it was because of his constant insane whoops and yells.

She was getting close to the big rock on which the bear cub stood. But so was the cougar, approaching it from the other side. And it was now that Amazon realized the flaw in her plan. Well, not so much a flaw as an oversight. She just hadn't given any thought as to what she should do when she reached the rock.

Would the baby bear meekly submit to her grabbing it? How could she face the cougar? And, if she did manage to somehow mount the rock, save the bear from the big cat and climb back down to her bike, how on earth was she supposed to cycle the rest of the way down carrying a bear that, although a baby, weighed as much as a sack of potatoes?

Amazon was almost at the rock now. She'd gained enough confidence as a mountain biker to make a perfect sliding stop right in front of it. She glanced back at her cousin, hoping that for once he might have done some thinking.

She saw that he had.

But it wasn't the kind of cool, rational thinking she'd been hoping for.

Frazer had, in fact, been giving serious thought to exactly these problems as he carved his way down the mountain. The fact that his brain hadn't come up with any kind of ingenious plan vaguely disappointed but didn't especially surprise him. But, all along, his body – or perhaps just a deeper, barely conscious part of his brain – knew what had to be done.

Ten metres before the rock – at about the same point that Amazon had begun to apply her brakes – Frazer performed a trick he'd done a hundred times on his old BMX, but never once on a mountain bike. He threw all his weight on to his hands, levered back and up, and got his feet on to the crossbar. He was still steering with his hands, but it was tricky – no, it was impossible – on the mountain. But he didn't need to stay like this for long. Because now it was time.

He jumped with all his might, making sure he put enough sideways pressure on the bike to send it
round the rock. The rock that he was now sailing towards in mid-air.

He landed on top of it and went straight into a forward roll. But, at the same second that he leapt up on to the rock from his bike, the cougar made its leap towards the little bear too.

The cougar, intent upon its prize and partly blocked by the big rock, had failed to notice the approach of the two humans. It was therefore a little surprised to find itself sharing the rock not only with the helpless bear cub, but also with this bizarre flying human.

That surprise was the only advantage Frazer had – and he knew he only had a second. He did not pause, but carried straight on from his forward roll into a run. He stooped, picked up the little golden bear and jumped straight down from the rock. As he'd hoped, his bike had come to rest almost exactly where he landed.

‘Amazon, if you want to live, get here now!' he hollered.

A moment later and she was at his side.

To her astonishment, he thrust the now squirming and protesting cub into her hands.

‘Get this thing into my backpack, NOW!'

‘There's no room!' she cried back.

‘Dump it all.'

Behind them they heard the outraged scream of the cougar. It had been too startled to react
immediately, and now it was surveying them from its vantage point up on the rock.

Humans.

It usually feared and shunned this animal. The first time it had seen one it was curious, and came to see if it was good to eat, but there had come a noise like ice cracking, and the cougar felt a pain like the snapping jaws of a wolverine, and from then on the cougar had only one ear.

And here were two of them. But these, it saw, were juveniles. Cubs, like the bear.
Its
bear.
Its
meal.
Its
prize.

Stolen.

Well, they would all pay the price.

Somehow, Amazon managed to thrust the writhing, mewling cub into Frazer's backpack. The tight fit of the pack miraculously seemed to calm the little creature, like swaddling clothes do a human baby, and it instantly settled into the pack, with just its nose resting on Frazer's shoulder. It would have been rather a pleasant sensation had Frazer not known that something infinitely sharper and more deadly than the cub's wet nose might soon be sinking into the back of his neck.

Amazon looked back towards the screaming cougar, and saw it properly for the first time. She knew enough about animals to be very aware of the fact that it makes no sense to think of any animal – even a cunning and powerful predator such as the cougar – as evil. Evolution has shaped all animals to be efficient at obtaining nutrition, at evading predators, at passing on their genes. Animals were incapable of malice, of cruelty, of vengeance. These were all human failings.

But, as well as being a naturalist, she was also a thirteen-year-old girl, and what she saw before her terrified her. The snarling mouth seemed to betray a boundless appetite for death. The superbly lithe form had the grace of a samurai sword, made for dealing death.

And it was getting ready to spring at her now.

‘Frazer, we've got to –'

‘GO!' he yelled, and four wheels spun on the loose gravel; spun and then gripped. Not a second too soon. The cougar landed in their tracks. The small stones thrown up by the spinning tyres momentarily blinded the cat, and the pause generated was enough to give the Trackers a few metres' head start. But then the cougar bounded forward again, each long-legged leap covering three metres. It ate up the ground between it and the frantically careering bikes.

Amazon and Frazer could hear the paws striking the ground just behind them. Hear, even, the hot breath of their pursuer. Only the bear cub seemed oblivious to the danger. He had been walking all day, and the swaddled security of the bag had lulled him into a stupor.

The one advantage Amazon and Frazer had was that they were heading downhill. Most animals would much rather run on the flat – or even uphill – than down. Mountain bikes, however, more than any other form of transportation ever devised by humankind, were made to go
down
.

Instinctively, Amazon and Frazer stayed close together, carving left and right in unspoken harmony. But no matter how quickly they went, and no matter how handicapped the cougar was by the awkwardness of bounding downhill, it was still gaining on them.

Right in front of Amazon and Frazer rose another huge rock. Frazer was on the left, and so naturally broke that way. Amazon went to the right.

The mountain lion was briefly confused by the split, undecided about which way to go. In its confusion, the cougar's front feet slid, then caught in the ground, and the animal half somersaulted into the rock. It was badly winded, but not seriously hurt. And now it was madder than ever.

Amazon and Frazer met again on the far side of the boulder. Without knowing exactly what had happened behind them, they sensed that they had gained some time.

They were now only fifty metres from the treeline. However, the trees represented anything but safety. They had been just about able to hold their own cycling downhill on the open mountainside, but in the forest they would hardly be able to cycle at all, and the cat would be in its element.

Then Frazer saw what he had been looking for: the rough trail that they had taken round from the cliff side of the mountain continued on. It would lead them away from the route back to the campsite,
but, he reasoned, that was something they could put right later on. Staying alive, not getting back, was the pressing issue.

‘Head for that trail,' he yelled, and pointed at the gap in the dense line of trees.

Just before they entered the dark of the forest, Amazon looked back over her shoulder. And there, a streak of dark gold against the grey slate, she saw the cougar giving chase.

The trail was similar to the one they had taken to reach Mount Humboldt: well-worn earth, generally flat, with a few small rises and undulations. In other words it was a perfect cross-country bike ride. Or it would have been had they not had North America's most dangerous predator on their tail.

They were going in single file now. Frazer had ushered Amazon ahead, saying, ‘You first, Zonnie – that way I know I haven't left you behind.'

Another time, Amazon would have stopped to argue the point, but she told herself she'd get him for it later. Except that she wouldn't be getting him, because she knew that for once he was talking good sense. It also meant that he was the one who would be in the most danger. The fear of putting Frazer in peril made Amazon pedal even faster than she would have done had it been her own life at stake. And it wasn't just for Frazer: there
was the precious cargo he carried – the orphaned cub.

And so they flew through the forest. She took jumps without even thinking. By the third one she was able to marry technique with courage, and she heard Frazer's shouts of encouragement gradually give way to whoops of admiration.

She looked back a couple of times. Frazer thought she was checking on him, but she was really looking beyond him along the trail for their hunter. And she saw nothing.

But then there came a subtle change. Each rise now seemed a little longer than the subsequent fall. And the flat sections were no longer quite flat, but inclined slightly upwards. They were climbing. It was slow and undramatic, and had they been walking they would hardly have noticed. But on a bike it was different. The little moments of rest provided by the down sections were gone. Now every metre forward had to be bought with effort.

Sweat began to pour down Amazon's face, stinging her eyes. She wiped them with her sleeve, hit a root and almost fell.

‘Careful, cuz!' shouted Frazer from behind.

She was too tired to shout back.

And the worst thing was she didn't know how long this would continue for. Most big cats, unlike the hunters of the dog family, don't have the stamina for
a long chase like this. A lion or leopard would have given up long ago, after its first rush was thwarted. But Amazon just didn't know enough about the cougar to figure out if it was the same.

Just as Amazon was reaching the end of her ability to go on, she noticed that the ground on the right-hand side of the trail had fallen away. Looking over, she saw a ribbon of white water tumbling below. Was this the same river they had jumped earlier, or just another springing from the same mountain source? She didn't know, didn't really care, but the sound and sight – perhaps even the smell of the water – reminded her that she was desperately thirsty. She had never been this thirsty in her life – not even on the remote desert island she and Frazer had been marooned on not long before.

She couldn't go on.

She had to drink.

At the top of the next rise, she stopped and reached for her water bottle. There was a bare mouthful left. She tore off the top and gulped it down. So perfect, so cool. But so little of it. Frazer pulled up next to her.

‘We can't …'

‘I know we can't, but I was going to DIE!'

‘OK, I get it,' said Frazer soothingly. ‘Anyway, I think maybe we shook that thing off. I don't reckon it had ever come across two mountain bikers of our quality before. I –'

It was then that the cougar leapt. And this time there was no sound. The whole concentrated energy of the beast went into this killing leap, with nothing left over for anything as superfluous as a snarl.