Great Bear Lake (20 page)

Kallik dozed uneasily through the short
night on an uncomfortable bed of stones. The older bears had taken all of the best sleeping places, though she noticed that Taqqiq and his friends had found a soft patch of grass to rest on, after they chased off a she-bear and her cub.

But it was not just the stones digging into her that kept Kallik awake. Her quest to find her brother was over. But it had all gone wrong. She didn't recognize Taqqiq in this rough bully who thought nothing of stealing another bear's prey and scorned the other bears when they talked about the spirits. He cared more about his cruel friends than he did about her. And she had no idea what she ought to do now.

Kallik raised her head as other bears brushed past her, heading down to the lakeshore in eerie silence. The old she-bear, Siqiniq, whom Kallik had spoken to the day before, was standing on a rock at the water's edge. As the other bears crowded around her, Kallik got up and followed them, full of curiosity.

The sky was stained red from the approaching sunrise. A hush fell over the assembled bears as the glow grew brighter. In the silence, Kallik heard a yelp from behind, and turned her head to see Taqqiq and his friends wrestling together at the edge of the crowd. An older bear snapped at them, but they didn't stop.

As the glittering rim of the sun edged above the horizon, Siqiniq stood taller on the rock and raised one paw. “Sun, we welcome you on this Longest Day,” she began, her voice ringing out clearly. “Now hear my words: Your reign is ending. From now on, the dark will return at the end of each day, bringing with it snow and ice, and striking stillness into the melted water. White bears will be able to return to their feeding grounds once more.”

A sigh swept through the bears. The ice could not return too soon to ease their hunger. Still sleepy, Kallik stifled a yawn, and hoped no bear would think she was being disrespectful.

“Bear spirits,” Siqiniq went on, “bring back the dark, so that you may shine again in your tiny fragments of ice. Drive the sun lower in the sky, so that we can honor you from our ancient home on the ice.”

She fell silent, and all the bears waited until the whole disc of the sun had cleared the horizon. Kallik could still hear scuffling and muffled yelps from the direction of Taqqiq and his friends.
Shut up!
she thought fiercely.
I don't care if you don't believe in what Siqiniq is saying. Other bears have the right to listen to her.

Once the sun was up, all the bears bowed their heads
toward it. Kallik bowed, too, feeling awestruck that she was here to witness the beginning of the return of the ice, and the power of Siqiniq, who could even command the sun.

Then the gathering began to break up, the bears going back to their sleeping places, or farther up the beach to forage in the undergrowth. A few of them waded into the lake, peering in hopefully for fish. Kallik realized how hungry she was; she headed for the lake, too, wondering if she could hide anything she caught from Taqqiq and the others.

Her brother and his friends were tussling with one another at the water's edge, splashing around noisily and not even trying to fish.

“Hey!” one of them barked, breaking away from the scrimmage. “There's Namak with a fish. Let's go grab it!” He pointed to a much older bear, slowly heading away from the water with a fish in his mouth.

The rest of the bears sat up, then sprang to their paws. They ran after the older bear and encircled him, pushing and shoving him from all sides and batting at him with their claws. Confused, Namak tried to shoulder his way past them, but they wouldn't let him go. He let out a growl of frustration and dropped the fish.

Immediately all four of the bears pounced on the prey and tore it apart, gulping the scraps down until it was gone. Namak stood watching them, his lips peeled back in a snarl, but there was nothing he could do. His shoulders drooped and he trudged to the edge of the lake and waded out into the water.

“That's right, old seal-brain!” one of the young bears yelled. “Catch us another one!”

Angry and discouraged, Kallik turned away from the lake. She wasn't going to catch a fish to feed Taqqiq and his horrible friends. Instead, she headed for the undergrowth at the top of the beach, where a few bears were feeding on leaves and berries. Kallik found a bush in a quiet spot where she could munch on the foliage, wishing it were succulent fish instead. She was still struggling to swallow her first mouthful when she heard approaching pawsteps and stiffened at the loud voice of one of Taqqiq's friends.

“This will do. No bear will hear us.”

Kallik peered out from behind her bush. A couple of bearlengths away, the four young bears were settling themselves down, breaking branches to make enough space and tearing off mouthfuls of leaves, only to spit them out with disgusted noises.

“This is worse than rotfood,” one of them whined.

“Yeah, you're right, Manik,” said another. “It's not fit for bears.”

“Complaining's no good, Iqaluk. We'll starve if we don't
do
something,” a third bear growled. He was bigger than the others, with heavy shoulders and a narrow face. “There has to be food somewhere. If we can't catch it ourselves, we'll have to take it.”

“But Salik, where can we take it from?” Taqqiq objected. “These scrawny bears can't catch any prey worth eating. They're only strong enough to beg the sun to go away.”

“There'll be food in the forest over the other side,” Salik snarled. “Animals to prey on, roots and berries to eat. The bears over there are far better off than we are.”

“Yeah,” Manik agreed. “It's not fair that we're stuck here while they're in the forest stuffing themselves.”

“That's what I was going to tell you.” Salik, who seemed to be the leader of the group, leaned forward, his eyes slitted. “It's not fair, so we should do something about it. Let's raid their dens and drive them out! Then we can take their food!”

Kallik listened in horror. Attacking a whole group of other bears? Stealing all their food? Surely Taqqiq wouldn't go along with this!

Before she could call out to him, she heard the sound of another bear pushing his way through the undergrowth. She looked up to see a full-grown bear who strode up to Taqqiq and the others.

“What did I hear you say?” he demanded. “Raiding the forest? Have you got feathers in your brain?”

“Shove off, old goose,” Salik retorted, rudely turning his back on the older bear. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“It has everything to do with me, and every other bear here,” the bear replied. “Stealing food from other bears?
Fighting
with other bears? On the Longest Day?”

His voice had reached the ears of more white bears, who padded down the foreshore or waded up from the lake to see what was going on. They crowded around Taqqiq and his friends, their voices raised in shock and anxiety.

“What's going on? What did they say?”

“You can't do that! Show a bit of respect!”

Kallik wriggled out of the bushes and squeezed herself through the crowd of tightly packed bodies.

Salik and the older male were glaring at each other as if they were a heartbeat away from a fight. Taqqiq and the other two had bunched together, their lips drawn back in a snarl as they stared defiantly around.

“Have you no respect for tradition?” quavered a high-pitched voice.

The bears parted to let Siqiniq pad into the center. Her body was frail and old, but her eyes blazed. “Don't you know that this is a day of truce, to honor the spirits of the ice? That's why we're here, not to fight and steal and make enemies of other bears.”

Salik huffed out a breath of contemptuous laughter. “Every bear knows there are no spirits. That's just a tale to frighten cubs.”

“Right. We don't believe in that garbage anymore,” Taqqiq added.

Kallik gasped. Was this really Taqqiq talking, who had curled up with her in their BirthDen and listened to Nisa's stories about Silaluk and the hunters? “Taqqiq, no…” she pleaded, but other voices drowned her out.

“If I were your mother, I'd give you a good clawing,” a she-bear spat out.

“My mother's dead,” Taqqiq retorted. “And you can't tell me what to do.”

“Are we going or not?” Salik demanded. “The rest of you
can sit here and starve, for all I care,” he snarled at the crowd. “Wait and see how much your precious spirits will do for you.”

“Yes,” Iqaluk put in. “We need food, and we'll do whatever it takes to get it. It's not our problem if you're too scared.”

With Salik in the lead, all four bears shoved their way through the crowd and disappeared into the bushes.

“Kunik, we have to stop this,” Siqiniq said, her eyes wide with distress.

The older male who had spoken first looked grim. “We can't fight them, or we break the truce, too. Do you want to make the ice spirits angry with all white bears?”

Siqiniq's claws scraped the ground in front of her. “Then what will happen?”

“That is in the paws of the ice spirits,” Kunik replied.

Kallik pushed her way through the edge of the crowd and out into the open. She could see Taqqiq and the others running along the lakeshore.

“Taqqiq! Wait!” she cried.

If her brother heard her, he gave no sign of it. He raced along in Salik's pawsteps; Kallik flung herself after him.

“Wait for me!” she panted.

She forced her paws to move faster, dodging other bears, ignoring the sharp stones that stabbed her pads. Pelting all out, she couldn't avoid a thorny bush growing in the gap between two boulders, and the sharp spines tore at her fur. Stubbornly, she didn't slow down, just wrenched herself through the narrow space and kept running. But the other bears were drawing
steadily away, toward a line of dark trees.

She wondered what the ice spirits would do to bears who broke the truce. Maybe Taqqiq would never become a star, never be with their mother, Nisa, again, shining in the sky.

Though she was falling farther and farther behind, Kallik ran on, trying to ignore her aching leg muscles and sore paws.

Oh, spirits, help me,
she begged.
Somehow I have to stop him
.

Kallik paused, panting, her heart thumping
as if it were about to burst out of her chest. She had lost sight of Taqqiq and the others; she didn't think they could have reached the forest yet, so where had they gone?

The hard ground where the white bears were gathered had given way to marshland. Small streams meandered through muddy grass and reeds, with a few twisted bushes where the ground began to slope upward to a ridge. The wind dropped for a moment, and Kallik heard the raucous voices of young bears coming from inland, behind the ridge. She paused, sniffing, and from the mingled scents of white bears she picked out the familiar one that was her brother's.

“Taqqiq?” she called.

There was no reply but the whispering of the wind as it carried the bear scent toward her, along with the scent of mud and reeds and empty places. Following the sound of the voices, Kallik climbed up to the top of the rise. On the other side, she saw muddy banks leading down to a small, reed-fringed pool.
The bears were rolling around in the mud, plastering it on their fur and splashing one another, then flinging themselves down the muddy slopes until they landed in the water at the edge of the pool.

Kallik took a few paces down the slope, mud squelching between her toes. “Taqqiq, what are you doing?” she demanded. She felt small and shrill beside the bigger male bears.

There was a sucking sound as Taqqiq pulled himself up out of the mud. “Oh, it's you again. What do you want?”

Kallik wanted to wail out loud. What had happened to her brother since they shared their games on the ice? “I want to talk to you.”

“Tell her to go away.” Salik flicked a glob of mud at Taqqiq; it hit his neck and slid stickily down into his fur. “We don't want her hanging around.”

Taqqiq glanced back at him. “I'd better see what she wants. She'll never leave us alone if I don't.” Wading out of the mud, he came to a halt in front of Kallik. “Well?”

“What are you all
doing
? Why do you want to play in that disgusting stuff?”

“We're not playing,” Taqqiq said loftily. “This was Salik's idea. He's very clever.”

Kallik gave a disbelieving sniff.

“It's to disguise us when we get to the other bears' territory,” Taqqiq went on. “With mud plastered all over our pelts, they'll never notice us sneaking up.”

“You think it hides your scent?” Kallik couldn't believe that
any bear could be so stupid. “Well, it doesn't. It just makes you smell like filthy bears.”

Taqqiq turned away with an offended grunt, and took a couple of paces back toward the muddy pool.

“No, Taqqiq, wait! That's not what I wanted to say.”

“What, then?” Taqqiq still looked unfriendly.

“I want to know why you've started stealing food from other bears. That's not what our mother taught us.”

“But she isn't here now, is she?” Taqqiq growled. “We're doing it because we don't want to starve.”

A tiny spark of anger woke in Kallik. “But it's okay if other bears starve?”

Taqqiq's eyes hardened. “Rather them than us.”

“I can't believe you're saying that!” Kallik exclaimed, the spark of anger fanned to flame. “Don't you remember how it felt when bigger bears stole our food?”

Taqqiq shrugged. “
We're
bigger now. Bigger and stronger.”

“But it's wrong, Taqqiq.” Kallik shook her head hopelessly. “There has to be a better way.”

“Then you go and figure out what it is,” Taqqiq snarled, facing her with sullen fury in his eyes. “The spirits of the ice have abandoned us. They've turned their backs on us, so it's time for us to turn our backs on them.”

“Back there”—Kallik jerked her head toward the place where the other bears had gathered to greet the Longest Day—“you said you didn't believe in the ice spirits. Or was that just when Salik was listening?”

Taqqiq shrugged again, uneasily this time. “I dunno. But if they do exist, they don't care about us, so what difference does it make?”

Kallik felt despair, like the orca dragging her down into darkness. “I've looked for you for so long,” she murmured. “Sometimes I thought you were dead, but I never stopped looking.”

“I saw our mother die.” Taqqiq's voice shook a little. “I thought you were dead, too. I've done what I had to survive.”

“And so did I!” Kallik burst out. “It was so hard. We were too young to be left alone.” Anxious to keep him talking, she added, “What happened to you, after we were separated?”

“I was scared,” Taqqiq admitted quietly, as if he didn't want the others to hear. “I watched the orca drag our mother down, and then I couldn't see you anymore, either. I thought they must have taken you as well. I knew I had to get to land, but I didn't know which way to go. I just ran along the ice until I couldn't run anymore.”

As he was talking, Taqqiq settled down beside his sister, nestling his haunches into the prickly grass. A glint of hope kindled in Kallik, bright as the Pathway Star.

“The next day was clear again. I looked for you and couldn't see you, so I swam across to the next piece of ice.”

“But I came back to look for you!” Kallik exclaimed. “I never saw you.”

Taqqiq looked at his mud-stained paws. “There was so much ice and sea…. I could scent the land, so I just kept on
going until I got there. I was so hungry. I saw a mother bear giving some fish to her cubs, and I stole some when she wasn't looking.”

“Did you try eating grass?” Kallik asked. “I did, but it's not very nice.”

“Grass!” Taqqiq huffed. “That's not food for bears. I found some berries, though. They were okay. I tried following other bears, to see what they did; if you're careful, they'll lead you to food.”

Kallik shuddered. “I was too scared to get close. Our mother said that adult bears sometimes eat cubs, remember?”

“Well, they didn't eat me!” Taqqiq boasted. “I used to creep up and hide, and made sure the wind didn't carry my scent to them. And sometimes if they quarreled over some prey, I could take it while they were fighting.”

“I met a bear called Purnaq who showed me the place where all the bears were waiting by the sea.”

“I was there!” Taqqiq exclaimed. “I looked for you, but I didn't see you.”

“I looked for you, too.” Kallik shivered. She had been so close to her brother and had never realized it. Did the spirits have some purpose in keeping them apart until the Gathering here beside the lake? “But there were so many bears there…. Did you see the old bear with the torn claws?”

“Yes—stupid creature,” Taqqiq scoffed. “Calling out to the spirits—like they're going to listen!”

A pang of pain clawed at Kallik's heart. She had felt sorry for the old bear.

“I saw him attack the white firebeast,” she said. “That was brave.”

Taqqiq scratched his ear. “Brave but stupid. I'd bet you a whole seal that the no-claws wouldn't come anywhere near the bears if they knew we could hurt them.”

“I suppose…” Kallik agreed reluctantly. “It was weird: all those no-claws inside the firebeast, staring at us.”

“Yeah. The firebeast is stupid, too. We tracked it the whole way into the no-claws' dens.”

“We?” Kallik echoed, with a flicker of apprehension.

“Salik and the others.” Taqqiq glanced down at the pool where the other three were still throwing mud at one another. “Salik is a good bear to be with. He's strong and clever. He makes sure his friends get enough to eat.”

Even if he steals from other bears?

“I went into the no-claws' place, too,” she said, changing the subject. “That was where—”

She wanted to tell Taqqiq about the no-claws with the fire-sticks, and how they had tried to take her and Nanuk back to the ice. Would Taqqiq ever believe that she had flown underneath a metal bird? She had so much to tell him! She wanted to pour out everything about her travels, to let her brother share how scared she'd been and how she had managed to struggle through.
Except for the fox,
she told herself.
If Taqqiq thinks it's okay to steal from other bears, he'd never understand about the fox
.

But a shout came from Salik, interrupting her. “Taqqiq, are you going to sit there all day?”

Taqqiq hauled himself to his paws. “Coming!”

“No,” Kallik begged. “Taqqiq, please stay with me. It was much better on the ice, when we helped each other. Remember how you said you'd protect me in the sea, when Nisa first said we had to swim?”

For a long moment Taqqiq gazed at her. Then he shook his head. “That was then,” he growled. “Everything is different now. There's no ice here, and bears have to do what they can to survive.”

The other three bears had dragged themselves out of the mud and padded up the slope to join Taqqiq. Salik was in the lead. He stalked up to Kallik and glared down at her; Kallik's nose wrinkled at the rank smell of the mud clinging to his pelt.

“
Don't
follow us again,” he snarled, and added to Taqqiq, “I don't care if she's your denmate. If she doesn't leave us alone I'll claw her pelt off.”

“He means it,” Taqqiq warned her.

And you would let him?
Kallik shrieked inside.

“Go back to the other bears,” Taqqiq went on. “Just stop following me around, okay?”

Kallik nodded. With a last snarl at her, Salik turned away, leading the others around the lake toward the line of dark trees where the other bears were. Kallik watched them racing along the shore until they crashed into the trees and disappeared. Then she rose to her paws and followed cautiously, taking advantage of every dip in the land and scrawny bush for cover.

You can't tell me what to do, Taqqiq. I want to know what you're up to.

At last she reached the outermost trees and paused briefly, sniffing their warm scent and listening to the rustle of wind in the branches. Padding forward, she felt the odd, spiky sensation of needles under her pads. She looked around warily, but she couldn't see or hear Taqqiq and the others, though she caught a trace of their fading scent. There were no other white bears, either.

Then she heard pawsteps on the other side of a patch of bushes. Kallik pushed her way through, glad that they didn't have thorns this time, and halted in amazement. A small group of bears was foraging across an open patch of ground, pausing beside the bushes to strip berries and leaves with sharp, clever white teeth. But these bears were tiny.

And their fur was
black
!