Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Toklo

As Toklo led the way along
the top of the cliffs from the white bears’ denning place, he realized that Kallik had caught up and was pacing alongside him.

“How long is this going to take?” she asked in a low voice, with a glance behind to make sure none of the other white bears could hear. “I need to get back to Kissimi.”

Toklo shook his head in exasperation. “How do I know? We’ve got to find the musk oxen first. And then we have to show these other bears how to hunt them.”

“And I’d bet a whole seal Unalaq will make it hard for you,” Kallik said, glaring over her shoulder at the big white bear. “Toklo, do I
have
to come with you? Kissimi will be scared if I leave him alone for much longer.”

Or one of Aga’s bears might find him.
Toklo had more sense than to speak his thought aloud. He didn’t want his ears clawed off. “Okay, Kallik,” he replied. “Just slip away quietly. Take Kissimi back to our den—I’ll make sure we don’t hunt anywhere near there.”

Kallik’s eyes were warm with gratitude. “Thanks, Toklo.”

She dropped to the back of the group, next to Ujurak. A few moments later, when Toklo had to leave the edge of the cliff to skirt a large clump of thornbushes half buried in snow, he noticed that she was no longer there. He just hoped that none of the white bears would start asking awkward questions.

Not long after, Toklo left the cliff edge and struck across open ground to the head of the gully he and his friends had followed when they had first arrived on the island. Tunerq picked up his pace until he reached Toklo’s side. Toklo tensed, expecting a question about Kallik, but all the young bear said was “Where are you taking us?”

“To the place where we found the musk oxen,” Toklo replied. “Unless you know anywhere closer where they might be.”

Tunerq shook his head. “We never bother much with the musk oxen,” he told Toklo. “We always thought they were too big to hunt.”

“Too big and too tough,” Unalaq growled, pressing up to join Toklo at the head of the group. “Who’d want to eat musk ox when they can get seal?”

Toklo swiveled his head to glare at the big white bear. “But you
can’t
get seal, cloud-brain,” he snapped. “Not until they’re clear of the poison. We already told you that. Are your ears stuffed with snow, or what?”

Unalaq glared back. “I think you’re lying about the seals. And the musk oxen. No bear can catch one of those.”

Toklo shrugged. “Watch and learn, fish-breath.”

Ignoring Unalaq, Toklo led the way down the gully and toward the stretch of ground where the musk oxen had been feeding. There was no sign of them now, but the snow was churned up by the marks of their hooves. Toklo sniffed, picking up fresh scent.

“This way,” he said, flicking his ears in the direction of the scent.

Instead of following the trail immediately, Toklo beckoned to the three white bears. “The only way to do this is to work together,” he instructed. “When we catch up with the musk oxen, wait for me to put you in position. Understand?”

“Yes, Toklo,” Illa said. Her eyes were gleaming eagerly.

Tunerq nodded, and Unalaq let out a grunt that could have meant anything. Toklo exchanged a glance with Lusa, who just rolled her eyes. Ujurak was pawing at the snow, impatient to be on their way.

“Let’s go,” Toklo said.

Following the musk oxen’s trail, Toklo spotted fresh droppings and places where the snow had been pushed aside to reveal the plants the oxen fed on. Then, as they reached the top of a shallow slope, they spotted the musk oxen in the valley ahead. They had stopped again to graze, their hunched shoulders and shaggy pelts standing out dark against the snow.

Toklo paused. He had forgotten how big these animals were. But he knew that this was no time to lose confidence. He knew that Unalaq would love it if he made a mess of this.
We’ve
got
to catch something.

“Right,” he began. “Lusa, you take Tunerq and work your way around to the other side of the herd. Ujurak, take Illa and get into position on that side.” He pointed with a paw. “Unalaq, you come with me. We’ll scare them and get them confused like last time, and then I’ll pick one of them out. We all get together to bring it down.”

“Will that work?” Tunerq asked doubtfully.

“Wait and see.” Lusa gave an excited little bounce. “Toklo’s really good at hunting!”

She led the white bear down the slope toward the herd. Toklo watched them for a moment, giving the herd a wide berth and using rocks and bushes for cover. Once they were well on their way, Ujurak set off with Illa for the opposite side of the herd.

Toklo waited until he could see them in position, aware of Unalaq fidgeting and huffing impatiently beside him.

“Okay,” he said at last. “We’re going to charge down there and roar at the oxen to scare them. Don’t try to grab one until I tell you.”

Without waiting for a response, he headed down the hill, picking up speed as he went and stretching his jaws wide to let out a roar. Unalaq paced him, roaring even louder. The musk oxen raised their heads, then began to move farther down the valley, slowly at first and then picking up speed as the bears drew nearer, until they were running.

Above the pounding of their hooves Toklo could hear answering roars from the other bears. The musk oxen checked; the ones in the lead tried to turn back, but those in the rear were still trying to flee from Toklo and Unalaq. Soon the middle of the valley was full of a panic-stricken crowd of oxen, milling around and trampling to and fro as they let out deep-throated bellows of terror.

Exhilaration flooded through Toklo as he realized that the plan was working. At the edge of the crowd he spotted one ox that was limping. “Over here!” he yelled, hurtling toward it.

Unalaq was pounding alongside him; just ahead Illa and Ujurak appeared, veering toward the limping ox to cut it out of the herd. Illa reached it first and heaved herself onto her hindpaws to score her claws down the ox’s shoulder.

The ox half reared, then turned, trying to flee, only to meet Unalaq head-on. The big white bear sprang at it, with Toklo a pace behind; together they knocked the ox off balance. It fell to the ground, legs thrashing, while Ujurak and Illa seized its haunches to hold it down. Lusa and Tunerq came up, panting, in time to grip its forelegs, while Toklo made the kill by slashing his claws across the ox’s throat. The creature jerked once and lay still.

“That was great!” Illa exclaimed. “There’s enough prey here to feed every bear.”

Unalaq was already sinking his teeth into the ox’s shoulder, tearing off a huge mouthful of meat. Toklo bit back a growl. Just for a few moments he had hunted side by side with Unalaq, feeling a brief companionship with the big white bear. Unalaq was a good hunter.

But he’s still a pain in the fur,
Toklo thought, watching him tucking greedily into the ox.

“Eat,” Ujurak encouraged Illa and Tunerq. “Then you can take some back for Aga and the others.”

“And now that you know how, you can catch more,” Lusa added enthusiastically. “You’ll have prey to eat until the seals are ready.”

Tunerq dipped his head, gratitude in his eyes. “Thank you, all of you. We won’t forget this.”

Together Toklo and his friends waited until the white bears had taken what they wanted from the ox carcass.

“Is that what we were meant to do?” Lusa asked as she watched them go, dragging part of the meat with them. “To move the seals
and
teach the white bears to hunt new prey?”

Ujurak blinked, watching as Unalaq and the others disappeared over the brow of the hill. “I don’t think so,” he replied. “It’s important, what we’ve done, but none of that is going to bring back the spirits.”

Chapter Fourteen

Kallik

It was still dark when Kallik
crept out of the den, leaving her friends asleep. Pale dawn light reflected off the frozen surface of the river by the time she reached the meeting place near the bay where the seals had made their new home. There was no sign of Yakone; no pawprints disturbed the fresh covering of snow. Kallik guessed that the white bears were waiting for the seals to recover from the poison before they moved their dens to this part of the island.

“Stay here, little one,” Kallik murmured to Kissimi as she scraped a hollow for the cub to hide in. “You must keep very still.”

Kissimi nodded as he clambered down from Kallik’s shoulders and curled up in the hole with his paws over his nose. He was quieter than usual, Kallik realized; his head drooped, and he looked thinner.

Eating seal fat and chewed-up fish isn’t agreeing with him,
Kallik admitted to herself reluctantly.
He needs milk
. The realization welled up from deep inside her, but she did her best to push it down again.
I love him so much; I
have
to be able to take care of him. He’ll be fine when he’s older and doesn’t need milk; I just have to hang on until then.

“Kallik! Hi!”

Kallik jumped at the sound of Yakone’s voice. Looking up, she spotted the young bear’s reddish pelt standing out against the snow as he looked for a way down the cliff. Quickly she kicked snow over Kissimi, hiding him from Yakone’s gaze.

“Hey!
Cold!
” Kissimi protested.

“Keep very still and quiet,” Kallik reminded him. “I’ll come back for you soon.”

Satisfied that the cub was well hidden, she bounded away and met Yakone at the edge of the beach. The young male was staring out over the frozen bay, his jaws parted in astonishment and his eyes gleaming.

Following his gaze, Kallik spotted several dark patches on the ice; more breathing holes had appeared since she and the others had first discovered the bay. She could even see one or two seals a long way out from the shore. Triumph surged up inside her.

Ujurak, you did it!

“The seals really have moved!” Yakone echoed her thought. “And the air smells different. . . . There’s none of that awful sickly scent.”

The excitement in his tone thrilled Kallik, and she felt answering high spirits bubble up inside her. Playfully she butted her head into Yakone’s flank. The young male swung around with a huff of laughter and swiped her with one paw. A moment later they were tumbling together in the snow, wrestling in a mock fight.

Kallik wriggled to one side as Yakone tried to pin her down. She realized he was bigger, but her long, hard journey had given her muscles strength. When he leaped on her again, she brought her hind legs up against his belly and sent him toppling into the snow. Before he could get up again, she hurled herself on top of him and clamped a paw down on his neck.

“Wow! You’re strong!” Yakone gasped.

Pleased that she’d impressed him, Kallik stepped back and let the male bear scramble to his paws.

“Where did you learn to fight so well?” he asked as he shook clumps of snow off his reddish pelt.

Kallik didn’t want to talk about her journey. “Hey, let’s hunt!” she suggested.

Together the two white bears headed out across the ice. The seals on the surface slid down into the water long before Kallik and Yakone could reach them, but it didn’t take long to find a breathing hole.

“Smell that?” Kallik asked as they stood side by side gazing down into the hole. “That’s what healthy seawater smells like.”

Yakone took a long sniff. “It’s good. Much tangier than the water around our old hunting ground.”

“Now we have to wait for a seal,” Kallik said, settling down beside the hole and making herself comfortable. “But it has to smell of clear water and nothing else.”

Yakone nodded and crouched down beside her. Kallik couldn’t help noticing how soft his reddish fur looked. Daringly she reached out and brushed her paw gently along his leg.

It is
so
soft!

Embarrassment flooded over her as she realized Yakone was giving her a surprised look. “Uh . . . there was a bug crawling over you,” she muttered.

Amusement sparkled in Yakone’s eyes. He reached out and gave Kallik a playful pat. She responded by prodding one paw into his side.

I haven’t had so much fun since Taqqiq and I were cubs together!
Kallik thought.
I don’t want to sit here and be patient.

“We’re never going to catch a seal if we play around like this,” Yakone said, nudging her with his head. “We have to concentrate.”

Kallik realized he was right. Forcing down her surging high spirits, she stared into the hole, resisting the temptation to give Yakone a sidelong glance.

The moments seemed to drag by. Kallik listened to the whisper of the wind blowing across the surface of the ice, and she wondered how Kissimi was doing in his snowy den. She had enjoyed playing with Yakone so much that for a short time she had almost forgotten her cub. Now her paws began to itch with impatience to head back to him.

Maybe with some good, healthy seal for him to eat.

The thought had scarcely crossed Kallik’s mind when she spotted a swirl in the water and a dark shape rising up through the breathing hole. Quicker than Yakone, she flashed out a paw and grabbed the seal as it surfaced. At the same time she gave it a good sniff.

“This one is fine,” she told Yakone, dragging the struggling seal out onto the ice and dealing it a sharp killing blow to the neck.

“That’s great!” Yakone’s eyes were wide with admiration. “You hunt as well as Unalaq, and he’s the best.”

Warm pride flooded through Kallik. “It’s not hard,” she murmured. “You just have to keep very still and be ready to move as soon as you see the seal coming up to breathe. Let’s try again, and you can catch the next one.”

This time it didn’t seem so long until a seal poked its whiskery head out of the water. Yakone was ready, but as he reached for it, Kallik knocked his paws aside. The seal took a swift gulp of air and vanished.

“Hey!” Yakone exclaimed indignantly. “I could have caught that.”

“I know,” Kallik said. “But it was poisoned. Just smell the water that it left behind.”

Yakone lowered his snout and sniffed at the seawater that had spilled out of the hole when the seal surfaced. “You’re right,” he said with a sigh. “I can see we’ll have to be careful when we hunt here. It’s a tough lesson for us.”

“I know,” Kallik replied, brushing her pelt against his. “But it will get easier with time.”

Together she and Yakone dragged the first seal across the ice and up to the beach so that Yakone could carry it home later. Kallik was pleased; she knew the other white bears were more likely to come to the new bay if they realized there was good hunting in its waters.

“How about a swim?” Yakone suggested when they had deposited the seal in the shelter of a pile of rocks. He jerked his head back toward the sea. “I noticed a channel of open water out there.”

“I don’t know. . . .” A thrill of fear rushed through Kallik at the thought of the last time she and her friends had swum from one stretch of ice to another, and of the circling orca that had almost killed them. “What if there are orca?”

“We’ll keep a lookout,” Yakone replied. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

Kallik was tempted; it
would
be fun to swim with Yakone. Murmuring agreement, she followed the male bear back onto the ice. The sun had risen while they’d been crouching beside the breathing hole, and the ice gleamed dazzling white, stretching out in front of Kallik as far as she could see. The channel was a long, thin crack, reflecting the blue of the sky.

Yakone plunged into the sea with a huge splash, sending water washing over the ice around Kallik’s paws. Kallik slid in after him, diving deep beneath him and surfacing on his other side to splash water in his face.

“Hey, I’ll get you for that!” Yakone huffed, paddling toward her.

Kallik swam away, glancing back over her shoulder at the male bear chasing her. She felt strong and confident, her fear of the orca thrust to the back of her mind.
This is where I belong. This is what it really means to be a white bear.

Yakone caught up to her, and they wrestled in the water, their heads dipping under the surface and bobbing up again.

“I used to swim like this with Sura,” Yakone said, shaking water out of his ears. “She loved swimming, before she got sick.”

Kallik felt a stab of jealousy that Yakone had been friends with Sura before she came to the island, mixed with guilt at the reminder that she had stolen Sura’s cub.

Not wanting to talk about the dead she-bear, she slid behind a chunk of floating ice when Yakone was looking the other way. When he turned back, he glanced around in bewilderment.

“Kallik? Where’d you go?” Anxiety sharpened his voice. “Kallik?”

“Here!” Kallik plunged out of hiding and threw herself on Yakone, wrestling him under the surface.

“You scared me!” he exclaimed when they popped up again. “I thought an orca had gotten you.”

“I feel as if I could fight every orca in the sea,” Kallik responded. “I—”

She broke off as she spotted movement on the distant shore. A white bear was prowling down the hillside toward the bank of the frozen river. Even from so far away, Kallik couldn’t mistake the huge, menacing shape of Unalaq.

He’s heading straight for the place where I left Kissimi!

Terror slammed into Kallik’s throat. Scrambling out of the water, she raced across the ice, water droplets streaming from her fur as she ran.

“Kallik, what’s the matter?” Yakone’s confused voice came from behind her; Kallik could hear his paws slapping against the ice as he followed her.

Panting, Kallik reached the shore and confronted the huge bear.

“What are you doing here?” Unalaq snarled. “Have you come to steal our seals, now that you’ve hidden them here?”

“We haven’t hidden them!” Kallik flashed back at him, desperate to distract him from Kissimi’s hiding place. “They’re right here.” She pointed with one paw at the dead seal lying beside the heap of rocks. “Look, Yakone and I just caught that one.”

To her dismay Unalaq narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “There’s something wrong,” he declared. “I can tell. What have you been up to?”

“She helped me hunt,” Yakone puffed, coming to stand beside Kallik. “And then we went for a swim.” He raised his head defiantly and glared at the bigger bear. “What’s wrong with that?”

Unalaq ignored him. Swinging his head around, he gave the air several deep sniffs. “I smell a cub,” he growled.