The Last Wilderness (9 page)

Silaluk!
Kallik prayed.
Do something, please! Ujurak
can’t
die!

L
usa peered out from the shelter of the rock and across the open ground to where Ujurak’s limp body lay motionless in front of the closed door, the rain beating down on him.
Come on, flat-face! Where are you?

Beside her she could feel tension quivering through Kallik; her friend’s gaze was fixed on the door as if she was willing it to open. Behind her, Toklo’s voice came in a soft, wordless grumble.

We’ve done everything we can
, Lusa thought.
It’s up to the flat-faces now
.

A sharp sound came from the flat-face denning place; every hair on Lusa’s pelt prickled as the door of another den swung open and the grey-furred flat-face came out. He strode across the open space
towards his own den and stopped abruptly when he spotted Ujurak lying in front of the door. Stooping down, he laid one of his paws on Ujurak’s chest. Then he raised his head and glanced around; Lusa found it hard to read flat-face expressions, but she thought he looked confused.

‘Take him inside!’ Toklo growled behind her. ‘Why are you messing around like that?’

For a moment Lusa wondered if the flat-face was going to leave Ujurak there, dying in the rain. Did flat-faces care for strangers who weren’t part of their herd? Then she let out a gasp of relief as the flat-face slid his forelimbs underneath Ujurak and lifted him up. He pushed the door open with one shoulder, carried Ujurak inside the den, and shut the door behind them.

‘There!’ Kallik exclaimed with satisfaction. ‘He’ll be OK now, won’t he, Lusa?’

It was Toklo who replied, ‘I don’t know. I still don’t trust flat-faces.’

His doubts couldn’t quench the hope Lusa had begun to feel as soon as the flat-face took Ujurak in. ‘These flat-faces aren’t like that. Ujurak said so,’ she reminded him. ‘He said they had animal spirits.’

‘That’s just a load of cloudfluff,’ Toklo retorted.

Lusa guessed Toklo just didn’t want to allow himself to hope in case they lost Ujurak after all. She pressed herself comfortingly against his side, wishing she could give him some of her trust.

‘The flat-faces in the Bear Bowl looked after us,’ she told him. ‘I told you they took care of my mother when she was sick? She was so ill, I thought she was going to die. But when they brought her back she was well again, just the same as always.’

‘The flat-face wouldn’t have taken Ujurak in if he didn’t want to care for him,’ Kallik added hopefully.

Toklo just grunted.

Lusa stared at the closed door of the healer’s den, wishing she knew what was going on inside. She thought about her dream on Smoke Mountain, when her mother had come to her and told her that she had to save the wild. When she woke, Ujurak had known all about it.

They had never spoken about the dream since, but Lusa had known from that moment that Ujurak was even more special than they realised. The spirits wouldn’t let him die. The whole of the wild needed him too much.

Closing her eyes, Lusa tried to send out a message to Ujurak.
The flat-faces will look after you
, she told him, hoping that he could hear her.
We’ll wait for you until you’re better, so we can keep going to save the wild
.

Lusa felt new strength welling up inside her like a mountain spring. Somehow she knew that Ujurak would receive her message. Letting out a long sigh, she opened her eyes again. ‘I’m starving!’ she announced. It seemed as if days had passed since they had persuaded Ujurak to join the flock of geese in the hope of catching one of them. ‘What about you?’

Toklo nodded. ‘We need to hunt,’ he murmured reluctantly, ‘but –’

‘But we can’t go off and leave Ujurak,’ Kallik finished for him. ‘Not when we don’t know if he’s going to be OK.’

As the bears glanced uncertainly at one another, Lusa raised her snout and sniffed. She could pick up whiffs of interesting scents, and she realised how quiet the denning place was, with all the flat-faces indoors because of the rain.

She gave Kallik a friendly shove with one paw. ‘Don’t worry. Flat-face dens are always good for a few scraps of food, if you know where to look.’

Toklo frowned. ‘I’d rather hunt our own prey.’

‘No, Lusa’s right,’ Kallik said. ‘This will be easier, and we can stay close to Ujurak.’

Toklo shrugged. ‘OK. But don’t blame me if the flat-faces catch us.’

By now twilight was gathering. The rain still hissed down around them, and the doors to the flat-face dens stayed firmly closed. Cautious, but still confident, Lusa led the way across the denning area, looking for the shiny containers full of rubbish that flat-faces always kept at the back of their dens.

The faint sound of music and flat-face voices came from the bigger den that the healer had left. Lusa crept up to a lighted window and peered inside. Rows of flat-faces sat at tables, with little piles of meat in front of them. They were talking loudly and baring their teeth at one another in a friendly way.

As one of the flat-faces rose to his feet, Lusa drew back into the shadows, shoving Toklo and Kallik away from the window. A moment later the flat-face opened the door and stepped out, pulling a pelt over his head, and ran across the rainswept ground to another den in a distant corner.

‘Let’s get on with it!’ Toklo hissed in her ear.
‘They’ll spot us if we hang around here.’

Lusa knew he was right. She set off again, still looking for the flat-face rubbish containers. To her surprise, she couldn’t see any. ‘What do they do with their rubbish?’ she muttered angrily. ‘Don’t they know there are hungry bears around here?’

As they came to the end of a row of flat-face dens, Toklo halted, sniffing at the air. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

Lusa joined him and took a deep sniff. The most delicious smells tickled her nostrils; they seemed to be coming from a small den a little way from the end of the row. ‘We’ve
got
to have some of that!’ she exclaimed.

‘Be careful,’ Kallik warned her as she padded up to Lusa’s side. ‘There’s the smell of fire too. It could be dangerous.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

Before either of her friends could object, Lusa gave a swift glance around to check that no flat-faces had appeared, then trotted up to the door of the small den. She gave the door a push, but it wouldn’t open. Frustrated, she glared at it, then noticed a gleam of silver between the edge of the door and the frame.
Something there was holding the door shut.

Squeezing her paw into the gap, Lusa gave the silver thing an experimental prod. There was a clicking sound; she almost lost her balance as the door swung inward. Smoke surged out of the doorway, while the delicious scents grew stronger still.

Lusa looked back to where her friends were waiting a few bearlengths away. ‘Keep watch for flat-faces!’ she called.

Then she slipped through the doorway into the small den. The air was full of smoke, stinging her eyes, but the smell guided her forward until she could make out long strips of meat hanging from wooden beams under the roof.

What’s the meat doing there?
Lusa wondered.
I’ll never understand flat-faces!

Rearing up on her hind legs, she managed to snag the end of one of the strips with an outstretched paw and pull it to the ground. Encouraged by her success, she tugged down a second piece. Grabbing them in her jaws, she raced out of the den and back to her friends.

‘Lusa, you’re brilliant!’ Kallik exclaimed.

Toklo still had an air of nagging anxiety, which the
sight of the meat didn’t banish. ‘Better take it back to the rocks. The flat-faces might spot us if we stay here.’ He spun round to lead the way without waiting for a response.

Lusa hurried after him, dragging the long strips of meat, expecting at any moment to hear flat-faces shouting behind her. But everything was quiet.

‘Here, eat,’ she said, dropping the meat in the shelter of the rock.

Kallik seized on one end of a strip, chewing eagerly, but Toklo still hung back. He was peering round the side of the rock at the healer’s den.

Lusa gave him a gentle shove. ‘Come on, eat. We won’t be any use to Ujurak if we’re weak from hunger.’

Toklo nodded reluctantly and settled down to gnaw at the other strip of meat. ‘Caribou,’ he muttered after a mouthful or two. ‘Tastes a bit weird, but it’s good. Thanks, Lusa.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Lusa crouched down to eat her own share, enjoying the rich, tangy taste of the caribou meat. But she couldn’t help noticing that Toklo was still brooding, pausing every few moments to listen and glance
around, as if he was desperate for any sign that would tell him what was happening to Ujurak.

‘I know what we can do,’ she said when she and her friends had finished eating. ‘Follow me.’

Kallik and Toklo exchanged a puzzled look, but they followed Lusa out from behind the rocks. The rain was easing off, but by now it was full night, and the doors of the flat-face dens stayed closed as Lusa led the way around the edges of the open space, clinging to the shadows. They froze as another flat-face left the big den and sprinted past them, barely two bearlengths away. He had his head down against the last flurries of rain and didn’t spot the bears crouching in the shelter of a projecting roof.

‘That was close!’ Kallik breathed.

Toklo nodded. ‘Let’s get a move on.’

Lusa took the lead again, trying to slink through the darkness as if she were only the shadow of a bear, until they reached the back of the healer’s den. Light streamed out of a window and cast a golden patch on the ground.

Lusa padded up to the window. Standing on her hindpaws, she rested her forepaws against the wall of the den and peered inside.

T
oklo crept warily up to the flat-face den and peered through the shiny stuff, like solid water, that blocked the hole in the wall. A fire burned at one side; even out here, Toklo could smell strange fumes coming from it, and he blinked to chase away a sudden feeling of dizziness. But in spite of the odd smell, it looked warm and cosy inside, with flat-face pelts spread on the floor and hanging from the walls.

Lusa and Kallik pressed their noses to the window on either side of Toklo, peering into the den. Toklo studied the old flat-face who had taken Ujurak in. The flat-face had his back to the window, blocking the bears’ view of Ujurak, who was lying next to the wall. Now and then Toklo caught a glimpse of one of
the old flat-face’s pink, furless paws as he reached out to pick up or put down some small, silvery object.

I guess he’s still trying to get the line out of Ujurak’s throat
, Toklo thought.
His paws are very small, and much nimbler than ours. Maybe Lusa was right to bring Ujurak here, after all
.

Then the flat-face healer moved, and Toklo got a clear view of Ujurak for the first time. Still in his flatface shape, he lay on his back in a flat-face nest, partly covered by pelts.

‘He looks dead!’ Kallik whispered, her voice horrified.

Toklo didn’t reply, but his belly clenched and he gritted his teeth to stop himself from howling aloud. Ujurak lay so still; his flat-face skin was a sickly grey. His eyes were closed, and Toklo couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

‘He’s not dead,’ Lusa said reassuringly. ‘The flatface wouldn’t be trying to help him if he was.’

Toklo found it hard to believe her. What did flat-faces know? Besides, if Ujurak wasn’t dead now, he might die soon, and there was nothing Toklo could do. He hated the feeling of helplessness; like the geese that scattered when he tried to creep up on them,
everything that was happening was flying out of his control.

Just briefly, when he had hunted the caribou alone, he had been at peace. Now he felt as though nothing would ever go right. One thought kept nagging at him, refusing to leave him alone:
It was my fault Ujurak turned into a goose. If I hadn’t had that dumb idea
. . .

Hot panic flooded through him. His heart thudded as he remembered the guilt he had felt over Tobi’s death and the way Oka had abandoned him; he knew he couldn’t carry the weight of that guilt again.