The Skeleton Tree (15 page)

Then I collected my gaff, and I gathered my fish, and I trudged downstream.

Down to the falls, then down to the pool, then along the beach, I couldn't stop shivering. I felt the touch of the bear's lips and fur; I smelled its breath. I thought these things would never leave me, as though I'd been branded.

When a shadow flickered across the beach I looked up. High above my head a raven circled. A thousand feet in the air, it was just a small black shape. But I was sure it was Thursday, keeping watch over me.

Half a mile from the wreck of the
Reepicheep,
I could still feel the touch of the bear on my skin. I still felt every bit as frightened as I had then. A hundred times I'd looked back to make sure it wasn't following me. A hundred times I'd seen only the empty beach, with the waves folding up along the shore in their steady rows. And now I looked again.

And there was the bear.

Over the stones, over the logs, it came steadily along my trail. I went faster, but so did the bear. I dropped my fish, hoping that would satisfy it, and doubled my pace. All I wanted was to get away from it. I could not stand the thought of seeing it coming at me again. But the bear was less than a quarter mile behind me when he passed the fish, without stopping.

By then I could see the wreck. The cliffs behind it soared up to the forest like the walls of a castle. With no hope of climbing them, no chance of reaching the cabin, I headed for the wreck instead. For the last few yards I ran as fast as I could, slipping in my stupid castaway shoes. In a glance back I saw the bear running too, loping along the beach.

I crawled underneath the
Reepicheep
and up through the hole that had been punched in the hull, into the fishhold of that poor little boat. It was high enough that I could stand up straight, below the thick beams that held the deck. Right above me was the hatch, with a huge log lying across it. Light came through there, and through the cracks between the planks. I stood in the shadows, listening for the bear.

I heard him coming nearer.

Stones rumbled and clattered. A log rolled on the beach with a hollow sort of thump.

I put my hands on the planks and peered through one of the cracks. I saw the bear right in front of me, its nose held up, sniffing along the boat.

I reeked of fish. The sleeves of my shirt were covered with slime. The back was clotted with salmon blood, and I was drenched with the water of a river turned gray by rotted flesh.

The bear put its nose right to the boat. The only thing between us was the old planking. An inch away, the bear snuffled greedily, sucking up my smell. Then he stepped away.

I looked down at the bottom of the boat, strewn with gravel and sand and bits of shells. I looked up at the log and the rim of the hatch. I looked all around the fishhold for a long sliver of wood, and I found one near my feet, where the log had punctured the hull and shattered three planks. I pulled it loose, then waited for the bear, watching the bands of light in the planks. I saw them darken as the bear passed in front of me.

I heard it sniff and snuffle again. I heard the tiny rubbing sound of its nose on the wood.

I slipped the point of my splinter into the crack. I took a breath, then shoved it forward as hard as I could. I drove it out through the planks, into the snout of the grizzly bear.

The piece of wood shot out of my hand, wrenched through the little slit. With a shriek, the bear fell back from the boat. I peered out and saw it rolling on the beach, thrashing its head. It bellowed in pain.

When it stood up, the splinter was gone. Blood dripped from its nose, and a red stain had spread across its muzzle. It turned its head and looked straight at me. It could not possibly have seen me behind the planking, through the thin little gap where my eye was pressed to the wood. But it knew I was there. And it understood what had happened. I was sure of that.

Its feet wide apart, it lowered its head and smeared the blood from its face onto the stones. Then it looked up again, its eyes very narrow. With another roar, it ran toward me.

It smashed its head into the heavy planks. Wood cracked; the boat shook. I fell back in surprise. For a second time the bear slammed against the boat.

Then its claws came through one of the cracks. Just the tips appeared, white and sharp, twitching as they groped like a vampire's fingers. They slid along with a rasping little sound that made my back shiver. But the bear pulled away, and the stones rattled as it walked around the boat.

It found its way underneath. I heard it clawing at the gravel, trying to dig out a passage. And soon, through the hole in the floor, I saw the gravel moving, falling into a pit that the bear was digging underneath me.

Its claws squealed on the rock. The floor heaved up against my feet.

The bear was right below me, tunneling into the beach. I stomped my feet on the floor, and for a moment it stopped. But then it started again, and the gravel kept flowing away, the pit getting deeper.

The claws appeared, raking through the gravel. A shaggy paw reached closer and closer.

The boat tilted. Just a tiny little bit, it rolled toward the bear. The huge log shifted on the hatch, and flakes of shell and sand came drifting down.

The digging stopped. I squinted through the planks and saw the bear lying on the beach, sprawled across the stones like an enormously fat old man. I imagined it trying to figure out what to do, how to get inside the boat. Or was it now content to lie and wait—for however long it took—knowing that sooner or later I would have to come out?

Shadows turned and stretched as the sun went by. The tide began to rise again. And still the bear lay on the beach. Wave after wave after wave came crashing up onto the stone, each one a little higher.

Hours passed before I heard a raven calling. I looked up through the hatch as Thursday appeared, drifting sideways on the wind. His long flight feathers curled and shifted as he kept himself level. His head tilted, and sunlight glinted on his eyes. Then he drew back his wings and dropped down to the boat, landing on the edge of the hatch.

I got to my feet and reached up, stroking the soft little feathers on his belly. He spoke to me first in his raven language, and then with real words, amazingly clear.

You're finished.
He puffed his wings. He tipped his head.

He was just making sounds, I assured myself. He was just repeating what he'd heard from the cabin guy. But he seemed too much like a prophet, like a little seer come to tell my future.

He crouched down and scraped my arm with his beak. It was a gentle, soothing thing to do, and I tickled the hairs on his nostrils. He always liked when I did that.

With a little cry he straightened up again. Like a rooster, he raised himself on his feet, with his wings flapping, and he started to shout—in raven again. He muttered and shouted as loudly as he could.

A moment later, the boat shook. There was a terrible crack of wood, a grinding of logs. The bear was back.

My raven kept screaming. The bear clawed at the planks. The darkened shadow it cast on the hull spread higher and higher, blotting out the light all the way to the top of the hull.

I was sure that the raven was shouting in fright. I couldn't imagine any other reason. But I wished he would stop, because his cries were only drawing the bear toward the hatch.

From foot to foot, the raven hopped above me. His mouth wide open, he kept shouting his strange little cries. The boat groaned and shifted again. Then the raven flew away, and into its place came the bear. That huge, fur-covered head loomed above me. A paw reached down.

I dropped to the floor. The bear's claws slashed above me, back and forth. With a grunt and a snarl, the bear changed its position and reached farther into the boat.

I backed into the corner. The bear swatted at me, roared, and tried again. Then it pulled up its paw and drew away from the hatch, and for a moment everything was quiet. But the silence exploded again into fury and noise as the bear hurled itself against the log that covered the hatch.

It was a huge old tree. In the forest, it must have stood more than a hundred feet tall. Where it rested on the boat it was six feet across. But the bear moved it easily, though only an inch or two. It moved it again—another inch—throwing its whole weight against the wood.

No other sounds came from Thursday. I couldn't tell if he had flown away or if he was perched somewhere nearby, silent and waiting. It was a strange image I had—that black bird atop a white log, watching as the bear tried to kill me.

Until the sun went down, until darkness came, the bear kept bashing at the log. When it stopped, I couldn't see a thing. I couldn't tell if it had shifted the log, if it had widened the hole enough to get through, or even if it had given up and gone away. There was no sound but the wind, and the waves on the beach.

I lay on the bottom of the boat with no idea where the bear would attack next. Every time I dared to think it might have gone away, I heard the clinking of stones or the rumble of a log. I knew the bear was moving then. But where was it going? That was the worst thing of all, not knowing where it would next appear. Would he try to get in from above or up from below? I didn't dare stand underneath the hatch, and I didn't dare lie too close to the hole. I had just a tiny space to huddle in.

There was a clinking, a rattling of stones, then no sound at all. Without moving a muscle, barely breathing, I waited. I clenched my fists, as though that could somehow help me hear. I was sure the bear had gone.

I crawled back to the side of the boat and pressed my ear against the planks. The surf was so loud that it thrummed in the wood. I heard another noise too, a faint trickle of water that puzzled me at first. But then, with a chill, I realized it was the sound of tiny crabs scuttling for safety under the stones. And suddenly the bear banged against the boat, knocking me backward, shifting the entire wreck. Above me, the enormous log rumbled across the hatch. The bear clawed at the planks on the side of the boat. One of them tore loose.

With a machine-gun sound, old nails popped and broke as the plank peeled away from each rib. A hole four inches high stretched from one end of the boat to the other.

Through the gap I saw the surf, a phosphorescent glow that flared with every breaking wave. There wasn't enough light for me to see the bear. But its enormous mass loomed in front of me. I saw a tiny glint against its claws as they reached inside again. Another plank sprang loose, with a creak of wood and nails.

I fled up through the hatch, squirming past the log. The green glow of the surf flashed all along the beach.

Over the logs I ran. I stumbled from one to another and fell into the spaces between them. But up I got and ran again, bumbling along like a terrified scarecrow. I could hear the bear tearing at the wreck of the
Reepicheep,
but I didn't stop running till I reached the cliffs.

For a few moments I rested, leaning against the rock as I breathed huge breaths. Then I pulled myself up through the darkness, crawling on the ground. When the moon rose at last behind tattered clouds, I got to my feet and ran the rest of the way to the cabin.

Near the end of the trail, I heard Frank shouting. Something banged and clattered. Frank cried again, “Get out!”

I stopped at the edge of the clearing. The cabin window flashed red and yellow from the light of a fire. Inside, Frank was screaming.

The bear had got him; I was sure of that. It had come through the forest and reached the cabin before me.

Run away,
I told myself.
You can't fight a bear; you can't help Frank.
It would only mean both of us dying.
I don't even like him,
I thought.
I wish he was dead.
I had a million reasons to run away and leave him. Why they suddenly all meant nothing, I didn't understand. I grabbed a hefty stick from the little pile against the wall and charged toward the door.

It was closed. I smashed right into it, shattering the latch and bending the door back on its hinges. I fell into the cabin, sprawling across the floor.

Frank was standing on the bed with a torch in his hand. Its flame gouted up toward the ceiling in a curl of black smoke. Thursday was huddled high in the corner, where I'd never seen him before, all twisted around with his talons gripping the very top of the wall. They both stared at me, astonished.

“What do you think you're doing, you moron?” said Frank.

Breathless from running, my heart still racing with fear, I lay on the cold ashes looking up at him. “Where's the bear?”

“The
bear
?” he asked.

“You were shouting,” I said.

“At your raven.” He swung the torch toward the bird.

“Don't do that!” I told him.

Thursday—with a shriek—cowered back in his corner. Frank poked at him again with the torch. “Stop!” I shouted. But it was too late. Poor Thursday, thrashing his wings, dropped from the wall and escaped through the window.

“That bird tried to kill me,” said Frank.

Nothing made much sense to either of us. I closed the door, wedging it shut, then turned to see Frank looming right in front of me, his torch nearly scorching the ceiling.

“Look at me!” He lowered the torch and turned his head. There were little red scratches on his neck, a small drop of blood. “Look. The raven did that,” he said. “I was asleep. It
pounced
on me, Chris. It—”

“I met the bear,” I said. “It attacked me. Twice. The first time, it knocked me down in the river.”

Even Frank realized that his scratches seemed ridiculous compared to that. He sat on the bed. “What happened?”

“It came running at me,” I said. “I fell down and it sniffed me. It sniffed me all over, then went away and—”

“Bluff charge,” said Frank. “That's not unusual for a grizz. They run at you, then stop at the last minute. They try to scare you.”

“It works,” I said. “I went down the river and I thought it was gone, but it came after me. It followed me up the beach, all the way to the
Reepicheep.
”