“Don’t aim for the ends of the branches when you jump,” Chula advised her. “They bend over; that’s how the grizzly nearly caught Ossi. It’s much safer to keep nearer to the trunk.”
Lusa found Chula was right; once she knew what to do, it was easy. Her paws tingled with excitement. Toklo and Ujurak had never climbed through trees like this, and never thought of looking inside an ants’ nest for food.
They skirted the clearing where she had seen the bears assembling when she first arrived in the forest. Hashi and a few of the other adult bears were sitting there now; their voices rose up into the trees. Lusa paused to listen.
“I can remember when a bear could travel through the forest for day after day and never see a sign of a flat-face,” Hashi said. “Now they’re everywhere with their stone paths and their firebeasts and their dens. Where are we supposed to live?”
“That’s right,” a she-bear agreed, casting an anxious look across the clearing to where two small cubs were chasing each other around a tree. “And if it isn’t flat-faces, it’s grizzlies. One of them drove me and my cubs out of territory where black bears had lived forever.”
“There’s never enough food,” Taloa complained. “You can search all day and never find—”
“Hey, Lusa!” Startled by the sound of Miki’s voice close to her ear, Lusa nearly lost her balance and had to make a grab for the trunk. “What are you doing?”
Lusa jerked her snout to point out the bears in the clearing. “Hashi said—”
“Oh, you don’t want to listen to him.” Miki let out a huff. “He’s always going on about how everything was better when he was a cub. Some of the others think he’s wise, but…” He shrugged, flicking his ears as if Hashi were an annoying fly. “Come on, or that greedy pair will have eaten all the ants!”
Scrambling in pursuit, Lusa tried to forget what she had just heard. But it reminded her too much of what Ujurak had said, when he had taken the shape of the goose and the deer and the eagle. All the animals were suffering, not just bears.
Soon she arrived at the edge of another clearing, where Ossi and Chula were already sniffing around a huge mound of earth.
“Is that the ants’ nest?” she asked Miki as they scrambled down.
“That’s right,” Miki told her. “And it’s a big one. I’m surprised no bear has found it yet.”
As Lusa approached the nest she became aware of a pungent scent coming from the ant colony. She blinked stinging eyes. “There was an ants’ nest in the Bear Bowl, but it didn’t smell like that. It was only a little one, though.”
Her belly rumbled impatiently. Back in the Bear Bowl she’d never been hungry enough to do more than taste the ants, just for a change. Now she eyed the big, juicy nest hopefully; there should be a good meal in there.
Chula had already found a hole in the mound and stuck her long tongue down it. Ossi shoved a forepaw inside, gave it a swift lick, then stuck his whole muzzle into the gap. Trying to ignore the awful smell, Lusa tentatively poked a hole into the mound and stuck her tongue inside. She pulled it out covered with ant grubs: tiny specks that hardly looked as if they would make a meal. But there are lots of them, she thought, and drew her tongue back into her mouth.
Chula had been right. The grubs were delicious!
Enthusiastically Lusa probed the mound for more. This was even better than the salty potato sticks that she had found among the flat-face garbage.
At last they had eaten enough; holes gaped in the ant mound and the earth was scattered. Ants were scurrying around distractedly among the wreckage.
Ossi stretched his jaws in a vast yawn. “Time for a nap,” he declared.
He climbed a tree and settled himself in a fork in the branches. His sister pulled herself up after him and found a place for herself a bearlength higher. Their russet-brown pelts were almost lost among the dappled sunlight as sunhigh approached.
“I’m not sleepy,” Lusa said. She padded to the edge of the trees and looked out across the marshy landscape. “What is it like out there?” she asked as Miki joined her.
Miki shrugged. “I don’t know. Cold, I guess. And a bit windy.” His fur fluttered around his face, and he shivered.
“Let’s explore!” When Miki hesitated, Lusa added, “Come on—it’ll be fun!”
“Okay. Keep your eyes open, though. If any bear sees us, they won’t be pleased. Black bears are meant to stay under the trees.”
Venturing out from the shelter of the trees, Lusa sniffed the land ahead: a watery, boggy scent, full of reeds and mud. The ground was covered in tussocky grass, interspersed with sharp stones and clumps of reeds dotted here and there. Wisps of white mist clung to the ground; the air felt damp and clammy, and Lusa shivered. Somewhere a bird was piping a thin call, but she couldn’t see it.
“Careful!” Miki whispered.
Intent on the new smells, Lusa hadn’t noticed the scent of bears, or the sound of pawsteps behind them. She glanced back to see a couple of full-grown black bears ambling along at the edge of the trees. They might be angry to see her and Miki straying outside the black bears’ gathering place.
“Quick, Miki, this way!” she gasped.
Just ahead was a shallow, muddy stream, fringed with reeds. Lusa slid into the water and pressed herself down until only her snout was showing.
“Yuck!” Miki grunted as he joined her. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Within a few heartbeats the adult bears disappeared back into the forest. Lusa clambered out of the stream and shook muddy water from her pelt.
“They didn’t see us,” she breathed in relief.
Miki hauled himself out with a disgusted huff and Lusa set off again, farther out into the empty land. She didn’t like this place: There were a few windswept bushes, but none of them had leaves soft enough to eat, or any sign of berries. It was windy, cold in spite of the sun, and the ground was sticky with drying mud. There was no shelter for black bears, not even anywhere to play. She led the way out into the open, feeling her pelt prickle as the comforting shelter of the trees and the murmur of bear spirits fell farther behind.
“Do you think anything lives here?” Miki whispered.
“I wouldn’t think so.” Lusa was whispering back; somehow it didn’t seem right to speak in ordinary voices. And something might be listening, she thought, hiding a shudder.
She glanced at her surroundings, but nothing moved; the bog stretched all around her, blocked only by the dark line of the forest they had just left. Somehow the trees looked a long way away, much farther than they’d walked.
Suddenly a screech sounded from a clump of reeds just ahead. A big white bird shot upward with a loud beating of wings, rattling the tops of the reeds. Lusa jumped, gasping in panic, then tried to pretend she hadn’t been scared.
Miki had leaped almost a bearlength backward as the bird screeched. “Well, there’s nothing to see here,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant; Lusa caught the fear in his voice. “It’s boring. I’m going back.”
He turned and began to trot toward the forest, then picked up speed until he was racing full tilt back to the trees. Lusa bounded after him, feeling the cold, wet grass brush her belly fur. Stones stabbed her paws; she was suddenly so frightened that she didn’t have time to avoid them. Being away from the trees was scary. It felt as though some vast invisible bird, its wingspan even greater than an eagle’s, was swooping down on her, ready to sink its talons into her exposed flanks.
Neither of the cubs stopped until they were safely under the shadow of the forest, with the reassuring voices of the tree spirits above their heads. Miki hurled himself up the nearest tree, and Lusa followed, flopping down on the branch next to him.
“Well, that was interesting,” said Miki, casually licking a paw.
“But I don’t think we need to go back there,” Lusa panted, trying to get her breath. “There’s nothing out there for bears. The forest is the place for us.”
And this is where I’ll stay,
she decided. I don’t ever want to leave the forest again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Lusa
Lusa dozed in the tree beside Miki, and woke to the sound of bears pushing their way through the undergrowth. Raising her head, she quickly checked that she and her friend weren’t visible from below, then gave the air a good sniff.
It was bear scent she could smell, but not the scent of black bears—or of brown bears, either.
Lusa reached out with one paw and prodded Miki’s shoulder; as soon as his eyes opened she twitched her muzzle at him for silence.
“Sniff,” she whispered.
Miki’s eyes stretched wide in alarm. “Strange bears!”
Lusa peered down through the branches, trying to see the intruders. Every hair on her pelt was standing on end; somehow, she knew that the strangers shouldn’t be here, and that something really bad was about to happen. Below her, the bushes rustled more loudly, and a massive shape pushed its way into the clear space underneath Lusa’s tree.
White bears!
Lusa’s heart leaped and she nearly lost her grip on the branch. It was so long since she had seen white bears in the Bear Bowl, and she had never expected to see any here. “What do they want?” she hissed.
“I don’t know,” Miki replied, “but it can’t be good.” He pressed close to Lusa and they both stared down in mounting horror.
The white bear below them was a male, much bigger than Lusa, but not as big as the white bears she remembered in the Bear Bowl; she guessed he was a half-grown cub. His white pelt was plastered all over with mud and he smelled of earth and fish mixed together.
Three more white bears followed, padding with long strides over the pine needles. They looked strong and fierce, their hackles bristling as they swung their pointed muzzles from side to side, searching for…what? Prey? Black bears?
As they crossed the open space and disappeared into the forest on the other side, Miki whispered, “This is terrible. They shouldn’t be here. The white bears are supposed to stay on the other side of the lake.”
“We’d better follow them and see what they do.”
Miki nodded. “Okay.”
They scrambled from tree to tree; Lusa kept as quiet as she could, trying not to make the branches shake, but it was hard when her legs were shaking with fear.
The white bears didn’t look up, just kept peering into the trees with their beady black eyes, and Lusa and Miki tracked them until they came to the clearing with the berry bushes where they had fed the day before. Two full-grown black bears were searching the bushes for berries, accompanied by three cubs, smaller than Lusa.
“Hey! Climb a tree!” Miki barked.
“White bears are coming!” Lusa yelped.
Before the family of bears could react, the white bears burst out of the undergrowth at the edge of the clearing. “Get out of our way!” one of them snarled. “Get out, or we’ll rip your fur off!”
The she-bear clacked her teeth with fright and shoved the nearest cub up a tree, then the next one. The male black bear bravely faced the white bears, hunching his shoulders so the fur stood up.
“You get out. This is our territory.”
The third cub scrambled up into the tree and their mother followed. All four of them crouched among the branches, gazing down at the white bears with wide, terrified eyes.
The white bear in the lead cuffed the black bear hard over his head. “The forest is ours now. There’s nothing you can do to stop us.”
The black bear tumbled onto the ground from the force of the blow, scrambled to his paws, and hurled himself up the nearest tree. From his refuge on a branch he hissed furiously at the white bears. “The trees belong to black bears! The spirits will repay you for this.”
The white bears ignored him. They blundered through the bushes, trampling the branches and stripping off leaves and berries to shove into their mouths.
Miki’s eyes stretched wide with alarm. “They’re stealing our food! We’ve got to go warn the others.”
He took off through the trees, not caring about being seen or heard anymore, heading for the clearing where most of the black bears gathered. Lusa followed him, suddenly feeling clumsy and too heavy to be running through slender branches.
“Come on!” Miki urged her.
They were only a few bearlengths from the clearing when Miki leaped for the next tree, and Lusa heard the ominous crack of the branch as he put his weight on it. Miki let out a squeal of shock, scrabbling with his claws as he tried to scramble closer to the trunk. But the branch snapped; Miki crashed through the branches underneath and fell to the ground with a loud thud.
“Miki!” Lusa shrieked; she peered down, but there were too many branches in the way, and she couldn’t see him.
“What was that?” huffed a voice from the clearing.
Another voice answered it. “Prey!”
Lusa slid down the tree until she could balance on a lower branch and see through the leaves. Miki was lying in a black huddle on the ground, his legs twitching.
“Miki!” Lusa cried. “Get up! The white bears are coming!”
Miki lifted his head; he looked half-stunned. Lusa bunched her muscles to jump down beside him, but it was too late. The white bears came charging through the trees.
Miki struggled to his feet, shaking his head. He stumbled toward Lusa’s tree, but the leader of the white bears cut him off, thrusting his snout into Miki’s face and letting out a fierce huff. The other three white bears closed in on him, surrounding him and pushing him with their massive front paws.
“He’s nice and fat,” one commented.
Miki struck out with his claws, but the white bears were too big and too many. One of them fastened his teeth in Miki’s scruff and swung him off the ground, shaking him like a rat.
“Get off! Put me down!” Miki lashed out, but the white bear took no notice.
“Let him go!” Lusa barked from the tree.
One of the white bears raised his head and growled at her, but she was too high up for them to reach.
“Help! Help!” she called. “They’ve got Miki!”
No black bears appeared. They can’t have heard me, Lusa thought despairingly.
The bear who was holding Miki dragged him through the bushes; Miki kept on kicking and clawing, but the white bear was too strong for him. Lusa heard his cries grow fainter.
“Help! White bears!” she shouted.
She flung herself into the next tree, heading for the big clearing. The sun was beginning to slide down the sky; its rays dazzled her, but she kept going, even when she could hardly see the branch she was leaping for.
When she reached the big clearing, she found Hashi resting under the trees, surrounded by more of the older bears. A couple of them were asleep. At the far side, Chula and Ossi were playing with some of the other cubs.
“Help!” Lusa gasped, scrambling down the tree and leaping the last bearlength to stand in front Hashi. “White bears have taken Miki!”
“White bears?” Hashi sprang to his paws. “Where?”
“Where all the berry bushes are.” Lusa jerked her head in that direction. “Hurry, please!”
Hashi bounded up the nearest tree, but to Lusa’s horror he didn’t head deeper into the forest. Instead he settled himself where a branch forked from the trunk and crouched there, digging his claws into the bark.
Spinning around, Lusa saw that the rest of the black bears were making for the trees, too. “Don’t you understand?” she said. “They’ll kill Miki if we don’t help him. I think they’re going to eat him!”
Ossi raced over from the edge of the clearing, with Chula close behind her. “We’ll come with you,” he panted.
“You will not!” One of the she-bears gave Ossi and his sister a sharp cuff around the ear. “Up the tree with you, right now! Black bears can’t fight white bears.”
Chula gave Lusa an apologetic glance, but she and Ossi trotted after the she-bear—their mother, Lusa guessed?
??and climbed the nearest tree.
“But Miki will die!” Lusa protested. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
“Lusa, get off the ground at once,” Hashi ordered. “You’re in danger down there.”
Lusa looked around. The clearing was empty. The black bears were all crouching in the trees like enormous furry berries. She hauled herself into Hashi’s tree, not because she wanted to hide, but because she needed to make him listen. She was only just in time. As she swung herself onto the branch just below Hashi, three white bears burst into the clearing.
Where is Miki? They can’t have eaten him already!
The white bears scattered the branches the black bears had been sharing, trampling the stems, then gulped the leaves and berries down and looked around for more. Spotting the black bears in the trees, they stretched up and growled at them, but the black bears were out of their reach, and the white bears were too big and heavy to climb.
Lusa looked down into the hostile eyes and gaping jaws of the biggest white bear. “Where is Miki?”
“You have to leave,” a bear barked from a different tree. “This isn’t your territory.”
“It is now,” the white bear snarled. “You’re all cowards, stuck in the trees. It’s not your territory if you can’t defend it.”
“What have you done with Miki?” Lusa called.
“The forest is ours now, along with everything in it. We can take what we like. You had better leave the forest, cub, or we will come back for you next!” He slashed his claws angrily across the bark and dropped to all fours again to join his companions, who were searching the clearing for more food. One of them, sniffing around at the edge, called out, “Hey! Berries!”
He pushed his way into the bushes and his companions followed him.
“White bears in our territory,” Ossi’s mother, in the next tree, whimpered. “What does this mean?”
“It means Miki is in trouble,” Lusa retorted. “Isn’t any bear going to help?”
“These are dark times,” Hashi growled. “Nothing is the same as it used to be.”
“The white bears never used to trespass on our territory.” Taloa spoke from a nearby tree. “Why are they doing it now?”