Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast (5 page)

She simply put her arms around the bear’s shaggy neck. “You are my kin and my kind now,” she told him. He answered by licking her face with his tongue, his breath strong and familiar.

As the weeks with Urso went by, Atalanta learned how to fish like a bear, standing still in the water and then snatching a glistening silver body out with a quick scoop of her hands. She learned as well how to raid the honeybee’s hive and how to strip a berry bush bare. The palms of her hands became hardened and stained.

She taught Urso how to play hide-and-find, something she and her father had enjoyed. It quickly became the bear’s favorite game.

One day, as the two of them were playing, it was Urso’s turn to hide. Finding him was not difficult. Atalanta knew his tracks and scent too well for long concealment. And he always seemed to hide in the same places. Still, as if playing with a small child, Atalanta could stretch the game out for hours.

This time she found him near their den. She leaned forward to tap him on the nose—a signal that she’d won.

He rolled away from her and she leaped onto his back, trying to reach a hand to his muzzle.

Shaking her off, he made a low, pleasant grumbling sound, which she’d come to know as his teasing sound. Then he bounded off toward the trees.

“You don’t get away that easily, you big ball of fur!” she cried, getting up and racing after him. She leaped over rocks and roots and was just about to grab him by the tail when something astonishing happened.

He disappeared into the earth as though a giant maw had swallowed him.

Atalanta tumbled headlong after him, bounced off his backhand rolled to a stop against the side of an enormous hole, twice as high as her head and big enough for two bears.

Struggling groggily to her feet, Atalanta was relieved to find she’d broken no bones. However, her bow had snapped in two under the impact. Tossing the broken weapon aside, she knelt beside Urso and rubbed her face against his neck.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

A deep rumble vibrated in his throat. Slowly he rose onto three paws, holding his right forward paw up as if it hurt.

Atalanta felt the paw. “No bones broken. But if it hurts, it’s going to make it harder for you to get out of here.” She looked around the hole. It was clearly not a natural trough in the earth, for there were signs of digging along the steep, sheer sides. About them lay the broken remnants of a lattice of leaves and branches that had concealed the opening till Urso’s weight had crashed through.

“It’s a trap, Urso,” she said. Then remembering something her father had told her about such hunting pits, she added, “Lucky there were no sharpened stakes at the bottom.”

The bear growled his answer.

Atalanta thought that—given time—she might be able to use her arrowheads to gouge out a series of hand and footholds into the earth wall. But how long would that take?

“And when will the hunters come to check their trap?” she asked the bear.

He shook his massive head.

“Maybe…” she told him, staring up at the opening above them, “maybe there’s a faster way out.” She calculated the height. “Come here. Stand on your hind legs. Like this.”

It took a moment to coax him, a moment to explain. She pressed her belly against the earth wall, standing as tall as she could, arms stretched above her head. Urso at last understood and reared up beside her, bracing his left forepaw against the side of the pit.

She clambered up his shaggy back and placed her feet on his shoulders. Then she strained upward until her arms ached, but her fingers were barely brushing the lip of the pit.

“Sorry, Urso,” she called down to him. She placed one foot on his head. “This is the only way.”

She let herself stand there for a mere moment before she threw an elbow over the edge of the hole and dragged herself up the rest of the way, her toes getting but small purchase on the side of the pit. Finally, with a squeal of triumph, she rolled away from the pit’s edge and lay on her back, gasping.

When she’d caught her breath, she leaned back over the pit. “I’m going to find something to get you out of there, Urso. Don’t worry.” Though she herself was panicked.

She knew there was rope back at her father’s house, but that was an hour’s run at least. She doubted they had that much time. And anyway, the bear’s claws could not cling to a rope the way a pair of hands could. Especially if he’d injured one of them.

“Not a rope, then,” she told herself. “What else?” She rose and went into the trees, hoping for inspiration.

Then she saw it—a fallen tree trunk, the insides of which had been eaten out by insects.

“A ladder,” she whispered.
If
it would bear Urso’s weight.

She put her hands under the trunk and pushed. Even hollowed out it was still quite a weight. She had to rock it back and forth till it came loose from the earth that seemed to hold it. But at last she managed to roll it—slowly and with much effort—to the edge of the pit.

Now all she had to do was maneuver it carefully into position.

She leaned over. “Urso!” she called down.

The bear had already been alerted by the sounds of the tree trunk being rolled. He was up on his hind legs.

Atalanta motioned to him with her hand. “Move to one side. I’m going to slide this log down so you can climb up.”

He seemed to understand and crouched along the far side of the pit.

Then slowly, carefully, she tilted the log over the edge, holding on to it long enough to guide it as it slid into the hole. Luckily the end struck the bottom and seemed to fix there, leaving the rest to lean against the side of the pit. It did not reach all the way to the top but would take Urso more than halfway. And halfway was all he would need.

The bear walked along the side of the log and sniffed at it, as if calculating whether it would carry his weight.

“Come on, you slowpoke, hurry. There’s no knowing when that hunter will return.” Though she suspected it was more than one. One person could not have dug that hole—or expect to get a bear out of it.

Urso started to climb, limping whenever he had to put pressure on the injured paw.

“You can do it,” Atalanta called.

He growled and kept moving.

Suddenly they heard a distant sound. For a moment they both froze.

“Wrong way, Goryx!” a voice called. “The pit’s over here.”

“I don’t think so,” came the rough answer. “I recognize this rock.”

A third voice laughed. “That’s because it reminds you of your own thick head!”

Atalanta unfroze first. “Hurry, Urso!” she cried in a desperate whisper. “The hunters!”

Urso had managed only a few feet, for every three inches forward, he seemed to slip back two.

It was clear to Atalanta that he wouldn’t make it out. Not in the time they had left.

“I’ll get you
more
time,” she told him, and stood. “You just keep climbing. Then run away from here, as fast as you can.” Fingering the knife at her belt, she looked toward the path where the voices were coming from. She hadn’t been able to save her father, but she was certainly going to save her brother-bear.

C
ROUCHING LOW, ATALANTA GLIDED
silently through the forest. She could hear the hunters coming closer.

“We wouldn’t be having this trouble if we’d stuck to our usual hunting grounds,” complained the grating voice, Goryx.

“We wouldn’t have come this far if the game weren’t so scarce,” another reminded him.

Atalanta buried herself in some blueberry bushes and listened to the men’s footsteps padding along the path. Carefully she peered through the leaves, thinking that they were not very good hunters, making all that noise.

There were three of them, armed with daggers and spears. Ropes and snares hung from their belts. That weighted down, they would not go fast.

Good,
she thought.
Better for Urso.

One of the men had a long face with a beaked nose. Another was shorter, squat, with a squashed face like a gourd left in the sun. The third had a dark scar down his right arm.

Scar was in the lead with Beak Nose bringing up the rear, grumbling to himself about his aching feet.

Atalanta let them pass her hiding place and then, when they were halfway around a bend in the path, she stood up and cupping her hands to her mouth, made loud growling noises.

The men stopped and turned, and she dropped back into the bushes.

“What was that?” came Goryx’s grating voice.

“Doesn’t sound like a bear,” said Beak.

“More like a bear
cub,
” Scar said.

Atalanta felt around her feet and picked up three rocks.
One for each of you,
she thought, waiting till they got closer. She listened for their footsteps, careful not to make the bushes tremble.

For hunters, they were terribly loud and she could hear them go past. The minute they were beyond her, she stood and tossed the rocks quickly, hitting them each on the back.

Then she dived back into the brush.

The hunters spun around with angry yells.

“What was that?” growled Goryx. “Somebody throwing rocks?”

“I don’t see anybody,” Beak Nose said. “Who’d be playing silly tricks like that so deep in the forest?”

“I’ll wring their stupid necks if I catch them,” Goryx threatened, rubbing the bruised spot on his back.

Scar raised a hand to silence them both. “Never mind that now. Stay alert. We need to move on and check the trap.”

The other two grunted their agreement, and they started off again.

Atalanta realized that her plan to distract the men wasn’t working, and Urso needed more time. Jumping out of cover with a whoop, she hurled herself at Beak Nose, landing heavily on his back and knocking him down. He shrieked, a sound as high and squealing as a pig in labor.

Scar grabbed her from behind and flung her to the ground, but she rolled nimbly to her feet and whipped out her knife. She didn’t intend to hurt anyone, of course. Her plan was simply to give Urso more time to get out of the pit. But Scar didn’t know that, and he raised his right arm to defend himself.

“Hold off, you little animal!” Goryx cried, grabbing her knife arm.

Atalanta turned her head and sank her teeth into the exposed skin of his wrist. He pulled away, cursing.

“Damned Amazon!” he cried.

From his knees, Beak Nose jammed his spear between Atalanta’s feet and she stumbled back, losing her balance. She landed hard on her bottom and that gave Beak Nose a chance to catch her wrist and twist the knife from her grasp, tossing it way out of reach. In turn she kicked him hard in the shin with her sandal.

“By Hermes, she’s a wild one!” he cried, backing away.

Shorty hefted his spear and was making ready to throw it at Atalanta, but Scar put up his hand. “No, Goryx—she’s a child.”

“Harpy’s child most like,” Goryx replied.

Atalanta made a sudden dive for her knife, but Scar had spotted her eyeing it. He reached out suddenly and grabbed her from behind and prisoned her arms against her sides.

Beak stared at her, taking in her torn and filthy clothing. “Look how skinny she is,” he said. “She must be half crazed with hunger.”

Scar laughed, and it rumbled against Atalanta’s back. “You just like your women plump.”

But Goryx was nodding his head. “She’s crazy all right. Crazy mad. Like a dog with the foaming sickness.”

“Don’t just stand there gawping, Phreneus,” Scar said, never slackening his grip on Atalanta’s arms. “Use that leather cord of yours to tie her up before she does any more harm. How would we explain that at home? Three grown men bested by a child. And a girl at that.”

Atalanta screeched in fury, but kick and wriggle as she might, she could not stop them winding the bonds around her arms and knotting them tightly. The scarred man continued to hold her as she fought in vain to free herself.

“There, that should do, Evenor,” said Phreneus, regarding his work with pride.

“She’s more beast than girl,” said the squat Goryx. “Do you suppose she’s a
maenad,
one of those madwomen who go dancing after the god Dionysus?”

“She’s just a child who’s been abandoned in the woods,” said Evenor, the scarred man. “Who knows how long she’s been running wild out here.” He glanced at her dark hair in its ragged braid, the deep gray eyes. “Looks to be about twelve or so, I’d say.”

“Why do you suppose she attacked us?” Goryx asked, rubbing his wrist where Atalanta had bitten him.

Phreneus shrugged. “If she hadn’t jumped out, we’d never have known she was there.”

Baring her teeth, Atalanta let out the loudest growl she could muster.

Evenor looked thoughtful. “It’s almost as if she’s trying to keep us from something.”

“The pit!” Goryx and Phreneus said together. Goryx added, “Maybe there’s something in it and she wants it for herself.”

Atalanta began to thrash about and moan, anything to slow them down and give Urso more time.

Phreneus’ spear jerked up. “Do you think she understands what we’re saying?”

“I don’t know,” Evenor said. “She may have been out here so long, she’s forgotten human speech. My mother told me of a child like that in her old village. The villagers tamed the child—a boy it was, small with a hump on his back—but he never learned to speak proper. Just made noises like a pig.”

“I bet this one never knew how to speak in the first place,” Goryx said. He put his face near Atalanta’s and made grunting sounds.

Suddenly Pan’s words flashed through Atalanta’s mind. Dream or not, she could hear them clearly. “The lure of one’s own kind is hard to resist.”

Not,
Atalanta thought,
if these are my kind. I can resist
them
forever.
She would
never
speak to them and would let them think what they liked.

She leaned forward and snarled at Goryx so loudly, he snapped his head back as if afraid of being bitten.

“I told you—Harpy’s child!” he cried.

Phreneus laughed. “She has you jumping, Goryx. Leave her be. Let’s check that pit.”

Atalanta twisted and dragged her feet so much that in the end Evenor and Phreneus picked her up and carried her. When they reached the pit, they set her down on the ground and stared into the hole.