Smoke Mountain (5 page)

‘You were saying something about the Big River,' Ujurak prompted.

‘Yes,' Qopuk said. ‘That's the first danger you have to cross to reach the Last Great Wilderness. I've seen it, but I've never crossed it myself. It's a skylength wide, and the currents are very strong. Too strong to swim, even for you, little star,' he said to Kallik. The white cub looked startled. Lusa wondered why. Ashia used to call her ‘little blackberry,' but she liked the name ‘little star' too. It suited Kallik.

‘Then how do we get across?' Ujurak asked.

‘There is one spot where it's possible,' Qopuk said. ‘The river is shallower and calmer if you swim it from the no-claw denning place . . . but be careful,
because it is still very wide and the currents are swift. If you make it across, from there you must follow the Pathway Star beyond Smoke Mountain.' He lifted his nose to the far horizon.

‘You mentioned the mountain last night,' Lusa said. ‘You said it was dangerous.'

‘It is.' Qopuk's eyes closed and he took a long, rattling breath. Finally he opened them once more and looked around in surprise, as if he couldn't remember where he was. His huge chest heaved as he struggled to breathe.

‘Smoke Mountain,' Lusa reminded him. ‘What's there? Why is it so dangerous?'

‘I only know what I've been told,' Qopuk rasped. His dirty white fur rippled as he stretched out one front paw and flexed his claws. ‘I met a bear once who said he had been to the Wilderness and back again. No one believed him . . . they said if the place was so wonderful, why would he come back?' He looked down, drawing a furrow in the earth. ‘But I believed him. His stories were so real, with stranger things than he could have made up. He told me all about Smoke Mountain – about the rocks that burn, and the fire underneath the ground. He said the sky
was full of ash and smoke, stinging your eyes and leaving black powder on your fur and all over the ground, too sticky to be washed away by the rain. The dark rocks stretch for skylengths, hard and jagged underpaw. The air is choking, and it drives bears off their path. And something is lying in wait there . . . something evil.'

Kallik, Lusa and Ujurak all stared at him. The frightening picture in Lusa's mind was so different from the peaceful trees around them that she could hardly believe it existed. Morning dew sparkled on the grass, and she could hear the burble of a small stream under Taqqiq's snoring. A place as terrible as Smoke Mountain seemed very far away.

‘What is it?' Kallik squeaked. ‘The evil?'

‘There is a legend,' Qopuk said softly, ‘that speaks of a giant no-claw as tall as seven trees.'

Lusa and Kallik gasped.

‘He lived on Smoke Mountain many moons ago,' Qopuk went on. ‘Every step he took was a skylength wide. The trees themselves quaked in fear when he walked by. And he was hungry – always hungry.

‘Then a snow-sky came that was longer than ever before, and fiercely cold. The no-claw had nothing to
eat for many days. When the snow-sky finally passed, his hunger was so ferocious that he went into the mountains and killed every bear he could find.'

‘Oh, no!' Lusa cried.

‘He killed
thirty bears
,' Qopuk said darkly. Lusa looked down at her paws. She knew she had four of those. Was thirty a lot more? ‘And then he burned them the way no-claws burn their food. He hung them over a fire near a huge rock – the bear I met said he had seen the very rock, which he called Bear Rock. And then the giant no-claw ate all thirty bears.'

‘I didn't think no-claws
ate
bears,' Kallik whispered.

‘Well, this one did,' Qopuk said. ‘And according to the legend, his spirit still haunts the mountain. They say that when the smoke thickens, the no-claw is lighting his fire and searching for bears to eat.'

Lusa buried her muzzle in Kallik's fur, trying to block out the screams of bears that rang in her head.

‘That's really horrible.' Ujurak wrinkled his nose. ‘There
must
be another way to the Last Great Wilderness.'

‘I have heard of another path,' Qopuk said, lowering his head. All three cubs leaned closer. ‘It is much longer. And it has its dangers too.'

‘Tell us,' Ujurak prompted, touching his snout to the old bear's.

‘Cross the Big River and then follow it all the way to the Ice Sea,' Qopuk rasped. ‘If you make it through the sinking sands and the waves that try to sweep you out into the ocean . . . if you can survive there . . . it is possible to reach the Last Great Wilderness along the shore.' He took one long, shuddering breath and lay down. Branches and leaves crunched under his massive weight as he settled to the ground and rested his head on his paws. His eyes slowly closed.

Lusa padded closer to him and pressed her fur to his. ‘I am so glad you'll be with us on our journey,' she whispered to him. ‘You can show us the way – and we can help you find the end of your path.'

Qopuk didn't answer. His chest rose and fell quietly as he breathed. Lusa pawed some soft leaves around him and stepped back. Ujurak was watching her with large dark eyes.

‘We should let him sleep as long as he wants,'
Lusa decided, ‘so when he wakes up he'll be strong enough to travel.'

Kallik blinked, stretching forward to sniff the old bear. ‘I hope he has some nice stories to tell us as well.'

Lusa picked up the moss and trotted down to the water to soak it again. After a few moments, she realised that Ujurak was right behind her. She lifted her head and looked around.

‘Lusa,' he said. ‘I'm sorry. Qopuk isn't coming with us.'

‘Yes, he is!' Lusa mumbled around the wad of moss. ‘He knows the way – and how to avoid Smoke Mountain! We need him!'

‘He would come with us if he could,' said Ujurak. ‘But this is our journey to make. Not his.'

Lusa tipped her head to one side and stared at him. ‘You mean you won't let him come?'

‘It's not like that.' The breeze picked up, and a pair of bright green leaves fluttered down between them. Ujurak lowered his head and touched one of them with his nose. He looked sad. ‘He's so old and tired, Lusa. It's time for his spirit to go on without him.'

Lusa's claws sank into the ground.

‘No!' she growled. ‘You're wrong!' She dropped the moss and raced back to Qopuk. The old white bear was still breathing – but his breaths were slower and shallower now, his flank barely lifting. Lusa felt as if she had swallowed a stone. Qopuk was tired beyond sleep. Ujurak was right: he would never leave this place.

Kallik was leaning against the bear's shoulder, touching one of his paws with hers. Her fur looked bright white against Qopuk's greyer, flattened pelt, and her belly was plump and sleek beside his hollow ribs.

‘Qopuk?' Lusa whispered.

The old white bear opened one eye. It was dull and glazed. ‘Please stay with me, little ones,' he said in a voice that creaked like tree branches in the wind. ‘It won't be long now.'

‘Can't
you
stay?' Lusa begged. ‘Stay with us. We need you. We can go to the Last Great Wilderness together. Please.'

Qopuk let out a sigh that ruffled the tufts of grass in front of his muzzle. ‘You must be careful,' he warned. ‘Smoke Mountain is more dangerous than you will ever understand. But the Last Great
Wilderness is real . . . and you will get there without me, brave little bears.' His growl trailed off into silence and his eyelid slid shut.

Lusa huddled beside Kallik and pressed against the old bear's shoulder. ‘Qopuk,' she whispered.

‘He's gone,' Ujurak said from behind her.

Just like that?
Lusa looked up at the solid mass of white fur. It was still warm, and the hairs still wafted in the breeze. But something was different. Where there had been a feeling of tiredness and worry, there was just emptiness. It was something more than silence, more than stillness. Qopuk's spirit had gone.

She glanced around, wondering if she could see it slip into one of the trees. Surely it would take a very big tree to hold the spirit of a bear like Qopuk. But it was different for white bears, wasn't it? They weren't born under trees. What if they died, like Qopuk, so far from the frozen world that they loved? Was there room in these trees for a bear like him?

‘What happens to a white bear's spirit?' Lusa asked Kallik. ‘Black bears go into the trees. Sometimes you can see their faces in the bark.'

Kallik lowered her muzzle and met Lusa's gaze.
Her eyes were troubled. ‘They become part of the ice,' she said. ‘And when the ice melts, they go into the sky to join the ice spirits. But I don't know what happens if there's no ice for them. Maybe he goes straight into the sky.' She glanced up at the sky, where the sun was blazing beyond the tree cover.

‘That would make sense,' Ujurak said.

Lusa thought so too. ‘It's so sad,' she said. ‘All his life Qopuk wanted to go to the Last Great Wilderness – and then he died on the way. He never got to see it, after dreaming about it for so long.'

Kallik stood up and paced around the dead bear. ‘I don't know what to do,' she confessed. ‘I feel like we should say something, but I don't know the right words. Mother never had time to teach me.' Her voice went croaky and she buried her nose in Qopuk's fur.

‘Do you know, Ujurak?' Lusa asked.

He shook his head. ‘Brown bears cover dead bears with leaves and earth,' he said, ‘to help their spirits find their way back to the Great Salmon River. Maybe we could do that?'

Kallik nodded. ‘We can't leave him like this. He looks . . . lonely.'

Lusa knew what she meant. She picked up a twig that still had leaves clinging to it, and reached up to lay it on Qopuk's back.

Kallik scooped a pile of leaves up with one paw and spread them over Qopuk's front legs. ‘I'm sorry it isn't snow,' she said softly. ‘I'm sorry you didn't get to see the ice again before you died.'

Lusa pawed the leaves higher around Qopuk's head, but she couldn't bear to cover his face. ‘Goodbye,' she whispered. ‘I hope your spirit watches over us while we finish your journey. We'll try to find the Last Great Wilderness for you.'

‘Go well, spirit of Qopuk,' Kallik said solemnly. ‘I hope the ice spirits find you. I hope we see you again, dancing in the Place of the Endless Ice.'

Ujurak put some moss on Qopuk's flank, where it quivered like feathers in the wind. He dipped his head. ‘Farewell, Qopuk,' he murmured. ‘May your spirit travel safely, wherever it goes.'

He hooked his claws in a leafy branch that had fallen to the ground and dragged it over to the white bear's body. Lusa and Kallik helped him lay it gently over Qopuk's back.

‘We were so lucky to meet you, Qopuk,' Lusa said.

Kallik tilted her head to the side and gave Lusa a thoughtful look. ‘You know, if we hadn't come down here,' she said, ‘we wouldn't have met Qopuk. We wouldn't have heard about the Last Great Wilderness.'

‘True,' Lusa said cautiously. She could guess where Kallik was going with this.

‘So it's a
good
thing we listened to Taqqiq, isn't it?' Kallik went on. ‘Maybe he's meant to be with us after all?'

Lusa winced. She definitely did not want Taqqiq to start making more suggestions. If he started arguing with Ujurak over everything, this journey would become more difficult than getting honey out of her fur.

Lusa heard Toklo's pawsteps behind her and turned. The brown bear was carrying another hare in his jaws. Toklo glanced at the earth and leaves covering the old bear's fur and lowered his head. Lusa knew he recognised what they'd tried to do for Qopuk.

Beneath the tree where they'd slept, Taqqiq stretched and yawned, climbing slowly to his paws. He trotted over and blinked at the other bears.

‘Is that old whale-breath dead yet?' he demanded. He peered around them at the large shape of Qopuk. ‘Looks like it.
Smells
like it too.'

‘Taqqiq, show some respect,' Kallik scolded him. ‘He was a kind, wise old bear, and he told us where we need to go next.'

‘Old doesn't always mean wise,' Taqqiq snapped. ‘Sometimes it means nothing but melting snowballs are left in your head.'

‘He knew so much about the journey,' Kallik pointed out.

‘We're going to listen to that mangy old rotfood eater?' Taqqiq objected.

Can we leave Qopuk's body in peace, please?' Lusa begged. Her fur was heavy with sadness for Qopuk, and she hated hearing Taqqiq talk like that when the old bear had just died. She turned and headed down to the lakeshore.

Toklo caught up with her as she splashed into the water. He dropped his newkill on the stones and said, ‘Are you all right, Lusa?'

She drew her claws across the pebbly lake bottom, watching the marks disappear in a swirl of sand and water. ‘I just . . . I feel sad that he didn't get to finish
his journey. It's hard to believe someone could die in the middle of something like that and never get to the end. It never occurred to me that any of us might not get there . . . you know?'

‘We will get there,' Toklo promised. ‘All of us together.'

‘But not Qopuk,' Lusa pointed out. ‘How will his spirit know where to go? What if he never finds the ice again?' The water eddied and rippled around her paws, tinged with streaks of yellow from the sun that was peeking through the tree branches.

‘At least he didn't die alone,' Toklo told her. ‘And maybe he was happy because he had a chance to tell
us
where to go, so we can finish his journey for him.'

‘Maybe,' Lusa said. She waded back to shore and bumped him with her nose. ‘Thanks, Toklo.'

As the bears ate, Kallik and Lusa explained what Qopuk had told them.

‘Don't you see?' Lusa said to Toklo, her eyes shining. ‘We know where to go now. Qopuk told us the way to the Last Great Wilderness! This is exactly what we needed.'