Blue Mountain (6 page)

Dall came to his side. “Come look, Tuk,” she said.

She led him to the west side of the clearing and they jumped onto a great boulder muscling out of the earth.

To the west, Tuk could see another mountain, not as thickly treed, but higher, and spotty with meadows among the forests.

“Another mountain,” Dall said, shaking her head. “With forests.”

“But some meadows,” Tuk said. Below them, between treed mountain upon which they stood and meadow mountain in the distance, a valley cupped the fog like a great white lake. The fog shifted and stirred but gave no clues as to what was beneath. At the north end was a break in the fog, and there they could see a river pouring into the valley, split into two shallow arms. At the south end they could see the river flow into a corridor between low mountains.

“Look, Dall, beyond meadow mountain.” The peak of blue mountain had just appeared above a bank of cloud, like an island in water. “Do you see it?”

Dall looked and her mouth opened. “Yes, I see it! But—it floats. How can we live on a mountain that floats?”

Tuk and Dall searched out another creek bed going down the west side of treed mountain. When they found it, it was slick with water, but passable for steady bighorn feet.

When they returned to the band, Mouf said, her mouth full of grass, “I smell that wolverine. It makes my food taste funny.”

Tuk thought he could smell wolf, too, but perhaps it was only a memory stuck in his nose.

Down they walked, down and down treed mountain, and behind them the wolverine followed, plodding and relentless.

After a long day of miserable trekking, finding little more to eat, they finally came to a grassy area more than halfway to the bottom. They could smell water and something rank coming up from the valley, but the trees blocked their view.

“We'll stay here tonight,” Dall said.

“In the trees again?” Mouf asked.

“Mouf,” Nai said irritably, “be still. You're making me jumpy, startling at every little thing.”

“We are all a bit jumpy,” Dall said. She and Sham scraped out their beds beside Mouf. Tuk and Rim and Ovis again took turns to watch. Though they could smell the wolverine skulking nearby, he did not close the gap he had maintained all day.

 

BEAR

 

When the sun rose the next day, the band finished the short trek to the flats and emerged from the trees. The wolverine followed, keeping the same measured distance he had kept the day before. Tuk, last in line, felt his haunches quivering, imagining the wolverine's claws in his back.

In the near distance was a fast river. A pair of white owls floated silently on the air to the north as the band approached the banks. Snow melted and fell into the water chunk by chunk. Shining fish darted just above the ice-scrubbed stones of the bottom.

“We will have to cross it,” Dall said. “It's shallow enough here, I think.”

“Yes, when I am ready,” Mouf said.

Dall shook her head. “We must cross it today for the sake of Wen. We must be at the lambing cliffs of blue mountain in time for Sham to have her lamb.”

“Wen is the important one,” Mouf said. She sniffed. “Something smells bad. Worse than wolverine.”

Dall stepped into the water and then stopped, stiff-legged, as a great rise of earth suddenly came to life. It had not been earth at all, but an enormous old bear. He stood on hind legs and looked at them from the opposite bank of the river. His head was boulder-sized and his paws had claws like tree branches.

The bear licked his lips as Dall stepped back out of the water. The band lined up along the bank.

“Sheeps!” the bear called, falling onto all fours. “My river. You step in, I eat.”

“You can't own the whole river,” Rim said.

“Part,” old bear said. “This part. Step in, find out.”

“You can't eat us all,” Tuk said.

“Just one. Which?” said the bear. He laid his head down on his soddy paws and stared.

“The little one's mine!” the wolverine called from behind them.

“Now what do we do?” Rim asked the others.

“The bear knows we can run back up the creek bed if he comes after us,” Tuk said, “so he won't cross the river. Maybe he'll get hungry and go away.”

They drank from the river and rested on the east bank, but hours later the old bear had not gone away. He fished a little and found grubs under rocks, but mostly he gazed at the band and drooled. Once they heard a mouse squeal and the scuffling of the wolverine.

“Why does the bear want to eat us when he can eat fish and grubs?” Mouf asked.

Tuk told her what Kenir had taught him about the bear.

When the mountain made the bear, she asked him, “What would you like to eat, bear?”

“All,” said bear.

“All? You want to eat grass and leaves?”

“Yes,” said bear. “And meat.”

“And meat also?”

“Yes,” said bear, “and bugs and berries and bighorn.”

The mountain said, “Denu, the bear wants to eat your kind.”

Lord Denu considered. Then he said, “The bighorn were given all we wished, and we are happy. But sometimes getting all you wish for is not always best.”

“All,” said bear. “I wish all.”

The mountain gave the bear his wish.

The bear ate grass and leaves and bugs and berries and fish and meat—everything. Sometimes he even ate bighorn. Many, many years passed and the bear grew fat, but still it was not enough. One sad day he found man's garbage. As foul as it was, the bear was wild to eat it. So he feasted, and as his belly got bigger his dignity got smaller. He became familiar with man. An animal cannot be familiar with man unless he becomes his slave. Since bear was too wild to become slavish, man killed him. The bear, who could eat the world, shrank in numbers and spirit, and lost his place as one of the noblest of animals.

The band looked sadly at the bear, who had sniffed morosely through the story.

“Come, sheeps,” the bear said. “Come give old bear just a lick of liver.”

“It is hard to feel sorry for a bear who wishes to eat our livers,” Nai said.

“What is a liver?” Mouf asked.

“I don't know,” Rim said, “but it sounds like something I need to be happy.”

“It is a part of you,” said Ovis.

“Yes, part,” said old bear. “Step in, I eat part.”

Dall said, “We will cross elsewhere.” And she led them away.

The bear called after them, “Sheeps, sheeps!” as the band wandered south along the river. As soon as they were out of the bear's sight, the river deepened and the band sensed dangerous undercurrents. The bank's underbrush became impassable and they could go no farther. Still the wolverine followed.

Dall turned back the way they had come, and they followed her until they had returned to the shallows and the old bear. He called out to them, but they ignored him and walked north. Again the river became deep and uncrossable, and the bank's underbrush too dense to penetrate.

“That is why he fishes there. It is the best place,” Dall said.

Ever the wolverine followed at the same distance behind, out of sight in the trees but never out of smell. The band returned to the shallows and the bear, and once again lined up along the bank of the river. The afternoon was wearing on.

“Liver for crossing river,” the old bear said. “Come, let me gnaw and nibble, just one…”

With the wolverine at his back and the bear at his front, Tuk's belly was as icy as the river. His horns itched and pained. The river rushed over the rocks and the snow-crusted ice fell into the water with a splash.

“If we crossed,” Tuk said, “most of us could outrun him. But not Sham, and probably not Mouf.”

Dall nodded her head in weary agreement.

“I want to fight him,” Tuk said.

“Tuk wants to give the bear his liver,” Mouf said evenly to Dall.

What good was speed and agility in the high places going to do them now, Tuk wondered. Of course, there was always trickery. He thought for a time and then said, “I might have a plan.”

“Plan?” said old bear. “I eat plan.”

“Tell me,” said Dall.

“He's listening. You must trust me, Dall.”

Dall hesitated, and then nodded.

Tuk called out, “Old bear, if you will let the others cross and go on, I will give you one bite of one part of me. After that, you must let me go.”

Dall gasped.

Mouf said, “That's nice of you, Tuk.”

“First I bite part?” the bear called. “Then you go?”

“Yes,” Tuk answered. “Not all. One bite of one part. Then you let me run away.”

“Ha,” said the bear. “But if you don't run, I eat all.”

“Go now,” Tuk said to the others. “When you are on the other side, keep going until I catch up to you. Mouf and Sham, you must run as fast as you can.”

“What are you thinking?” Dall asked.

Tuk, knowing the bear could hear everything, said, “Go, and don't look back.”

Dall shook her head, and, with a low-stretch bow to Tuk, stepped gingerly into the river. The other ewes followed, and old bear watched them, salivating. Rim and Ovis stayed with him until the last.

“Go with them,” Tuk said to his mates.

“No,” Rim said.

“It will do them no good to get to blue mountain with no rams,” Tuk said.

Ovis nodded and crossed behind the ewes. On the opposite bank he looked back, hung his head, and continued through the brush after the ewes.

“Now you, Rim,” Tuk said.

Rim said nothing, and neither did he move.

Together the two young rams stepped into the river.

“We made bargain,” old bear said. “Animals speak true.”

Tuk said, “Yes, animals speak true. One bite of one part.”

A string of drool suspended from the bear's mouth to his paw. “After one bite, you don't feel good. You don't run away. I get liver.”

Slowly Tuk and Rim made their way across the cold river. Slowly they climbed from the river onto the bank and faced the old bear. He was as big as two king rams together, his teeth like a row of little horns.

Tuk heard the wolverine behind them splash into the river. He would want to make sure he got his share of a bear kill.

“Ewes be back soon when they come to bog,” the old bear said.

“Bog?” Tuk said.

“Now part,” said old bear, chomping and lumbering toward Tuk and Rim.

“I didn't say which part yet,” Tuk said, holding his ground. “I get to choose, as we bargained.”

“Yes, part, part, which part?” old bear growled happily. “Leg? Shoulder?”

“Horn,” Tuk said, lowering his head.

Old bear stopped in his tracks. “Horn? Horn not tasty and drippy with blood. Horn dry and crunchy.”

“Take a bite from one of my horns, as we bargained. Then you must let us go.”

Old bear growled and bared his teeth. Tuk heard more splashing in the river. The wolverine was coming closer.

“I eat anyway,” old bear said.

“Animals speak true,” Tuk said. “We had a bargain.”

“My river,” old bear said. “I eat what follows you.”

In a movement as quick and slick as a fish, the bear was up and in the water. The wolverine opened his mouth to show his long teeth, and as Tuk and Rim vanished into the brush, bear and wolverine fought tooth and claw.

 

OTTER

 

The ewes and Ovis leaped and ran to Tuk and Rim as they emerged from the trees on the west side of the river. Rim told them how they had escaped the bear as they continued walking west, away from the river. They laughed to hear the story. Tuk said to Dall, “Old bear said something about a bog ahead.”

“Bogs are mostly shallow,” she said hopefully.

“We might be able to find another way,” Tuk said. “But—” He stopped and then said very low, “I am sure now. White wolf has picked up our trail and follows us. Can you smell him, Dall?”

“I can.”

“Perhaps a bog would discourage a bear or a wolverine or a wolf,” Tuk said.

The bog was a great emptiness stretching out between them and meadow mountain. Listless water spread over the valley floor and clumps of weeds reached desperately out of the water, as if to keep from drowning. In places an orange scum bubbled on the surface. On leafless trees, long ago drowned, gray plates of fungus grew, frilled and white at the edges. Cloud shadow shifted over the surface water, making Tuk think of dark creatures beneath.

“So this is a bog,” said Rim.

They stood and stared and twitched away the mosquitoes that whined in their ears.

“Maybe we should go around,” Nai said.

Dall said, “If we go through, our scent may be lost in the water.”

“We can swim,” Tuk said, “if it's not too far.” But as he surveyed the bog, he knew it would be too far. The bottom, from what he could tell, was clogged with drowned deadwood.

“Wen disagrees with bogs,” Sham said, shaking her head.

Dall stared at the expanse of still water as if she did not know how to begin.

“Perhaps we could ask him,” Mouf said. “He has been watching us for some time.”

They followed her gaze and saw an otter sitting on a little ark of sticks and debris. He had a coat slick as dark ice.

Seeing that they had discovered him, the otter came closer. “What kind of animal are you?” he asked.

“We are the bighorn,” Tuk said, dropping his head in a brief bow.

“But your horns are not big.”

“We—the males—will have big horns someday,” Tuk said. “We are only yearlings.”

“We mean to cross the bog,” Dall said.

“A bog has channels that you can't see,” the otter said, grinning. “Deep parts, but also shallow parts that are thick with weeds and creepers. And sometimes quicksand.”

“Wen disagrees with quicksand,” Sham said.