Journey of the Pale Bear by Susan Fletcher

Author:Susan Fletcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

CHAPTER 30

Galumphing Grace

SHE RAN WITH an easy, galumphing grace, and I halfway wanted to follow the children into the berry bushes, and I halfway wanted to go to the bear and greet her, because she was the closest thing I had to a friend in this place. She had left me unharmed in her cage. She had borne me through the sea. She had slept beside me and warmed me. Still, a clamoring of inner voices said, She’s a bear! Run! Run!

But my stepfather had told me never to run from a bear, because you will look like prey. And an ice bear can outrun you every time. So I forced myself to be still, to root my feet to the ground.

She slowed as she approached me. She made a little grunting sound, a sound like a welcome. She stretched out her head toward me and shook it in a way that seemed almost playful. She grunted again and then brushed past me, filling my nose with the scent of her. She began sniffing along the edge of the brambles.

All the air whooshed out of me. I hadn’t truly thought she would harm me, but still . . .

Something glinted down low in the mass of bushes where the girl and the boy had disappeared. On the ground: the girl’s curved knife. I picked it up, ran a finger along the blade. It was a good knife, sharp and clean. And my knife probably lay on the bottom of the sea.

The bear was rummaging deep into the bramble patch, holding the branches with her paws and sweeping up ripe berries with her tongue.

All at once, her head whipped up. She sniffed at the air, seeming puzzled.

Voices. Deeper ones this time.

Four or five men and boys appeared at a distance, beyond the brambles. Some of them began to shout and wave their arms like henwives driving their birds.

The bear turned to me, as if to ask what I made of this strange behavior.

A stocky man with a bushy, russet-colored beard reached for something behind his back—and nocked an arrow in his bow.

The bear wheeled round and crashed through the bushes, toward me. An arrow arced high in the air and, with a sickening thunk, embedded itself into her flank.

She roared. The man loosed three more arrows in quick succession; one zinged by me so close, I felt it sting my ear.

The bear hurtled past, and still clutching the girl’s knife, I took off running too.

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