Wildfire Season by Pyper Andrew

Author:Pyper, Andrew [Pyper, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2005-01-21T15:25:57+00:00

With every sting between her claws or on the moist puck of her nose, the bear feels whatever advantage she might have started with in the morning racing away. Not only do the human hunters pursue them now but so do a handful of yellowjackets. Circling, blinding, chainsawing in her ears. A few of them using her mouth as a fountain, licking at the saliva that foams around her chops. She is thankful that the wasps have elected to focus all of their punishments on her and leave the cubs alone.

The wasps have come with her so far because she is carrying them. Deep in the fur at the top of her back, a queen has colonized the hump of the bear’s shoulders.

The sow would like to stop and roll onto her back, wriggle over the blades of loose shale so that her tormentors would be sliced into a thousand twitching bits. She’d like to drown them by running over the crest and down to the river, crouching in the cold water until their striped corpses bobbed on the surface. She’d like to howl in self-pity. But there isn’t the time to stop now, and a mountain crossing would leave them fully exposed to view for miles around. Even complaint is barred to her.

She counts each new sting as a provocation. In time, the hunters and the yellowjackets become parties to the same offence. There will be an end to running, she knows. And when it comes, the bear is glad that there will be something left in her for them.

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