Bear Adventure

by Anthony McGowan

  She stood again on the flat top of the mountain – a space no bigger than a kitchen table – and turned slowly round, trying to bring into focus what it was that was needling her.

  There.

  In a valley between two lower hills. Something strange about the trees. Something not natural.

  She put the binoculars to her eyes again and twisted the focusing ring. Blurred and then sharp. Suddenly the trees that had been so far away seemed almost close enough to touch.

  Yes, there definitely seemed to be a pattern. The trees had been cut and arranged in a way that looked man-made. It almost reminded Amazon of Frazer’s lean-to shelter that had protected them the previous night. The branches of the spruce and pine seemed to form a roof. A roof over what? She refocused the binoculars. There, a glint of something just projecting from the boughs. She took the binoculars away and looked with her naked eyes. Was there also a lighter grey showing up against the slate grey of the sky? Something that could be a wisp of smoke?

  Once more she looked through the binoculars.

  And now she was sure that she knew what it was, lying there beneath the deliberate camouflage of the branches.

  A tangle of wreckage. A tangle of wreckage in which Amazon could make out something long and slender …

  It was a plane.

  A plane that had crashed.

  And there, above it, a tendril of smoke from a dying fire.

  That could mean only one thing …

  Her head spun and she so nearly fell from that flat mountaintop. She boiled and bubbled with excitement, hope and fear.

  She looked towards Frazer and the others. They seemed so far away. But something – some special sense – told her that Frazer was looking at her. She waved her arms frantically. And yes, he waved back. He could see her. She screamed at the top of her voice.

  ‘PLANE! MY PARENTS’ PLANE!’

  Frazer waved again. She heard his voice calling back, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  Amazon looked back to the plane. The slope on that side of the mountain was smooth and easy. She could literally run down that hill, the way she had countless times as a girl in the English countryside, right into the waiting arms of her dad. She could get down there to her parents in minutes. The alternative was the difficult and dangerous and time-consuming journey back down the tough side to the others, and then the agonizingly slow trek round the mountain to the crash site. And what if something happened to Ling-Mei and Roger in that time? There were bears, wolves, cougars … She would never forgive herself.

  She waved again at Frazer, getting his attention. She pointed back down to where the wreck was. She tried to signal that she was going to go straight down to it, and that he should follow the line of the mountain round to meet her. Again Frazer waved back.

  It was enough for Amazon. He’d understood. He would meet her there. It’s what she wanted to believe. Without another thought, she plunged down towards the plane, towards her longed-for reunion with her mum and dad.

  Frazer looked up at Amazon. The steady drizzle was in his eyes. He wiped them clear with the sleeve of his jacket. His cousin was waving, and he sensed that she was shouting something. Was it a warning? He waved and shouted back.

  ‘Are you OK, Zonnie? What can you see?’

  He could tell that she was excited. Or agitated. Or frightened.

  ‘Can we go home now, please,’ whined Ben. He was soaked to the skin and shivering. Frazer had tried to keep them all warm by playing tag, but the little boy was even more tired than he was cold.

  ‘Soon, little guy,’ he said. ‘Real soon. Amazon is just trying to find the right path. You just carry on being a brave soldier. Remember, you’re the guy with the spear.’

  Ben looked at the spear in his hand, and then threw it away.

  ‘Don’t want the spear. Don’t want you. Don’t want Zomazon. Want my mommy and my daddy.’

  The little boy then cast himself down on the bleak, shelterless hillside and cried his heart out, his sobs echoing off the hard rock.

  Frazer moved to comfort him. He got there in a second, but Goldilocks was there before him, nuzzling at Ben’s neck and face. Frazer crouched over both of them, trying to share his warmth, using his body to protect them from the rain.

  When he next looked up to where Amazon had been at the top of the mountain, he saw nothing but huge grey skies, and the looming black of storm clouds. Even as he looked, he felt a change in the texture of the rain that had been falling. It was harder now – not in the sense that more of it was falling. No, it was harder because it had undergone the subtle change from rain to sleet.

  And those black clouds above them could mean only one thing. That the sleet was going to turn to snow. The first big fall of the season.

  ‘Where are you, Zonnie?’ he said to himself, hoping that he would see her again soon as she came over one of the ridges.

  ‘Where are you?’

  Amazon didn’t climb, walk or even run down the side of the mountain.

  She flew.

  Her feet moved so quickly that they barely made contact with the ground. It was a miracle that she didn’t trip or slip and fall. Had she done so, it might well have been fatal. She could have slid, gathering momentum until she crashed into one of the boulders that littered the slope, and broken her neck.

  But this was not Amazon Hunt’s time to die.

  She was down the mountain in twenty minutes. Another ten took her to the opening of the gully where the wreck was. The smoke from the fire was gone now, either obscured by the trees or drowned out by the rain.

  No, not rain, sleet now.

  She called out, her voice harsh and cracked with emotion.

  ‘Mum, Dad, I’m here! I’m here!’

  She felt like a tiny child again, in need of their comfort and protection, but also like a hero, their rescuer, the person who had come to save them.

  ‘Mummy!’ she screamed again, as she ran through a stream, the freezing water splashing unnoticed over her legs. She couldn’t see the wreck any longer, but she knew that it was here, just beyond this bend in the gully.

  Her lungs ached, but ached in some remote place, some unimportant part of her, so she ignored the discomfort and sped on.

  And there it was, hidden beneath the overhanging branches: the tangle of torn metal.

  The plane was tiny – smaller than the little floatplane that Uncle Hal had flown them in on. Amazon ran past the wheels of the undercarriage, which had been torn off in the crash-landing. A crash-landing she was now imagining all too vividly. She saw that the windscreen had been shattered, and the tail section completely sheared off.

  ‘Mum! Dad!’ she called again. But already she knew that her shouts were futile.

  There was nobody here. She was alone, beside a wrecked plane in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. The sleet struck heavily against her face and mingled with the tears. It was hopeless. So hopeless. Her parents were dead and gone.

  Dead and gone.

  It had taken Frazer half an hour to realize that Amazon wasn’t coming down the mountain. Or at least wasn’t coming down on this side of the mountain. He replayed again the gestures she had made, tried to extract some sense from the words she had screamed down at him – words carried away by the wind.

  She seemed to be pointing down to the far side of the mountain. Had she seen something? Had she been trying to tell him to meet her there? Or was she warning him against some approaching danger?

  Whatever it was, he couldn’t wait here. The sleet was now steady and turning to snow. The bear and the boy were freezing. If they stayed on this bleak mountainside, they were going to die.

  But it wasn’t just that. Frazer wasn’t a waiting around kind of person. He had to find shelter. Build a fire. And find Amazon.

  He looked at Ben and Goldilocks, huddled together, both looking as wretched as each other.

  ‘Well, guys, I think it’s time we did something rather special. How many times do you thin
k a kid and a bear and a teenager have ridden together on a mountain bike?’

  ‘I d-don’t know,’ said Ben. For the first time in ages he sounded interested. ‘Maybe n-not ever?’

  ‘You’re right. Maybe never. But we’re going to do it now.’

  Five minutes later, Frazer was wearing the backpack slung round his front, so that the little bear’s inquisitive face was right in his. Ben was sitting on the saddle again, his arms round Frazer.

  ‘OK, guys, you hang on tight. We’re off-trail now, so this is going to be a bumpy ride. You up for it?’

  ‘You bet!’ said Ben, who did sound like he was enjoying himself.

  Goldilocks licked Frazer’s face.

  ‘Eew! Tell you one thing, little lady, we are so going to brush your teeth when we get home.’

  And, with that, Frazer kicked off. He intended to travel round the base of the mountain to meet Amazon on the other side. It was the only thing he could think to do. He would stay just above the treeline, trying to keep to relatively flat ground.

  If he didn’t bump into Amazon where he was hoping to find her then he’d build up a great big fire and that would let her know where he was.

  It might not have been the greatest plan in the history of the world, but at least it was one. And any plan was better than no plan, unless, as his old friend Bluey used to say, that plan is covering your naked body in honey and rolling around on a nest of fire ants while singing ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’.

  His wounds were deep, but not mortal. The fight had raged through the forest. Up hills and down hills; splashing through icy lakes; crashing through briars and brambles.

  He had taken many bites, but he had also inflicted much hurt upon the others. Finally the dark one had come, waiting until he thought the pale giant was almost spent. He was lying down, the blood oozing into the wet earth from a hundred wounds. The black wolf had hissed words in the wolf tongue, words of threat and also of relish. They were going to start feeding upon him while he still breathed.

  But, when the black wolf leapt at his throat, the bear found the strength for one last mighty swat, and the huge paw with its great curving claws dealt the wolf a blow that would have been mortal had the wily animal not swerved at the last second, and so took the hit on the shoulder and not his head.

  The other wolves, seeing their leader vanquished, hurried away, leaving the great bear to pant and bleed and, slowly, recover.

  In an hour he was able to begin the search for the camp. He followed first his own trail, and then the smell of the fire came back to him. Now he galloped through the forest, forgetting stealth.

  He burst into the clearing …

  And there was nothing. Nothing except for the dead bones of the fire, and the shelter made from pine branches. The bear raged and rampaged, smashing the shelter, scattering the ashes of the fire. A huge pressure built up within his breast. He would find them. There would be revenge.

  His nose got to work, and soon he located the strange scent trail. It was a mix of things. Some living, some dead. There was still the smell of the small bear, but it was so faint. That didn’t matter. The smell of the human killers was strong enough to follow. He bounded after them, death in his heart.

  It took fifteen minutes for Amazon to cry herself out. Her mind was blasted with images of her beloved mother and father. Of them all playing together in the park. Of the heartbreak of the many partings, as they set off on another expedition; of the corresponding joy when they returned.

  Her grief didn’t have any more of a basis than the fact that she had been convinced that she would see her father’s shy smile and her mother’s beautiful face again, and had found, in reality, an empty plane and a deserted campsite.

  And, of course, there was no indication that it had even been her parents’ aircraft. There were probably dozens of crashed planes scattered across this forest. This one might have been here for years. The fire might have been lit by campers making use of the site.

  No, there was no hope, no hope at all that Amazon would see her parents again.

  But then, as the torrent of grief subsided, she began to think. And to explore. And to hope. This was exactly where Hal had thought her parents would be. It was possible that they had simply left for a day of foraging, that they would come back.

  She looked into the cabin of the aircraft. There were signs that people had been living there. Two sleeping bags were arranged on the floor. And something else. She had a very strong feeling of a certain sequence of events. There had been the crash, which had damaged the plane and smashed up the interior. But there was no blood, no obvious signs of fatal injuries. That was good.

  Then there had been a clean-up. Some sort of domestic harmony had been restored here. There were even dried flowers in a cup on the broken dashboard of the plane.

  It meant that whoever had crashed had survived. And then had stayed here for a while.

  But then there was a final archaeological layer of chaos. The attempt to make the plane a comfortable habitation had been disrupted. There was mess everywhere. The sleeping bags had, by the look of them, been cut open and the filling of downy feathers scattered around.

  Amazon climbed out of the plane, more mystified than ever. She went back to the dying fire. There was still a little warmth from it, although the sleet had killed the last of the embers. A little wall of rocks and turf had been built up round the fire, as if to hide its flames from the world, which seemed strange.

  Then she explored further from the plane.

  Wherever she went she saw signs of what had been a tidy campsite suddenly turned upside down. Logs from a once neatly stacked woodpile were scattered and kicked around. And, nearby, she found an empty rucksack, with the contents strewn over the ground.

  Amazon tried to remember if she had seen her parents with a rucksack like it. She couldn’t, but it was quite new, and so they might have bought it since she had last been with them. The stuff that had been tipped out had blown far and wide. She went around to each piece – a glove here, a T-shirt there – and tried to recognize them, even smelling them to see if they retained any essence of her parents.

  There was one blue shirt that she was sure her mother had bought for her father, two Christmases ago. But it was so hard to tell.

  Amazon went back to the fire. On the way she came across an area of tussocky grass that was weirdly flattened. It was a circle perhaps ten metres across. She wondered what could have caused this. A herd of animals of some kind? Uncle Hal had said that there were forest bison up here – could they do this?

  But it was too cold for such speculation. And it wasn’t going to help Amazon find her parents. She was shivering now. And she suddenly remembered Frazer and the bear and the boy. She had rushed away from the mountaintop without thinking of them.

  Had Frazer understood her signalled message?

  Well, he wasn’t here, so probably not. He was almost certainly still waiting for her, a long trek round the base of the mountain. In the continuing sleet that was now turning to snow, proper snow with big flakes floating and swirling in complicated patterns.

  There was no point moping. Her parents weren’t here. She would go and meet the others, and they would somehow try to make it back to the first camp before nightfall.

  Amazon put her cold hands next to the fire to try to extract the last of the warmth from the damp ashes before she set off.

  And then she heard the roar.

  Roar wasn’t quite the right word for the sound that Amazon Hunt heard coming from the monster that towered over her. Roar suggests only power, might, anger. But this bellow had more pain in it than any of those.

  Amazon, still crouching by the dead fire, was looking up at the biggest living creature she had ever been close to, with the exception of the elephants at London Zoo.

  And something rather strange happened.

  One part of her brain surged with blinding, deafening, paralysing terror. That was the sane part of her mind, the part that knew tha
t she was about to be torn apart and probably eaten by a creature big enough to break the windows on the top deck of a bus. But another part of her brain, the insane, bizarro, loop-the-loop part, remained astonishingly cool and lucid. That part of her brain managed to observe this mega-beast with painful clarity.

  She knew, of course, that it was a bear, but after that she was perplexed. Like the beautiful spirit bears, this was a pale golden colour. But Amazon could see immediately that this was no spirit bear – which was, after all, only a subspecies of black bear. The biggest black bears were not even half the size of this monster.

  Although more yellow than white, its colour made her think of a polar bear. And it did look a little like one. But two things ruled that out. The shape was wrong. Its neck was broad and thick, not long and sinuous, like a polar bear. And the face was too wide, and the muzzle too short. Most of all, this bear had a huge hump of muscle on its back, between the shoulder blades. She knew that that meant it must be a grizzly. But, even apart from the colour, there was something distinctly ungrizzlyish about this bear.

  And no grizzly, she thought, had ever been quite this big.

  The bear had been standing on its back legs, staring at her. She’d read that they did that not to intimidate, but simply so they could get a better look at what they were about to attack. And now, with a sound that she felt in the balls of her feet, the huge bear crunched back down on to all fours.

  It snorted twice, pulling her scent deep into its sensitive nose, and then it began to walk towards her. Not a charge, and not an amble – this was a purposeful, businesslike walk. It was the walk of a bear that has work to do. It was the walk of a bear about to eat.