Blue Mountain

by Martine Leavitt

“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.

  “I have never seen creatures like you before,” said the otter. “It is boring in a bog. Nothing happens, nothing at all. Oh, you know, your usual death by predator, but other than that— No female otter will come be my mate in such a boring place. But if I help you cross the bog, what a story it would make.”

  “We would be grateful for your help,” Dall said.

  “Follow me. I know where the water is shallow and the footing easier,” the otter said. “You won’t have to swim much, and I hope I won’t lead you through quicksand.”

  “Are you ready?” Dall asked the band.

  Each one nodded.

  The otter slid off his twiggy ark and into the water, light as a leaf. “Not a single female otter nearby to see this,” he complained.

  Dall stepped into the bog to follow him.

  The otter chattered ceaselessly, and somehow the dark bog seemed less forbidding because of it. Sometimes he would stop to fish or to float. Once in a while he got a little too far ahead, but still Tuk could hear him chattering: “… all the river females will want to hear about this, all of them, even the prettiest…”

  Mostly they were in the water only to their knees, and at times only to the tops of their feet. Twice they had to swim, but only a short way.

  As late afternoon became evening, Tuk had almost reached his limit, and he knew Sham and Mouf would be exhausted. When dark began to fall, they were still a distance from the opposite side of the bog.

  The otter had swum far ahead.

  “Otter, come back!” Tuk called.

  “It is time for sleep,” the otter called in reply. “I will come back at first light and lead you the rest of the way. Don’t worry, you’re safe here. That is, you are safe if you don’t move. One step to the left or the right, and you could be caught in the weedy bottoms or the quicksand.”

  “Otter, please…” Dall called, but he was gone.

  In the day the bog had been dark and driftwood floated like bones beneath the surface, but in moonlight the water shone white and flat as a field of snow. After a time the wind came with shrill whistles that fell into Tuk’s ears like burrs, a wind with teeth and wings. He swung his head to fight it.

  “Bats,” Dall said quietly.

  When the moon was almost directly overhead, a chilling howl echoed out of the dark, followed by a watery moan floating over the surface of the water.

  “It is the white wolf,” Tuk said after a silence. “He has made a kill.”

  “It’s good we came by way of the bog so the wolf cannot reach us,” Dall said.

  Somehow it helped Tuk to know that, though they were cold and stiff and sore and tired, at least the wolf could not get at them in the bog.

  The band stood trapped on their sunken island, hour after hour, starting when beavers smacked the water with their heavy tails, then sinking into a soggy near-sleep.

  Once Sham said, “Wen is brave.”

  Later Mouf fell into the deeper water to her right and came up sputtering and scrambling for their underwater island. “I fell asleep,” she said. “Now I am awake.”

  Mostly the night was long and silent. Tuk could hear, in their silence, everyone hoping the otter really would come back. Still the reeds rattled in the wind. Still the stars swelled and shrank and burned cold.

  Finally, when Tuk thought he must sleep in the water whether he drowned or not, he saw in his side vision a gleam of pale light.

  “Dawn,” Rim said with relief. “We’ve made it through the night.”

  Soon the otter came swimming to them. “You’re still here!” he called.

  “Where did you think we would be?” Tuk asked sharply.

  “I wondered if I had imagined you,” the otter said. “Come along, come along. I am cheerful today. I slept so well, dreaming of my mate. I have named my bog ‘bighorn bog.’”

  And so he chattered as they followed him to the west shore of the bog.

  When at last they reached firm soil they stood trembling and weary.

  “Try not to thank me,” the otter said as they fell to grazing.

  “I shall try not to butt you,” Tuk said.

  “Do you know a good way for a bighorn to go up meadow mountain, otter?” Dall asked.

  The otter said grandly, “Yes, I do. And I will tell you and not him. That twisty path there is the long way. And that broad avenue through the trees is the hard way, also called the bee path. And now it is best I go before you get boring.”

  The otter slipped into the water and emerged again far out in the bog. “I am off to find a mate!”

  REST

  Spring had deepened on the other side of the bog. Bees and black butterflies rose from the high grasses. The herd dried their coats in the shy warmth of the spring sun, then bedded down as far from the bog as they could make their weary bodies go. They slept most of the day away.

  When Tuk awoke in the evening, the sun was low and gold and a warm breeze ruffled the surface of the bog. The rest of the herd was feeding on unflowered buffalo beans when Tuk joined them. As he grazed, he searched out the two paths up the mountain that the otter had shown them.

  “So one path is hard and one is long,” Rim said, joining him.

  “It is hard to go long,” Tuk said.

  “It is long to go hard,” Rim said.

  “He said the broad path was the bee path. What do you think he meant by that?” Tuk asked.

  “I don’t know. We can
stay here for a few days and think about it.”

  Mouf, overhearing them, said, “That is a good idea, Rim. I like that plan better than Tuk’s plans, which have bogs and blue mountains in them.”

  “Mouf,” Sham said, “are you forgetting Wen?”

  “Oh, yes,” Mouf said sadly. “Wen. The most important one.”

  “We will take one path or the other at dawn,” Dall said.

  Then, from the north side of the bog, a wolf howl rose and took a bite out of the sky.

  The band bunched together. “He hasn’t given up. He’s going around the bog,” Ovis said.

  Again the wolf howled, long and slow and hungry.

  “He’s traveling faster than we are,” Ovis said. “Even going around the bog, he could close in tomorrow.”

  The band stood quietly for a long time. Finally Tuk swallowed a mouthful of dry sedge.

  “We have to split up. Dall, you and the band go up one trail. I will go up the other. He will follow me, and you can get away…”

  Tuk’s words were braver than his heart, but he was glad he said them.

  “It is a good idea,” Dall said to the ground, “for the safety of the band and Wen.”

  Mouf said, “But—!”

  “We will take the long way,” Dall said firmly.

  “You should leave now and sleep higher on the mountain,” Tuk said. “I will leave in the morning to be sure my scent is the easiest to find and follow. Wait for me one full day and one full night. If I don’t come, go to blue mountain without me.”

  Mouf looked at Tuk and then Dall and then Tuk again. Dall laid her head on Tuk’s neck for a moment, then slowly turned away. She led the band toward the narrow twisty path.

  Rim stayed behind. “If you insist on making new stories,” he said, “I want to be in them.”

  Again the wolf howled, and the air shivered like water in a cold breeze.

  BEE TREES

  In the morning, Tuk and Rim laid down heavy scent at the beginning of the hard trail so the wolf would know which way they had gone. Then they began the climb up meadow mountain.

  As the otter had promised, the path was wide and rocky at first, and they progressed quickly. Still, it felt slow, given that they had a wolf on their heels. The wolf’s scent became stronger as the day wore on, he was traveling so swiftly.