10
The world came to them.
Not at first. At first there was a time Brian did not like to think about or remember but knew he would have in his mind for the rest of his life.
She had been virtually unconscious when they arrived, back at the island, just at dawn. He had left her sleeping and the dog leading—always in front now—her hair down, no sign of the bear, Brian had taken the time to wrap the bodies in blankets and ponchos and pull Anne back to the cabin and use a shovel to make a shallow grave in a clear spot by the east wall and bury them next to each other.
Then he had tried to clean the cabin a bit and had buried the dead dogs in another shallow grave and then gone back down to the canoe and washed in the lake repeatedly before waking her up and holding her and telling her that her parents were both dead.
She had guessed that something terrible had happened because they had not come looking for her but even so the shock was profound. She had sobbed for hours while he sat there, on the bank of the lake, his bow next to him and the dog sitting a little away, holding her while she cried, feeling as helpless and awkward as he had when the badly wounded dog showed up. Between sobs, he was relieved to learn that the other two children, Paul and Laura, were visiting relatives in Winnipeg.
Then she had gone to the new graves and put crosses made from boards on each and then gone into the cabin. Brian had tried to straighten some of it, and used lake water to wash where her father had lain. In part of the wreckage that he had not uncovered, she found a shortwave radio with a transmitter. It had been knocked sideways but she put it back on a shelf and hooked it to a storage battery and the radio still worked. She called the authorities and Brian was amazed at how fast things happened. Not three hours after she called, a plane landed on the lake and three men got out, the pilot and a Canadian Mountie and a Natural Resources ranger. They talked to Brian separately from Susan and asked him details he was glad she didn’t hear and when it was done they stood by the cabin.
“You have relatives to stay with?” the Mountie asked Susan. She nodded. “An aunt and uncle in Winnipeg . . .”
“We’ll fly you there,” he said. “If you want we’ll gather your stuff for you.”
“No. I’ll get it.” She moved to the cabin and the Mountie turned to Brian.
“I’ve heard of you. You’re that boy who survived after the plane crash.”
Brian nodded.
“Do you want to fly out?”
Brian shook his head. “I’ll stay.”
The Mountie studied him for a moment, then nodded. “As you wish.” He turned to the Natural Resources ranger. “And you, are you going to kill this bear?”
The ranger shook his head. “There are many bears here, perhaps scores, within ten or fifteen miles. We wouldn’t know which one to kill.”
Brian stared at him, started to say that they had tracks, they knew the bear by his sign, they could find him, but he held his tongue. It wasn’t the same for everybody, the bush. They had planes and guns and radios and GPS but in some ways they had no knowledge because they had all the gadgets; they missed the small things because they saw too big.
Brian had never seen the animal but knew the bear intimately, how it moved, how it turned, how it thought. They could be looking right at it and all they would see would be weight and girth and hair color and genetic codes and biospeak and would never really know the bear.
He said nothing. But he understood that they were wrong. He knew the bear. He would find the bear.
Susan came out of the cabin with a canvas bag full of her things and they hugged and she saw what he was thinking, what he had to do, because she whispered in his ear, “You must be careful. He is not like other bears. He is a devil muckwa, a devil bear. Be careful. . . .”
Brian at first said nothing, still holding her, then said what was most in his mind: “I need to see you again, when this is done. There are things that need to be said.”
She nodded. “I understand. I left a letter for you, in the cabin. My address and phone numbers are there. I’ll wait. Find me when you come out. . . .”
Then Susan and the men climbed onto the floats of the plane and into it and the pilot spun around and took off and in moments Brian was alone with the dog, even the sound gone.
Just the lake and the island and the woods . . . and the bear.
The bear was still out there and it was not right, not now. The bear had been wrong, had gone too far.
Brian would find him.
And he would kill him.
It was personal.