Beastly Little Boy

Chapter 19

Bernard barely got any sleep over the course of the next week. Each time he dared to drift off, visions of dead cubs and grizzlies with bloodstained muzzles invaded his dreams and tormented him until he woke up screaming. It was only thanks to Orson's influence that Bernard could rest at all. The cub's memories of weeks spent in a dark, warm den with his family banished the horrific images from his mind for a few merciful hours each night until the nightmares inevitably returned.

He wasn't as lucky during the day. His daily routine of foraging within the forest in the morning and catching salmon from midday until dusk couldn't keep his mind from wandering for long.

Bernard felt as if someone had sewn dozens of squirming snakes into his stomach as he wondered how many other animals had suffered the same fate as the cub. A single paw out of place could have just as easily led to the metallic maw snapping shut on his leg. Bernard found himself scanning every inch of soil in front of him before stepping forward and cringing at any unexpected sounds.

Today was no different. A mouse made a bush's leaves rustle as it darted past, startling Bernard as he prepared to yank a particularly stubborn mushroom out of the ground. He jerked his head back, freeing the fungus and sending a spray of dirt into his face. His shoulder throbbed harder than ever in response to the sudden movement, sending a wave of heat through his forelimb as the pain left him gasping for breath. Bernard quickly glanced in the direction of the noise as the fur along his spine rose. Spotting the guilty rodent's tail as it vanished into a burrow, he groaned and turned his attention back to his breakfast.

"You have to stop acting like this." Orson's unexpected comment almost made Bernard choke on the mushroom. The cub waited for Bernard to catch his breath before continuing. "See? This is getting ridiculous."

Bernard swallowed the rest of the mouthful. "It isn't easy to feel safe after seeing something like that."

"Yeah, but come on. A mouse scared you. A mouse. Think about that for a second. Don't you think you're a little too jumpy?"

"For your information, mice scare a lot of people. In cartoons, one of them is enough to make anyone scream and jump onto a table." Bernard began heading toward an area where he had spotted a squirrel's nest the day before, hoping to find a stash of acorns or some other excuse to stop the conversation.

"What's a cartoon?" Orson sighed. "Never mind. That doesn't matter. You've been getting scared so often that you haven't been able to catch nearly enough fish to start building up the fat you'll need when it's time to hibernate. Come to think of it, how many did you eat yesterday? A dozen?"

"About fifteen. Anyway, how can I concentrate on fishing when there might be hunters nearby?" Bernard sniffed the ground around the base of a tree that had a squirrel's scent lingering on it. He couldn't smell any nuts, but there was another smell. It reminded him of the scent of the other bears he had come across except it seemed slightly different. Bernard inhaled deeply, but the scent was too stale to pinpoint what was so special about it. Whoever had left it was long gone.

"If hunters had been here recently, you would have smelled them by now. Humans reek worse than skunks." Bernard chose not to comment on that. "If the idea of hunters in the area bothers you so much, you could always try to find a different territory. Of course, you'd have to stop staring into space so often first. I'll never understand why you stand there gazing at nothing while the salmon swim right past you."

"Since when have I been spacing out?"

"Two days ago, you stared at Uzumati for so long that he moved downstream. Judging from what he was saying under his breath, I'm pretty sure he thinks you're nuttier than a squirrel's winter stash."

That was news to him. Bernard flattened his ears in embarrassment. He'd better fish somewhere else for the next few days. "I guess I was lost in thought. It seems strange for that cub to have wandered into my territory on her own."

"Cubs normally stick close to their mothers, so I doubt she came here by herself. Her mom probably wanted to see if she could get a spot along the river. I wouldn't be surprised if she comes to fish here every summer. The old sack of bones that used to live here looked too weak to drive anybody off, so maybe she thought she could safely bring her cubs to catch salmon here."

"I'd better find her." Bernard started walking back to the river. He had to make sure he got plenty to eat, so he decided to work his way upstream until he reached the border with Arturo's territory. He could search for her along the rest of the riverbank tomorrow.

"You're not going to chase her off, are you?"

"It would take a special kind of heartlessness to do that. Telling her that her kid died is going to be painful enough as it is."

"Why should you bother telling her? She'll think you killed her cub. You already know how mother bears react to people getting too close to their cubs. I shouldn't need to remind you about that."

Bernard hadn't thought of that.

Thankfully, he hadn't wandered too far from the water today, so he arrived at the salmon run soon enough to use it as an excuse to stop talking. It couldn't hurt to eat a couple fish before continuing his search.

The salmon flashed by like underwater flares as they raced to their spawning grounds. Try as they might to evade Bernard's claws, the fish were no match for his aim. However, he barely tasted their succulent flesh as he mulled over the issue at hand.

Why did he want to break that kind of news to someone he had never met? Deaths weren't easy to talk about under any circumstances, let alone when the bear he needed to talk to probably wouldn't react well to some stranger telling her what had happened to her child.

Bernard still remembered the look on his mother's face when she had told him about his fish's death when he was five. After she had finished delivering the news, she had crumpled down like origami left in the rain and cried at least as hard as he had. He was sure it wasn't the death itself that had set her off since it had only been a goldfish. It must not have made the biggest impact on him either since he couldn't even remember his pet's name anymore.

What was it about talking about death that made it so heartbreaking regardless of how insignificant the thing that died was? If a fish's death was enough to make both him and his mom cry their eyes out, there was no telling how a mother would react to their child dying. He at least knew how horrible it felt to lose a family member. Bernard still cried himself to sleep sometimes because of his father's death, and that tragedy had outright broken his mother.

Come to think of it, she probably thought he was dead too or, at least, couldn't know for certain that he was alive. Did she cry about that too, or had she tried her best to forget that he had ever existed?

"You're doing it again. I also haven't heard an answer yet."

Bernard blinked. "Sorry. I'm not sure what to say. The only reason I can think of is that it's the right thing to do. Wouldn't you have wanted someone to tell your mom if anything bad had ever happened to you?"

As he waited for Orson's response, he stretched before starting his trek along the river's edge. There wasn't much vegetation close to the water, so Bernard's paws sank into the mud, squelching with each step he took as his weak shoulder throbbed. He didn't dare to stop and wash the muck off; there would be plenty of time for that after he found the mother bear. If he walked too slowly, he might not be able to find her trail before it vanished. Worse, she could get caught in one of those traps if he didn't warn her about the one he had found.

"Alright," said Orson. "I think I understand why you're doing this now, but I still think it's kind of stupid. Don't blame me if she makes your bullet wound look like an ant bite."

"If she does, at least she'll know what happened to her daughter."