Beastly Little Boy

Chapter 20

Dark gray storm clouds gathered overhead as Bernard continued his distraction filled journey to the edge of Arturo's territory. He often found himself making detours around patches of light blue wildflowers that dotted the riverbank. Their sweet smell tickled his nose and masked some of the wilderness's more subtle scents. Bernard sniffed the area around each cluster so thoroughly as he searched for the mother bear's scent that he soon found himself sneezing hard enough to spook the squirrels.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Orson forced Bernard to take frequent foraging breaks. He pestered him every time he passed a berry bush or smelled a mushroom until Bernard's growling stomach forced him to cave into the cub's demands. Not a single morsel of food was small enough to escape Orson's interest.

"Bernard, do you see those pinecones over there? I don't know about you, but I'd sure love to eat a nice big mouthful of them right now."

"Give it a rest," Bernard said as he licked at an acorn fragment that was stuck in his teeth. He'd been at it for fifteen minutes, and the stupid thing still refused to come out. Maybe this distraction would be a good excuse to avoid stuffing his face again. "Can't you let me go at least half an hour without eating something? At this rate, I'm going to have half the forest stuck in my teeth by tomorrow."

"Just think of the crunch of a pinecone as you crush it between your teeth, the flavor that floods your mouth, the bliss of a nap in the sun after satisfying your stomach."

"Come on, they don't taste that good."

Bernard's stomach begged to differ. It gurgled, tempting him to glance at the snack. There were seven pinecones lying on a bed of fallen pine needles and oak leaves. The scattered oak leaves reminded Bernard that it would only be another month or so before he would need to start expanding his winter den to make sure it was nice and roomy before his seasonal sleepiness kicked in. His mouth watered as he imagined the months he would spend living off of nothing but his body fat.

"You know you want to."

His stomach growled its agreement.

"Fine," Bernard said as he stomped over to the pinecones. He shoveled them into his mouth as quickly as he could, barely chewing them before letting the rough mass scrape its way down his throat. "Are you happy now? I can't afford to keep stopping like this."

"It's going to take a lot more than that to get you back on schedule. The last thing you want is to wake up in the middle of winter, struggling to scrape up some half-frozen tubers to keep yourself from starving. That's assuming you don't freeze to death in your sleep once the cold pierces through what little fat you have."

Bernard licked the crumbs off of his muzzle and returned to his mission. "I'm sure I can fatten up in time." He shuddered as a breeze blew past him, chilling his shoulders. He must have lost a few chunks of fur after thrashing in his sleep during one of his nightmares. A bed of leaves would take the edge off when he finally settled down for the night.

"No, you won't if you keep this up. The salmon will leave long before you build up enough fat. Is telling the cub's mom about something she can't fix really worth risking your life for?"

"Of course it is. We've already talked about this. How do you think your mother would have reacted if you had disappeared? I bet she would have done anything to find out what happened to you."

"Actually, she wouldn't have been crazy enough to endanger herself and my brother if that had happened. After a day or two, she would have gone right back to focusing on surviving. No offense, but even your mom gave up on you eventually, and she's a human. Bears care less about their kids than humans do. Well, maybe your mom is an exception, but you get the idea."

Bernard's fur bristled. He clamped his jaws shut as he marched forward. His claws dug furrows into the dirt with each step.

"That's how nature works, Bernard. Mothers have to give up when things become hopeless. If one cub dies, they don't mope about it; they take care of the ones that are still alive. Grieving or putting effort into a lost cause isn't an option out here. Come to think of it, it's a miracle your mom didn't leave you sooner."

"Oh, so you think I was hopeless," Bernard said with a growl.

"No. You were about as hopelessly stupid as all other humans back then, but that's not what I mean. The situation was hopeless, at least as far as she knew."

"Didn't it ever occur to you that humans actually love their kids? I thought bears could at least understand that much."

"My mother died because she loved Hinrik and I more than she feared humans," Orson said, his voice trembling with grief. As he continued, a note of anger entered his voice. "Your mom feared you more than she loved you. Didn't you see how she looked at you? I watched her tremble at the sight of you, wondering when you would kill her. Face it, she didn't view you as her cub or kid or whatever you want to call it anymore. She saw you as a threat."

"Stop it."

"How much longer would it have taken for one of you to snap? Which do you think would have happened if you had stayed: would you have mauled her, or would she have told the rangers that you were too hostile to bother trying to relocate? Do you think either of you would have mourned the other then?"

"I said stop! Haven't you ruined my life enough already? Can't you just shut up for once?" Bernard yelled, growling hard enough to make his words nearly unintelligible. "I'd rather die a human trapped in a bear's body than live as a monster inside and out."

Orson was silent for the rest of the day.

Bernard failed to locate any clues as to the mother bear's whereabouts along the river, only finding an upset stomach, a pounding headache, and a scorching heat spreading through his shoulder as the day wore on. By the time he reached the border, the sun had started to set, the storm clouds had finally begun unleashing their burden onto the forest, and he was so exhausted that he could barely stand.

Before he could succumb to the urge to sleep through the storm, Bernard caught a whiff of two scents: the scent of the grizzly he had been trying to find and the unmistakable odor of a human. The wind blowing from Uzumati's territory had carried the female bear's scent across the river. The human was much closer. Bernard inhaled deeply.

That wasn't just any human. He knew that smell.

He followed the familiar smell to its source. A soggy one-page article of Camper's Digest lay in a crumpled up wad by the side of the road. The faint aroma of parsley clung to it beneath the scent of the last person who had held the page.

There was no doubt about it. Bernard's mother had been near here.

Bernard maneuvered the page with the tip of a claw until he could read the article. It was a brief guide about how a person should react to a bear attack. Bernard briefly glanced at a note at the bottom of the page promising readers a glimpse into the life of a grolar bear in his mother's next Camper's Digest exclusive article along with an interview with the local wildlife vet who had put a tracking collar on it before shredding the page.

There was no way his mother would accept him the way he was now. He was nothing but an animal, a beast, a reminder of an event that haunted both of them. If the rain washed away her scent completely before he could track her down, then so be it.

Bernard turned away from the road before searching for a cozy spot to rest for the night. He would need all the sleep he could get. Judging from the way the wind was blowing, he would have to cross the river and enter Uzumati's territory to have a chance at finding the mother bear.