River of Lost Bears Read Free Page A

aching from the chill.
    Toklo glanced back at Kallik and Yakone. “I’ll fish for us all,” he called.
    Yakone stiffened. “Do you think I can’t hunt here?”
    â€œYou can’t yet,” Toklo pointed out, though he sounded gentler than before. “But that’s okay. I’m happy fishing like a brown bear again.” His eyes sparkled. “Let me hunt for us. You can rest.” He nodded toward a stretch of flat rock beside the shore. “The stone will be warm from the sunshine.”
    â€œWarm!” Yakone snorted. “I’m sick of being warm.”
    Kallik nudged the white bear. “Stop being such a grumpy old seal.”
    Toklo snorted with amusement. “I was a grumpy old seal on the ice,” he reminded Kallik. “It’s hard feeling like a useless cub again, that’s all.”
    â€œI’m hardly useless,” Yakone grumbled.
    Toklo waded away into deeper water as Kallik and Yakone settled onto the flat rocks and Lusa padded through the shallows, the stones shifting beneath her paws. She suddenly spotted a cluster of smooth silver fish, each a little longer than her foot. They were moving like shadows in the water around her paws. Excited, she lifted her forepaws and splashed them down onto the nearest fish. Curling her claws, she felt for soft flesh. Something hard jabbed her pad.
    A stone!
    She hooked out a long, flat rock and stared at it, disappointed. Where had the fish gone? Had she really moved so slowly?
    A huge splash behind her made her drop the stone. Toklo had jumped into the rapids. Water raced up against his wide back and splashed over his shoulders as he ducked his head beneath the waves. He loomed up again with a huge trout between his jaws and strode dripping to the shore. He laid the trout proudly onto the smooth rock beside Yakone and Kallik.
    Lusa watched Yakone’s gaze flick along Toklo’s sodden pelt.
    â€œIt’s a messy way of catching fish,” the white bear huffed.
    Toklo tossed his head. “But it works.”
    Yakone poked the trout. “It’s more luck than planning,” he grunted. “You don’t need any of the skill and patience it takes for ice fishing.”
    â€œWhen you’ve finished grumbling, you can eat it.” Toklo shook himself, showering Yakone and Kallik with silver droplets, and then headed back to the river. “I’m going to catch another one.”
    Lusa felt a rush of happiness. Now that Toklo was back in the forest, fishing swift, swollen rivers instead of the dead waters of the frozen sea, nothing seemed to bother him. Not even bad-tempered white bears. She waded farther upstream, her eyes fixed on the fish flitting tantalizingly around her paws. She spotted one as it darted into the shallow water pooled between two rocks. With a hiss of excitement, she followed it and pounced, spearing it with her claws before it had a chance to escape.
    â€œLook!” She held it up for Kallik to see. “Black bears can fish, too!”
    Kallik was eating. She looked up and swallowed. “Well done, Lusa!”
    Lusa trotted back to join the white bears and dropped her fish beside the half-eaten trout. She wrinkled her nose, unimpressed by the sour tang her catch had left on her tongue. How she missed the sweetness of fruit!
    Toklo emerged from the river with another fish in his jaws, just as he’d promised. He dropped it on the rock beside Kallik and settled down to eat.
    â€œLook.” Lusa nudged her fish toward him. “I caught it myself.”
    â€œVery good!” Toklo rumbled.
    Yakone sat back on his haunches and began gnawing at a forepaw. “How do you get the dirt from between your claws?”
    Toklo lifted a drenched paw. “The river’s washed mine clean.”
    Kallik nudged Yakone’s shoulder with her muzzle. “The sooner you learn to hunt in the river, the cleaner your paws will be,” she teased.
    Yakone