Great Bear Lake Read Online Free PDF

stone paths, which she hadn’t noticed in the dark and sleet the night before. Now the gray light of morning showed her the stone path stretching out of sight in both directions, through a sea of mud broken up by clumps of grass and stunted bushes. Clouds covered the sky, but Kallik guessed the sun was barely above the horizon.
    When she tried to get up, every one of her muscles shrieked in protest. The fur on her injured foreleg was matted with blood. Kallik dragged herself a few bearlengths from the stone path and crouched to lick her leg until the fur was clean and she could see the jagged gash beneath. A little more fresh blood oozed out of it, but the pain had ebbed.
    At least I’m alive, she reminded herself. Not like Nanuk . She hunched her back against a fresh pang of grief, feeling dust under her eyelids when she screwed up her eyes. Opening them again, she blinked to make them water.
    She was gathering her strength to stand up when she heard a high-pitched barking coming from the other side of thestone path. She heaved herself to her paws and took cover behind a bush, then peered out through the twisted branches. The long, pale grass on the opposite side of the path parted and a reddish brown Arctic fox emerged. It was thin, with all its ribs showing, and one of its ears was torn as if it had been in a fight. It hesitated for a heartbeat, then ran across the path and passed within a couple of bearlengths of Kallik’s hiding place. Its muzzle was close to the ground, as if it was tracking prey.
    At the thought of food Kallik’s empty belly seemed to roar as loudly as the firebeast. Setting her paws down lightly, she emerged from the bush and began to follow the fox.
    The creature twisted and turned among the clumps of grass, too intent on its prey to notice it was being followed. The wind helped Kallik, blowing the fox’s scent toward her. Sometimes its brown pelt blended into the muddy ground so that Kallik lost sight of it, but she could still smell it, and never lost the trail.
    At last the fox skirted a thorn thicket and disappeared on the other side. Kallik heard a scuffling sound, followed by a shrill squeal that was abruptly cut off. She pressed herself close to the ground, and crept around the thicket to see the fox standing over the body of a hare. The scent of the freshly killed prey tore into Kallik’s belly like a claw. Roaring, she rose up from the cover of the grasses and bore down on the fox. The animal shot one terrified glance at her and fled.
    Kallik crouched over the hare’s body. All her instincts were telling her to swallow it in two or three famished gulps.
    Not so fast, little one . She heard her mother’s voice, teaching her and Taqqiq, back on the ice. Gulp your food like that, and you’ll give yourself bellyache .
    Kallik sank her teeth into the body of the hare and tore off a mouthful, giving herself time to savor the rich juices before she swallowed it and dipped her muzzle to take another bite.
    A rustling sound alerted her and she whipped her head around. The fox was glaring at her from underneath a prickly bush. Kallik planted one paw on the hare and bared her teeth in a snarl. “It’s mine!”
    The fox backed off, but as she ate Kallik could sense that it was still around. Tough luck; this is my kill now. You’ll have to catch another.
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    With her belly comfortably full, Kallik retreated into the nearby thicket and curled up at the foot of a tree to sleep. When she woke, mist had crept over the landscape, and the dim light told her evening was approaching. Her jaws parted in a huge yawn and she swiped her tongue a few times over the wound in her leg. The bleeding had stopped, and when she stood up and put weight on her paw she felt no more than a dull ache.
    Shaking scraps of leaf from her pelt, Kallik sniffed the air. Her spirits rose as she detected the scent of water on the wind. Perhaps she wasn’t far from the place where