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or four yards to his left, until the bear was facing him.
It was clear by the caution of his advance that he was perfectly aware of his jeopardy. If the animal took this
moment to study the ground rather than the sky then he had a couple of seconds at best to get out of its way.
    But luck was with him. Overhead, a flock of noisy geese were homing, and the bear idly turned its gaze their
way, allowing Will to reach his chosen spot and settle there before it dropped its head and once again sullenly
surveyed the dump.
    At last, Adrianna heard the barely audible click of the shutter, and the whir of the film's advance. A dozen shots
in quick succession; then a pause. The bear lowered its head. Had it sensed Will? The shutter clicked again,
four, five, six times. The bear let out a sharp hiss. It was an unmistakable warning. Adrianna leveled the rifle.
Will clicked on. The bear did not move. Will caught two more shots, and then, very slowly, began to rise. The
bear took a step towards him, but the garbage beneath its bulk was slick, and instead of following through the
animal faltered.
    Will glanced back towards Adrianna. Seeing the leveled rifle he motioned it down and stealthily stepped away.
Only when he'd halved the distance between the hillock and Adrianna did he murmur:
    'He's blind.'
    She looked again at the animal. It was still poised at the top of the hillock, its scarred head roving back and
forth, but she didn't doubt what Will had said was true. The animal had little or no sight left. Hence its
tentativeness; its reluctance to give chase when it was not certain of the solidity of the ground beneath its paws.
    Will was at her side now. 'You want pictures of any of the others?' she asked him. The adolescents had gone to
romp elsewhere, but the female was still sniffing around the truck. He told her no; he'd got what he needed.
Then, turning back to look at the bear, he said:
'He reminds me of somebody, I just can't think who.'
'Whoever it is, don't tell them.'
'Why not?' Will said, still staring at the animal. 'I think I'd be flattered.'
     

CHAPTER V
     
    When they got back to Main Street, Peter Tegelstrom was out at the front of his house, perched on a ladder
nailing a string of Halloween lights along the low-hanging eaves. His children, a five-year old girl and a son a
year her senior, ran around excitedly, clapping and yelling as the row of pumpkins and skulls was unraveled.
Will headed over to chat to Tegelstrom; Adrianna followed. She'd made friends with the kids in the last week
and a half, and had suggested to Will that he photograph the family. Tegelstrom's wife was pure Inuit, her
beauty evident in her children's faces. A picture of this healthy and contented human family living within two
hundred yards of the dump would make, Adrianna argued, a powerful counterpoint to Will's pictures of the
bears. The wife, however, was too shy even to talk to the visitors, unlike Tegelstrom himself, who seemed to
Will starved for conversation.
    'Are you finished with your pictures now?' he wanted to know.
    'Near enough.'
    'You should have gone down to Churchill. They've got a lot more bears there'
    ' - and a lot of tourists taking pictures of them.'
    'You could take pictures of the tourists taking pictures of the bears,' Tegelstrom said.
    'Only if one of them was being eaten.'
    Peter was much amused by this. His arranging of the lights finished, he climbed down the ladder and switched
them on. The children clapped. 'There isn't much here to keep them occupied,' he said. 'I feel bad for them
sometimes. We're going to move down to Prince Albert in the spring.' He nodded into the house. 'My wife
doesn't want to, but the babies need a better life than this.'
    The babies, as he called them, had been playing with Adrianna, and at her bidding had gone inside to put on
their Halloween masks. Now they reappeared, jabbering and whooping to inspire some fear. The masks were,
Will guessed, the shy wife's