Elara Koss's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Elara left her crooked timber cabin before dawn. She packed light: the map, a spyglass, a wedge of hard cheese, and rope. Her plan was simple. Find high ground near the bear's den. Watch from a distance no claw could reach. Learn when he woke, where he fed. She would not walk his ground blind. The forest thickened as she climbed. By midmorning she reached a rock shelf above a shallow creek. The trapper's map put the den close, and the sign proved it. Torn bark scarred the trees. A game trail ran muddy along the water. She wedged herself into a cleft in the rock and lifted the spyglass. She waited. Her knees ached against the stone. Then the brush below shook, and he came. The cave bear stepped from the trees broad as a door. His shaggy fur hung heavy and dark. He moved slow, nosing the ground, dragging his weight to the creek. Elara held still and watched him drink. She noted the hour. She noted the trail he chose. Her hand itched for a pen. This was what no one had lived to see. Then the wind turned. She felt it shift against her neck, carrying her scent down the slope. The bear's head snapped up. He swung toward the rock and huffed, a sound she felt in her chest. He rose on his hind legs and sniffed the air. Elara pressed flat into the cleft and did not breathe. He dropped and came. His claws scraped the stone below her perch. The shelf was high, but not high enough. He reared again, and his snout reached the ledge inches from her boot. She had no second vantage. She had chosen this rock and now it trapped her. Her eyes found a plant wedged in a crack beside her hand. Red fronds, bright as coals. She had passed a stand of them on the climb. She remembered how the trapper's post smelled of pitch, and how sharp things drove animals back. She tore a handful of the flame-red fronds and crushed them under her thumb. The oil bit her nose, hot and stinging. She flung the crushed leaves down at the bear's face. He jerked back and shook his great head. He snorted and pawed at his snout. The sting held him. He dropped to all fours, grunting, and backed into the brush. In moments the trees swallowed him. Elara sagged against the rock. Her hands shook now, at last. She had learned his hour. She had learned his trail. And she had learned something the trapper never told her: the red fern could turn him. But the wind had betrayed her once. It would again. This rock was no safe place to study a bear, and she could not stay. She needed a blind he could not smell. She climbed down while the light held, already planning the next.