Izusa nodded. “Got it. So I’ll hide behind one of the boulders until they’re all up here, then move the branch, releasing the snow and starting the avalanche.”

Kallik suddenly realized how much she was asking of the brown she-bear. It was a dangerous task, with no benefit to Izusa at the end of it. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. “Your cubs need you. I can manage.” If I get trapped up here, I’ll find Yakone and Lusa again somehow.

Izusa shook her head. “I said I’d help, and I will.”

“Yes!” Yas and Wapi shouted, jumping up and down. “We’re going to make an avalanche!”

Their mother turned toward them with a fierce glare. “You are not!” she said. “You won’t be anywhere near.”

Both cubs gave her identical mutinous looks.

“I mean it,” their mother told them. “I’ll make you eat leaves for a moon if you disobey me.”

Yas’s eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t!”

“Just try me,” said Izusa.

Ready to leave now, Kallik dipped her head to Izusa. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I’ll never forget how much you’ve helped. Be ready at dusk, and we’ll chase the wolves up to you as fast as we can.”

“I’ll wait all night if I have to,” Izusa responded. She hesitated, then asked, “Kallik, why are you doing so much to help these bears, when you don’t live here?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Kallik replied. “I traveled for a long time with one of those bears, and I’ll do anything to help him find a safe home, just as he helped me find mine.”

Izusa nodded, and with a final good-bye Kallik turned, slid carefully past the barrier, and plunged down the shaft. Racing across the hillside, she took one look back to see Izusa and the two cubs watching her from the top of the cliff. Then she made the best speed she could, to get back to her friends before dusk fell and the attack began.

Chapter Twenty-Four - Lusa

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Lusa

The sun had gone down, and twilight had fallen on the forest. Lusa waited tensely at the top of the ravine, with Toklo and Yakone beside her. Had Kallik made it up to the ridge to speak with Izusa? Was the avalanche in place? Lusa could tell from the shadows in Toklo’s and Yakone’s eyes that they were wondering the same thing. There was no way of knowing if the snowfall was ready. They just had to follow through with their part of the plan, and hope that Kallik had had enough time.

Toklo had positioned a fallen tree a few bearlengths downstream, to cut off the wolves’ retreat that way, and another lay ready to block the path to the ravine once the wolves had passed it.