Tobi and I stalked that tree, he thought. We pretended it was a deer, and we killed it and took our prey back to Oka.

Padding slowly around the tree, he stopped beside a thick patch of fern. That’s the only time I can remember that Tobi played a prank on me! He hid and jumped out at me, and I slipped and fell right into those ferns. Toklo bent his head, letting the memories flood him. Tobi laughed and laughed! He wasn’t feeling so ill that day. . . .

For a few moments the pictures were so vivid that Toklo almost expected to find Oka and Tobi standing beside him. But it was a long time ago. . . .

“Are you okay?” Lusa asked, pressing her snout into Toklo’s shoulder fur.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Toklo replied. “I was just thinking about how I played with Tobi. . . .”

Lusa’s eyes were understanding. “Oka was sad and afraid when I knew her in the Bear Bowl,” she murmured. “But it’s good to know she was happy with you once.”

Toklo found it hard to think about Oka and concentrated instead on the memories with his brother that were rushing in on him with all the force of the waterfall where they had hidden from the wolves.

“See that path over there?” He pointed to a narrow path that wound up the hillside between the trees. “It goes past that dead tree up there, and then around a rock, and comes out on a patch of ground below an overhanging rock. There are berry bushes and moss over there. Lusa, that’s where Tobi is buried!”

Toklo’s heart was pounding even harder now, and he was almost afraid of how clear and strong his memories had suddenly become, and how certain he was that this was the right place.

“Wow!” Lusa exclaimed. “Do you want to go see it?”

Toklo nodded. His paws were carrying him along the path almost before he realized it. He could picture the small burial mound as clearly as if he stood in front of it.

But when he came to the dead tree, its black, lightning-blasted trunk was marked strongly with Aiyanna’s scent. Toklo came to a halt. “This is Aiyanna’s territory,” he said. For a long moment he hesitated, then turned away. “We can’t go there.” At Lusa’s look of surprise, he added, “I don’t want to make her angry for no good reason.”

“But it is a good reason!” Lusa protested. “You deserve to see where your brother is buried.”

For a moment Toklo stood undecided, still gazing up the path. It’s not far. Aiyanna would never know. . . . But she might pick up my scent, and then she’d think she couldn’t trust me.