He should have known sooner. Should have been aware. There were signs, indications, wiggling bushes, a thick, dark smell. But filled with hunger and need, he had not seen or felt or smelled the signs.

Now he heard a scuffling sound on the ledge behind him and turned his head to find he was staring full on, directly, into the face of a black bear.

The bear did not seem surprised but just looked at him. Studied him. And its stillness and look started the boy’s brain working through what he knew, or thought he knew, or had heard what people knew, or thought they knew, and talked around fires of their knowledge.

Stories.

That bears were like people. Thought like people. Had good times and bad times as people had good and bad times. Were sometimes happy and sometimes angry and that nothing was worse than an angry bear except perhaps when the earth shook and sent giant waves against the world. The boy had never seen such waves but Old Carl talked of them and had great respect for them and said you could not fight them.

Just as you could not fight bears.

And Old Carl said that all bears were not the same. There were black bears and some of them became red when they grew old and their hair changed colour, and there were brown bears that were twice as big as black bears and were often angry when there was no apparent reason. One would rip a whole log apart to find a single grub worm to eat.

An entire log.

And he said that no bears liked to be stared at and the very worst thing was if a mother bear even thought you might endanger her cubs with so much as a glance, nothing could save you. Leif now moved his eyes from the bear and looked down into the canoe, then off to the side away from the bear and for a long time did not move, was as absolutely non-staring-still as he could be. Not even breathing.

Then came a soft snort and a rustle of leaves and he looked back to see the bear moving off into the thicket, eating berries as it slowly shuffled away.

So, he thought. Not a mother. No cubs. And not angry or feeling that Leif was eating berries that belonged to the bear – a thought that had crept into his mind during the three or four lifetimes he waited for what might happen if the bear decided to jump down on him in the canoe.