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  Nick crawled to the back of the small cave and took a deep breath. He leaned against the mat of thin, feathery roots that covered the back wall. They gave just enough with his weight to feel like a hammock.

  His heart was pounding, but he wasn’t exhausted. He hadn’t burned himself out the way someone might who was running on adrenaline. He could have kept running, putting more distance between him and the men in the copter. But that might just be what they expected. Doing the unexpected was one way to keep from being caught. Fleeing in blind panic and getting caught out in the open was the worst thing someone could do when being pursued from above.

  His mind was racing, though. Where were his pursuers now? What should he do next? Would he ever see his parents again?

  Too many thoughts were crowding his head. He needed to calm himself down.

  He closed his eyes and started doing the breathing exercise he’d begun to learn when he was ten. Black Tiger Breathing. He hadn’t been shown it by any teacher. He’d found it in a book about Northern Chinese styles of kung fu.

  All you had to do was sit quietly and inhale. And keep inhaling in one single extended breath for at least thirty seconds. Then you had to settle that breath down low into your center of chi, your diaphragm area, and hold it there for twenty seconds. Finally, you had to release that breath, once again slowly in a single exhalation, for another thirty seconds.

  The book said it was a way to build your chi, that internal strength the old masters of martial arts called the center of everything and nothing. Focus on breathing and counting. Put everything else out of your mind.

  From the description in the book, it had seemed like something easy to do. But it wasn’t. The first time Nick had tried it, he found himself gasping for breath after trying to just breathe in for a count of eight. But he had always been determined, even when he was much younger.

  His parents still told the story of what happened when Nick was four years old and they gave him a simple toy. It was a wooden ball attached by a string to a little wooden cup with a handle on it. The objective was to hold the handle and then swing the ball up and catch it in the cup that was just big enough for it to fit into. It was an Abenaki game that—like most of the old things Native kids played with—wasn’t just for fun. In this case its purpose was to build eye–hand coordination. It looked simple, but catching that ball in the cup was difficult. The first ten times Nick tried, the ball either bounced off the cup or missed it entirely. That’s when most four-year-olds would have quit.

  “But not our Nick,” his mother would tell people. “This look came over his little face and he kept trying. Even when he finally caught the ball, he didn’t quit. He kept going, time after time, just about the whole morning. He did not stop until he was able to do it ten times in a row.”

  And that was the way Nick approached Black Tiger Breathing when he was ten years old. By the end of a week, he could draw the air into his lungs for that count of eight. However, holding that breath and then releasing it just as slowly was even more difficult. He continued trying, though. By the end of a month, he was up to an even count of twenty on each end—out and in— with ten in the middle.

  But that was when he realized he was hurrying his count. So he tried slowing that down by counting not one, two, three, but one and one thousand, two and one thousand, three and one thousand, and so on.

  It was not until he reached a full count of thirty in, twenty held, thirty out that he decided to look at his watch as he did it. And that had made him smile. Because each cycle of thirty- twenty-thirty was taking him exactly one minute and twenty seconds.

  Inside his riverbank cave, Nick breathed. All he thought of was counting and breathing. Counting and breathing.

  In, hold, out. In, hold, out. In, hold, out.

  He felt his body relaxing. A calm he’d not felt since he had taken that wrong turn in the train corridor settled over him.

  And, as he finished his breathing exercise, he realized that his head had cleared. His ears and his sinuses no longer felt stuffed up. However, as soon as they cleared, he realized two things that made his heart beat faster.

  The first was that he could hear the thud- thud-thud of a helicopter coming closer. The second was that he could smell something he’d not been able to notice before with a congested nose. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, but it was one he recognized. The scent of a bear. The little riverbank cave he’d crawled into was one of its denning places.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Roar

  The thudding sound of the helicopter was so close now that Nick could feel it as much as hear it. Had they figured out some other way to find him? Despite the care he took, had he left any signs as he ran? Did they know where he was now?

  Or were they just searching every possible place he might have gone? After diving down into the valley to follow the beacon he’d taped to that rock, maybe they’d tried circling the mountain. And after not finding him, did they go up and down the different valleys to the east of the high place where he’d been? That might be more likely. So far, it seemed as if there was only the one helicopter. When Nick caught sight of it, he’d noticed that it wasn’t a really big one. It looked like an old military copter, maybe an Apache, painted camouflage green. It could not hold many passengers. That meant there couldn’t be that many people looking for him now—Dead Eyes, the pilot, and one or two others.

  The sound of the copter’s blade was not quite as loud now. It meant they weren’t hovering directly overhead. He edged forward in the cave, just far enough to see out the opening but still far enough back that he would not be visible from the outside. The helicopter was flying low a hundred yards downriver from him. So low the wind from its rotors was stripping leaves from the riverside alders and flattening the brush under it. An Apache, for sure, but not a new one. And it seemed to have been stripped of its weapons. No Hellfire tank-killer missiles on its lower sides, and no big chain gun sticking out the front. Probably stripped before being sold for civilian use.

  But still deadly. Nick could see the figure of a man leaning halfway out the door with a rifle in his hands. The copter turned, and he could make out enough of the man’s upper body to see that he was lanky and had bushy yellow hair worn like an Afro. He wasn’t bald and muscled like a weight lifter, like Dead Eyes. A strap was fastened to the back of the harness that Blondie wore. He could lean far out, with his hands free to handle his weapon, without being in danger of falling. From the easy way Blondie was positioning himself, it looked as if he’d done this sort of thing before. Maybe he was one of those guys Nick despised, the ones who used to shoot wolves in Alaska from helicopters. Except now he was hunting even bigger game.

  Blondie waved one hand, pointing down, and the Apache turned again, heading back downriver. Toward his hiding place. Nick bit his lower lip. But the helicopter suddenly veered away from Nick’s side, swooping toward the thick tangle of berry bushes across the stream from him.

  Something was moving over there. Nick couldn’t see the thing itself, but he saw the way the brush was being moved as it thrashed one way and the next as the copter came closer. Blondie was leaning farther out, pointing the rifle down. Suddenly, Nick heard the crack of the rifle and saw the burst of flame from its barrel as the blond-haired man fired, answered by a roar. It was so loud that it could be heard even over the deafening sounds of the Apache’s four blades and powerful engine.

  Then the thing that let out that roar stood up from the cover of the berry bushes. A huge brown bear. Blondie was not firing again. It wasn’t what they were after. A hand was on his shoulder, pulling him back into the helicopter. Nick saw that as the helicopter rose higher and passed over him, heading back toward the mountain.

  But he only saw it out of the corner of his eye. What he was truly focused on was in front of him. The bear. It had dropped back to all fours and started to run. Pebbles and sand were thrown up by its feet as it charged down the riverbank, then splashed into the stream. Nick could hear it bre
athing hard as it ran.

  Chuff! Chuff! Chuff! Chuff!

  It was heading for the nearest place of refuge it knew. Heading straight toward him. Straight toward its riverbank den under the old spruce tree.

  CHAPTER 12

  Bear Song

  It was happening fast. Too fast for Nick to move. But not too fast for him to think. Even if he had the time to dive for the opening of the cave, he’d run headfirst into the bear. And even if the bear didn’t maul him—or worse—he would be out in the open, visible to the men in the helicopter who might still be watching.

  What came to his mind then was something his grandfather had shared with him one spring day when Nick was twelve years old. They’d found the tracks of a black bear as they walked an Adirondack Mountain trail leading up toward Algonquin Peak. His grandfather had dropped to one knee and pulled up his pants leg to show Nick the tattoo he had there. The tattoo of a bear paw. Its shape was exactly like that of the print his grandfather pointed out to him in the moist sand where a small stream washed over the edge of the trail.

  “Bear’s our older brother,” his grandfather had said. Then he’d sung Nick the “Bear Path Song.”

  Dabi nawan ginose ya ni neh

  Dabi nawan ginose ya ni neh

  Mukawdewakumig

  Mukawdewakumig

  Nick knelt back down. He bent his head, crossing his arms in front of his face. He could hear his grandfather’s voice singing that song about walking a calm and peaceful way upon the earth. He could actually hear the song itself. Then he realized that what he heard was his own voice singing it.

  The whole cave shook as the huge grizzly shouldered its way in. Its body blocked out the light and everything became dark.

  HRRRMMMPPPHHH, the bear growled. It had caught the sight and scent of him.

  Nick didn’t look up. He kept giving his voice to the old, old song. Half of his mind was on the song. The other half was saying a silent apology to the bear.

  Grandfather, take pity on me. Forgive me for intruding into your place.

  Dabi nawan ginose ya ni neh

  Dabi nawan ginose ya ni neh

  Mukawdewakumig

  Mukawdewakumig

  The bear was growling softly. Nick could feel the warm, wet heat of its body. He could feel it looking at him. He didn’t look up. He kept singing. He felt it come closer. Its breath was washing over him. Any second he might feel its claws slashing across him, its jaws tearing at his flesh. He pushed that thought away, pushed away the fear. There was nothing he could do except to sing and ask for the bear to forgive him.

  Grandfather, Grandfather, take pity, take pity on me.

  One of the bear’s huge front paws thrust forward, but not in a raking blow that would have torn him apart. The bear’s foot was placed flat onto his chest, pushing him against the matted roots at the back of the den. Then the bear’s square head nudged his hands aside, and Nick saw it open its enormous mouth—so big it could crush his head with one bite. He could smell the berries it had been eating on its breath. It bit down on his left shoulder, hard enough that its teeth bruised his flesh, but not hard enough to make him bleed or break bones. The bear growled again, a deeper growl that Nick could feel all through his body as it lifted him up a few inches. The bear moved its head back and forth a little, gently shaking him. Somehow, Nick didn’t feel any pain.

  He kept singing.

  Dabi nawan ginose ya ni neh

  Dabi nawan ginose ya ni neh

  Mukawdewakumig

  Mukawdewakumig

  The bear opened its mouth, letting Nick slide back down into a sitting position. It drew back its paw from his chest. Then, with a heavy motion that again made the whole den shake, the grizzly turned and dropped its huge body in front of him, its head toward the mouth of the cave.

  Nick did not stop singing. He could hear the sound of the bear’s breathing, almost in rhythm with the “Bear Path Song.” The big grizzly’s even, strong breath and his own song were all he could hear at first. Then he heard a voice, a deep rough voice, a voice without breath that spoke inside his head.

  Rest, Grandson, it growled.

  And then he heard nothing as his eyes closed and he fell into a dream.

  He was walking through a calm forest of tall evergreens. His right hand was resting on the back of the grizzly as it walked beside him. And this time it was the grizzly who was singing the “Bear Path Song” as they traveled together. Everything around them was peaceful.

  CHAPTER 13

  Going Slow

  Nick opened his eyes. The bear was gone. He felt his shoulder where the bear had grabbed him. It ached a little, but he didn’t seem to be badly hurt. He slid toward the entrance and looked out. It was night, the moonlight flickering on the moving waters of the stream. He looked at the glowing dial of his watch. It read four o’clock.

  Four a.m. He’d slept most of the night. The sun would be rising soon. What should he do now?

  Think. Think about what had happened so far and what that meant about what he should do next.

  Clearly, the murder he’d seen on the train was something important. If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t be after him with a helicopter. Maybe that murdered person, the man who looked sort of Asian, was the key. Nick had seen both him and Dead Eyes. He’d never forget either of their faces. So now Nick had to be eliminated. The people after him were not going to give up easily. He had to keep running.

  Getting to that nearest First Nations reserve was still a good idea. There would be a tribal police station. Once he was with law enforcement people and he’d told his story, he would probably be safe.

  He was surely still being chased. The fact that they’d pursued him from the air showed how determined they were to get him. And if they used a copter once, they could do it again. He’d read up online about this part of the province. If what he remembered was right, the area between him and the reserve hadn’t been logged in years. The forest ahead was thick. He could try to keep under the cover of the trees. But there’d be places where he would still be visible from the air.

  And they might put other men on the ground, maybe specialists who’d been trained as man hunters. Like guys who’d had Special Forces or Rangers training. They’d start from the hilltop where they’d first picked up the beacon he’d thrown away.

  They’ll expect me to be scared, to run and keep running, Nick thought. And when you run that way, you always leave a trail. Which meant he had to be deliberate. Keep toward his goal, but do it more slowly now.

  He thought about another lesson he’d learned when it came to tracking. A really good tracker doesn’t need tracks to follow. His teacher had told him about Uncle Jimmy Johnson, who was the greatest Aboriginal tracker in Australia. When Uncle Jimmy was sent out to find someone, a hiker who got lost or a fugitive, all he needed to see was where their tracks began. Then he could figure out where that person was going to end up. And he would go to that place, take a seat on a rock, and wait for them to appear.

  Someone good at tracking might do just that to him. Dope out where he was headed, and be there waiting for him just before he got there. But maybe not. From what Nick had seen of Blondie, the guy with the rifle who shot at the bear, he didn’t seem like the expert tracker type. And Dead Eyes? Again, Nick had a gut feeling that he was not a real tracker either. A killer, but not someone who knows the woods and has, as Grampa Elie put it, shaken hands with the land. And the copter pilot was probably just that—a man most comfortable when he was at the controls of a flying machine.

  No, they all seemed more the type to first hunt from above—with that copter. And then, when on the ground, to not move the way Nick was taught. Their feet would be heavy on the earth.

  So, Nick thought, the best tactic right now may be to stay put after all. Stay right here because, thanks to that bear, this is the one place they’ll never expect me to be.

  He looked again at his watch. It was now 4:15. About two hours till sunrise. Time for breakfast. He slid o
ut of the cave and waded into the river. There was just enough light from the moon for him to see the pool ahead of him that had a large, flat rock at the bottom, perhaps four feet below the surface. He moved toward it slowly, deliberately.

  Nick had learned all kinds of ways to fish, including how to make a line by reverse wrapping the fibers of plants, how to make a hook from a piece of bone, and how to build a fish trap by creating a weir that could direct the fish into it. But right now he had a more direct, faster method in mind.

  When the bear came splashing across the stream, Nick had seen a flash of motion in the water. A ripple of light underwater heading toward that flat stone. He was almost at the stone now. He bent his knees and ducked his head underwater, his hands grasping the stone. Then, moving a finger’s width at a time, first one hand and then the other slid under the stone. He couldn’t see, but he didn’t need to see. He based everything on feeling now. The fingers of one hand and then the other caressed the smooth, trembling side of the fish. He began to stroke it, cupping it between his palms.

  Thank you for giving yourself to me, Nick thought as his caress turned into a firm grasp and he pulled the trout, which was as long and thick as his forearm, out from its hiding place. He carried it back to the bank.

  “May you continue to swim,” he said, speaking the words thousands of generations of his ancestors had spoken before him. Then, holding the unresisting fish firm on the ground with his left hand, he struck it on the back of its neck with a rock held in his right hand, releasing its spirit back into the water with one quick blow.