Kalak of the Ice E-Book

Jim Kjelgaard

• Herausgeber: Reading Essentials
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The fascinating story of a polar bear and her search for her two cubs, this is also a story of the snowbound Arctic and of the surprising number of birds and animals that live in its inhospitable wastes. 

Kalak was a polar bear whose ferocity and cunning had convinced the Eskimos that she was bewitched. But actually, Kalak, like the Eskimos themselves, was just struggling to find food for herself and her cubs, and to outwit the enemies that lay in wait for her everywhere. In this ruthless land where all species, from the tiny lemmings to the bears and whales and Eskimos, prey on each other just to stay alive, wits are almost as important as strength - a fact which adds greatly to the suspense of "Kalak of the Ice."

Leseprobe

Kalak of the Ice

by Jim Kjelgaard

First published in 1949

This edition published by Reading Essentials

Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

[email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Kalak of the Ice

by

Jim Kjelgaard

Chapter I

THE BAY OF SEALS

The wind, blowing in from the sea, rippled the water where pack and shore ice parted. From the air, the open water resembled an irregular river in the ice.

A lone white gull hovered over the open lead, and looked with bright eyes at the water below. He banked, and flew slowly up the lead with bent head. The gull squawked querulously, crossed the lead, and reversed his direction.

Suddenly the gull planed down toward the open water. Then, within inches of the surface, he flapped upward again. From the height at which he had flown, a floating chip of ice had looked like a dead fish. Not often was the gull guilty of such error. But now he could afford to miss no opportunity to get food. His last meal, a few shrimp, had been eaten twenty hours ago. Desperate hunger prodded the bird.

The gull wheeled again, and patiently started back up that side of the lead which he had already explored. Suddenly he dived, hovered for a second over the water, and snatched and gulped a small fish that floated belly-up. The gull came to rest on an ice hummock, folded his wings, and moved his bill as though he were still savoring the tiny fish. The morsel had merely dulled the sharpest edge of the gull's appetite, but that was something.

Rested, the gull took wing and flew swiftly out over the ice pack, head bent as he scanned the ice beneath him. His objective was another open lead, where shrimp might come to the surface or where he might find another dead fish. Suddenly the gull wheeled and swung back over the ice. So perfectly did the animals below him blend with their surroundings that he had almost passed without seeing them.

He had to look sharply when he returned, but now he could see the two polar bears on the pack ice. The gull settled on an ice hummock a few yards from them, and folded his wings. He knew now that he would eat. Sooner or later the bears would make a kill.

The gull waited patiently.

Kalak, the she polar bear, and her yearling cub had been out on the pack. Living on the ice, sleeping there when they were tired, eating the seals that appeared wherever there was an open lead, they had not been near land since the long winter night lifted and the sun shone once more. But now, with the approach of summer, they were ranging back toward land.

As they approached the shore, Kalak was cautious and fretful, quartering to catch in her nostrils any stray gust that might bring a message from land. However, the wind carried no evidence of either food or danger.

The bear saw the gull come down, but paid no attention to it. Usually, in summer, there were one or more gulls about to feed on the remains of her kills. Kalak did not mind as long as the gulls were not impudent and did not try to feed while she and the cub were eating. Her present problem, like the gull's, was to find something to eat.

Yesterday, far out on the ice, Kalak and the cub had fed on a fat seal. Then they had lain down to sleep before travelling on under the light of the midnight sun. A few hours ago they had started to hunt again, and now were very hungry.

The cub was fretful, but Kalak had been hungry before. She knew that if she kept travelling, sooner or later she would find something to eat. Frequently, in her previous experience, she had run across places where, because a strong current had swept the shrimp away or there was no current to bring them in, there were no shrimp. And she knew that the seals upon which she lived were not to be found where there was not an abundance of shrimp or fish for them to eat.

Kalak and the cub swam the open lead and climbed out on the short ice. Sometimes dead whales—either small white whales or the mighty bowheads—washed up on shore and furnished food in plenty. Kalak strode on, head extended and nostrils flaring to catch any scent that might rise. But nothing had travelled here recently enough to leave a scent.

The cub, growing more and more irritable as hunger pinched, padded up beside Kalak and grunted.

The mother bear swung her head to bunt the cub and knock him sprawling. She, too, had become irritable. Hunger had not made her so; she had just wearied of the cub's complaining. Then, too, the wind from the sea had lulled, and with no wind to brush the ice and carry its cold touch to the shore, all the heat generated by a constantly shining sun had become oppressive.

Kalak turned again to vent her displeasure on the cub. Turning so hastily that he almost somersaulted backward, the cub ran a few yards and stood looking over his shoulder to see what was going to happen next. Kalak grunted sourly, and turned back to the sea. The cub followed at a safe distance.

Their hindquarters submerged, swimming only with their front paws, they surged back across the open lead and climbed out among the broken hummocks and ridges on the pack ice. As the bears threaded their expert way among them, the gull took flight and flew in slow circles high above them.

Kalak and the cub came to open water. The wind had increased, and before them waves rolled and fell back in whitecaps. There was a sudden shuddering crack as the chunk of ice on which the bears stood broke off and, pushed by the wind, started toward the dimly seen ice pack on the far side of the open water. For a while the bears rode their raft. Then they slipped easily into the water and started swimming. In a few minutes the drifting ice cake was left far behind.

When they reached the far side, Kalak climbed out on the pack ice and waited for the cub to join her. As he did so, the eddying wind brought the faint scent of basking seals. The cub, too, caught the scent and padded eagerly forward, whining softly. Kalak let him go. In the near future he would have to hunt for himself, and earn his own way in this land of ice, just as she always had. He must learn to hunt by hunting.

After he had taken the lead, Kalak followed him quietly. Her big padded paws made no noise on the ice; she was careful to keep away from hummocks and ridges from which ice might break and alarm the seal. She watched the cub's progress critically.

The scent of open water came from just ahead, and with it was mingled the distinct odor of a near-by seal. The cub sank down, flattening himself on the ice and pushing noiselessly forward with groping hind feet. Kalak crawled behind him, around one last hummock, and saw the seal sunning himself almost at the very edge of a wide lead. Kalak stopped, but the cub went on, all his eager interest centered on the prey he was trying to stalk.

The seal raised its head to look about. The cub stopped, freezing where he was. The seal lowered his head. When it did so, the cub pushed himself forward.

Then the cub let anxiety overcome judgment. Rather than stop when the seal raised its head again, he continued his stalk. Although almost invisible against the ice, so well did his coat blend with it, he was still seen by the experienced seal. For a bare second the seal stared at the moving white object. Then, as though he were on a greased chute, the seal slid into the water and dived under the protecting ice.

The disgust she felt evident in every line of her body, Kalak rose and strode to the still-crouched cub. She raised an immense front paw, and delivered a blow that sent the cub skidding across the ice. Kalak did not look back, but this time she led while the cub followed meekly.

The bear's nose soon told her that there were more seals ahead. She stopped, flattened on the ice, and pushed herself around an ice hummock. Twenty feet away, down an icy incline, there was another open lead. On the far side, near enough to the water so that it could slide instantly to safety, another seal basked in the sun.

Kalak backed carefully behind the hummock, and crawled on a line parallel with the lead, until she was a hundred yards from a point opposite the seal. When she started toward the water again, Kalak grunted meaningly. The chastised cub remained where he was.

Slowly, with infinite patience, the mother bear worked her way toward the lead, her eyes on the seal. Every time it raised its head, or even stirred, Kalak froze where she was. When she finally reached the water, she slid her great bulk into it so quietly that scarcely a spreading ripple revealed her presence. With only her nose protruding, she swam slowly toward the seal. The cub and the circling gull saw the basking animal raise its head and stay alert. Kalak, the most expert of hunters, had made no noise, but still the seal sensed danger. It slid toward the water.

But when the seal reached it, Kalak was there. She had marked the place exactly, and received the two-hundred-pound seal squarely in her jaws. Clinging to the ice with her front paws, she clamped her teeth tightly until the seal stopped thrashing.

As easily as a terrier carries a rat, Kalak carried her prey out on the ice. The eager cub rose, ran to the water, scrambled in, and swam across. There on the bleak ice Kalak and her cub feasted on the hapless seal's rich blubber. Surfeited, they sought a near-by hummock and lay down to sleep beside it.

The hungry gull swooped down beside the remains of the seal.

Four hours later, Kalak and her cub arose, yawning and stretching. Propped up on her front paws, like an immense dog, Kalak read the stories the wind brought to her. Then side by side, the bears started off across the pack ice.

They swam leads where they found them, drank from fresh-water lakes formed where old salt ice had freshened and melted and, when they wanted to rest, lay in the shaded portions of ice hummocks or ridges.

The next day, Kalak caught another seal. There was not an abundance of them here, but there were more than there had been in the coastal area patrolled by the lonely gull. Nearly every lead held a few shrimp and, beneath the ice, there were fish ranging in size from small herring to great cod.

Kalak's route kept her almost along the line where the pack ice ground against the frozen shore. It was a rugged journey which in turn led over smooth ice, across old ice whose humps and ridges had melted until it resembled a frozen prairie, over ice still humped in sixty-foot ridges and crests, and across open sea.

The two polar bears took all of it in their stride, catching seals where they needed them and resting when rest was called for. They did not swerve from their path, even when the ice about them churned and broke, and heaped itself in still higher ridges. This was Kalak's country; she was as much at home in it as any land beast can be in its own domain. She knew and understood the ice pack as well as the moose knows and understands his forest, or the bighorn his crags.

The difference between the sea ice and the land lay in the fact that the ice was an ever-changing world. There were no paths which might be the same next year or even next day. The pack always moved and, in moving, opened new water where none had been or closed leads that were open. Kalak found her way because of a deep-seated intelligence in her brain and a compass in her nose. So she took her cub where she willed and always found the best path to go there.

On their third day of travel, Kalak stopped suddenly. She inched behind a hummock, and stood as still as the ice beside her. The cub, coming up behind her, stopped too. Every tiny nerve in Kalak's immense body was alert as she sought a repetition of the thing that had halted her in her tracks.

It came again. From across the ice, in the direction of the shore, there floated the far-off barking of a dog. The dog barked still again, and another joined in. The cub moved slightly, crumbling the ice beneath him. Kalak whirled furiously upon him, and the cub backed to the hummock and stood still.

Kalak waited as only a wild creature could wait, one who had learned the certain value of patience and caution. Although her ears had warned her first, she was waiting for the full knowledge that only her nose could supply. But the wind was keening in from the sea, in the wrong direction. Neither she nor the cub moved a muscle.

Then the wind eddied, and momentarily came rolling back from shore. In that moment Kalak learned all that she wished to know.

It was a familiar odor, that of the Endorah Eskimo village. Mingled with the scent of humans was that of many dogs, but not as many as there had been the last time Kalak had come within scenting distance of the village. There was also the odor of skin tents, the stench that always gathers around a camp, the rich smell of seal oil, and the smell of driftwood fires. The big ice bear stood perfectly still, making up her mind what to do. She was afraid.

It was not fear for herself. Steel-muscled and sinewed, equipped with pile-driver paws and jaws that were capable of breaking a seal's back with one bite, she knew and understood her own strength and hardihood. She was experienced and cunning, or else she would have died long ago. The arctic shores and the polar pack were no place for weaklings. Kalak had never been afraid for herself.

But deep within her lay something that was entirely separate from savagery and brute force. She must hunt, and fight, and run if need be, so that her young might survive. That was irresistible instinct, but an instinct sharpened in her case by bitter memories. Kalak had a great capacity for loving her cub, and was worried because she knew of the many dangers that could strike down her young.

The first time she had become a mother, young and inexperienced, she had left her two cubs to go seal hunting. She had not remained away for long, but when she returned the cubs were gone, blood stained the den, and there was the scent of wolves about. Then she had again borne twin cubs, and seen them run down by a sputtering launch that was lowered from the deck of a great ship. Kalak had tried to rescue them, but the launch was swifter than she and it had drawn rapidly away. For days she had roamed the sea, furiously striking at anything that lay in her path and not eating as she sought her kidnapped young. She had never found them. The next time she had borne only one cub, and had seen him crushed by a collapsing wall of ice.

Now again she had but one cub upon which she could lavish all her love. The cub had been at her side for more than a year, and Kalak had kept him out on the ice pack partly because she knew that hunters from the Eskimo village seldom ventured that far. She was not afraid of the hunters, but she was terribly afraid of the harm they might bring to her cub. She could go back to the ice pack, but hunting would be poor there at this time of year.

Wheeling, Kalak loped swiftly away from the dangerous scent and led the cub swiftly out on the ice pack. Coming to a lead, they plunged in and swam across. The two bears had not eaten for many hours and were hungry. But despite the protesting whimpers of the cub, Kalak did not stop to hunt even when the odor of near-by seals was borne to her nostrils.

When, at last, Kalak turned again to face the shore and wait for the changing wind to bring her the story of what lay there, she found no taint of man. There was only the clean smell of the pack in the cold wind that blew into her receptive nostrils. Kalak slowed her pace, and swung back in the direction she had been travelling when she smelled the Eskimo village. The cub whimpered again, plaintively, and this time his mother did not rebuff him. Kalak stopped to hunt.

The next day they came to a great area of open water and stood on the edge of the pack while they stared across its apparently endless expanse.

Directly before them, half a hundred yards from the shore, a gam of bowhead whales floated near the surface and sent their water spouts high into the air. The cub watched with his head up, eyes and ears alert, and padded down to the very edge of the ice so he could see better. He reared himself to his full height. A throaty growl bubbled from his cub throat as, in every way a polar bear can, he challenged the whales to come in and fight.

Suddenly the edge of the ice cracked, slid into the sea, and took the cub with it. He tumbled in headfirst and heels in the air. Then, just as he was about to strike the water, he straightened himself out and dived cleanly. The cub surfaced, swam back to the ice, and clawed his way up onto it. He looked sheepishly at Kalak, then walked back to the ice's edge, being careful not to go too near, and growled again at the whales.

Kalak swung along the edge of the ice, and followed it mile after mile. In late afternoon they came upon creatures that had climbed out of the sea to the ice. The cub pushed eagerly ahead to look at them. Huge beasts with long ivory tusks, they were even bigger than Kalak. This time the cub did not growl, but looked ed questioningly at his mother. The herd of walrus was too near; if he challenged them to battle they might accept. The walrus only raised their heads and stared when the polar bears went by.

In mid-morning of the sixth day they came to the Bay of Seals.

The Bay itself was merely a great indentation in the arctic coast. Shore ice, accumulated over the years, had crawled far up on the slate rocks that stretched away from the sea. A strong north wind was blowing and the restless pack ice ground against the shore. Farther out, the Bay was solid ice, split at various places by leads of differing widths. Seals almost without number crowded the edges of the leads, or hunted shrimp in the open water.

The Bay of Seals was a wild and lonely place. It was a lost world in itself, a savage and storm-lashed spot that could be visited only by the hardiest and most daring of arctic hunters. But the shrimp and fish that swarmed in the open leads or beneath the ice attracted the seals, and, in summer, many polar bears came to feed on the seals.

From where she stood Kalak saw thirteen of the great ice bears, and the wind brought her the scent of many more. The cub, dismayed at finding himself among so many of his kind, crowded close at his mother's heels.

A huge bear with a snake-like head and lean body emerged from the water, stood beside the lead from which he had climbed, and looked silently at Kalak and her cub. Kalak lowered her head and bared yellow tushes, while a rumbling threat issued from her throat. The male bear dived back into the lead and swam across.

At this display of his mother's invincibility, the cub strode cockily forward. Kalak walked at his side, missing nothing, particularly aware of anything that might threaten the cub.

A summer fog began to settle over the Bay. Its curling tendrils slowly obscured the ice, the shore, and the open leads. The wind died, but the breezes still carried the scent of those living creatures which were abroad in the bay. As Kalak strode swiftly forward, the cub remained close at her heels.

Out of the mist loomed a white presence, a thing that was more sensed than seen. Kalak did not break her pace, but the cub cringed against her when he saw the beast that had come. It was a monstrous bear, a creature bigger than Kalak. This time the cub's mother did not growl when the bigger bear approached.

Thus, in a blinding mist over the Bay of Seals, Kalak met the far-ranging mate whom she had not seen since winter last closed over the ice fields.