“Sin e! An sin e!”
Roger didn’t know which man had shouted; Jamie and Ian were well out of sight, but the Gaelic words rang faintly through the trees. There! There it is!
Aidan made a high choking noise, put his head down, and began to run as though his life depended on it, plowing his way up the slope. Roger grabbed Jemmy’s hand and followed with Germain, jabbing his staff hard into the ground to help them along.
They crested the slope, lost their balance, and slid and tumbled down into a small dell, where the dogs were leaping like flames around a tall tree, yammering and howling at a large—a very large—dark shape thirty feet off the ground, wedged in the crotch between two trunks.
Roger scrambled to his feet, shedding dry leaves and looking for the boys. Aidan was nearby; he’d got halfway up and was frozen on his hands and knees, looking up. His mouth moved, but he wasn’t talking. Roger looked round wildly for Jemmy.
“Jem! Where are you?”
“Right here, Da,” Jem said from behind him, through the noise of the dogs. “Is Aidan okay?”
He felt a thump of relief at sight of Jem’s red head; his plait had come undone and his hair was full of pine needles. There was a scrape on his cheek, but he clearly wasn’t hurt. Roger patted him briefly and turned to Aidan, crouching down beside the boy.
“Aidan? Are ye all right?”
“Aye.” He seemed dazed, and no wonder. He’d not taken his eyes off the bear. “Will it come down and eat us?”
Roger gave the bear in the tree a wary look. It bloody well might, for all he knew.
“Himself and the others ken what to do,” he assured Aidan, rubbing the boy’s small, bony back in reassurance. He hoped he was right.
“If it comes for ye, hit it across the snout as hard as ye can,” Jamie had told him. “If it makes to bite, drive your stick down his throat …”
He’d lost his staff, tumbling down. Where—there. He scrambled down the slope, keeping an eye on the bear, a solid black blob against the blue sky. It didn’t seem disposed to move, but he felt much better with the stick in his hand.
The hunters had gathered together a little way off and were regarding the bear, narrow-eyed. The dogs were ecstatic, leaping, clawing the tree, barking and yelping and plainly willing to keep doing it for as long as it took.
“Come on.” Roger gathered the boys and led them up the slope, behind Jamie and the others. Now that he’d got them safely in hand, he had a moment to actually look at the bear. It was moving its head restively from side to side, peering down at the dogs and clearly thinking, What the hell …？ He was surprised to feel a sense of sympathy for the treed animal. Then he remembered Amy and sympathy died.
“… canna get a decent shot,” Jamie was saying, sighting along his rifle. He lowered it and glanced at Ian. “Can ye move him for me?”
“Oh, aye.” Ian unslung his bow, unhurried, and with no fuss at all, nocked an arrow and shot it straight into the bear’s backside. The bear squealed with rage and backed rapidly halfway down the trunk, gave the dogs a quick glance, and then with an amazing grace jumped to another tree ten feet away, grabbing the trunk.
The men all shouted and the dogs instantly swarmed the new tree, just as the bear started down. The bear, the arrow sticking absurdly out behind it, went back up, looked to and fro for a better idea, and not finding one, jumped back to its original tree. Jamie shot it, and it thumped to the ground like a huge sack of flour.
“Crap,” said Jemmy, awed. Germain grabbed his hand. Aidan gave a howl of rage and lunged toward the fallen bear. Roger lunged, too, and grabbed Aidan’s collar, but the worn shirt ripped and Aidan ran, leaving a handful of cloth in Roger’s grasp.
“Fucking stay there!” Roger shouted at Jem, who was staring openmouthed, and went after Aidan, crashing through fallen branches and twisting his ankles and scraping his shins on stumps and deadfalls.
The other men were all shouting and running, too. But Aidan had got the knife from his belt and was roaring in a high treble as he stumbled the last few feet toward the bear. The dogs had already reached it and were snapping and tearing at the carcass—if it was a carcass.
Gillebride was belting down the slope, spear in both hands and bellowing at the dogs. The bear rose suddenly, swaying, and swatted Bluebell away. She crashed against a tree with a yelp and fell and Aidan stabbed his little knife into the bear’s side, screaming and screaming, and then Roger had him, grabbed him round the middle and flung himself away with Aidan beneath him and heard behind him the thunk! of the spear and a long, long sigh from the bear. Leaves flew up as the bear hit the ground. They touched Roger’s face and one of the dogs galloped across him, its nails digging into his back as it launched itself at the dead bear.