Lord of the Forest

Following the smell, the bear eventually broke out to the edge of a clearing. The river was running fast, spraying off the opposite side. His gaze turned to the moose carcass lying prone on the stones lining the bank, almost half a tonne of food that would help see him through winter.

The one problem for the great bear was the killers of that moose. The wolves had turned their heads the moment he broke out of the trees, and their response was immediate. The alpha pair lowered their ears and began snarling, maws stained red from eating. They had several children, two of which were adults. All joined their parents in appearing as threatening as possible, growling and baring huge canine teeth.

The bear wasn’t impressed; he was hungry.

He stood up on his hind legs, a display which caused the nearest wolves to shrink away. Yet they still did not move away from the moose. So he slammed back onto his front legs, let out a huge roar, and charged. He was slower than usual due to the extra fat reserves he had built up, but he still tore across the stones at a pace that made the wolves’ eyes go wide. The one closest stayed where he was, still snarling, but once he realised the bear wasn’t going to stop he darted out of the way. The alpha pair barked savagely but the bear paid no heed, just kept running at them until they backed down. The pair jumped off the carcass and darted around. The bear snorted as he came to a stop by his prize. The wolves had lost the initial battle, but such a huge meal would not be given up so easily. The younger wolf from before lunged forward and bit at the bear’s back leg, causing the much larger animal to whip around and try and grab him. The wolf was cunning though and easily moved out of the way as his sister came in from the other side and copied.

The wolves knew they couldn’t hope to kill the bear, so they would have kept doing this until he gave up and left them be. The bear was older though, and with age came experience in tackling the cunning creatures. So he moved around the carcass so that his back was to it and promptly sat down. The pack snarled as they tried to repeat their strategy, but the bear could now react much more quickly. The third adult child of the alpha pair finally tried his luck, and the bear made him pay for it. His growls were replaced with whines as the grizzly lunged with his paws and slashed at the wolf’s side. The parents instinctively tried to move in, but the bear had already done enough damage. The wolf whimpered as it limped away, blood dripping onto the stones. The bear saw the alpha female try and lunge from his right; a warning snap of his jaws made her reconsider.

He bellowed once more, and this finally led the pack to realise they would not make him budge without killing him. They might succeed, but the bear would kill most of them, and no carcass was worth such a loss. With a final bark, the father of the pack ordered the rest to move away from the carcass, his eyes full of cold rage. The bear stared back without any fear, for he had won. One by one the pack followed their leader, slinking away into the very trees the bear had emerged from. The injured son was the last, but the pack did not leave him, making sure they moved slowly so he could keep up. Perhaps he would recover, perhaps the deep wound would get infected and he would die. The bear did not care, all that mattered was the moose, which he now eagerly tore into. He greedily devoured as much as possible. The kill was still warm, and such a large animal was a rare bounty, fitting for a bear going into hibernation.

Having eaten as much as he needed, the bear spent the rest of the day nibbling at the few berries that remained and moving further up the mountain. The sun was starting to fall on the horizon, and tiny animals around him started to retreat into their burrows. His own den was much further up, in an area almost permanently encased in snow.

He stopped on a grassy outcrop and sat down on his haunches. The wolf bites stung slightly, but he had endured far worse over the years. His face still bore a huge scar from where a cougar had slashed at his eyes; he’d learned to avoid the large cats ever since for that reason. Ignoring the mild pain, his eyes turned to the land below him. The trees were starting to turn a vivid orange, and the waning sunlight glittered off both them and the river. The moose carcass lay there still, some coyotes nibbling at the few scraps the bear had left them. He would eat no more this year. Tonight was his last that he would be awake. He would go to his den, sleep, and sleep some more until he awoke as the leaves returned to the trees. Then he wouldn’t be the rotund bear he was now, but lean and starved. The bear knew he would survive the fast though. He had devoured nuts, berries, grass. He had wrestled an elk to the ground, caught a deer fawn, and hunted a black bear and her cubs. All that meat and plant food so that he would last another year, like all the others of his kind. And for the females, some of them would have the additional burden of cubs to raise next spring. Some would be his, others not. The latter would be a good source of food if the opportunity presented itself, though from experience the mothers made it more trouble than it was worth. Besides, the grizzly was in his prime, with almost more food than he needed in the spot he was still able to defend. Almost.

One autumn he would not acquire enough food. He would be too old to hunt and too weak to defend the best hunting spots. A younger bear would replace him, drive him to fish in less plentiful areas and barely have enough to survive a week, let alone hibernation. One autumn the bear would go into his den, fall asleep, and not wake up to greet the following spring.

But not this autumn. This autumn, the bear could sit, and enjoy the view.