With each step he took, Bernard's shoulder throbbed. After he had finished cleaning his wounds the night before, he had almost immediately fallen asleep, only to wake up with a scream several hours later after accidentally tearing the bullet wound back open as he tossed and turned.

Although it was no longer bleeding, Bernard was still wary of reopening the injury. He had skinned his knees enough times when he was younger to know that the wound would heal more quickly once the scab had time to harden. Until then, he'd have to take it easy.

As tempting as it was to investigate the river he heard flowing nearby, Bernard decided to try to find the source of the horribly strong smell from the day before to make sure the territory was safe. The odor hadn't faded since the day before, so he doubted it was the old bear's scent.

There was something familiar about the smell.

A distant memory tickled the back of Bernard's mind, only to disappear when he tried to remember it. He must not have smelled anything like this scent in quite a while, whatever it was.

Although the fight had left his stomach grumbling, Bernard was determined not to put much effort into foraging unless he absolutely had to. Too much movement could strain his shoulder or make it start bleeding again. The last thing he needed was to leave a trail of blood behind him in case the grizzly tried to find him and reclaim its territory.

More than the possibility of luring a threat to him, the serenity of the area convinced Bernard to avoid disturbing the wildlife by digging for grubs or anything similarly messy. The animals here acted as if they had never seen a bear before. They gave him plenty of personal space, yet they seemed more curious than fearful.

The way the rabbits sniffed the air as he approached and waited until he drew close before hopping into their burrows made him wonder when this land's previous owner had last hunted here. Had he been too old to hunt for himself, or was his territory so large that he simply had not chosen to hunt near this area in recent memory? Either way, disturbing the peace and harmony here would do Bernard as much good as smashing a vase. The pieces would still be pretty afterward, but they could never compare to the beauty of the whole.

Bernard munched on the berries and mushrooms he found as he traveled toward the source of the smell. He stepped softly, cringing at every snapped twig. Despite the squeaks, chirps, and yips that peppered the air, every noise he made sounded like an explosion to his ears. He did not belong here. This was not his home.

At least, it wasn't yet.

Once he marked this territory as his own by clawing the trees along its borders, then maybe he could feel like he belonged here. For now, he was little more than a tourist observing all there was to see as the locals went about their business.

As he reached an area where the trees grew less thickly, a distant rumbling that reminded Bernard of thunder came from the direction he was headed. It lasted longer than any thunder he had ever heard before fading away. Bernard strained his ears as he picked up the pace.

Right when he thought his mind or the cub must have been playing tricks on him, the rumbling began again and was punctuated by the unmistakable blare of a car horn. Humans!

People weren't necessarily a bad thing. Of course, hunters would be a problem if they chose to come here, but why would there be so much carefree wildlife here if they frequented the area? The humans could just be passing through, or maybe they were tourists who came here to see wildlife and take pictures. Or they could be rangers.

Could they have been his father's coworkers? If that was true, he must be close to home. His real home.

That thought sent Bernard's heart hammering as he made a beeline for the newly discovered road.

The cub squealed in terror. "Are you crazy?" it said. "You've already been shot. Are they going to have to turn you into prey on the run before you realize how horrible humans are?"

Bernard bit back a snarl, muttering his response as the stench of asphalt filled his nose and burned it with a vengeance. "They could help me. If we're in a national park, I can guarantee that the rangers will keep hunters away from here." And if he caught the scent of some rangers, he could follow them to their headquarters. Then he could figure out where he was and start making his way home.

"Humans don't want anything to do with us. They don't even bother trying to act like any of the other animals."

Bernard would rather have a hundred burs lodged in his fur than be lectured about what a horrible creature he used to be by an invisible furball. He tried to ignore the relentless voice whining in the back of his mind, but it grew increasingly high pitched as he neared the road. He could make out the seemingly endless line of gray on the horizon.

"Face it," the cub said, "they don't just kill to eat or to protect themselves. They kill because they enjoy it."

Bernard paused. "What would you do?" he whispered. "If you know so much about mankind, what would you do in a man's place if you were surrounded by beasts born to do anything it took to survive? Humans don't have claws or fangs or any other body parts to help them defend themselves when members of your species choose to attack them." It was hard to tell which was shaking more: his voice or his legs.

"People don't kill animals for fun. They do it because they are afraid," Bernard continued. "Even hunters who display the heads of the animals they have killed on their walls are afraid. Do you know why they make sure everyone sees their trophies?" He paused before hissing out, "It's because knowing they can destroy what scares them makes them worry less about how one selfish brute could take their lives away from them for daring to step an inch too close to them."

The cub went silent.

Bernard grunted. Of course it couldn't argue with that. There was no way it could understand what it was like to be human.

His father wouldn't have approved of how he had talked about wildlife, but his beliefs about why some people chose to hunt for sport instead of food had stuck with Bernard since he was little. The idea seemed even more believable now. Fear had a way of driving people to foolishness.

By the time Bernard's argument with the cub ended, he was mere feet away from the road. Beneath the powerful reek of exhaust fumes old and new, he could pick up the scent of another bear who had claimed the territory next to his from deep scratch marks in the trees along the border. Bits of dried blood clung to the bark, smelling faintly of elk.

The foliage was so thick that Bernard needed to come almost to the road's edge to get a good look at it.

It was empty now. Not a single car was visible in either direction. The pavement was cracked, and a handful of potholes littered its surface. The fresh carcass of a wolverine lay sprawled in one of the holes.

As Bernard watched, an enormous, familiar looking bear lumbered into the road.

The bear's muscles rippled beneath his light brown fur as he leaned down to grab the wolverine's body in his jaws and began dragging it into the bushes. After pausing to scratch at the tracking collar wrapped around his neck, he sniffed the air. The massive male grunted and dropped the wolverine's corpse into the dirt before turning to face Bernard.

Bernard shrank back under his gaze.

The behemoth laughed. "Well, if it isn't the overgrown chipmunk. I see you've chased away the old bag of bones."

"What are you doing here?" Bernard said, trying and failing to keep his voice from trembling. "This isn't your territory."

"It is now. Thanks to the humans that pass through here, I barely have to hunt anymore. They always have more than enough food for me. The only problem is they aren't as good about handing the food over as they were in my old territory."

Bernard's eyes widened. "You were relocated because humans fed you, weren't you?"

The older bear snorted. "So what? I can make them feed me whether they want to or not. It's not like I can't take care of myself." He glared at Bernard and bared his bloodstained fangs. "The name's Arturo. See to it that you stay on your side of the trees, Runt, or else you'll look worse than this mangy lump of fur when I'm through with you." With that, he picked up the road kill wolverine and carried it into the depths of his territory.

Bernard shuddered. He had better heed Arturo's warning. Hopefully respecting his borders would be enough to keep that massive bear from beating him up again.

After following Arturo's scent markers to where his territory met the road, Bernard caught a whiff of blood under the leaf litter. He pawed the decaying plant matter away.

A bloodstained strip of gauze lay beneath the debris. The scents coming from it were faint and stale, yet Bernard recognized a familiar smell mixed with a human's scent: parsley. There was only one human he knew who smelled so strongly of herbs. He glanced at the road. Which way had she gone?

"You'll lose her scent long before you find her," said the cub.

"Nobody asked for your opinion."

"Would you prefer if I let you lose the first territory you managed to claim while you searched for someone who doesn't want you around?"

Bernard sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, the cub had a point. He didn't even know which way his mother had gone.

He clamped his jaws around the gauze and carried it further from the border. Ignoring his aching shoulder, he dug a hole near the roots of a pine tree before clawing an X into the tree's bark to mark the spot. He breathed in his mother's scent one last time, inhaling deeply before dropping the gauze into the hole and covering it with dirt.

No matter what happened, he would always have something to remind him of the family he had lost. As long as he remembered his mother's scent, he could find her again someday.

After walking back to the border, Bernard reached up with his good arm and scratched the trees that lined his side with his claws. With his mother possibly living close to this territory, he couldn't risk abandoning it. If he managed to hold onto it long enough, maybe he could figure out how to return to his real home.