A Bear Named Trouble by Marion Dane Bauer

1. A Bear, a Boy, a Goose
    T HE Alaskan brown bear wasn't born to the name Trouble. He arrived in his six-hundred-pound mother's den the size of a chubby chipmunk, and for her he had no name at all. He was merely her reason for being alive.
    For the next three years of the cub's life, he and his mother were seldom apart. He had neither brother nor sister, so his great brown mother was his entire world. And he must have assumed—if bears can be said to assume—that his life was as it would always be. He and his mother... together.
    Bears have no defined territory, as wolves do and even birds. They have a range, but that range will be overlapped by many other bears.
Consequently; they must learn a hierarchy—who has rights to the best spot along the salmon stream, who stays to feast and who moves on when the bushes hang heavy with crowberries, even who gets to nap on that smooth rock in the sun. Cubs have no status at all, but while they are with their mother, her place in the world is theirs.
    During the long, long summer days in the wilderness outside Anchorage, this mother taught her son all she knew about survival She showed him what roots and grasses and berries to eat and where to find them, the way to snatch spawning salmon from the river, how to discover the underground food caches of singing voles. She played with him, too, patient with his mock attacks, his insistent chewing on her face and ears and neck, his games of tag. And always she kept him close, calling him back if he strayed too far and nursing him many times a day. He hummed as he drew sustenance and comfort from his mother's warm body. Why
should he expect this idyllic life ever to end?
    Then one April day, not long after the now-adolescent bear and his mother had emerged from their third winter's den, a large male came sniffing around the open, wet area where they grazed on tufted marsh plants. In the past when another bear came near, the cub's mother had always run it off, or else she called to her son and they were the ones to move away. This time she did neither. She pretended to ignore the big fellow, but her ignoring was filled with a subtle message. "It's all right," she seemed to be saying to the intruder. "It's all right. You may stay.
"
    The big male's being so near confused and distressed the young bear, and he moved closer to his mother's side for safety. She had upended a clump of sod to reveal pea-vine roots and was using her long curved claws to sift the dirt from them. The young bear bent to eat.
    To the cub's surprise, when his head came near his mother's, she flattened her ears and growled, low, under her breath. He leapt away.
Bewildered, he stood for a long moment, caught between his mother's irritable warning and the intruder. Finally, he turned and sauntered a short distance from both, pretending unconcern. He dug up some wild onions and sat down to continue his breakfast.
    He didn't even think about his mother again until he looked up to see her bearing down on him in a silent charge. She veered off before making contact, but the seriousness of her message couldn't have been clearer. The young bear took off at a gallop. When he reached what seemed a safe distance, he stopped to look back.
    His gentle mother flattened her ears, popped her jaws, and showed her sharp yellow teeth.
    The son checked the waiting male for confirmation of what had just happened. The big fellow only went on grazing, apparently unconcerned about the drama playing out before him.
    The adolescent cub turned back to his
mother again and whimpered, just once. She made no response. But when he took an experimental step toward her, she lifted her snout and flattened her ears once more. No question remained.
    Head hanging low, eyes dark with misery, the cub accepted his mother's sentence. He turned away.
    From this day on he would be alone in the world.
    ***
    Jonathan stood well off the zoo path, deep among the trees, so as to be away from other visitors.