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diversion sent by Set to draw the men away from the caves."
    It was a long, punishingly hard day, and I was constantly on the alert. Perhaps there was more than a cave bear in these woods. Certainly there should be more than a solitary bear. Where there was one there should be others. Yet no matter how diligently we searched, that one set of tracks was all we could find.
    The tracks followed the river's course, and we trailed along its bank beneath the overhanging trees. Colorful birds chirped and called to us and insects danced before our eyes like frantic sunbeams in the heat of the afternoon.
    Chron clambered up a tall slanting pine and called down, "The river makes a big bend to the right, and then grows very wide. It looks like . . . yaa!"
    His sudden scream startled us. The youngster was frantically swatting at the air around his head with one hand and trying to climb down from his perch at the same time. Looking closer, I saw that he was enveloped in a cloud of angry, stinging bees.
    I raced toward the tree. Chron slipped and lost his grip, plummeting toward the ground, crashing through the lower branches of the tree. I dived the last few feet and reached out for him, caught him briefly in my arms, and then we both hit the ground with an undignified thump. The air was knocked out of me and my arms felt as if they'd been pulled from their shoulder sockets.
    The bees came right after him, an angry buzzing swarm.
    "Into the river!" I commanded. All nine of us ran as if chased by demons and splashed without a shred of dignity into the cool water while the furious bees filled the air like a menacing cloud of pain. None of the men could swim, but they followed me as I ducked my head beneath the water's surface and literally crawled farther away from the bank.
    Nine spouting, spraying heads popped up from the water, hair dripping in our eyes, hands raised to ward off our tiny tormentors. We were far enough from the riverbank; the cloud of bees was several yards away, still buzzingly proclaiming their rights, but no longer pursuing us.
    For several minutes we stood there with our feet in the mud and our faces barely showing above the water level. The bees grudgingly returned to their hive high up in the tree.
    I picked the soggy stem of a water lily from my nose. "Still think I'm a god?" I asked Noch.
    The men burst into laughter. Noch guffawed and pointed at Chron. His face was lumpy and fire red with stings. It was not truly a laughing matter, but we all roared hysterically. All but poor Chron.
    We waded many yards downstream before dragging ourselves out of the river. Chron was in obvious pain. I made him sit on a log while I focused my eyes finely enough to see the tiny barbs embedded in his swollen face and shoulders and pulled them out with nothing more than my fingernails. He yelped and flinched at each one, but at last I had them all. Then I plastered his face with mud.
    "How does it feel now?" I asked him.
    "Better," he said unhappily. "The mud feels cool."
    Noch and the others were still giggling. Chron's face was caked so thickly with mud that only his eyes and mouth showed through.
    The sun was low in the west. I doubted that we would have enough daylight remaining to find our bear, let alone try to kill it. But I was curious about Chron's description of the river up ahead.
    So we cut through the woods, away from the riverbank's bend. It was tough going; the undergrowth was thick and tangled here. Nettles and thorns scratched at our bare skin. After about half an hour of forcing our way through the brush we saw the water again, but now it was so wide that it looked to me like a sizable lake.
    And hunched down on the grassy edge of the water sat our bear, intently peering into the quietly lapping little waves. We froze, hardly even breathing, in the cover of thick blackberry bushes. The breeze was blowing in from the broad lake, carrying our scent away from the bear's sensitive nostrils. It had no idea that we were