Achmed Abdullah

“ She could charge—with a thousand pounds of bunched muscle and brutal meat—but when she missed, the best she could do was to use her nose and forepaws as brakes, bump back, twist in a sharp angle right or left, according to what side of the tree Mortazu Khan had slid—and return to the charge. And always the man, keeping tight to the fir, got ahead of her, while the bear, squealing like an angry boar, landed on the ground, hurting her delicate nose and clawing with her paws till the moss was shredded to rags and the sand beneath seemed to look up with scared, yellow eyes. ”

“ And Bibi Bear rose on her hind feet, fir needles and moss sticking to her pelt, belly sagging loosely, perspiration rising from her nostrils in a gray flag of steam. Straight toward the tree she walked, forepaws wide extended as if to embrace the fir and the miserable being who was clinging to it for dear life.
Something like a slobbering grin curled the brute's black, leathery lips, and Mortazu Khan watched. His skin seemed to shrink. Blue wheels whirled in front of his eyes. A hammer beat at the base of his skull. ”

“ But when a moment later he heard the animal give tongue—a low, flat rumble growing steadily into a sustained roar, then stabbing out in a squeaky high note that sounded ridiculously inadequate, given the brute's size—Mortazu Khan, without looking over his shoulder, jumped sideways like a cat, cleared a heap of dry twigs, and made straight for a stout fir-tree that towered in lanky loneliness a dozen yards away. He reached it and jumped behind it. His hands gripped the rough, warty bark.
"Some cursed fool of a foreigner must have burned her pelt with a bullet of pain." ”