Clark stood in front of the tent, well within reach of the bear. The bear reared up in surprise and gave a growl. Even if I wasn't born on Earth, that growl sure pushed some instinctive buttons. It was a growl that got full attention.
Clark looked up….and up. The bear stretched eight feet tall for sure, maybe more. Clark gave a quick glance at the campsite. The birthing blanket was wadded up and torn; Clark's pack pawed open; one meal had been eaten. Laura's cry must have interrupted the bear before it could finish the meals. All the blood and stuff from the birthing must have attracted it. It's looking for other things to eat now.
Clark's attention came back to the bear when it growled again. From the bear's point of view, he wasn't following the plan – when a bear growled, it expected you to get out of the way. Clark stubbornly held his ground in front of the tent. With speed surprising in such a big animal, the bear slapped him in the face with its broad paw. Clark's head snapped back despite his strength – there was a lot of momentum in a bear slap.
Clark remembered a "True Wilderness Tale" his father had read him once, after they'd been on one of their fishing trips in his boyhood. A hunter in Alaska had had the unfortunate experience of running into a bear and getting his face slapped. Unlike Clark, the hunter wasn't Kryptonian. The bear slap slashed one side of his face to ribbons, broke his jaw, knocked one eye out of its socket, and ripped the scalp off his head. Somehow, the hunter, who was alone in the wilderness, didn't die right then. He managed to make it back to his canoe and float back to a place where he could get help.
Clark narrowed his eyes and stared the bear right in the face, a challenge. The bear gave a louder growl. Clark followed up by alternately heat-visioning the bear's feet, and using his enhanced breath to blow at the bear. It rocked backward from the force of Clark's breath, then dropped to all fours and took a few steps backward. Clark didn't want to attack it outright; he figured that might make the bear angry. But if he could get it to leave on its own volition…
Clark got the bear backed up to near the firepit. It looked at Clark's backpack; it wanted to eat those meals. Clark kept up the heat and the breath, changing his angle to move the bear farther away from the backpack. Behind him, he heard a gasp. Based on the breath sounds, Lana had poked her head out of the tent and had seen what he was dealing with.
Clark checked distances. Only a little farther away…once he got the bear far enough away from their campsite, he planned on knocking it out by hitting it on the head, then he would pick it up and carry it miles away. He smiled, feeling confident, mentally rehearsing his plan.
Then, suddenly, disaster. Clark's heat vision and super-breath stopped working. He felt the familiar meteor rock nausea. Looking around quickly, he saw the lead-sealed kryptonite cylinder on the ground. The bear had spread all sorts of things around as it rifled their campsite; the cylinder was only one of the bits of trash spread around. Disastrously for Clark, the bear had either bitten or clawed at the lead. However it happened, the kryptonite was no longer sealed safely behind lead – it was out, and its malign influence on Clark was no longer abated.
The bear gave a small whuff, then stopped retreating. It stared Clark in the face; Clark tried not to fall over, but the weakness and nausea were growing.
"Lana", Clark called out weakly. She looked up as she heard her name. The bear advanced toward Clark. With his last bit of swiftly-vanishing strength, Clark gritted his teeth, fell down near the kryptonite, grabbed it (holding onto the lead as much as he could), and threw it toward Lana, screaming with pain as the green rock burned his hand.
To his dismay, the meteor fragment landed only a short distance away; he was weaker than he thought. Clark was still within the radius of its evil effects. The bear, seeing its tormenter incapacitated, moved toward Clark. It stood over him. At the last minute Clark put his left arm up to protect his face. The bear grabbed his arm in its mouth and bit down.
"Aaaah!" Clark screamed. Blood pooled in the sand. The bear let go, then took another bite. Clark tried to move his arm; it didn't seem to want to work right anymore. He looked at it – the bear's teeth had shredded the muscles above and below the elbow. Clark rolled up into a ball, crying out in pain. The bear pawed at him, making a trail of four lacerations down his back. More blood pooled.
Lana poked her head out the tent door. She gasped – that was one big bear. Clark was doing something because the bear was backing away from him. Lana felt amazement once again, that Clark could face a bear with impunity. She looked at him, mentally cheering him on.
Laura gave a tiny cry, and Lana looked back at her baby in the tent. Lana went to go back in the tent to comfort her infant, then looked at Clark in concern. He seemed shaky; the bear had stopped retreating. As Lana looked on in concern, Clark fell down. He grabbed something, wincing, and threw it in her general direction.
What's going on? Things seemed to be going wrong now. Then Clark screamed. Lana looked on in horror as she saw the bear bite his arm. Horror coursed through her as she saw him bleed.
"It must be the meteor rock", she realized. Clark hadn't made a big deal about it, but during her long labor he'd told her enough about the saves he'd made to make her understand that he was mostly invulnerable. Except, of course, when meteor rock was involved. He'd been fairly closemouthed about that too, but after seeing its effect on him earlier, she'd put two and two together.
What to do? Lana looked at Clark struggling in the bear's grasp. She turned back and looked at her newborn daughter in the tent. The baby Laura gave a louder cry.
Clark stayed curled into a fetal position as the bear pawed at his back again. One claw caught on his shirt collar; the bear ripped through the shirt, hardly noticing it. Another set of claw marks opened Clark's skin. The bear reached out again; this time it pawed at Clark's head, ripping his scalp. Blood flowed onto Clark's face, joining the blood on his back and arm.
Worse than that was the meteor rock sickness; it was pain and burning and nausea and torture all at once. Clark realized he was very likely to die here; he was losing a significant amount of blood. If this is it…I'm going to do all I can.
Lana gathered her courage. She crept out of the tent, closer to the horrific scene that was Clark Kent being mauled by a bear. The lead cylinder was hard to find; its dull color blended in with the soil. Lana looked around frantically; then a glint of sunlight reflected green. She ran to the spot, found the meteor rock. She picked it up, then ran as far away from Clark and the bear as she could. Her sore muscles protested. I'm running like an arthritic ninety-year old with rickets.
Lana looked back at the tent as she passed it by, carrying the kryptonite. God, I hope this works. What it the bear came to get Laura? She didn't know how far away she had to get from Clark and how long it would take him to regain his powers. Could he regain his powers? He'd lost so much blood….
She didn't want to think about what she would do without him. Strangely enough, in the past two days, she'd come to know him better than she ever had before. She'd seen who Clark really was. It frightened her at first. He was so alien…the things he could do…Then she'd seen that he was, really, the same man she'd loved. He just came from another planet. And his blood's red - just like a human's.
Lana took the meteor rock fragment and threw it as far away as she possibly could.
Clark reached a moment of resolution. Fighting off the pain and weakness, he rolled away from the bear and rose to his knees. The bear walked almost lazily over to Clark, knowing he was helpless. Clark felt less nauseated now, although still weak. He came to a tree, hauled himself up to a standing position. The bear advanced on all fours. I'm going to go down fighting. Clark leaned against the tree, and picked up his mauled arm with his good hand. Fists clenched together, he brought them down with all his strength on the bear's skull.
Lana gasped in amazement as Clark's fists crushed the bear's skull, sending splashes of blood and brain matter all around. The bear gave a sigh, and collapsed, a thousand pounds of predator slipping bonelessly to the ground. Clark looked at it in surprise, and cast one glance at Lana.
"Lana", he breathed out. He tried to stand straighter against the tree. Then Clark Kent fell to the ground unconscious.
"Clark!" Lana screamed. She ran to him. Oh God. He was so torn up. His arm muscles were hanging. Lana almost threw up when she saw his bones underneath the shredded hamburger that had been his left arm. Blood covered his head from the scalp wound. He lay on his face; Lana could see the deep gouges in his back, oozing blood.
"Clark! Clark! Don't die on me!" Lana pleaded. She rolled him over so that his face wasn't in the dirt. Oh my God, what to do? She ran and picked up Clark's torn-up shirt. She took the mess of skin and muscle that had been his arm and tried to put it back in place around the bone. Then she bound it with the rags of his shirt. The shirt darkened with blood immediately. I don't have anything for stitches…we don't have any antibiotics or pain medicine…
Lana looked at his other wounds; while horrific, none were bleeding seriously. She ran to the campsite, picked up some scattered clothing, and put pressure on Clark's wounds that she could reach. The blood seemed to slow down its oozing.
Then she dithered indecisively for a moment. Not sure what to do at first, Lana looked around, made a decision. She took two pans from the mess kit and ran to the lake. She put one pan on the embers of the fire. With the other pan, and the washcloth and soap she began washing Clark's wounds. She started with his face, gently sponging away the blood. The water in the pan turned red as she dipped the washcloth in.
Lana rolled Clark to one side to get at the gouges on his back. Once there, she stared at Clark's back in puzzlement. There was plenty of blood, but the deep oozy wounds she'd seen now were thin red lines. Thunderstruck, Lana examined Clark's head more closely. The loose flap of scalp was loose no longer, and the head bleeding had stopped. She put Clark on his back again, worked up her courage to remove the bloody bandages on his arm.
Under the smeared blood, she could see the grave wounds mending themselves. The tissue joined; the skin grew over; lacerations closed. She wiped some of the blood away and gasped in amazement as she saw the deep wound become a thin red line; that in turn became unmarked, normal-looking skin. Lana backed away, breathing heavily. Seeing this scared her all over again. Clark was an alien and here he was showing it.
Lana gathered herself, came back to Clark and continued washing his wounds, but with less urgency. She got fresh water from the lake and swapped that pan for the pan on the fire. She rinsed the blood from Clark's hair. She looked at his body as she washed his torso; he was healed now. Her hands slowed. She remembered loving Clark; running her hands over his body, touching him, feeling him, reveling in his body.
A rising wail from Laura in the tent broke Lana from her reverie. She stood up, looked down at Clark, still unconscious. She set down the soap and water, and went to the tent to get the baby. She carried Laura back with her. She nursed Laura sitting on the ground next to Clark.
Several hours passed. Clark remained unconscious. Lana looked around the campsite, strewn with debris. She set the sleeping Laura next to Clark. She went to the campsite and set things back in order. As the twilight approached, she washed out the pans and found a dehydrated meal that the bear hadn't gotten. She put more wood on the fire, and boiled some water for the meal. Lana ate, but her worry over Clark made the meal tasteless. Again, she sat next to Clark, holding his hand. She drifted into a light sleep.
With a jerk, she woke up. Clark had squeezed her hand lightly.
"Clark?" she asked quietly.
"Lana?" he said, voice weak and thready.
"I'm here", she said, raising his hand and squeezing it reassuringly. "You saved us."
Clark gave a sigh. A tiny smile ghosted at his lips. "You saved me", he whispered.
What? Oh, he must mean moving the meteor rock away. "I'm sorry I didn't throw it away right at the beginning", Lana said. Only now was she realizing the full magnitude of her error, her insistence on keeping the meteor rock close by.
"It's OK", Clark said weakly. "You got it away just in time." He lay in silence for a moment. "Can you get me some water, please?"
Lana hurried and got a panful of water from the lake. Clark reached for it eagerly.
"Don't you want to boil it?" asked Lana.
"I don't have the energy right now", Clark replied hoarsely. Lana set down the pan, grabbed him by his armpits, and tried to help him sit up. He was heavy. She wouldn't have been able to do it if he hadn't helped her as best he could. Lana held the pan to his mouth; he swallowed in big greedy gulps. As he drank, Lana could see color returning to his face, the awful paleness receding.
Laura, woken by the movement, began crying. Lana handed Clark the half-empty pan – he could hold it now. She went to pick up Laura.
"Is she OK?" Clark asked anxiously. His voice sounded stronger.
"She's fine." Lana brought the baby near him. He looked at Laura and smiled.
"Clark! Don't try and get up yet!" Lana said, as Clark wobbled in place. "You have to have something to eat!"
"I'm saving the meals for you---" he interjected automatically.
"You can have one. You've got to eat something!" she retorted.
"But the food situation—"
"Don't worry about that now." Lana directed his attention to the dead bear. "I hear that bear makes pretty good eating."
Clark's eyes widened as he saw the bear. He'd only had eyes for Lana and Laura so far. He swallowed and said, "I guess you moved away the meteor rock just in time."
Lana said nothing, merely handed him Laura to hold while she got some water from the lake to fix a meal for him. A matter of a few minutes sufficed to rehydrate another meal.
As Clark vigorously spooned in his meal, he could feel his strength returning. He was hungry. I could eat four more of these, he thought, looking at his plate. Then he looked over at Lana. She sat tiredly on the ground, nursing Laura again. He looked closer; there was blood where she had been sitting before, and it wasn't his own blood.
She just had a baby! Clark reminded himself, ashamed that he had had Lana doing everything for him when she was weak herself. He focused his X-ray vision, examining her for bleeding, for complications.
"Are you feeling all right?" he asked Lana roughly. She looked back at him, realizing it wasn't just a polite social question.
"I'm a little tired and I'm getting some bad cramping", she replied.
"Can we go back to the tent?" Clark asked her. He finished the last few bites of his meal, set down the plate, and stood up. After some initial wobbliness, he regained his balance. "Come with me."
He extended his hand; Lana took it, and he helped her up. Together they walked back to the tent.
"Can I get you some more water?" he asked. "I think I'm up to it now."
Lana gave him a questioning look, then nodded. "But you don't have to hurry."
"I'll take you up on that", Clark said, still feeling a little weak. He walked at normal human speed to the lake to scoop up a panful of water. Once he got it back to Lana, he did boil it with his heat vision, though, and then cooled it down. Using the heat vision left him feeling weaker.
"Why don't you go to bed?" he asked Lana. "You've had a rough day."
"Are you coming to bed?" she asked him in return.
"I'm going to take care of that bear first."
Lana raised her eyebrows.
"I've got to do something before it attracts other predators", Clark explained. "And unless you want to use your Swiss Army knife…"
Lana laughed at the thought, a almost-hysterical sound, now that she could stop to think about what had happened, the nearness of their escapes. "No, you go ahead."
Clark held the baby while she crawled in the tent, giving Laura back once Lana got settled. He could hear Lana slipping into slumber almost right away.
Later, after the messy, bloody job that was butchering the bear, Clark realized one thing. After a hard day's work and almost dying, bear steaks did make good eating.