Brian's Return

Gary Paulsen

This book is dedicated to Alana

for taking good care of Linda

The bear dropped to all fours and lunged toward him.

Brian jumped off to the left.

The bear stopped, watched, then lunged to its right, Brian’s left, heading off Brian’s movement in that direction.

Brian moved back to his right, trying to get back across the stream.

The bear lunged out into the water, this time to its left, forcing Brian back the other way.

It’s pushing me, Brian thought. It’s making me go back on the bank. It wants me.

The bear feinted again to the right, pushing Brian back, left, then right, the area getting smaller all the time; Brian kept moving back, pulling the canoe, keeping the canoe between them, zigging and zagging, always back, across the shallow stream and close to the bank on the far side.

The bear was teasing him, playing with him, maybe the way a cat plays with a mouse, back and forth, cutting him off, tightening down on him. Brian felt it rise in him then; he had been afraid, the way the bear was working him, like prey, and that changed to full-blown anger.

‘‘No!’’

A Note About Chronology

Brian was born with Hatchet—almost literally. Many readers view him as a nearly real person, someone they wish to know more about, and as a friend. I feel the same way. In answer to requests for more of Brian I have done The River and Brian’s Winter—a sequel and an alternate sequel — and this third novel of his return is, again, a response to readers who want to know what happened to Brian later, after he finally came home.