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It left hi Lesya shimmer briefly back into her human form, her expression one of couide and protector The last tiain, and her grin changed to a roar as she entered into battle oncethe energy, but he did not question it He ai whether that was the right way to go, but every step in that direction took him closer to home The more he ran, the more important that seemed to him

He felt that perhaps he had betrayed home with his weeks in the cabin with Lesya Already that ti to feel like a dream, but he had the cuts and bruises to prove otherwise The landscape around hiedness, and yet none of it seemed touched, or corrupted, by Lesya’s influence It was only now that he ay from her forest that he realized her hold on it had been al so obvious as a color, or a sheen, or the way the shadows fell, but he relished the fact that he was in the true, untouched wild once again There was ic in nature for him

Eventually he could run no rass far away fro up at the sky, he tried to project hi outith his senses, seeking his wolf He expected it not to work--perhaps it had been her influence all along--but then he heard a growl, smelled s

"No," Jack whispered He sat up and looked north, back the way he had co and protecting him would be susceptible to injury But injured it was, and he could feel the haze of its pain with every beat of his own heart Perhaps it took an unnatural thing like Lesya to hurt so made of smoke

The teood However badly injured, the wolf had fought for hi away his freedo fro worse than he had just after the Wendigo attack several weeks before, Jack headed into the wilderness once again

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A RETURN TO THE SCENE

MEN AND WOMEN by the thousands had been lured north by the proold, but the potential for sudden and extraordinary wealth had been only one factor in Jack’s decision to journey to the Yukon He craved adventure, and it sang a song he kneould never be able to resist Yet what truly fired Jack London’s ireat challenge, and yearned to pit hi land He had co the wild

Now a question plagued his every step: Didmake him the master of the wilderness? His journey from Dyea to Dawson had been a triu around every corner, but now he looked back upon thoseFrom the moment of his arrival in Dawson City, when he’d run afoul of the un to learn more about the wild than the frozen winter on the Yukon River had ever taught him

Gold prospectors died in the wilderness by the dozens, never to be heard of again The Wendigo had slaughtered slaver and slave alike in William’s camp by the river More than a dozen men had been seduced into the inti hell a the trees Yet Jack London had survived them all

And he wondered why

His route was rass plain here and there When he reached a deep ravine cut through the forest by a roaring stream, he started the descent without hesitation The walls were uneven, treacherous, and overgroith bra plants, yet Jack climbed doith a confidence he had rarely felt before in such a situation At one point the wall of foliage to his left erupted as a goshawk burst out, fanning hiht, majestic and wondrous He paused only for a moment; if it had so chosen, the bird could have tu across the foaaze he had not felt before, and he turned slowly to see who or what had hiard this time

It was a black bear Thirty feet away up the strea the water, it stared at him, motionless and cal and contracting as it took his ht, but only for a moment This was not her; he ay beyond her influence now He tried to prepare hiive himself a bear’s voice, a bear’s mind, and he shivered at the task But then the bear turned and walked away along the ravine, and Jack watched until it disappeared around a fold of protruding cliff

As hethe opposite wall--handholds found his hands, fir lonely It was not the company of men he wished for, nor even after Lesya the co that had been with hi on his journey…that shade, that protector…Jack London missed his wolf

All of his life, he had rejected his mother’s spiritualism To believe, even for a moment, that she could communicate with the dead would have crippled him with terror Had he believed in her antics as a boy, considered her anything but a charlatan, he would have been haunted every waking ic to be real, knew there were spirits in the ether, and not all of them were human He knew that a curse could create a , for such had been the fate of the Wendigo And he finally believed that his uide had been his companion and protector since he had set foot upon the Chilkoot Trail Noorried for the wolf In helping him escape Lesya, it had been wounded How that was possible he did not know, but he had felt it happen, and he worried about what that ain

And what of the wolf? What was it, truly? Did it originate within him, or without? Either way, perhaps it explained the wanderlust inside him Perhaps he would always be lured into the wild places of the world

He had eluded the Wendigo and learned to speak in the voices of animals He had loved a ic into hie of the wilderness His travels had changed him, so a part of him noould always be wild But if he had been so fundamentally altered, did his survival mean that he had mastered the wild? Or had it mastered him?

Jack wasn’t sure it mattered anymore

Guilt drove him on Lesya had entranced him, and Jack had allowed ing in the balance, and with his fa over what had happened to hih the forest and eaten the fruits of the itch’s secret garden

Now he uided by the sun, deterht of the Wendigo’s attack, he had fled west from the camp by the river, but he had collapsed and fallen unconscious in a gully, only to co how far Lesya had carried hiht as he hiked across rugged terrain The Wendigo tracked me there

In truth, he had no idea what either Lesya or the Wendigo ht have whisked hiht up, but Jack had to rely upon his instincts now And his instincts told him that Lesya’s forest had not been that far from where he had fallen, otherwise she would never have found hinized: surely this was the gully he’d fallen into while fleeing the Wendigo After descending into and cliully, he fell into a steady rhythged, and he had to concentrate tooff course He sawhim pass Most of them should not even have been seen--even in this wilderness, the wildlife was learning to be wary of ht miles or more As tired as he was, Lesya had fed him well in the previous weeks, and now his body tapped into the reserve of strength that nourishment had provided Gone were the symptoms of scurvy and starvation, and yet somehow he had still been whittled down to the hardened core of himself, the niceties of home stripped away

Late in the afternoon, he saw the silver ripple of a river through the trees far ahead and redoubled his efforts When at last he reached the riverbank, he knelt to quench his thirst Jack splashed water on his face, and with the scraggle of whiskers he had accuer

It was his first real pause since fleeing Lesya, and it was only now he realized that he had left without supplies He had no food, no weapon hich to hunt, not even a flint to start a fire Jack had his boots and the clothes on his back, but no jacket to throw over hiht turned cold And yet he knew if he needed to catch a rabbit, he would find a way If he closed his eyes a moment, he could feel rabbits close by, and other animals as well, and he felt confident he could lure dinner if it came to that